VOICE OF GLOBAL UMMAH

Volume 183, May 15, 2011
St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Editors: Mohamed & Rashida Ziauddin

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

(www.xeniagreekmuslimah.wordpress.com)

EDITORIAL:

In this issue, we have discussed Islam in Europe, interfaith cooperation, extremism and diversity of cultural values among the Global Ummah.

PART I

ISLAM IN EUROPE:

(Ed Note:
We are sure that there are several members of Global Ummah who would agree with us that below was an excellent step taken by European Union)

EU: French Far-Right MP Stripped of EU Parliamentary Immunity for Anti-Islam Statements
(www.loonwatch.com)

May 11, 2011

Via AFP:

The European Parliament stripped parliamentary immunity from French far-right MEP Bruno Gollnisch on Tuesday, to enable a complaint of "incitement to racial hatred" to be investigated.

French authorities will now interview Gollnisch after asking for the move, following a complaint over an October 2008 press release issued by Rhone-Alpes regional authorities near Lyon, which Gollnisch led, that cited "the invasion of our land and the destruction of our culture and values" by Islam.

The International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism launched the complaint, and the European Parliament decided that, as the case related to Gollnisch's activities as a regional councillor, "applying parliamentary immunity to such a situation 'would constitute an undue extension of those rules'," a statement said.

Dutch Newspaper Profiles Muslim MPs
Radio Netherlands Worldwide May 15, 2011

Radio Netherlands Worldwide carries a profile on two Muslim politicians in the Netherlands, asking “what is it like to be a Muslim MP in a parliament that also houses well-known anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders?”

Coskun Coruz (MP for the Christian Democrats)

Coskun Coruz (MP for the Christian Democrats) and Tofik Dibi (MP for the Green Left) are two of seven MPs identifying as practicing Muslims.

Tofik Dibi (MP for the Green Left)

In response to Wilders’ provocative comments regarding Islam Coruz comments, “It makes me feel quite unpleasant when Wilders says that stuff. Because it’s quite personal, it reflects on one’s character. And I’m not willing to change my religion.”

According to Dibi, “I’m living proof that he’s wrong. I was brought up here, I’m Muslim, but I love freedom way more than he does.”

(Ed Note: Breaking the stereotype of Hijabis)

TANGO IN PARIS WITH A NIQAABI:
May 9, 2011
(www.islamineurope.blogspot.com)

(A very interesting clip from a group called Red Rag Productions in which a Niqabi dances tango with her partner. It probably is a shocking clip for many to see as they consider Niqabis disenfranchised and inexpressive:

Probably not what you would expect on your morning commute to work!

Red Rag Productions describes itself as, an independent film production company based in London. Red Rag is dedicated to making high quality documentaries and films on a range of controversial and contemporary issues, in particular those affecting minorities in European societies.

They are currently working on a documentary on the lives of 4 Muslim women in three different European cities and the tensions involved with “a Europe often reluctant to come to terms with women who are asserting their Muslim identities.”)

www.redragprod.com

Trailer - Short tales of the hijab from redragprod on Vimeo.

Over the past several months the team of Red Rag Productions have journeyed to several European cities to follow the lives of four women. By exploring the personal stories of Yasmin, Farida, Ilham and Marwa the 60 minute documentary reveals the tensions of a Europe often reluctant to come to terms with women who are asserting their Muslim identities. Shot against the contrasting backdrops of London, Dresden, Brussels and Avignon these engaging characters are seen as reshaping the modern European landscape.

(www.redragprod.com)

PART II:

INTERFAITH CO-OPERATION:

(Ed Note:

Because of the fault of Israel in its injustice towards our Palestinian brothers and sisters, we cannot project our negativity towards all Jews living outside Israel. If you track world events carefully, you will note there is tremendous scope of partnership between both Jews and Muslims where they have a common aspect of being a minority in a western country.

Despite risk of getting death threats from extremists of both Muslim and Jewish camps, we are willing to raise our hand for peace, love and partnership with the Jews. Are we walking in wilderness with no Jew to reciprocate OR are there Jews who are willing to reciprocate to our gesture of peace and goodwill?

LET NOT THE GROSS INJUSTICE BY THE ISRAELIS WITHIN THE STATE OF ISRAEL BE A REASON FOR MUSLIMS AND JEWS OUTSIDE ISRAEL TO FREEZE THEIR INITIATIVES OF PEACE AND PARTNERSHIP.

SKEPTICS, DON'T GET ALARMED AND PLEASE TAKE IT EASY, AFTER ALL WE ARE NOT ASKING FOR A DATE).

Salon: Jews and Muslims United for Sharia?
www.loonwatch.com
May 8, 2011

(cross-posted from Salon.com)

Jewish groups mobilize against anti-sharia bills that would also bar arbitration under Jewish religious law

BY JUSTIN ELLIOTT

We’re a bit late to this one, but Ron Kampeas of JTA has a fascinating recent piece on fears that anti-sharia initiatives brewing around the country could also threaten observance of traditional Jewish law, or halachah.

You don’t hear much about halachah, or rabbinical courts known as beit din, even though both have been a feature of observant American Jewish communities for years.

But some Jewish groups are now lobbying against anti-sharia bills that have been drafted — possibly as a way to preempt constitutional challenges — to bar any and all foreign or religious law in U.S. courts, not just sharia:

“The laws are not identical, but as a general rule they could be interpreted broadly to prevent two Jewish litigants from going to a beit din,” a Jewish religious court, said Abba Cohen, the Washington director of Agudath Israel of America, an Orthodox umbrella group. “That would be a terrible infringement on our religious freedom.”

