Churches in Qatar under construction!

This is good news, here is an actual instance of benevolence and respect from a ruler in the Arab Gulf! No crosses? I can deal with that, though it reminds me of how insecure Muslims are about buildings and things like that. And finally, no missionary activity? If Muslims understand by that, no offering money or gifts to entice people to leave Islam, then I can get behind that too.

[...]Wahhabi
The building of the church has shocked conservative Muslims of Qatar and has led to heated debates in the local media. Most Qatari Muslims belong to the Wahhabi sect, one of the most conservative currents in Islam and the state-doctrine in neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

Opponents of the church quote a Tradition attributed to the prophet Mohammed which reads: "There shall be no two religions in the Arabian peninsula." Alluding to this Tradition, articles have appeared in the local press bearing titles such as "No cross shall be raised under the sky of Qatar and no church-bell shall ring!"

Basic right
But advocates of the church, too, support their views with religious arguments. One of them is Dr Abdelhamid al-Ansari, former dean of the Qatari shari'a college. "Establishing places of worship for different religions", he writes in one of his articles in favour of the building of churches in his country, "is a basic right guaranteed to all human beings by the Koran and the Tradition of the prophet." Dr Ansari also recognizes the prophetic Tradition quoted by his opponents, but says it only applies to the Hijaz, the province of the two holy cities of Islam Macca and Medina.

Another Qatari shaykh, Ali al-Qardaghi, went even further by assuring a French reporter that Islam does not prohibit the building of churches "nor any other places of worship." His statement is significant because traditional Islam indeed explicitly grants all kinds of rights to Christians and Jews - the so-called 'people of the Book' - but has great difficulty in recognizing the beliefs of Hindus and Buddhists as 'religious.' And after all a large section of the guest workers in Qatar are not Christians but Hindus from India.

No cross
The church, which costs 18 million dollars, will contain a conference hall, a library, accommodation for clerics and a café. But it will have no cross on the outside and the catholic cardinal heading it had to promise the authorities that he will not engage in missionary activities.

Archbishop says that shari'a in UK is inevitable

Wow, I am just perpetually disappointed by the good archbishop. I mean, yes I'm Anglican and all, and I do love my church though it is quite dysfunctional. (Any family with 70 million+ members will be dysfunctional, so cut us some slack.) But Williams keeps coming out with absurd statements about things like war in Iraq, and now about shari'a in the UK.

I'm planning on writing a whole article about shari'a: where does it come from, what are its sources, what does it regulate, and so on. But for now here are some of the better links:

Uproar as archbishop says sharia law inevitable in UK

And this from Al Jazeera English:

UK rejects call for partial Sharia

May I briefly note right now that the shari'a always favors men above women? And that even a "limited" shari'a would involve giving superior parental rights to fathers, favoring men over women in questions of inheritance, making the witness of a women or male unbeliever worth 1/2 that of a Muslim man, and I could go on and on. Oh and have I mentioned that every school of shari'a agrees that shari'a dictates capital punishment for leaving Islam?

But having expressed my dissatisfaction with Abp. Williams, I will say he has written an excellent book on Arianism. I bet he would make a fine professor at a university or seminary...

Enjoy!

Taqiyya: "We are permitted to lie"

I have posted items on taqiyya before several times. And now we have this:

(IsraelNN.com) Hamas leaders spoke to the Arabic language Ash-Sharq il-Awsat newspaper recently and explained that as Muslims, they are allowed to lie. In an interview printed on Thursday, senior Hamas terrorists explained, “A Muslim is permitted to say things that oppose his beliefs in order to prevent damages or to be saved from death.”

This approach, known in Arabic as “taqiyya,” was behind several Hamas leaders’ recent public expression of support for Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, they explained. Senior Hamas terrorists in Samaria, who were recently released from jail, publicly expressed disapproval with the Hamas takeover of Gaza and said they supported the PA forces. The sources quoted in Ash-Sharq il-Awsat explained that the Samarian terrorists’ announcement was not a sign of dissent within Hamas ranks, but rather a permitted use of “taqiyya” to deceive Abbas and avoid prison sentences.

