Deadly Riots in Libya: Right-Wing Christian Group Behind Anti-Muslim Film?
By Max Blumenthal
Global Research, September 13, 2012
maxblumenthal.com
“Innocence of Muslims” consultant Steve Klein is a veteran anti-Muslim organizer with close ties to the Christian right in CaliforniaThe US Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three US diplomats were killed in attacks and rioting provoked by an obscure, low-budget anti-Muslim film called “The Innocence of Muslims.” The producer of the film is a real estate developer supposedly named “Sam Bacile” who claims to be an Israeli Jew. Bacile told the AP the film was made with $5 million raised from “100 Jewish donors.” He said he was motivated to help his native country, Israel, by exposing the evils of Islam.
While Bacile claims to be in hiding, and his identity remains murky, another character who has been publicly listed as a consultant on the film is a known anti-Muslim activist with ties to the extreme Christian right and the militia movement. He is Steve Klein, a Hemet, California based insurance salesman who claims to have led a “hunter-killer team” in Vietnam.”
Klein is a right-wing extremist who emerged from the same axis of Islamophobia that produced Anders Behring Breivik and which takes inspiration from the writings of Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, and Daniel Pipes.
It appears Klein (or someone who shares his name and views) is an enthusiastic commenter on Geller’s website, Atlas Shrugged, where he recently complained about Mitt Romney’s “support for a Muslim state in Israel’s Heartland.” In July 2011, Spencer’s website, Jihad Watch, promoted a rally Klein organized alongside the anti-Muslim Coptic extremist Joseph Nasrallah to demand the firing of LA County Sheriff Lee Baca, whom they painted as a dupe for Hamas.
Klein is also closely affiliated with the Christian right in California, organizing resentment against all the usual targets — Muslims, homosexuals, feminists, and even Mormons. He is a board member and founder of a group called Courageous Christians United, which promotes anti-Mormon, anti-Catholic and anti-Muslim literature (including the work of Robert Spencer) on its website. In 2002, Klein ran for the California Insurance Commissioner under the American Independent Party, an extremist fringe party linked to the militia movement, garnering a piddling 2 percent of the vote.
Klein has been closely affiliated with the Church at Kaweah, an extreme evangelical church located 70 miles southeast of Fresno that serves as a nexus of neo-Confederate, Christian Reconstructionist, and militia movement elements. The Southern Poverty Law Center produced a report on Kaweah this spring that noted Klein’s long record of activist against Muslims:
Over the past year, Johnson and the church militia have developed a relationship with Steve Klein, a longtime religious-right activist who brags about having led a “hunter killer” team as a Marine in Vietnam. Klein, who calls Islam a “penis-driven religion” and thinks Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca is a Muslim Brotherhood patsy, is allied with Christian activist groups across California. In 2011, as head of the Concerned Citizens for the First Amendment, he worked with the Vista, Calif.-based Christian Anti-Defamation Commission on a campaign to “arm” students with the “truth about Islam and Muhammad” — mainly by leafleting high schools with literature depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a sex-crazed pedophile.
Klein, based in Hemet, Calif., has been active in extremist movements for decades. In 1977, he founded Courageous Christians United, which now conducts “respectful confrontations” outside of abortion clinics, Mormon temples and mosques. Klein also has ties to the Minuteman movement. In 2007, he sued the city of San Clemente for ordering him to stop leafleting cars with pamphlets opposing illegal immigration.
Like many other activists who fashion themselves as “counter-Jihadists,” Klein has organized against the construction of mosques in his area. While leafleting against a planned mosque in Temecula, California, which he claimed would herald the introduction of Shariah law to the quiet suburb, Klein remarked, “It all comes down to the first amendment. I don’t care if you disagree with me. Just don’t cut off my head.”
Klein appears to be allied with the National American Coptic Assembly, a radical Islamophobic group headed by Morris Sadik. Sadik claims to have discovered the film and began promoting it online. Once it went viral, the trailer was translated into Arabic, sparking outrage in the Middle East, and ultimately, to the deadly attacks carried out by Muslim extremists today.
Klein claims credit for inspiring “Sam Bacile” to produce “The Innocence of Muslims,” promising him he would be “the next Theo Van Gogh,” referring to the Dutch columnist who was murdered by a Muslim extremist. Of the attacks in Libya, Klein said, “We went into this knowing this was probably going to happen.”
Labels: ISLAM, LIBYA
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Gaddafi's daughter wants ICC to investigate dad's killing
Friday, 16 December 2011 00:00
TRIPOLI - Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's daughter Aisha has asked the International Criminal Court whether it was investigating the killings of her father and brother Mutassim, and if it was taking steps to ensure the Libyan authorities were investigating the matter.
Her request is the subject of a letter written on her behalf by her lawyer, Nick Kaufman to the ICC prosecutor in which it was stated, that the former Libyan leader and his son Mutassim had been "murdered in the most horrific fashion with their bodies thereafter displayed and grotesquely abused in complete defiance of Islamic law".
