Woman Leading Friday Prayers In Switzerland Mosque Sparks Uproar On Social Media

Woman Leading Friday Prayers In Switzerland Mosque Sparks Uproar On Social Media. (Memri).

On May 27, 2016, Dr. Elham Manea, a Yemeni liberal activist residing in Switzerland, reported on her Twitter and Facebook accounts that, at the House of Religions in Bern, a woman had led a mixed congregation of men and women in Friday prayers. The prayer was led by Halima Gosai Hussain, who is the chair in Britain of a project called the Inclusive Mosque Initiative (IMI). After the prayers, Elham Manea herself delivered the Friday sermon. The call to prayer was also performed by a woman. In addition, the service included musical interludes, another feature that is not a part of mainstream Islam.

In the sermon she delivered after the prayer, Dr. Manea called upon Muslim men and women to reject the claims of Muslim clerics that a woman may not serve as prayer leader and that men and women may not pray side by side in mosques. She also urged the women not to wait passively for change to come but to demand it and bring it about themselves.

The news of a Friday service led by a woman and accompanied by music caused a furor on social media. Many responders harshly criticized Manea and the others who participated in the service, accusing them of heresy and showering them with curses and invective. In response to these attacks, Manea posted an article on the Al-Hiwar website and on her Facebook page in which she repeated what she had said in the Friday sermon and stressed that all she and the other participants had done was pray to Allah.

It should be noted that this is the not the first time a woman has led Friday prayers at a mosque. On February 12 this year, it was reported that Danish-born Muslim activist Sherin Khankan had opened the Miriam Mosque in Copenhagen, which offers Friday services led by women and for women only. Khankan said that she sought to challenge the patriarchal character that dominates Islam's religious institutions – just as it dominates other religions – and stressed that the responses of Copenhagen's Muslims to the opening of the mosque were positive and that criticism was "mild."

The first woman-led prayers were held over a decade ago, on March 18, 2005, when Dr. Amina Wadud, an American Muslim of Indian origin who is professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, led a service for a mixed congregation in New York.

The Friday prayers were held at a church in New York City, after several mosques had refused to host it, due to threats by extremists. The call to prayer was also performed by a woman, who in addition to setting this precedent did so with her head uncovered. The service was attended by some 100 men and women. The main organizer of the event was Asra Nomani, an Indian-born Muslim author. The organizers stated that their aim was to set the question of equal rights for women and men on the Muslim agenda, and stressed that women were entitled to be spiritual leaders in Islam.

A week later, Friday prayers were again led by a woman, this time in Boston, by an American Muslim named Nakia Jackson. Also during this week, Asra Nomani herself led a mixed congregation in prayers at Brandeis University, and stated that she would continue to organize similar women-led prayers throughout the U.S. Read the full story here.

Volume 1, Book 9, Number 490:  Narrated 'Aisha:

The things which annul the prayers were mentioned before me. They said, "Prayer is annulled by a dog, a donkey and a woman (if they pass in front of the praying people)."

Islamist 'Indonesia' - Under draft law cohabiting couples risk one year in prison.

Islamist 'Indonesia' - Under draft law cohabiting couples risk one year in prison. (AN).

The bill before parliament is tightens 2010 norm.. It targets all couples "outside the official state of marriage", which in Indonesia is first ratified by the religious authorities and then by the State. In the country, citizens priavte lives considered terrain for government policies.

Heterosexual couples who live together outside of marriage risk up to a year in prison. This is the measure contained in a bill, endorsed by the Government and now before Parliament, under which "every couple that lives outside of the official state of marriage will be sentenced to at least a year in prison and other penalties”.

In Indonesia, the private lives of citizens are considered a public matter subject to government legislation. In the world's most populous Islamic country, marriage between two persons of different sex is accepted and legalized first through religious ceremonies and only later by the State.

As soon as the matrimony ceremony is blessed by the priest or other religious figure, a marital status of the newly-weds will be automatically legalized by the State as long as they bring their certificate of marriage from the parish church or other religious institution to the Public Civil Record Agency

The State can not accept a couple as married without a religious certificate. Cohabitation is regarded as a situation of adultery, punishable by law. The practice is identified with the name of Kumpul kebo, translated as "living together like buffalo”.

Cohabiting couples - Nikah Siri, in the local vernacular - have become a common practice in Indonesia, especially among celebrities, entertainers, businessmen and politicians. Research conducted 30 years ago in Yogyakarta and Central Java had shown that a large number of college students practiced coexistence for practical reasons (like reducing the costs of the rent). Since then the government has conducted more research in this field.

