South Asia News
Pakistani minister draws fundamentalist wrath for embracing man
Apr 9, 2007, 14:55 GMT
Islamabad - Fundamentalists forming a self-declared Islamic court in the Pakistani capital have decreed that the government should dismiss a woman minister for 'obscenely posing' with her French paragliding trainer in Paris.
The Fatwa, or religious ruling, by the court set up in Islamabad's Red Mosque followed last week's publication of a photograph in some national dailies that showed Tourism Minister Nilofar Bakhtiar embracing her veteran instructor as she landed after a jump.
Seeking 'punishment' for Bakhtiar, the hard-line clerics claimed that the minister's acts violated the injunctions of Islam and went against the societal values of segregation of the sexes.
The radical administrators of the mosque established their own Islamic court last Friday and gave a one-month deadline for the implementation of Sharia Islamic laws in the country.
Female students of a madrassa religious school affiliated with the mosque last month also launched an anti-vice campaign in Islamabad and asked shop owners to stop the sale of audio and video discs that, according to them, contained obscene material.
The students have been occupying an adjacent public library for more than two months in protest against the demolition of some illegal mosques in Islamabad by the local authorities.
Militancy is on the rise in the Red Mosque and adjoining seminary where the radical clerics and students have threatened to carry out suicide bombings if the government took any action against them.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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Older Talkback
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Ban this you Islamic Lunatics! I love having sex with women who love to have sex with men!
And Islam wonders why the West views them in such an odd manner ...
Seems like Musharraf is in deep doodoo if he doesn't take steps to calm this rapid rise in militant Islam right in the heart of Islamanabad. It the blatant brainwashing of the young, impressionable students done by the hundreds of madrassas all over the country that is producing these radical misguided youth who are basically playing puppets in the hands of the cunning few who use religion as a means of achieving personal gain and fame. And now with the threats of suicide bombings by these students, I hope Musharraf and his government are prepared, because if not, then this seems to be the precursor to another coup to displace Musharraf himself, although if these militants are successful, then the rest of the world better watch out as the vast nuclear arsenal of Pakistan will be in the hands of irratic fanatics who will do anything to further personal growth in the name of Islam. This is the time for muslims all over the world to show that Islam is not about violence but about peace and acceptance. Things seem to be headed downhill in Pakistan and the rest of the world better be proactive in avoiding an extremely dangerous situation that might arise if the religious fanatics continue gaining power at the current rate. Where are all the educated, sensible Pakistanis right now? They should be the ones who should come forward and save their country from being doomed and from being taken over by clueless students who have been brainwashed and who are controlled by a few cunning, selfish leaders.
I embraced Whitney Houston and 4 of my wives. And a countless noumber of Ho's hehehe. It takes a little guile you see. BTW anybody knows where I can get a penis enlargement machine. Preferably the pump -operated one.In Afghanistan you can't even get a decent condom.
I just don't understand that Govt. of Pakistan is so reluctant to take any legal action against those fanatic bastard Mullahs especially this fanatic Zealot Rashid Ghazi of Red Mosque's Imam. Islam especially the extremist islam is the root cause of most of the problems in pakistan. We need to get rid of mullahs and islam if we want peace and progress in pakistan and in the world
They are no different than 'Reverends' Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson.
Its time the Mad Mullahs all over the world(including Pakistan) get some sense of sanity drilled into their indoctrinated pieces of nerve tissue that are supposed to be brains. Being a muslim I am sick and tired of all these people asking whether Islam is compatible with a modern western way of life. The clear answer seems to be no. The Pakistani community in almost all western societies are an answer I guess. Having lived in the UK(the largest minority population), Norway(Yes once again the largest minority there as well) and almost all over Europe its very easy to see that muslim minorities do not integrate. Rather than being a melting pot it seem they have taken the idea of a salad bowl or in my opinion its more like a melting pot where there are 2 elements mercury and sulphuric acid and they never seem to mix. Their ultra sensitivity to anything that the holy messenger has said drives me up a wall.
If there were ever a reason to ban a religion it would seem that islam is the prime candidate because of its insane violence against any rationality
Scary and sad.
What a bunch of lunatics and bigots. Why the hell did we waste 3000 lives and 300 billion in Iraq? We should have attacked Pakistan which is the homse base for the fanatical Islam. Let us bomb all the religious Madrasas there. Specially on the Afghan-Pakistani border. Let us capture and kill ISI agents who created Taliban and are now busy retraining them.
The sad part is that all those oxford educated 'enlightened' scholars from the muslim countries who take on teh airwaves to defend 'Islam' and shun 'Western bias' against Islam, do not have the balls to speak out against such nonsense. I wonder if Akbar Ahmed will go on the national radio or TV to denounce this stupidity.
