Criminal Minds, S1E21 Quote 1

No human or a person can ever claim that he / she has complete knowledge or truth, since no human can ever gain complete knowledge or know exact truth. Only Allah or God or Yahweh or Bhagwan or whatever other name you have for a Supreme Being can ever claim or say that because only It knows the what the real truth is.

Allah revealed that truth in Quran & whoever reads it, without any biases or presumptions, & with an open mind, starts to see the real truth & gain that knowledge, which will benefit him / her the most in this mortal life & in the immortal life in the hereafter.

Disclaimer: Yes, Albert Einstein was an atheist, & hence, most likely didn't believe in the latter half of the quote.

Sisters In Law

A good piece on Saudi women learning about their rights, & laws related to women, in the kingdom. The article brings forth quite a few issues & I'll analyse 2 of them here:

1. Saudi women, with whom the author spoke, kept saying that there's nothing wrong with the Saudi legal system or Saudi legal system in regards to women's rights is among the best in the world. Saudi legal system is primarily based on Sharia, Islamic legal jurisprudence, which has its bases in Quran, Prophet Mohammad's (Peace Be Upon Him) Sunnah, & the 4 main schools of thoughts in Islam (Saudis follow the Hanbali school of thought). So, the question arises, how can anything be wrong with a legal system, which has been made by the Creator, itself?

Now, yes, the monarchy does have its hand in the molding of the law in the way it likes, but it can only do so to a certain extent, & cannot do too much changes in the legal system, regardless of how much it wants to make laws in its own favour.

Islam gave women their legal & social rights back in 600 AD. They are perfect in every sense. But, today's Muslim women see the West & want to emulate their form of feminism in their homes, in their relationships, in their social circles & in their society. First of all, Western form of feminism & women's rights are not feminism at all. Making a woman dance naked in the middle of street is not akin to giving her freedom to do anything. Absence of clothes does not make a woman more powerful in the eyes of the society. Muslim women who are trying to follow the Western form of feminism are essentially going against the orders of their Creator, God (Allah), who they claim to love a lot (if you love your Creator so much, then you may not want to disobey its orders). That's why, the Islamic countries are being destroyed socially, culturally, & religiously, because women are making the Western feminism as their ideal form of liberation.

2. Now, part of the reason Muslim women are emulating Western feminism is their cycle of thought that Muslim men are so abusive & have so much power, because Islam gives them so much power, & hence, there's something wrong with Islam that it is not moving forward with the changing society & has stayed backward in the 600 AD.

As we can see from the article that even Saudi women have no knowledge of their rights in Islam & Saudi Arabian legal system. Quran is primarily written in Arabic language. The same language Saudi women speak in their society. So, a religious book, which is written in their own language, should be easily understandable to women, when they are reading it. But, it's apparent, that they never bothered to dig deeper in Quran & its legal jurisprudence to learn about women's rights in Islam, in depth.

That's a huge problem with Muslims, nowadays. Be it men or women, Muslims are not reading & understanding their own religious book, Quran, & Sunnah, to understand it in depth & learning what their rights & obligations towards Allah, towards each other in different kinds of relationships, & towards their society are. After all, even in secular / non-religious areas, ignorance of a country's laws can never be used as a defense in committing a crime. It is obligatory for each & every Muslim to learn what the Quran, Sunnah, & jurisprudence says about issues in their lives. As we learn from the article that once these Saudi women came to learn what are their rights in Islam & Saudi Arabia, they are talking about the laws are good, but their application is not, which is due to sheer ignorance.

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https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/01/11/sisters-in-law

In September, 2014, Mohra Ferak, 22 years old and in her final year at Dar Al-Hekma University, in the Saudi port city of Jeddah, was asked for advice by a woman who had heard that she was studying law. The woman was the principal of a primary school for girls, and she told Ferak that she had grown frustrated by her inability to help children in her charge who had been raped; over the years, there had been many such cases among her students. Regardless of whether the perpetrator was a relative or the family driver, the victim’s parents invariably declined to press charges. A Saudi family’s honor rests, to a considerable degree, on its ability to protect the virginity of its daughters. Parents, fearing ruined marriage prospects, chose silence, which meant that men who had raped girls as young as 8 went unpunished, and might act again. And for some of the girls, the principal added, the secrecy only amplified the trauma. She asked Ferak if there was anything that she, as principal, could do to help them.

“I told her, ‘You can go to court and ask the judge to make the proceedings private and save the girl’s reputation,’ ” Ferak recalled one recent afternoon. ... The principal was amazed to learn that Saudi plaintiffs can request closed court proceedings. She began peppering Ferak with legal questions, many of them about how to advise teachers who were in abusive marriages, or whose ex-husbands wouldn’t allow their children to visit. The principal was in her early fifties, which meant that, as a school administrator, she was among the best-educated Saudi women of her generation. Well into the 1980s, according to UNESCO, fewer than half of Saudi girls between the ages of 6 and 11 had received any education outside the home. But, Ferak said, it quickly became clear that the woman knew little about the fundamental principles of Saudi law.

Ferak had been a middling student during her first 3 years at Dar Al-Hekma, an all-female university. A week after talking with the principal, she went to Olga Nartova, who chairs the law department, and described the conversation. Nartova, a 36 year old trade-law specialist from Moscow, had previously found Ferak to be bright but unmotivated, like many girls from well-off families. But Ferak spoke about women’s rights with a seriousness of purpose that Nartova had never seen in any student at Dar Al-Hekma.
...

