Not Quite A Bat-Miztvah

Reported:

The prom countdown was nearly complete...But as she looked at her reflection in the mirror, her one-shoulder lavender gown matching the elaborate hijab that framed her face in a cascade of flowers — a style learned on YouTube — Tharima Ahmed knew that what lay ahead was more than simply a prom.

As organizer of Hamtramck High School’s first all-girl prom, which conforms to religious beliefs forbidding dating, dancing with boys or appearing without a head scarf in front of males, Tharima, 17, was forging a new rite of passage for every teenage Muslim girl who had ever spent prom night at home, wistfully watching the limousines roll by.

“Hi, guys — I mean girls!” Tharima, a Bangladeshi-American, exuded into the microphone as 100 girls — Yemeni-American, Polish-American, Palestinian-American, Bosnian-American and African-American — began pouring into the hall on Bangladesh Avenue.

This was prom, Hamtramck-style...In this season of wobbly heels and cleavage, the bittersweet transformation of teenagers in jeans and T-shirts into elegant adults barely recognizable to their friends is an anticipated tradition.  But at the all-girl prom, there were double double-takes, as some of Tharima’s classmates, normally concealed in a chrysalis of hijab and abaya, the traditional Muslim cloak, literally let their hair down in public for the first time.

Eman Ashabi, a Yemeni-American who helped organize the event...stunned her friends.  “It’s ‘Oh my god!’ ” said Simone Alhagri, a Yemeni-American junior who was wearing a tight shirred dress. “This is how you look underneath!”

...Tharima and her friends...found that 65 percent were not able to attend the coed prom because of cultural and religious beliefs. After discussion, the school supported the student-driven alternative.  In addition to Muslim girls (and alumnae who never got the opportunity), non-Muslim students wanted to go, too. “I want to support all my girls,” said Sylwia Stanko, who was born in Poland and whose friends are mostly Bengali or Arabic. “I know how important it is to them.”...

Jewish girls?

And even Israel could learn something, that mosque decibels can be handled:       

During her English class, Tharima can hear the call to prayer over loudspeakers from the Islah Islamic Center a few blocks from school...The mosque, one of five in the city, was the subject of controversy in 2004, when some people strenuously objected to the city’s decision to allow it to broadcast prayers five times a day; the city ultimately prevailed, regulating the hours when the call may be sounded.

Eyeless in Gaza

I just blogged the story about Saudi Arabian eyes and here is a screen snap shot from the NYTimes video report on Hamastan in Gaza showing the "no eyes" look:-

How's that for modesty?

^

Are You A Muslim in Brooklyn?

And do you eat halal prepared meat?

And you eat from K.P.?


Too bad.

^

Odd Method of Population Control, Even In Israel

A martyr was nipped in the bud.

Reported:-

A Palestinian caught trying to infiltrate a settlement Wednesday night claims he was sent by his family members, who had hoped he would be killed by soldiers during the infiltration.

Israel Defense Forces soldiers patrolling the central West Bank near the settlement of Beit El on Wednesday spotted a Palestinian...the boy was behaving in a strange manner and the soldiers originally thought that he was drunk. Later on in the investigation, it was clarified that he was actually suffering from a mental illness.

The boy told investigators that his family wanted him dead. He said they threatened him at gunpoint, forcing him to walk towards the settlement with the hope that soldiers would think he was trying to infiltrate and would shoot him.

IDF scouts who searched the area confirmed the boy's version of events and found four family members who had tried to flee the area.

And then they would have claimed, atrocity story style, that we hardhearted and cruel Israelis shoot poor, innocent Arabs for fun. A shaeed, martyr.

Sick

^

No, This Time It's A Muslim Nose Joke

Reported:-

Cafe owner ordered to remove extractor fan because neighbour claimed 'smell of frying bacon offends Muslims'

This doesn't sound kosher.