In the letter, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, Mr Kaufman who is representing Aisha went on to say: "The images of this savagery were broadcast throughout the world, causing my client severe emotional distress.
He added that to date, "neither Ms Gaddafi nor any member of her family has been informed, by your office, of the initiation of an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the brutal murders."
- Tripoli Post.
Labels: ICC, ISLAM, LIBYA, MUAMMAR AL-GADDAFI
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Suspected Bulangililo residents set Mosque alight
Kitwe,Zambia
Friday,23rd September 2011
The Muslim community in Bulangililo is saddened by the burning of its mosque by suspected Bulangililo and Kapoto residents.
Suspected Bulangililo residents run amok yesterday stoning and setting the mosque on fire. Property worth undisclosed amounts of money was destroyed and the Holy Book the Quran burnt to ashes.
Narrating the ordeal to Flava FM News the Muslim congregants said the suspected residents stormed the mosque and started throwing stones after which they set it on fire.
They explained that police who were present at the scene looked on hopelessly
The congregants however wondered why the people targeted the mosque but only wished for Gods vengeance.
Meanwhile, there was commotion at the mosque this morning when a man was found loitering at the mosque with items belonging to the mosque.
The man is suspected to be among the people that set the mosque ablaze.
Islam Supreme council of Zambia National spokesperson Imam Sidique Kaputula who was present at the scene demanded that the suspect accompany them to the police station where he would explain himself.
(Flavafm)
Labels: 2011 ELECTIONS, ISLAM
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Malawi Muslims association under fire over ‘bribes’
By Charles Kufa, Nyasa Times
August 29, 2011
Trouble is brewing among Muslims in Malawi following revelations that some leaders of their association in the country are cunningly enticing members to support the candidacy of President Bingu wa Mutharika’s young brother, Peter, for the 2014 presidential polls.
The development comes after some senior members of the Muslims Association of Malawi (MAM) reportedly connived with the young Mutharika, who is the presidential candidate for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), to influence the association’s allegiance to the ruling party by giving its members monetary handouts.
Young Mutharika last week dished out K50 000 to each of the 30 MAM Board of Trustees members and executive members from the Southern Region, a development that has angered Muslims in the country.
Muslim Association of Malawi chairman, Sheikh Idrissa Muhammad: Pro-DPP
On Friday afternoon, over 20 opinion leaders within the Muslim community in Mangochi district met at the Islamic Information Bureau offices in the district where they unanimously agreed to ‘fire’ the entire executive committee of MAM. Mangochi district is Malawi’s stronghold of the Muslims.
One influential Muslim opinion leader who attended the Friday meeting told Nyasa Times on Saturday in Mangochi, Muslims are angry with the conduct of their executive members for being money hungry instead of serving the interests of ordinary Muslims.
He said Mangochi Muslims have agreed to remove all MAM executive members and call for a fresh election which should put in place people who can work for Muslims and for their own gains.
“We were over 20 and we all agreed that the executive committee must go or else those from us from here we will not be part of their association,” said the attendee who refused to give his name saying he was not mandated to speak on behalf of the group.
The opinion leader explained that Muslims feel betrayed with the executive for putting their interests in the fore instead of protecting the community that “has been segregated in everything since President Mutharika took over power in 2004.”
MAM chair for Mangochi chapter Sheikh Adam Imran said Muslims in the area were “not happy” with the reports of bribes.
Mutharika became Malawi’s leader after former President Bakili Muluzi, a staunch Muslim himself, handpicked him for the post. And the young Mutharika, a professor of law was recently endorsed as the DPP as its 2014 presidential candidate.
“We will not allow to be bulldozed into supporting this man. We have suffered enough under his brother’s leadership and we are not ready for more humiliation,” said the source.
MAM Board of Trustees Chairman expressed ignorance on Sunday when asked for his comments on the Friday’s Mangochi meeting.
According to informants, Peter Mutharika bribed the MAM members to support his candidature at former Minister of Transport and Public Infrastructure Sidik Mia’s residence at Kabula in Blantyre on Thursday evening, August 18.
MAM senior officials had called for an emergency executive committee meeting that took place at Cold Storage premises in Blantyre (owned by Mia) who is also MAM Board of Trustees vice chairman and treasurer general of DPP where they tricked the members to break their fasting at Kabula.
“We were surprised that upon arrival there, we found Professor Peter Mutharika at the lounge and we were advised by Mia that he wanted to interact with us,” one of the members told Nyasa Times earlier.
The new MAM executive committee was elected some five months ago amid reports that the current chairperson of the association Sheikh Dr. Idris Muhammad is President Mutharika’s ally and a staunch supporter of the ruling DPP.
Labels: BINGU WA MUTHARIKA, ISLAM
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Action on behalf of justice
By The Post
Fri 19 Feb. 2010, 04:00 CAT
THE concerns and observations made by Islamic religious leaders in Kitwe this week deserve deep meditation.