With Nartova’s encouragement, Ferak began planning a series of free public lectures at the university, aimed at women and delivered by distinguished legal scholars and lawyers. The presentations were designed to provide basic information about Saudi women’s legal rights. “Since I was very young, and started noticing how women are treated in this country, I’ve had this feeling about women,” Ferak said. “I don’t like anyone to underestimate us.” But women’s rights aren’t a subject of mainstream public discussion in the kingdom, and she wondered whether anyone besides the principal would attend. She also worried about how the experts would react to being approached by a student.

Ferak compiled a list of topics that she felt were of particular importance to local women, and she began contacting lawyers. The first lecture in the series, which Ferak called Hawa’a’s Rights (Hawa’a is the Arabic version of the name Eve), was publicized on Twitter and took place on the evening of April 15th. Several dozen attendees learned about crimes perpetrated against women on social media, a topic of special concern in a country where single people of opposite sexes cannot spend time together without risking arrest, and where pressure on women to cover their faces in public can be so intense that the most innocent head shot can serve as a tool of blackmail.

The second Hawa’a’s Rights lecture, on April 26th, addressed personal-status law, the category of Saudi law that governs marriage, divorce, guardianship, and inheritance. The lecturer, Bayan Mahmoud Zahran—a 30 year old Jeddah attorney who, in January, 2014, became the first Saudi woman to open a law firm—was scheduled to begin speaking at five o’clock, launching an evening of discussion that would run until nine. Late that afternoon, Ferak arrived at the university to find a long black line of abaya-clad women waiting to be seated.

Institutions and businesses that serve Saudi women are carefully guarded, so as to prevent ikhtilat, illegal gender mixing, and the only male employees of a Saudi girls’ school or women’s college are its security officers, who are stationed at the checkpoint outside, inspecting identification cards and keeping watch for male intruders. The security guards were overwhelmed by the turnout for the second Hawa’a’s Rights event. Ferak corralled several friends, and they spent the half hour beforehand rushing from classroom to classroom, looking for extra chairs to carry down to the space that had been reserved. They filled the aisles and the back of the room with additional seats, straining the hall’s intended capacity of 120.

“There were students, mothers, teachers, lots of workers in shops—really, every kind of woman, even doctors from the university,” Ferak told me. “All of us were just looking at each other, thinking, Is this even possible?” When Nartova came out of her office, a few minutes before Zahran’s talk, she saw women struggling to find standing room in the back and on the stairs, while others sat on the floor by the dais. Ferak texted a photo of the packed hall to her father, who had shared her initial doubts about interest in the lectures. He teasingly texted back, “Are you trying to make women fight with their husbands?” The third Hawa’a’s Rights lecture, a practical introduction to Saudi labor law for women just entering the workforce, attracted a still larger crowd. The university did not schedule a fourth event.

In 2004, Saudi Arabia introduced reforms allowing women’s colleges and universities to offer degree programs in law. The first female law students graduated in 2008, but, for several years after that, they were prohibited from appearing in court. In 2013, law licenses were granted to 4 women, including Bayan Mahmoud Zahran. Journalists and legal scholars in the West wondered if a fresh contingent of female attorneys would champion women’s rights. But, of the dozens of female lawyers and law graduates I spoke with on a visit to Saudi Arabia in early November, only two would admit to any interest in expanding rights for Saudi women. So far, the greatest effect of the reforms seems to be a growing awareness, among ordinary Saudi women, of the legal rights they do have, and an increasing willingness to claim these rights, even by seeking legal redress, if necessary.

The lawyers conceded that, by international standards, these rights might not look like much. According to Saudi law, which is based on Sharia, a Saudi woman’s testimony in court is, with few exceptions, valued at half that of a man. A homicide case, for example, normally requires testimony from two male witnesses; if only one is available, two female witnesses may be substituted for the other. The guardianship system—which requires an adult woman to get permission from her guardian before travelling overseas or seeking medical care—gives Saudi women a legal status that resembles that of a minor. In fact, the male relative with responsibility over a Saudi woman may be her own adolescent son.

A Saudi woman cannot leave her home without covering her hair and putting on a floor-length abaya. She cannot drive a car. Since 2013, women have been allowed to ride bicycles, but only in designated parks and recreation areas, chaperoned by a close male relative. The marriages of Saudi women are usually arranged, and it remains extremely difficult for women to obtain divorces. Husbands, in contrast, may marry up to three other women “on top of them,” as the Arabic expression goes, and in some cases may end a marriage in the time it takes to repeat “I divorce you” three times—or to type the so-called triple divorce formula into a text message.

In December, 2007, I arrived in Saudi Arabia for the first time. Although I had read thousands of pages about Saudi laws and cultural conventions, it was a shock to confront the system as a lived reality. Abundant resources go into maintaining the women-only bank branches, government offices, shops, and other businesses that make up the infrastructure of gender segregation in the kingdom. ...
...

Today, several thousand Saudi women hold law degrees, and 67 are licensed to practice, according to justice-ministry figures released at the end of November. ... Two of the Jeddah firms where Ferak has applied for jobs in recent months indicated interest, but then told her that they lacked the license from the kingdom’s labor ministry which authorizes a business to let women work in its office. The labor ministry requires firms that employ women to build separate areas for female workers, allowing them to communicate with male colleagues without the risk of being seen by them. In supermarkets, which have employed women since 2013, low partitions suffice, because semi-public spaces are easily monitored by members of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, the kingdom’s religious police. But businesses that operate from enclosed workplaces, such as offices, face tougher regulations. One result of these restrictions, Ferak explained, is that, at present, only the largest Saudi law firms employ women.

