Saudi Arabia: New University to Put Science in the Hands of Scientists; No Religious Police Allowed

Saudi King Tries to Grow Modern Ideas in Desert

Thanassis Cambanis (NY Times)

On a marshy peninsula 50 miles from this Red Sea port, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is staking $12.5 billion on a gargantuan bid to catch up with the West in science and technology.

Between an oil refinery and the sea, the monarch is building from scratch a graduate research institution that will have one of the 10 largest endowments in the world, worth more than $10 billion.

Its planners say men and women will study side by side in an enclave walled off from the rest of Saudi society, the country’s notorious religious police will be barred and all religious and ethnic groups will be welcome in a push for academic freedom and international collaboration sure to test the kingdom’s cultural and religious limits.

This undertaking is directly at odds with the kingdom’s religious establishment, which severely limits women’s rights and rejects coeducation and robust liberal inquiry as unthinkable…

Rejection of “robust liberal inquiry” plus the stifling of communication leads to a lack of innovation and scientific breakthroughs.

Traditional Saudi practice is on display at the biggest public universities, where the Islamic authorities vet the curriculum, medical researchers tread carefully around controversial subjects like evolution, and female and male students enter classrooms through separate doors and follow lectures while separated by partitions…

Technology: Hajj Crowd Management

With millions performing Hajj each year it is the ultimate crowd-control challenge…

Panic Specialists Bring Order to the Hajj

Max Rauner (International Spiegel)

Fatal crushes often occur during the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, sometimes killing hundreds of people. Now German researchers using traffic-modelling software have re-organized the ritual to make it safer for pilgrims…

USA: Oklahoma Legislator Makes Political Hay from Claims that the Quran Condones Killing Innocents

Oklahoma lawmakers object to gift of Muslim holy text

(PJ Star)

Two dozen Oklahoma lawmakers plan to return gift copies of the Quran to Governor’s Ethnic American Advisory Council after a lawmaker claimed the Muslim holy book condones the killing of innocent people.

“Most Oklahomans do not endorse the idea of killing innocent women and children in the name of ideology,” said Rep. Rex Duncan, who added that he has researched the Quran on the Internet…

News Flash, Mr. Duncan: The killing of innocent women and children (and innocent men, for that matter) is not endorsed by the Quran.

USA: Jordan’s Queen Rania on Women, Tolerance, Culture

Jordan’s queen talks of women and education in L.A. visit

Queen Rania seeks to dispel stereotyped images of Muslim women

Carla Hall (Los Angeles Times)

Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan listened Wednesday morning to students at Taft High School in Woodland Hills chronicle their attempts at bridging multicultural gaps in their diverse student body. They talked of their organizations, their successes, their personal stories.

Then, microphone in hand, she sat on stage and, without so much as a note card, praised their various programs by name. The strife-torn Middle East could use a few of them, she mused.

“In my opinion, people who don’t see eye to eye are standing with their backs to each other,” Rania said…

USA: Ann Coulter Speaks Amid Protests at USC

Coulter’s appearance at USC prompts ovations, protests

Rebecca Trounson (Los Angeles Times)

As Muslim students and their supporters protested outside, commentator Ann Coulter told a USC audience Wednesday night that Americans should get tough on terrorists and “stop genuflecting before Islam.”

Coulter’s speech to a supportive audience of about 230 in Annenberg Auditorium was part of a nationwide series of events on college campuses that has been dubbed “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” by its organizer, Los Angeles author and activist David Horowitz. Another 100 or so watched on screens in the auditorium lobby, not far from about 150 protesters from Muslim, Jewish and Christian student and community groups…

USA: No Apology from Condoleezza Rice Over Deportation of Canadian Citizen to Syria

Maher Arar was tortured in Syria and imprisoned there on false charges.

Rice acknowledges that the US “erred”. I’m surprised she even bothered to say that much.

Rice Admits U.S. Erred in Deportation

(Reuters)

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted Wednesday that the United States had mishandled the case of a Canadian who was deported to Syria and who has said he was tortured there, but she stopped short of an apology…

Vietnam: Cong, dung, ngon and hanh – tidy, charming, soft-spoken and chaste.

“Cong, dung, ngon and hanh” – tidy, charming, soft-spoken and chaste. These characteristics are still valued by the Vietnamese (for women, anyway). Hoang Thuy Linh, a once-rising young media star caught up in a video sex scandal has discovered this double standard first hand. Her TV show has been canceled and her reputation is in the gutter.

Vietnam is having Paris Hilton moment

Ben Stocking (Associated Press)

Vietnam is having a Paris Hilton moment.

An online sex video featuring a popular celebrity has riveted the nation for more than a week now, much as Hilton’s clip seized the attention of Americans when it hit the Internet several years ago.

But unlike Hilton, the 19-year-old woman at the center of Vietnam’s sex scandal won’t be able to capitalize on her newfound notoriety.

Hoang Thuy Linh’s show has been canceled and the actress has made a tearful farewell on national television.

