Author: Allen Esterson

  • The MCB and the Muslim Marriage Contract

    On 21st August 2008 Reefat Drabu of the Muslim Council of Britain posted an article on the Guardian’s Comment is Free website in which she defended the decision of the MCB to withdraw support from the proposed
    Muslim Marriage Contract as follows:

    The marriage contract produced by the Muslim Institute is simply one interpretation of shariah. It is not the shariah that needs to be re-invented, but a change in behaviour among some sections of our diverse Muslim communities. This is an onerous task that cannot be achieved through blustering demands and emphatic slogans that will only resonate in the salons of Islington and Notting Hill…

    MCB represents and serves diverse Muslim communities…The MCB is a broad-based inclusive organisation of Muslim communities living in the United Kingdom. It recognises and respects the choice of Muslims to follow such interpretation of the shariah in relation to marriage as they wish.

    Perhaps inevitably, Drabu also made the right noises as appropriate for living in a modern state: “Marriage governed by shariah should give women respect, protection and empowerment.”

    But the reality behind the MCB decision is hidden away in this statement in the last paragraph:

    Disappointed by the initiative, we would like to start again, create a wider consensus and deliver real change based on traditional scholarship and community buy-in.

    I did not realise the full implications of this sentence until I heard the early morning BBC Radio 4 “Sunday” religious affairs programme on 24th August on which there was an item on this issue. Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra of the MCB was invited to explain why the organisation would not endorse the proposed marriage contract. He stated:

    Sharia and religious law is the domain of the theologians and the jurists and they are the experts. They will apply the laws according to their knowledge and their understanding…”

    According to Trevor Barnes, the BBC religious affairs reporter who spoke next, there are chiefly two aspects of the new marriage contract that have caused controversy:

    One is that the British Muslim men waive their religious right to take another wife, and [the other], that the woman be allowed to marry whomever she wishes. Traditionally it’s the father or close male relative who gives permission for the woman to marry. Under the new proposals this so-called “marriage guardian”, or wali, may be female, and even non-Muslim…

    When asked which current marriage arrangements are at odds with British culture, Mogra said that, as on issues such as the drinking of alcohol, “the attitude that many jurists have taken with regards to the conditions to the marriage [is that] if the law requires the woman to be represented by her male guardian, that is the law.”

    His MCB colleague Reefat Drabu agreed:

    What MCB would like to do is to have one document that encompasses all the different schools of thought and sort of kitemarks it so that it is something that everybody can use.

    So now we know the reality behind the sentence I highlighted above from Drabu’s last paragraph in the Guardian article. The MCB wants a marriage contract that is what we might call Muslim inclusive, encompassing “all the different schools of thought” among Muslim jurists. In other words, they want a document that allows the woman’s father, or nearest male relative, to be designated as the wali even if she would rather have someone else of her own choice, and allows men to have more than one wife. Beneath the high-flown phraseology about giving women “respect, protection, and empowerment” in the Guardian article, that is the reality behind the MCB’s opposition to the new marriage contract. They may point out other items they object to, but in the final analysis it is evident that they will not accept a marriage contract that ensures that the woman may choose her own wali, or that prevents a man having more than one wife.

    I leave the last word to Dr Usama Hasan, Director of The City Circle:

    Too many fathers have abused their right of wilayah (guardianship) over their daughters and too many husbands have abused their right of initiating divorce for us to continue with law rooted in patriarchal societies. It is high time that Muslim women enjoy the same rights and freedoms under Islamic law as they do under present legal systems in the UK.

    August 2008

  • Personal and religious views

    No that’s not right.

    The ACLU sued in January, and Smoak ruled this summer that Davis violated Heather Gillman’s rights. “I emphasize that Davis’s personal and religious views about homosexuality are not issues in this case. Indeed, Davis’s opinions and views are consistent with the beliefs of many in Holmes County, in Florida, and in the country,” Smoak wrote in an opinion released last month. “Where Davis went wrong was when he endeavoured to silence the opinions of his dissenters.”

    But that doesn’t work. Davis’s personal and religious views about homosexuality are issues in this case. They’re an issue because they’re not sufficiently convincing or justified or universal or defensible to justify his actions. If they had been, they would be. If the student had been violent, or threatening, or a cheater, then the principle would be both permitted and right to discipline her. The reason he doesn’t get to discipline her for being gay is that the law has evolved in response to general societal acceptance of the idea that homosexuality doesn’t actually harm anyone and shouldn’t be treated as a crime. Davis’s personal and religious views are that homosexuality does do harm (though it’s never very clear to whom, when Christians get in a lather about the subject) and should be treated as a crime. So his views are an issue and they are being set aside. As they should be – and it’s no good pretending they aren’t.

  • Florida School District Sued Over ‘Witch Hunt’

    Federal judge reprimands school principal for targeting gays; locals consider principal a hero.

  • What’s a Pastor Doing Interrogating Candidates?

    We pretend we’re not applying a religious test when we’re really applying a religious test.

  • Katha Pollitt on Obama’s Faith-based Plans

    In other wealthy industrialized countries, children learn to read in school, not the church basement.

  • Effort to Ban Trans-religion Organ Transplants

    Egyptian Med Assoc wants to prohibit transplants between Muslim donor and Xian recipient or vice versa.

  • Channel 4 Returns to Undercover Mosque

    One preacher calls for adulterers, homosexuals, women who act like men and apostates to be killed.

  • HRH’s Fantasy Farming Won’t Feed Africa’s Poor

    Organic peasant agriculture is a solution for the angst of affluence, but not hunger. Its apotheosis is the ban on GM crops.

  • Burchill is Wrong: Religion is Anti-feminist

    Religion is and always has been antithetical to women’s freedom and equality.