Islamic Council of Zambia chief priest Sheikh Issa Bonomali raised concern that our leaders are not doing anything for the poor Zambians. He said there was need for Zambians to usher into office in 2011 a leader that is going to deliver development, emphasising:
“ we are saying let’s see a leader who is going to work for the people. We need action, not just talking always. At the moment, our leaders are not there to deliver.
As a clergy, we are closer to the communities because we see how our people are suffering, how they are failing to send their children to school and how they are not having enough to eat. A responsible leadership should take time to solve people’s problems…”
And president general of the global men’s Deenil Haqqi Islamiya, Nasir Mumpansha Kashiba, observes that religious conflicts happening in some parts of the world are a result of bad leadership on the part of religious leaders. He says there is no religion that permits killings and explains: “In Christianity, they say ‘love your neighbour’, and in Islam, we say ‘love and value mankind’.”
As we have stated before, we need religious institutions to continue to be the conscience of society, a moral custodian and a fearless champion of the interest of the weak and downtrodden. Whether you are a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew or a Hindu, religion is a great force and it can help one have command of one’s morality, one’s own behaviour and one’s own attitude.
All religions preach love as their core teaching; yet we find people belonging to different religions fighting against one another. Not only do they fight as individuals but as organised groups as well, and that in the name of religion!
We also find people who are apparently very religious and faithful to their religious practices and at the same time, very selfish and difficult to live with. We find among them those who don’t have any qualms of conscience about their selfish behaviours like taking bribes, cheating in business and politics, being corrupt, intolerant and vengeful, and so on and so forth. These people may even go to church, temple or mosque on their way to do evil. We find this phenomenon all over the world and down the centuries.
When religion degenerates into religiosity either at the individual or the organisational level, religious practices and structures tend to replace religious values. Religion, then, instead of becoming a liberative force, becomes a means of exploitation, abuse and degradation, or as Karl Marx would say, opium, both of individuals and of religious groups.
There is need for us to focus on the core values that are the common heritage of all religions. These values, according to Spiritual Masters, are Love, Wisdom and Inner Freedom. We need to go back to the core values of which the rituals and practices are to be but the external expressions. The rituals and practices have validity only insofar as they help the followers of any religion to imbibe and put into practice these values.
Why is it that religion that is supposed to preach justice, peace and brotherhood becomes a source of injustice, hatred and violence? To understand this paradox we need to make a distinction between spirituality and religiosity. Spirituality is a vision of life with a system of values, ideas and goals that orient and guide one’s life. It is the result of an experience of God, of the human and of the world. Founders of all major religions had such an experience. Religiosity, on the other hand, is excessive adherence to the external practices of religion.
The spiritual experience is basically the same for all, since it is the experience of the same God, of the same human and of the same world. God being by nature unknowable, each one’s experience of God will emphasise one or other aspect of Godhead, depending on the cultural, geographic and socio-economic situations in which one lives.
In Christ we see the mercy of God highlighted; in Prophet Mohamed we hear the call for social justice for the children of God; and in the Rishis of India we see the imminent presence of God in all beings. All these experiences are mutually complimentary and interrelated, being experiences of the same Godhead. Yet, what has just been said does not in any way deny the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.
The basic experience of all spiritual leaders being the same, the core teaching of all of them would also be the same. As the Vatican II puts it: “God the Father is the origin and purpose of all men. We are all called to be brothers. Therefore…we can and we should work together without violence and deceit in order to build up the world in genuine peace.”
Hence, Jesus Christ would teach: “as you wish what men would do to you, do so to them”; Prophet Mohamed: “Until you desire for others what you will desire for yourself, you will not become true believers”; and the Rishis: “One who sees everything in himself and himself in everything, does not hate anything or anyone.”
The original experience of the spiritual master cannot be transmitted as such to the disciples, since this experience is a very personal one. It is through religion that spiritual experiences are transmitted to others. Religion is the expression in symbols of this experience in time and space. The symbols will necessarily be different, depending on the culture and social setup in which the Master lived.
Thus Jesus Christ, in order to emphasise the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man chose the symbol of the Eucharist with bread and wine to represent His body and blood. This symbolism is based on the Jewish culture and social setup of which He and His disciples were heirs.
He would have chosen different symbols to express His God experience if He had been born in a different culture. Religious symbols are meant to reveal the Master’s spiritual experience. Yet, because they are symbols, followers of a different period and culture could very well miss their original meaning.
It is actually in the four areas of creed, code, cult and community that the original experience of the Master takes shape in religion, through symbols. Thus, Christians have their creed, commandments of the Church, liturgy and organisational structure.
The role of the priests of each religion is to protect this structure with its beliefs, norms, cults and social setup as a means to hold the believers together and help them participate in the spiritual experience of the Master. Unfortunately what often happens is that the priestly class grows stronger and stronger.