The story:

A hard-working cafe owner has been ordered to tear down an extractor fan - because the smell of her frying bacon 'offends' Muslims. Planning bosses acted against Beverley Akciecek, 49, after being told her next-door neighbour's Muslim friends had felt 'physically sick' due to the 'foul odour'.

Councillors at Stockport Council in Greater Manchester say the smell from the fan is 'unacceptable on the grounds of residential amenity'. The fan has been in Beverley's Snack Shack takeaway in the Shaw Heath area of the town for the past three years.

Mrs Akciecek and her husband Cetin, 50, - himself a Turkish Muslim - work more than 50 hours a week buying, preparing and cooking hot and cold sandwiches and hot-pots for their customers.

Today mother-of-seven Mrs Akciecek said she plans to appeal against the decision.

She said: 'I just think it's crazy. Cetin's friends actually visit the shop, they're regular visitors, they're Muslim people, they come in a couple of times a week.

'I have Muslim people come in for cheese toasties. Cetin cooks the food himself, he cooks the bacon.

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Ramadan Irreverance

Found here.


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Muslim Rima Fakih Goes Topless

This is going to get interesting.

Remember Miss USA?

Well, Rima Farih went topless, posing at Mandelay Bay resort and Casino in Las Vegas, from behind anyway, to promote the Miss Universe pageant:

The pageant, co-run by the Trump Organization and NBC, decided that this year it would have the women participate in the Las Vegas photo session to promote the pageant...

"The contestants who compete at Miss Universe are diverse, as they represent more than 82 countries around the globe. Many of their cultures embrace nudity," said a pageant representative.

The contestants were allowed to choose how much skin they wanted to show.

Nu, where is Hezbollah when you need them?


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ISMer: Watch Out

No, not from the IDF.

The Pals.:-

...while most activists read about Mideast politics, volunteers can be clueless about conservative Palestinian culture. That's led to tensions, including sexual harassment. Some Palestinians assume female activists are permissive because they don't behave like conservative Palestinian women.

During last week's workshop, Jamjoum, 52, laid the rules out. He asked women to cover their arms and legs. For men: long pants only. Another volunteer explained how to dodge sexual harassment...

...One ISM veteran - a 23-year-old American calling herself Saegan - highlights an activist's life. Like other volunteers, she would only identity herself with a pseudonym. During her 6 months with the group, she has been battered by tear gas alongside Palestinians, but also fended off a Palestinian man who tried to rape her while she slept in a West Bank village.

It's tough at times being humanitarian.



(Kippah tip: RC)


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Is Islamic Custom To Blame?

Was this death avoidable if not for Islamic custom?

Muslim woman strangled by her burkha in freak go-kart accident

A woman wearing a burkha (file photo). A Muslim woman has died after her burkha became caught in a go-kart she was driving. The 24-year-old woman, who has not yet been named, died a terrifying death today when a fluttering part of her burkha became caught in the wheels of a go-kart she was driving near the town of Port Stephens, north of Sydney...She was strangled in a second and crashed the vehicle.

But then again, there was this previous incident that had nothing to do with Islamic customs:

Her death is being likened to that of American dancer Isadora Duncan, acknowledged as being the creator of modern dance, and who was famous for the flowing silk carves she liked to wear.

But while riding in an open-top car in Nice in 1927, her scarf became entangled in one of the vehicle's spoked wheels and she was strangled.

But, on the other hand, what was a burkha-clad female doing out and having fun?




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The Tragedy of Child Marriage

13-year-old Yemeni bride dies of bleeding

A 13-year-old Yemeni girl has died of injuries to her genitals four days after a family-arranged marriage, a human rights group said.

The practice of marrying young girls is widespread in Yemen and has drawn the attention of international rights groups...

The 13-year-old girl from Hajja province, northwest of the capital, died on April 2, four days after her marriage to a 23-year-old man, said Majed al-Madhaji, a spokesman for the Sisters Arab Forum for Human Rights. A medical report from al-Thawra hospital said she suffered a tear to her genitals and severe bleeding.

Authorities detained the husband.

