Women in Islam

Current issues, news and ethics
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kmaherali
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Post by kmaherali »

Taliban Seize Women’s Ministry Building for Use by Religious Police

Taliban leaders have turned the Kabul building that housed Afghanistan’s Ministry of Women’s Affairs into the offices for the religious police, an ominous portent for women’s rights.


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The new Ministry of Invitation, Guidance and Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, formerly the Ministry for Women’s Affairs, in Kabul. The compound still has murals depicting women, some now with desecrated faces, on the perimeter blast walls.Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban have converted the Ministry of Women’s Affairs building into offices for the religious morality police, who once instilled dread in Afghanistan for their suppression of women and brutal enforcement of the militant government’s interpretation of Shariah law when it ruled two decades ago.

The conversion of the building in Kabul, the country’s capital, suggested at least a symbolic slapping down of a ministry that had come to embody the ascent of women in Afghanistan after the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001.

A video posted by Reuters showed women who had been employed by the ministry protesting outside the building because the Taliban had not permitted them to enter and had told them to go back home.

It remains unclear if the women’s ministry has been abolished by the Taliban, who reclaimed power last month as the U.S.-backed government collapsed. But when the Taliban announced their acting cabinet members for the new government earlier this month, there was no appointment to oversee women’s affairs.

And in another ominous portent of renewed gender discrimination under the Taliban, its Education Ministry ordered male teachers back to work and said secondary school classes for boys would resume on Saturday. There was no mention of girls.

The women’s ministry building’s new occupant, called the Ministry of Invitation, Guidance and Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, seems to be just a slightly rebranded name for the notorious enforcer of Taliban standards of behavior that turned the group into a global pariah in the 1990s.

The ministry’s police officers became known for beating or lashing women who ventured outside their homes without a full body covering and a male escort. They banned girls from school after primary grades and prohibited women from seeking jobs. Unwed couples risked death by stoning for adultery.

While the leaders of the Taliban have acknowledged that Afghanistan has evolved after two decades of the American-led occupation, they have also left women terrified of what the future may hold. No women have been appointed to positions of authority under the new Taliban government, and it has taken steps to separate men and women in public spaces.

Earlier this week, the minister of higher education, Abdul Baqi Haqqani, said that women could continue to study in universities and postgraduate programs, but only in gender-segregated classrooms in appropriate Islamic dress.

More...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/17/worl ... 778d3e6de3
swamidada
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Post by swamidada »

How are the Taliban treating Afghan women and girls?
CONOR FINNEGAN
Wed, September 29, 2021, 4:05 AM

Over one month into Taliban control of Afghanistan, fears for women's and girl's rights and education have only grown — fueled further Tuesday by a top Taliban official's comments that "women will not be allowed to come to universities or work."

The tweets from the Taliban-appointed chancellor of Kabul University set off a fresh firestorm, prompting a clarification and a complaint about media coverage, before the outspoken chancellor deleted his Twitter account.

It's a strange episode that says as much about the Taliban's acute awareness of international perceptions as it does about what the future of Taliban rule holds for half of Afghanistan's nearly 40 million people — its women and girls.

While the U.S. and other Western countries have called on the Taliban to respect women's and girls' rights, especially access to education, the Taliban have already taken steps to restrict them, including announcing earlier this month that certain subjects may be off limits and female students would be barred from studying with males. That could mean they'll be excluded entirely, given the limited resources at Afghanistan's schools and universities.

Already, the militant group has named an all-male Cabinet and prohibited women from returning to work, saying there were security concerns that temporarily prevented it. A handful of women-led protests against Taliban rules have faced violent crackdowns in Kabul and other cities.

When the Taliban controlled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, they largely barred women and girls from public life without a male relative and excluded them from schools and universities entirely.

Kabul University chancellor Mohammad Ashraf Ghairat suggested a return to that policy Tuesday, tweeting, "As long as a real Islamic environment is not provided for all, women will not be allowed to come to universities or work. Islam first."

After media outlets reported on his comments, he issued a second tweet, criticizing the New York Times in particular for what he called a "bad misunderstanding" of his comments.

"I haven't said that we will never allow women to attend universities or go to work, I meant that until we create an Islamic environment, women will have to stay at home. We work hard to create safe Islamic environment soon," wrote the 34-year old, who was named to his role earlier this month.

Hours later, his Twitter account was deleted entirely.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban's chief spokesperson, spun Ghairat's statement, seemingly keen to ease Western concerns about women's education, even without denying it was true.

"It might be his own personal view," Mujahid told the New York Times, according to the paper, which added that he would not give assurances about when the ban on women would be lifted. He only said the militant group was working on a "safer transportation system and an environment where female students are protected."

Asked about Ghairat's comments, a State Department spokesperson told ABC News, "Any government should demonstrate respect for and inclusion of women and girls, in all their diversity, including supporting their education. Equal access to higher education on the basis of merit for all individuals is one of the principles codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

But it's unclear what steps the U.S. or other government would be willing to take to ensure that equal access. The spokesperson didn't address that issue, saying instead in their statement the U.S. "will continue to support Afghan women and girls."

The Taliban is already under heavy international sanctions, and the former Afghan government's U.S. assets, worth billions of dollars, remain frozen by the U.S., while the World Bank and International Monetary Fund suspended funding.

There's growing pressure from Taliban leaders as well as some Afghan civilians to release those funds as the country's economy teeters on collapse and millions are desperate for international aid.

"We call on the international community, the World Bank and international humanitarian agencies not to suspend their humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. Don't leave Afghanistan alone in this difficult time," said teacher Aqela Noori at a news conference in Kabul Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. She was one of several female health workers, teachers and rights defenders who spoke to urge for resumed global aid, which accounts for some three-fourths of Afghanistan's public expenditures, per the World Bank.

Some 120,000 female educators and nearly 14,000 female health care workers have not been paid their salaries for the past two to three months, per Noori, who also urged Taliban leaders to find jobs for 16,000 female teachers prohibited by the militants from teaching high school, according to the AP.

During the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, there were enormous gains for women and girls, especially in education. The female literacy rate nearly doubled in a decade to 30% in 2018, according to a UNESCO report this year, and the number of girls in school went from nearly zero in 2001 to 2.5 million in 2018, making up nearly half of all primary students.

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/gma/tal ... 31463.html
kmaherali
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VIDEO: Tunisia’s President Appoints Prime Minister

Video:

https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/afr ... 778d3e6de3

President Kais Saied of Tunisia named Najla Bouden Romdhan to be the country’s first female prime minister. The move came two months after Mr. Saied suspended Parliament, fired the prime minister and consolidated his power in what opponents called a “coup
kmaherali
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Post by kmaherali »

Afghan Women Who Once Presided Over Abuse Cases Now Fear for Their Lives

They fear that they or their loved ones could be tracked down and killed because of their work delivering justice to women. “We have lost everything — our jobs, our homes, the way we lived.”


When Nabila was a judge in Afghanistan’s Supreme Court, she granted divorces to women whose husbands were sometimes jailed for assaulting or kidnapping them. Some of the men threatened to kill her after they had served their time, she said.

In mid-August, as the Taliban poured into Kabul and seized power, hundreds of prisoners were set free. Men once sentenced in Nabila’s courtroom were among them, according to the judge. Like the other women interviewed for this article, her full name has been withheld for her protection.

Within days, Nabila said, she began receiving death threat calls from former prisoners. She moved out of her house in Kabul and went into hiding as she sought ways to leave Afghanistan with her husband and three young daughters.

“I lost my job and now I can’t even go outside or do anything freely because I fear these freed prisoners,” Nabila said by phone from a safe house. “A dark future is awaiting everyone in Afghanistan, especially female judges.”

More than 200 female judges remain in Afghanistan, many of them under threat and in hiding, according to the International Association of Women Judges. Taliban officials have recovered their personal information from court records, several former judges said, and some have had their bank accounts frozen.

“They are women who had the effrontery to sit in judgment on men,” said Susan Glazebrook, president of the judges’ association and a justice of the Supreme Court in New Zealand.

“The women judges of Afghanistan are under threat for applying the law,” she added. “They are under threat because they have made rulings in favor of women according to law in family violence, custody and divorce cases.”

The plight of female judges and lawyers is one more example of the Taliban’s systematic unraveling of gains made by women over the past two decades. Female judges and lawyers have left the courts under Taliban pressure, abruptly erasing one of the signal achievements of the United States and allied nations since 2001.

The women have not only lost their jobs, but also live in a state of perpetual fear that they or their loved ones could be tracked down and killed.

More...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/21/worl ... liban.html
kmaherali
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Post by kmaherali »

Role of Women in Political Development in Jordan


ACADEMIA
Letters
Role of Women in Political Development in Jordan
Aya Mohammad Al-Katatsheh

Women’s leadership in political spheres is shown to be socially beneficial. Democracy implies that all voices are being heard. Women constitute approximately 50 percent of the global population but are, nevertheless, underrepresented in decision-making processes at all governance levels around the world because they are still lacking access to political leadership and resources.
The exceedingly low ration of women in political bodies is a phenomenon for established and new democracies alike. Universal suffrage did not lead to representative legislatures.
But the challenge in ensuring women’s participation goes beyond electing a larger number of women in parliament. It is also about changing the endemic perception that the public domain is a male domain.
The relative absence of women in Jordan’s political life is not only driven by legal and institutional barriers, but also discriminatory social norms and economic inequality between men and women. Legally, Women did not get the chance to stand as a candidate and even to vote as a Jordanian people like men since the establishment of the constitution in 1952. But long time after the constitution was promulgated.
Women in Jordan did not get the right to vote until 1974. That was somewhat late for the rest of the region. Also, in 2003 The quota system in the Jordanian Parliament was amended,so that seats were reserved for women. Globally , women hold 16 percent of parliamentary seats. In Jordan, women occupy only about 6 percent of both houses of parliament.
Now, Jordan is still working to improve women’s representation in elected positions, despite the presence of progressive policies, this leads to a challenge to traditional gender roles and the customary ideals of femininity and masculinity in Jordan, thus reducing inequalities between men and women.

The entire article can be accessed at:

https://www.academia.edu/60945920/Role_ ... load-paper
kmaherali
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Progress for Saudi Women Is Uneven, Despite Cultural Changes and More Jobs

Women say Saudi Arabia has advanced significantly in just the past year, with more choices regarding work, fashion (including colored abayas) and social spaces, but restrictions remain everywhere.


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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — At the cramped shop where Kholoud Ahmed sells the traditional Muslim women’s gowns known as abayas, the rainbow of colors is a revelation.

In the past, women in Riyadh typically dressed in the same black abaya no matter where they were going. Now, observed Ms. Ahmed, 21, there’s a differently colored or styled abaya for every occasion: weddings, meeting friends at a cafe, visiting parents.

“Colored abayas used to be a strange thing for us in Riyadh, something unusual,” said Ms. Ahmed, the store’s clerk. “Within a year it has significantly changed. It has become normal nowadays.”

Since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman became Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader more than four years ago, he has promised new opportunities for Saudi women as part of a broad modernization plan called Vision 2030.

The plan, which is advertised across Riyadh on posters and flags, is meant to wean the kingdom away from its historical reliance on oil and shift it toward new industries, including technology, pharmaceuticals and tourism.

But to create more job opportunities for Saudis and draw international investors and corporations to the desert monarchy, Prince Mohammed is also chipping away at the conservative culture that has kept many women close to home for years and scared away many foreigners.

Over the last five years, the percentage of women working outside the home has almost doubled, according to official statistics, to 32 percent from nearly 18 percent. Women today serve as customs officials at the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, client relationship managers at banks and hostesses at restaurants.

In addition to changes in the workplace, public space is becoming less strictly segregated by sex. In coffee shops in Riyadh like Overdose (motto: “Caffeine, it’s my drug of choice”), male and female customers can now sip lattes in mixed company.

Women can attend certain sporting events at stadiums, which was forbidden until a few years ago. They are no longer required to use separate entrances from men although some establishments still use them. They can also now apply for passports, live by themselves and travel on their own.

But the progress has been uneven.

The guardianship system, which despite some recent reforms is still in place, means that women must rely on permission from men — often their fathers or husbands, but in some cases their sons — to enter into marriages and make key decisions.

One prominent women’s rights activist was jailed for three years after pushing publicly for some of the very changes Prince Mohammed wanted to make — including allowing women to drive. She has since been released and has published a research paper on the status of Saudi women.

