Category Archives: Islamic Law

Bint al-Shati’: A Female Voice In Islamic Law

Egypt, Islamic Law, Journalism and Media, Qur'an

from al-Ahram, July 2004

Aisha Abdel-Rahman, better known as Bint Al-Shati’, might have become famous for her fiction and poetry but it was her stories on rural Egypt which launched her writing career in Al-Ahram. The “Daughter of the Shore”, writes Professor Yunan Labib Rizk, had a weak spot for the countryside and its people

From the outset of her career, Aisha Abdel-Rahman, a prominent scholar and writer, preferred to go by the name Bint Al-Shati’ (Daughter of the Shore). She adopted this pen-name, which alludes to her birthplace in Damietta, out of respect for her family’s customs — her father was a scholar in a religious institute in that northern Egyptian coastal city — and because it was also a custom of that age for women writers to conceal their true identities.

Bint Al-Shati’ first made her mark in Al-Ahram in the summer of 1935 when the newspaper allocated considerable front-page space to the problems of rural Egypt. She was only 23 at the time (she was born in 1913), which is not so odd in itself — it was Al-Ahram ‘s policy to give a chance to young and talented aspiring writers, of whom some later became its prominent featured writers and literary and intellectual celebrities. What was odd, given her conservative family background, was the level of education she attained. Her father, an Azharite, would not allow her “modern schooling” so he educated her himself, and so solid was his instruction that she came out first among all the female students who sat for the competency certificate for teachers “from their homes” in 1929. Thus encouraged, she received her secondary school baccalaureate in 1934. This was the only certificate she was armed with when she began writing for Al-Ahram the following year. But then whoever said that degrees make a writer? Continue reading Bint al-Shati’: A Female Voice In Islamic Law →

“There is no such thing as an Islamic state”

Islamic Law, Sudan, Terrorism Issue


Prof. an-Naim speaking at Harvard in October, 2007

The Christian Science Monitor recently published an article about Emory law professor Abdullahi Ahmed an-Naim and the “Muslims Heretics Conference” held in Atlanta a week ago. Here is a brief excerpt, but click here for the whole article.

Abdullahi Ahmed an-Naim has seen what can happen to an Islamic reformer: His mentor was executed in 1985 in Sudan; he himself had to flee the country. Still, the self-described “Muslim heretic” has no trouble traveling the Islamic world spreading his controversial message:

There is no such thing as an Islamic state.

A secular state and human rights are essential for all societies so that Muslims and others can practice their faith freely, he tells his co-religionists.

“My motivation is in fact about being an honest, true-to-myself Muslim, rather than someone complying with state dictates,” says Mr. Naim, a professor of law at Emory University in Atlanta since 1999. “I need the state to be neutral about religious doctrine so that I can be the Muslim I choose to be.”

So committed is this scholar to opening the door to free debate within his faith that he helped organize the first “Muslim Heretics Conference” in Atlanta over the weekend. Some 75 Muslims, engaged in various reform projects, gathered to discuss issues related to sharia (Islamic law), democracy, and women’s rights – and how to cope with dissent and its consequences.

“We celebrate heresy simply to promote innovative thinking,” he says. “Every orthodoxy was at one time a heresy.”

Turkey’s Secular Fundamentalist Threat

Islamic Law, Turkey


Photograph: April, 2007 demonstration supporting the secular state Reuters

by Alfred Stepan, Project Syndicate

NEW YORK — The Chief Prosecutor of Turkey’s High Court of Appeals recently recommended to the country’s Constitutional Court that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) be permanently banned. Only last July, the AKP was overwhelmingly re-elected in free and fair elections to lead the government. The Chief Prosecutor also formally recommended that Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, President Abdullah Gul, and 69 other leading politicians be banned from politics five years.

