On equality in the mosque

As some of you know, Katie and I have recently returned from a two-month trip to Europe. One thing that I love to do while travelling is to discover mosques where I can perform the Friday prayer. In Muslim countries, there are always well established mosques on hand. In non-Muslim ones, depending on how long a Muslim minority has been established there, there are either mosques that look like mosques, or there are buildings converted into mosques from other uses (such as a former cinema I found in Philadelphia), or temporary prayer facilities at university campuses. What's common between all of these places of worship is the welcome they extend to the Muslim worshipper and the sense of brotherhood that almost always emanates from them.

So imagine my surprise when, in Luton, England, I was told that, to the best of my interlocutor's knowledge, mosques there have no "arrangements" for women worshippers. He said there might be something at the university, but, at that stage, it was too late to check. It's always something of a shock to the system to find yourself amid the ultra-conservative Muslims of Luton. Never did I think, though, that the community, which has been in Britain for two or three generations, would continue the common South-Asian practice of excluding women from the mosque. Especially since Luton itself features Islamic schools with female students and women teachers.

My mosque in Dhaka has a women's section, albeit, from what I hear, a small, crowded one, with no view of the men's prayer halls. So Katie was able to attend the mosque in Bangladesh in 2006, but not in Britain in 2009.

After Britain came Belarus. Minsk, my native city, is home to a long-standing Tatar community, present there for over 500 years. There was a mosque in Minsk for most of this time but, tragically, it was first expropriated and then blown up by the city authorities under Communist rule. Since 1997, however, a new mosque has been under construction (very much a stop-go process; the small Belarusian Muslim community is short on funds). The building site features a make-shift structure that serves as a temporary mosque while construction continues. It's actually quite beautiful inside, and includes a women's section, although, again, a small one. Katie and I prayed at this mosque when we were in Minsk; the other places we went to in Belarus didn't have mosques, as far as we knew.

The big shock came in Turkey. Ostensibly, Turkish Islam is all smiles and all kindness. The Turkish Muslims we know are genuinely warm and kind-hearted people, ma sha' Allah. However, something about the way Islamic institutions are managed in Turkey is badly broken. In Istanbul, the mosque where I went for Friday prayer most weeks (because it was located close to the apartment we were staying in) had no women's section.

So one day, Katie and I went off in search of a place where the two of us could perform Friday prayer together. We went to two different mosques in another neighbourhood, and the results were even more surprising. It turned out that both those mosques did have women's sections, BUT those sections were taken over by men during Friday prayers. Thus, of the 35 congregational prayers a week, women could pray at the mosque 34 times. However, they were obliged to stay away for just one prayer, which just happened to be the most important one of the week. Compounding the double standards (if not outright hypocrisy) is the fact that, in one of those mosques, the Friday sermon was about the importance of family, while the prayer featured verses from the Qur'an about the importance of Friday prayer. Hello?

So it was quite comical (sadly so) to see an official from Diyanet, the Turkish governmental agency in charge of Islamic institutions, saying, after a mosque designed by a female architect opened, that Turkey should build more such mosques. That mosque is the first in Turkey designed by a woman, and the first to feature a women's prayer hall equal in size to the men's one. The joke lies in the fact that there is no move underway by Diyanet to admit women into the mosques which currently bar them from taking part in Friday prayer, even though they already have women's sections.

On our way home to Montreal, Katie and I stopped by the Muslim prayer rooms at Atatürk International Airport in Istanbul to perform the fajr prayer. The women's prayer room was spacious and well equipped, but infested with cockroaches. Not surprisingly, I didn't see any cockroaches in the men's one. Katie was glad to leave Turkey, and I don't blame her.

So now we're in Perrysburg, Ohio, visiting my in-laws. Katie and I got married at the mosque here, the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo (see picture), in 2005. This is probably the most equitable of all purpose-built mosques I've seen anywhere in the world when it comes to ensuring women's access to prayer facilities. The prayer hall is simply divided down the middle with a low barrier; men have half the space, while women have the other. The barrier is high enough to ensure modesty, yet not high enough to create a sense of segregation. Men and women have equal access not just to the prayer space, but to the other elements of the mosque, such as the high dome and the stained-glass windows, that give it beauty and help in the contemplation of the Divine.