A number of recent beit din arbitration that were taken by litigants to civil courts — on whether a batch of etrogim met kosher standards; on whether a teacher at a yeshiva was rightfully dismissed; and on the ownership of Torah scrolls — would have no standing under the proposed laws.

A spokesman for the Orthodox Union explained that a prohibition on religious law would be a problem in situations when Jewish law comes up in civil courts:

Such laws “are problematic particularly from the perspective of the Orthodox community — we have a beit din system, Jews have disputes resolved according to halachah,” Diament said. “We don’t have our own police force, and the mechanism for having those decisions enforced if they need to be enforced is the way any private arbitration is enforced” — through contract law in the secular court system.

Some prominent Jewish groups seem to be putting some real lobbying muscle into this issue in state legislatures, so it will be interesting to see what happens.

Sharia, by the way, did not come up in last night’s GOP presidential debate.

Kiev: Ukrainian and Russian Muslim and Jewish leaders pledge cooperation
May 15, 2011
Via WJC:

Eighty Jewish and Muslim leaders from Ukraine and Russia have met in Kiev and pledged to work together to fight a rising cascade of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in the two countries.

In the first-ever meeting of Jews and Muslims to be held in the Ukrainian capital, leaders of the two communities in Ukraine and Russia heard chilling accounts of recent beatings and harassment of Muslims and Jews in the two former Soviet republics, desecration of Muslim and Jewish cemeteries and bombings and other attacks on communal institutions of the two faiths.

The leaders pledged to work together to combat the forces of extremism and hate and to press authorities in both countries to take a more assertive stand in fighting perpetrators of Islamophobic and anti-Semitic attacks, the statement said.

PART III

EXTREMISTS RAISE THEIR UGLY HEADS AGAIN:

GREECE

Athens: Immigrants attacked following murder

B92.net
May 11, 2011

Source: Tanjug

ATHENS:
Several hundred people, including neo-Nazis, assaulted immigrants in the Athens neighborhood of Patission, after a murder blamed on foreigners.

Shouting "foreigners get out," the mob earlier attacked immigrants in the street and vandalized at least one foreign-owned shop, police said.

Police used tear gas to keep protesters away from a squatter home in Patission.

The violence broke out after a 44-year-old man was stabbed to death early Tuesday as he prepared to take his pregnant wife to hospital.

The men, whom witnesses described as foreigners, grabbed the video camera he was carrying to film the birth of his second child.

The murder has reignited doubts that police are capable of preventing some parts of Athens from being overrun by drug addicts, prostitutes and illegal immigrants, as well as right-wing vigilantes.

Mosque Firebombed in Kallithea (Greece)
www.ekathimerini.com
May 8, 2011

Vandals spray paint swastikas onto walls after arson hit which caused no injuries.

Unidentified vandals targeted a makeshift mosque in the neighborhood of Kallithea, southern Athens, early on Sunday, smashing the windows before dousing the interior with gasoline and setting it alight. The attack caused no injuries as there had been no one at the site of worship at the time but the damage caused to the premises was significant.

The arsonists also spray-painted swastika symbols on the walls of the mosque.

Reacting to the incident later in the day, the Muslim Union of Greece issued a written statement expressing its “great sorrow” over the incident.

PART IV

DIVERSITY OF CULTURAL VALUES AMONG THE GLOBAL UMMAH

RELIGION IN CHECHNYA: ISLAM
www.en-wikipedia.org

A Chechen man prays during the battle for Grozny. The flame in the background is coming from a gas pipeline which was hit by shrapnel. (January 1995)

Chechnya is predominantly Muslim. Most of the Chechens belong to the Shafi'i school of thought of Sunni Islam, while a minority belong to the Hanafi. Some adhere to the mystical Sufi tradition of Muridism, while about half of Chechens belong to Sufi brotherhoods, or tariqah. The two Sufi tariqas that spread in the North Caucasus were the Naqshbandiya and the Qadiriya (the Naqshbandiya is particularly strong in Dagestan and eastern Chechnya, whereas the Qadiriya has most of its adherents in the rest of Chechnya and Ingushetia.

Some of the modern Chechen rebels are Salafis, but these form a small minority of the group and are often viewed suspiciously by non-Salafis who protectively guard their national customs against encroachment (hence, the phrase "Muhammad may have been an Arab, but Allah is surely Chechen").

According to www.en-wikipedia.org:

"A blood feud is a feud with a cycle of retaliatory violence, with the relatives of someone who has been killed or otherwise wronged or dishonored seeking vengeance by killing or otherwise physically punishing the culprits or their relatives. Historically, the word vendetta has been used to mean a blood feud".

BLOOD FEUD IN CHECHNYA
(All photos from www.englishrussia.com)

Blood feud in Chechnya is practiced more than in any other regions of Russia.

The process of reconciliation gathers a great many of people from both conflict sides. Sometimes their numbers reaches several thousand people.

But this reconciliation is in a small mountainous town so there are not so many people there.

During the procedures of reconciliation, relatives of the "offender" give him to the other side. He is usually shrouded in a cloak, not clean-shaved and wears black. If he is forgiven, relatives of the "victim" relieve him of his cloak, open his face and let him go.