This last post is a good point(and yes, parochial social conservatism is always dissapointing, in an otherwise promising society).
External (inter-cultural) polarity breeds a rise in militant trends, and those militant trends make it rather more dangerous (as opposed to merely 'unfashionable', as in the U.S.) to publically endorse a more liberal viewpoint in any conservative environment.
But then it's all acedemic, really; since - like Iraq - Pakistan will doubtless make the transition from 'valued ally' over to 'must be subdued at all costs' in due course...Though, given the fact that they are nuclear armed may help them delay the inevitable for somewhat longer than their lesser equivalents...(-:
Good to see you again blue lady.
Once again very well prosed comment:-)
Thank you Abid, truth well said.
Why would anyone want to be a Muslim, It must be the most violent religion that anyone can practice.
Its not a religion as Salman Rushdie found out, its a satanic cult concieved by a pedophile Arab peasent and taught to illterates.Its a form of enslavement practised against women as can be seen by the latest fatwa against a female Pak politican. Its taught as a justification for murder 'bring Islam by the sword' to quote for the koran. Its a form of sexual enslavement, so that disgusting old men who profess piety can rape young girls..sound familair to Catholics?lol. When the world gives up believing in these archaic rantings of primitive societies we will all be way better off, until then we need to kill them off as you would with any cancer.
Yes, it has elements in common with the other great hierarchal, patriarchal repressive and socially stunted religious faiths.
And yes, that aspect of each of them IS a bit of a problem. (-:
Well I think during the chaotic times in the 5th century, Islam made lot of sense. If we see it in the context of those times, Islam might have been a progressive idea.
The principles, of prayers, charity, multiple wives etc. were meant for that age. For example multiple wives. Well at that due to tribal fighting, so many women and children were left as destitutes. Polygamy wsa just a way to provide them some form of protection.
The problems is when fanatics try to apply the logic of the 4th century in the 21st century. Since religion has traditionally relfected the way of life for many societies, I find it really idiotic that these mullahs refuse to adapt and change. Christinaity has the same issues but to a much smaller extent. (exclude Falwell types)
I really love the definition of religion has outlined by Hinduism. 'Religion (Dharma) is what your wisdom commands you to do (Karma) under the circusmstances faced by you'. I know this makes religion sound contextual than the so called 'God's word' but that is the beauty of it. Only fools refuse to change with the times.
I hope these monoethiest religions will understand this one day.
Moreover, people generally practice the variety and form of religion that they are raised to
After all, it's hard to imagine any sane human burning women at the stake, torturing confessions out of 'heretics', ostracizing homosexuals or bombing abortion clinics in the name of religion, without some level of social indoctrination - It's simply not intellectually defensible, except through the invocation of an unprovable 'faith', or mental illness.
Religious terrorism and brutal theocratic law is a lot like that. The minute people decide to let an adopted abstract & subjective 'God' concept do their moral and political thinking for them, bad things start to happen....
I simply don't understand why women in the West don't realize the threat these Neanderthal Muslims pose. In Pakistan a women can't prove she was raped unless four men corroborate her story. Muslim fundamentalists are worse than the Nazis and deserve to be wiped from the face of the earth with extreme prejudice. They aren't religious in any form of the word. They are chauvinistic pigs.
Someone needs a basic historical education badly. Muhammad wasn't even born until the seventh century so I don't understand how Islam altered the fifth century.
Dave,
That was mistake on my part. I meant 7th century.
Of course this does not undermine the basic point of my post.
Different Muslim societies have different levels of secular and religious involvement in judicial matters (just as Christian or other religious traditions have a varying level of influence in the laws of other cultures).
Even in communities where 'Sharia' law is invoked, it is applied in different ways according to local sensibility; they are in effect cultural and 'tribal' influences rather than religious as such (A modern shia Muslim family in Manhattan or Paris with two working, university-educated parents will doubtless be run differently than a poverty-stricken Sunni Wahhibist family on the outskirts of the Rub Al Khali, for example).
The more orthodox applications of Islam (like those of the other main Abrahamic religions) is definitely patriarchal and hierarchal, and those aspects of it are certainly unnattractive.
It is dangerous and innacurate to confuse 'Islamic' (religious) issues with 'Arab' (political) issues, or to confuse local/ regional social customs with the Islamic world at large.
Blue Lady,
I must admit that most of us here tend to make gross generalization either by not understanding the compelxities or ignoring them for the sake of an easier argument.
I wonder why you you comment in the talkback section. You write so well that you shoudl start your own blog or get a byline at slate.com or other such places.
(lol) Well, it sounds like a compliment, so Thank You.
I enjoy all the different points of view found here. That's what free speech is all about.
Diversity is much more interesting than conformity and stagnation.
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abdulahApr 9th, 2007 - 15:16:48
give it up you bunch of religous freak bastards.
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