As Jimmy Carter reminded us last month, "it is simply self-defeating for any community to discriminate against half its population." It is high time for us Muslims around the world to start paying much more attention to the Prophet's (peace be upon him) injunction: "Do not prevent the maid-servant of God from going to the mosque" (Bukhari).

[This post was written in Perrysburg.]

Football fracas

A football anthem is proving controversial in Germany because of joking references to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). The song, chanted during matches by the fans of FC Schalke 04, is called "Blue and White, How I Love You", referring to the club colours. The lyrics of the anthem include the lines "Muhammad was a prophet who understood nothing about football / But of all the lovely colours he chose blue and white".

The song was written in 1924, but has aroused controversy only recently, after reporting on it in the Turkish media. Aiman Mazyek, who heads the (German) Central Council of Muslims, has asked for "an explanation" of the "background" of the song. The club, meanwhile, is seeking expert advice on whether the song can be considered offensive to Muslims. The police of Gelsenkirchen, the city where Schalke 04 is based, is also following the matter in order to protect the rights of Muslims who may have been offended.

I personally think the best solution would be to replace the name of the Prophet with something more innocuous. It's all a bit of silly fun for the non-Muslim fans, but this sort of off-hand remark does sound pretty offensive to a Muslim ear.

[This post was written in Perrysburg.]

Carpet intended for Prophet's (pbuh) grave up for auction

Sotheby's is planning to auction off a carpet once intended to adorn the grave of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). The carpet was commissioned in the 1860s by the Maharaja of Baroda (present-day Vadodara, Gujarat, India). Its name, the Pearl Carpet of Baroda, comes from the fact that it is encrusted with about "two million natural seed pearls" from the Persian Gulf.

The Maharaja's death put an end to plans to send the carpet to the Prophet's (pbuh) grave. The carpet travelled from India to Monaco, and is now housed in Qatar.

Bidding is to start at US $5 million (C $6.2 million), but Sotheby's is predicting that the carpet could sell for up to US $20 million (C $24.8 million) (BBC).

In life, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) slept on a straw mat or a leather mattress stuffed with fibre. Living a life of humility and simplicity was his conscious choice. God alone knows, but I very much doubt the Prophet would have approved of the decoration of his tomb with literally millions of pearls. So I'm glad that this carpet is being treated as a work of art, rather than a religious object. And I'm certainly glad that it never did end up at the Prophet's graveside.

Kadyrov bribing parents to name their sons Muhammad

The pro-Russian president of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, has announced that boys born tonight will receive 50,000 rubles (C$ 1,796 / US$ 1,398) from the Akhmad Kadyrov Fund, as a way to mark the Prophet Muhammad's (pbuh) birthday. In exchange, Kadyrov said he would "ask" the boys' parents to name their newborn sons Muhammad.

Kadyrov is also planning to distribute 5,000 rubles each to 10,000 poor Chechens. Furthermore, the Prophet's (pbuh) birthday is being marked with the distribution of flour and sugar to the poor, along with special prayers and fireworks in major Chechen cities (Белорусские новости).

What can I say? It's somewhat pathetic when a dictator as brutal as Kadyrov starts playing the religion card. Kadyrov can't even distribute charity without interfering in as personal a decision as naming one's child. I don't think he's fooling anyone, though, neither with his construction of the largest mosque in Europe, nor with his latest gimmick.

----------------
Now playing: Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water [Live]
via FoxyTunes

The Prophet's birthday (peace be upon him)

The 12th of Rabi' al-Awwal, according to Sunni Muslims, is the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). This year, the date corresponds to the 8th or 9th of March.

May the peace and blessings of God be on His last messenger.

My article in Eurozine

My article on the imprisonment of the Belarusian journalist Aliaksandar Zdźvižkoŭ over his reprinting of the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), and the subsequent vilification of Muslims in some quarters of the usually liberal Belarusian opposition, which first appeared in the Belarusian magazine ARCHE in the January-February 2008 issue, has now been reprinted (in English translation and in shortened form) in Eurozine, which is an online magazine that publishes translations of articles first published by a network of European cultural magazines.

Do let me know what you think about the article!

