Today's Top Islamic News (DAILY)

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CAIRO – The head of Al-Azhar, the highest seat of learning in the Sunni world, has ordered a school girl to remove her niqab during a visit to an Al-Azhar school, saying he would seek an official ban for the face veil in schools, Al-Masri Al-Youm newspaper reported on Monday, October 5. “Why are you wearing the niqab while sitting in the class with your female colleagues?” Al-Azhar Grand Imam Sheikh Mohamed Sayyed Tantawi asked the 8th grader.
The young girl was shocked with the question coming from the country’s top scholar.

A teacher intervened to explain.

“She takes off her niqab inside the class, but she only put it on when you and your entourage came in.”

But Sheikh Tantawi was not satisfied and insisted that the young girl takes off the face cover.

“The niqab is a tradition and has nothing to do with Islam.”

After the girl complied he insisted she should not wear it any more.

“I tell you again that the niqab has nothing to do with Islam and it is only a mere custom. I understand the religion better than you and your parents.”

Most Muslim women in Egypt wear the hijab, which is an obligatory code of dress in Islam, but an increase in women putting on the niqab has apparently alarmed the government.

The ministry of religious endowments has recently distributed booklets in mosques against the practice.

The majority of Muslim scholars believe that a woman is not obliged to cover her face or hands.

They believe that it is up to every woman to decide whether to take on the face-cover or not.

Ban

The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar imam vowed to issue a ban against the face-veil in all schools linked to Al-Azhar.

“I intend to issue a regulation to ban the niqab in Al-Azhar schools,” he said.

“No student or teacher will be allowed into the school wearing the niqab.”

Established in 359 AH (971 CE), Al-Azhar mosque drew scholars from across the Muslim world and grew into a university, predating similar developments at Oxford University in London by more than a century.

Al-Azhar, which means the "most flourishing and resplendent," was named after Fatima Al-Zahraa, daughter of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

The first courses at Al-Azhar were given in 975 CE and the first college was built 13 years later.

Al-Azhar first admitted women students in 1961, albeit in separate classes.

Also in 1961, subjects in engineering and medicine were added to classes on Shari`ah, the Noble Qur’an and the intricacies of Arabic language.

Sheikh Tantawi’s remarks coincided with those of Higher Education Minister Hani Hilal who has banned the face-veil in student hostels.

“Face-veiled students are free to do what they want outside the hostels but there is no room for the niqab inside the women-only hostels,” he said earlier this week.

Many students demonstrated against the minister’s statements and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights plans to take him to court.

“The minister’s decision violates the principles of privacy, personal freedom and freedom of faith, which are guaranteed by the constitution.”

Source: IslamOnline

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CAIRO — The recent arrest of a New York imam, known for his cooperation with the FBI, on terror-related charges is casting its shadows on relations between US Muslims and the law enforcement authorities. “People are scared," a 36-year-old New York Muslim man told the Washington Post on Monday, October 5, on condition of anonymity.
"They're scared that if they work with the police they'll get hurt, and if they don't work with the police they'll get hurt."

Two weeks ago, police arrested Ahmad Wais Afzali, a New York local imam and Muslim community leader, on terror-related charges.

Afzali, who had helped FBI agents in the past, was accused of tipping off Najibullah Zazi that authorities were asking questions about him.

Zazi was later charged with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction to carry out terror attacks in the US.

The authorities said the imam’s action complicated their unfinished investigation and indicted him on criminal charges.

Afzali, who ran the Islamic Burial Funeral Service, has pleaded innocent and was released on a $1.5 million bond.

His attorney Ron Kuby insists that his client was trying to help investigators find Zazi, whose family attended his mosque several years ago.

He asserted that the imam "consistently cooperated" with police in previous investigations and now "feels ill-used."

This has undermined trust in the law enforcement authorities among some Muslims.

"If somebody dies in the family, he's the only person we trust," a 31-year-old restaurant cook who gave his name only as Nabi told the Post.

Defend

But the Justice Department said law enforcement authorities are keen on having good ties with the Muslim community and they are doing their best to achieve this.