The Yemeni rights group said the girl was married off in an agreement between two men to marry each other's sisters to avoid having to pay expensive bride-prices. The group said that was a common arrangement in the deeply impoverished country.

So, was it simply a financial consideration or due to religious and cultural custom?

Ghoulish Haircutter

Gaza's Islamic Hamas government on Thursday banned men from working in women's hair salons, the latest step in its campaign to impose strict Islamic customs on Gaza's 1.5 million people...

The latest measure irked one of the victims of the ban. "Next thing you know, they will ban doctors from treating women, and will only let women treat women," said Barakat al- Ghoul, a 44-year-old hairdresser. "Tomorrow, they will ban everything."

Al-Ghoul, who has cut women's hair for 26 years, said a ban would be devastating. He said he has no other way of making a living.

Islamic tradition forbids women from showing their hair to men who are not their husbands or blood relatives. Until now, though, exceptions were made for the eight known male hairdressers in women's salons in Gaza City.

I First Read It As Boost

A saw the following headline and at first, read the word as "boost":

Saudi Arabia upholds 'sex boast' conviction

A Saudi Arabian appeals court has upheld a sentence of five years in jail and 1,000 lashes for a man who boasted on TV of his sex life, reports say.

Oh, well.

Between the above and the below, things can get complicated in Saudi Arabia:

Campaigners in Saudi Arabia have urged women there to begin a two-week boycott of lingerie shops with male staff. They say it is a contradiction that in such a conservative, Islamic country, women have to give their underwear sizes to men they do not know.

Reem Asaad, an economics professor from Jeddah, organised the boycott through her Facebook page, as public protests are illegal in Saudi Arabia. Islamic scholars have given their backing to the campaign.

"I am calling for salesmen to be replaced with saleswomen", Ms Asaad was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.

One Women | Four Husbands - The Big Turnaround

Via MEMRI, a funny feminine Islamacist:

Al-Budair: I Too Have the Right to Take Four Husbands[1]

"[Please] allow me to marry four [husbands], or even five or nine, if possible. Let me emulate you [men], and choose them according to the wildest [whims] of my imagination. I will choose [husbands] of various shapes and sizes: one red-headed and one dark, one tall and one short. I will choose [husbands] of various sects, religions, nationalities, and ethnicities, and I promise you to [maintain] perfect harmony between them all. They will never quarrel, because [after all], they have a wife in common.

"Write me a civil law, or [re-]interpret some religious law [by] adding to it a new clause, [like they do in] those religious rulings [that are motivated] by a sudden impulse... [and are issued] without any prior warning. Just as you unjustifiably subject me to [various types of marriage] – [such as] mut'a, 'urf, misyaf, misyar and friend marriages[2] and other twisted [inventions] – allow me to marry four [men].

"The last time I demanded my right to be permitted several husbands... the women condemned it even before the men did... The basis for my demand was my insistence on monogamy and my determination to challenge the men by demanding the right to feel what they feel... when they take four wives. Don't the men glorify this [right of theirs], don't they anticipate it openly and in secret? Whenever [the issue] of the men's monopoly on [polygamy] comes up for debate, nobody can give me a convincing [reason] why I may not take four husbands [as well]...

"Many say that polygamy is the solution [to the problem] of men becoming bored and fed up with their wives, [and a way to deal] with [these] feelings of theirs. However, polygamy is a violation of the CEDAW Convention.[3] [Besides,] what about the feelings of the woman? Either permit polygamy to both [men and women], or else re-map [the custom of] marriage so as to solve this problem of boredom, which is the men's permanent excuse. Until [one of these things happens], I will continue to ask: What solution [do I have] if I become bored with my husband's body or [start to] feel that he is [like] a brother to me?"[4]


[1] Al-Budair made similar statements in an interview with the liberal website Elaph about a year ago, in which she argued that a woman needs four husbands more than a man needs four wives (www.elaph.com, January 28-29, 2008).

