VOICE OF GLOBAL UMMAH

VOICE OF GLOBAL UMMAH

One World, One People, One Love
"Mankind is but One Community" - Holy Quran

Volume 157, November 14, 2010
St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Editors: Mohamed & Rashida Ziauddin

In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent and the Most Merciful

Editorial:

We are really humbled by the the statistics on the revolving globe as of today (top left) indicating that it had crossed the two million mark by global visitors with an average of 8 to 10 global visitors each minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We acknowledge that in the current blogosphere, this number is literally a drop in the bucket. But for us, it means a lot mainly because when we first started this E-Zine, initially it was sent by e-mail only to a small group of our family, relatives and friends.

We have really done very little if anything and the real credit for the fast expansion of this small little blog is to YOU THE READERS who have consistently given support, encouragement and were essentially the fuel to allow this E-Zine to reach the current Volume 157 with over two million visitors.

There are too many names in terms of close family members, relatives, Muslim brothers and sisters to mention in this short Editorial to acknowledge. However in particular, we are ever grateful to one brother named Dr. Sheik, an Imam from San Diego, California (who had also championed the cause of Interfaith Relations) for his consistent encouragement and support to build further on this E-Zine.

We will be glad to spend many more hours on this E-Zine on a weekly basis and in return all we ask is only YOUR DUAA and prayers. Further we ask forgiveness from Allah for our shortcomings and will continue to seek His guidance and Mercy. We also want to remind you that we are NOT a holy couple but sinners.

We will continue to fight injustice in all its forms including those initiated by misguided extremist elements from all faiths. In the process, we know that as a editorial couple, we are putting our own lives at risk and would be under the target of extremist assassins from all faiths and we are ever ready and prepared for such a possibility. A death that results from defending the basic rights of mankind FREE FROM COMPULSION, INTIMIDATION, OPPRESSION, INJUSTICE et.c is indeed a sweet death. Without any hesitation, we would like to highlight the verses from the Holy Quran: (a) "Mankind is but One community" (b) "There is no Compulsion in Religion" and emphasize that we love all human beings including our own Muslim brothers and sisters, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and even atheists.

In our view of Islam based on above Quranic verse, all adult human beings are free to choose what is best for them. It is their individual life and not ours. With such a open minded and broad outlook, needless to say we would work to defend the lives of all vulnerable populations starting of with children, then women and many other minorities including sexual minorities such as gays, lesbians, bi-sexual, transexuals et.c.

Focus on this E-Zine is on several issues of injustice including China's brutal implementation of it's "one child policy" and a mix of many other topics.

PART A-1

(ED NOTE:
IF "EXECUTION BY LETHAL INJECTION" IS DEFINED AS A DELIBERATE ADMINISTRATION OF A LETHAL INJECTION TO END THE LIFE, THEN IT IS ONLY FAIR TO SAY THAT CHINESE OFFICIALS RECENTLY "EXECUTED" AN INNOCENT AND HELPLESS EIGHT MONTH OLD BY LETHAL INJECTION)

(okieonthelam.com)

Man Alleges Chinese Officials Forced His Wife to Have an Abortion at 8 Months of Pregnancy
lawprofessors.typepad.com

(condensed version)






Victims Speak Out About Forced Abortion in China at 8th Month
Steven Ertelt
lifenews.com
Oct 23, 10

The forced abortion occurred on October 10 and local family planning officials detained the woman in a hospital for three days for the abortion after learning she had violated the Chinese policy against having more than one child.

There, the officials injected the unborn child with a drug that took the baby’s life.

The Press Association indicates the couple were told they could not have the baby because they already have a nine-year-old daughter.

The case has received significant attention on the Internet because a YouTube video showed the harrowing ordeal the couple was forced to ensure. The story was initially reported by the Al-Jazeera Network, which posted its eight-minute interview with the distraught father, who hails from the coastal Chinese city of Xiamen.

“I don’t know how I can possibly explain to her what has happened,” the father said of his daughter, who had eagerly been awaiting the birth of a sibling.