The temple becomes the centre of religious life, making external rituals all-important. Slowly the original spiritual experience and its values are either lost or pushed to the background. Thus, Christians may fight over the details of Eucharistic celebration, forgetting that Christ chose the symbol of Eucharist to tell His disciples that they are not to fight but to live in peace and harmony.
Unfortunately a particular symbol, for example the mosque or the temple, has become more important than the core message.
So what happens is that the priests in their over-eagerness to preserve the identity of the religious group, gradually forget the original experience of the Master and give more importance to the external symbols. Then preservation of the religious group and the symbols that bind it together become almost the only goal! That benefits the priestly class, for the more the people are tied down to symbols and rituals, the more will the priests be in demand.
There are other reasons why religiosity tends to replace true religion. It is far easier to observe some external practices, even harsh ones, than to follow in one’s daily life the values of religion like love, compassion, forgiveness and so on and so forth.
A third reason could be that religious practices are within our control but not grace. Human beings are crippled to a lesser or greater degree, by the fear of the evil spirits, of the future, of death and of life, life after death. So they want to hold on to something tangible that would, as it were, free them from the powers of evil and make their salvation assured.
External religious practices appear to do that, or at least are the nearest one can come up with. This type of religiosity is magic or superstition. Grace is a free gift and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that human beings can do that would guarantee grace.
Now we can understand why the prophets of the Old Testament condemned vehemently the elaborate sacrifices people were offering to God through the priests. People, and more so priests, had forgotten to live the spiritual values these sacrifices represented.
Such a religion and such sacrifices had, indeed become the opium of the people: “What do I care about incense from Sheba or sweet clams from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable; your sacrifices do not please me” (Jeremiah 6:20); “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6);
“I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:21-24).
Sacrifices which were to represent the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of all people had become mainly a means of money-making for priests, and for people, and escape from the guilt of their unloving lives. The temple and the sacrifices had thus become a means of exploitation and enslavement rather than of liberation and brotherhood.
When creed became more important than universal brotherhood, Inquisition was the result. When a particular community became more important than the spirit, Crusades, slave trade and right to the possession of a country through conquest were justified. It is said that
“he who loves Christianity more than Christ will go on to love his denomination more than Christianity. And he who loves his denomination more than Christianity will go on to love himself more than his denomination”. Translated into categories applicable to all religions, it would read as follows: “He who loves his religion more than his God, will go on to love himself more than his religion.
” And we can be sure of this: “He who loves himself more than his God will commit any crime – but all in the name of religion.” One is reminded of what Mahatma Gandhi said of a certain religious fanatic: “The religion of Mohasi is to commit in the name of religion what is forbidden by religion.”
Indeed, once the moral values have been set aside, there is no limit to which one will not go to obtain one’s selfish ends. Dishonesty and duplicity gain respectability for they are committed in the name of religion. For the new rule will be that “The end justifies the means”.
There is always an axe to grind in following this principle. One can get so blinded by selfish motives, but one can be completely ignorant of the motives of one’s own actions.
The only and necessary test to determine if a belief or an act is truly religious is simply to ask the question: “Does it foster the integral growth of all concerned and promote brotherhood among people?” Any belief or religious act that contradicts this universal value is wrong even if one can find justification for it even in the scriptures.
There is a story of a proposal being made at the United Nations that the scriptures of every religion be revised: everything in them that leads to intolerance or cruelty should be deleted; everything that damages human dignity should be destroyed.
When it was discovered that it was Jesus Christ who made the proposal, people asked for His explanation. He said: “The scriptures, like the Sabbath, are for the good of human beings and not human beings for the scriptures.” The founders of every religion would surely echo these sentiments.
Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constituent dimension of preaching the gospel. Religious practices and beliefs, properly understood and practiced, can lead one to genuine spirituality. In fact, these are the normal means that lead ordinary people to genuine spirituality.
Clearly, new ideas to prepare the people for the future are needed. Beginning today, we must start building awareness – a new awareness. It is not that the world lacks awareness today; but such a new and complex era as this one requires principles more than ever.
It requires a lot more awareness, and that awareness will be built, by adding together, the awareness of what is happening and the awareness of what is going to happen.
It has to be built by adding together more than just one outlook or thought and the best ethical and humane ideas or more than one religion, of all authentic religions – we are not thinking of sects, which of course are created for political ends and for the purpose of creating confusion and division – the sum total of the preaching of many political thinkers, of many schools and of many religions.
Labels: ISLAM
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Islamic leader accuses leaders of not doing anything for the poor
By Mwila Chansa in Kitwe
Fri 19 Feb. 2010, 03:40 CAT
Islamic Council of Zambia chief priest Sheikh Issa Bonomali has observed that leaders are not doing anything for the poor Zambians.
And president general of the Global Men's Deenil Haqqi Islamiya, Nasir Mumpansha Kashiba observed that religious conflicts happening in some parts of the world were as a result of bad leadership on the part of religious leaders.