Despite her frustrations, Ferak pointed out that women’s efforts to gain more respect and influence in Saudi public life have been progressing rather quickly, considering the country’s relative youth, and especially considering the Arabian Peninsula’s tribal, deeply traditional culture. Ferak appeared to be echoing the “baby steps” theory of social progress, often put forth by Saudi leaders as a way of excusing rights abuses or the rhetorical excesses of government-backed clerics. It wasn’t clear how sincerely she believed it. ...
...

Nevertheless, Ferak, like every other female law graduate I spoke with, wanted me to understand that individual Saudis and local traditions, not Saudi laws, were the source of her struggles. Saudi laws, she insisted, were “perfect” (a word that I heard at least half a dozen times, from other women her age, in reference to the Saudi legal system). Saudi women’s woes were merely the result of the laws’ misapplication. The fact that I’d sought her out seemed to surprise her, and to raise concerns that foreigners might misunderstand. Although Saudi men sometimes mistreated women, the solution lay not in changing the system but in educating women about their rights within the existing structure.

Perhaps surprisingly in a country notable for its strict rules, relatively little of Saudi law is written down. The legal system has been augmented, during the 83 years since the kingdom was founded, by royal decrees, many of which overlap, or even contradict one another. This body of law is interpreted by senior clerics, who serve as judges, largely following the Hanbali School, the strictest of the four main schools of Sunni jurisprudence. The notion of judicial precedent does not play a role in Saudi law, so judges enjoy considerable freedom of interpretation.

Yet the system’s ambiguities also preserve the need for a monarch with final authority, and this means that the personality, moods, and tastes of the head of state are felt in the lives of his subjects in ways that would be unimaginable to citizens of a modern democracy. Absolute power, Saudis say, has a way of trickling down, of turning ordinary policemen and public officials into petty tyrants. Justice is often situational; the law is what a person in a position of power decides it is. If devout Muslims openly question Islamic teaching, they are vulnerable to accusations of heresy, which is a capital crime in Saudi Arabia. And the risks of questioning have grown in recent months. The current Saudi king, Salman, came to power following the death of King Abdullah. Since then, accusations of heresy and of apostasy—also a capital crime in Saudi Arabia—have increasingly been levelled against government critics. ...
...

... Across the kingdom, the atmosphere is newly cautious, and a young law graduate who wishes to speak of her growing awareness of injustice in Saudi institutions knows that she must express herself with enormous care.

Several days after my conversation with Ferak at the Lebanese restaurant, I set out to meet Bayan Mahmoud Zahran, whose law firm has made her the most famous female Saudi lawyer in the world. ...
...

Zahran’s firm is expanding, with a half-dozen employees and a fledgling corporate department ... . But women with personal-status cases make up the majority of her client base. The judicial system puts women at a disadvantage, she said. “Women generally are more emotional, and they can’t get their rights because they’re so emotional, and they just cry,” she told me. She seemed to suggest that the main obstacle was not the legal system but a tendency of women clients to become overwrought. Female lawyers can help, she said, because they can “understand the emotion and translate it into something valid for the court.”

Some of the lawyers I met said that women increasingly insist on being represented when inheritances are divided. In early October, at the end of the Islamic calendar year, the Saudi justice ministry announced that in the past twelve months there had been a 48% increase in cases of khula, divorces initiated by women. A Saudi newspaper reported that such divorces now make up a “staggering” 4.2% of the total. ...

Yet in this privacy-obsessed society, with its weak traditions of individual rights, many Saudi women still struggle to obtain legal information. As far as any of the lawyers I interviewed were aware, the Hawa’a’s Rights initiative has been the only organized attempt to educate Saudi women about the law. Eight months after the series ended, Ferak continues to receive messages suggesting new topics and asking when to expect another event. Sometimes, Ferak said, her correspondents plead with her not to give up, telling her that the lectures changed their outlook—even the arc of their lives. During her last year at Dar Al-Hekma, Ferak found a new purpose in her studies, and her grades rose sharply. She told Olga Nartova, “I realized why I was studying law.” She hopes to continue the Hawa’a’s Rights lectures, but has not found a venue. Intrigued by the Western understanding of human rights, she has begun to explore graduate programs abroad, where she might study the subject.

On the afternoon of the first Hawa’a’s Rights lecture, Salwa al-Khawari, a teacher at a girls’ school, was heading home when her friend Nour mentioned the event. On learning that the subject of discussion would be women’s rights within the Saudi judicial system, Khawari rearranged her evening in order to attend, and later rallied friends to go to the subsequent discussions. She told me that it had never occurred to her that Saudi women had any legal rights, and she had resented the way that the legal system treated women. “I always thought that the flaw lay in the laws,” she told me. Now, like Ferak and many other lawyers I spoke with, she expressed new confidence in the justice of Saudi law. “Our laws concerning women’s rights are among the best in the world,” she said.

The real problem, she added, was lack of access to information. After the lecture series, Khawari began reading all she could about women’s rights in Islam, and sharing what she learned with her 12 and 13 year old students. Last spring, she gave up her teaching job to study full time toward a master’s degree in social work, with a concentration in human rights. Since then, she said, some of her former students have initiated discussions of women’s legal rights with older women in their families and among their neighbors, and they have asked Khawari to help them assemble leaflets on the subject. Khawari said, “They tell me they want to do something for Saudi society.”

