Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur Quotes
It was so surprising to me when we hosted the woman-led prayer in New York in 2005 and we got death threats. People actually called my house and my parents. And they were Muslims--people who knew me, who threatened my physical safety and threatened the physical safety of my friends and family. Somebody traced one of the emails and it was a 16-year-old Muslim kid who lived in the same state. We need to rigorously not be allowing that type of stuff.
Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur, Islamic Feminist, Omar Sacirbey, The Challenge Goes Out to All American Muslims
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The Koran is even more discriminatory regarding Jewish & Christian clerics: {584380}.
Ms. Moran would likely be outraged if a gun manufacturer would not sell her a gun on the grounds that as a Christian she can be assumed to agree with the dozens of verses in the Bible where God called on his followers to kill (and even mutilate), including the killing of insolent children. Most Christians do not take those commands literally just as most Muslims do not take her 109 verses literally. She also refused to allow brown skinned Hindus to patronize her range.
Formally and informally orthodox Islam is one of the most sexist of the religions. In addition to the fundamentalist Christian and Orthodox discriminatory view of females, Sharia—Islamic Law—makes a woman’s testimony in court with half that of a man, prohibits women from clerical leadership, will not allow females to pray in Mosques in the main section but segregates them, and many others. Islamic customs require women to be covered head to toe in a cloak, forbids them from driving in some countries, does not allow them to be in the presence of men outside the family, mutilates young girls in brutal circumcision rituals, and many others. Not all Muslims are sexist and many call for reforms like Nomani. Turkey, the most modern and successful Islamic nation, outlawed all these discriminatory aspects of Sharia, and gave women the vote BEFORE America did.
Nigeria was about equally divided into Muslims who dominated the North and Christians and Animists who dominated the South. The former were intent on making Sharia—Islamic Law—the law of the nation and the latter were equally passionate to avoid it. Muslim protests got very violent including murdering innocent civilians; the Christians threatened to retaliate.
Actually, there was no initial concern or protest. The New York Boards voted unanimously to approve th project, Then one woman started complaining to the media and there were a number of people who also opposed the construction of a Then Islamaphobic people joined the protest, Many politicians observed that in Saudi Arabia, the nation from which most of the 9-11 attackers came from, it is but the country, it is illegal to bring a Bible into tnot only illegal to build a Christian Church or Jewish Synagogue ANYWHERE in the nation while America already has thousands of Mosques, Most other Islamic countries make it difficult if not impossible for a non Muslims to build a place of worship. Bloomberg reminded Americans that there was no objection that the government Constitutionally could make to the proposed mosque. Although other nations may prohibit religious construction, America was unique in adopting our First Amendment, the Separation of Church and State, and while a number of countries since have emulated America, most nations have not reached the point where they have matured sufficiently to realize the importance of separation of church and state. The fact that other nations do not follow American fundamental political principles which our founding Americans adopted, certainly does not mean that we should emulate them and abandon that which has made America such a great country and an example to the world. Ironically, the Muslim Imam in charge of the building project.
This sura illustrates why peace treaties between Islamic and non Islamic countries are difficult to negotiate and enforce. For some fundamentalist Muslims, even making a peace treaty with Israel would constitute a transgression of the word of God. Nonetheless, the first treaty that the United States ever made was with a Muslim nation—Tripoli.
In September of 2005 a Danish Newspaper published some political cartoons showing the hypocrisy of some Muslims who use Islam to justify murder of innocents and terrorism. Months later, in January of 2006 many in the Middle East protested vehemently and Muslim riots broke out because the Prophet Muhammad's visage was depicted against Islamic tradition. Many Muslim nations started a boycott against Denmark. Many Muslim leaders claimed that insulting religion was an “abuse” of freedom of speech including those from nations which regularly publish material that is virulent against Christians and Jews. Westerners came to the support of Denmark. The United States which usually supports freedom of the press made this veiled criticism of the Danish Newspaper.
al-Mahalawi takes a classic Islamic viewpoint towards Muslim brutality and violent behavior. He does not condone it, but he understands the reasons which are always the fault of the victims or others but never that of the perpetrators of the cruelty and violence.
This sura has been in great controversy throughout the Muslim Empires. In part it separates many of the Arab cultures from the Ottomans. The latter had an organized meritocracy whereby Jews, Christians and other “heathens” of exceptional talent were sought out for advisory and leadership positions. In part this was justified as requiring that the Caliph and the Sultans had the power of life and death over their key appointees, hence they had to be slaves and other suras prohibited Muslims holding other Muslims in slavery. Even in modern times some Muslim countries have had key non-Islamic appointees and others would not. In historical practice, the Ottoman Empire utilized far more Christians and Jews that those societies involved Muslims until relatively recent historical times.
In the middle of 2010, this organization was running public utility bus ads in major American cities.
At the time, the Muslim discrimination, terrible as it was, was not as bad as Christian discrimination against any non-Christians where death was very common. For many Muslims, the older historical values and practices are desirable if not mandatory today, while many others are modernists like most Christians who reject the Christian practices and morality of the past,
Muslims had engaged in violent demonstrations to insist on more Sharia law and the curtailment of behavior that the Muslim Mullahs determined to be contrary to Sharia and Islam. In Nigeria Muslim violence and intimidation had at the time already caused one of the Nigerian states to adopt Sharia instead of civil law. Many Muslims continued the violence in order to spread the adoption of Islamic law. In most counties, there were threats of law enforcement crackdowns to curtail the Muslim violence and attacks on Christians and other religions. In Nigeria however, the Christians under Akinola’s leadership made this not so subtle veiled threat to retaliate. It seems to have worked in the short run although the religious tensions remained very high and no one knew whether or not religious violence or even war would break out.
In one of the historical ironies of the 12th century, a Christian sect preferred the rule of the Muslims than their Christian brethren—on the grounds of religious tolerance. It illustrates the changes that take place over time. By the 21st century, it was the Christians who were thought of as tolerant and the Muslims as the opposite.
Porush was one of the Haradi--ultra-orthodox Jews. In the land of the Jewish people, he argued against religious freedom for Jews unless they were Orthodox Jews, while ironically, the majority of Jews in the world and even in Israel followed the Conservative or Reform branches of Judaism or were secular. At the time the Orthodox Jewish movement was the only one that was recognized officially by the government. Porush and some of the more fanatical Haradi were determined to keep the Conservative and Reform Jewish branches unrecognized and unsupported by the government. (Israel does not have separation of church and state and economically supports the Orthodox Jewish establishment but not the other majority branches of Judaism.) The "Women of the Wall" is one of the major groups in Israel advocating equal government treatment for all citizens o0f Israel. Orthodox Judaism, like many other orthodox religions are very sexist and women were actually banned from praying at the holiest of Jewish places, the Western or Wailing Wall. Women of the Wall had won a major decision of the Israeli Supreme court that women could not be denied the right to pray at the Wall. The orthodox rabbis who the government allowed to control access to the Wall, set aside a small area for women at the "Dung Gate" where the garbage was carried out. Women of the Wall were back in court and this prompted Porush's outburst. He was cebsured by the Ethics Committee of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament).
Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur is an author and activist focused on faith-based initiatives and gender equality in Islam who currently serves as the chief of staff and chief communications officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She works with Malaria No More, a leading non-profit formed to advance the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by ending malaria-related deaths by 2012. She also consults on a variety of interfaith projects and volunteerism efforts.