In an interview after he officiated at an inter-faith leadership skills training workshop at Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation (MEF) in Kitwe on Wednesday, Bonomali said there was need for Zambians, in 2011, to usher into office a leader that was going to deliver development.
Bonomali said people were tired of listening to their leaders exchanging words and insulting each other at the expense of helping the poor. He advised leaders against pulling each other down.
“We are saying 'let's see a leader who is going to work for the people'. We need action and not just talking always,” Bonomali said.
“At the moment, our leaders are not there to deliver. They spend so much time talking. If President Rupiah Banda has not done well, it is our responsibility as clergy to advise him, but we should not insult him.”
Bonomali said a good leader was one that must expect to be led.
“He should take advice from the people. That is what leadership is, it is not all the time that people should listen to you, you should also listen to them,” he said.
Bonomali further said that fights amongst leaders in the country were not helping communities in any way.
“When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. As clergy, we are closer to the communities because we see how our people are suffering, how they are failing to send their children to school and how they are not having enough to eat,” said Bonomali. “A responsible leadership should take time to solve people's problems instead of exchanging words.”
Bonomali also advised President Banda against responding to every form of criticism but instead focus more on developing the country.
And Kashiba said there was a rise in religious conflicts globally because of a weakness in leadership.
Kashiba said the objective of the workshop was also meant to erase the notion that Islam was a religion that condoned violence.
“There is no religion that permits killings. In Christianity, they say love your neighbour and in Islam we say love and value mankind,” said Kashiba.
Labels: ISLAM, SHEIKH ISSA BONOMALI
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Nigerian militant leader shot in police custody
Written by Ibrahim Mshelizza
Friday, July 31, 2009 3:38:48 PM
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) - The leader of a radical Islamic sect in northern Nigeria was shot dead in police custody late on Thursday after days of clashes between his followers and the security forces killed hundreds of people.
Militant preacher Mohammed Yusuf, 39, whose Boko Haram sect wants a wider adoption of sharia (Islamic law) across Africa's most populous nation, was captured after a manhunt involving military helicopters, soldiers and armed police.
A Reuters reporter and other local journalists saw Yusuf at a military barracks in the northern city of Maiduguri after his capture. He had no visible injuries and was standing up. He was then transferred to the city police headquarters where he died.
"He has been killed. You can come and see his body at the state police command headquarters," said Isa Azare, spokesman for the police command in Maiduguri.
Azare gave no explanation for Yusuf's death, which New York-based Human Rights Watch condemned as a "shocking" extrajudicial killing . Other police officials were quoted by local media as saying he had died in a shoot-out while trying to escape.
A BBC correspondent said a video shown to officials and journalists showed Yusuf confessing and saying he regretted his actions. "The next moment on the video footage he was seen shot...They showed his body," the correspondent said.
The security forces have fought gunbattles in flashpoints across northern Nigeria over the past five days to crush an uprising by members of Boko Haram.
Violence broke out on Sunday when members of the group -- loosely modelled on the Taliban in Afghanistan and whose name means "Western education is sinful" -- were arrested in Bauchi state on suspicion of plotting to attack a police station.
President Umaru Yar'Adua has said the group was procuring arms and learning to make bombs in order to impose its ideology on Nigerians by force. He has ordered the security forces to do everything necessary to contain the sect.
Around a dozen soldiers, police officers and prison officials are among the hundreds killed in the unrest, while the remainder of the dead largely consist of suspected Boko Haram followers, according to police.
National defence spokesman Colonel Mohammed Yerima said there would be a military "show of force" on Friday to reassure civilians that they would be protected.
Eric Guttschuss, Nigeria researcher for Human Rights Watch, told Reuters: "The extrajudicial killing of Mr Yusuf in police custody is a shocking example of the brazen contempt by the Nigerian police for the rule of law."
He said all criminal suspects had a right to due process, and Nigerian authorities must investigate the killing and hold those responsible for it accountable.
Yusuf's death also deprives intelligence agencies of the opportunity to question him about possible links to other militant groups outside Nigeria.
President Yar'Adua, on an official visit to Brazil, spoke by telephone with northern governors on Thursday and urged traditional and religious leaders to use Friday prayers to warn people about the dangers of such sects.
Boko Haram's views are not espoused by the majority of Nigeria's Muslim population, the largest in sub-Saharan Africa. The country's Muslim umbrella group, Jama'atu Nasril Islam, has already condemned the violence.
Labels: ISLAM, MOHAMMED YUSUF, NIGERIA
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Chiluba and Muslims
Written by Editor
There are too many things that divide our people today. And there is no need to add new ones or others to these.Our people today are divided by poverty and other inequalities. There is no need to add to this religious divisions.
We share the concerns raised by Zambia Islamic Council national coordinator for political affairs Aadam Phiri that the comments Frederick Chiluba made about Islam were divisive and provocative to our Muslim brothers and sisters. And they were also not true because the issue of women not preaching in our churches is not only confined to Muslims.
