Australia: Surf’s Up! First Muslim Life Guards Ready to Patrol at Cronulla Beach

Surf’s up for Australian Muslims

Nick Bryant (BBC News)

On a beach in south Sydney, a group of young Australian Muslims is about to take a highly symbolic cultural leap.

For the past 10 weeks, they have learned how to rescue stranded swimmers from the foaming surf, discovered more about the undertows and rip currents which can make even the most inviting sea so very perilous, and taken part in gruelling fitness tests.

Now they are about to receive that most coveted of Australian prizes – their bronze, surf life saving medallions.

Tens of thousands of surf life saving volunteers have made this rite of passage.

But this group is unique. These 18 young people, of Lebanese, Syrian, Palestinian and Libyan backgrounds, are about to become the first Muslim Australians to receive this prized qualification.

More remarkable still, they have learned and honed their skills on the country’s most controversial stretch of sand – Cronulla beach, the site of grotesque race riots in December 2005…

Malaysia: 200 Marriages to Be Annuled

Malaysia to annul 200 ‘fake’ Muslim marriages

(Agence France Presse)

Authorities in northern Malaysia plan to annul nearly 200 marriages performed by an imam who allowed Muslim men to secretly take multiple wives, reports have said.

Officials in Kelantan state, the only state in the country that is ruled by a hardline Islamic party, said the imam belonged to a criminal syndicate that charged couples for covert wedding ceremonies…

…The syndicate, believed to be in operation for about five years, is used by Muslim men who want to take extra wives without their spouses knowing, and also by eloping couples, the newspaper said.

So, what happens to these couples now? Will they be punished for adultery? What about children who resulted from these unions?

I’m not a fan of polygamy. However, it is permitted. And the requirements (Islamically) for a valid marriage are minimal: 2 witnesses, a marriage agreement (usually written, but can be verbal), and the gift of the mahr (bridal gift) to the wife. That’s it; no imam or other official is required. And, although common decency would require that the husband inform his current wife or wives of his intention to marry, it is not a legal requirement for the validity of any polygamous marriage. As for the couples who eloped, there are some rulings that such marriages (without the consent of the woman’s guardian) are still valid under Sharia.

Even though the men (and perhaps, the women) in these marriages may not have had the best of motivations, they are now married. This mass marriage annulment is going to hurt a lot of people.

Chicago: Not Guilty of Supporting Terrorism; Guilty of Obstructing Justice

The charges of obstructing justice could still carry a long jail term. These men’s lives have been turned upside down, their reputations ruined and their finances depleted – and for what?

Two Palestinians not guilty in US Hamas finance trial

Mira Oberman (Agence France Presse)

A US jury found two Palestinian men not guilty of racketeering conspiracy charges Thursday in a Hamas financing case once hailed by the US administration as a major victory in the “war on terror.”

The jury did however find both men guilty of less serious charges of obstruction of justice, for which they can still face lengthy prison terms.

The three-month trial, which evolved into a debate on the legitimacy of the Islamist movement Hamas and the alleged use of torture by Israeli security forces, was closely watched by Chicago’s Palestinian and Jewish communities and civil rights activists.

John Whitbeck: When People Talk About Israel’s Right to Exist, What Else Are They Really Saying?

What ‘Israel’s right to exist’ means to Palestinians

John V. Whitbeck (Christian Science Monitor)

Since the Palestinian elections in 2006, Israel and much of the West have asserted that the principal obstacle to any progress toward Israeli-Palestinian peace is the refusal of Hamas to “recognize Israel,” or to “recognize Israel’s existence,” or to “recognize Israel’s right to exist…”

…To demand that Palestinians recognize “Israel’s right to exist” is to demand that a people who have been treated as subhumans unworthy of basic human rights publicly proclaim that they are subhumans. It would imply Palestinians’ acceptance that they deserve what has been done and continues to be done to them. Even 19th-century US governments did not require the surviving native Americans to publicly proclaim the “rightness” of their ethnic cleansing by European colonists as a condition precedent to even discussing what sort of land reservation they might receive. Nor did native Americans have to live under economic blockade and threat of starvation until they shed whatever pride they had left and conceded the point.