"(The agency) works on a daily basis to ensure that investigations are conducted in a manner that protects the civil liberties and privacy of Americans," it said in a statement.

"As the attorney general has stated previously, we will closely monitor the implementation of the FBI guidelines to see how well they work in operation and will revisit them if changes or refinements are necessary."

Despites the assurances, the imam’s arrest sent shockwaves through the tightly-knit Afghan community in New York.

"People are so afraid," Afifa Yusufi, daughter of the late longtime imam of Sayed Jamal Uddin mosque in Queens, told the Post.

"I think this is going to scare the community, and going to scare people away from going to mosques."

Afzali, 37, immigrated to the US from Afghanistan with his family when he was 7, has established himself as a role model to young Muslims.

Ahmad Wais, president of the Masjid Al-Saaliheen and a childhood friend of the imam, has earlier warned the case may have a negative impact on the community's relationship with law enforcement.

"Personally, I feel that the law enforcement, what they did with this guy -- even the people who want to help, now they're afraid to come forward."

Source: IslamOnline

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As the political crisis in Iran turns toward a slow boil, a North Miami Beach imam is closely watching events unfold there. U.S. authorities could deport him at any moment to the Islamic republic, a country he has never visited.


Foad Farahi, 34, a doctoral student at Florida International University, will be part of a delegation meeting with staff members of Miami Democrat Kendrick Meek on Tuesday to discuss the conditions in detention centers maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. He will bring up his case, and is hoping to garner the congressman's support.

''All I am asking right now is a right to a hearing,'' Farahi said.

Farahi was born in Kuwait to an Iranian father and a Syrian mother and moved to Miami 16 years ago on a student visa.

Since Kuwait only grants citizenship to children who have a Kuwaiti father, Farahi is considered an Iranian national, despite the fact that he has never been to Iran and doesn't speak Farsi.

His problems with immigration authorities in the United States began in 2001, when he learned that he would not be able to reinstate his student visa because he had not taken enough credits in his final semester as an undergraduate. Faced with deportation to Iran, he applied for political asylum.

THREATENED

Farahi claims that at his asylum hearing in November of 2007, he was blindsided when a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement prosecutor offered him a deal to leave the country within 30 days, or face arrest for ''support of terrorist groups.'' Fahari said he was intimidated into withdrawing his asylum petition, and that he may have been targeted because he had refused to serve as an informant for the FBI. ICE officials have denied his accusations. (More)

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Source: CAIR

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'Symbol of US cruelty' may not be closed by Jan. 2010
Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:44:10 GMT

The Guantanamo prison
US Attorney General Eric Holder has declared meeting Obama's January 2010 deadline for closing the Guantanamo detention center will be “difficult”.

"It's going to be difficult for us to make the January 22 deadline," Holder told reporters, citing difficulties in relocating some detainees.

"I think at the end, Guantanamo will be closed," AFP quoted Holder as saying on Tuesday.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a US rights group, said it was "very concerned" about Holder's comments, noting the prison "has become a symbol of lawlessness and cruelty."

Over 220 terror suspects are still held at the US naval base, located in southern Cuba.

"As important as when Guantanamo is closed is that it is closed right," ACLU National Security Project director Jameel Jaffer said in a statement.

"In a democracy, there is no room for a system of detention that allows human beings to be imprisoned indefinitely without charge or trial,” the statement said.

US President Barack Obama had pledged during his presidential campaign to close the facility that has become a symbol of "war on terror" abuses.

MGH/HGL

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Obama pressed to send more troops to Afghanistan
Wed, 07 Oct 2009 03:34:41 GMT
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US President Barack Obama
President Barack Obama should heed his top generals' advice over the approach to the Afghan conflict, US Republican Congressmen say.

As Obama formulates a new strategy for the unpopular war in Afghanistan, he met senior congressional leaders on Tuesday at the White House to discuss his policy and talk about the various options before taking a final decision on whether to dispatch another 40,000 troops, as requested by his generals.

Emerging from the meeting with the president, the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, opined that he (the president) will ultimately concur with the advice of "some of his finest generals" by the end of the day.

