Muhammad: cross-dresser and unfair husband

The Qur'an says that a man may take up to four wives (and the Prophet up to eight) as long as he treats them all fairly.

Did Muhammad do this? Check out this sahiih/verified hadith from Al Bukhari which shows how unjust Muhammad was to his wives, and also his explanation of why he favored A'isha the daughter of Abu Bakr above his other wives. Enjoy:

From the Sahih Collection of al-Bukhari, Hadith Number 2442, Chapter 52. Book of Setting Free, VII: The one who gave a gift to his friend aiming for a time when he was with one of his wives rather than another.   

It is related from 'A'isha that the wives of the messenger of Allah fell into two parties. One party contained 'A'isha, Hafsa, Safiyya and Sawda, and the other party contained Umm Salama and the rest of the wives of the messenger of Allah. The Muslims knew of the love of the messenger of Allah for 'A'isha, so when any of them had a gift which he wanted to give to the messenger of Allah he would delay it until the messenger of Allah was in 'A'isha's house. Then the person with the gift would send it to the messenger of Allah while he was in 'A'isha's house. The party of Umm Salama spoke about it and said to her, "Tell the messenger of Allah to speak to the people and say, 'Whoever wants to give a gift to the messenger of Allah should give it to him in the house of whichever wife he is.'" Umm Salama spoke to him about what they had said, but he did not say anything. They asked her and she said, "He did not say anything to me." They said to her, "Speak to him." She said she spoke to him when he went around to her as well, but he did not say anything to her. They asked her and she said, “He did not say anything to me.” They said to her, “Speak to him until he speaks to you.” He went around to her and she spoke to him. He said to her, “Do not injure me regarding 'A'isha. The revelation does not come to me when I am in the GARMENT of any woman except 'A'isha.” She said, "I repent to Allah from injuring you, Messenger of Allah.” Then they called Fatima, the daughter of the messenger of Allah, and sent her to the messenger of Allah to say, “Your wives ask you by Allah for fairness regarding the daughter of Abu Bakr.” She spoke to him and he said, “O my daughter, do you not love what I love?” She said, “Yes indeed.” She returned to them and informed them. They said, “Go back to him,” but she refused to go back. They sent Zaynab bint Jahsh and she went to him and spoke harshly, saying. “Your wives ask you by Allah for fairness regarding the daughter of ibn AbiQuhafa.” She raised her voice until she turned to 'A'isha, who was sitting down, and abused her until the messenger of Allah looked at 'A'isha to see if she would speak. ‘A'isha spoke to answer back Zaynab until she had silenced her. She said, “The prophet looked at 'A'isha and said, ‘She is indeed the daughter of Abu Bakr.’” 

-HT to Aisha Bewley: http://bewley.virtualave.net/bukhari20.html#gifts

Augustine: "To Thee [O God] there is no such thing as evil..."

Augustine on evil as lack of being:

To thee there is no such thing as evil, and even in thy whole creation taken as a whole, there is not; because there is nothing from beyond it that can burst in and destroy the order which thou hast appointed for it. But in the parts of creation, some things, because they do not harmonize with others, are considered evil. Yet those same things harmonize with others and are good, and in themselves are good. And all these things which do not harmonize with each other still harmonize with the inferior part of creation which we call the earth, having its own cloudy and windy sky of like nature with itself.

Confessions 7:13

What a fount of comfort and wisdom is this great African saint.

Palestine not good to Arab Christians

From Christian Arabs under the thumb of the PA, I have heard testimony of forced marriages of Christian women to Muslim men, death threats against Christians for distributing the Bible to willing Muslims, and Christian women intimidated into wearing traditional ultra-modest Islamic clothing. Churches have been firebombed (most recently in Nablus, Tubas, and Gaza when the Pope made his controversial remarks) and/or shot up repeatedly. And this is the tip of the iceberg.

Under the Palestinian Authority, whose constitution gives Islamic law primacy over all other sources of law, Christian Arabs have found their land expropriated by Muslim thieves and thugs with ties to the PA's land registration office. Christians have been forced to pay bribes to win the freedom of family members jailed on trumped-up charges. And Arabs -- Christians and Muslims alike -- have been selling or abandoning homes and businesses to escape the chaos of the PA and move to Israel, Europe, South America, North America, or wherever they can get a visa.

