Minaret of Freedom Weblog

During the time of the prophet, women and men prayed side by side; today, with 66% of American mosques segregating men and women, Islamic feminists work to end institutionalized sexism in Islam …

• Islamic Feminists Storm Some Barricades (Wall Street Journal)

… meanwhile, the appointment of two woman judges in Malaysia raises the question, “why can’t women judges deal with marriage and divorce cases?”

• Woman Judges and Sharia (Dawn)

“‘How does this threaten Christians?’ asked Fatima Abeyd Anyanzwa, an anti-rape activist and mother of six”, as the groups spar over whether family law should be decentralized, or standard for all Kenyans irregardless of faith:

• Kenya’s Christians and Muslims Argue Over Inclusion of Islamic Courts in Draft Constitution (Los Angeles Times)

“[A}s a Mormon, I would be infuriated if a government prohibited my church from building a chapel because of a few violent, misguided Latter-day Saints,” says BYU student McKay Coppins …

• McKay Coppins: Only Muslims Should Decide Whether To Build Ground Zero Mosque (Mormon Times)

… but by Newt “Gingrich’s logic, no mosques should be built anywhere in the United States;” if Saudis are un-American, should Americans follow suite?

• Let Religious Freedom Ring (Los Angeles Times)

“We have nothing to fear from peaceful Muslims who seek peace…. To ostracize them and tarnish their good works is nothing short of apostasy in the canon of American freedoms”:

• What Would George Washington Say About Islam In USA? (Washington Post)

NYPD signals potential increase in crimes against Muslims, as the debate over the Cordoba House, now called Park51:

• As Ramadan Nears, NYPD Alert for Signs of Anti-Muslim Harassment (Wall Street Journal)

Syria refusing teachers the freedom to wear a burqa and Indian students refusing teachers the freedom to not wear a burqa are equally as unjust:

• Students At Small Islamic University in India Won’t Let Lecturer Teach Unless She Dons A Burqa (Los Angeles Times)

Israeli bulldozers raze Bedouin village; say the semi-nomads couldn’t produce deeds:

• Israel Razes Homes in Bedouin Village (Los Angeles Times)

Malaysia’s first Islamic reality show works to bring piety and knowledge of Islam in the style of “American Idol”:

• A Reality Show Where Islam Is the Biggest Star (New York Times)

Justin Raimondo notes that Ayn Rand’s “intellectual heir” seems to echo her villain Wesley Mouch in his contempt for the sanctity of the individual and property rights in declaring that “‘Rights are contextual,” and when it comes to Muslims, there is “no obligation to respect property rights.’ ‘Rights  are out’!”:

• Haters Go After the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ (Anti-War)

Newt Gingrich finds it offensive to be lectured about religious liberty “at a time when there are no churches or synagogues in Mecca,” “it is a kind of triumphalism that we should not tolerate” …

• Gingrich Believes Religious Freedom Only Applies to non-Muslims (Blue Wave News)

… “[Wayne] Root falls into the same anti-Muslim hole that Palin, Gingrich, and others have. All he’s really saying is that we can’t let them scary Muslims build what they want to in a building they own”:

• Wayne Allyn Root: Religious Freedom And Property Rights ? Not For Them Muslims (Liberty Papers)

U.S. nuns and 50 female aid workers intend to break through the Israeli blockade to the Gaza Stip:

• Women Prepare to Set Sail Past Israel (IPS News)

“It’s their right to protest and we have the right to exercise freedom of religion too. It’s surprising to see something like this happen in 2010,” said Hadi Nael, chairman of the Temecula Islamic center:

• Islamic Group Denounces Planned Temecula Mosque Protest (Los Angeles Times)

“[T]he story you haven’t read about the short life of Furkan Dogan, an American killed by Israeli forces in international waters on the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara”:

• The Forgotten American (New York Times)

Members of the Dove World Outreach Center honors the victims of 9/11 by burning copies of the Qur’an, and handing out “Islam Is Of The Devil” t-shirts. “That’s lovely stuff, eh?”:

• Church Will Burn Qur’an On 9/11 (Guardian)

Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey plays the fool when he pretends to be “all about freedom of religion”, while arguing about Sharia law in Tennessee or about whether Islam is a religion or a cult …

• Tennessee Lt. Gov: Religious Freedom May Not Count For Muslims (TPM)

… “More and more Americans are beginning to think of Islamic religion as something to be feared and rejected … Part of the problem comes from Muslim misrepresentation of the Shariah”:

• Shariah is Based On Ten Commandments (Washington Post)

Iranian entrepreneurs flex their muscles to protest a proposed 70% increase in direct income tax by the revenue-hungry Iranian regime:

• Iran Merchants and Tax Collectors End Standoff (Los Angeles Times)

NY Gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino “talks the Tea Party talk of getting government out of Americans’ lives”, yet supports seizing “the property on Park Place through eminent domain to keep it out of Muslim hands”:

• In Islamic Center Fight, Lessons in Prepositions and Fear-Mongering (New York Times)

The U.S. supports Pakistan while Pakistan’s ISI supports the Taliban. Whistle-blower Wikileaks releases thousands of leaked classified documents proving the connection; founder Julian Assange explains:

• Why the World Needs WikiLeaks (Al-Jazeera)

IDF Military Advocate General Avichai Mandelblit confirms Goldstone Report findings on war crimes; IDF back peddles “as though they were frightened by Goldstone”:

• IDF Report Confirming Goldstone’s Key Findings Is Suppressed Inside Israel (Max Blumenthal)

“[I]f there is harm in wearing the veil … it is permitted that she shows her face when need and necessity demand it,” says Islamic jurisprudent Mohamed al-Nujaimi:

• Saudi Clerics Exempt Women from Wearing Veils in France (Haaretz)

“The jailing of [Sheikh Raed Salah] exposes the divide among Israeli Arabs and Jews. Arabs say it is further proof of Jewish discrimination; Jews say it shows how the nation’s Arabs exploit Israeli democracy”:

• Israel Jails Country’s Top Islamic Militant (Voice of America)

“Islamophobia is a mixture of racism, undiscriminating ignorance of the diversity and complexity within the Islamic world, and the hard reality of some truly dangerous, Western-hating Muslims (estimated by intel sources variously at 10-40,000 hardcore fanatics worldwide)”:

• America Already is an Islamic Society (Washington Post)

Designed to resolve a conflicted relationship many Muslims have with America, the young academics were “amazed at this opening and understanding and acceptance of everyone because that is what Islam preaches”:

• American and Egyptian Scholars Strive To Bridge Religion Gap (Los Angeles Times)

Two weeks after France banned the wearing of burqa, two Muslim women in full body swim suit are denied access to pool; the pool owners say it was for hygiene and sanitary reasons …

• Two Muslim Women Thrown Out Of Pool For Wearing ‘Burkinis’ (Telegraph)

… “On what grounds can a government or institution require that they not wear it, and isn’t such a requirement the equivalent of requiring someone who does not want to wear it to do so?”:

• Why Single Out Muslim Women? (Huffington Post)

Daisy Khan, wife of Imam Feisal Rauf, argues that the Cordoba Center “will serve the larger community to become an institution for learning, collaborating, and sharing knowledge across faiths and cultures” …

• Great Irony In Outcry Over Ground Zero Mosque (Washington Post)

… meanwhile on Staten Island, a Catholic Church formally rejected a controversial proposal to sell a vacant convent to a the Muslim American Society in response to protests that the mosque might become a front for terrorism:

• Church Rejects Sale of Building for a Mosque (New York Times)

“[I]t doesn’t matter if most of us practice our religion in private or not. People feel trapped because [politicians] project this false identity onto Muslims, and we then have to apologize for that”:

• Muslims in France Feel the Sting of Discrimination (Los Angeles Times)

MI5 knew Saddam Hussein had no links to Al Qaeda, that Iraq posed little threat to the security of the free world, and that a generation of British Muslims would be radicalized by the war; the CIA didn’t listen:

• Iraq War Emboldened Osama Bin Laden And Radicalized Muslims: Former MI5 Chief (Christian Science Monitor)

The “myth that al Qaeda is 100 feet tall has fed dramatic government growth since 9/11,” but Cato Institute VP Gene Healy says, “We’ve given al Qaeda power over us they don’t deserve” …

• Gene Healy: Clowns Or Killers In Al Qaeda (Washington Examiner)

… Case in point, after being placed on the no-fly list, Zachary A. Chesser, also known as Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee, tries twice to travel to Somalia, once with his infant son “so to look less suspicious”:

• Zachary A. Chesser, ‘South Park’ Critic, Faces Unrelated Terror Charges (Huffington Post)

“Given the fast development of China’s economy, and as its political status rises, I think Chinese Islam will become more important in the Islamic world,” says female imam at one of China’s female-only mosques:

• Female Imams Blaze Trail Amid China’s Muslims (NPR)