Those fits and starts are also evident in quotidian ways. Women’s attire in Riyadh, though more relaxed than a few years ago, is still far from liberal; even women who avoid abayas wear clothes with long sleeves, high necklines and low hemlines.

They may be using money from their newly earned paychecks to shop for kitten-heeled boots and slip dresses at Zara, but such outfits are still worn only in private settings.

“It’s not like before, like you have to wear, like, hijab and everything,” said Marwa, a 19-year-old university student who was shopping at Ms. Ahmed’s shop, referring to the traditional head scarf worn by Saudi women. “Now you can have free choice, but limited. It’s not like you are showing parts of your body.”

However much things have changed, the culture remains sufficiently conservative — and cautious of angering the authorities — that Marwa, like many of the Riyadh residents interviewed for this article, declined to give her full name.

Marwa said other cultural changes, like allowing store owners to remain open during prayer time to accommodate both merchants and shoppers, created problems of their own.

Some people who are devout and would pray no matter what, she said, could be offended by the business-as-usual attitude. “It’s like you’re not respecting the prayer time,” she said. Her friend Alaa — who wore sweatpants and sneakers under her abaya and sported a wrist tattoo that said “Trust no one” — nodded.

During the call to prayer a few minutes later, a number of male store workers nearby locked their doors and walked to the mall’s prayer room on an upper floor. On the ground floor, about 10 women, patrons who were wearing black abayas and hijabs, took rugs from a corner pile and knelt on them to pray. Other women sat quietly on benches, watching their children ride around in battery-operated toy cars.

A 52-year-old father of six, who gave only a nickname, Abu Abdullah, said he saw the benefits of more flexible prayer times and new opportunities for women. “During traveling, we don’t pray,” he said. “Even women, they don’t pray for seven days,” referring to the fact that women are forbidden to pray when they are menstruating.

Several of Abu Abdullah’s five daughters were standing nearby, eating buttered corn and French fries. One of them, Nout al-Qahtani, 13, said she was thrilled about the changes for women in Saudi Arabia. “I want to work,” she said. “I really want to be a doctor.”

Her father noted that not every dream job would be appropriate.

“Some jobs don’t fit for some women,” he said, citing roles in plumbing and construction work as examples. “It’s better to put her in the right place,” he added.

Five miles north of the mall, a local soccer club, Al Shabab, was playing an out-of-town team at Prince Faisal bin Fahd Stadium. It was a mild evening, and the crowd was animated when the home team scored. On the men’s side of the stadium, hundreds of men jumped to their feet, chanting and clapping for the players.

Across the stadium on what’s known as the family side, where women and children were directed to sit, Najiba, a nurse at the hospital complex King Fahd Medical City, was watching with two colleagues. Although women have been able to go to sports events in Saudi since 2018, it was only her second time at a match.

Najiba, 34, and her friends said that they were seeing far more Saudi women working at the hospital in recent years, and that the idea of women in medical careers had become more palatable to families who might previously have considered a mixed-gender working environment problematic.

“Now the family accepts if they have a daughter or a wife working in health care,” said Najiba, who was a nurse in a neonatal intensive care unit for years before taking on an administrative role.

Below the nurses, a few children were playing in the front row. One child, who had been running around and yelling, was scolded by a female security guard.

Several female spectators said they never missed a match. One, a 29-year-old manager at the Saudi British Bank attending with her brother, spoke highly of Riyadh’s new entertainment options and the growing economic opportunities for women. “We’re so excited,” she said.

A little after 9:30 p.m., the match ended in a 3-0 victory for Al Shabab.

As the crowd dispersed, one of its star players, the midfielder Hattan Bahebri, was signing autographs for dozens of fans through the fence that separated the stands from the field.

At one point, he held his hands in a heart shape in front of him. A clutch of men encircled the player, some with children hoisted on their shoulders. But one woman, her pink-tinted sunglasses atop her hijab, walked to the front of the crowd, raised her phone and got the shot.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/09/worl ... 778d3e6de3
kmaherali
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Post by kmaherali »

Thesis

Debating Gender: A Study of Medieval and Contemporary Discussions in Islam.
Al Ghazali, Averroes and Ibn Taymiyyah views on Women with an overview of Nawal Sa’adawi and Fatima Mernissi


Ms. Harhash’s thesis is not only the result of a meticulous work with the sources she presented, but it also shows an enormous amount of original thinking and personal involvement into the topic. It is obvious that she was not only writing a scholarly work, but also by doing so she pursued an interest of her own. This personal agenda did not interfere with producing an impressive analysis of three central thinkers in Islamic history concerning their concepts on women, including contextualizing them in the historical and political circumstances under which they lived, but it furthermore spurred the intellectual examination and sharpened Ms. Harhash’s arguments. Ms. Harhash has successfully shown the application of scholarly skills in combination with an ambitious progressive endeavour. In the initial three chapters of the thesis Ms. Harhash gives us an introduction into the main actors of the thesis, the development of Islamic law and the ambivalent role of women within it. In chapter 4 she presents al-Ghazali as „one of the leading scholars of Sunni and Sufi tradition“ (p. 18) and his “many disputable proclamations about women“(ibid). In line with the argument that women according to al-Ghazali can gain some virtue in being obedient wives, Ms. Harhash depicts how he understood the woman as complementing but always inferior part for the man and how he harshened his words in later works. In contrast to al-Ghazali in chapter 5 Ms. Harhash presents with the only slightly later Ibn Rushd a totally different perception of the women’s role in society. With some minor exceptions, he in general but „efficiently makes a woman’s quality equivalent with that of a man“ (p. 29f). Ms. Harhash shows how Ibn Rushd examines the role of women from a theological, a philosophical and a socio-ecological standpoint. Explaining the contemporary situation of women by sociological and economical reasons he takes the standpoint of a philosopher when “demanding and stressing equity for women in the society” (p. 34). But for him it also remains clear that „[t]he shortcomings were a result of the failure of the social structure in the society, not Islam.“ (ibid.) In chapter 6 Ms.Harhash presents Ibn Taymiyya as the counterpart of Ibn Rushd. According to him the unequality of women to men in all aspects is rooted in their physical nature. Especially when referring to Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, Ibn Taymiyya’s successor, and more recent conservative interpretations of Islam Ms. Harhash reads this as a reaction to political circumstances. In the following three chapters 7, 8 and 9 Ms. Harhash gives an overview over the beginnings of contemporary feminism in early 20th century, mainly in Egypt and Lebanon, and its definition as whether“Middle Eastern” or “Muslim Feminism” in contrast to “Western feminism”. The two protagonists she presents, Nawal El Saadawi and Fatima Mernissi, chose different approaches and consequently did not receive the same reception. With the division of body and soul in all creeds El Saadawi sees the problem within religion itself, where as Mernissi traces the regional and temporal reception of al-Ghazali, IbnRushd and Ibn Taymiyya to understand the status of women and thus showing the thinkers’ relevance in effectively shaping a society. Nevertheless Mernissi is convinced “that Islam encourages equality between all believers” (p. 51). Only in these chapters one would have wished that Ms. Harhash had shown stronger the conceptual traces from todays feminism to the medieval thinkers instead of relying on Mernissi’s analysis.

Dr. Markus Wachowski

The thesis can be accessed at:

https://www.academia.edu/33799896/Debat ... card=title
kmaherali
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Online ‘Auction’ Is Latest Attack on Muslim Women in India

The fake site, the second in months, is a sign of the organized nature of virtual bullying, with threats of sexualized violence aimed at silencing the outspoken.


Hiba Bég, a graduate student in the United States, was visiting the grave of her grandmother in New Delhi over the weekend when she learned that she was “for sale” to the highest bidder online — for a second time in less than a year.

Her screen filled with dozens of calls and messages from friends, all sharing the same screenshot of the profile created of her on the app, a fake auction site called “Bulli Bai.” Ms. Bég, a former journalist with an active online presence, wasn’t alone. More than 100 other prominent Indian Muslim women, including artists, journalists, activists and lawyers, found that online images of themselves were being used without permission on the app, which went up on Saturday and was taken down again within about 24 hours.

In June a similar app, called “Sulli Deals,” appeared. (Both terms are derogatory slang for Muslim women.) That one remained up for weeks and was taken down only after complaints from victims. Though the police opened an investigation, no one has been charged in that case.

India’s online space is rife with misogyny and harassment of women. But the two “auctions” have amplified concern about the organized nature of the virtual bullying, and how targeted smears and threats of violence, particularly sexual violence, are deployed to try to silence women, especially those critical of some of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies.

“The intimidation is aimed at forcing Muslim women who raise their voices against the injustice to withdraw from public life,” said Ms. Bég, 26, who is pursuing a graduate degree at Columbia University. “But you don’t back off, even if everything gets overwhelming.”

Muslim women were at the forefront of one of India’s largest protest movements in recent decades. In early 2020, before the coronavirus pandemic began in earnest in India, thousands blocked roads and held demonstrations in protest of a new citizenship law that was seen as prejudiced against Muslims.

Women featured in the “auction” included Fatima Nafees, the mother of a student activist who disappeared more than five years ago after a fight with members of a right-wing student organization; a film star turned social activist, a researcher, and several other prominent Muslim women.

Both the app that went up in June and the more recent one were hosted by GitHub, a Microsoft-owned open software development site based in San Francisco. On Sunday, India’s federal minister for communications, Ashwini Vaishnaw, said that GitHub had blocked the user behind the recent app. GitHub has not commented publicly on the episode.

More...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/worl ... 778d3e6de3
swamidada
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INDIA NEWS
Bulli Bai row: ‘I am the real mastermind’, claims Twitter user
Bulli Bai app case: The Mumbai Police are probing two controversial webpages hosted on the code sharing platform, GitHub. The first web page was floated in July 2021 and the second, Bulli Bai, surfaced on January 1.
Vishal Kumar, a second-year civil engineering student, was the first arrest in the Bulli Bai app case.

Published on Jan 06, 2022 07:45 AM
By Hindustan Times, New Delhi

A Twitter user, suspected to be from Nepal, claimed on Wednesday that he is the real creator and mastermind behind the Bulli Bai app. The user slammed also the arrest of three people in the case and said the police should stop targeting 'innocent' youth or there will be Bulli Bai 2.0.

The Twitter user offered to share the real username, password and source code which were used to create the Bulli Bai app and also published an archive link.

"You have arrested the wrong person, slumbai police. I am the creator of #BulliBaiApp. Got nothing to do with the two innocents whom u arrested, release them asap," the user, who goes by the handle @giyu44, said in a tweet.

“When this fiasco started I wasn’t even aware of what it might entail, so I use my friends accounts. Both Vishal and that Swati girl, I use their accounts.. They didn’t even know what I was going to do. Now they got arrested coz of me... Feel free to abuse me in comments,” the user further said.

In a subsequent tweet, the user said, "I will personally surrender if someone arranges for my travel by flight."

Mumbai Police officers, on condition of anonymity, said they are trying to trace the owner of the handle @giyu44 to verify his claims.


Three people have been arrested so far in connection with webpages where hundreds of Muslim women were “auctioned”. These are 18-year-old Shweta Singh from Uttarakhand, who the police claim is the mastermind. Her friend Mayank Rawat, 20, is the latest to be arrested; he is also from Uttarakhand. Vishal Kumar Jha, 21, was detained from Bengaluru on Monday and arrested a day later.

The police said the accused appeared to have used names related to the Sikh community in their Twitter handles which promoted the webpages in order to mislead people about their identity and add a communal angle.

The Mumbai Police are probing two such controversial webpages hosted on the code sharing platform, GitHub. The first web page was floated in July 2021 and the second, Bulli Bai, surfaced on January 1.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/
swamidada
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Associated Press
Taliban storm Kabul apartment, arrest activist, her sisters
KATHY GANNON
Thu, January 20, 2022, 8:52 AM
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban stormed an apartment in Kabul, smashing the door in and arresting a woman rights activist and her three sisters, an eyewitness said Thursday. A Taliban statement appeared to blame the incident on a recent women's protest, saying insulting Afghan values will no longer be tolerated.

The activist, Tamana Zaryabi Paryani, was among about 25 women who took part in an anti-Taliban protest on Sunday against the compulsory Islamic headscarf, or hijab, for women. A person from the neighborhood who witnessed the arrest said about 10 armed men, claiming to be from the Taliban intelligence department, carried out the raid on Wednesday night.

