The popular perception of sharia law is one of brutal punishments carried out by hardline states. But, as Dan Bell discovers, the backstreets of Britain are full of Islamic courts ruling on everything from banking and alcopops to forced marriage and divorce.
US judge: Police can ban religious Muslim garb
A Philadelphia police officer has no right to wear a head covering as required by her Muslim faith when she is in uniform, a federal judge ruled yesterday.
The Police Department’s uniform code “has a compelling public purpose,” Judge Harvey Bartle III wrote in deciding against Kimberlie Webb, an officer since 1995. The uniform code “recognizes that the Police Department, to be effective, must subordinate individuality to its paramount group mission of protecting the lives and property of the people living, working and visiting the city of Philadelphia,” Bartle wrote. Furthermore, the department’s uniform code, known as Directive 78, maintains “religious neutrality,” the judge said.
The ruling countered a finding by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2003 that the department had violated Webb’s rights in barring her from wearing a hijab, also known as a khimar, over the top and back of her head.
The case began in February 2003, when Webb, a mother of six, filed an EEOC complaint after being denied a request to wear a hijab. In August 2003, Webb was sent home three times after showing up at roll call wearing the hijab despite being told not to do so. She also was later suspended for 13 days.
Police officials initially defended their actions by saying, in part, that Webb could have been hurt or restrained by somebody grabbing the hijab. In subsequent statements and legal arguments, the department, which was represented by law firm Cozen O’Connor, said its sole reason was fostering “obedience, unity, commitment and esprit de corps” with a uniform dress policy. Detracting from that policy would cause the department “undue hardship,” it said.
US to let toddler reunite with family
WASHINGTON — After two years of inaction, U.S. immigration authorities approved a request Thursday for the 3-year-old son of a U.S. citizen to emigrate from Morocco and join his family in Virginia.
Abdeloihab Boujrad, 38, of Alexandria, and his wife, Leila, have been trying since June 2005 to get authorities to allow their son, Ahmedyassine, to join them. The toddler has been living with an aunt in Morocco. The application languished without any action by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. An Islamic civil rights group that took up Boujrad’s cause suspected the delay was caused by a similarity in Ahmedyassine’s name to the founder of the Palestinian Islamic militant group Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, who was assassinated by Israel in 2004.
The decision to approve the application came a day after The Associated Press and other media detailed the Boujrads’ plight. “The matter has been resolved favorably,” USCIS spokesman Dan Kane said. “Once the issue was brought to our attention, we worked expeditiously to resolve it.” Kane would not comment on what caused the delay.
“The matter has been resolved favorably,” USCIS spokesman Dan Kane said. “Once the issue was brought to our attention, we worked expeditiously to resolve it.” Kane would not comment on what caused the delay.
Boujrad said he did not receive an explanation for the delay when he was told Thursday morning the application had finally been approved. But he was so ecstatic he did not care. “I was shocked,” Boujrad said of being informed about the good news. “They said, ‘We apologize for the delay.’”
Morris Days, a legal director with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said he appreciates how quickly the issue was resolved once Boujrad’s case was publicized. But he said he’d like more information on what caused the delay, so that similar incidents can be avoided. “If they’ve looked into this, they must have been able to research, ‘How did this happen?’” Days said.
Days said he has nearly a dozen cases in the last few months involving Muslims in the D.C. region who are facing unexplained delays on various immigration applications.
Boujrad was living in Morocco in 1997 and engaged to Leila when he won an immigration lottery that allowed him to come to the United States. He married his wife in 1999 but was unable to bring her to the U.S. until 2005. She is now a legal permanent resident.
In the interim, Ahmedyassine was born in May 2004 in Morocco. Leila reluctantly left the boy in the care of her sister in the fall of 2005 when her visa allowing her to emigrate to the U.S. was about to expire. Neither Abdeloihab nor Leila Boujrad have seen their son in person since then.
State-sanctioned Islam?
“One of the current Prime Minister’s potential legacies is an Islamic studies curriculum in British universities which is shaped by his own personal vision (report, June 5). It is not clear how Mr Blair has acquired the ability to distinguish authentic from inauthentic Muslim belief. Most Muslim theologians, past and present, have sensibly accepted that such judgments can ultimately be known by Allah and no one else. However, armed with this ability to discern true faith, Mr Blair’s Government appears to want to refashion the teaching of Islamic studies in British higher education….
“It seems that Islamicists now have a responsibility to encourage a government-approved version of Islam, and discourage dangerous expressions of the faith. The report by Dr Ataullah Siddiqui, commissioned by the Department for Education, contains a number of interesting suggestions for improving Islamic studies in the UK, but Dr Siddiqui himself would surely be uneasy at the prospect of higher education being used for political ends.”