Katherine Zoepf is a fellow at New America. Her first book, “Excellent Daughters: The Secret Lives of Young Women Who Are Transforming the Arab World,” came out in 2016.

Criminal Minds, S1E14 (quote 1)

Pretty clear what it is saying; essentially, an eye for an eye.

Young American Muslims would rather live under Sharia law

I've talked about how young Muslims, growing up in the West, feel alienated, in one of my previous blog posts.

The parents of these young Muslims immigrated to US, from their own troubling countries, & have first-hand knowledge of what goes on there or how bad those countries are; Somalia, Sudan, Middle Eastern countries, Pakistan, Afghanistan etc.

Then, after immigrating to the West, those parents had 3 options of how to raise their kids; strict Islamic & within the boundaries of their own cultural background, take a balanced approach between Western & Eastern values & cultures, or take the proverbial "do as the Romans do while in Rome" approach. All these approaches have their own pros & cons, but all in all, they all will work until their kids are younger than teen years & haven't started building their own identities.

Once, their children get into their teen years & start developing their own identities, with the help of their peer groups, their own understanding of Islam, & depending on the level & kind of support they got from home, then those children start to either see the hypocrisies, discriminations, & biases in the Western societies against Islam & Muslims, or they become just one of many ignorant Westerners.

Now, this article, in itself, is flawed, in the sense, that we all know that you cannot take a very small sample (a little slice of the Somali community in only one American city, Minneapolis) & extrapolate it to all American Muslim children. You are going to get shocking, & certainly wrong, results, if you do do that.

Having said that, & depending on what kind of Muslim children we are talking about here (as I explained above), the results may completely surprise you or they may not. For example, there are many children of Ismailis in the West, who are second or third generation Westerners, & they don't want to go back to Uganda or Kenya. Looking at these people, a person who knows & understands Islam, would never recognize that these Ismailis are Muslims, since, they don't have a problem with drinking, pre-marital sexual relations, dating, wearing clothes that even respectful non-Muslim Westerners would hesitate wearing etc.

These "children" consider themselves South Asians but they don't want to go back to an Islamic country, since their parents took the proverbial "do as the Romans do while in Rome" approach in raising them. There are also new generations of Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Nigerians, Arabs etc. who have the same attitude towards Islam & they will never give away their freedoms to go back & live in the countries from where their parents originated.

On the other hand, there are Somalis, Pakistanis, & children of people from Middle Eastern countries, who are completely opposite on the spectrum. They are very strict in abiding by the rule of Quran, or Shariah, & would not consider otherwise, regardless of how much it benefits or harms them.

The attitudes of these latter kinds of Muslim youths become a problem for the West when these youths are alienated by the society. Their friends become other Muslim friends who think like them, & not the "white" ones, who drink & party. When these Muslim youths grow up further & become of age where they start looking for jobs, they are again made to feel alienated by the labour market, which discriminates based on name & appearances. Western labour markets are heavily based on "networking." While "laissez-faire" Muslims change their names & appearances to network & mingle in the labour market, Muslims, who are strictly following Islam, are left behind. This happens regardless of merit or education or skills background. That further alienates & angers those Muslims who follow Islam & Quran by the book. They start to feel that those noble values their parents & teachers led them to believe while they were young that the West is fair, just, honest, & people in the West respect honesty & truth, & the jobs are based on objective merit, etc. are all a façade.

These feelings of alienation & anger lead to believe these Muslim youths that they won't feel such alienation in their countries where there is Islam & Shariah-based laws. Since, they have not lived in those countries, themselves, for a long time, they have not experienced some harsh realities of living in those countries. These feelings of alienation & anger are also currently making many Muslim youths to join such groups as ISIS.

So, not all young Muslim Americans want to live under Shariah law. There is a wide spectrum. Some do & some don't. The ones who do want to live under Shariah law are made to think like that by the false promises the West made itself to these people. The West portrayed a very noble picture of a honest, fair, just, & an objective society, but fell far short of it. And whenever, reality falls far short of the expectations, anger & disappointment follows.
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http://www.rt.com/usa/263529-us-muslims-sharia-law/

A US film maker, Amy Horowitz, went out onto the streets of Minneapolis to speak to young Muslims & found that most of those questioned would rather live in the Muslim countries they came from & under Sharia law than in the US.

Horowitz asked the simple question: “Do you feel more comfortable living under American Law or do you feel more comfortable living under Sharia law?”

The majority of the people answered that they’d rather live under strict Sharia law. Sharia law gives women virtually no rights at all, they can be married at the age of 9, & is a literal interpretation of the Quran, which governs all aspect of life.

Horowitz then asked Muslims in a predominately Somali area of Minneapolis if they would rather live in the US or Somalia.

Somalia, which has been engulfed in civil war for 3 decades, is one of the poorest countries in the world. Yet most of the Somalians Horowitz spoke to said they would prefer to live there than in the US, except for one young boy who said he wanted to live in Saudi Arabia.

Horowitz believes that many young Muslims he spoke to answered the way they did because they feel alienated from US society, despite being born or growing up in the US.

“What we find among the Muslim immigrants in Europe & the United States is that the first & second generation are more radical than their parents, they’re not integrating as time goes by & there’s a larger alienation,” he told RT.

One young Somalian wearing a baseball cap & speaking fluently in a strong American accent said he did not feel American.

“I speak fluent [English] & I can articulate what I’m trying to say, but other than that, as far as my culture & my preferences & everything I’m still Somali,” he said.

Horowitz explained that it is this generation of immigrants that has become problematic to Western countries.