There are many Christian churches that are still battling to overcome the marginalisation and discrimination of women. We still have many Christian churches where women cannot be ordained as priests.
It is said that intolerance is the most persistent and the most insidious of all sources of hatred. And that it is perhaps foremost among the obstacles to civilisation, the instruments of barbarism. Such an extreme condemnation of intolerance may make one wonder if its opposite, tolerance, is therefore the epitome of virtues. And indeed, the pervasiveness of religious intolerance during most periods of world religious history certainly shows that a more charitable and non-judgemental attitude toward the other would have been a happier alternative.
Saint Paul saw the advantages of tolerance and inclusiveness as he sought to grow the early Christian church. He talked often about love as a matter of both principle and practicality. His early congregations were prone to the same controversies and disagreements as modern churches. Paul emphasised a spirit of love – love is patient, love is kind, love is not boastful, and so on and so forth – to encourage peace in the early church. He wanted the church to be havens to which people would be attracted by the supportive community they found.
Paul also wanted to remove barriers to belonging to the church. This was a primary reason he wouldn’t insist on circumcision for the Gentile men. In this and similar ways, Paul made it easier for people to convert to Christianity.
Jews and Muslims also have shown pragmatic flexibility on the issues of tolerance and inclusiveness. In the Old Testament, the books of Ruth and Jonah depict stories of tolerance and acceptance of other nations. The Islamic empire found ways to let other religions exist – as long as they were willing to pay special taxes and tributes to the empire.
The point we are trying to make is that the more intertwined the world becomes, the more dependent we are on each other and the more each of us is involved in non-zero-sum relationships. We are coming to understand that we can win if we collaborate and lose if we don’t. The heartening thing is that each major religious tradition contains elements that will allow their adherents to stop fighting and embrace a global, more tolerant perspective.
It is clear that our people are hungering for truth and justice, and therefore those who are entrusted with, or want to take up, the task of teaching and educating them should do so with honesty, fairness, justice and respect. Certain erroneous viewpoints like those of Chiluba must be wiped away without delay.
Let us not forget that we cannot love God without loving our fellow humans. We shall all be judged by the same standard: “I was hungry and you gave me food…in so far as you did it to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me” (Matt. 25:35-40).
All the great religions and philosophies of the world echo this sentiment. The Quran spells out the last and ultimate test to which humans must submit when they are judged by Allah. What is that test? “Have you redeemed the captive, fed the orphan in his need or the beggar on your doorstep, and lived your life as a rod of mercy?” (Sura 90, 11:18).
And coming back to the issue of women, all we can say is that human life and history being what they are, the time will come when new voices with concerns we cannot now foresee and perspectives we can scarcely imagine will arise in the household of the faith and seek to be heard. But whether our religious institutions will hear and respond to such voices tomorrow depends in considerable measure on whether they learn to heed the cries of the voices today.
It is incontestable that women played critical leadership roles in the early Christian church. Priscilla, for example, seems to have been at least the equal of her husband Aquila in the work they did together as teachers (Acts 18:2, 18,26; Cor.16:9; Rom.16:3). The apostle Paul taught that women could lead worship and that the sexes were equal before God. In some ways, the early Christian movement appears to have been bold experiment in egalitarian inclusiveness. But as the church began to adjust itself to its environing culture, something changed. In the generation that followed Paul, the male leaders surrendered to the pressure they felt to deprive women of the role they had once played (1 Tim.2:11-12). Most scholars now explain the notorious passage in Paul’s 1 Corinthians (14:33-35) in which women are admonished to remain silent in the churches – a blatant contradiction of what he says elsewhere – as an insertion that was placed there during the less venturesome generation that followed him.
Whether this was the case or not, the result of this was not just to deprive half of the church’s members their full humanity, a wounding that would be serious enough in its own right. It also set an ugly precedent, and it fundamentally distorted the entire structure of Christian worship and teaching. Insofar as it was actually enforced, it deprived the community’s prayer and hymnody of the symbols that could be brought to it only through the lives of women. It impoverished its ethical life and its diaconal service by assigning less weight to those particular forms of pain that women, as the bearers of children and the objects of patriarchal power, bring to expression. It thinned out the celebration, not just for women, but for everyone, by preventing the unique joys and ecstasies women feel from being shared by all.
The deformation that resulted from the silencing of women is that the whole body was crippled and its capacity to hear anything or anybody seriously attenuated. One cannot tune out some without, at the same time, tuning out others. By muting the sisters, the early church inflicted on itself a form of deafness that has persisted ever since. But women were not alone. Once silencing found its way into the company of the faithful, there were others whose songs and stories were also stifled. Women share this disallowance of speech, of saying one’s word, with many, many others. Their enforced quiet is also the lot of millions of the world’s poor, and those who are rejected or excluded for a variety of other reasons from full participation in the human family. This is probably why women everywhere have responded with enthusiasm to those ideologies that take as their starting point the perspective of the voiceless, a preferential option for the silenced.
