More on Sadakat Kadri on sharia, this time in the New York Times.

Today the confusion, Mr. Kadri makes plain in “Heaven on Earth,” is how to interpret this wide-ranging series of edicts, some from the Koran and many others based on hadiths, which are reports about the Prophet Muhammad written more than a century after his death. Scholars have sets of interpretations; increasingly freelance jihadists have their own.

Of course they do, and that’s why questions about ”how to interpret this wide-ranging series of edicts” are otiose. That was then, this is now, we have to come up with our own “edicts” based on reasons and subject to review and reform.

In his reading of the Shariah, he

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A lawyer called Sadakat Kadri was on Fresh Air yesterday to talk about his new book on the history of sharia. He’s very critical of the idea that sharia courts are a bad thing. He’s of the “it’s all a matter of interpretation” school, as if that by itself solves the problem of goddy law.

“It’s a huge oral tradition, which was set down in the 9th century and which was then, by some people, transformed into compulsion and rules,” Kadri tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross. “It would be literally impossible to follow all of them, because plenty of them directly contradict each other. So you have to make choices, and Muslims have been making choices for … the

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Another episode of human inhumanity to other humans.

Kuala Lumpur. Malaysian police have detained a couple over the alleged murder of a Cambodian maid after the 24-year-old woman died of possible prolonged starvation, police said on Thursday.

Mey Sichan’s employers telephoned for an ambulance on March 31 but paramedics found her dead on arrival, Nasir Salleh, police chief of the northern state of Penang, told AFP. She also had bruises to her body.

A post-mortem revealed that she died from acute gastritis and ulcers likely due to lack of food over a long period, he said. The maid had been working for the family, who manage a hardware shop, for eight months.

“Definitely what happened to Sichan is inhumane.

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Don’t be in too much of a hurry to point and laugh. This could be a brilliant idea: Cornwall Council has told its schools

that pagan beliefs, which include witchcraft, druidism and the worship of ancient gods such as Thor, should be taught alongside Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

…

And an accompanying guide says that pupils should ‘understand  the basic beliefs’ of paganism and suggests children could discuss the difficulties a practising pagan pupil might face in school.

But the council’s initiative has dismayed some Christian campaigners, who are alarmed that a religion once regarded as a fringe eccentricity is increasingly gaining official recognition.

While at the same time a religion once regarded as entirely mainstream and Normal and right … Read the rest

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The BBC does some investigating in Uzbekistan. It finds a nasty habit of sterilizing women without their knowledge or consent.

Sterilisation is not, officially, the law in Uzbekistan.

But evidence gathered by the BBC suggests that the Uzbek authorities have run a programme over the last two years to sterilise women across the country, often without their knowledge.

Foreign journalists are not welcome in Uzbekistan, and in late February of this year the authorities deported me from the country. I met Adolat and many other Uzbek women in the relative safety of neighbouring Kazakhstan. I also gathered testimony by telephone and email, and in recordings brought out of the country by courier.

None of the women wanted to give

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The Economist paints a grim picture of the outlook for non-alternative aka sane medicine.

By one recent count four in ten American adults use some form of alternative therapy. If Dr Weil’s flourishing business and other programmes are any indication, these will grow even further. For six decades double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trials have helped doctors to sort science from opinion and to sift evidence from anecdote. Now those lines are blurring.

…

Powerful supporters have helped the cause. King George VI helped to ensure that homeopathy would be part of Britain’s newly created National Health Service (his grandson, Prince Charles, is also a fan). Royal Copeland, an American senator and homeopath, saw to it that the Food, Drug and Cosmetic

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A guest post by Bruce Everett

Day two – Friday: Canapés and Entrées…

The official story was, I’m told, that the canapés were a part of some kind of standard package. This apparently counted against all the forms filled out by ticket holders, marking ‘vegetarian’ or ‘vegan’ (or whatnot).

I wasn’t around at the Global Atheist Convention in 2010 to compare, but I’m told there were similar issues then with vegetarian food. I can’t honestly say I was irked, myself, but there were grumbling veggies with grumbling tummies in earshot, that made their views apparent.

(Please note, I absolutely do not attribute the cause of this gastronomic mishap to any of the volunteers from the Atheist Foundation of Australia – … Read the rest

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