Shortly before she and her sisters were taken away, footage of Paryani was posted on social media, showing her frightened and breathless and screaming for help, saying the Taliban were banging on her door.

“Help please, the Taliban have come to our home . . . only my sisters are home,” she is heard saying in the footage. There are other female voices in the background, crying. “I can’t open the door. Please . . . help!”

Associated Press footage from the scene on Thursday showed the apartment's front door, made of metal and painted reddish brown, dented and left slightly ajar. The occupants of a neighboring apartment ran inside their home, not wanting to talk to reporters. An outer security door of steel slats was shut and padlocked, making it impossible to enter Paryani’s apartment.


The witness said the raid took place around 8 p.m. The armed men went up to the third floor of the Kabul apartment complex where Paryani lives and began pounding on the front door ordering her to open the door.

When she refused, they kicked the door repeatedly until it opened, the witness said. “They took four females away, all of them were sisters,” the witness said, adding that one of the four was Paryani, the activist.

The witness spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing Taliban reprisal.

The spokesman for the Taliban-appointed police in Kabul, Gen. Mobin Khan, tweeted that Paryani's social video post was a manufactured drama. A spokesman for the Taliban intelligence, Khalid Hamraz, would neither confirm nor deny the arrest.

However, he tweeted that “insulting the religious and national values of the Afghan people is not tolerated anymore” — a reference to Sunday's protest during which the protesters appeared to burn a white burqa, the all-encompassing traditional head-to-toe female garment that only leaves a mesh opening for the eyes.

Hamraz accused rights activists of maligning Afghanistan's new Taliban rulers and their security forces to gain asylum in the West.

Since sweeping to power in mid-August, the Taliban have imposed widespread restrictions, many of them directed at women. Women have been banned from many jobs, outside the health and education field, their access to education has been restricted beyond sixth grade and they have been ordered to wear the hijab. The Taliban have, however, stopped short of imposing the burqa, which was compulsory when they previously ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s.

At Sunday's demonstration in Kabul, women carried placards demanding equal rights and shouted: “Justice!” They burned a white burqa and said they cannot be forced to wear the hijab. Organizers of the demonstration said Paryani attended the protest, which was dispersed after the Taliban fired tear gas into the crowd of women.

Paryani belongs to a rights group known as “Seekers of Justice," which organized several demonstrations in Kabul, including Sunday's. The group's members have not spoken publicly of her arrest but have been sharing the video of Paryani.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch criticized the crackdown, saying that since taking over Afghanistan five months ago, the Taliban “have rolled back the rights of women and girls, including blocking access to education and employment for many."

“Women’s rights activists have staged a series of protests; the Taliban has responded by banning unauthorized protests,” the watchdog said in a statement after Sunday's protest.

The Taliban have increasingly targeted Afghanistan's beleaguered rights groups, as well as journalists, with local and international television crews covering demonstration often detained and sometimes beaten.

Also Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a statement asking the Taliban to investigate a recent attack on a documentary film maker Zaki Qais who said two armed men, who identified themselves as Kabul police officials, entered his home and beat him. One tried to stab him, according to Steven Butler, the CPJ's Asia program coordinator.

"Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers must immediately launch an investigation to identify and bring to justice those who attacked journalist Zaki Qais,” said Butler. “The Taliban’s continued silence on these repeated attacks on journalists undermines any remaining credibility of pledges to allow independent media to continue operating.”

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/ta ... apartment-
swamidada
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Post by swamidada »

BBC
Pakistan's first female Supreme Court judge sworn in

Mon, January 24, 2022, 9:19 AM
Pakistan's first female Supreme Court judge has been sworn in in the capital Islamabad.

Ayesha Malik, 55, now sits on a bench with 16 other male colleagues in the Muslim-majority country's top court.

Lawyers and activists said it was a rare victory after decades of struggle to get representation for women in Pakistan's male-dominated society.

Some lawyers and judges opposed Justice Malik's appointment as she was seen to be less senior than other candidates.

Pakistan's judiciary has been historically conservative and male-dominated.

It is the only South Asian country to have never had a female Supreme Court judge, according to Human Rights Watch. In addition, only 4% of Pakistan's high court judges are women.

Justice Malik, who was educated at the Pakistan College of Law and Harvard University, has served as a high court judge in the city of Lahore in eastern Pakistan for the last two decades.

She is seen to have played an important role in challenging patriarchal legal mores in the province.

Last year, she outlawed the use of so-called "virginity tests" during rape examinations of sexual assault victims.

Lawyers and activists have hailed Justice Malik's elevation as a historic appointment.

"It's a huge step forward," rights activist and lawyer Nighat Dad told AFP news agency. "It is history in the making for Pakistan's judiciary."

Others said there was much more still to be done.

Quoted in The New York Times, Islamabad-based lawyer Zarmeeneh Rahim said: "If women continue to be shackled by patriarchy and regressive interpretations of Islam, we will continue to not progress in terms of developing the human capital required to succeed nationally and globally."

But she added, "To finally see a woman sit on the highest court in the land is a small step forward in that struggle."

Justice Malik's appointment has been criticised by some and last year her elevation to the same post was voted down.

Her appointment to the Supreme Court was hotly contested once again this time around, with the nine-member commission passing her appointment by five votes to four.

In the months running up to this year's vote, many lawyers and judges also accused Justice Malik of jumping in front of a queue of more senior male candidates who were seen to be more qualified for the post. Some lawyers even threatened to go on strike if she was appointed.

Justice Malik was the fourth most senior judge in the lower court from which she has now been elevated.

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/pa ... 24603811.h
kmaherali
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Re: Women in Islam

Post by kmaherali »

As Kuwait cracks down, a battle erupts over women's rights

Image
Mashael al-Shuwaihan, who sits on the board of Kuwait's Women's Cultural Society, speaks during an interview, at a protest outside Kuwait's National Assembly in Kuwait City on Feb. 7, 2022. Her placard reads: "Freedom and equality for women are constitutional pillars."

KUWAIT CITY — It all started over yoga.

When an instructor in Kuwait this month advertised a desert wellness yoga retreat, conservatives declared it an assault on Islam. Lawmakers and clerics thundered about the "danger" and depravity of women doing the lotus position and downward dog in public, ultimately persuading authorities to ban the trip.

The yoga ruckus represented just the latest flashpoint in a long-running culture war over women's behavior in the sheikhdom, where tribes and Islamists wield growing power over a divided society. Increasingly, conservative politicians push back against a burgeoning feminist movement and what they see as an unraveling of Kuwait's traditional values amid deep governmental dysfunction on major issues.

"Our state is backsliding and regressing at a rate that we haven't seen before," feminist activist Najeeba Hayat recently told The Associated Press from the grassy sit-in area outside Kuwait's parliament. Women were pouring into the park along the palm-studded strand, chanting into the chilly night air for freedoms they say authorities have steadily stifled.

For Kuwaitis, it's an unsettling trend in a country that once prided itself on its progressivism compared to its Gulf Arab neighbors.

In recent years, however, women have made strides across the conservative Arabian Peninsula. In long-insular Saudi Arabia, women have won greater freedoms under de-facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

MIDDLE EAST
Kuwaiti trans woman got 2 years in prison for 'impersonating the opposite sex'

Saudi Arabia even hosted its first open-air yoga festival last month, something Kuwaitis noted with irony on social media.

"The hostile movement against women in Kuwait was always insidious and invisible but now it's risen to the surface," said Alanoud Alsharekh, a women's rights activist who founded Abolish 153, a group that aims to eliminate an article of the country's penal code that sets out lax punishments for the so-called honor killings of women. "It's spilled into our personal freedoms."

Just in the past few months, Kuwaiti authorities shut down a popular gym hosting belly dance classes. Clerics demanded police apprehend the organizers of a different women's retreat called "The Divine Feminine," citing blasphemy. Kuwait's top court will soon hear a case arguing the government should ban Netflix amid an uproar over the first Arabic-language film the platform produced.

More...

https://www.npr.org/2022/02/21/10820704 ... ens-rights
kmaherali
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Re: Women in Islam

Post by kmaherali »

Noor Muqaddam: Diplomat's daughter beheaded for spurning proposal

Image

A court in Pakistan has sentenced a man to death for raping and murdering the daughter of a former diplomat who refused his offer of marriage.

Noor Muqaddam, 27, was beaten, raped and beheaded by Zahir Jaffer, the son of one of Pakistan's richest families.

The brutal killing took place at his home on 20 July last year. CCTV footage showed her trying in vain to escape.

The murder caused nationwide revulsion and prompted demands for more to be done to ensure women's safety.

Noor Muqaddam's murder by a man she knew in the same group of high society friends had dominated headlines for months.

It brought calls for an overhaul of Pakistan's criminal justice system, which has very low conviction rates, particularly for crimes against women.

Hundreds of women are killed in the country each year, and thousands suffer violence. Many cases go unreported.


'Hair-raising details shared in court'
Shumaila Jaffery, BBC, Islamabad

In the days after her death, many demanded justice for Noor. Her family were present in the packed courtroom in Islamabad and were visibly emotional when the judge read out the verdict.

Jaffer held Noor Muqaddam hostage for two days at his family home in a posh district of the capital after she refused to marry him.

At one of the hearings, while being led out of the courtroom with around a dozen policemen, Jaffer told journalists: "I was angry, I killed Noor with a knife."

The hair-raising details shared in the court shocked Pakistan. Women's rights activists took to the streets and there were candlelit vigils.

Many women came forward and shared their own stories of domestic violence and sexual abuse.

line
Pakistan seethes over victim-blaming of gang-raped mother
Pakistan girls murdered over phone video footage
The girl paraded naked for 'honour'
How a rape was filmed and shared in Pakistan
Two of Jaffer's household employees were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for abetting the murder, while his parents were acquitted of trying to cover it up.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-60514698
kmaherali
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Re: Women in Islam

Post by kmaherali »

Thesis

Progressive Muslim feminists in Indonesia from pioneering to the next agendas


Abstract

MUTTAQIN, FARID, M.A., June 2008, Southeast Asian StudiesProgressive Muslim Feminists in Indonesia from Pioneering to the Next Agendas (162 pp)Director of Thesis: Elizabeth F. Collins

In this paper, I explore some progressive Islamic feminist organizations and their contributions to popularizing Islamic reform movements in Indonesia through their popular pioneering agendas. Some pioneers of progressive Muslim feminists, such asP3M, FK3, PUAN Amal Hayati and Rahima have killed two birds with one stone. They made an important impact on reducing stigma against Islamic reform ideas and feminism.Many Indonesian Muslims often consider Islamic reform movements and feminism a Western conspiracy to destroy Islam. Progressive Muslim feminist groups’ approaches to local Muslim scholars of pesantren (traditional Islamic boarding school) are vital in shifting these local leaders to be focal points of Islamic reform. With more popular issues of Islamic reform, such as reproductive rights and domestic violence, they create an efficient step to introduce Islamic reform movements to Muslims at the grassroot level.

The feminist organizations make a crucial follow-up activity by applying feminist perspectives in reinterpreting classical Islamic thoughts. They have produced a specific method of Quranic interpretation (tafsir) and consequently have created a particular Islamic thinking from the Qur’an and the Prophet Muhammad’s traditions (hadith). Indonesian Muslim feminists have developed their methods of tafsir through direct engagement with women’s experiences of violence. This effort is vital in spreading both Islamic reform movements and feminism within Indonesian Muslims.

The growing number of progressive Muslim feminists and their crucial contributions to popularizing Islamic reform movements in Indonesia lead conservative Muslim groups’ responses to attack the groups. Among other challenges for the progressive Muslim feminists are the growing Islamic shari’ah movements and the rise of conservative Islamic expression and the rise of polygamy practice within reformist and progressive Muslims. I make suggestions for how the progressive Islamic feminist movement can be strengthened in its struggle against conservative Muslims, including creating an accessible method of tafsir for more Muslim women’s groups, introducing a multicultural approach to traditional women’s groups likemajlis ta’lim, and broadening networks by making cooperation with homosexual movement activists.

The entire thesis can be accessed at:

https://www.academia.edu/2221649/Progre ... card=title
kmaherali
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The Taliban Pressure Women in Afghanistan to Cover Up

Post by kmaherali »

The militant group in charge of the country is aggressively enforcing a decree requiring coverings from head to toe and crushing rare public protests against the order.