“The fact that the vast majority of young people I asked would rather live in Somalia or Saudi Arabia as opposed to the United States, it blew me away,” he said.

Criminal Minds, S1E12 (quote 1)

Don't blame the evil deeds you yourself do on a supernatural being. As the Quran says that we humans can be better than angels or worse than devils.

Analysis of the piece, "Banning the Niqab harms an open society...."

Although, this opinion piece starts out great but after the first paragraph, it's all downhill from there due to it being full with erroneous information & confusing the simpleton living on the main street.

Let's break down some of the problems with this piece:
 
1. Confusing the reader was evident from the piece & as such commented on it by a reader (Matt Hughes) that if we come across a veiled woman on the street, then what do we think or who do we blame; is it the woman's own choice of that niqab or her male relatives who forced her to wear it?
 
Most people don't like grey areas & as such, Mr. Joe & Jane Sixpacks on the main street will either ignore that veiled woman outright or start harassing her or her male relatives. If the Muslim woman says that she is wearing it on her own accord then the response will be that "you are brainwashed by your misogynistic male relatives (brother / husband / father). They won't understand that thin line between what's wrong with niqab in a liberal democracy & being forced to wear it.
 
2. Niqab is "anti-liberal" & "anti-democratic". Let me ask this then, why are there laws against indecent exposure in a liberal democracy? Per the author's logic that in a liberal democracy, the government cannot force an individual to dress a certain way. As he eloquently rephrased Pierre Trudeau's line that the state has no business in the dressing rooms of the nation, why are there laws against nudists roaming the streets in downtown areas of Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, & Montreal?
 
A liberal democracy certainly has no rights in the dressing rooms of the nation, but it also certainly doesn't have any rights to single out a tiny minority & make a pariah out of it without ever understanding the reasons behind a certain practice.
 
3. Author never made any distinction between a niqab & a hijab. Several people, & as such evident from the comments to the piece, that both hijab & niqab, are considered one & the same. (Comment by "NewsReader" that "the niqab is clearly misogynist. So is the hijab.").
 
There's a huge difference between a hijab & niqab, but the Mr. Joe & Jane Sixpacks on the street don't have a clue of that, since they have not understood Islam to its full extent & they have also not often interacted with Muslims, with different Islamic cultural practices.
 
4. To begin with the obvious, niqab & hijab have everything to do with Islam. Perhaps, the author likes to open the Quran & go to Chapter 33, Verse 33 where it says, "and stay in your houses & do not display your finery like the displaying of the ignorance of yore ...." Although, this is directed towards Muslim women of "7th-century Arabia" & specifically, the wives of Prophet Muhammad & mothers of all Muslims worldwide, this is applicable to all Muslim women today.
 
Just because a majority is not following a certain practice, it doesn't mean that the practice is outdated now. Using the same logic, Christians should stop the "outdated" practice of fasting & prayers during Lent, since the majority don't observe Lent nowadays. Or Jews should stop the "outdated" practice of observing Shabbat since the majority of Jews don't observe Shabbat nowadays. We can keep going discussing "outdated" practices in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, since majority of the people around the world are not following their religions as dictated in their religious books & scriptures but I think the reader got the point.
 
Now, as I stated above that although, this was a practice of "7th century Arabia," Muslim women of today must dress how the Arab Muslim wives of Prophet did in his time. Question arises then that it was a cultural practice & Quran never actually dictates how a Muslim woman should dress.
 
True, but then Quran never provide specifics for a lot of things in Islam. Hadiths (sayings, practices, lifestyle of Prophet Muhammad) provide the specifics, but then, obviously, the Prophet did whatever he did in "7th-century Arabia" was according to that Arabian culture & times. Let's take a few examples:

a. Prayers: Quran only orders Muslims to pray. It never provide any specifics into it. So, why don't Muslims pray like singing in a choir (Christianity) or as an interpretive dance (Hinduism)? Why do they recite Quranic verses in Arabic when most Muslims of the world don't even have Arabic as their mother tongue? Why do Muslims do all those poses of standing, sitting, or prostration?

b. Fasting: Quran only orders Muslims to fast. So why don't Muslims fast from dawn till noon only? Why don't they fast like some people do in other religions e.g. drink water & don't take solids? Why Muslims abstain from sexual relations while fasting?

c. Alms: Quran only orders Muslims to give alms. So why don't Muslims give 10% of their gross income, similar to Christians? Why don't Muslims calculate alms like we all fill out our complicated taxes?

d. Pilgrimage: I think the readers got the idea that Quran only says perform pilgrimage. How, when, what, of pilgrimage are all provided to us in Hadiths.

So, it seems like that all pillars of Islam are based on the teachings of Prophet Muhammad & were passed down to today's Muslims through these Hadiths. Since, he was living in "7th-century Arabia", we can easily say that all these pillars of Islam are relics of "7th-century Arabia" & should not be followed now. Can we get even one fatwa from any Islamic scholar in the world to denounce all these Islamic pillars?

5. Author cites Al-Azhar University & Turkey as the proof that niqabs have nothing to do with Islam & hence, they are banned. That creates 2 problems. One that readers then ask the question, & rightly so, that why can't Canada then bans the niqabs when they have nothing to do with Islam & Islamic countries & Islamic organizations have spoken out against niqabs (reader: jjfoxy in the comments). That plays right into the hands of Harper & its supporters & anyone else who is against niqabs.