Obama is also trying to respond to the Taliban's resurgence in the conflict. Nearly 400 Western troops have been killed in the fighting this year alone, making it the deadliest year of the war. More Western soldiers have died this year than in the first four years of the war combined.

At the same time, Afghan civilian casualties have risen to 1,500 - many killed in US air raids - in the first 9 months of the year, resulting in greater animosity toward the occupiers.

The worrying point for Obama is that US public support for the war has plummeted. On the other side, the Republicans have warned him of the urgency, saying he cannot wait too long to come to a decision.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama will reach a final decision in the coming weeks.

FTP/ZAP/HGL

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US rules out troop withdrawl from Afghanistan
Wed, 07 Oct 2009 03:16:49 GMT
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Ambushes and roadside bombs have killed hundreds of US soldiers over the past few months.
Amid a deepening rift in the White House over the war in Afghanistan, a senior US official has ruled out any consideration of a US withdrawal from the war-ravaged country.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that leaving Afghanistan was not "on the table."

"I don't think we have the option to leave," Gibbs said, adding, "That's quite clear."

The remarks came as US President Barack Obama prepared to brief the country's lawmakers on how to deal with the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan.

The insurgency has skyrocketed in southern and eastern Afghanistan, where the Taliban has stepped up attacks against US and NATO occupation troops with roadside bombs and ambushes.

The rise in casualties has made the current year the deadliest for foreign forces, as well as Afghan civilians, since the beginning of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, despite the presence of over 100,000 foreiegn troops in the country.

The mounting number of Western soldiers coming home in body bags has sent support for the war plummeting in Europe, Canada, and the United States.

Canada and several European countries seem to oppose further commitments to the mission in Afghanistan, despite the resurgent Taliban.

US Defense Secretary Gates has said that Obama's decision on the future war strategy "will be among the most important of his presidency.”

The developments followed warnings by the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, that the US-led mission will "likely result in failure" unless more troops are deployed across the war-ravaged country.

However, Obama has expressed skepticism about whether sending more troops without a 'strategy' would make a difference in the war-torn country.

JR/ZAP/HGL

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LRA rebels massacre dozens in Congo
Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:51:59 GMT


The LRA is one of the world's most brutal guerrilla movements.
Ugandan rebels have reportedly killed about two dozen villagers in an attack in the Democratic Republic of Congo's troubled northeast Orientale Province.

On Tuesday, the AFP news agency quoted a local association as saying that the deadly attack was carried out on September 25 in an area where no Congolese military force is present.

"The inhabitants were surprised in the morning by about 40 members of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) from neighboring Uganda. Twenty-two people were killed with machetes and knives," said the chairman of the Dungu Diocesan Justice and Peace Commission, Father Benoit Kilalegu.

The LRA, a sectarian fundamentalist Christian guerrilla army, became active in northern Uganda in 1988 and is categorized as one of the most brutal guerrilla movements in the world.

The group is engaged in an armed rebellion against Uganda and some other African governments in what is now one of Africa's longest-running conflicts.

The movement, led by its ruthless leader Joseph Kony, is spread out in Congo, south Sudan, and the Central African Republic.

The eastern Congo has experienced interminable cycles of violence since a war began in 1998.

The conflict in the Congo has dragged on for over a decade and left over 5.4 million people dead.

JR/ZAP/HGL

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CAIRO – The British opposition is accusing the Labour government of pursuing a state-sponsored attack to undermine the role of religion in society, warning that such policies put social and moral norms at stake, The Telegraph reported on Tuesday, October 6. “It’s an agenda driven by the political elite, who have hijacked the pursuit of equality by demanding a dumping down of faith," Baroness Sayeeda Warasi, the shadow community cohesion minister, said in a speech to the Conservative Party conference.
Warasi, a Muslim, cited several recent examples where people were being punished for adhering to their religious, particularly Christian, beliefs.

“We’ve all seen the stories, how appalling that in Labour’s Britain a community nurse can be suspended for offering to pray for a patient’s good health," she lamented.

