Islam's Advance

Egypt's Facebook Revolution

2008-05-13T20:06:10Z

When most people log onto Facebook, the thought of fomenting revolution is pretty far from their minds. But in the Middle East, and most recently in Egypt, Facebook has become an important platform for dissent in countries that routinely clampdown on liberal activists, and where the mosque has traditionally been the only outlet for venting political frustration. Last month saw the arrest of Esra Abdel Fattah, 27, after she formed a group on Facebook calling for protests against the high price of food and other commodities in Egypt. Strike action was already planned by factory workers in the Nile Delta city of Mahalla al-Kobra, and the Facebook group, which attracted 64,000 members, tapped into a national mood of unrest. During Fattah’s incarceration, police clashed with protestors in Mahalla, killing three; some 500 people were detained. 3arabawy has been keen to play down the role of Facebook: “I hope our peers in the activist community will wake up and realize now the limitations of online activism…” writes Hossam el-Hamalawy, the blog’s author. “Let’s get back to organizing on the ground, fellow bloggers, and leave behind these cyber-fantasies.” But although Facebook activism may not be able to spark protest – at least not yet – it has succeeded in advertising and amplifying Egyptian unrest. It may also succeed in aligning radical workers with the dissenting voices in the middle class. The Egyptian government is certainly worried enough by Facebook to take action against the likes of Fattah (two other online activists who were detained at the same time are still in custody). But in a country where the average age is just 24, and more than 20% of the country lives below the poverty line, the government faces an impossible task in trying to stifle protest. And it may be that Facebook, like the mosque, provides an essential pressure valve for frustration and discontent. Editor's Note: An editing error left a misspelling in this article's first paragraph that has since been corrected. Thanks to our commenters for pointing it out.]]>

Iraq's Tribal Threat

2008-05-08T21:08:44Z

I have often argued in this blog that the adaptation of Islamic beliefs to tribal customs is one of the main problems facing Islam’s efforts to modernize. Whether manifested in so-called “honor” crimes in Jordan, or in Afghanistan’s makeshift legal system in places like the border town of Khost, tribalism asserts itself where government has broken down, providing some form of law and hierarchy at the price of allowing socially regressive practices and corruption. I sometimes like to measure tribal leaders by what I call the “Godfather factor” – just how little they have to say to make themselves understood.

Sheikh Ahmed Abu Rishe

Sheikh Ahmed claims to be a social liberal, and says the reason he turned against al-Qaeda was that it challenged conservative, yet tolerant, social mores. “[Al-Qaeda members] were taking women off the streets and beating them for not wearing the full hijab, and shooting men without beards who did not pray five times a day,” said the Sheikh. “This brought a deep shame to our families, so we rejected them.” Nevertheless, an important part of tribal custom for Sheikh Ahmed is the ability to distribute largesse and patronage to his 8,000 armed followers –¬¬ and therein lies one of his main challenges to Iraq’s fragile system of governance. Sheikh Ahmed says that most of his forces have been incorporated into the local police force, and that he is keen to become part of the political process. To that end, he has set up a party to compete in provincial elections scheduled for later this year. “We want to create a political party that will represent all of Iraq,” he told me. However, members of the Iraq’s Shia-dominated government have reacted with a mixture of disdain and fear to the rise of Sheikh Ahmed and others Sunni tribal leaders like him. Tahseen al-Sheikhly, head of the country’s reconciliation committee, sees Sheikh Ahmed’s political ambitions as tribalism writ large. “Tribes don’t make states,” al-Sheikhly said. “They are an important part of the social framework of Iraq, but to build a state you need technocrats and politicians. We are concerned that under the guise of politics, tribal leaders are pushing their own local agendas... and they are doing so with the backing of armed militias.” Of course, until recently, the Iraqi government’s main party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, had its own militia called the Badr Brigade (now folded into the Interior Ministry.) So in turn do the Kurds, in the form of the 60,000-strong (figures vary) Peshmerga, and the radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. In fact, far from creating a new tribal power in Iraq, the U.S. military has simply enabled the Sunnis to gain a degree of parity. The question is whether the different sides can settle their differences peacefully and find a political solution that can meet everyone’s ambitions. When asked on that point, the Sheikh said very little. ]]>