In the biblical tradition, God is known as the Holy One who speaks to human beings and who expects them to answer. Therefore, to silence someone, it could be said, is a type of blasphemy. It denies that person the opportunity to respond to God’s call, and it therefore denies God. To silence is to fashion a kind of idol, a false god who calls everyone but who does not expect everyone to answer, or who expects some to answer for others. The Christian church, however, understands itself to be a community that is constituted by the way which God spoke to it in the life of Jesus and to which a response must be given. This is why the practice of silence and excluding stands in opposition to the spirit that is needed if the church is to become an inclusive world church.
But this unnatural silence will not last forever, by God’s grace the mouths of the mute will be unstopped, and one day, all will sing the Lord’s song together.
We have gone to length to say all these things not to exhibit what we know about the history and nature of this issue. It is simply to remind ourselves that there is no community, religious or otherwise, with all the virtues, neither does any have all the vices. And this is what Chiluba should realise in his low attitude towards our Muslim brothers and sisters. And from what Phiri is saying, it’s clear that the Muslim community in our country felt discriminated and marginalised by Chiluba. They have got serious grievances that need to be addressed. Phiri is saying that despite them donating to Chiluba’s wife’s foundation, he never gave any part of his presidential discretionary fund to any Islamic organisation in this country. But he was busy dishing out money to some Christian churches and other institutions. They are also complaining that they had their mosques demolished here and there while Christians were allowed to pray anywhere they wanted, including in residential areas.
There is need for us to remove this feeling of being discriminated against in the hearts of our Muslim brothers and sisters. Moreover, our Constitution outlaws the discrimination of anyone on religious grounds.
There is also need to realise that we today live in a very difficult world with many challenges. And new ideas are needed to prepare our people for the future. We are living at a time when a lot of awareness is needed, and that awareness must be built by adding together more than just one revolutionary thought and the best ethical and humane ideas of more than one religion, of all authentic religions, we would say – we are not thinking of sects, which of course are created for political ends and for the purposes of creating confusion and division – the sum total of the preaching of many political thinkers, of many schools and of many religions.
And for this reason, there is no room for Chiluba’s religious attitudes that encourage intolerance.
Labels: CHILUBA, ISLAM
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Muslims in Zambia condemn Israel attacks on Gaza
Written by Mwala Kalaluka
Saturday, January 03, 2009 7:21:07 AM
THE Islamic Council of Zambia has condemned Israel's brutal attacks on the Palestinian people in Gaza. And the Zambian government is still examining the warring situation involving Israel and Gaza before coming up with a comprehensive position on the conflict.Meanwhile, Pope Benedict XVI has again called for peace in the Middle East, saying hatred and a lack of trust are also forms of poverty that must be combated.
The Grand Mufti of Zambia Sheikh Assadullah Mwale stated in a press release that the Islamic community in Zambia was fearful that Israel's incursions into Gaza would undermine attempts to negotiate peace in the Middle East.
“The whole world has been thrown into a shock once again when Israel, despite enraged protests across the world, has continuously pressed ahead with its unpopular attacks against Gaza under the pretext of protecting its citizens from Hamas rocket-fire, killing 300 innocent people in only three days,” Sheikh Mwale stated.
“The Islamic Council of Zambia, which is a member of the 27 Muslim councils and associations from 27 countries and Africa as a whole is appealing for urgent cessations of hostilities, which are indeed crimes against humanity, which also violates the UN Charter.”
Sheikh Mwale further stated that the attacks on the enclave of Gaza were an unfortunate act that tended to undermine the human rights and sovereignty of the Palestinians.
“We therefore, condemn in the strongest terms, possible, all conditions put on the people of Palestine to undermine their independence and sovereignty and I call upon the entire world to do the same. The Middle East Peace process must continue and realistic measures put up to ease up the tension,” he stated.
Sheikh Mwale called on the United Nations to protect the weak nation of Palestine against all forms of aggression by restraining the Israeli government from carrying such disproportionate attacks against Gaza.
“The United Nations must not be a spectator when world peace and international law and order are threatened,” stated Sheikh Mwale.
And asked what the Zambian government's position on the recent violence involving Israel and Palestine's Gaza, chief government spokesperson Lt. Gen Ronnie Shikapwasha responded: “Not yet.”
When asked if the Zambian government had started the process of coming up with a position on what the Israeli government had described as an 'outright war' against Hamas, Lt. Gen Shikapwasha said the government was still examining the situation.
Meanwhile, Pope Benedict took up the theme of peace in the Holy Land at the end of his homily on New Year's day, which also marked the World Peace Day, held under the theme: ‘Fighting Poverty to Build Peace.’
His exhortation, according to the Vatican news agency, Zenit, was joined to an appeal he made last Sunday during his address for the midday Angelus.