“We urge all people and leaders of the free world to view this video and hear the cries of the parents and this unborn child who was simply murdered,” said Chai. “How long will the world turn a blind eye to this inhumane policy?”

“These are the consequences we suffer when we allow our fellow human beings in other countries to suffer under inhumane rules of law,” she says. “I don’t suppose I need to tell anyone that this is barbaric. Kidnapping pregnant women and forcibly injecting their pregnant wombs with poison for the “crime” of having a second child?”

PART A-2

Ed Note: Second Video could be viewed by clicking the word 'video" in below title.

My transcript of AlJazeera English’s video (above) “China’s one child policy”

Ourcompass.blogspot.com

(Ed Note: To those who are unable to view above video the transcript is below)

Video: A man and an apparently heavily pregnant woman sit on what look like hospital cots. Their faces are not shown.

Text: “China One Child Policy: Woman forced to abort second baby.”

Voiceover: “These are pictures filmed by Al Jazeera after sneaking into a Chinese hospital. Xiao Ai Ying would only let us film from the neck down. She is terrified of retribution. Her crime? Violating the country’s one-child policy. Her punishment? A forced abortion when she was eight months pregnant.”

Xiao Ai Ying: [Speaking softly in (I believe) Mandarin, translation by voiceover.] “I have felt the baby moving round and round in my belly. Can you imagine how I feel now?”

Video: Filmed in what looks like a car or minivan, a man in glasses in the back seat and a woman in the front seat, twisted around to see the camera.

Voiceover: “Her husband, also scared, would only speak to us briefly outside the hospital, and not out in the open.”

Luo Yan Qua: [Speaking in Mandarin, translation by voiceover]: “There were many men surrounding my wife. They held her arms behind her back, pushed her head against the wall, kicked her stomach, and I don’t know if they were trying to give her a miscarriage.”

Video: Shot of green barred doors.

Voiceover: “The police locked her up here, and gave her unborn baby a lethal injection.”

Video: Xiao Ai Ying’s stomach.

Voiceover: “What you’re looking at now is Xiao Ai Ying with a dead fetus still inside her.”

Video: Luo Yan Qua in car.

Luo Yan Qua: [translation in voiceover] “The child we do have is ten years old. She has been feeling my wife’s belly as it has grown larger and larger over the months. And my daughter says, ‘I will have a little brother soon.’ I don’t know how I can possibly explain to her what has happened.”

Video: Bustling street of Xiamen. During brief clips of parents and children on the street are shown — a man with a child squirming on his lap, a woman carrying an infant, a woman holding the hand of a small child.

Voiceover: “What’s unexpected about this case is where it took place in Xiamen. Forced abortions sometimes happen in remote areas of China, but this one occurred in one of the country’s most modern cities.”

Video: IV bags of fluid, camera moves to show a woman and baby lying on a hospital bed with a woven straw mattress. The woman is clasping a cell phone. A man (possibly her husband, as he’s wearing street clothes, but may be a nurse or doctor) bends over the bed and seems to be massaging her thigh, vulva, or abdomen. The video shows shots of the IV drip in the woman’s hand, then her baby moving sleepily in a blue blanket. The camera then moves back to show a wider shot of the ward, with other pregnant women on similar beds and sitting in chairs near the beds. There is a brief shot of a woman’s pregnant stomach as she receives an ultrasound.

Voiceover: “In recent years, there have been plenty of mothers who have violated China’s one-child policy. They usually pay a fine, anywhere from 1 to 40,000 U.S. dollars, but are then often sterilized to prevent them from having another child. Forced abortions are not condoned by the central government, but it clearly still happens.”

Video: Reporter Melissa Chan speaks to the camera with a backdrop of a busy Xiamen street.

Melissa Chan: “Every few years, you hear the possibility that the government might end the one-child policy and allow couples to have more. But for the Luo family, those considerations are too late. Melissa Chan, Al Jazeera, Xiamen, Southeastern China.”

PART B

The Horror of Forced Abortions and Sterilizations in China
Sarah Menkedick
(condensed version)
womensrights.change.org
June 08, 2010

A steady trickle of stories regarding forced abortions and sterilizations in China continue to show up in the media, demonstrating that the under reported problem continues despite the complaints, outrage, and hunger strikes of Chinese victims and reports from international organizations like Amnesty International.