[2] These are different types of marriage permitted in Islam. Mut'a ("pleasure") marriage, permitted in Shi'ite Islam, is contracted for a limited period of time, and divorce is not needed to end it; 'urf ("custom") marriage is an arrangement that does not require an official contract and grants the woman no rights; misyaf marriage is practiced among rich men from the Gulf who go on summer vacation in Yemen and marry local girls for a particular period of time – a fortnight to two months – without the brides being aware of the time limitation; misyar is a marriage in which the woman relinquishes some of the rights that Islam grants her, such as the right to a home and to financial support from her husband, and, if he has other wives, the right to an equal share of his time and attention; and in a "friend" marriage, the girl remains at her family's home, and she and the man do not maintain a shared household but meet whenever and wherever they want. The last type of marriage is aimed primarily at meeting the needs of young Muslims in the West, who wish to have a girlfriend-boyfriend relationship as is customary in Western society, but with religious legitimacy.

On these types of marriage, see MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 291, "Pleasure Marriages in Sunni and Shi'ite Islam," August 31, 2006, http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/1784.htm#_edn3.

[3] The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1979 and came into force in September 1981.

[4] Al-Masri Al-Yawm (Egypt), December 11, 2009.

Words To Reflect On

Rifa'a al-Tahtawi's account (translated into English as An Imam in Paris (1826-1831)) detailed an Egyptian's impression of the manners and customs of the French in the early 19th century. His observations mingled admiration with revulsion. For example, he was shocked to find that in France the "men are slaves to the women here and under their command irrespective of whether they are pretty or not".

Found in here.

Beyonce, In Egypt? Ha!

The Muslim Brotherhood In Egypt is a political organization that once included Sayyid Qutb, the man who inspired Al-Qaeda. It was founded to promote Islamic law, oppress women etc. And now it wants to keep Beyonce out of Egypt!

Knowles is scheduled to perform her first ever concert in the land of fezes, camels carpets, pyramids and other obvious, slightly condescending cliches on November 6. Tickets for the show, at the Red Sea resort of Port Ghalib, are going for up to $400, according to a report on Al Arabiya.

But straight outta Cairo, a crazy Islamist MP named Hamdi Hassan, from a gang called The Muslim Brotherhood In Egypt, said he did not want no ho who appears nekkid in no goddamned videos up in his motherf***ing hood. (I can't speak Arabic, so I'm choosing to assume this is the way he originally phrased it.) He wants regulators to mount up and get her permission to perform revoked.

Source

Sex, Whip, TV - Need More?

Sex.

A whip.

Can it get any better?

Not for this female journalist:-

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- A Saudi court on Saturday sentenced a female journalist to 60 lashes who had been charged with involvement in a TV show in which a Saudi man publicly talked about sex.

Rozanna al-Yami is believed to be the first Saudi woman journalist to be given such a punishment, but there were conflicting accounts about how the court issued its verdict.

Al-Yami told The Associated Press it was her understanding that the judge at the court in the western city of Jiddah dropped the charges against her, which included involvement in the preparation of the program and advertising the segment on the Internet.

But she said he still handed down the lashing sentence ''as a deterrence.''

''I am too frustrated and upset to appeal the sentence,'' said al-Yami, 22.

Al-Yami worked as a coordinator for the program, but she has said she did not work on the sex-show episode...

Muslims Against Firm (Not Frum) Breasts

Really.

A hardline Islamist group in Somalia has begun publicly whipping women for wearing bras that they claim violate Islam as they are 'deceptive'...Al Shabaab has sent gunmen into the streets of Mogadishu to round up any women who appear to have a firm bust...The women are then inspected to see if the firmness is natural, or if it is the result of wearing a bra.

If they are found wearing a bra, they are ordered to remove it and shake their breasts, residents said.

Now, over a year ago, Al-Shaab:

"the lads" in Somali, has been added to the United States' list of "foreign terrorist organisations".

Found this:

'Al Shabaab forced us to wear their type of full veil and now they order us to shake our breasts,' a resident, Halima, told Reuters, adding that her daughters had been whipped on Thursday.