In 2010 a norm was passed establishing a penalty of three months' imprisonment and a fine of € 370 for unmarried couples. The measure now being debated in Parliament would increase this penalty. Hmmm.....Once again you can't believe too much what this Pres. says.

"Merry Christmas" Iranian style, Christians in Iran arrested on Christmas Day.

"Merry Christmas" Iranian style, Christians in Iran arrested on Christmas Day.(Mojahedin).

The suppressive mullah’s regime Basij patrols -- plain cloths militants equipped with pistols and walky-talkies -- attacked a home church in Roodehen on Christmas day arresting 9 members of this small Christian community.

These 9 individuals have been identified as: Mehdi Kian, Ali Sadraddin (Brother Stephen), Mohammad Kazemi, Azin Faroudi, Mohammad Hossein Moridian, Maryam Narimani, Alireza Nasiri, Brother Matin, and one more person who has not been named. They all have been transferred to an unknown location.

​Saudi religious police hunt down Twitter ‘witchcraft’ accounts.

​Saudi religious police hunt down Twitter ‘witchcraft’ accounts.(RT).

Saudi Arabia, which has the largest number of Twitter users relative to internet users in the world, has formed a special task force to track users of the popular social media who are accused of spreading vice and witchcraft.

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which serves as the religious police of the conservative Gulf kingdom, is conducting surveillance of Twitter accounts in an effort to reign in heightened interest in subjects related to sorcery.

The religious public watchdog is keeping a lookout for those accounts which “are spreading vice and witchcraft” through the community, said Ahmed Al Jardan, the Commission’s spokesman, as quoted by the Saudi news network Al Arabiya.

“We will track down all those who are behind these accounts whether they are men or women…we are determined to eliminate these accounts before they become widespread and out of control,” he said.

Jardan pointed to a study conducted in Saudi Arabia that showed every fourth network user owned a Twitter account and that the total number of internet subscribers in the Gulf state is estimated at around 7 million - surpassing the combined population of Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.

Figures that calculate ‘Twitter penetration’ are determined by the number of monthly active tweeting users relative to the total number of internet users.

The majority of internet users in Saudi Arabia do not own PCs, but use their mobile phones to access the system.

Al Arabiya quoted Saudi Arabia’s Mufti, the country’s leading Islamic cleric, as saying that social media networks like Twitter have become a “podium for spreading evil and bad ideas and exchanging accusations and lies” by many of their subscribers.

“Many Twitter users in the kingdom are also fools who lack modesty and faith,” he said.  

'Islamist Turkey' - Turkish deputy speaker: Mixed-gender education a mistake, to be corrected.

'Islamist Turkey' - Turkish deputy speaker: Mixed-gender education a mistake, to be corrected.(TZ).

Deputy Parliament Speaker Sadık Yakut said on Wednesday that Turkey made a mistake in allowing coeducation and promised that efforts to correct that mistake would come soon.

Delivering a speech at the Turkish Parliament's 14th International Forum on Children, Yakut said, “Turkey made a historic mistake in allowing the education of male and female students at the same schools in moves toward Westernization.”He added that there are Western schools in Turkey where coeducation is not allowed.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan set off an international controversy in early November when he spoke out -- and threatened government action -- against male and female students living together.

Erdoğan recently reiterated his opposition to mixed-gender student housing and said his government has a responsibility to uphold Turkish values.He said the nation was against mixed-gender student housing and that as a conservative, democratic party, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) needs to act within its value system and within the boundaries defined by law.

Erdoğan said his party was committed to protecting the culture, beliefs and values of Turkish society. “We don't impose values on society. We preserve values, and we oppose attempts to impose other values.” He said his government would never give up its conservative identity just because some groups are unhappy with it.Hmmm.....“Thank God Almighty,” said Mr. Erdogan in 1994, when he was the mayor of Istanbul. “I am a servant of Shariah.”

Turkish FM Davutoğlu "Nobody can compare Turkey to those countries where there is no freedom of the press"

Turkey now 154th in world press freedom index

Turkish FM Davutoğlu "Nobody can compare Turkey to those countries where there is no freedom of the press" (HD).

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has denied that he praised the Gezi Park protests during a meeting with U.S. officials at the Brookings Institute in Washington D.C.

Davutoğlu posted on his Twitter account that he did not say he felt proud of the Gezi Park protests, but noted Turkey’s democracy after a question comparing the Gezi protests to those in the Middle East.

“I see that my speech at Brookings has caused different evaluations in Turkey. I said the same things that I said before following the Gezi protests, both in the country and abroad,” he wrote.

“I didn’t use an expression such as ‘I feel proud of Gezi’ as the headlines say. I pointed to the position where democracy in Turkey has come, after a question comparing the Gezi protests to ones in the Middle East,” Davutoğlu added.

