Mission & Justice

Badea Abu Al-Naja; 14/5/08

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice arrested two Nigerian nationals on charges of practicing sorcery in the Mansura district of Makkah yesterday. Zainab, 37, and Nufa, 16, confessed that they claimed to have the power to break up relationships and make people impotent, Ahmad Al-Ghamdi, the commission’s director in Makkah, told Arab News. Nuha is the youngest witch to be caught ever by the commission in the Kingdom. After receiving several complaints, the commission on Saturday sent a woman to the two Nigerians to request their help to foil her husband’s plan to marry a second time. The duo demanded SR,3000 in remuneration from the woman, who paid an advance of SR1,000.

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8/5/08

A Malaysian court has allowed a convert to renounce Islam, a rare decision for the conservative Muslim-led nation. Othman Ibrahim, Penang Sharia Court judge, said he had no choice but to allow an application by Siti Fatimah Tan Abdullah, a Malaysian citizen of Chinese origin, to renounce her faith and return to Buddhism. Apostasy, or renouncing one’s faith, is one of the gravest sins in Islam and a very sensitive issue in Malaysia where Sharia courts have rarely allowed such renunciations and have also jailed apostates”The court has no choice but to declare that Siti Fatimah Tan Abdullah is no longer a Muslim as she has never practised the teachings of Islam,” Othman told a packed courtroom on Wednesday.

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Editorial; 6/5/08

It is probably very difficult, maybe even quite impossible, for the majority of us mere mortals to fully understand the sheer pressure imposed on politicians as they campaign for an election, let alone the strain on the candidates and their staff when running for the job of most powerful man on earth, a job which might very well go to a woman at the next U.S. election. The pressures of the campaign often force candidates to say and do many things they don’t mean or want just to get elected. They will kiss countless babies, even if they can’t stand the smell and the cries of youngsters. But they will do it for the photo op – and the vote. They will often make promises they know they cannot keep; and they will at times issue threats they also know they could never implement.

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5/5/08

Malaysian women’s groups have reacted with outrage to a government proposal to impose restrictions on women planning to travel overseas on their own. The mainly Muslim country is considering requiring women to obtain the written consent of their families or employers before being allowed to travel alone outside the country, state news agency Bernama said yesterday, quoting the foreign minister. “It is totally ridiculous and it’s a totally regressive proposal with regards to women’s right to movement,” Norhayati Kaprawi, a spokeswoman for Sisters in Islam said today. The National Council for Women’s Organisations called it unfair. “This is an infringement of our rights,” council deputy president Faridah Khalid told the New Sunday Times.

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Ron Rolheiser; 27/4/08

There is a popular theme within Christian apologetics that goes something like this: Christianity is the most hated of all religions and that is a certain proof of its truth. The logic works this way: If we are so unfairly hated, we must be doing something right. Truth and innocence draw hatred. Jesus was hated, and so are we. We need to be careful with that because, among other things, today, thanks to certain radical fundamentalists claiming to be Muslim, Islam is probably the most hated of all religions, and hated not because of what is true and best inside of it. Not only innocence and truth draw hatred. Being hated is not always a good sign or an indication that you (alone among the unfaithful) are holding to the real truth. It may be that you have made a vow of alienation rather than of love. Both eventually make you hated.

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Joseph Mayton; 1/5/08

Almost two months after Amal Soliman became the gem child of Arab world feminists when she was appointed as the Islamic world’s first female maazun (notary), the men in Egypt’s Ministry of Justice still have not given their seal of approval.  Nevertheless, the latent women’s groups across the region have taken her March appointment as a sign of optimism. Soliman, 32, grabbed national and international headlines in late February when her successful application was made public. She beat out 10 other candidates, all men, for the position of Islamic notary, which authorizes her to conduct weddings, sign marriage certificates and authorize divorces.  With her degree in Islamic law from the University of Zagazig, in the Nile Delta, Soliman is qualified to take on the challenges, her supporters argue. Indeed, the Egyptian Justice Minister Mamdouh Mari said in a statement: “Soliman’s nomination depended on her abilities rather than on her gender.” But there are many critics. Islamic scholars, intellectuals and some citizens bemoan Soliman conducting weddings by arguing that a woman has unique limitations that get in the way of the job.

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2/5/08

Two women were beheaded inside a house and their bodies burnt after suspicions of sorcery in Togoba outside Mt Hagen yesterday. The women from Chimbu and Western Highlands went through a nightmarish ordeal since Monday when heated pieces of metal were poked through their bodies and hot wire coils rolled around their bodies. The woman from Chimbu was married to a local man and had four children. The Western Highlands woman is a divorcee and has a son. According to two eye witnesses, the women were suspected of removing the heart of a PMV driver last Friday through sorcery, causing his death.

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A poem by the Persian, Sufi sage and philosopher, Molana Jalal-e Din Rumi, very relevant and timely, given today’s world situation

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Editorial; 29/4/08

Reports about runaway housemaids, abused housemaids, unpaid housemaids, criminal — even murderous — housemaids surface all too often in our media. Although the overwhelming majority of housemaids do not fall into any of those categories, there is an issue there — and it is firmly linked to the fact that virtually all housemaids in the Kingdom are expatriates. There are here alone, working behind closed doors, invisible to all except the families they work for; and they probably do not know their rights either. That makes them potentially vulnerable. Inevitably there are a few unscrupulous employers who take advantage of the situation. It is no mystery why housemaids are invariably expatriate — 1.5 million of them working in the country, mostly from Indonesia and the Philippines. The reason is a cultural bias. Conservative elements view the idea of Saudi women working for another family with distaste.

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Raid Qusti; 28/4/08

Labor Minister Ghazi Al-Gosaibi yesterday criticized people who reject the idea of Arab and Saudi women working as maids in Saudi households. “We are a society which is full of guardians,” Al-Gosaibi told reporters while answering a question about a proposal to have Egyptian housemaids in Saudi homes, as suggested by the Egyptian minister of labor. “The Prophet (peace be upon him) said that all of you are guardians and that every guardian is responsible for his family. He did not say all of you are guardians for entire society,” said Al-Gosaibi. The minister, who was surrounded by reporters when he met officials from Saudi Arabia’s governmental rights watchdog, the Human Rights Commission (HRC), said his ministry could not interfere if Saudi women, due to difficult financial conditions, wished to work as cleaners and cooks in people’s homes.

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