Op-Ed: Rise of Islamist movements casts shadow over Egypt

[sandinista! 1,816]

Hadith anyone?

do you really think you are in any position to hurl "hadith, hadith!!" at anyone here? do you have the slightest comprehension of what a hadith is, or how any hadith applies to muslims' lives in 2012? islamic jurisprudence goes well beyond people screeching muslim buzzwords at each other without the foggiest idea about what they really mean, how they are used appropriately, or if they're even referring to a hadith that's authentic in the first place.

[Ban Hammer 13,400]

one post removed for a personal attack.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Israel and ‘Pinkwashing’

By SARAH SCHULMAN

Published: November 22, 2011

“IN dreams begin responsibilities,” wrote Yeats in 1914. These words resonate with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people who have witnessed dramatic shifts in our relationship to power. After generations of sacrifice and organization, gay people in parts of the world have won protection from discrimination and relationship recognition. But these changes have given rise to a nefarious phenomenon: the co-opting of white gay people by anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim political forces in Western Europe and Israel.

In the Netherlands, some Dutch gay people have been drawn to the messages of Geert Wilders, who inherited many followers of the assassinated anti-immigration gay leader Pim Fortuyn, and whose Party for Freedom is now the country’s third largest political party. In Norway, Anders Behring Breivik, the extremist who massacred 77 people in July, cited Bruce Bawer, a gay American writer critical of Muslim immigration, as an influence. The Guardian reported last year that the racist English Defense League had 115 members in its gay wing. The German Lesbian and Gay Federation has issued statements citing Muslim immigrants as enemies of gay people.

These depictions of immigrants — usually Muslims of Arab, South Asian, Turkish or African origin — as “homophobic fanatics” opportunistically ignore the existence of Muslim gays and their allies within their communities. They also render invisible the role that fundamentalist Christians, the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Jews play in perpetuating fear and even hatred of gays. And that cynical message has now spread from its roots in European xenophobia to become a potent tool in the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In 2005, with help from American marketing executives, the Israeli government began a marketing campaign, “Brand Israel,” aimed at men ages 18 to 34. The campaign, as reported by The Jewish Daily Forward, sought to depict Israel as “relevant and modern.” The government later expanded the marketing plan by harnessing the gay community to reposition its global image.

Last year, the Israeli news site Ynet reported that the Tel Aviv tourism board had begun a campaign of around $90 million to brand the city as “an international gay vacation destination.” The promotion, which received support from the Tourism Ministry and Israel’s overseas consulates, includes depictions of young same-sex couples and financing for pro-Israeli movie screenings at lesbian and gay film festivals in the United States. (The government isn’t alone; an Israeli pornography producer even shot a film, “Men of Israel,” on the site of a former Palestinian village.)

This message is being articulated at the highest levels. In May, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Congress that the Middle East was “a region where women are stoned, gays are hanged, Christians are persecuted.”

The growing global gay movement against the Israeli occupation has named these tactics “pinkwashing”: a deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violations of Palestinians’ human rights behind an image of modernity signified by Israeli gay life. Aeyal Gross, a professor of law at Tel Aviv University, argues that “gay rights have essentially become a public-relations tool,” even though “conservative and especially religious politicians remain fiercely homophobic.”

Pinkwashing not only manipulates the hard-won gains of Israel’s gay community, but it also ignores the existence of Palestinian gay-rights organizations. Homosexuality has been decriminalized in the West Bank since the 1950s, when anti-sodomy laws imposed under British colonial influence were removed from the Jordanian penal code, which Palestinians follow. More important is the emerging Palestinian gay movement with three major organizations: Aswat, Al Qaws and Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. These groups are clear that the oppression of Palestinians crosses the boundary of sexuality; as Haneen Maikay, the director of Al Qaws, has said, “When you go through a checkpoint it does not matter what the sexuality of the soldier is.”

What makes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies so susceptible to pinkwashing — and its corollary, the tendency among some white gay people to privilege their racial and religious identity, a phenomenon the theorist Jasbir K. Puar has called “homonationalism” — is the emotional legacy of homophobia. Most gay people have experienced oppression in profound ways — in the family; in distorted representations in popular culture; in systematic legal inequality that has only just begun to relent. Increasing gay rights have caused some people of good will to mistakenly judge how advanced a country is by how it responds to homosexuality.

In Israel, gay soldiers and the relative openness of Tel Aviv are incomplete indicators of human rights — just as in America, the expansion of gay rights in some states does not offset human rights violations like mass incarceration. The long-sought realization of some rights for some gays should not blind us to the struggles against racism in Europe and the United States, or to the Palestinians’ insistence on a land to call home.

Sarah Schulman is a professor of humanities at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Homosexuality in Islam is not only a sin, but a crime under Islamic law.

From the Torah, also part of the Christian Bible:

“Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abhorrence” [Leviticus 18:22]

“If a man lies with a male as one lies with a woman, the two of them have done an abhorrent thing; they shall be put to death—their bloodguilt is upon them” [Leviticus 20:13].