“I made a mistake, a terrible mistake,” said the doe-faced teen, who had cultivated a good-girl image. “I apologize to you, my parents, my teachers and my friends…”

Nepal: Allegations of Gruesome Animal Slaughter

Muslims and Jews are often accused of animal cruelty because of the method used to slaughter animals for meat. To render the meat halal (or kosher), a brief prayer is said, and then the animal’s throat is cut with a very sharp knife, severing the jugular vein. The animal bleeds out very quickly, slips into unconsciousness and experiences a peaceful (and quick) death. This is in marked contrast to the slaughter methods described below which are enacted as part of a religious festival.

Revulsion over Nepal animal slaughter

Charles Haviland (BBC News)

The people of Nepal are celebrating their biggest national festival, Dashain.

… On Friday and Saturday, and especially during the night in between, known as “Kal Ratri” or the “Dark Night”, thousands of these animals [goats and chickens] as well as sheep and ducks will be slaughtered across the nation.

Animals are killed in the smallest villages or in cities like Kathmandu, where the courtyard of the Taleju Temple, opened just once a year, will end up flowing with blood.

It will yield a feast of meat. But it is also said to have a religious meaning – the killing being a sacrifice to honour the goddess and prevent her anger in the year ahead.

The new dissenters are questioning both the scale and the methods of the killing.

An article in the Nepali Times weekly says most buffaloes, like smaller animals, are decapitated but the bigger ones are battered to death with a heavy hammer on the forehead.

A respected botanist, Dr Tirtha Shrestha – writing in the same paper – says that in Bhaktapur, near Kathmandu, pigs are skinned alive and their beating hearts offered to the temple, while in a nearby village people tear apart a live goat…

John Walker Lindh: Five Years Since His Conviction

Bitter vengeance on the American Taliban

Matthew Carr (The First Post)

This month marks the sixth anniversary of the Nato bombing campaign that swept away the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. It is also nearly six years since a young American Muslim named John Walker Lindh was captured by the Northern Alliance warlord and US ally Rashid Dostum…

… John Walker Lindh is a largely forgotten prisoner in the Supermax penitentiary in Colorado, a sacrificial victim in a new war in which, as George Bush put it: “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.”

That war was symbolised by the shocking photograph showing Lindh strapped naked to a stretcher. It was an image that heralded a new self-righteous cruelty, of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, ‘monstering’ and extraordinary rendition. It was also an image that shamed those responsible and should shame the country that still keeps Lindh in jail…

Carr notes that Lindh plead guilty only to

… providing ’services to the Taliban’ and illegal possession of weapons.

Lindh appears to have accepted the plea bargain to avoid being designated an ‘enemy combatant’ and disappearing into Guantanamo or some other netherworld…

Most charges against him were dropped; no murder charged, no charges of treason. If the US case against him was strong enough, surely these avenues would have been pursued.

For more details on Lindh’s life behind bars, see:

Can America and Islam coexist? The answer may lie with the fate of twenty-five-year-old

Tom Junod (Esquire)

… Hamza [Lindh] spends a lot of time in the hole, according to two Muslims recently released from Victorville. He doesn’t even have to do anything. Other people do it, and Hamza goes into the hole. Other Muslims do it, and Hamza goes into the hole. Whenever there’s a big terrorist attack and Muslims take the blame, there goes Hamza for his own protection. He went to the hole after Madrid, and he went to the hole after London. He went because he was the most visible Muslim in the prison, and therefore representative. The prison didn’t want him to be the object of anti-Islamic anger. It did not want Hamza to provoke violence just by being quiet, gentle Hamza…

He is forbidden to speak any Arabic in prison. This means not only normal “conversation”, but the exchange of greetings. If a brother greets him with “As salaamu alaikum” he cannot respond “Wa alaikum as salaam.” More importantly, he cannot read or recite the Quran in Arabic. Since the only true Quran is in Arabic, he is restricted in the practice of his religion, at even the most level. He cannot pray aloud.

But, as Carr points out, things could have ended up worse. After all, Lindh could have been shipped to Guantanamo.

Tariq Nelson: Rejecting the “New” Islam

Tariq Nelson discusses what led him to embrace Islam, the religion of love, reason and order, and the reasons he rejects the so-called “new” Islam of paranoia, hatred and ignorance.

The Islam I Accepted

Tariq Nelson (The American Muslim)

When Islam was presented to me, I was presented a religion of worshiping One God alone and as a practical solution for mankind’s social ills. It was a road map for improving our lives. I learned about an Islam that is about togetherness, sharing, caring and strengthening familial bonds. An Islam that was about creating communities, doing business together and uplifting people.

USA: Muslim, Jewish and Christian Scholars Discuss “Difficult” Religious Texts

What does it mean to be a “chosen” people? Should Muslims treat all Jews and Christians as foes? And what about those New Testament passages condemning the Jews?

Scholars try to reconcile ‘problematic’ religious texts

K. Connie Kang (Los Angeles Times)

Speaking with mutual respect and sensitivity, prominent Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars and clergy from around the country met in Los Angeles this week to “wrestle” with what one rabbi described as the “dark side” of the three faith traditions.