From HERE: 'A Christian-free Holy Land' by Justus Weiner.

Baptists on Justification by Faith and Trent: Kyrie Eleison

Here is an interesting post by a Southern Baptist asking questions about justification by faith alone and all those things. Then, if you read through the comments, you find that he mentions a whole bunch of items from the Council of Trent (500 or so years ago). The implication, which he doesn't just lay on the table unfortunately, is that there is something profoundly un-Christian about Roman Catholic Christianity.

Ok, I'm not a Roman Catholic, and I don't have any plans to become Roman Catholic, but I don't view their understanding of the Gospel as profoundly flawed or extremely un-biblical. Are there points that I would disagree with? Sure. Anyway, take a look for yourself. Also, check out my response on the comments, and feel free to lay out your own thoughts on his original post and further catalogue of Trentian references.

SBC Impact!

Christian Lange on the Islamic vision of hell

Am reading right now parts of a recently-published volume called Public Violence in Islamic Societies (2009 Edinburgh University Press) and one of the articles in it, 'State Punishment and Eschatology' by Christian Lange, has some great clarifications regarding the medieval Islamic understanding of hell:

In the eschatological imaginaire of medieval Islam, punishment of Muslims in the other world is thus conceived of as a real threat. There is a tangible fear of becoming the target of divine acts of violence after death. This is not an ever-present fear, perhaps, but rather, a nagging suspicion that things might go terribly wrong after all. (p 160).

It is interesting to note that, despite their ugliness and general nastiness, the gaolers of hell are angels. They are, as it were, on the side of power. In a sense, they are agents of God's siyasa, His terrifying but ultimately just use of punishment. (p 163)

Pray for The Episcopal Church USA (TEC)

It almost seems like a waste of time to pray for The Episcopal Church (TEC), which is canonically my province of residence (kyrie eleison). Anyway, the General Convention which meets every three years is going on now in Anaheim, California.

Dozens of conservative parishes have left over the last few years, and a few conservative dioceses have left, all of this means there is almost no voice advocating the positions of traditional evangelicalism or anglo-catholicism. There is nothing to hold back the impulses of revisionism and pan-sexuality and heresey. It is a sad day, but the Convention is still not over and perhaps something will happen to salvage the situation as the main decisions regarding non-celibate gay bishops, same-sex 'marriage', and the blessing of same-sex unions, have yet to be made.

Meanwhile, what I do I expect? Our conwardly bishops will continue to waffle, wanting everything gay while also wanting to remain part of the Anglican Communion.

My only consolation is the precipitous decline of membership and attendance for TEC. The branch that bears no fruit will be cut off and thrown into the fire. Almajdulillah!

Problems with Shari'a in the UK

From Brussels Journal, on the implications of Shari'a in the UK:

The disparity between English and sharia law was highlighted only a month later, as the House of Lords passed judgment in the case of a Lebanese woman who had claimed the right to remain in the UK with her son. An earlier Lebanese court decision, under sharia law, meant that, despite a history of abuse, her former husband would get automatic custody of the child when he turned seven.

Lord Hope of Craighead observed that under the sharia judgment, “[…] there is a real risk of a flagrant denial of their article 8 rights [of the European Convention on Human Rights] if the appellant and her child were to be returned to Lebanon.” Lord Bingham of Cornhill added, rather triumphantly, that her case was supported “[…] by JUSTICE and Liberty.”

Justice and liberty, Lord Cornhill appeared to say, are not supported by sharia. Not even in civil cases.

Ray Register on the Islamic idea that Jesus was not crucified

Many Muslims hold to the idea that Jesus was not actually crucified, but really someone else was crucified in his place. Who that was is a matter of wide conjecture, some saying that one of his disciples volunteered to die so his master could escape, others that Judas Iscariot or one of the Roman soldiers was crucified, and thus it was a form of punishment. Anyway, here is an interesting quote on the topic:

Or could it have been because Muhammad, in his most severe time of testing in Mecca, chose to flee for his life? In reality, the Hijrah was the very opposite of the cross. A religion based on the escape or Hijrah could not allow the cross to keep its meaning.

Ray G. Register, Jr. Dialogue and Interfaith Witness with Muslims. 1979, 1994. Multi-Language Media. p 44.