Secondly, citing some examples who support author's view amounts to misrepresenting the facts or confirming his own biases. The author certainly didn't check out the Quran's interpretation & explanations from prominent scholars, like South Asian scholar, Mawdudi, or even Egyptian scholar, Sayyid Qutb. If the author prefers to consult a living scholar of this modern age, then there is Canadian scholar, Dr. Farhat Hashmi, who by the way, does have a PhD in "Hadith Sciences" from University of Glasgow, Scotland, & wears a niqab. Anyway, so what the author did, is called "fatwa shopping," which is when we don't like a certain fatwa or decision from one scholar, we shop around until we find the one we wanted in the first place.

Citing Al-Azhar University & Turkey as an example against niqab is also taking those examples out of context. Al-Azhar University is not the great center of Sunni learning anymore. It was at one time in the past, but, we cannot forget that their rulings / fatwas are heavily influenced by Egyptian dictators. Why aren't any scholars from Al-Azhar University issuing any fatwas against Sunni & Shiite Muslims fighting each other & killing each other all over Middle East? (That I think is far more important matter than niqabs, since that involves human lives).
 
We all know that Hosni Mubarak was a dictator who was ruling Egypt with an iron fist back in 2009, & hence, he forced Al-Azhar University to issue a statement, which he wanted in the first place. We also know that Turkish army, which tightly controls the government, don't allow Erdogan to bring in any legislation which breaks their almost 100-year-old strict traditions to not bring in Islamic practices like hijabs.
 
Taking things out of context, by same measure, the author can say tomorrow that Islam supports dictatorships, because of Imams of Islam's 2 holiest sites, Mecca & Medinah. Both of these Imams give Friday sermons to thousands of Muslims, which have to be pre-approved by the Saudi Arabian Ministry of religious affairs. Those Imams can't say 1 thing against Saudi Arabian regime, which tramples human rights at its will.
 
Taking anything out of context is a very dangerous practice. It is practiced by right-wing & ignorant people in North America, who don't understand Quran & Hadiths & take verses like "kill infidels wherever you find them" out of Quran, completely out of context, as their support for the argument that Islam is not a peaceful religion. Hardliners & extremists in Islam do the exact same thing to encourage Muslims, & especially new converts & misguided Muslims who have never studied Quran & Hadiths themselves, to kill non-Muslims.
 
6. The argument that women are forced to wear niqab or hijab (the author never distinguishes it in the piece) is flawed, since a majority of Muslim women, young & old, are wearing hijab & niqabs, in the West, on their own accord.
 
We can agree that Islamic countries, like Iran & Saudi Arabia, may have forced their women citizens to cover themselves, but what about Muslim women who are converting (e.g. widow of Boston bomber) & Muslim women who were born & raised in a Muslim family. Why are these women taking on niqabs & hijabs? These Muslim women are born & raised in countries where they know their rights & they know that the government will support them fully in whatever decision they take. We can watch multiple videos & documentaries by prominent news agencies, like BBC, on Youtube where new women converts are more strict on taking on niqabs & hijabs than born Muslim women, because those women converts actually learn Arabic & try to understand Quran & Hadiths in their pure forms, whereas, the language of most born Muslims isn't even Arabic, & being complacent in their own religion, they think why do I even need to understand my own religion, when I already know what I need to know about my religion.
 
7. Author goes on to state that "what separates liberal societies from dictatorships is that the former are open, allow for face-to-face consultation, encourage dissent, & recognize individuals as equals."
 
a. I have a problem when people say liberal societies are open. Define "open"? Aren't there laws & regulations to inhibit or stop us citizens & residents from doing certain things in these societies? A robber wants to rob people in an open society or, as I gave example above, a nudist wants to walk down Yonge street nude, or a teen driver without a driver's license wants to race down the highway way above the posted limits? Similar to a market is not exactly "free", no society is exactly "open".
 
b. Liberal societies allow for "face-to-face consultations" but PM Harper of Canada or any of its cabinet members have not had any consultations with any of the Muslim women in Canada on this sensitive topic of niqab. Heck, not even Zunera Ishaq, on whom this whole topic is based, has had any "face-to-face consultation" with the Prime Minister. Does that make Canada a dictatorship then?
 
c. Liberal societies "encourage dissent" but PM Harper does not allow dissent by allowing no journalist on the Parliament Hill to ask questions to the Prime Minister. Canadian scientists keep complaining that they are muzzled on climate change issues by this government. Peaceful protests & marches, be the G20 protests years ago or the most recent protests by unions, students, & Natives, were forcibly ended through amendments to legislation. Does all this make Canada a dictatorship then?
 
d. Since, Canada is a "liberal democracy" & per author, individuals are recognized as equals in a liberal democracy, then the question arises that why it took almost 30 years for Canadian government officials to recognize that 1,200 Natives women being sexually assaulted & murdered is a problem? If 1 woman of European descent gets assaulted & murdered in a Canadian city, then the whole police force is out in force to look for the perpetrator, but it took almost 30 years & 1,200 indigenous women to be assaulted & die, for the Canadian government to realize that we may have a problem on our hands. Are these Natives women being considered "equal" as their counterparts of other races & socio-economic demographic? Does this mean that Canada is a dictatorship, then?
 
All these trump the author's logic, on which his whole argument is based, that Canada is a liberal democracy & an open society.
 
8. Liberal societies must allow one citizen to see another citizen’s face when in conversation or contact. Question should be asked why does Islam asks women to wear hijab or niqab? It seems clear that Islam & "liberal societies" are in conflict in its values.
 
Let's look at this from a different perspective & forget about religion for a minute here.
 