Letter from Professor Robert Gleave, Times, 12 June 2007
Pat Robertson: Islam is not a religion
On the June 12 edition of the Christian Broadcasting Network’s The 700 Club, following a report on Muslims in Minneapolis seeking religious accommodations at school and work, host Pat Robertson stated, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have to recognize that Islam is not a religion. It is a worldwide political movement meant [sic] on domination of the world. And it is meant to subjugate all people under Islamic law.”
He characterized the American Muslim community as “Islam light” and went on to say Muslims “want to take over and we want to impose Sharia on you. And before long, ladies are going to be dressed in burqas and whatever garments they would put on them, and next thing you know, men are going to be allowed to have wife-beating and you’ll be beheading adulterers and so on and so forth.”
Mad Mel on ‘honour killings’
The loathsome Melanie Phillips takes advantage of the tragic death of Banaz Mahmod to engage in yet more baiting of Muslims:
“The elephant in the room here – as so often – is that ‘honour killings’ are largely a Muslim phenomenon…. honour killings, the need to avenge the shame caused by a loss of honour, are rooted in values intrinsic to the way of life of many Muslims…. Much hot air is expended on how to integrate British Muslims into British society. But look what happens when the women try to do just that. Some of them end up murdered…. It’s quite simple. Integration can lead to murder because of the concepts of honour and shame embedded in Muslim culture…. Britain’s multicultural orthodoxy does not protect women like Banaz Mahmod. It signs their death warrant.”
Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 12 June 2007
Cf. the Times, 13 June 2007
Dalai Lama warns against talk of ‘clash of civilisations’
The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, has warned against portraying Islam as a religion of violence, saying Muslims have been wrongly demonised in the West since the September 11 attacks. Promoting religious tolerance, the world’s most influential Buddhist leader said on Sunday that talk of “a clash of civilisations between the West and Muslim world is wrong and dangerous.”
Muslim terrorist attacks have distorted people’s views of Islam, making them believe it is an extremist faith rather than one based on compassion, the Dalai Lama told a press conference in New Delhi. All religions have extremists and “it is wrong to generalise (about Muslims),” the 71-year-old spiritual leader said.
Cardinal calls on Muslims to fight for freedom
Britain’s most senior Roman Catholic leader has called on Muslims to join forces with the Church to fight for “genuine religious freedom”.
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the head of the Church in England and Wales, said that since the September 11 terrorist attacks on America, public opinion had become suspicious of religion in general and of Islam in particular. It was now necessary, he said, for the followers of the two faiths to unite to uphold religious freedom as a “natural right of every human being to be respected by every government”.
The Cardinal said that the problem of Islamist terrorism had “created an atmosphere where ordinary Muslims feel very uncomfortable and unfairly singled out by people who often seem not to understand them at all”. The “spotlight has been firmly locked on to Islam”, he said, adding that as a result Muslims often felt “misrepresented or at least misunderstood by our media and in public opinion”.
He said that although British authorities tended to treat religious communities with respect it was a difficult time for those involved in governing and policing society. Muslims and Christians together had to fight against those who wished to “make sure religion had no public voice”, the cardinal said.
“The space for dialogue between our religions and our culture has to be a public one,” he added. “In other words, religious communities need to be able to operate with a certain degree of autonomy. If politicians at national or local level – or even academics, for that matter – think they know what is best for religions, they will not act in our best interests, and could well be tempted to try to manipulate the ways we contribute to society.”
Fascist blogger resists Islamification of London
The MPACUK website has reproduced the article “Is London’s future Islamic?” from the listings magazine Time Out. This fantasy doesn’t find favour with a fascist blogger who, apparently under the impression that the article originates with MPAC itself and represents their plans for the Muslim conquest of London, assures his readers that the Islamic hordes will be driven back: “If these Death Eaters think they can take Our Land without a fight from the BNP, then they are in for a shock. The British National Party will obtain the mandate of the people and they will restore Our Capitol [sic] to its rightful owners. The True British.”
US Baptists warned about Islam, atheism
SAN ANTONIO – Watergate figure Chuck Colson warned a gathering of Southern Baptist pastors Sunday night against what he described as two dire threats: the deadly marriage of Islam and fascism and a new, militant atheism growing in popularity in the West.
Colson, a former Nixon “hatchet man” who became a born-again Christian and founded an evangelical ministry to prisoners, called on Christians to do a better job of explaining their religion’s worldview.
Colson, 75, spoke at a conference that precedes the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, which begins here Tuesday. At one point, Colson said “Islam is a vicious, evil …” and then before finishing the sentence, said, “Islamo-fascism is evil incarnate.” “Islamists,” Colson said, “are very different. We will die for what we believe. They will kill for what they believe.”
Comments about Islam have generated controversy at past Southern Baptist meetings. In 2002, a former Southern Baptist Convention president, the Rev. Jerry Vines, called Muhammad, the Muslim prophet, a “demon-possessed pedophile.”