Image
A market in Kabul, Afghanistan, in November. The Taliban show no sign of easing a crackdown not only on such basic rights as education and jobs for women, but also on every facet of public life.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Her mother begged her not to go to the protest, even as Maryam Hassanzada was on her way out the door.

But Ms. Hassanzada, 24, reassured her mother, then joined a dozen other women protesting a Taliban decree this month requiring Afghan women to cover themselves from head to toe.

Their faces uncovered, the women chanted “Justice! Justice!” and “Stop tyranny against women!” They protested for about 10 minutes before Taliban gunmen roughly broke up the demonstration. The protesters said they were held by Taliban security officials for two hours, questioned and berated, then released with a warning not to protest again.

Ms. Hassanzada was unbowed.

“If we don’t protest, the world won’t know how badly Afghan women are oppressed,” she said later.

These are perilous times for Afghan women. The Taliban show no sign of easing a crackdown not only on such basic rights as education and jobs for women, but on every facet of public life, from deportment to travel.

The cover-up decree, which also urged women to stay home unless they had a compelling reason to go out, followed a previous rule requiring women who travel more than about 45 miles from their homes to be accompanied by a male relative.

Image
Munisa Mubariz leading a protest in Kabul this month. When Taliban gunmen ordered her and other demonstrators to stop a recent rally, she shouted: “You cannot stop our voices!”

In August, the Taliban promised less restrictive policies toward women than during their previous rule in the late 1990s. “There will be no violence against women, no prejudice against women,” the Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters.

Instead, in a matter of months, the Taliban have imposed onerous decrees that have dragged women from the relative freedoms achieved over the past two decades to a harsh interpretation of Islamic law that smothers women’s rights.

On the streets of the capital, compliance with the decree is mixed.

In the Dasht-e-Barchi district, home to Hazaras, a predominantly Shiite Muslim minority, very few women cover their faces — except for surgical masks for Covid-19. But in nearby Karte Naw, an ethnic Pashtun area, part of the Sunni majority, most women wear hijabs, or head scarves, that cover their faces.

Outside the capital, most women seem to be obeying the decree. Across the country, women say that Taliban enforcers have accosted them, sometimes violently, and ordered them to cover up.

In the northern province of Takhar, Farahnaz, a university student, said the religious police had set up checkpoints to inspect rickshaws carrying women to class. Those who were not covered in all-black hijabs were roughed up and sent home, she said.

Image
Buying burqas in Kabul in November. Some women in the capital said that men on the street had harassed and berated them when they appeared in public with their faces uncovered.

“I had a colored head scarf but they sent me back home and said I had to wear a black hijab and niqab,” she said, referring to a garment that covers the hair and face except for the eyes. She asked to be identified by only her first name for fear of retribution.

Anisa Mohammadi, 28, a lawyer in Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan, said she had bought a burqa because she feared that her honor would be questioned if she did not wear it. She said the religious police there were closely monitoring women and ordering them to cover up.

In Baghlan Province, also in northern Afghanistan, Maryam, 25, a women’s rights activist who has refused to cover her face, said that a friend had been warned that she would be flogged if she continued to wear only a head scarf.

“I’m scared,” said Maryam, who asked that her last name not be published. “The Taliban told me that I’d better not come to the city again if my face is not covered.”

In Kabul, a 24-year-old university student who wore a head scarf but no face covering to a popular recreation area said that she had been struck on the head by a rifle butt wielded by a passing Taliban gunman who shouted at her to cover her face.

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Family members celebrating Eid in Kabul this month. The Taliban have urged Afghan women to stay home unless they have a compelling reason to go out.

Taliban gunmen have pointed weapons at female protesters, sprayed them with pepper spray and called them “whores” and “puppets of the West,” Human Rights Watch has said.

Local news media reported that some female students at Kabul University had been sent home by Taliban enforcers for not complying with the hijab decree. And Human Rights Watch reported that the Taliban religious police attempted to compel Afghan women working for the United Nations mission in Kabul to cover up.

Muhammad Sadiq Akif, spokesman for the Virtue and Vice Ministry in Kabul, denied that any women had been accosted or punished. He said that ministry patrols had not forced women to cover themselves but had merely explained the decree to encourage full compliance.

And he denied that women had been compelled to wear black hijabs, saying that they could wear hijabs of any color.

“Out of respect for the sisters of our country, we do not stop, summon or punish any women,” he said in an interview at the ministry, which has replaced the previous government’s Ministry for Women’s Affairs.

“The hijab is the command of God and must be observed,” Mr. Akif said, adding that the regulation for women was “for their own protection.”

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Muhammad Sadiq Akif, spokesman for the Virtue and Vice Ministry, in his office in Kabul this month. “Out of respect for the sisters of our country, we do not stop, summon or punish any women,” he said.

The decree, ordered by the Taliban’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, mandated a series of escalating punishments, including jail time, for male relatives of women who repeatedly refused to cover themselves. Mr. Akif said that some men had been formally warned, but not punished.

That pressure was denounced by some women. “My father and brothers do not have a problem with me,” said Mozhda, 25, a women’s rights activist in Mazar-i-Sharif who has refused to cover her face and asked to be identified by only her first name for fear of retribution.

Until the takeover last summer, the Taliban had been out of power for 20 years, and many women, especially in cities, became accustomed to the more relaxed mores.

“Women now are not like the women of 20 years ago, and the Taliban should understand that,” said Fatima Farahi, 55, a women’s rights activist in Herat, in western Afghanistan.

Ms. Farahi said that she and many other women in Herat had refused to cover their faces. So far, she said, she and her colleagues had not been threatened by the Taliban.

In Kabul, the protesters, who call themselves the Afghanistan Powerful Women’s Movement, vowed to continue to protest and to use social media to urge women to defy the decree.

When Taliban gunmen ordered them to stop a recent rally, a protest leader, Munisa Mubariz, shouted: “You cannot stop our voices!”

The women said they were warned that they would be jailed for five days if they protested again.

Five Western journalists and two Afghan reporters who were reporting on the demonstration were also held and questioned for two hours, separately from the women, and later released unharmed.

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Ms. Mubariz speaking to reporters during the protest in Kabul on May 10. The women who joined the rally said that they had been warned they would be jailed for five days if they protested again.

Mr. Akif of the Virtue and Vice Ministry said that the women who protested had made a mistake, and “were given the right understanding” of the decree by Taliban officials.

“It is not permissible to stand or protest against any kind of Islamic ruling and it is considered a crime,” he said. “If they understand and the right way is shown for them, they will never do these things. I’m sure they will comply.”

No way, said Zakia Zahadat, one of the protesters.

“I’ll be back — I won’t stop protesting,” Ms. Zahadat, 24, said. “We’re facing an economic crisis, a social crisis and a political crisis, but the Taliban only care about the hijab? Does this mean if we wear a hijab all our problems will be solved?”

Jamila Barati, 25, another protester, said, “Women have to fight for their rights, no matter the risks. I won’t stop protesting.”

Several women said that their husbands or parents had begged them to stop. The women said that they had received threatening phone calls from Taliban security officials. Some said that they moved from house to house to avoid detection.

Ms. Hassanzada said that her mother had asked her to stay indoors at all times.

But, Ms. Hassanzada said, she spent most of her time at home anyway since the Taliban fired her from her job at a government ministry. After she returned home safely the day of the most recent protest, she said, she repeated a promise she had made to her mother.

“I said I would never leave the house — except to protest,” she said.

Image
Maryam Hassanzada has joined demonstrations against the decree. “If we don’t protest, the world won’t know how badly Afghan women are oppressed,” she said.

Najim Rahim contributed reporting from Houston, and Safiullah Padshah and Kiana Hayeri from Kabul.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/21/worl ... ews_dedupe
swamidada
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Re: Women in Islam

Post by swamidada »

BBC
Nikhat Zareen: Indian wins gold at Women's World Boxing Championship
Fri, May 20, 2022, 12:29 AM
India's Nikhat Zareen has won the Women's World Boxing Championships in Turkey, becoming only the fifth Indian woman to be crowned world champion.

The boxer beat Thailand's Jitpong Jutamas 5-0 in the flyweight division of the championship on Thursday.

"Am I trending on Twitter?" an elated Zareen asked at the press conference after her win.

This is India's first gold medal at the championship since Olympic boxer Mary Kom won here in 2018.

Kom has been a six-time champion at the tournament. Other Indian women to win the gold medal include boxers Sarita Devi, Jenny RL and Lekha KC.

"Winning a medal at the world's is always a dream and [that] Nikhat could achieve it so early is extremely commendable," said Ajay Singh, president of the Boxing Federation of India.


Zareen's name trended on Twitter as congratulations poured in from across the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the boxer had "made India proud".


"It was always my dream to be a trend on Twitter and to achieve something for my country at the world level is the biggest motivation," she said after her win.

Zareen, 25, hails from the city of Nizamabad in the southern Indian state of Telangana. She was previously a junior youth world champion.

Her father Mohammad Jameel, who also played sports, has championed her career for the past decade.

Nikhat Zareen
Zareen said her target at the championship had been to win by a unanimous decision
"People would object to a Muslim girl wearing shorts to play sports and we learnt to ignore them. But when she won the youth championship, people changed their minds and said she'd proven herself," he told BBC Telugu.

On Thursday, Mr Jameel said he was "tense but confident" while watching the match.

"Nikhat has been playing so well in the lead up to this match that we were sure she would win. It's great news for the country and for the Indian boxing federation," he said. "I am grateful for her dedication [to the sport]."

In the final against Jutamas, judges scored the bout 30-27, 29-28, 29-28, 30-27, 29-28 in Zareen's favour.

"My target was to win by a unanimous decision if possible as it could have gone either way in a split decision," she said. "But the second round today was a split round. So I had to give it all in the third round and I am glad I could win."

At the post-match press conference, Zareen said the last two years had been challenging as the Covid pandemic made training difficult.

In 2021, Zareen lost to Mary Kom at the trials and failed to qualify for the Olympics. Since then, she says, she has focused on improving her game.

"I tried to improve. I worked on my strong points and on where I lacked in my game... All those hurdles which I have faced in my career have made me strong," she said.

Zareen will now prepare for the Commonwealth Games trials in which she will participate in the 50kg (110.2 lbs) category.

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/ni ... 28019.html
swamidada
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Re: Women in Islam

Post by swamidada »

BBC
Nilambur Ayisha: India actor who survived religious hate and bullets
Imran Qureshi - BBC Hindi
Fri, June 3, 2022, 11:43 PM
Nilambur Ayisha
Nilambur Ayisha was just 18 when a man shot at her on stage
The year was 1953. Nilambur Ayisha, 18, was on stage delivering a dialogue when a bullet whizzed through the air.

"It missed me and hit the stage curtains because I moved while speaking," recalls Ayisha, now 87, sitting at her home in the town of Nilambur (which became part of her stage name) in the southern Indian state of Kerala.

The shooter's attempt was just one among several - by religious conservatives who believed a Muslim woman shouldn't act - to force Ayisha off the stage.

But she went on acting, braving sticks, stones and slaps until, she says, "we managed to change people's attitudes".

'Wearing hijab doesn't make Muslim women oppressed'

India dancer who took on religious conservatives

Last month, Ayisha was in the front row when a new generation of actors in Kerala presented a reimagined version of the play she was doing when she was fired at - Ijju Nalloru Mansanakan Nokku (You try to become a good human being).

The new version opens with the shooting attempt at Ayisha and takes aim at religious conservatism among Muslims, much like the earlier version - except that it incorporates several recent incidents of intolerance and religious dogma, especially those intended to oppress women.

For instance, a few weeks ago, a senior Muslim leader in Kerala kicked up a controversy after scolding the organisers of an event for calling a female student to receive an award on a stage.

Protesters from various organisations take part in a demonstration in New Delhi on December 27, 2021, after the Indian police on December 24 said they have launched an investigation into an event where Hindu hardliners called for mass killings of minority Muslims
Communal attacks on India's Muslims have risen sharply in the past few years
Since 2014, when the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party swept to power in India, attacks on Muslims - the country's largest minority at 200 million - have risen sharply.

In turn, the minority community is also going through a political churn where moderate voices are finding it harder to counter what is sometimes an assertion of conservative practices in the name of championing religious identity.

Ayisha says she is worried that the conservatism she and her fellow artistes - many of them Communists - fought against in the 1950s and 60s is deepening in India, including in Kerala, often called one of India's most progressive states.