When we want to see the beauty of a woman, do we look at her feet, or her legs, or her arms or her tummy? When males, young & old, are attracted towards a woman, what part of her body do they look at to judge her beauty?
 
The answer is obviously, her face. It's similar to women judging men; by their faces. When we go on any one of the multiple dating & relationship websites on the internet, men & women, both judge a person's attractiveness through their faces. After all, all those beauty products & all those billion-$$$ beauty companies are selling products for women to make their faces pretty & attractive. Women spend a fortune on those beauty products. Many even go as far as to have painful & expensive botox & facial treatments because they need to look good on the dating scene.
 
Now, the argument will come that Muslim men are very lustful & can't keep it in their pants. If that's the case, then why is there a Project97 in Canada, started by Rogers Media, right now? The name of Project 97 came from the fact that 97% of the sexual assaults & harassment in Canada is never reported to law enforcement agencies. Why are there so many sexual assault allegations against the legendary comedian, Bill Cosby? What about rape allegations in university campuses & frat houses all over North America? How about CBC's Jian Ghomeshi & his sexual assault cases against him? Are all the men implicated in these cases Muslims? Of course not.
 
It's basic human biology. Usually, women are not attracted to men on looks. They need a little more than that, which we all call, "foreplay." Ask any sex expert about foreplay, & the answer will be that it doesn't start 2 minutes before sexual intercourse. It starts way before it; perhaps, those flowers, chocolates, & that expensive dinner. But men are ready to go on a moment's notice; as soon as they see an attractive woman in a "cute" dress. Of course, we all know that I am not talking about the nun's dress here.
 
So, Islam protected women from men reducing a woman to "just a piece of meat" & forcing them to talk to her on an intellectual level by telling Muslim women to wear hijab or a niqab. When a Muslim woman is wearing a hijab or a niqab, her colleague, be it a Muslim or a non-Muslim, anywhere in this world, is forced to interact with her mind, not with her body.

There is a reason when we Muslims firmly believe that Islam gave rights & protected Muslim women back in "7th-century Arabia." Now, if somebody or a government forces its female citizens to do something against their will, we can't blame Islam.

Islam also never forces anyone to follow its orders. If a person doesn't like what Islam says, he/she is most welcome to get out of Islam; similar to, when an employee doesn't like his/her employer's rules, be it the dress code or internet usage rights, he/she is most welcome to leave the company, or if a citizen doesn't like a law made by a government, he/she is most welcome to leave that country & renounce his/her citizenship.

Most, if not all, of Islamic rituals / practices practiced by Muslims around the world are written in Hadiths, & not in Quran, which, as explained / proven above, is all based on Prophet Muhammad's actions & sayings in "7th-century Arabia". 

Since, the world keeps changing, Islamic scholars who are highly knowledgable, in religious & secular affairs, are required to issue fatwas like no niqabs for Muslim women, after taking on several factors into consideration, similar to the Justices of the Supreme Court do before issuing a ruling on a sensitive topic. These religious & social matters should not be ruled upon or issued opinions by Muslims, or anyone else for that matter, who doesn't have complete knowledge of Islam. Heck, friends, family, & followers of the Prophet Muhammad, in "7th-century Arabia" never questioned the Prophet or Quran & accepted those rules without any opposition. That, at least, is mentioned in Quran in several places, is the indication of a true believer, that "he hears it & acts upon it." 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/banning-the-niqab-harms-an-open-society-so-does-wearing-it/article23469409/

NOT Practicing Islam in short shorts

This is becoming a very common scenario in our Muslim societies or even among individual Muslims. Excuse: I am a Muslim in my heart. I don't need to dress in a certain way to show that I'm a Muslim.
 
Let's forget about religion for a minute at all. Let's look at this trend (& this article) from 2 real-world examples.
 
Scenario 1:
She becomes a consultant at IBM. Now, the IBM "dress code" is to look professional in front of a client. It's not different or unusual from any other professional firm's attire; Deloitte, KPMG, Grant Thornton, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Accenture etc. Now, when we think of a female consultant's professional dress, we think of proper attire in a nice colour, covering her from neck to knee, at least, coupled with a nice pair of heels (arms can be bared ... for those people who may start to split hairs).
 
Now, imagine if she wears the dress what this girl describes, into a client meeting, as a representative of IBM, as an IBM consultant. Would her manager give her a warning? Would she be disciplined more severely if she keeps ignoring those warnings? Would she be fired ultimately if she keeps coming to office in sandals, short shorts, showing her navel ring, & heck even drunk, to the office & at the client's premises?
 
Would IBM be considered a very harsh, controlling, "patriarch" of an employer? Can she say about IBM that IBM is a very "patriarchial" employer (you are not my father to tell me what can I wear to office or not)?
 
Why all of us in this world when sign on the dotted line of an employment contract are then beholden to the rules & regulations of that company or employer? We all have had to sign papers about our internet usage, attire, behaviour in office etc. If we don't abide by those rules, what does the company warn us about?
 
If we don't abide by the company rules, we will be let go. There is not even partial acceptance of the company rules. You have to accept either all or none of the company rules. Company is like, if you don't like our rules & want to do whatever you want to do, you are free to go anywhere else. Heck, you don't even need to give a 2-week notice.
 
Scenario 2:
It's Friday night in June. Very nice weather outside. You are a parent of a 16-year-old girl. As we all know, teens are usually rebellious. She has just started dating this guy with a hot rod & tattoos & definitely looks like much more older than her, perhaps 24-year-old.
 