A New Beginning for Arab Christian Theology

This looks like a positive development. I would like to see more indigenous theology arising from the Arab Christian community. I did think that it was odd that it is being called Arab Christian when the publisher is a Coptic publisher, and Copts and Arabs are two different ethnic and linguistic groups, but oh well.

[...] “We wanted to face a whole range of challenges that come from things like: our own Arab Christian identity; the existence of the state of Israel; political Islam, which wants to marginalize Christians; ecumenism and church divisions – Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant; the identity and role of women; salvation; inspiration of the Bible – Islamic or our own? So there are many challenges facing us, and there are lots of smaller articles and leaflets on these things, but no systematic treatment.

“It was a real challenge – even just to get us Arabs to work together! Part of our culture is that we easily disagree! We had tough deadlines, and of course some theological differences. But we agreed a clear theological framework and worked hard." [...]

From HERE.

Ash Wednesday

From Ash Wednesday, by TS Eliot:

Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice

Slavery in Islam today

[...] However, it was not the unanimity of human practice, but the plain words of the Qur’an and Muhammad that were decisive in stifling abolitionist movements within the Islamic world. Slavery was abolished under Western pressure; the Arab Muslim slave trade in Africa was ended by the force of British arms in the nineteenth century.

There is evidence that slavery still continues beneath the surface in some majority-Muslim countries as well—notably Saudi Arabia, which only abolished slavery in 1962, Yemen and Oman, both of which ended legal slavery in 1970, and Niger, which didn’t abolish slavery until 2004. In Niger, the ban is widely ignored, and as many as one million people remain in bondage. Slaves are bred, often raped, and generally treated like animals.

Some of the evidence that Islamic slavery still goes on consists of a spate of slavery cases involving Muslims in the United States. A Saudi named Homaidan Al-Turki was sentenced in September 2006 to 27 years to life in prison, for keeping a woman as a slave in his home in Colorado. For his part, Al-Turki claimed that he was a victim of anti-Muslim bias. He told the judge: “Your honor, I am not here to apologize, for I cannot apologize for things I did not do and for crimes I did not commit. The state has criminalized these basic Muslim behaviors. Attacking traditional Muslim behaviors was the focal point of the prosecution.” The following month, an Egyptian couple living in Southern California received a fine and prison terms, to be followed by deportation, after pleading guilty to holding a ten-year-old girl as a slave. And in January 2007, an attaché of the Kuwaiti embassy in Washington and his wife were charged with keeping three Christian domestic workers from India in slave-like conditions in al-Saleh’s Virginia home. One of the women remarked: “I believed that I had no choice but to continue working for them even though they beat me and treated me worse than a slave.” [...]

More from Spencer's article at FT.

Scourge of violence against Muslim women in the UK

From HERE:

[...]

Both in Muslim countries and diasporas, as communities feel under pressure and want to protect their identities in the face of modernisation, traditional views of women are revived.

But Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, of the Muslim Parliament of Britain, says the issue is "not about Islam but about a tribal, rural mindset that says women belong to men and men must at all costs be obeyed".

Afzal, a practising Muslim from a Pakistani family, agrees, saying nothing in the Koran supports honour crimes: "It's the exact opposite". But he says some families will use Islam to justify their authority, telling a daughter that having a boyfriend is un-Islamic.

Britain's response to honour crimes may be evidence of a maturing multiculturalism, in which no cultural practice is tolerated or swept aside simply because it comes from a disadvantaged ethnic group. Afzal says more people are reporting crimes, extraditions of suspected perpetrators who flee the country are being pursued, some community leaders have become "champions" of change.

Yet the killings go on. Just last month a coroner ruled that 17-year-old Shafilea Ahmed of Cheshire had been murdered after she had defied her parents. They wanted her to marry a man in Pakistan; she wanted to study law. Just three days ago, Nammi received a text message that said: "I am an Iranian woman who needs confidential information. Please help me."