Social Services in the UK: Conniving with Terror

Londonistan is coming, get ready.

Hannah had good reason for this doubt. When, at school, she had finally summoned the courage to tell a teacher that her father had been beating her (she couldn’t bring herself to reveal the sexual abuse), the social services sent out a social worker from her own community. He chose not to believe Hannah and, in effect, shopped her to her father, who gave her the most brutal beating of her life. When she later confronted the social worker, he said: “It’s not right to betray your community.”

Hannah blames what is sometimes called political correctness for this debacle: “My teachers had thought they were doing the right thing, they thought it showed ‘cultural sensitivity’ by bringing in someone from my own community to ‘help’, but it was the worst thing they could have done to me. This happens a lot.

“When I’ve been working with girls who were trying to get out of an arranged marriage, or want to convert to Christianity, and they have contacted social services as they need to get out of their homes, the reaction has been ‘we’ll send someone from your community to talk to your parents’. I know why they are doing this, they are trying to be understanding, but it’s the last thing that the authorities should do in such situations.”

From the Times Online.

Saudi Jeans on the Judicial System in KSA

Saudi Jeans is one of the most famous blogs in the the Arab blogosphere (AKA البلوغوسفير العربي) and he has some interesting comments on the state of the Saudi Judicial system. There are some hopeful stirrings. But hope in KSA is like water poured onto desert sand more often than not.

I mention the topic since there was so much discussion on the recent post about the eight year old girl and 47-year old man being married and then the little girl being denied a divorce requested by her mother.

Here is the whole post from Saudi Jeans:

Court of Embarrasment

Not so long ago, criticizing the judiciary was a taboo in this country. But with more people learning more about their rights and finding new outlets to express their dissatisfaction, they began to clearly show their impatience with the performance of the justice system. The system has become a battlefield between reformers who demanded change and conservatives who defended the judges fiercely, arguing that since their verdicts are based on Sharia then they should be unquestionable.

Luckily for the rest of us though, the complaints did not fall on deaf ears. In October 2007, King Abdullah announced a $2bn plan to overhaul the legal system. It is a large undertaking and it will certainly take a long time to see the effects of this plan. The resistance of the old guard in the system will only make this process slower and more difficult. But one of the good immediate effects of this plan is that it has placed the judges under increased scrutiny. The past two years have witnessed a number of high profile cases that attracted much attention from people and the media, not just in Saudi Arabia but around the world.

I think that last week’s case in Onaiza, where a court rejected a divorce petition filed by the mother of a an eight-year-old girl whose father married her to a 58-year-old man, should be seen in that context. Sure, the verdict is outrageous and unfair, but hey, this is the K of SA, a country where judges are not tied to written laws and justice is a subjective matter that pretty much depends on their whims. Does Sheikh Habib al-Habib know that his government has [signed] the international Convention on the Rights of the Child since 1996? I don’t think he does, and I think he does not care because such international laws are made by mere mortals while he probably believes that he is applying God’s laws.

Abdullah Al-Jutaili, the lawyer representing the girl’s divorced mother, said he was going to appeal the verdict. Let’s hope judges at the appeals court will be wiser than their colleague here when they deal with this case that not only exemplified the kind of injustices the people of this country have to go through when their [misfortune] leads them to a court, but also further tarnished the already distorted image of Saudi Arabia in the world.

Legal Ruling on an Honor Killing in Jordan

Here is a great post from Jordan where honor killings happen on a regular basis. Read the whole thing please, but note specifically the section that contains the court's opinion and verdict on why this murderer only got a slap on the hand:

“It is obvious that the defendant did not plot the murder and his actions came immediately after reading his sister’s confessions,” the court said, noting that the defendant benefits from a reduction in penalty because his sister was involved in extramarital affairs in return for money, which led to her divorce and “brought her family shame and disgrace”.

“Her actions hurt her parents, brothers and unmarried sisters’ honour and reputation and are considered by the court as dangerous and unlawful, especially to the defendant, since in our customs and traditions a man is valued by his sister’s behaviour and honour among his community,” the court ruled.

Britain's Shari'a Courts given legal auhority

Kyrie Eleison in Greek. Miserere Nobis in Latin. Irhamna ya Rrab, in Arabic. Lord have mercy on us.