“How awful that a school receptionist could face disciplinary action for sending an email to her friends simply asking them to pray for her daughter," added the opposition leader, citing another example.

A British tribunal earlier this week ordered Greater Manchester Police to pay £10,000 in damages to Sikh Police Constable Gurmeal Singh for discrimination over orders to remove his turban during a riot training last year.

“At the heart of these cases lies a growing intolerance and illiberal attitude towards those who believe in God,” Warasi insisted.

According to the CIA fact book, Christians constitute 71.6 percent of Britain’s population, Muslim 2.7, Hindu 1, other 1.6 and unspecified or none 23.1 percent.

Wrong-headed

Baroness Warasi defended the importance of religion in people’s life.

“For many their faith brings them closer to their neighbor, it’s the driver for their voluntary work, the basis of their social action," she explained.

“And for many, faith is the basis for some of the best schools in our country.”

The opposition leader insisted that the importance of religion applies to the followers of all faiths.

“As a British born Muslim, I believe that my faith makes me a better person.

“I disagree with those who believe that in the present climate, to say one is a Muslim is more a political act than simply a matter of faith."

Baroness Warasi also took a sweep at what she described as the government’s failed policy of multiculturalism.

“State multiculturalism is not integration, is not unifying and is not the British way," she said.

“For me, state multiculturalism, as I like to define it, is forcing Britain’s diverse communities to still define themselves as different, patronizingly special and tempting them to compete against each other for public funds."

She said this, in turn, fans intolerance and extremism.

“They have a simple, yet dangerous goal – to drive a wedge, to spread hatred and to sow the seeds of division.”

Source: IslamOnline

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BBC

HSBC boss: 'The industry collectively owes the real world an apology'

The entire banking industry "owes the real world an apology", the chairman of HSBC has said.
Stephen Green told BBC World Business Report that a change in culture was needed to improve the public's perception of bankers.
He also said that London was secure as a major financial centre, but would lose market share as Asia developed.
Last month, HSBC announced that its chief executive Michael Geoghan would move to Hong Kong from London.
But Mr Green said the bank's decision did not mean it was turning its back on London.
"Two-thirds of our business is in Asia. It's where we think the centre of gravity of the world's economy is shifting," he said.
'Learn the lessons'
Mr Green, in Istanbul for the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, admitted the banking industry collectively owed the world an apology for the financial crisis.
"It also owes the real world a commitment to learn the lessons. Some of them are about governance and ethics and culture within the industry," he said.
"You can't do all this simply by rules and regulations."
However, commenting on increased regulations for banks, Mr Green said it was "inevitable" that regulators as well as the banks themselves could learn from the crisis.
He added that the industry needed to "pay much more attention to liquidity" than it had done previously.
On Monday, the Financial Services Authority in the UK published new rules governing funding standards at banks and building societies, stating that banks should hold more assets that were truly liquid, such as government bonds.

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CAIRO — One week after a deadly crackdown by the military junta in Muslim-majority Guinea on opposition supporters, horrific stories about gang raping of women are surfacing. “We heard gunfire (and) I tried to flee,” a middle-aged woman, who participated in last week's opposition protest at Conakry stadium, told The New York Times on Tuesday, October 6.
But as the terrified woman tried to flee, she was barred by soldiers.

"(Suddenly) it was like a henhouse.”

One soldier hit her on the head with his rifle and then started to sexually abuse her.

“He hit me and tore my clothes off. (Then) he put his hand inside me,” said the tearful woman.

The UN said 150 were killed in the crackdown, while the Guinean Human Rights Organization put the toll at 157.

Human rights activists say they had collated testimony from around 30 women who said they had been raped during the crackdown.

"I'm 57 and they stripped me naked!" said one woman, showing bruised arms and buttocks.

"A soldier had a knife, he ripped all my clothes,” she recalled, painfully.

"I told them, 'I'm your mother.' They jabbed me in the buttocks with a knife, they beat me terribly."

The woman has seen several other women being forcibly stripped naked and abused.

"I saw soldiers putting their rifles into women's private parts while they were hitting me."