Afzal says communities must respond to such calls. "I have heard people say to me, 'Don't talk about this stuff because we are under attack. Don't wash our dirty linen in public.' But I have talked to loads of Muslim women and I can tell you that the greatest fear they have is not Islamophobia or being attacked by racists or being arrested on suspicion of terrorism. It is from within their own family."

Ex-terrorists draw mixed reactions

Ex-terrorists draw mixed reactions

[...] In the question-and-answer session following the individual remarks, the speakers often clashed with audience members.

“If you do not believe this, you are an ignorant Muslim. You are not a true Muslim,” Amani said to one Pakistani student who argued with him on the role of fighting in the Koran.

The student, Fahad Mahmood ‘10, challenged Amani further.

“Different people interpret the Koran differently,” he said. “You interpret it your way.”

“You cannot interpret the Koran,” Amani replied. “That is not faith.”[...]

Amani is absolutely right--the individual Muslim has NO right or ability to interpret the Quran in any way shape or form. I will say that the individual Muslim has the prerogative of choosing between conflicting fatwas from valid juridical authorities in Islam. That is as far as autonomy goes in Islam when it comes to the Quran.

Good article, not very long.

Islam and da3wa, Christianity and evangelism

I posted this question below, and here is my answer:

Shaw's question:

WHY are we so threatened by Muslim evangelism?

WHY do we find Muslim evangelism offensive and outrageous when we also embrace evangelism?

Abu Daoud's answer:

I think the reason people don’t like it is because it is not at all a level playing field. Muslim proselytizing (we should not call it evangelism I think) or da3wa goes forth throughout the West while Christian proselytizing (evangelism) is illegal in most Muslim countries.

This is simply not just and people know it. Muslims know very well that the freedom we afford them is not granted to us in their countries. Perhaps most alarming is that vision of a world which submits to Allah and his shari’a is one where ultimately Christianity is deprived of her birth right and reason for being: to proclaim the Good News.

Christianity and Slavery

Am so tired of hearing about how slavery is as common in Christianity as it is in Islam...rubbish. Great article on the topic at First Things (an excellent journal which I highly recommend). This is just one paragraph:

Once it was recognized that the slave had a soul just as did the master, it could not forever be justified that he be another person’s chattel. In the year 649, Clovis II, king of the Franks, married a slave—who later began a campaign to halt the traffic in slaves. The Catholic Church now honors her as St. Bathilda. Charlemagne and others later also opposed the practice in Christian Europe. According to historian Rodney Stark, “slavery ended in medieval Europe only because the church extended its sacraments to all slaves and then managed to impose a ban on the enslavement of Christians (and of Jews). Within the context of medieval Europe, that prohibition was effectively a rule of universal abolition.” And in the New World, when the Spanish conquistadors were energetically enslaving South American Indians, and importing black Africans as slaves as well, their chief opponent was a Catholic missionary and bishop, Bartolome de las Casas (1474–1566), who was instrumental in compelling the Spanish crown to enact a law in 1542 prohibiting the enslavement of the Indians.

One honor killing per month in England

From HERE:

Whole communities are involved in assisting and covering up “honour violence” in Britain, a new study says.

Informal networks of taxi drivers, councillors and sometimes even police officers track down and return women who try to escape, researchers claim.

A report by the Centre for Social Cohesion - an offshoot of the right-wing think-tank Civitas, whose advisors include the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey and the Labour backbencher Frank Field - alleges that the problem exists in the country’s Muslim, Sikh and Hindu communities, even among second-generation immigrants.

Women have been raped, abused and even killed for forming “inappropriate” relationships or merely for wanting to go to university. The report found that:

• Women may be attacked for nothing more than listening to western music

• Families have imported brides to work in prostitution

• Local authorities are not acting because of “political correctness” and a fear of being accused of racism.

Many South Asian men brought up in this country want to marry uneducated women, known as “freshies”, who are “uncontaminated” by ideas of female independence, the report, published tomorrow says.