"We tried to change these attitudes earlier. But now, when there is objection to a young girl going up on stage, it feels like we are going back to those dreadful days,'' she says.

It began with a gramophone
Ayisha was born in a rich family which fell on hard times after her father's death. They received, she says, little help from community leaders when they struggled to survive.

Life was difficult, but she was happy to be at home. She had left briefly some years ago - when she was just 14, she was married off to a 47-year-old man, but walked out of the marriage after just four days. She realised later that she was pregnant but went ahead with divorcing him.

One day, she was singing along to a record on the gramophone - "the only item of luxury left in our house" - when her brother and his friend, playwright EK Ayamu, walked in.

At the time, a progressive theatre group backed by Communists was gaining ground in the state with dramas, fiery political songs and other forms of art. It inspired several smaller groups to attempt writing and staging plays.

But most of the roles - including those of women - were played by men.

Nilambur Ayisha
Ayisha has acted in several plays and movies
When EMS Namboodiripad - who in 1957 became India's first Communist chief minister when a government headed by him came to power in Kerala - watched one of these plays, he suggested to Ayamu that they find women to act in roles written for them.

When Ayamu heard Ayisha sing, he asked if she would play the challenging part of Jameela, a housewife who had a pivotal role in the drama.

Ayisha was ready, but her mother was worried that they would be ostracised by religious leaders.

"I told her that they never came to our rescue when we were in trouble. So how can they punish us now?" Ayisha says.

The play was a huge hit, but it also ruffled many feathers.

"There were a lot of attacks on us. Muslim conservatives found it blasphemous that a woman from the community was appearing on stage," says VT Gopalakrishnan, who played the son of Ayisha's character in the drama.

People threw stones at Ayisha when she was acting; her colleagues were attacked when they tried to protect her.

Once, a man jumped on the stage and slapped Ayisha so hard he damaged her eardrum - it left her with a permanent hearing disability. The man who shot at her was never caught.

Did these attacks scare her?

"Not at all. My strength only increased," Ayisha says.

"It was a humane drama about bringing out the good in people and loving others regardless of their backgrounds. That is also why our troupe was targeted so many times," she says.

Nilambur Ayisha

Ayisha's courage under fire has given her an undeniable place in Kerala's history, says Johnny OK, a senior journalist.

"She was part of the social reformation movement that made a difference through art and culture," he says.

Ayisha went on to act in several plays and films, but after a while, offers began drying up.

She then went to Saudi Arabia to work as a domestic helper "for how long, I can't remember".

When she returned to Kerala, she began acting again in Malayalam-language movies, winning awards for some of her performances. She is also invited to speak at workshops and programmes where many cite her as an inspiration.

Looking back, she says she has no regrets.

"I withstood everything, including the physical attacks. Today, at the age of 87, I can proudly stand before the world."

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/ni ... 34544.html
swamidada
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Re: Women in Islam

Post by swamidada »

The Florida Times-Union
Parvez Ahmed: Muslim faith community must speak out against domestic violence
Parvez Ahmed, Ph.D.
Sun, July 10, 2022 at 4:01 AM
It was a cold winter night in Jacksonville. A woman with only a phone in her hand darted out from a riverfront home. Fearing for her life, she hid behind the bushes near a dark street. In a panic she called her sister and at her urging she used the remaining 1 percent of battery on her phone to dial 911.

The police arrived on the scene and found her bruised and shaken. After speaking with her and the accused, they found probable cause to arrest her husband and mother-in-law. The police report describes the incident as “domestic battery,” which is a first-degree misdemeanor under Florida law and is defined as the touching, striking or the intentional causing of bodily harm of another family or household member without consent.

Despite the victim and her family being long standing members of the local mosque, no one from its leadership met with the victim. To the contrary, the victim faced enormous social pressure to reconcile with her abuser.

After meeting with the victim, I could not help but recall the award-winning Indian (Hindi) movie “Thappad” (“The Slap,” available on Amazon Prime), whose fiction mirrored reality. The movie revolved around a woman seeking divorce after she was slapped for the first time by her husband. She too faced enormous social pressure to reconcile because it was “bas itni si baat” (“such a small thing”).

Just as in the movie, the victim in the aforementioned incident encountered similar dismissiveness. From the ubiquitous “log kya kehenge” (“what will people say”) to the retrograde “shaadi mein sab kuch chalta hain” (“in a marriage anything goes”), were all distressingly familiar to many in the Muslim community.

Most imams — Muslim clergy — are untrained in professional counseling and yet they are the first person many turn to for help. For female victims, the situation is worse. While women are the primary victims of domestic violence, there are virtually no female imams to whom they can turn. Other than perfunctory sermonizing from the mosque pulpit about the mutual duties of a husband and wife, imams do very little to raise awareness about the scourge of domestic violence.

Juliane Hammer, author of the book “Peaceful Families: American Muslim Efforts against Domestic Violence,” noted that many Muslim American leaders feel ashamed to air the dirty laundry of their faith community. Concerns about rising anti-Muslim bigotry in society exacerbates the situation further. Muslim women fear that reporting or seeking help will draw even more negative attention to their faith community.
Fear of “log kya kehenge” overwhelms any urge to hold the abuser accountable, further silencing victims. In this twilight zone, abusers find compliant surrogates who use unhealthy religious guilt tripping. The Huffington Post in a November 2019 story titled, “Muslim Survivors of Domestic Violence Need You to Listen,” described it as, “cherry-picked lines of Islamic text to try to justify their actions and guilt their victims into staying in an abusive relationship.”

An article in the Journal of Muslim Mental Health noted that while Muslims in America constitute only 1 percent of the overall population, they account for 10 percent of the media stories on domestic violence. The preponderance of data shows that domestic violence is just as pervasive among Muslim Americans as it is in the rest of society. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, one in four women and one in nine men have experienced severe physical violence by an intimate partner during their lifetime.

Certain Quranic verses, such as 4:34 — when read without context — may appear to sanction marital violence against women. Preachers from the mosque pulpit need to make it unequivocally clear that domestic violence is not sanctioned by the faith, particularly given that Prophet Muhammad never struck or beat his wives.

Instead of silencing victims, the Muslim community will be better served by holding abusers accountable. Islamic sacred texts urge morally upright actions (Quran 4:135) and condemn slander (Quran 49:12 and 24:15), a practice that is often deployed by abusers to further oppress their victims.

But preventing pervasive domestic violence will take more than preaching. The booklet “Domestic Violence and Faith Communities,” published in 2016 by the State of New York, outlines a few practical steps that all faith communities can undertake to hold abusers accountable:

Focus on behavior, not the abuser’s social standing.

Refrain from conspiring with the abuser in any way.

Do not let fear prevent you from holding the abuser accountable.

Remove the abuser from any leadership roles, committees or groups.

Will my faith community give the issue of domestic violence its due urgency and in doing so prevent the next victim? Or will all this, yet again, be brushed under the rug as “bas itni si baat?”

Parvez Ahmed, Ph.D., is a two-term Human Rights Commissioner for the City of Jacksonville and professor at the University of North Florida. He has held numerous leadership positions in local and national Islamic organizations.

This guest column is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of the Times-Union.

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/pa ... 25506.html
swamidada
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Re: Women in Islam

Post by swamidada »

Jirga bars women from recreational spots in Bajaur tehsil
Anwarullah Khan Published July 17, 2022 - Updated about 22 hours ago

BAJAUR: A jirga of elders of the Salarzai tehsil in Bajaur tribal district on Saturday banned women from visiting tourist/picnic spots, and announced that if the government didn’t implement the decision by Sunday (today) the jirga members would take it upon themselves to impose it.

The all-male jirga (tribal council), held at the hilly Danqool area, was organised by the local chapter of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl, which is also one of the main members of the ruling coalition.

The move comes just days after the World Economic Forum, in its Global Gender Gap Report, ranked Pakistan as the second worst country in terms of gender parity in the world as well as the region.

Besides scores of elders from various tribes and areas of the Salarzai tehsil, a number of JUI-F leaders and religious figures of the region also attended the gathering, held after the JUI-F district leadership raised concerns during their presser on Thursday over what they called ‘unethical’ activities in the name of entertainment at Ragagan dam.

Council claims no room in Islam, local customs for women’s presence in public places

Addressing the gathering on Saturday, JUI-F district chief Maulana Abdur Rasheed -- who also belonged to the Salarzai region, senior party leader Haji Said Badshah -- who is also the chairman of Khar tehsil council, and other speakers pointed out that the jirga was meant to discuss several issues of the region that emerged during Eid, and resolve them peacefully and amicably.

The participants were told that it was noted that besides men, scores of local women either with their husbands and other relatives or separately had visited different tourist and picnic spots in the Eid holidays in the region, including Ragagan dam, to attend musical concerts and boat rides, which they claimed were against the local customs and traditions ‘based on Islamic principles’.

The speakers further said women visiting the said places for tourism and entertainment was “totally unethical and unacceptable” as, they claimed, there was no room for such activities both in Islam and local traditions, adding that a result-oriented move was vital to discourage such “anti-customs” practices in the region.

The participants, on the occasion, expressed concerns over women’s movement, and sought strict restrictions in this regard. The ban on women from visiting picnic sites was later announced by JUI-F’s Maulana Rasheed, calling it a “joint declaration” of the jirga. He said all the participants approved a complete ban on women’s visits to tourist spots -- with or without husbands.

“We want to promote tourism in our areas as it is vital for socioeconomic development of the region. We are only against women visiting such areas as it was in contrast to our customs and traditions. Hence, the jirga banned it,” he announced, adding such activities could not be allowed in the name of tourism.

He further stressed that if the government/district administration failed to take any action in this regard until Sunday (today), the jirga would enforce the ban itself.

According to the Maulana, the jirga had also requested the residents of Salarzai region not to take women in their families to picnic places now. It also asked the local authorities to recruit local residents in various departments in the district instead of outsiders.

There was no word from the district administration, nor was there any indication if the JUI-F-backed jirga decision had been endorsed by other political parties, or if it was indeed “representative” of the tribal council. The party has influence in the tribal district, but social activists said the announcement lacked any legal and constitutional backing.

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2022

https://www.dawn.com/news/1700005/jirga ... aur-tehsil
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Re: Women in Islam

Post by swamidada »

Afghanistan: UN expert
AFP Published May 26, 2022
UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, speaks during a press conference in Kabul on Thursday. — AFP
The Taliban government's restrictions on women are aimed at making them “invisible” in Afghan society, a UN human rights observer said on Thursday during a visit to the nation.

Since the Taliban stormed back to power last year, they have imposed harsh restrictions on women and girls.

Teenage girls have been shut out from secondary schools, while women have been forced from some government jobs and barred from travelling alone.

This month Afghanistan's supreme leader and Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada ordered women to cover up fully in public, including their faces.

These policies show a “pattern of absolute gender segregation and are aimed at making women invisible in the society”, Richard Bennett, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, told reporters in Kabul.

“The de facto authorities have failed to acknowledge the magnitude and gravity of the abuses being committed, many of them in their name,” Bennett said.

His comments came as Taliban fighters on Thursday broke up a women's protest calling for the reopening of secondary schools for girls.

“Angry Taliban forces came and dispersed us,” Munisa Mubariz, an organiser of the rally, told AFP.

In March the Taliban ordered all secondary schools for girls to shut, just hours after opening them for the first time since taking power in August.

The government has yet to offer a clear reason for the decision, but officials claim the institutions will reopen soon.

Foreign governments have insisted the Taliban's record on human rights, especially women's rights, will be key in determining whether the administration will be formally recognized.

During two decades of US-led military intervention in Afghanistan, women and girls made marginal gains in the deeply patriarchal nation.

Some Afghan women initially pushed back against the new Taliban curbs, holding small protests where they demanded the right to education and work.

But hardliners soon rounded up the ringleaders, holding them incommunicado while denying that they had been detained.

Since their release, most have gone silent.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1691590/talib ... -un-expert
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Afghan Women Reflect on the Anniversary of the U.S. Withdrawal

Post by kmaherali »

By Nahid Shahalimi

Ms. Shahalimi is an Afghan activist, filmmaker and author and the editor of the forthcoming collection “We Are Still Here: Afghan Women on Courage, Freedom, and the Fight to Be Heard,” from which this excerpt has been adapted.