Unprecedented

The traumatized women say the nightmare would leave them with psychological scares for as long as they live.

“We are traumatized,” the middle-aged woman said slowly, looking down.

“I can’t sleep at night, after what I saw….And I am afraid.”

The mass rapes are raising eyebrows in the west African country, where Muslims constitute nearly 85 percent of the 10-million population. (Still Persecution is not leaving Muslims.)

“This time, a new stage has been reached,” Sidya Touré, a former prime minister who was beaten at the stadium, told the Times.

“Women as battlefield targets. We could never have imagined that.”

Touré, now an opposition leader, said he was women being molested women using rifle barrels.

“Where could people get the idea to start raping women in broad daylight?” he said.

“It’s so contrary to our culture.”

Source: IslamOnline



BBC Reports:

Guinea's army still calls the shots

In our series of viewpoints from African journalists, commentator and National Public Radio correspondent Ofeibea Quist-Arcton considers the shocking violence in Guinea.
Guinea's unelected coup leader, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, would have us believe that rogue soldiers, unruly elements within the army, were behind the killings of pro-democracy supporters in the stadium in Conakry last week and that he had no control over them.
Others are blaming foreign gunmen, including some English-speakers, apparently with Liberian accents.
Several reports spoke of men in uniform reeking of alcohol and high on drugs. That sounds familiar.
Whether hired guns or home-grown presidential red berets, they were armed and women protestors were not spared.
Stripped
A shocking trend, increasingly common in other African conflict zones, appears to have landed in Guinea - sexual assaults on women by uniformed men as a weapon of war.

We've suffered so much, it can't get worse
Guinean historian - in 2007

In pictures: Guinea mourns victims
Guinea's erratic military ruler
There have been horrifying reports this past week of soldiers using rifle butts, even bayonets, to rape women, while other women were stripped of their clothing and their dignity - and were then violated, humiliated and raped in public by the security forces.
Guineans are still in shock - including opposition leaders who were in the stadium when the troops opened fire and stabbed people with bayonets.
Maybe it is from reading and listening to Western media reports, but it is uncanny how, unbid, many people interviewed - men and women - have mentioned sexual violence, with a sense of foreboding, shame and sorrow.
"This is new," I thought.
Plus ca change?
Then I began looking back through my coverage of the crippling union-led strike and the brutal military crackdown in Guinea back in early 2007.

Human rights groups say 157 people were killed during the protests
I remember the diminutive trade union leader, Hadja Rabiatou Serah Diallo's quiet authority and steely gaze - Guinea's Corazon Aquino or Lech Walesa - as she was dubbed.
She marched fearlessly, demanding sweeping government reforms and the military back to barracks.
Ms Diallo insisted there would be no dialogue in Guinea until the "state of siege" - martial law - was lifted.
That was in the General Lansana Conte era.
He died in December 2008, after clinging to power for more than 20 years.
But what has changed under Capt Dadis Camara? Legacies linger in Guinea.
You know what Ms Diallo told us more than two years ago?
That the army, with its unlimited powers of search and detention, allowed all manner of evil to be committed under the cover of darkness.
The union leader warned that some individuals used this time to rob others, to rape women and other such atrocities.
"It has to stop," she said, "this is really very serious".
But it hasn't stopped.

Now women in Guinea are being raped, robbed and sexually assaulted with guns, not after dark, but brazenly and brutally in broad daylight.

Has Guinea changed under Capt Camara?
Do such acts of savagery indicate a society on the skids?
Or is it another case of poor leadership and shabby governance - under the military in this instance - where humanity is jettisoned and anything goes?
A Guinean historian told me, after the 2007 riots, that cannon-fire could not stop his compatriots now that Guineans had tasted victory, by bringing the country to a standstill and General Lansana Conte, the intransigent veteran president, to the negotiating table.
He said that fact had strengthened the courage of the people of Guinea, because they were no longer afraid. They had gone beyond fear.
The historian commented on what young people were saying, "We've suffered so much, it can't get worse. If we die today, it doesn't matter any more. "