Bad news from Britain:

Britain's Shari`ah courts, have finally been given the powers to rule on civil cases.

CAIRO — Britain's Shari`ah courts, which have operated for years in solving the Muslim community's legal disputes, have finally been given the powers to rule on civil cases.

"We realized that under the Arbitration Act we can make rulings which can be enforced by county and high courts," Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi, head of the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal, told the Sunday Times on September 14.

According to the daily, the government has quietly sanctioned the powers for Shari`ah courts to rule on cases ranging from marital and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence. [...]

Jordan: What human rights?

From CT:

A Jordanian Islamic court has annulled the marriage of Mohammad Abbad, a Muslim convert to Christianity. The North Amman Shari'ah Court said in a May 22 document that "marriage depends on the creed [religion], and the apostate has no creed." Though Jordan's penal code does not outlaw apostasy, and its constitution guarantees freedom of religion, the country maintains Islam, which forbids conversion to other faiths, as its official religion. Abbad, 40, fled the country in March with his wife and two young children, after being assaulted in his home by acquaintances who demanded custody of his children.

France's jails full of Muslims

...This prison is majority Muslim -- as is virtually every house of incarceration in France. About 60 to 70 percent of all inmates in the country's prison system are Muslim, according to Muslim leaders, sociologists and researchers, though Muslims make up only about 12 percent of the country's population.

From HERE.

EN 38: The Church, liberation, and loss of identity

32. We must not ignore the fact that many, even generous Christians who are sensitive to the dramatic questions involved in the problem of liberation, in their wish to commit the Church to the liberation effort are frequently tempted to reduce her mission to the dimensions of a simply temporal project.

§32 comes after a discussion of how the act of evangelism, which let us remember, has been explained essentially as seeking conversion, cannot be separated from the search for justice and, a word that will come back to haunt the Vatican, liberation.

What we find in §32 is an attempt to temper the previous statements in favor of liberation and equality. But it ended up not being strong enough language, or perhaps it simply was ignored after pope Paul's glowing remarks about liberation and justice.

Thee clash between orthodoxy and some of the more radical liberation theologians and liberation practitioners (for lack of a better word) came to a head with the issuance of Splendor of Truth, and encyclical by John Paul II, wherein certain excesses of liberation theology were castigated thoroughly.

But what we see here in §32 is, I think, the main argument against liberation theology that is unpacked by JPII. But clearly, Paul saw the danger before-hand and denounced it. The section continues:

Her activity, forgetful of all spiritual and religious preoccupation, would become initiatives of the political or social order. But if this were so, the Church would lose her fundamental meaning. Her message of liberation would no longer have any originality and would easily be open to monopolization and manipulation by ideological systems and political parties.

Which is what, I think, we have in many of the side-line denominations (ELCA, UMC, Episcopal Church, C of E, the European state churches, Presbyterian, etc) and to some extent, yes, the Roman Catholic Church as well. Of course there are pockets of life in all of these, but at the end of the day to lost sight of the fact that in evangelizing we are seeking an interior conversion and that, to put it bluntly, heaven and hell are real and everyone will end up in one of the two, is for the church to lose her originality and fundamental meaning. The difference between those denominations and Rome is that the power structure in the Roman church is such that if you have good popes (and they have been good since Paul VI days) you have the ability to steer the church back towards the right direction.

Such is generally not the case in the various Protestant churches I have listed. Through a curious, and perhaps cruel, irony of history they seem very resistant to self-reform, leaving the faithful with the "remedy" of just forming a new denomination.

Good Friday, the Gospel of John, Fake Peace, and Real Peace

From Peter Leithart, who is brilliant:

...Rome brings final peace and justice to the world.

There was something to that, but in the trial of Jesus we discover the blunt injustice and bald pragmatism on which Roman peace was founded. Three times Pilate declares Jesus innocent: I find no fault in Him, I find no fault in Him, I find no fault in Him. But the Jews insist that since Jesus has made Himself a king, He threatens the Roman empire, and it’s clear from the agitation of the Jews that Jesus threatens the peace of Israel. If I don’t get rid of Jesus, Pilate reasons, I’m going to have no end of trouble from these Jews. I could lose support in Rome, and I could lose my job. It’s better for one innocent man to die than for me to be faced with enraged Jewish agitators. It’s better that one man die, than for me to lose the perks of being a provincial governor.