Council on American-Islamic Relations calls on Electrolux to “engages with its Muslim workers to devise a solution that meets the legitimate needs and requirements of all parties”:

• CAIR: Electrolux Denies Minn. Muslims Ramadan Rights (PR Newswire)

Would there “be the same reaction if a Baptist congregation wanted to build a ‘monstrous’ church near the site of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. After all, Timothy McVeigh was a Christian”:

• Muslims Easy Target For Some Politicians (Observer Reporter)

“Technology changes the way people relate to each other, but it doesn’t really change the way that people relate to God. That sort of remains constant”:

• God? There’s an App for That (ABC)

Gideon Levy asks “What if this guy had been a Jew who pretended to be a Muslim and had sex with a Muslim woman? Would he have been convicted of rape? The answer is: of course not”:

• Arab Guilty of Rape After Consensual Sex with Jew (Guardian)

MFI welcomes 26-year-old Yahya Wehelie back to the U.S., after being stranded nearly two-months in Egypt on the no-fly-list:

• VA Man Back In US After Weeks On No-Fly List While Trying To Return From Yemen (Los Angeles Times)

A 16-year-old girl defies tradition and potential the risk of IDF snipers to fish for her family:

• Gaza’s Only Fisherwoman (Al-Jazeera)

Confronted with “Prophet Muhammad’s prohibitions against killing civilians, Bin Laden” replied, “We treat others like they treat us. Those who kill our women and our innocent, we will kill their women and innocent, until they stop doing so”:

• No Religious Basis For 9/11 (Washington Post)

Christian charity workers faced charges of proselytism, following rumors that they had converted three Muslims to Christianity:

• Devout Muslim Indonesian Province Expels US Family (CBS)

Israel “declared the area a live fire zone and posted eviction orders for 10 families in tents on June 27”:

• IDF Destroys West Bank Village After Declaring It Military Zone (Huffington Post)

With $150 million earmarked for the Yemen to combat Al-Qaida earlier this year,  al-Awlaki mocks U.S. foreign policy, stating that U.S. military presence has “accomplished for (Al-Qaida) the work of years”:

• Yemeni-American Cleric Says Obama Will Bog Down US Forces In Just Like Afghanistan (Los Angeles Times)

“[I]t is not the business of a secular state to back one or other interpretation of Islam … Governments should only enforce the law of the land and promote tolerance and dialogue”:

• The Wrong Kind of Intervention (Guardian)

“If Muslims want to stand for peace, they must stand patiently. We must respond to fear, intolerance and even hatred with peace, education and patience. That is our true Jihad”:

• Ground Zero Mosque: A Muslim’s Perspective (Huffington Post)

Despite government efforts to push Israelis and Palestinians apart, a small group of Israeli women are working to bring them together, at the beach:

• Israeli Group Gives Young Palestinians Their First Taste Of The Beach (Washington Post)

“Today, it is essential for us Muslims to understand the true meaning of the Quran and Islam for ourselves, and to wrest this right from the ‘policemen’ of religion, the mullahs and maulvis”:

• Society Awakes And Fatwas Fail (Counter Currents)

Extremists anonymous hot-line? Unlike deradicalization programs in “Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Singapore” Germany’s program tries to get radicals or their families to call in before they commit a crime”:

• Germany Starts Program For Islamist Extremists Who Want To Quit (Los Angeles Times)

Palestinians married to Israeli Arabs will now have to swear a pledge of allegiance to a “Jewish democratic state” if they wish to live on their spouses’ land:

• Israeli ‘Loyalty Oath’ Approved (Al-Jazeera)

With the wearing of a niqab now a criminal act, the French national motto liberté, égalité, fraternité becomes even less appropriate …

• Criminalising Women Behind the Veil (BBC)

… meanwhile, the Syrian regime takes a similar step in prohibiting teachers who wear the niqab from teaching at public schools — “the politicisation of what should be a personal issue”:

• Syria’s Niqab Ban Is Part Of A Clash Within Islam Itself (Guardian)

The obstacle to Muslim integration in America is not the Muslim-American community, but the prejudices of Americans of other faiths:

• Islamaphobia And The Muslim Center At Ground Zero (CNN)

The complex story of the hip media mogul Saad Mohseni, “the Rupert Murdoch of Afghanistan,” backed by USAID funding to change Afghani culture:

• The Networker (New Yorker)

“The man in the video betrays himself in his own words as a con artist, and now he is again prime minister of Israel”:

• Tricky Bibi (Haaretz)