Aug. 15, 2021, was a dark day for Afghanistan — and for Afghan women in particular. The Taliban took control of the country and, in what seemed like an instant, stripped women of their rights. Within days, professionals who had spent their lives studying, working and pursuing careers were afraid to walk the streets, safe only at home.

Since the new regime took power, it has issued dozens of bans and decrees limiting the liberty of women. It has removed women from the upper levels of government administration and banned girls from secondary education. In some areas, women can no longer appear on television dramas or get a driver’s license or travel long distances without male family members accompanying them. Cabdrivers are prohibited from picking up women who aren’t wearing hijabs; and public parks are segregated by gender.

The Ministry of Women’s Affairs was closed in September 2021 and replaced by the Ministries of Prayer and Guidance and the Promotion of Virtues and Prevention of Vice — morality police under the control of a Taliban minister. The entire cabinet is made up of men. In the government of this so-called Islamic Emirate, no women are wanted or permitted. In May, the Taliban announced that women must wear head-to-toe clothing — preferably a burqa — any time they are in public.

There have been nationwide protests, many led by women, but they are life-threatening acts. Punishments for participating in them are medieval. The Taliban, for instance, has been known to beat demonstrators and reporters with whips and cables.

For as long as I can remember, Afghan women have not had time to mourn. One disaster has succeeded another. We have lost loved ones, our homeland, our freedoms, our hopes. Now an entire nation and its youth are being denied access to education, information and a future.

But even still, the women of Afghanistan have not given in. They remain a significant — if disenfranchised — political and social force. Some are organizing protests. Some are responsible for international movements on social media. Others have started businesses, schools and information networks. In quiet, and sometimes not so quiet, ways, they are resisting. Talking to them gives me the strength to believe in the future again. We have found hope in solidarity.

In the testimonies that follow, five Afghan women reflect on the past year.

Image
Credit...Connor Willumsen

Razia Barakzai

Ms. Barakzai helped to organize some of the first protests in Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul.

Last August, I was working at the president’s office. My job involved working on major projects, including the creation of national parks and the building of online feedback portals for complaints and petitions. August 15 was my last day. We were asked to leave the presidential palace in Kabul because the city was devolving into chaos. I saw people running for their lives. The Taliban entered the palace that same day, and there was a sense of déjà vu in the air for those who had lived through the Taliban’s first rise to power.

Soon after I organized a demonstration with several other women. The hashtag we used — #AfghanWomenExist — started to spread on social media, and many women came out to join us. Some were afraid, as our protests were often met with violence from the Taliban guards. Demonstrators were tortured and threatened with tear gas, rifle butts, batons and whips.

As a result of the danger, I decided to leave Afghanistan. I am now working to advance our movement through press conferences, articles, videos and online rallies. We even proclaimed Oct. 10, 2021, to be World Women Solidarity Day With Afghan Women, and we saw global participation, both in person and on social media.

Our movement is growing. Hundreds of activists from all over the world have come together in support of us, and we have no intention of slowing down. When Afghan women raise their voices, whether they are in Afghanistan or elsewhere, it is a sign of our unity and solidarity.

Image

Credit...Connor Willumsen

Waslat Hasrat-Nazimi

Ms. Hasrat-Nazimi is a journalist covering Afghanistan for Deutsche Welle, a state-run international broadcasting service in Germany.

I was born in Kabul in 1988. My mother worked as a news anchor for Afghan state television, and my father studied medicine and took care of me. A man looking after his children while his wife went to work was a rarity then, as it is now. Despite growing up in an ultra-patriarchal society like Afghanistan’s (or perhaps because of it), my mother had a self-confidence that is usually reserved for Afghan men. As a kid, I would watch my mother on the evening news every night from our apartment. I remember even then that seeing her on television speaking about important things was strengthening and encouraging.

Compared to its neighboring states, Afghanistan enjoyed a relatively free press until the Taliban takeover last August. Although the country was rife with corruption and violence, the media also offered hope and made it possible for people to choose the information they absorbed. This, in turn, allowed them to form their own opinions about issues. Media, I concluded, was among the strongest pillars of the fragile Afghan democracy. This is one reason I decided to become a journalist.

In a recent survey of more than 500 women journalists in Afghanistan, 60 percent reported having lost their jobs since the Taliban came to power, and 87 percent reported experiencing gender discrimination during that time.

I don’t know what the future will bring, but things cannot continue this way. My hope for every girl in Afghanistan is that they can find a source of inspiration like my mother — one who will help pave the way for them to grow into strong women.

Image

Credit...Connor Willumsen

Fereshteh Forough

Ms. Forough is the founder and director of Code to Inspire, a coding school for women in Herat, Afghanistan.

Hailing from Herat, a city in western Afghanistan, my parents fled to Iran as refugees after the Soviet invasion. I moved back to Afghanistan in 2002, a year after the fall of the Taliban and the U.S. invasion, to attend Herat University.

In 2015 I founded Code to Inspire, a coding school for women and girls that uses technology, education and outreach to provide women in Afghanistan with leverage in their fight for equality. The results have been astonishing. Many of our graduates have found work in their communities and some are even earning more than men working in similar jobs. The ability to make money gives women greater influence at home and in a society like Afghanistan’s. As soon as women bring money into their households, their voices begin to be heard.

The school is still operating, though most of the classes have moved online. Going forward, my top priority is to ensure that my students can get jobs that bring them money and stability. But giving them face time with each other is important too. When they show up at school every day and see other women like them, they know they are not alone.

There’s a Rumi quote I think of often that feels relevant to what is happening in Afghanistan right now: “Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.”

When I look back at Afghanistan’s history — decades of war, conflict, and oppression — and compare it to today, as these events repeat themselves, all I see is ruin. Ruined lives and women locked away. But when you dig in ruins, there is always the possibility of finding something valuable.

To me, the girls of Afghanistan are our treasure. If I can give them the tools they need to be the best they can be, Afghanistan still has a chance to grow. Both in technology and in peace-building, they are leaders. I still believe we will overcome our current challenges, and I’m trying my best to continue the work we’re doing.

Image

Credit...Connor Willumsen

Aryana Sayeed

Ms. Sayeed is a singer, television personality and women’s rights activist.

For over 40 years the people of my country have dealt with an ongoing war, which grew out of a clash between those who long for progress and those extremely conservative-minded portions of the population that are stuck in the Dark Ages. While the new Taliban regime made claims about being more open-minded about the rights of women and the basic human rights of the Afghan people, its actions have proven otherwise.

At the time of writing, the Taliban has prevented girls from attending school after grade six. They have forced almost all women who worked for the previous government — and those who worked for private companies — to stay home. They are sucking the life out of the country. They have even begun to ban music.

I am heartbroken to think of the young girls in Afghanistan today who dream of being singers or dancers, or the girls who want to pursue their studies and become doctors, engineers or pilots.

A new generation is slowly coming to terms with the reality that they may not be able to pursue the life they expected. Girls and women who had started to feel like normal human beings are being forced to become prisoners in their homes again. Men and women, young and old, are all living in a state of fear and trauma, with poverty and unemployment soaring. Many of our people, including me, now believe only a miracle can save us.

Image

Credit...Connor Willumsen

Fatima Gailani

Ms. Gailani is a political leader and women’s rights activist who previously served as president of the Afghan Red Crescent Society.

I was one of four women who participated in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan 2020 peace negotiations in Doha, Qatar. During those talks, I saw how hope for peace had faded and the power of the Taliban over the country. But even now I am not convinced that negotiations are hopeless.

People like to dismiss politics, but over the past 40 years I have seen that — without a political solution — we always lose. Watching the country collapse and fall under Taliban control was very difficult. It was a pure act of force.

In my lifetime, I have witnessed the communists take power. I have witnessed the mujahedeen take power. I have now witnessed the Taliban take power. All of these attempts at government have ultimately failed because they haven’t had the support of the people.

In order to form a true Afghan government, the Afghan people have to be involved. I envision a government where everyone has a real say, where the government is shaped by the people themselves. If the Taliban will not listen to the Afghan people, if they do not see reality, they will lose. The only way forward is through unity. Our country needs to be repaired. We need to come together.

Nahid Shahalimi is an Afghan activist, filmmaker and author and the editor of the forthcoming collection “We Are Still Here: Afghan Women on Courage, Freedom, and the Fight to Be Heard.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/13/opin ... 778d3e6de3
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Re: Women in Islam

Post by swamidada »

Iranians take to streets for 12th night of women-led protests
AFP Published September 27, 2022 Updated about 8 hours ago
A woman reacts as she takes part in a protest over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, outside the Iranian embassy in the Cypriot capital Nicosia on September 27, 2022. — AFP

Iranians on Tuesday staged a 12th straight night of protests over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, in defiance of a crackdown that a rights group says has killed more than 75 people.

The women-led demonstrations flared after the 22-year-old Kurdish woman died in the custody of the notorious morality police for reportedly not observing the Islamic republic’s strict dress code.

Opposition media based abroad said widespread protests continued in different cities, but activists said internet restrictions were making it increasingly tough to get video footage out.

A woman is shown with her headscarf removed and waving her arms in the air in the Tehran district of Narmak, in a video shared by Manoto television channel, which also reported a protest in the southern port city of Chabahar.

Women are seen removing headscarves at Sanandaj, in Amini’s home province of Kurdistan, and a man torches a banner of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the southern city of Shiraz, in reports by London-based Iran International TV.

“Iran remains under internet/mobile blackouts but some videos are still getting out,” the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran said.

Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency said “around 60” people had been killed since Amini’s death on September 16, up from the official death toll of 41 authorities reported on Saturday.

But the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR) said at least 76 people have been killed in the crackdown.

Officials said Monday they had made more than 1,200 arrests. Those taken into custody have included activists, lawyers and journalists as well as protesters.

Health Minister Bahram Einollahi, quoted by the official news agency IRNA, accused the protesters of destroying 72 ambulances, while activists based abroad say the authorities have been using ambulances to transport security forces.

Tensions with West
The crackdown has drawn condemnation from around the world.

On Tuesday, US think-tank Freedom House joined the chorus and called on “other governments to stand with these courageous protesters and hold Iranian officials to account for their abuses”.

Tensions with Western powers have grown this week, with Germany summoning the Iranian ambassador, Canada announcing sanctions and Tehran calling in the British and Norwegian envoys.

“We call on the international community to decisively and unitedly take practical steps to stop the killing and torture of protesters,” said IHR’s director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.

Video footage and death certificates obtained by IHR showed that “live ammunition is being directly fired at protesters”, he charged.

Riot police in black body armour have beaten protesters with truncheons in running street battles, and students have torn down large pictures of Khamenei and his late predecessor Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in recent video footage published by AFP.

At least 20 journalists have been arrested, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Mahsa Alimardani, senior Iran researcher for freedom of expression group Article 19, said the internet blackout was as bad as during deadly November 2019 protests that erupted over fuel price rises.

“Content has stopped coming out as it used to. Pockets of access we had to Iran seem to be gone. This is a really frightening prospect for even more bloodshed,” she said.

‘Demands of the people’
The Iranian judiciary chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, has stressed “the need for decisive action without leniency” against the protest instigators.

But a powerful Shiite cleric long aligned with the country’s ultra-conservative establishment has urged authorities to take a softer line.

“The leaders must listen to the demands of the people, resolve their problems and show sensitivity to their rights,” said Grand Ayatollah Hossein Nouri Hamedani.

Western condemnation of the bloody crackdown has clouded diplomatic efforts to revive a nuclear deal between Iran and major powers that was abandoned by then US president Donald Trump in 2018.

The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who has led those efforts, on Sunday slammed Iran for its “widespread and disproportionate use of force against non-violent protesters”.

The United States last week imposed sanctions against the Iranian morality police, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday his own country would follow suit with a sanctions package “on dozens of individuals and entities”.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1712267/irani ... d-protests
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Re: Women in Islam

Post by swamidada »

AFP
Protest-hit Iran abolishes morality police
Sun, December 4, 2022 at 3:52 AM

Iran has scrapped its morality police after more than two months of protests triggered by the arrest of Mahsa Amini for allegedly violating the country's strict female dress code, local media said Sunday.

Women-led protests, labelled "riots" by the authorities, have swept Iran since the 22-year-old Iranian of Kurdish origin died in custody on September 16, three days after her arrest by the morality police in Tehran.

