Latest Updates: Shiites RSS

  • johnpi 12:23 am on February 12, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: enemies of God, , , mohareb, , , , , Shiites

    Iran hanged two men at end of January.

    …whatever their earthly crimes were, the two men executed last month were also accused of another offense far more serious than simply protesting against a government.

    They were convicted of being “mohareb,” enemies of God.

    That is the worst possible crime in Shiite Muslim law, according to Abbas Milani, the director of Iranian studies at Stanford University.
    The legal implications are clear, he said.

    “A mohareb, according to Shiite law, is executed,” he said.

    That the regime is labeling its opponents enemies of God is a sign of how rattled it is by the protests, he said.

     
  • johnpi 10:53 am on December 28, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , Shiites, ,

    Full-scale riots have broken out in Karachi following the Khawarij bombing of a Shiite procession that killed at least 30.

    Sadly, these kinds of riots tend to damage the rioters’ own communities, which only furthers the goals of the attackers.

     
  • johnpi 8:25 pm on October 25, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Shiites, , ,

    Lebanon’s Shiite clans seek end to some old traditions.

    It started with a small traffic incident and ended in yet another murderous showdown in the age-old vendetta wars between the powerful Shiite Muslim clans who rule Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley.

    But unlike past feuds, this time clan elders and the militant group Hezbollah stepped in to defuse tensions, handing over to authorities the suspect accused of murdering a rival clan member and agreeing on a pact to end the revenge killings.

    The “gentleman’s agreement”, drawn up earlier this month, marked a first step in clan efforts to do away with their reputation as outlaws who have long ruled supreme in the remote arid plain of the northern Bekaa, a Hezbollah stronghold traditionally ignored by successive Lebanese governments.

    “Our customs date to pre-Islamic times and dictate that each family is responsible for the security of its members,” said Moflih Allaw, a member of one of the most powerful clans in Hermel and whose relative was involved in the recent killing.

    “If someone from a clan was murdered, a member of the opposing clan had to die and that was part of our tradition,” added Allaw, 67, a local councillor in Hermel who helped formulate the recent pact.

     
  • johnpi 4:04 pm on October 11, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , Shiites, ,

    Eman Al Nafjan (Saudiwoman) blogs on the Sunni-Shia divide.

    The break in Islam into the two sects reminds me of the break between Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, with Shias resembling the Catholics with all these saints and rituals and Sunnis resembling Orthodoxies with an emphasis on puritanical practices. I have seen paintings of Ali bin Talib (RAA) that could just as well have been paintings of Jesus in a church with the beard and long hair. Saudi Sunnis interpretation of Islam could be considered as parallel to the Amish and Mormon interpretations of Christianity. If you squint and glaze over the details, the history looks quite similar, with Islam currently being in its own version of the Dark Age.

    At a more personal level my experience has been mostly neutral with phases of mystification with what I hear about Shias. However my sources were questionable as they were other Sunnis like myself.

    She writes about the four controversial claims she heard about Shias growing up in Saudi Arabia:

    1- Warnings that Shias gain religious points by harming Sunnis.

    2- Watch Shias the day after Ashoora (Islamic day) because they always wear long sleeves and turtle-necks to hide their injuries.

    3- They reject and insult some of the prophet’s closest companions.

    4- And of course Mutaa’ marriages (pleasure based marriages that are temporary and require no witnesses or legal papers). And I would like to note here that I was shocked to learn that this was also ok in Sunni Islam until very late in the Prophet Muhamed’s lifetime (PBUH).

     
  • johnpi 5:29 pm on July 31, 2009 | 68 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Shiites,

    More on brother Mu-adh’s post on modern science and Islamic teachings: For further reading, he excerpts the writings of one Shaykh Abdal Qadir as-Sufi, that are frankly Jew-baiting and anti-Semitic, full of references to “Jewish control systems” and “Jewish subversion” – and therefore discredited to my mind. See Suhaib Webb writing about the people who take advantage of “the ignorance of some Muslims, and the media machines in order to promote that Islam is a hateful religion” for a fuller rebuttal to this kind of conduct. As Imam Webb points out, “the community of the prophet had KNOWN hypocrites,” and this one is no different (NOTE: Imam Webb is speaking about other people and other subjects. The specific criticism of Shaykh Abdal Qadir as-Sufi here is mine and mine alone.).

    I went to visit the web page of Shaykh Abdal Qadir as-Sufi. In his most current post he smears the Palestinians in general and Hamas in particular (for turning Shia, which is contemptuous and dismissive of Shia Muslims in itself) and calls the Chinese “sub-human.” The plight of the Uighurs is a superior concern over the Palestinians in part because ‘they still use an Arabic script.’

    In the world outside a terrible crisis has broken and one which must involve the whole world community of Muslims. I refer to the abomination of the murder of Uighur men, women, and children and the destruction of the markets, houses and mosques of the Uighur people. It is time – and I call on our Arab brothers especially – to forget Palestine, that dismal nationalist failure. Hamas have turned Sh’ia and the other group are mired in corruption. Their problem is nothing to the devastating planned annihilation of a great Muslim people, one which still uses an Arabic script.

    The Chinese are at war with us and the least action we can perform is to sanction all trade connections with the communist atheist entity. No Muslim business, no Muslim person, no Muslim nation should have any commercial intercourse with the sub-human regime.

    Shaykh Abdal Qadir as-Sufi goes on to issue a fatwa:

    …goods marked “Made in China” I declare forbidden to all Muslims…

     
  • johnpi 9:50 pm on June 22, 2009 | 3 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , Shiites

    Al Qaeda third in command give interview to Al Jazeera. Says that if he got his hands on Pakistani nukes he would use them against America.

    Personally, I’ve felt that given the level of massacre violence against Shi’ites on the part of Al Qaeda affiliated extremists in Iraq and Pakistan, Iran is more at risk from such a development – which is why I have a lot of sympathy for the Iranians who may see some scenarios in their future where they might need a nuclear deterrent. in fact, I’ve pretty much come around to the position that the Iranians need nuclear weapons for self-defense, and ought to have them.

    Massacres of Shi’ites in Iraq are becoming so common again that nobody even posts about them anymore.

     
  • johnpi 11:10 am on June 1, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , Shiites,

    Iran presses Pakistan to curb militant groups.

    Pakistan is already under intense pressure from the United States and India to crack down on militant groups inside its borders. Now Iran has added its own pressure after 25 people were killed last week in the bombing of a Shi’ite mosque in Zahedan, in the southeast of the country towards the Pakistan border.

    The Dawn newspaper reports that Iran has closed its border with Pakistan.

    The Iranian move has caused suspension of trade through the area.

    There was no trade now, the sources said, adding that people belonging to tribes living on the two sides of the border were facing enormous difficulties.

    The Iranian border authorities have also stopped issuing temporary permits to people settled on both sides of the border.

    The suspension of trade has resulted in an acute shortage of foodstuff coming from Iran.

     
  • johnpi 7:51 am on April 11, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Afghanistan constitution, , Shiites,

    Afghanistan’s ambassador to Washington says the Shia family law that is reported to legalize forced marital sex “will not become the law, because it contradicts some important principles of the Afghan constitution.” Meanwhile, a leading Afghan Shi’ite cleric has said not allowing the legislation to become law would violate the constitution. “The Justice Ministry has no right to change any article,” said Mohseni, who is widely regarded as the religious leader of Afghanistan’s Shi’ite minority. “Any changes it brings will be against the constitution.”

     
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