Clearly, banning the AKP would trigger a political crisis that would end Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union in the foreseeable future and threaten its recent strong economic growth. So the Chief Prosecutor’s threat should not be taken lightly – all the more so given that the Constitutional Court has banned 18 political parties (including the AKP’s predecessor party) since the current constitution was introduced in 1982. Indeed, the recent call to ban the AKP is directly related to its efforts to change Turkey’s constitution.

The underlying charge in the Chief Prosecutor’s indictment is that the AKP has been eroding secularism. But the origins of the current Constitution, and its definition of secularism, are highly suspect. Continue reading Turkey’s Secular Fundamentalist Threat →

Rethinking Secularism: Why Shariah?

Islamic Law, Orientalism


Noah Feldman, left; Said Arjomand, right

by Saïd Amir Arjomand, from The Immanent Frame

Noah Feldman prefaces his plea for the Shariah in his recent article for The New York Times Magazine (”Why Shariah?“) with a reference to the proposal recently made by the Archbishop of Canterbury to allow the Shariah and Jewish law to be considered in voluntary family and arbitration courts. The Archbishop and the Professor are addressing very different issues, however. The situation of a Muslim religious minority having the option of voluntary recourse to arbitration or court settlement in Europe, as proposed by the former, cannot be responsibly compared with that of a Muslim majority using the coercive power of the state to stone women accused of adultery in Nigeria, or to perpetuate patriarchal domination in Pakistan by keeping even those women who are eventually acquitted by superior courts in shackles and behind bars for many years.

In this article, presumably as a forerunner of his new book, Feldman extends the paternalism of the failed American empire in What We Owe Iraq to the entire Muslim world by telling the Muslims how good they really are; surely they would not realize this without the American law professor telling them. In telling them, he displays one of the worst examples of Orientalism. Continue reading Rethinking Secularism: Why Shariah? →

To Sing or to Sin? Is that the Question?

Islamic Law, Music and Dance, Yemen

Music is alive and well in Muslim societies; Arab, Persian, Indian and Indonesian pop stars abound on the satellite channels and perform at weddings and other celebrations. There are also famous music festivals, the Baalbek Music Festival being one of the most known venues. So it should not be a surprise that the Yemeni port of Aden, long a crossroads of Muslims traveling east and west, should be the home of an Arab music festival. The Aden Festival was booked for February 14 with the Syrian singer Asalah Nasri and Egyptian star Issam Karika. As noted in an article in the current Yemen Observer, the director of the Aden cultural office, Abdullah Kudadah, considers the festival as a primary step for creating a tourism culture that will contribute to the economic and cultural renaissance of Yemen.

He further mentioned that this coming concert was among several proposed festivals for singers from different Arab states, as well as the fact that Yemen is launching four new satellite channels.

“Music is an international language. We know how the ancient Arab tribes used to celebrate their poets because they used to believe that their poets would promote the tribe. The success of a poet is the success of the whole tribe,” said Kudada. He added that Ukadh used to be the forum for all Arab poets from different Arab regions.

The director of Aden festival, Marwan al-Khalid, said the festival is the first of its kind organized by the Aden governorate. He said the festival will be held in the 22 May stadium and that more than 400 prizes will be given to the audience. In addition to 400 cell phones and one million Yemeni riyals divided amongst twenty winners, the grand prize of a Hyundai automobile will also be given away. Al-Khalid added that there would be VIP tickets costing $100 each, which include dinner and beverages. Ordinary tickets will cost YR3000 each.

Organizers have also decided to donate 30 percent of the concert proceeds to the aid of the Palestinian people in Gaza and to cancer health care in Yemen.

Al-Khalid expected a great turnout for the festival due to the fame of the Syrian singer.