It's 8 pm. You are at home preparing dinner with your spouse in the kitchen. You suddenly hear a motorcycle horn from outside. You instinctively know who that is. Your hear your sweet daughter bouncing down the stairs from her room upstairs. You step out in the foyer / vestibule to wish her goodbye & to tell her to take care.
 
But, wait a minute. You are shocked with what she is wearing. She is wearing a skimpy shirt, covering her neck to breasts area, a short denim short, & a pair of platform heels (tummy & legs are all bare). Of course, she has lots of makeup on her too.
 
Would you allow her to go like that on her date? She is a free person & living in a free country. If you will, then you are a dream of a parent to any teen. BUT, most concerned / good parents won't.
 
They will scream at her to go back upstairs & change into something more appropriate. She shouts back into your face, "why?" & "you are a horrible mom/dad," & "she hates you."
 
Your response: "as long as you are living under my roof & eating my food, you will follow my orders, otherwise, you are most welcome to leave this house & live anywhere else & do whatever you want to do."
 
Aren't you a very harsh or "patriarcial" parent? Would you be awarded a Parent of the Year award? You seem to be a horrible person since you are ordering around a free person in a free country.
 
However, other concerned parents will congratulate you for what you did & said. You said that as long as she is living under your roof, she needs to follow your orders / house rules / customs etc. She is always welcome to leave the house & not follow your orders. Doors are not locked on her.
 
Let's link these 2 real world analogies with religion now:
 
It's the same rule with religion. No religion is forcibly holding anyone in it. You don't want to believe in it or believe in it partially, you are always free to pack up & leave. BUT, when you sign on that "dotted line" (by entering in it whichever way a person enters in that religion, whatever that religion might be), then either you accept all of it or none of it.
 
It is clearly stated in chapter 33, verse 33 of the Quran that wives of the Prophet, stay in your houses & do not display your finery to everyone outside. Muslim women are supposed to follow the wives of the Prophet, so that's an order to all Muslim women to cover up & stay in your house. It is not anyone's interpretation or hadith; it is stated right in the Quran.
 
Problem is we are afraid of our employers & even our parents to do what they tell us to do. But when it comes to religion, we are not only oblivious to what the Quran & Hadiths say but we will believe anyone saying anything about it. How many people have actually read the Quran with translation in their own language? They've read Quran in Arabic when it's not even their language, which is like reading that French novel without knowing a word of French ... I don't think you will understand a word of it.
 
Quran is a book of message or even Hadiths & you are supposed to read it & understand it. People are not even curious enough to know about the religion they are following. But they don't want to leave Islam. Do you become an accountant without reading an accounting book? or become a medical doctor without reading a medical book? or become an engineer without reading an engineering book? etc but when it comes to Islam, that person has never opened the Quran or even a book of Hadiths but have become a master in religion to comment on women's dresses, & prayers, & women's rights etc.
 
Can you do you an audit of a company & issue an opinion without an accounting certificate (CPA)? You won't be allowed to do it. If you want to audit a company's F/S, & issue opinions, then you are required to go through the professional accounting body's whole exam & become a proper accountant.

Similar to prescribing drugs (medical doctor) or performing surgeries (surgeon) or selling a house (realtor) or building a house (engineer) or designing a house (architect). Then why all of us become such masters in Islamic theology that we issue our opinions like this girl so easily that I will wear short shorts & drink whisky & party it up in a club but still be a Muslim & even worse, other so-called Muslims wholeheartedly support her. Idk who to call a moron here; that (& other) girls like her or other Muslims who support her in doing this.
 
Nobody stopping you from getting out of Islam. But when you want to be called a Muslim, then you do have some rights & obligations. As my real-world examples above show that what Quran is asking Muslim women to do is no different than a country, or a state, or an employer, or a teacher / principal or a good parent ask people under their care to do; follow my laws, rules, & regulations. There is no partial acceptance of the rules. You can't pick & choose & interpret rules yourself as you like. If you want to be an American, then you must follow American laws; no ifs & buts. Otherwise, you are always welcome to get out of America & give up your American citizenship. Similar to Canadian, or French, or Turkish, or Saudi Arabian, or South African, or Brazilian laws.
 
But why is it when it comes to religion, we like to follow our own interpretations of beliefs, or pick & choose or distort the rules as per to our liking? Why don't we do this same thing in the secular, non-religious, real-world? Why do we have double standards? Why do we not call that cop or Judge that I am as much as an American / Canadian / British as that other person; you can't judge me since my intentions were not to harm other Americans / Canadians etc (like this girl says that Islam is looking at her intentions & not how she dresses).
 
One more thing I want to add here is that what Dalai Lama said that our "best religion is our heart." You know this PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), which is becoming very much prevalent in NATO soldiers, esp. American soldiers. They go through therapy but PTSD is still on the rise. What's the essential problem here? PTSD is essentially their hearts & minds being in conflict; heart says what you did in the war is wrong (whatever that may be) & the soldier tries to rationalize it through his/her mind that what he/she did was correct. Similar problem is here. In most cases, other Muslims are not judging these Muslim women who like to dress in such way as this woman described in her blog. I've been told this excuse even in conservative countries like Pakistan. It's not anyone's judging them but it's their own heart is telling them that what they are doing is wrong, so they try to rationalize it by deflecting what their heart is saying to them to what other people are thinking or "judging" them.
 
I can say a lot more on this topic but then the classic, nonsense reply would be, "you don't know me & what I've gone through in my life so keep your opinion to yourself."

 

http://truestories.gawker.com/practicing-islam-in-short-shorts-1683991294