“Turkey is not behind any country regarding freedom of expression and freedom of the press. The thing I feel proud of is not the Gezi protests, but catching up with European standards about these subjects in Turkey. Nobody should assign different meanings to my speech,” the foreign minister also said.

In a Nov. 19 meeting at the Brookings Institute in Washington D.C., where Davutoğlu first met U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, he had stressed the comparison between Turkey and European countries. “The right to protest in Turkey, for example, the Gezi Park protests, can only be compared to rights in European countries, not Middle Eastern countries,” he said.

“Nobody can compare Turkey to those countries where there is no freedom of the press, freedom of thought, freedom of association, and free and fair elections. We are proud that these demonstrations, such as Gezi, are similar to demonstrations in Europe … You can compare the right to demonstrate in Turkey, and the events in Gezi Park, for example, only with European countries,” Davutoğlu said.

The Gezi Park protests erupted at the end of May against a controversial redevelopment plan at the heart of Istanbul, and were dealt with by the government through the use of excessive police force. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused protesters of seeking to undemocratically topple the government.

The attempt to save the last green area in Taksim Square quickly evolved into the biggest turmoil in Turkey’s recent history, with months of related protests across the country. The protests resulted in the deaths of five protesters and a police officer, and thousands injured.

Hmmm......Turkey now 154th in world press freedom index.
“Withholding information is the essence of tyranny. Control of the flow of information is the tool of the dictatorship.” ― Bruce Coville

Moroccan 'teenagers kiss' Internet effect shakes Muslim society, triggers calls for kiss-ins.

Moroccan 'teenagers kiss' Internet effect shakes Muslim society, triggers calls for kiss-ins.(Yahoo).

Rabat (AFP) - The trial of three teenagers for posting Facebook photos of two of them kissing has sparked a storm of online protest in Morocco, where conservative Muslim values are being challenged in cyberspace.

The offending couple, a boy and a girl aged 15 and 14, and their 15-year-old male friend who took the photos outside their school in the northern town of Nador, were arrested last week.

The arrests immediately triggered a wave of online support, with activists posting pictures of couples locking lips and calling for protest "kiss-ins", and the judge ordered that the teens be released on bail three days later, ahead of their trial on Friday.

"Social media are playing a more and more important role in monitoring both the authorities and Moroccan society, which remains deeply conservative," said political analyst Mohammed Madani.

"Activists agitating on Facebook are a potent force because they can get media attention, sometimes abroad, and can shake the conservative values both of society and the state," he added.

"As a result, the authorities review judicial decisions and sometimes challenge them, as happened in the case of the Spanish paedophile" mistakenly freed in July by King Mohamed VI.
Faced with public outrage at the decision to free convicted child rapist Daniel Galvan, along with dozens of other Spanish nationals jailed in Morocco, the royal pardon was hastily revoked, with the palace insisting the king had been unaware of the nature of Galvan's crimes.

Underlining the growing power of social media, US NGO Freedom House said last week that 55 percent of the Moroccan population regularly accessed the Internet in 2012, the highest penetration rate in Africa, up from 21 percent in 2007.
On the eve of Friday's trial, hundreds of Moroccan online activists renewed their demands that the charges against the three teenagers, of "violating public decency", be dropped.

In the event, the trial began and was quickly adjourned until November 22 to allow "an inquiry into the social circumstances of the teenagers", their lawyer Monaim Fettahi said.
More than two thousand people have indicated that they will attend a planned "giant kiss-in" outside parliament in Rabat on Saturday.

The accused were arrested after a Moroccan NGO filed a lawsuit late last month charging that the published photos of them kissing outside their school had a negative affect on society, "and upset people's feelings".
The teens are being tried under Articles 483 and 484 of the kingdom's penal code, which relate to public indecency and indecent assault on a minor, the later carrying a possible prison sentence of five years.

Morocco has a reputation for religious tolerance and personal liberty, particularly when compared with other Muslim countries.
Women enjoy relatively extensive freedoms and there are plenty of bars in the main cities. But it still remains a deeply religious society.

Human rights campaigners in Morocco, for the most part secular-minded young people who are active online, say society is torn between religious conservatism and the growing importance of Internet communication.

"Weighed down by religion and social taboos, Moroccan society seems to be lost and divided. It has struggled to embrace a modern world characterised by the Internet and global communication," said activist Ibtissam Lachgar.

"It's always the question of personal freedom that is at the heart of this. It's like Moroccan society has been shaken by the Internet effect," added Lachgar, a co-founder of the Alternative Movement for Individual Liberties.