As Israel's attack of Gaza continued for the sixth day, more than 400 Gazans, including a top Hamas official, his wife and children, had been killed.
Labels: GRAND MUFTI SHEIKH ASSADULLAH MWALE, ISLAM, ISRAEL
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How scientific Moslems transformed Mediterranean countries
By Denis J. Murphy
ATHAR OSAMA is correct in pointing out that, although science and technology are faring less well in the Middle East today than in the West and Far East, there is a rich history of Islamic excellence in these fields. In agriculture from 600 to 1600 CE, Islamic initiatives were responsible for much progress in the dissemination of innovative research and application.
In "People, Plants, and Genes", I explain that, "In the early Middle Ages, the new Moslem rulers of much of the Mediterranean and Near East were heirs to a tradition of state and private commercial interest in agriculture that harked back over six millennia to prehistoric Mesopotamia."
The Islamic agrarian movement
In medieval times, the Arabs and Berbers introduced sorghum, citrus fruits, hard wheat, rice, aubergines, sugar cane, and cotton into North Africa, southern Italy and Spain.
They used sophisticated irrigation systems, the likes of which were not seen again in Europe until the eighteenth century.
The rich realm of Al-Andalus (modern Andalusia) applied innovative agronomy, abandoning the usual practice of rotating crops every two and three years.
Instead, farmers intensively cultivated a diverse crop portfolio for several years running, then planted legumes (such as clover and lucerne) to help the soil recover.
This Islamic-inspired agrarian movement reached its apogee in the twelfth century in the person of Ibn-el-Beithar of Malaga, also known as Ennabâty (the botanist).
Great Arabian scholars
Ibn-el-Beithar describes more than 1 500 species from his thirteenth-century expeditions to Spain, the Maghreb, Egypt and Persia in "The Djami-el-Mofridat" (‘The Simple Collection’). This also provides a valuable catalogue of medicinal plants.
Ibn-el-Beithar’s texts presage the works of more famous Western botanisers, such as John Tradescant and Nikolai Vavilov.
In his book "El Morny" (‘Sufficiency’), Ibn-el-Beithar describes how botanical knowledge could be exploited for the preparation of therapeutic compounds.
This was a recurring theme for Classical, medieval, and post-Renaissance botanical writers, from the ancient Greek writer Theophrastus to the seventeenth century English physician Nicholas Culpeper.
One of the few surviving examples of the advanced technology of Moorish farmers is the city of Elche, or Elx, in Valencia.
In the twelfth century, the geographer Al-Idrisi described it as "a town built on a plain crossed by a canal fed by the river.
"This canal flows under its walls and the townspeople use it for their baths and it flows through markets and streets."
The renowned scholar Ibn Said said of Elx: "I have passed by this city . . . and it was said that she resembles the City of the Prophet, may peace be upon him."
Because of its singular beauty and historical interest, Unesco declared the Elx palm grove and irrigation system a World Heritage Site in 2000.
Christian intervention
The Moslem conquest in southern Italy and Spain brought a thriving agricultural system, but this largely regressed following the reconquista of Al-Andalus by Spanish Christians.
Farming systems became impoverished. The fertile hinterlands of cities such as Seville and Cordoba reverted to basic pastoral economies; market gardens withered that had previously been irrigated by norias (water wheels).
Around Murcia and Cartagena, fields degenerated into marshland and malaria flourished.
Even in the few places, such as Valencia, where the Moorish irrigation system remained intact, almost all the new crops were abandoned by the conservative conquistadors in favour of European staples such as grains, pulses and vines.
In the words of Stanley Lane-Poole in 1886: "The land deprived of skilful irrigation of the Moors, grew impoverished and neglected . . . and most of the populous cities which had filled every district in Andalusia, fell into ruinous decay; and beggars, friars, and bandits took the place of scholars, merchants and knights."
Cultural clash
There were many reasons for the Christian failure to exploit the superior agricultural systems inherited from the Moslems in southern Europe. As discussed by Andrew Watson in "Agriculture in the Middle Ages", they include the collision of a relatively inward-looking, subsistence-based culture practising low-yield, extensive farming with a more dynamic, urbanised, literate culture that had developed highly diverse and intensive farming.
Ironically, as some of these backward Europeans were about to embark on a period of successful agricultural and scientific progress, the hitherto more enlightened Islamic world subsequently entered a long, post-medieval period of agricultural, scientific and cultural stagnation from which it has yet fully to recover.
Islamic cultures are certainly not intrinsically backward, scientifically or otherwise.
We should all celebrate medieval Islamic practitioners such as Ibn-el-Beithar and strive to recreate the institutions that will enable new generations to emulate such role models for the sake of all humankind. — Source: SciDev.Net
Denis J. Murphy is professor of biotechnology and a writer on science and agriculture, based at the University of Glamorgan, UK.
Labels: AGRICULTURE, ISLAM
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