This is Roman peace. It is peace founded on the murder of the innocent. It’s a peace designed to protect the interests of those who hold power. It is peace from the barrel of a gun. Augustine recognized that Roman peace is a kind of peace; you can keep most people quiet if you have enough guns. But it is only a shadow of the tranquility of order that is true peace.

For their part, the Jewish leaders realize that Jesus threatens the nation – or, more precisely, their leadership of the nation. “One man must die for the people,” Caiphas said, thinking not of substitutionary atonement but of national survival. If Jesus isn’t stopped, he reasons, then the Roman army will come crashing down on us to destroy the temple and scatter our people.

In the event, we know this is ironic, because the New Testament shows that the Jews’ rejection of Jesus and the apostles is precisely what brings the Roman siege engines to Jerusalem. That irony is already evident in the trial itself. The Jews are given a choice of Jesus or Bar-abbas, Jesus or this other “Son of the Father.” They choose Bar-Abbas, and that choice expresses a political agenda. For Bar-Abbas is not a “robber” but a rebel leader, an insurrectionist, a bandit who uses his banditry to destabilize Rome. We could without much exaggeration call him a terrorist. This is the man the Jews want more than Jesus. This is the path they choose. To save themselves from the Rome, they choose a man who devoted his life to provoking Rome. [...]

Erik Twist and the J word

In PART 7 he tackles justification, one section is here:

Essentially, justification was not simply a declaration about my status before God, instantaneously achieved at the point of my "conversion." It was organically tied to the sanctification Christ began in me at my baptism and each day offers my participation in. Just as I needed to be physically generated to enter into the world, at my baptism my soul was regenerated so as to enter into God's kingdom. This spiritual regeneration must be lived into though. Just as my physical regeneration requires appropriate action (eating, sleeping, etc.) my spiritual regeneration requires the same. The salvation that Christ affects is not a badge to be worn, but a lifestyle to be appropriated; our reconstituted being orients and directs our becoming.

No Democracy, so how do you choose a Caliph?

Since I just posted about shari'a teaches that democracy is illegal, the question must be addressed, what then is the correct way of choosing a successor (that's what caliph means) for the Prophet?

The first way is silly: be chosen by the "decision makers". And who decides who makes decisions?

The second way is simple: the Caliph chooses his successor. This is what led to the various inherited caliphates that popped up quite often throughout history.

And here is the third way, which is quite fascinating. One can become the caliph by force, sorta:

By means of force and prevailing over others. When a man becomes caliph by prevailing over the people by the sword, and he establishes his authority and takes full control, then it becomes obligatory to obey him and he becomes the leader of the Muslims. Examples of that include some of the Umayyad and ‘Abbasid caliphs, and those who came after them. This method is contrary to sharee’ah, because it is seized by force. But because great interests are served by having a ruler who rules the ummah, and because a great deal of mischief may result from chaos and loss of security in the land, the one who seizes authority by means of the sword should be obeyed if he seizes power by force but he rules in accordance with the laws of Allaah.

Shaykh Muhammad ibn Saalih al-‘Uthaymeen (may Allaah have mercy on him) said:

If a man rebels and seizes power, the people must obey him, even if he seizes power by force and without their consent, because he has seized power.

The reason for that is that if his rule is contested, it will lead to a great deal of evil, and this is what happened during the Umayyad period when some of them seized power by means of force and gained the title of caliph, and people obeyed them in obedience to the command of Allaah.

Muhammad on rulers and justice

A hadith from Muhammad on judgment and rulers:

"He who has been a ruler over ten people will be brought shackled on the Day of Resurrection, until the justice (by which he ruled) loosens his chains or tyranny brings him to destruction." Al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 1037

Yemen and State Capture

From the Yemen Times:

Yemen suffers from a phenomenon known as State Capture where large portions of the state are controlled by private interest groups. Resources of the state flow through patronage networks. Corruption is the defining characteristic of the administrative and state culture. As Professor Robert Burrowes wrote recently in the Yemen Times, “The degree of corruption, not just the fact of it, is key to an understanding of contemporary Yemen. Graft, bribery and other forms of thievery pervade the system at all levels of a steeply sided pyramid of patronage.” The state does not function for the public good but in the best interests of a small elite grouping.