And then there’s this:

One woman every month is the victim of an “honour” killing, the CPS says.

There will always be an England? In name, perhaps.

From Shaw: Muslim evangelism?

Leave your remarks and answers at his website:

WHY are we so threatened by Muslim evangelism?

WHY do we find Muslim evangelism offensive and outrageous when we also embrace evangelism?

Catholicism, guilt, and justification

Mike Liccione on guilt and justification:

...The thing is very much with us, even in the writings of otherwise sound theologians. In an article with whose main thesis I heartily agree, for example, Cardinal Avery Dulles remarks: "Catholics can be saved if they believe the Word of God as taught by the Church and if they obey the commandments." Hmmm. This is from a man who is not only a prince of the Church but a theologian very much involved in the Lutheran-Catholic dialogue that produced the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. Now I'm sure there is a way to interpret said remark so that it comes out consistent with the Gospel. I don't think it would be right to accuse a man like Dulles, to whose work I owe much, of heresy. But what is the ordinary Catholic, be they lay or clerical, likely to hear in such a remark, which sums up the import of too much Catholic preaching and catechesis even today, even in "progressive" circles that focus on social sin rather than personal sin? They are likely to hear that we're supposed to be, or become, "good enough" to get into heaven and have been given all we need for just that. That's what they've heard all their lives, even when it was not exactly what their teachers meant to say. It raises Protestant hackles—and rightly so. For sooner or later we come to realize, if we're humble enough to be honest, that we will never be "good enough." [...]

One approach is, in effect, Martin Luther's: stop imagining that anything you can do can make you right with God. Respond to the Gospel simply by accepting God's unconditional love. When you sin, pecca fortiter; just remember to repent by throwing yourself on divine mercy, in faith alone. That is the attitude of many Protestants, especially those who today call themselves "evangelicals." It is why they not only admit they will never be "good enough" but aren't much bothered by the fact. They tend to see themselves as righteous only by imputation, in faith. Not only do they not see themselves as having "earned" salvation; they don't even see themselves as being transformed by it. Such is certainly one way, indeed a centuries-old way, to avoid scrupulosity and Catholic guilt. That's how Luther did it. And it makes a certain sort of sense. If you don't think it's either possible or desirable to seek inner transformation, to cooperate in a process of being remade in Christ and thus divinized, then you won't feel bad about failing to do so.

Yet one of the reasons I could never be Protestant is that such an attitude, though not wholly wrong, is not wholly right either. The Great Tradition of both Catholicism and Orthodoxy, from which the Reformation mostly departed to its detriment, indicates that we are made righteous not only by imputation but also by transformation. That occurs for those Christians who, having reached the age of reason, choose to cooperate with what the Scholastics called "prevenient" grace: the divine activity we need in our souls order to accept all other divine gifts. And that's because the baptismal vocation, the very goal of the Christian life, is to become "partakers of the divine nature." Divinization is not something that just gets zapped into us after we die, if we happen to have chosen to "believe" before we die. It begins with baptism and, if we would have it so, continues in the here and now. We don't deserve such a gift; we can do nothing to bestow it on ourselves; to that extent, Luther was right. But for those of us who can choose anything at all for ourselves, it doesn't bear fruit without our cooperation. To that extent, Trent was right—and was consistent with what was right in Luther.

The best way to think of the process is to compare it with a successful marriage. It is often said, rightly, that marriage is not a 50-50 but a 100-100 proposition. Couples in which both parties put their all into the marriage are sanctified by their marriages. The same goes for the roles of divine grace and human will in the ongoing process of salvation. The work of salvation is wholly God's; but it is also wholly ours, to the extent we let ourselves be empowered to contribute to it. Given that Christ is the Bridegroom of the Church, which is us, that could hardly be otherwise. To the extent we recognize and accept that, we will be enabled to have the attitude of beatitude. That doesn't mean we will always give our all or that the process will ever be complete in this life. Even the saints are wretched sinners. It means that God always gives us the chance, and the power, to resume going in the right direction. His mercy is what takes us the rest of the way.