There are stories of women given injections in their seventh, eighth, and ninth month of pregnancy and forced to give birth to dead babies after days of contractions.

They are stories of women snatched by officials in their last month of pregnancy, dragged to clinics, forcibly injected with solution that induce abortion, and kicked in the stomach.

They are stories of dozens of women rounded up and brought summarily, by force, to a hospital where they are sterilized against their will. They are stories of doctors working 20-hour shifts to sterilize set numbers of women to meet quotas, and family members being detained to pressure their loved ones into accepting sterilizations.

They are stories of infants drowned, thrown to the ground, kicked, or poisoned, and then found discarded in trash cans or, in the case of twenty-one infants and fetuses, thrown in a river.

PART C

(ED NOTE:
Was there anyone to assist in preventing below human right violations of our Chinese Muslim and Uzbek Muslim Sisters ?)

This Uyghur Woman Became Another Victim of China’s Forced Sterilization Program

Image:etic
(tibertruth.com)

“Imagine the response if just one woman was dragged from her home in Washington DC, Paris or London, beaten, tied to a medical slab and forcibly sterilised. There would be riots on the streets and rightly so!

Yet such violence is a central element in China’s population program and has traumatised countless women across the communist Chinese Empire.

Sadly in the time since the Beijing Conference on Women all we have had is silence, how can anyone truly committed to the rights of women claim to be concerned about human rights, yet ignore or deny the plight of women subject to this brutality?

(tibertruth.com)

PART D

Hundreds of Uzbek Women Report Forced Sterilization
Alex DiBranco
(condensed version)
July 20, 2010

"He never asked for my approval, never ran any checks, just mutilated me as if I were a mute animal," Saodat Rakhimbayeva, a 24-year-old Uzbek woman, told the Associated Press, referring to the doctor who sterilized her without her consent.

Among the hundreds of reports of forced sterilization emerging from victims, human rights groups, and health officials, low-income Uzbek women are the most vulnerable to being sterilized against their will. Women with HIV, tuberculosis, or drug addiction are specifically targeted. Often, the instruments used for the procedure are not sterile, posing a danger to the woman's health.

Some employers even require certificates of sterilization before they will hire a woman, who may not have any other options to put food on the table

PART E

(Ed Note:
Do your agree with below interpretation of Islam as it pertains to controversial issue of abortion ?)

Islam and Abortion: A Woman's Life is the Greatest Priority

By Clare Banoeng-Yakubo
November 12, 2010

(condensed version)

There are different opinions among Islamic Scholars about when life begins and when abortion is permissible, but most of them agree that the termination of a pregnancy after 120 days (the point at which, in Islam a fetus is thought to become a living soul), is not permissible.

Every Muslim Scholar knows that the termination of a pregnancy before 120 days is not an issue for discussion. These statements were made by Miss Asma’u Jodah of the Centre for Women and Adolescent Empowerment during a discussion at the conference Keeping Our Promise to explore the contributions of faith-based groups in promoting women’s reproductive rights from the Christian and Muslim perspectives. Speaking in the context of Islam, she explained that abortion after four months is only allowed where the health of the woman is threatened.

This is based on the principle that “the greater evil (the woman’s death) should be warded off by the lesser evil (abortion).” To support this point she quoted the 12th century Muslim scholar, Imam Al Ghazzali, who believed that abortion could be done to preserve the well being of the woman.

“In my view therefore, abortion is restricted but not forbidden after four months” she intimated. She was however quick to add that for some, however, abortion in the absence of a reasonable excuse is detestable.

On the issue of the life of the woman, Miss Jodah said, Muslims universally agree that the woman’s life takes precedence over the life of the fetus, because the woman is considered the original source of life, while the fetus is only “potential life.”

Even in the history of Islam, there have been indications of a support for reproductive rights. Miss Jodah noted that in the days of the Prophet Mohammed, the withdrawal method was an acceptable form of contraception.

Participants in the discussion agreed that religion and culture present confusion and contradictions. Most people, they said, confuse religion with culture but education, exposure and understanding of one’s religion liberates one.