Danish atheist starts campaign to apologise to Muslims

Anders Bøtter, an atheist Danish student, has started a Facebook group called Sorry Muhammad, which is calling on Danes to apologise to Muslims over the reprinting of a defamatory cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). Bøtter says that the cartoon issue has become unncessarily polarising, and that, while he is not personally insulted by the cartoon, its reprinting "hurts the feelings of Muslims a lot". In his words,

What does hurt my feelings is when a Danish newspaper publishes these very mocking cartoons of Muhammad. For me this is not a matter of a drawing but the mocking of one of our minority groups in Denmark and that's a big problem. That is why I apologise for being a Dane coming from Denmark.

This is not the first time Bøtter has taken action over the cartoons: after their initial publication in 2006, he apologised to his Muslim friends in different countries by e-mail. This time around, Bøtter is trying to get 10,000 Danes to join his group; over 1,000 did in the first day of its existence. One Danish girl wrote to Bøtter saying that the very existence of his group made her feel proud to be Danish, because of its attempt to engage in dialogue.

A rival Facebook group has been set up by those who think there is nothing to apologise about; the group is called No Need to Apologise to Muhammad (BBC).

Bøtter is a true man of conscience, and I hope he gets his 10,000 members. He understands the issue for what it is: needless insults heaped repeatedly on a minority that is disadvantaged as it is. Let's hope that any Muslims who may be frustrated with Denmark over the issue also see that there is more than one side to the country.

Danish MPs cancel Iran trip over cartoons

A group of nine Danish MPs who were due to visit Iran have called off the trip two days before their scheduled departure, after being asked by the Iranian parliament to apologise over the recent reprinting of a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) wearing a turban with a bomb in it. Villy Søvndal, the head of the Socialist People's Party, said that "If anyone needs to apologise for freedom of speech, human rights, imprisonments, executions and lack of democracy, it is the Iranians" (BBC).

So if one group of people acts in a way that others find offensive, does that mean that those opposed must also try to be offensive? Is that what Søvndal is trying to proclaim?

Belarusian journalist imprisoned for Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) caricatures

Aliaksandr Źdźvižkoŭ (whose name is also spelled Alexander Sdvizhkov in English), the former editor of the defunct Belarusian opposition newspaper Zhoda (Agreement), has been sentenced to three years in prison by the Minsk City Court for reprinting the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) which first appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

After having the cartoons reprinted, Źdźvižkoŭ was quoted as saying "We did the right thing by speaking out against Islamic hysteria." I have to say, whipping up hysteria by attacking what is sacred to someone else is a funny way of "speaking out against... hysteria." In particular, Źdźvižkoŭ didn't seem to remember that Belarus has its own community of around 30,000 Muslims who were exhibiting no "hysteria" over the cartoons, and that printing the cartoons in Zhoda (especially given the negative depiction of the Prophet contained in most of them) would be needlessly, gratuitously offensive to Belarusian Muslims.

As it happened, Ismail Varanovič, the head of the Spritual Directorate of the Muslims of the Republic of Belarus, sued Źdźvižkoŭ for "inciting hatred" against the Muslim community. However, he now claims that the government and, in particular, the Committee of Religious and Ethnicity Affairs, put him up to it. More that that, they made him understand that it was their express desire that he sue Źdźvižkoŭ.

Varanovič says that he felt sorry for Źdźvižkoŭ at the trial, which was held behind closed doors, and even tried to help him by telling the court that he had come to think that Źdźvižkoŭ's actions represented not an incitement to hatred, but rather a mere illustration to the story of the cartoon controversy. According to Varanovič, Źdźvižkoŭ apologised to him personally, and to the Muslim community in general, for his actions.

So it seems that the Belarusian Muslim community was led into something not of its own choosing, and was used by the government in its own game against Źdźvižkoŭ. This theory is supported by the fact that the prison term that Źdźvižkoŭ was sentenced to -- three years -- is the most severe of all so far received by people found guilty in the cartoon controversy in any country.

So why is it that the Belarusian authorities were after Źdźvižkoŭ? Two reasons have been raised in the independent and opposition press. Some say that the Belarusian government wanted to impress rich(er) Muslim countries with their defence of Islam in order to attract investments from them. However, the theory that sounds more likely to be true is that the authorities wanted to move Źdźvižkoŭ out of the way for a while because his newspaper, Zhoda, had endorsed Aliaksandr Kazulin, a Social-Democratic candidate for the Belarusian presidency. In addition, the action taken against Źdźvižkoŭ can serve as a warning to what is left of the independent Belarusian media to be more careful in what they say -- not about Islam, but about President Lukašenka. This theory rings true not just because of various actions against journalists undertaken by the Belarusian government in the past, but also because Zhoda was shut down following a threat from Lukašenka to do so.