Cultural expression and tourism: what could be wrong with that? The Devil, quite literally it seems, is in the details, also noted in the Yemen Observer article: Continue reading To Sing or to Sin? Is that the Question? →

The Girl of Qatif

Gender and Sexuality, Islamic Law, Qur'an, Saudi Arabia, Traditions (hadith literature)


Saudi judge ignores Quranic rights in harsh decision over the ‘Girl of Qatif’
By Khalid Chraibi
Arablife.org, Tuesday, 22 January 2008

In a memorable scene in Ingmar Bergman’s movie Wild Strawberries, Isak, the central character, dreams that he is standing in court, waiting to be sentenced. But he has no clue as to the charges against him. When the judge declares him guilty, he asks, bewildered: “Guilty of what?” The judge replies flatly: “You are guilty of guilt”. “Is that serious?” asks Isak. “Unfortunately,” replies the judge.

The verdict in the case of the ‘Girl of Qatif’, as the incident has become known worldwide, is as bewildering to most people as the judge’s verdict was to Isak. How can a young bride of 18 who has been subjected to the harrowing experience of being blackmailed by a former ‘telephone boyfriend’, then gang-raped 14 times in a row by seven unknown assailants, be further brought to trial for the offence of khalwa and condemned to 90 lashes? How does one justify raising the punishment to 200 lashes and 6 months in jail when she appealed the first sentence?

The case had all the necessary ingredients to become an instant cause célèbre, when word of it reached the global news agencies. It received very large coverage in the media, with the verdict being criticized by commentators, politicians and citizens in all walks of life, within the region and in far away countries.

Amnesty International protested against the flogging verdict (which was also applicable to the men involved in the case), observing that “the use of corporal punishment constitutes cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.” It added that “the criminalisation of khalwa is inconsistent with international human rights standards, in particular, an individual’s right to privacy.” The sentence against the ‘Girl of Qatif’ and the boy who sat with her in the car “should therefore be declared null and void”. Continue reading The Girl of Qatif →

Apostasy in Islam

Afghanistan, Islam and Christianity, Islamic Law, Islamophobia, Taliban, Wahhabi

In the furor throughout the Islamic world over the publication of negative caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in Danish newspapers, and more recently giving the name Muhammad to a teddy bear, the earlier anger about author Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses was rekindled. The critical difference, of course, is that Rushdie was condemned not only for blaspheming the Prophet but for leaving Islam as the faith he was born into. This issue of apostasy — leaving Islam — resurfaced a year ago in the case of an Afghan man named Abdul Rahman, who proudly claimed he had converted to Christianity. Several Islamic nations, including Afghanistan regard apostasy as a crime and impose the death penalty for this.

The issue seems to be simple; it is egregious to any modern notion of human rights and Islamophobes are quick to dredge up a long history of Islamic legal rulings that legitimize such a death penalty. In point of fact no contemporary Islamic nation state follows all the ascribed shari’a penalties to the letter of the law. Even when constitutions state that the laws are based on the shari’a, it is the state itself which takes over many of the functions once given to Islamic judges. What might have worked (and we know that laws were always unevenly applied) at some point in the caliphate is not working today. Continue reading Apostasy in Islam →

The Real Musharraf

Ethics, Islamic Law, Pakistan, Terrorism Issue

[Photo: Asma Jahangir. There is a large variety of commentary on General Musharraf’s recent dictatorial dismissal of Pakistan’s constitution and judiciary. Here is a comment from Asma Jahangir, one of the lawyers currently under house arrest. How easily the line between “terrorist” and “rights activist” is blurred.]

By Asma Jahangir
The Washington Post, Friday, November 9, 2007; A21

LAHORE, Pakistan — It was close to midnight last Saturday when Gen. Pervez Musharraf finally appeared on state-run television. That’s when police vans surrounded my house. I was warned not to leave, and hours later I learned I would be detained for 90 days.

At least I have the luxury of staying at home, though I cannot see anyone. But I can only watch, helpless, as this horror unfolds.

The Musharraf government has declared martial law to settle scores with lawyers and judges. Hundreds of innocent Pakistanis have been rounded up. Human rights activists, including women and senior citizens, have been beaten by police. Judges have been arrested and lawyers battered in their offices and the streets. Continue reading The Real Musharraf →