Demonstrators have burned their mandatory hijab head coverings and shouted anti-government slogans, and since Amini's death, a growing number of women have failed to wear the hijab, particularly in parts of Tehran.

"Morality police have nothing to do with the judiciary and have been abolished", Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.

His comment came at a religious conference where he responded to a participant who asked "why the morality police were being shut down", the report said.

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew Iran's US-backed monarchy, there has been some kind of official monitoring of the strict dress code for both men and women.

But under hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the morality police -- known formally as the Gasht-e Ershad or "Guidance Patrol" -- was established to "spread the culture of modesty and hijab".

The units were set up by Iran's Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, which is today headed by President Ebrahim Raisi.

They began their patrols in 2006 to enforce the dress code which also requires women to wear long clothes and forbids shorts, ripped jeans and other clothes deemed immodest.

The announcement of the units' abolition came a day after Montazeri said "both parliament and the judiciary are working" on the issue of whether the law requiring women to cover their heads needs to be changed.

Raisi said in televised comments Saturday that Iran's republican and Islamic foundations were constitutionally entrenched "but there are methods of implementing the constitution that can be flexible.

Morality police officers initially issued warnings before starting to crack down and arrest women 15 years ago.

The squads were usually made up of men in green uniforms and women clad in black chadors, garments that cover their heads and upper bodies.

The role of the units evolved, but has always been controversial even among candidates running for the presidency.

Clothing norms gradually changed, especially under former moderate president Hassan Rouhani, when it became commonplace to see women in tight jeans with loose, colourful headscarves.

But in July this year his successor, the ultra-conservative Raisi, called for the mobilisation of "all state institutions to enforce the headscarf law".

Raisi at the time charged that "the enemies of Iran and Islam have targeted the cultural and religious values of society by spreading corruption".

Iran's regional rival Saudi Arabia also employed morality police to enforce female dress codes and other rules of behaviour. Since 2016 the force there has been sidelined in a push by the Sunni Muslim kingdom to shake off its austere image.

In September, the Union of Islamic Iran People Party, the country's main reformist party, called for the hijab law to be rescinded.

The party, created by relatives of former reformist president Mohammad Khatami, demands authorities "prepare the legal elements paving the way for the cancellation of the mandatory hijab law".

As recently as Saturday it also called for the Islamic republic to "officially announce the end of the activities of the morality police" and "allow peaceful demonstrations".

Iran accuses its enemy the United States and its allies, including Britain and Israel, and Kurdish groups based outside the country, of fomenting the street protests.

More than 300 people have been killed in the unrest, including dozens of security force members, an Iranian general said on Monday.


Oslo-based non-government organization Iran Human Rights on Tuesday said at least 448 people had been "killed by security forces in the ongoing nationwide protests".

Thousands of people have been arrested, including prominent Iranian actors and footballers.

Among them was the actor Hengameh Ghaziani, detained last month. She had published on Instagram a video of herself removing her head covering. She was later freed on bail, Iranian news agencies reported.

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/pr ... 23537.html
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Re: Women in Islam

Post by swamidada »

Mursal Nabizada: Gunmen kill former Afghan MP at home in Kabul
Sun, January 15, 2023 at 8:51 PM CST
A picture of former Afghan lawmaker Mursal Nabizada
Mursal Nabizada was an MP until the Taliban takeover in 2021
A former Afghan MP and her bodyguard have been shot dead at her home in the capital Kabul, Afghan police have said.

Mursal Nabizada, 32, was one of the few female MPs who stayed in Kabul after the Taliban seized power in August 2021.

Her brother and a second security guard were wounded in the attack on Sunday.

Former colleagues praised Ms Nabizada as a "fearless champion for Afghanistan" who turned down a chance to leave the country.

Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, women have been removed from nearly all areas of public life.

Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran said security forces had started a serious investigation into the incident.

Former lawmaker Mariam Solaimankhil said Ms Nabizada was "a true trailblazer - strong, outspoken woman who stood for what she believed in, even in the face of danger".

"Despite being offered the chance to leave Afghanistan, she chose to stay and fight for her people," she wrote on Twitter.

Stay home, female Kabul government workers told

Finding Afghanistan's exiled women MPs

'If they find me, they will kill me'

Ms Nabizada, from the eastern province of Nangarhar, was elected as a member of parliament from Kabul in 2018 and stayed in power until the Taliban takeover.

She was a member of the parliamentary defence commission and worked at the Institute for Human Resources Development and Research.

Hannah Neumann, a member of the European Parliament, said: "I am sad and angry and want the world to know!" in response to the killing.

"She was killed in darkness, but the Taliban build their system of gender apartheid in full daylight."

Abdullah Abdullah, a former top official in Afghanistan's former Western-backed government, said he was saddened by Ms Nabizada's death and hoped the perpetrators would be punished.

He described her as a "representative and servant of the people".

Many women who had prominent professional jobs in Afghanistan after the US-led invasion two decades ago fled the country after the Taliban returned to power.

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/mu ... 13126.html
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Re: Women in Islam

Post by kmaherali »

*Why Did the Prophet Have So Many Wives?*

Question

I have a question regarding marriage and the wives of Muhammad. Why is it that, if Islam only permits up to four wives, and even then does not encourage it, Muhammad took nine wives? Also, one of his wives was only seven years old when he married her, and nine when he consummated the marriage, according to your Web site. This seems to me akin to child molestation! Also, one of his children was not from one of his wives, but from one of his “right-hand possessions” to quote your own Web site. Why is a woman called a possession? Is this a concubine? Why did he have intercourse outside of wedlock? Weren’t nine women enough for him? Muhammad’s own lifestyle seems to contradict the very teachings Islam claims regarding marriage and women.

*Name of Counsellor: Sahar El-Nadi*

Answer

Thank you for the ongoing dialogue with our page. We enjoy bouncing ideas back and forth with you, as it seems you’re researching Islam diligently.
Women are often brought into the picture when discussing Islam because their status—if not studied thoroughly and objectively—is severely misunderstood. Under those inaccurate assumptions, Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) is often accused of practicing and encouraging unjust treatment of women, while the truth is actually the opposite—as I hope you will see after reading this answer.

I’m encouraged by your thoughtful, questioning nature to attempt to crystallize the true picture of this great man. Let’s take an objective peek into his life, to examine whether or not Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) is that repelling womanizer. But first let’s go a little further back in history to look at the domestic lives of other prophets preceding Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) and what their Scriptures tell us about their stance towards the polygamy issue:

*Other Prophets Practiced Polygamy*

The fact that only Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) is accused of polygamy is rather surprising, since this is a privilege enjoyed by prophets before him. Their wives and concubines came in great numbers, too! The Torah, the Bible, and the Qur’an tell of some of them; the rest are not mentioned so we don’t know, but among the ones who were polygamous we can count Prophets Ibrahim (Abraham), Ya`qub (Jacob), Dawud (David), and Sulayman (Solomon). The Scriptures talk of polygamy as a “favor” bestowed upon them from the Lord.

First Kings 11:1-3 indicates that King Solomon had 700 hundred wives and 300 hundred concubines! In sealing treaties in ancient days, it was customary for a lesser king to give his daughter in marriage to the greater king. Every time a new treaty was sealed, Solomon ended up with yet another wife. These wives were considered “tokens of friendship” and “sealed” the relationship between the two kings. (Reasoning from the Scriptures on 1 Kings)

Scripture indicates that David also acquired wives and concubines, David’s blessings, including his wives, were given to him as a result of God’s favor (2 Sam. 5:12-13; 12:8; D & C 132:39).* Scriptural records say that the Lord did command some of his ancient saints to practice plural marriage. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—among others (D & C 132)—conformed to this ennobling and exalting principle; the whole history of ancient Israel was one in which plurality of wives was a divinely accepted and approved order of matrimony. Those who entered this order at the Lord’s command, and who kept the laws and conditions appertaining to it, have gained for themselves eternal exaltation in the highest heaven of the celestial world. (Mormon Doctrine of Plural Marriage p. 578)

*Islam Didn’t Invent Polygamy but Only Regulated It—in Favor of Women!*

From the above accounts, we can clearly see that Prophets—including Muhammad—were allowed to be more polygamous than their followers, not just for carnal reasons, but for political and religious reasons pertaining to their call. Consequently, it is groundless to wonder why Muslims can’t marry 12 wives like their prophet, just as it is groundless to wonder why Jews and Christians can’t marry 700 like theirs! Islam didn’t invent polygamy; Islam only made polygamy more humane, instituting equal rights for all wives. And even so, Muslim women are not forced to accept this and may put a condition against it in their marriage contract.

*The Qur’an Is the Only Holy Book That Actually Says “Marry Only One”*
Images of “sheikhs with harems” are not consistent with Islam, as, in fact, the general rule in Islam is monogamy not polygamy. the Qur’an says what means:
_{Marry women of your choice, two, or three, or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one.}_ (An-Nisaa’ 3:3)

Polygamy in Islam is not recommended; it is only permitted under certain guidelines. Permission to practice polygamy is not associated with mere satisfaction of passion. It is, rather, associated with compassion toward widows and orphans.

Before the Qur’an was revealed, there was no upper limit for polygamy, and many men had more than four wives. Islam put an upper limit of four wives, permitting a man to marry more than once, only on the condition that he deal justly with all of them. Yet the same verse points out:
_{Ye are never able to be fair and just as between women}_ (Al-Nisaa’ 3:129)

Therefore polygamy is not a rule but an exception.

*Why Is the Exception of Polygamy Allowed in Islam?*

The exception is made for many reasons, but let’s note only one here, addressing your concern that Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) “had intercourse outside of wedlock.”
In Western society, it is common for a man to have mistresses or multiple extra-marital affairs. Women in this case are degraded to mere sex objects with absolutely no rights; they’re usually on the losing end of such liaisons. The same society, however, cannot accept a man having more than one wife so that women can retain their lawful rights and lead an honorable, dignified, and respectable life.

If every adult American man married only one woman, there would still be more than 25 million women in the United States who would not be able to get husbands, at least considering that—according to latest statistics—10 percent of the American population is gay! That’s close to 30 million people!
Thus the only option for a woman who cannot find a husband is either to marry a married man or to become “public property.” Islam gives women the honorable position by permitting the first option and disallowing the second. At least one of the reasons Islam has permitted limited polygamy is to protect the modesty of women!

*Islam’s Straightforward Approach in Problem Solving*

In Islam, problems are supposed to be faced and solved—not ignored! So, rather than requiring hypocritical compliance, Islam provides legitimate and clean solutions to the problems of individuals and societies. There is no doubt that the second wife legally married and treated kindly is better off than a mistress without any legal rights. Through practical example, Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) as the guide of Muslims has set the applicable rules for this aspect of human relations in order not to leave anything for speculation.

*Stages of the Prophet’s (peace and blessings be upon him) Married Life*

First, let’s remember that Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) led a life supported only by the bare minimum of necessities. His wives were not idly wasting away the hours in a luxurious harem but led a life of labor and sacrifice, while he was mostly busy away from home overseeing his numerous duties as a Prophet. So, obviously, lust was not a factor, as he wasn’t even at home most of the time. Further, most of his marriages occurred at an age when lust is not a major factor in any man’s life:
1. He remained single until age 25.
2. From age 25 to 50 he was faithful to only one wife, Khadijah, who bore all his children except one. She was 15 years older than him, with children from two previous marriages. She was his greatest ally when he received the Call at age 40 until she died when he was 50 years old. He remained in love with her until he died and often talked of his life with her with great nostalgia.
3. Between ages 50 and 52 he remained unmarried and mourning his late beloved wife. He lived alone with his daughters.
4. Between ages 53 and 60 he married all his other wives for many noble reasons detailed below. It’s unimaginable for a man to suddenly turn lustful at this age, especially as he was constantly traveling, with bloodthirsty enemies on his heels.
5. At age 60, Allah revealed to him verse preventing him from marrying any more until he died, which was at age 63. The Qur’an says what means:
_{It is not lawful for you (to marry other) women after this, nor to change them for other wives.}_ (Al-Ahzab 33:52)

*Reasons for the Prophet’s Marriages*


We can categorize all his marriages under two aspects of his personality:
- Muhammad the man who needed a loving wife, children, and a stable home, so he married Khadijah and remained with only her for 20 years until she died.
- Muhammad the Prophet who married the other wives for reasons pertaining to his duty to deliver the Message to the world. Those particular women were carefully selected, not just haphazardly “acquired” for carnal reasons, as suggested. Here are some of the reasons for which Muhammad married:
1. To pass on Islam to the next generations as a practical legacy
Prophet Muhammad is the only prophet without any privacy, and with a meticulously preserved tradition in speech and actions in all minute details of his public and private life. Preserved in the sharp minds of his wives and his Companions, those narrations comprise the “daily life manual” for Muslims to follow until the end of time. The fact that Islam was spread on the shoulders of women and preserved in their hearts is a great honor to the females of this Ummah. The books of authentic Hadith attribute more than 3,000 narrations and Prophetic traditions to his wives alone.