So where does this leave the Belarusian Muslims? Unfortunately, they have faced a certain degree of scapegoating from the Belarusian opposition, which is not normally known for anti-Muslim positions. Thus, the deputy leader of the Belarusian Popular Front, Alieś Michalievič (Mikhalevich), has asked Metropolitan Filaret, the Exarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in Belarus, to intervene with the authorities in order to get Źdźvižkoŭ's sentence softened. In his appeal, Michalievič claims that Źdźvižkoŭ has been made to suffer for "expressing his Christian convictions", and asks sarcastically whether the "the law of the Shari'a" is in force in Belarus. To which one may reply that one does not need to look as far as the Shari'a to find condemnation of libel and hate speech of the kind that the cartoons represented.

One pro-opposition journalist has even warned that Belarusians should beware of the transformation of our country into "Belarusistan". In his view, Źdźvižkoŭ understood this danger, but went overboard in his response. At best, the journalist's statement regarding the "present threat" posed by Belarusian Muslims reflects a hastily put together reaction that ignores the simple facts that the Muslim community has lived peacefully in what is now Belarus for over 600 years and, that Muslim scholars were writing religious treatises in Belarusian centuries ago, and that further, Muslims constitute less than 1 percent of the population of Belarus. These sorts of responses from respected segments of the opposition intelligentsia are irresponsible and seem to imply an attempt to align pro-Western Belarusian views with those of extreme right-wing Western European politicians. What does not make sense in this equation, however, is that those xenophobic politicians try to court public support by attacking immigrants or their children (which is, in itself, wrong), while Belarus, as I said above, has what can be quite justifiably considered an indigenous Muslim population.

So what is needed here are liberal voices, ones that understand that freedom comes with responsibility, and that we Belarusians are one people who must continue building our country for all of us together, whether we are Orthodox Christians, Catholics, Muslims, Jews, or what have you. Fortunately, there are some who have been speaking out in just such a vein.

Since becoming a "normal European country" is one of the biggest dreams of the Belarusian opposition, I'd like to suggest that turning on minorities at the slightest hint of imagined provocation is not the way to achieve that dream.

Happy Islamic New Year!

I'd like to wish all my Muslim readers a happy 1429!

May we be continuously inspired by the example of the Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace) and his companions (may God be pleased with them), who emigrated from Mecca to Medina 1429 lunar years ago.

You can find news articles concerning the Hijri New Year here.

Muslim peers hope to secure teacher's freedom

The British Muslim peers Lord Ahmad and Lady Warsi are planning to visit Sudan on a private initiative to try to secure the release of Gillian Gibbons, a British teacher currently serving a 15-day sentence for insulting religion over the permission she gave her students in September to name a teddy bear Muhammad. The pupils named the bear Muhammad after one of their own number. The affair went to court after a member of the school staff complained to the Sudanese education ministry. The peers hope that President Omar al-Bashir and the chief justice of Sudan will find it possible to hand Gibbons over to their fellow Muslims, without appearing to bow to pressure from the British government.

The student named Muhammad, whose name landed his teacher at the centre of the controversy, has spoken out in support of Gibbons. He admitted that naming the bear Muhammad had originally been his idea. His family described Gibbons as "very nice".

Nevertheless, there was a demonstration against Gibbons in Khartoum after Friday prayer today. The protesters demanded a harsher punishment than the 15-day prison sentence Gibbons is serving. In fact, some of them chanted slogans such as "No tolerance -- execution" and "Kill her, kill her by firing squad" (BBC).

I sincerely hope that Lord Ahmad and Lady Warsi's mission to Khartoum will succeed. They're wise to have come up with a face-saving exit strategy that will hopefully allow Gibbons to go back home and put the ordeal behind her.

For the people who want Gibbons dead, though, I can't find the right words. Their ignorance and lack of human empathy is simply astounding. This whole sordid story reminds me of the plight of the Bangladeshi cartoonist Muhammad Arifur Rahman who got in serious trouble both with noisy Islamists and with the interim government after authoring a cartoon in which a little boy gives his cat's name as "Muhammad the Cat" after being told by a mullah to place Muhammad before any name. There, too, some demonstrator's bayed for Arif's blood, even though the poor guy was just making fun of overzealous preachers who'd like all men in Bangladesh to present themselves as Muhammad So-and-So.