PART F

(ED NOTE:
It is NOT news for any Muslim to know that most of the practical application of the concept of UMMAH is focused primarily on SPIRITUAL AND RELIGIOUS CENTERED issues such as performing prayers together in Islamic Centers including daily prayers, Friday prayers and both the Eids annually and no doubt above is extremely important. Above is particularly prevelant in underdeveloped and developing countries.

However what we argue is that the concept of UMMAH does not end from above actions. Instead we emphasize that above actions is only the BEGINNING step for the Ummah to take and move forward with the literal flag of ISLAM towards a long series of other positive comprehensive actions on various other non-spiritual aspects that could be of tremendous benefits to Muslims worldwide. The good news is that such comprehensive nonspiritual actions are being implemented by Muslims in the West. In this regard, it is our personal opinion that the Muslims in United Kingdom are leading above mentioned comprehensive actions. For a sample of their diverse Islamic related activities, please log on to www.islamiccircles.org and later click on UK Islamic Events and Notices.

In the United States, below short initiative taken by AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR MUSLIM ADVANCEMENT is a step in the right direction).

Training Imams on Women’s Rights in Afghanistan
(lifesitenews.com)
Nov 9, 2010

American Society for Muslim Advancement
globalhealthideas.org

The American Society for Muslim Advancement is teaming its Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality with the Noor Educational and Capacity Development Organization to increase awareness of women’s rights in Afghanistan.

Imams are amongst the most influential figures in Afghan society. They play a vital role in society – from the religious education in childhood to the rights of passage in adulthood. Given their influential nature, this commitment will reinforce the importance of women’s rights in Afghanistan by training Imams from 10 mosques in Jalalabad and by establishing formal women’s sections for 10 mosques in Kabul. The Imams will develop sermons on women’s rights to education, marriage, inheritance, property ownership, and political and social participation. The sermons will be published and broadcast in newspapers, television, and radio in Afghanistan.

PART G

WHEN A WOMAN BECOMES A GRANDMOTHER AND MOTHER TO THE SAME NEW BORN ?

(ED NOTE:
What does it mean to you, when a woman becomes a grandmother and mother voluntarily to the same new born child ?

(a) Should one thank the advancement of science through IVF (in-vitro fertilisation) to enable such a situation OR

(b) Does it show the endless love of a mother who was willing to cross the social and biological boundaries to fulfill the paternal wishes of her homosexual son to become a father (not withstanding the fact that had he been a heterosexual, he could have got married and like millions of other men, fathered a child through his wife) OR

(c) is it straight out a slow but gradual decay of the society, the insidious crumbling of basic global moral values, one brick at a time ? Some may argue that in below note, sexual moral values are not an issue, since it was IVF and not a incestous sexual union between a mother and son. How strong and valid are such arguments ?)

Woman Gives Birth to Homosexual Son's Baby

By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman
Latin America Correspondent

November 9, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com)

A fifty-year-old Mexican woman has given birth to a child whose biological father is her homosexual son, according to the Mexico City newspaper Reforma.

Reforma reports that the woman, whose name has been withheld, decided to offer her womb to her 31-year-old son "Jorge," a single homosexual businessman who wanted a child. A childhood friend, who is married, contributed the ovum. Jorge's son was conceived through in-vitro fertilization with the assistance of obstetrician-gynecologist Juan Manuel Casillas and implanted in his mother's womb.

Jorge's mother, who gave birth to her own grandson by cesarean section on November 1, has been released from the hospital after 48 hours of observation, and is now nursing the child. The attending doctors say that there have been no complications.

"I don't feel like a mother nor like a grandmother," the woman told Reforma. "When they say 'mother' to me I feel strange, and when they say 'grandmother' also. I mean, he was my first grandson, and I don't feel that way because at the same time he is my fourth son."

The family says that they have documented the circumstances of the birth so that the child, whose name is Darío, will someday know the full truth about his origins.

According to Casillas, the woman "would like to get pregnant again. She says that if we know that the development [of the child] will be the same, she's delighted."