There's nothing like that in the Quran.

"If any of your women are guilty of lewdness, Take the evidence of four (Reliable) witnesses from amongst you against them; and if they testify, confine them to houses until death do claim them, or Allah ordain for them some (other) way. If two men among you are guilty of lewdness, punish them both. If they repent and amend, Leave them alone; for Allah is Oft-returning, Most Merciful." [Qur'an 4:15-16]

[AMP 54]

like I said shariah law not quarn

[Sofiyya 1,687]

like I said shariah law not quarn

Shari'a law is from the Qur'an. Stoning is from the Talmud.

[AMP 54]

Shari'a law is from the Qur'an. Stoning is from the Talmud.

[/

it's funny so when it's convenient it's from the Quran, when it's not it's not. I wish you guys will make up your mind. where did the Quran come from :

at least we put down the rocks.

Edited January 20, 2012 by AMP

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Shari'a law is from the Qur'an. Stoning is from the Talmud.

it's funny so when it's convenient it's from the Quran, when it's not it's not. I wish you guys will make up your mind. where did the Quran come from :

at least we put down the rocks.

The Qur'an came from God. If it's not in there, it's not in there.

You put down the rocks and picked up the bullet, the missile, the tank, the fighter jet, the lobbyists, and a really bad sense of entitlement.

[ready4ONE 5,400]

do you really think you are in any position to hurl "hadith, hadith!!" at anyone here? do you have the slightest comprehension of what a hadith is, or how any hadith applies to muslims' lives in 2012? islamic jurisprudence goes well beyond people screeching muslim buzzwords at each other without the foggiest idea about what they really mean, how they are used appropriately, or if they're even referring to a hadith that's authentic in the first place.

Yes! If I wanna hurl hadith I shall hurl Hadith. Has a nerve been struck? Apparently. But why? We both know, don't we?

[sandinista! 1,816]

Yes! If I wanna hurl hadith I shall hurl Hadith. Has a nerve been struck? Apparently. But why? We both know, don't we?

You haven't struck anything but your own ignorance, right on the head. Screech screech screech.

[AMP 54]

The Qur'an came from God. If it's not in there, it's not in there.

You put down the rocks and picked up the bullet, the missile, the tank, the fighter jet, the lobbyists, and a really bad sense of entitlement.

then why do Muslim people, say it's shariah law? if it's not there? is it or isn't it, simple yes or no?

[ready4ONE 5,400]

You haven't struck anything but your own ignorance, right on the head. Screech screech screech.

Hadith!

[Sofiyya 1,687]

then why do Muslim people, say it's shariah law? if it's not there? is it or isn't it, simple yes or no?

Many Muslims, like Jews and Christians, are ignorant of the particulars of their faith. Like Judaism, Islam is legalistic. Jurisprudence is determined by legal scholars who take many things into consideration according to precedent and specific circumstances. There is no one Shari'a, as Shari'a is the fallible human interpretation of God's Divine Law, based on the Qur'an and qualified ahadith. Human determinations vary.

Shari'a is commonly confused with "fiqh", which is what you're referring to. Fiqh is the compilation of legal decisions within a school of law, of which there are four active in the Sunni legal community. They disagree on some issues, much like state laws disagree in the US. So it is possible for a school of law to determine that homosexuals deserve death, and for other schools to decide that they don't. It's even possible for their precedents to change.

The precedent for stoning of gays comes from the Talmud. There are numerous examples of stoning being employed as a punishment in the OT/Torah. In Islam, it stems from the God's (swt) command to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) to engage with Jewish scholars (and with Christian scholars) to learn from those who had received the Book before him.

The Prophet used the punishment sparingly, as we are advised to be mild and merciful. Very few communities employ stoning or the execution of gays. Those that do are under great pressure by the Muslim world to refrain from doing so. As a result, openly gay organizations and communities exist in states as diverse as Saudi Arabia and Morocco.

Hadith!

What do you know about ahadith?

[AMP 54]

Many Muslims, like Jews and Christians, are ignorant of the particulars of their faith. Like Judaism, Islam is legalistic. Jurisprudence is determined by legal scholars who take many things into consideration according to precedent and specific circumstances. There is no one Shari'a, as Shari'a is the fallible human interpretation of God's Divine Law, based on the Qur'an and qualified ahadith. Human determinations vary.

Shari'a is commonly confused with "fiqh", which is what you're referring to. Fiqh is the compilation of legal decisions within a school of law, of which there are four active in the Sunni legal community. They disagree on some issues, much like state laws disagree in the US. So it is possible for a school of law to determine that homosexuals deserve death, and for other schools to decide that they don't. It's even possible for their precedents to change.

The precedent for stoning of gays comes from the Talmud. There are numerous examples of stoning being employed as a punishment in the OT/Torah. In Islam, it stems from the God's (swt) command to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) to engage with Jewish scholars (and with Christian scholars) to learn from those who had received the Book before him.