Muhammad the Cat, Muhammad the Bear... are these attacks on the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)? A moment's reflection would tell us they're not. And yet there are plenty of people in various Muslim countries who jump at the opportunity to holler and shout until they're blue in the face, demanding the death of one person, the imprisonment of another, etc. etc. Why so much insecurity? Do they think the Prophet Muhammad can be hurt by someone naming a toy bear after him, even intentionally? The Prophet refused to invoke God's punishment on people who had their children throw stones at him until he bled. Instead, he prayed for the guidance of those people. So what have these noisy crowds, who claim to be defending the Prophet, learned from his life and deeds?

The Prophet (pbuh) was gentle even to a man who urinated in the middle of the mosque in Medina. We have to take a long and hard look at ourselves and ask whether we live up to the Prophet's example, or even try to live up to it.

Afghans angry at balls donated by the US

About 100 people have demonstrated in the Afghan city of Khost after US troops stationed in the area airdropped some footballs (soccer balls) aimed at children in the area. They were protesting the fact that some of the balls were decorated with, among other things, Saudi flags.

Since the Saudi flag contains the Muslim declaration of faith, "There is no god except God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God," the footballs would indirectly invite players to kick an object bearing the name of God.

A US military spokeswoman has expressed regret over the mistake (BBC).

This once again starkly highlights the need for understanding the US Armed Forces to understand Islam and Muslims. Any interpreter who took a look at one of those footballs would be able to flag them as inappropriate.

NWFP Christians ask govt for help

Christians in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) have asked the government for protection after receiving an unsigned letter threatening unspecified consequnces if the Christians do not convert to Islam. The letter was delivered to the house of Michael John, a Christian MP, in Charsadda. About 500 Christian families live in the town.

Pakistani authorities have deployed policemen to protect the NWFP's Christians, but representatives of the minority say that the patrols are few and far between (BBC).

Evidently, those who sent the letter, if it is genuine, have forgotten God's words, as revealed in the Qur'an: "Let there be no compulsion in religion" (2:256). The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) also reportedly said, "Whoever hurts a dhimmi [a non-Muslim living under the protection of a Muslim state], I am his adversary, and I shall be an adversary to him on the Day of Resurrection" (Al-Khatib).

US art gallery cancels chocolate Jesus (pbuh) statue display

In a victory for Catholic protesters, an art gallery in New York has cancelled plans to display a sculpture of Jesus Christ (pbuh) made of chocolate and depicting him naked. The statue, made by Canadian artist Cosimo Cavallaro, measures 1.8 m in height, and is called "My Sweet Lord".

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights called for a boycott of the gallery, especially given the fact that the statue was meant to be displayed during Easter. As a spokesman for the group pointed out, the gallery "would never dare" to show a similar statue of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) during Ramadan. She has also described the statue as "an assault on Christians".

After management decided to cancel the exhibit, the gallery's artistic director resigned, complaining of "strong-arming from people who haven't seen the show" (BBC).

I must say it's a wise decision on the part of the Lab gallery. Some may see it as self-censorship, but I would prefer to see the outcome as an act of wisdom on the part of the gallery's management. Toying with people's feelings is never a good idea, whether it be in the realm or religion or anything else that people value. Thoughtful, intelligent criticism is one thing, but depicting a person highly respected by about half of mankind (Christians and Muslims) naked is neither thoughtful nor intelligent, but rather, in my view, a misguided shout for attention. I'm glad that the Lab gallery did not decide to take the route followed by the free-speech fanatics in Europe on the issue of the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

Iran puts hadith on banknote

Iran has placed a hadith or saying of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) on its new 50,000 rial banknote (equivalent to Can. $6.35). The hadith states that "Men from the land of Persia will attain scientific knowledge even if it is as far as the Pleiades." This hadith merges into an atomic symbol on the banknote, making it clear what kind of knowledge the Iranian government is talking about (BBC).

It would seem that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is determined to rub everyone's noses in Iran's determination to pursue the full nuclear enrichment cycle. Not the wisest or most statesman-like move on his part.