  • ITV Nixes ‘Imam of Dibley’

    The lawyers said it might be culturally insensitive. Isn’t everything.

  • Christian feminist is an oxymoron

    Oi! Catherine Elliott is writing our book.

    [T]he term “Christian feminist” is an oxymoron; it’s a glaring contradiction in terms on a par with “compassionate conservative” and “pro-life anti-abortionist”. Christianity is and always has been antithetical to women’s freedom and equality, but it’s certainly not alone in this. Whether it’s one of the world’s major faiths or an off-the-wall cult, religion means one thing and one thing only for those women unfortunate enough to get caught up in it: oppression. It’s the patriarchy made manifest, male-dominated, set up by men to protect and perpetuate their power.

    You’ll have noticed that male clerics like to say that they’re terribly sorry but it’s an absolute rule of their outfit that women can’t be clerics because you see it has always been that way and therefore it is heresy to change it now. Convenient but not convincing.

    Since men first conceived of the notion of a single omnipotent creator, that divine being has taken the form of a man: no matter what name he answers to, be it Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, or just plain God, what’s not in doubt is that he’s a he. His teachings and his various holy books reinforce the message that this life exists for men, while the best women can hope for is some kind of reward in the next one; as long as we do as we’re told of course, without questioning our lords and masters, and as long as we manage to remain pure of heart and mind while we prostrate ourselves at their feet.

    And crank out the babies and cook the food and grow the crops – don’t forget that part. Oh and close the legs or open them as commanded by their owner.

    It’s in the name of social cohesion that the Archbishop of Canterbury now expects us to quietly accept the inevitability of Sharia law in this country: one rule for us and another for our Muslim sisters. Well I’m sorry archbishop but no, there should be no ifs or buts on this one; we’re either equal under the law or we’re not. We should be no more prepared to sell out Muslim women in the name of religious tolerance than we are Christian women.

    Quite. See Chapter 6, passim.

  • Sahotra Sarkar Reviews Steve Fuller on ID

    For readers seeking an introduction to the technical issues surrounding creationism, this book is useless.

  • ‘Elitism’ Has Become a Political Slur

    The political definitions of elitism in the US are now being broadened to include knowledge itself.

  • MCB Defends Itself

    Finds a woman, sends her out to say how diverse the MCB is and how elitist its critics are.

  • Ed Husain on the MCB’s Betrayal

    The MCB endorsed the new Muslim marriage contract, then backtracked. Bastards.

  • She’s 77 – and nearly blind! That’s a good one.

    Well that’s nice – not just suppression and punishment of protest, not just breaking promises to citizens and the rest of the world alike, but a sadistic bait and switch into the bargain. ‘We’re having the Olympics; we’re in a cheerful and generous mood, so you can protest; here, we’ve even allocated three parks for the purpose, where you can protest. Have fun. We love you.’

    At least a half dozen people have been detained by the authorities after they responded to a government announcement late last month designating venues in three city parks as “protest zones” during the Olympics. So far, no demonstrations have taken place.

    Ah. Three parks. The Olympics almost two weeks old now. Half a dozen people or more ‘detained’ for taking the bait – and so far no demonstrations at all. Hmmm. Why that almost begins to sound as if the authorities don’t actually mean to allow any demonstrations to take place after all. It even begins to sound just a little bit as if all they ever intended was to lure people into applying for permission to demonstrate so that they could then exclaim ‘We didn’t mean you!’ and arrest them while laughing themselves into fits.

    Xinhua, the state news agency, reported that 77 people had submitted protest applications, none of which had been approved. Xinhua, quoting a Public Security spokesperson, said all but three applicants had dropped their requests after their complaints had been “properly addressed by relevant authorities or departments through consultations.” The last three applications were rejected as incomplete or violating Chinese law.

    Ah. 77 applications – and not one approved. Violating Chinese law – the one against protesting, no doubt. That announcement about the protest zones seems to have forgotten to mention that the law against protests is still in effect. Hahahahahahahaha – they’re a funny bunch, those Public Security jokers.

    Gao Chuancai, a farmer from northeast China who was hoping to publicize government corruption, was forcibly escorted back to his hometown last week and remains in custody. Relatives of Zhang Wei, a Beijing resident who was also seeking to protest the demolition of her home, were told she would be kept at a detention center for a month. Two rights advocates from southern China have not been heard from since they were seized at the Public Security Bureau’s protest application office last week.

    Suckers! Hahahahahahahahaha.

    Two women in their late 70s have been sentenced to a year of “re-education through labor” after they repeatedly sought a permit to demonstrate in one of the official Olympic protest areas, according to family members and human rights advocates. The women, Wu Dianyuan, 79, and Wang Xiuying, 77, had made five visits to the police this month in an effort to obtain permission to protest what they contended was inadequate compensation for the demolition of their homes in Beijing. During their final visit, on Monday, Public Security officials informed them that they had been given administrative sentences for “disturbing the public order,” according to Li Xuehui, Wu’s son. Li said his mother and Wang, a former neighbor who is nearly blind, were allowed to return home but were told they could be sent to a detention center at any moment. “Can you imagine two old ladies in their 70s being re-educated through labor?” he asked.

    No, I can’t! Stop with the jokes, you’re slaying me.

  • China Sentences Two Elderly Women

    For applying for permits to protest indequate compensation for demolition of their homes.

  • Two Phantoms of the Beijing Opera

    IOC president Jacques Rogge, and Ji Sizun who applied for a permit to protest.

  • AC Grayling Reviews Richard Holloway

    A rounded picture of the moral life must take in not only the banality of evil, but human sociality.

  • Convert Lets Cat Out of Bag

    ‘As a Muslim woman living in a secular liberal society, you are caught between two very different worlds.’