The Prophet used the punishment sparingly, as we are advised to be mild and merciful. Very few communities employ stoning or the execution of gays. Those that do are under great pressure by the Muslim world to refrain from doing so. As a result, openly gay organizations and communities exist in states as diverse as Saudi Arabia and Morocco.

What do you know about ahadith?

Your right the Qur'an does not explicitly mention the act, but according to hadith, the Qur'anic verses of stoning were written on a piece of paper and were lost when a goat ate it:

[Narrated 'Aisha] "The verse of the stoning and of suckling an adult ten times were revealed, and they were (written) on a paper and kept under my bed. When the messenger of Allah expired and we were preoccupied with his death, a goat entered and ate away the paper."

Musnad Ahmad bin Hanbal. vol. 6. p. 269; Sunan Ibn Majah, p. 626; Ibn Qutbah, Tawil Mukhtalafi 'l-Hadith (Cairo: Maktaba al-Kulliyat al-Azhariyya. 1966) p. 310; As-Suyuti, ad-Durru 'l-Manthur, vol. 2. p. 13

Scholars have still managed to find justification for stoning from within the Qur'an:

So when Our decree came to pass, We turned them upside down and rained down upon them stones, of what had been decreed, one after another.

Qur'an 11:82

And we rained down on them a shower (of brimstone): Then see what was the end of those who indulged in sin and crime!

Qur'an 7:84

We rained down on them a shower (of brimstone): and evil was the shower on those who were admonished (but heeded not)!

Qur'an 26:173

And We rained down on them a shower (of brimstone): and evil was the shower on those who were admonished (but heeded not)!

Qur'an 27:58

He it is Who has revealed the Book to you; some of its verses are decisive, they are the basis of the Book, and others are allegorical; then as for those in whose hearts there is perversity they follow the part of it which is allegorical, seeking to mislead and seeking to give it (their own) interpretation. but none knows its interpretation except Allah, and those who are firmly rooted in knowledge say: We believe in it, it is all from our Lord; and none do mind except those having understanding.

Qur'an 3:7

So does this mean no one can understand the Qur'an but Allah, so what you just said is misleading in your interpretation. So when I read the Qur'an I can interpretate it differnelty and it is still misleading. So then I have to wait untill I die to see if I got it all right. So what you think is mild and merciful, might not be for others and vise versa.

Edited January 20, 2012 by AMP

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Your right the Qur'an does not explicitly mention the act, but according to hadith, the Qur'anic verses of stoning were written on a piece of paper and were lost when a goat ate it:

[Narrated 'Aisha] "The verse of the stoning and of suckling an adult ten times were revealed, and they were (written) on a paper and kept under my bed. When the messenger of Allah expired and we were preoccupied with his death, a goat entered and ate away the paper."

Musnad Ahmad bin Hanbal. vol. 6. p. 269; Sunan Ibn Majah, p. 626; Ibn Qutbah, Tawil Mukhtalafi 'l-Hadith (Cairo: Maktaba al-Kulliyat al-Azhariyya. 1966) p. 310; As-Suyuti, ad-Durru 'l-Manthur, vol. 2. p. 13

Scholars have still managed to find justification for stoning from within the Qur'an:

So when Our decree came to pass, We turned them upside down and rained down upon them stones, of what had been decreed, one after another.

Qur'an 11:82

And we rained down on them a shower (of brimstone): Then see what was the end of those who indulged in sin and crime!

Qur'an 7:84

We rained down on them a shower (of brimstone): and evil was the shower on those who were admonished (but heeded not)!

Qur'an 26:173

And We rained down on them a shower (of brimstone): and evil was the shower on those who were admonished (but heeded not)!

Qur'an 27:58

He it is Who has revealed the Book to you; some of its verses are decisive, they are the basis of the Book, and others are allegorical; then as for those in whose hearts there is perversity they follow the part of it which is allegorical, seeking to mislead and seeking to give it (their own) interpretation. but none knows its interpretation except Allah, and those who are firmly rooted in knowledge say: We believe in it, it is all from our Lord; and none do mind except those having understanding.

Qur'an 3:7

So does this mean no one can understand the Qur'an but Allah, so what you just said is misleading in your interpretation. So when I read the Qur'an I can interpretate it differnelty and it is still misleading. So then I have to wait untill I die to see if I got it all right. So what you think is mild and merciful, might not be for others and vise versa.

All ahadith are not created equal. Some have broken chains of transmission or discredited narrators or are so out of line with the primary source, the Qur'an, that they must be disregarded. Discerning or applying ahadith is not for everyone and anyone to do. The excerpts quoted are from descriptions of the events at Sodam and Gommorah. They refer to punishments from God (swt), not man, and punishments best left to God. They dont provide a justification for stoning.

Justifications for stoning are man-made, not divine, therefore not mandatory. That's why stoning and other huddud laws are so rarely used.