PART H

HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF SOMEONE MARRYING SELF ?

WEDDING SELF:

Chen's mother putting wedding

This handout photo released by Chen Wei-yi and taken on November 6, 2010 shows Chen's mother (L) putting a wedding ring on her daughter during a wedding ceremony in Taipei. 30-year-old Chen said Sunday she had "married" herself by throwing a wedding banquet, in a sign of local women's growing confidence and independence. (AFP/File/Chen Wei-Yi/Chen Wei-Yi)

PART I

HADITH REGARDING IMPORTANCE OF SEEKING KNOWLEDGE

The Prophet Muhammad (SAW) said:

"If anyone travels on a road in search of knowledge, God will cause him to travel on one of the roads of Paradise. The angels will lower their wings in their great pleasure with one who seeks knowledge. The inhabitants of the heavens and the Earth and (even) the fish in the deep waters will ask forgiveness for the learned man. The superiority of the learned over the devout is like that of the moon, on the night when it is full, over the rest of the stars. The learned are the heirs of the Prophets, and the Prophets leave (no monetary inheritance), they leave only knowledge, and he who takes it takes an abundant portion. - Sunan of Abu-Dawood, Hadith 1631

(ED Note: Knowledge includes various topics including health, mental health et.c. )

HEALTH:

Pregnant women who take headache pills for a fortnight 'may harm sexual development of sons'
Jenny Hope
Nov 8, 2010

A study found the most vulnerable stage of pregnancy is four to six months when taking painkillers over a fortnight doubled the risk of have sons with testes problems. Using painkillers such as ibuprofen, aspirin and paracetamol in pregnancy may harm development of the sex organs in unborn boys, warn researchers.

They blame prolonged use of painkillers - two weeks or more - for contributing to an increased risk in boys born with undescended testicles.

Around half of women take over-the-counter painkillers during pregnancy, usually for headaches.

A new study shows women who used more than one type of painkiller simultaneously, for example ibuprofen and paracetamol, had a seven-fold increase in giving birth to sons with some form of problem with the testes.

Those interested to read details, please cut and paste: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1327779/Pregnant-women-headache-pills-weeks-harm-sexual-development-baby-boys.html

PART J:

DOES RESTRICTIONS ON DRESS CODE IN BELOW THREE ARTICLES INVOLVING AN ITALIAN SEASIDE TOWN, SCHOOLS IN U.K AND THE VATICAN TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF MODESTY

(bbc.co.uk)

Italian Seaside Town Planning Miniskirt Ban
Oct 24, 2010


Fashion model shows off miniskirt

A fashion model shows off a miniskirt. Skimpily-clothed women in the town of Castellammare di Stabia in southern Italy are to be fined by the police undernew regulations banning "very scanty clothing" that were approved late Monday. (AFP/File/Damien Meyer)

The dress code would ban everything from miniskirts to low-cut jeans

A seaside city in Italy is planning to ban miniskirts and other revealing clothing to improve what the mayor calls standards of public decency.

Castellammare di Stabia is trying to be the latest location in Italy to make use of new powers to crack down on what is deemed to be anti-social behaviour.

Mayor Luigi Bobbio said the regulations would help "restore urban decorum and facilitate better civil co-existence".

Offenders would face fines of between 25 ($35) and 500 euros ($696).

"Nothing too revealing" is the new policy Mayor Bobbio wants to enforce, says the BBC's Duncan Kennedy in Rome.

That means a tough new dress code which would effectively outlaw everything from miniskirts to low-cut jeans when people walk around Castellammare di Stabia, our correspondent adds.

Mr Bobbio, from the centre-right People of Freedom party, says he wants to target people who are "rowdy, unruly or simply badly behaved".

There will also be a ban on sunbathing, playing football in public places, and blasphemy, if the proposals are approved at a council meeting on Monday.

"I think it's the right decision," a local parish priest, Don Paulo Cecere, told the Cronache di Napoli newspaper. "It's also a way of combating the rise in sexual harassment."

Castellammare di Stabia is latest city to make use of the extra powers handed down by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government to mayors, in the effort to fight crime and confront anti social behaviour.