Experts cited “problematic” passages from the Hebrew Scripture, the New Testament and the Koran that assert the superiority of one belief system over others…

“… God is challenging us to take the idea of troubling texts to the next level, to begin a new conversation across faiths and throughout the world, with the goal of realizing God’s own hope that all God’s creation may learn to live harmoniously together.”

US, Ohio: Muslim Marriage Contract Ruled Unenforceable

Judge rules Muslim dowries unenforcable by Ohio law

(Associated Press)

A Franklin County judge ruled that a man does not have to pay his former wife $25,000, promised as part of a dowry before their traditional Muslim marriage.

The judge says the payment is part of a religious agreement, not a legal contract.

The decision is the first of its kind in Ohio, and a departure from rulings in other states, which have enforced dowries as part of Islamic marriage contracts…

It really stinks that this woman’s husband is reneging on his marital contract. I don’t know if Ohio is a community property state or not, but I hope the ex-wife pursues whatever rights she is entitled to under Ohio law. I hope she appeals this judgment, also.

I suspect, however, that part of the issue with this particular contract is that there is a payment due if the marriage ends. US courts tend to see this as an incentive to divorce. (It’s not meant as an incentive, but as a safety net for the bride.) Other contracts that are upheld may have been written differently. We may be hearing more about this case …

UK: Muslim Live8; Intent to Raise Money & Aid for the Suffering of Darfur

Artists will include Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens), Sami Yusuf, the Police, Meat Loaf and Outlandish.

Wembley stadium will be “halal” for one night, but pork and beer addicts will be able to get their fix on ensuing nights as the concert continues.

Halal food and no alcohol as Wembley hosts Muslim Live8

Riazat Butt (Guardian UK)

There will be no sex, drugs or rock and roll at Wembley Arena tomorrow night. The venue’s 200-seat restaurant – sample dish: pork loin with mash – will be closed and converted to a prayer room, and alcohol has been banned from the premises.

The charity pop concert for Darfur has been described as a Muslim Live8 and features artists who, although unknown to mainstream audiences and record companies in Britain, have sold millions of albums in Muslim-majority countries.

It is the first event of its kind to be held at Wembley and special arrangements are in place for the 10,000 people expected. The start time was changed from 5.30pm to 6.30pm after the organisers, Awakening Entertainment, realised that thousands of people would rush out to pray at 5.59pm. To respect Islamic dietary requirements – and for one night only – Wembley will be dry and halal…

Language: Arabic Roots of Many Common English Words

English enriched by Centuries of borrowed Arabic words

Mohamed Elmasry (Media Monitors.net)

For 1000 years, Arabic was the primary international language of commerce, scholarship and politics, much as English is in today’s world. In fact, over the centuries English adopted many words that were either borrowed directly from Arabic, or were absorbed indirectly through other languages, especially Spanish.

Even today, Arabic still accounts for the greatest number of Eastern elements in English. The lists of examples that follow are only a brief sampling of the many more words available; perhaps some will surprise you!

Elmasry starts with the usual list of English words with Arabic roots, such as algebra and algorithm. But there are plenty of other words he mentions which came as a surprise, such as mattress, almanac and caliber. And pie. Mmmm … pie.

USA, New York City: Debbie Almontaser, Former Principal of Khalil Gibran International Academy

Arabic School Ex-Principal Fights to Get Job Back

Jennifer Medina (NY Times)

The founding principal of the city’s first Arabic-language school [the Khalil Gibran International Academy] said yesterday that the Bloomberg administration forced her to resign in August by threatening to shut the school. She said she was applying to get the job back.

In her first detailed public account of what led her to step down after defending the word “intifada” on a T-shirt, the principal, Debbie Almontaser, presented herself as the victim of an anti-Arab “smear campaign” from conservative newspapers and blogs and of pressure from city officials…

… Speaking with a calm voice but with clear anger, Ms. Almontaser said that her critics — particularly those involved with a group that calls itself the “Stop the Madrassa Coalition” — had gone after her by “fostering hatred of Arabs and Muslims.”

“They suggested that as an observant Muslim I was disqualified from leading” the school, Ms. Almontaser said. “To stir up anti-Arab prejudice, they constantly referred to me by my Arabic name, a name that I do not use professionally.”

Sara Springer, a member of the coalition who watched the press conference, said that the group believed the school should still come under more scrutiny.

“It’s a school that’s teaching Islamic culture, that’s what it’s all about,” Ms. Springer said. “The Department of Education should absolutely reject her application…”

No, Ms. Springer, it is not “all about” teaching “Islamic culture.” It’s a language-focused school, one of several already operating in New York City.

Almontaser was unfairly hounded out of her job. Her sin? Using the word “intifada” in a sentence without getting the vapors.

I don’t think she will get her old position back in the current anti-Arab, anti-Muslim climate. In the unlikely event that she does, I do not doubt that the so-called “Stop the Madrassa Coalition” will succeed in its mission to close the school permanently.