'They are now saying that breasts should be firm naturally, or just flat.'

I don't know.

Somehow, putting together "firm bust", "hardline", "shake breasts" and "the lads" sounds weird to me.

It's definitely not frum.

Sorry, no pics.

You're Invited To Pray...and Dig

This flyer invites members of the Muslim faith to come to the Temple Mount during the last 10 days of the month of Ramadan, to pray and to stay the night.


Muhammed intensified his practices of worship during the last ten days of Ramadaan in a way that he did not strive at any other times. He secluded himself in I’tikaaf and sought Laylat al-Qadr during this time and stay up at night, wake his family and gird his loins. Her phrase “girded his loins” is a metaphor for his preparing himself to worship and strive hard in worship, more than usual. It was also said that it was a metaphor for keeping away from women and abstaining from sexual relations.

Source

(Kippah tip: RD)

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And if you're Jewish, all you have today is a memory:

The Israel Antiquities Authority researchers said on Sunday that a stretch of road in Jerusalem dating to the Second Temple and thought to be used by pilgrims on their ascent to the temple had been cleared over the past few months...The paved road leading up from the Pool of Siloam, toward the Temple Mount, has since been covered up and only now cleared by the IAA.

Professor Roni Reich, who headed the excavation, said the exposed spot was "where Second Temple pilgrims began their ascent by foot. This is the southern tip of the street, a section of which is exposed along the western side of the Temple Mount."

But this past week was very good for archaelogical finds confirming the Jewish history of this land.

For example, up at Migdal by the shores of the Kinneret:

THE remains of a 2,000-year-old synagogue where Jesus may have preached were found on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, archaeologists said on Friday. The synagogue, one of the oldest ever found, was unearthed at Migdal, which Christians believe to be the birthplace of Mary Magdalene, a leading follower of Jesus.

Archaeologists were particularly excited by the discovery of an imprint depicting the menorah - a seven-branched candelabrum - from the Jewish Second Temple destroyed in 70 AD during the Roman siege of Jerusalem.

Abshalom-Gorni said the imprint was one of only four such reproductions known to exist.

And also this:

The largest cache of rare coins ever found in a scientific excavation from the period of the Bar-Kokhba revolt of the Jews against the Romans has been discovered in a cave by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Bar-Ilan University. The coins were discovered in three batches in a deep cavern located in a nature reserve in the Judean hills. The treasure includes gold, silver and bronze coins, as well as some pottery and weapons.

...The some 120 coins were discovered within a cave that has a "hidden wing," the slippery and dangerous approach to which is possible only via a narrow opening discovered many years ago by Dr. Gideon Mann, a physician who is one of the early cave explorers in modern Israel. The opening led to a small chamber which in turn opens into a hall that served as a hiding place for the Jewish fighters of Bar-Kokhba.

Most of the discovered coins are in excellent condition and were overstruck as rebels' coins on top of Roman coins. The new imprints show Jewish images and words (for example: the facade of the Temple in Jerusalem and the slogan "for the freedom of Jerusalem")...

If You're A Muslim, You're Not To Drink Beer to Get a Black-Eye

Or rather to listen to a Black-Eyed Peas Concert:

No Muslims at Black Eyed Peas concert

Muslims in Malaysia have been barred from attending a concert by U.S. hip hop band the Black Eyed Peas sponsored by Guinness...

The move comes after a Malaysian Islamic court sentenced a 32-year Muslim woman to be caned after she was caught drinking beer in a hotel...

The concert, part of celebrations of Guinness 250th birthday, asks on its website (www.arthursday.com.my) "Are you a non-Muslim aged 18 years and above?" and if the response is no, access is not allowed.

Muslims account for 55 percent of the 27 million people in this Southeast Asian country and are barred from consuming alcohol although the rules are regularly flouted, especially in big cities like the capital, Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysia's Guinness Anchor which sells Guinness and other brands here had sales of 1.2 billion Malaysian ringgit ($340.6 million) in 2008.