In other places they have banned sandcastles, kissing in cars, feeding stray cats, wooden clogs and the use of lawn mowers at weekends.

PART K

Ban on 'distracting' miniskirts at school is set to spread:
Parents back heads over controversial ban on miniskirts
(condensed version)

Tracy McVeigh, social affairs editor
The Observer,
19 September 2010

guardian.co.uk

Concerns could be addressed by specifying skirts that cannot be customised. Photograph: Laurence Mouton/PhotoAlto/Corbis

When Mary Quant first raised the nation's hemlines in the 1960s, it was seen as a symbol of women's liberation. Fifty years on and the miniskirt is still causing consternation, and now faces a ban in Britain's schools.

Dozens of schools are considering following the lead of St Aidan's High in Yorkshire and St Alban's in Suffolk, which have banned skirts altogether this term and insisted girls wear trousers. In others, letters have been sent to parents saying that the current fashion for wearing school skirts as short, and as tight, as possible is a real problem in school, and dealing with the issue is a distraction from teaching.

At Kinross High in Perthshire, some parents received a stinging note telling them: "The length of your daughter's skirt is such that she spends a great deal of time pulling it down. It detracts her attention from the learning process."

Last week another Scottish head, Robert Kelly, rector of Berwickshire High in Duns, said short skirts were encouraging "inappropriate thoughts" among boys. Kelly, who had gathered together female pupils for his lecture, referred to a recent anti-rape advert.

But many parents have declared their support. "The headteacher was probably no worse than our dads would have been and most parents would be quite grateful for the backing," said Siobhan Freegard of parenting website Netmums, which was among the parenting groups that criticised Tesco last month for encouraging the "over-sexualisation" of girls as young as nine, by selling a school skirt that is less than a foot long.

Tesco's miniskirt is just 29.5cm long – nearly 10cm shorter than skirts sold at Asda or Sainsbury's. Freegard said the skirt "looked like it should be sold in a sex shop" and warned that the trend was reaching primary schools.

One teacher told the Observer: "Girls hitching up their skirts is not new, but it is getting worse, and the skirts are getting so high that male teachers are constantly saying they are embarrassed by the sight of female underwear in the corridors and especially on the stairs."

PART L

Shorts, mini-skirts and bare shoulders all banned in Vatican dress code crackdown

Nigel Thompson
Aug 21, 2010
mirror.co.uk

The Vatican, Rome, Italy

Shorts, mini-skirts and bare shoulders are all banned in a Vatican dress code crackdown.

The code, already in place in St Peter’s Basilica, is being extended to the whole of St Peter’s Square.

Men must wear T-shirts or shirts with sleeves, and trousers, while women should have their shoulders covered and wear a skirt that falls below the knee, advises insurance provider Insurewithease.com

PART M

HAS BELOW PROTEST AGAINST THE NIQAB BAN BEEN VERY OFFENSIVE TO MUSLIMS AND DID MORE HARM THAN GOOD ?

*NiqaBitch' unveil themselves in Paris

Nesrine Malik
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 7 October 2010

Are this veil-wearing, leg-baring duo making a powerful political point, or trivialising the niqab debate?

Just when you thought the niqab ban story had no more legs, it goes burlesque. Two French women have taken it upon themselves to register their opposition to the niqab ban in France by covering their faces but baring their legs in miniskirts. The duo, who call themselves NiqaBitch, have posted a video where they stop traffic and turn heads and sashay in heels down the streets of Paris. Portmanteau in name and in dress, they merge the sacred and the profane. The footage is tongue in cheek, all rather typically French.

"We were not looking to attack or degrade the image of Muslim fundamentalists – each to their own – but rather to question politicians who voted for this law that we consider clearly unconstitutional," they said. "To dictate what we wear appears to have become the role of the state."

PART N

PRINCESS HIJAB:

A graffiti artist in Paris has been going around the city incognito late at night and painting face veils over models displayed in posters and billboards.

The woman, who calls herself "Princess Hijab", says the so-called "hijab-ising" of the models is just art and not a religious statement.

Al Jazeera followed her one night.

Source: Al-Jazeera

THE END