2. *To cement the relations of the budding nation*
In a tribal society, it was customary to seal treaties through marrying into tribes. Muhammad’s closest Companions later became the four caliphs who led Islam at the critical stage after his death. Two of them were the fathers of his wives `A’ishah (daughter of Abu Bakr) and Hafsa (daughter of `Umar); the other two married his daughters (`Uthman married Ruqayyah and Zaynab in succession, and `Ali married Fatimah).

3. *To teach Muslims compassion with women*
He taught them to be compassionate not just to the young and beautiful maidens, but more so to the weak and destitute widows, divorcees, orphans, and elderly women. Islam teaches that women are to be respected, protected, and cared for by their men folk. They’re not to be cast out to face a harsh life alone while able men around them just pity them and do nothing to help, or worse, use their weakness to take them as mistresses!

4. *To offer a practical role model to Muslims until the end of time*
Although many believing women often approached Muhammad offering him themselves in marriage, he politely turned down their offers. Most of his wives after the death of Khadijah were old, devoid of beauty, and previously married, except `A’ishah, who was the only young virgin. He married from other nations and religions; some were the daughters of his worst enemies, and his marriage to one woman won all her people into Islam. Regardless of his neutral feelings towards many of them, he was a model example of equal justice and kindness to them all, and he would never discriminate among them.

*Who Were the Prophet’s Wives?*

Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) married 12 wives in his life. When he died he had 9 wives. They have a very special status in the hearts of Muslims as the “Mothers of the Believers,” as the Qur’an instructs, and they are the source of a great amount of wisdom which they learned while living close to such a great man. Perhaps you’d like to research a bit to find their beautiful stories, so here are their names: Khadijah bint Khuwaylid, Sawdah bint Zam’ah, `A’ishah bint Abi Bakr, Hafsah bint `Umar ibn Al-Khattab, Zaynab bint Khuzaymah, Umm Salama, Zaynab bint Jahsh, Juwayriah bint Al-Harith, Umm Habibah, Safiyah bint Huyay ibn Akhtab, Maymunah bint Al-Harith, Maria the Copt.

*Can We Consider His Marriage to `A’ishah a Case of Child Molestation?*

To answer your speculation, let’s continue our objective trip into the past. Obviously, when traveling back in time 1400 years to examine a lifestyle we never witnessed, it is unfair to apply our present day standards, so let’s listen to the experts. Authentic historical records prove that the social traditions of the time and place—regardless of religion—considered Arab females as women as soon as their menstrual cycles began. The custom was to give daughters in marriage at that age. This was practiced by all dwellers in Arabia before Islam: pagans, disbelievers, Jews, and others. It’s a fact that female menstruation in hot climates starts much earlier than in cold climates, so females in Arabia matured as early as 8 or 9; they also aged earlier than other women.

It’s a neglected fact that before she was married to Muhammad, `A’ishah had been engaged to an infidel, Jubair ibn Mus’ab ibn Ady. Her fiancé broke the engagement on the basis of religious difference. So her father, Abu Bakr, agreed to give her hand in marriage to the Prophet.

*The Great Wisdom in Selecting `A’ishah in Particular as a Young Wife*

`A’ishah (may Allah be pleased with her) came from a house famous for learning and memorizing great quantities of knowledge; her father was a live encyclopedia of Arab tribal pedigrees and poetry. She inherited his ability, and in her young, intelligent, receptive mind, she preserved a precious portion of Islam she learned during seven years of marriage, for 47 years after the death of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and she taught thousands of men worldwide their religion as she had learned it firsthand from the Prophet. To our present day, she is considered among the most prominent Islamic scholars, and she holds extremely high esteem in the hearts of all Muslims as such and as “the beloved of the Prophet,” who often mentioned her as the human he loved the most on the face of this earth. With her, he built a model Muslim home for Muslims to strive to imitate forever.

*Was Maria the Copt a Slave, a Concubine, or a Wife of the Prophet?*
Slavery already existed long before Islam. It was a system whereby a human captured in wars or kidnapped could be sold as a “possession.” That term applied to both sexes, not to women only. In some cultures slaves were considered subhuman and treated brutally. In Europe, for example, Romans threw Christian slaves to the lions while the public cheered; female slaves were thought to have no souls and were tortured mercilessly; slaves lived in degrading conditions; both sexes were forced to offer sexual favors to their masters; and as “possessions” they had no choice, no will, and no rights.

Islam recognized the human rights of slaves and encouraged Muslims to set slaves free. Islam prohibited adultery and homosexuality, and prevented forcing female slaves into sexual acts against their will. Islam encouraged educating them, setting them free, then legally marrying them and giving them their moral and financial rights. The reward for this—as mentioned in Prophetic Hadith—is eternal residence in Paradise.

Maria (may Allah be pleased with her) was not a concubine; she was a slave owned by Egypt’s Christian governor, who offered her and her sister Serine—among other presents—as a _“gift of good will”_ to the Prophet in reply to his envoys inviting him to Islam. On her way from Egypt to Madinah, she was curious to learn about “her new master” and listened to his Companions talk about him. As a result, she became Muslim before meeting Muhammad. Scholars’ opinions vary of her status afterwards; here is the opinion I support:
One of the prominent Al-Azhar scholars, Sheikh Abdul Majid Subh, states:
_“Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), instead of taking concubines, entered into lawful marriages based on reason and wisdom. Maria the Copt was given to him as a present, but rather than taking her as a concubine, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) married her, thus elevating her status by marriage.”_

*Women’s Rights in Islam Surpass Modern Systems*

If women in the Muslim World today don’t have their rights, it is not because Islam didn’t give them rights. Alien traditions have overshadowed the teachings of Islam, either through ignorance or the impact of colonialism. Most of the so-called modern reforms in the status of women appeared after the West abandoned religion for secularism. Those in the West who claim to follow the Judeo-Christian tradition really follow the values of Western liberalism.

In England and America less than fifty years ago, a woman could not buy a house or car without the co-signature of a male “guardian”! In Contrast, Islamic Law guaranteed rights to women over 1400 years ago that were unheard of in the West until the 1900s.

Numerous verses of the Qur’an state that men and women are equal in the site of Allah; the only thing that distinguishes people in His site is their level of God-consciousness.

▪︎Islam teaches that a woman is a full person under the law, and is the spiritual equal of a male. ▪︎Women have the right to own property, to operate a business, and to receive equal pay for equal work.
▪︎Women are allowed total control of their wealth.
▪︎ They cannot be married against their will, and they are allowed to keep their own name when married.
▪︎They have the right to inherit property and to have their marriage dissolved in the case of neglect or mistreatment.
▪︎Islam does not consider woman an “evil temptress,” and thus does not blame woman for Original Sin (a doctrine that Islam rejects).
▪︎Women in Islam participate in all forms of worship that men participate in.

Prophet Muhammad’s mission stopped many of the horrible practices against women that were present in the society of his time. He actually harnessed the unrestricted polygamy of the Arabs of the time, and put many laws in place to protect the well-being of women. In his Farewell Sermon just weeks before his death, he summarized the teachings of Islam to the believers in a final farewell. His last words were

“Be kind to women!”

Thank you and please keep in touch.
swamidada
Posts: 1436
Joined: Sun Aug 02, 2020 8:59 pm

Re: Women in Islam

Post by swamidada »

Thousands turn out to greet Mahrang Baloch in Quetta
Saleem Shahid Published January 26, 2024 Updated about 22 hours ago

QUETTA: Supporters of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee gather to welcome Dr Mahrang Baloch on her arrival from Islamabad, where she led a sit-in for several days to protest against enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in Balochistan.—PPI
QUETTA: After conducting a month-long protest sit-in in Islamabad, the participants of the Turbat long march, led by Dr Mahrang Baloch, arrived in Quetta on Thursday. A crowd of thousands, including students and women, warmly welcomed the marchers at the Sariab area near Balochistan University.

Initially reaching the Hazar Ganji area on the outskirts of Quetta, the marchers later proceeded in a significant procession to the Balochistan University area, where a large crowd had gathered to receive them.

The protest march had originated in Turbat following the alleged extrajudicial killing of Balaach Mola Bakhsh, attributed to the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD). The participants demanded the registration of an FIR against the officials involved.

Starting their march from Turbat, the participants travelled through various areas, ultimately reaching Islamabad. There, they staged a sit-in in front of the National Press Club, advocating for an end to enforced disappearances of students, political workers, and human rights defenders.

Additionally, they called for the establishment of a judicial commission to investigate the killing of missing persons.

Activist denies Islamabad sit-in ended after negotiations with govt

“In Islamabad, the policemen pulled the veil (chadar) from the heads of our women and also tortured them,” Dr Baloch said, adding that the Baloch nation should never forget the heinous act, nor should they forget their missing brothers “who have been suffering torture in state prisons for many years”.

“We knew from the first day that we would not get justice from Islamabad; we had no expectations from Islamabad before and will not have any in the future,” she said.

Dr Baloch said that some government leaders are falsely claiming that they ended the sit-in through negotiations and clarified that the sit-in was not ended based on negotiations with anyone.

“If Baloch don’t wake up today, their condition will be worse than the Bengalis tomorrow,” she said.

She urged the public to join the gathering scheduled in Quetta on Jan 27, emphasising that the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) would unveil its next course of action during this public meeting.

The BYC, led by Dr Baloch, announced on Tuesday that pressures from the police and other state institutions, along with the indifferent attitude of government functionaries, had compelled them to call off the protest in Islamabad.

Dr Baloch spoke to the media while their belongings were being packed on Wednesday. She said the sit-in was to highlight the issue of missing persons in Balochistan, and their responsibility has been fulfilled.

“Now the people of Punjab who are educated and have a higher degree of awareness take up this responsibility to speak for the missing citizens of this country,” she said, adding that the BYC had become stronger after this protest and would continue its movement against enforced disappearances.

Right after BYC left the Islam­abad campsite, Nawabzada Jamal Raisani, the leader of a rival camp set up by the Balochistan Shuhada Forum (BSF), announced that they were also winding up their camp as the key demand to establish a judicial commission had been met.

“I also had a meeting with the caretaker cabinet member Fawad Hassan Fawad and presented our demand to form a judicial commission, and we have been promised that the summary in this regard will be forwarded to the prime minister,” he said.

Additionally, Amnesty International has condemned the harassment faced by Baloch protesters in Islamabad.

In response, Caretaker Infor­m­ation Minister of Balochis­tan Jan Achakzai claimed that Amnesty International relied on “unverified claims, biased sources, and demonstrably false narratives” created by separatist elements with vested interests.

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2024

https://www.dawn.com/news/1808690/thous ... -in-quetta
kmaherali
Posts: 25105
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2003 3:01 pm

Shaykha Fariha Fatima al-Jerrahi

Post by kmaherali »

Image

Love, intimacy, and constant remembrance are the glorious way.
Essentially, love, love, and more love.
- Shaykha Fariha al Jerrahi

Shaykha Fariha is the spiritual guide of the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Order in New York City. She was born in 1947 into a socially committed, eclectic Catholic family in Houston, Texas. At the age of 29, she met her teacher, Shaykh Muzaffer Ozak of Istanbul, and received direct transmission from him in 1980. Shaykh Muzaffer also gave direct transmission to Lex Hixon (Shaykh Nur al-Jerrahi), who envisioned a radical and illumined path of the heart which he called Universal Islam. After Shaykh Nur's death, Fariha took on the guidance of the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Order, with circles around the world. This lineage offers the nectar of teachings of the Prophet Muhammed, peace be upon him, which guide the seeker to self-knowledge and immersion in God. The sacred practices of zikr, prayer, charitable living, fasting and retreat are all embraced. Every Thursday, Fariha with her husband Ali and the dervishes invite all seekers into the circle of zikr at the Dergah al-Farah in NYC.
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