A Step Back for Jordan's Women

2008-05-02T20:15:40Z

honor killings in Jordan, this week saw a sad reminder that although pioneering journalists like Lina Nabil can break taboos and talk about these issues, the country’s judiciary continues to condone violence and a regressive view of Islamic and tribal culture. This Wednesday, a Jordanian father received a six-month prison sentence for murdering his daughter by electrocuting her, after she had abandoned an abusive marriage. The prosecution had sought the father’s conviction for manslaughter; he had tied his daughter’s hands together with wire and then connected her to the house current. Instead, he was given a lesser sentence under Article 98 of Jordanian law, by which crimes of passion are punished only with small custodial sentences. In this case, the father had already served six months in prison before his trial and was allowed to walk free. ]]> Rana Husseini, who wrote about the case for the English-language newspaper Jordan Times, spoke about her anger and frustration over the decision: “I think that the verdict is a disaster for all the efforts we have exerted in the past years to try raise awareness and convince lawmakers and people in Jordan that such criminals deserve punishment,” she said. “I wish the government would take action. Last year we saw harsher sentences against these types of killers. Now we’ve slipped back to winking at them. It’s very depressing.” Husseini promised to keep fighting, and suggested that people outside Jordan address letters to the Justice Ministry to register their outrage. “We need to keep talking about it, and pushing for the government to change the law. We profess to be a modern state, so we must not let fundamentalism and backwardness in under the guise of law.”

Love Blooms in Baghdad

2008-04-30T14:45:02Z

Note: Please upgrade your Flash plug-in to view our enhanced content.

Love has been one of the more unusual casualties of war here in Iraq. Young men and women have kept to their homes, and families have turned to older tribal marriage customs as a bulwark against the insecurity. But as a tenuous calm has returned to Baghdad, there’s been a brief blossoming of so-called “love matches.” Newlyweds and groups of young single men and women spend weekend afternoons strolling through the Baghdad Zoo, featured in this video. There aren’t many ways to find love in Iraq. There are few such public spaces in Baghdad where couples can meet, even if little more happens than a platonic holding of hands. The majority of marriages are still arranged within families, often between cousins, reflecting the conservative view of marriage as a strategic union that keeps wealth inside the family, and guarantees the good reputation of the bride. Sami, the subject of this video, says he couldn’t have married Sejwa if the security situation hadn’t improved in recent months. For starters, he found a job with a government office last year, his first since the U.S. invasion, which allowed him to save up the US$5000 needed for the marriage. An Iraqi bridegroom are expected to provide an apartment for his bride with all the modern conveniences:¬ refrigerators, televisions, kitchenware, beds, air-conditioning units. That makes for some of the most detailed pre-nuptial agreements in the world, and means many families take a businesslike view of marriage. ]]>

Mohammed al-Dulami, 18.

Only a few boys will actually approach a girl and ask for her name and number. For women in such encounters, the risks are considerable. Mohammed al-Dulami, one such young hopeful shown in this picture, explained to me at an internet café: “If a girl accepts the look of a boy, it can mean that she has declared her love for him. No other boy will think about approaching her, and her family will be very angry if they find out.” The acceptance of an invitation to go for a walk in the park is almost like a betrothal. “Women are expected to protect their honor and make sure they choose a man who can provide what he says he will deliver,” he said. Mohammed is 18, and does not have a girlfriend, or a job. “I think it will be many years before I can marry,” he said.

Competing Visions for Iraq: Clerics or Commerce?

2008-04-25T17:29:30Z

“We¹re going to build a city to rival Dubai,” says governor Assad Abu Galal as he unrolls sheaths of architectural plans in his offices on the outskirts of the southern Iraqi city of Najaf. The 64-year old former exile, who usually cultivates an air of quiet, grandfatherly detachment, becomes suddenly animated as he traces the lines of new roads, housing projects, tourist complexes, and five-star hotels. The centerpiece of his plan is the renovation and expansion of the Imam Ali Shrine, the golden-domed tomb that houses the body of the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson and draws millions of pilgrims each year. In one of Galal’s blueprints, a large swath of the old city has been cleared away to make way for shopping boutiques, underground parking and a sweeping piazza.

The proposed new shrine complex in Najaf, Iraq.

Sure, his audacity is surprising; he’s dreaming up schemes so out of touch with the realities of this dust-blown Iraqi city, where pools of sewage collect in the streets and there are only a few hours of electricity a day. But what struck me even more about the governor’s vision was that it represents a transformation in how the world of Iraqi Shi’a Islam sees itself. ]]> blog post on the Shi’ite ritual of Ashura.) Saddam’s fall led many to fear that Iraq might ultimately become an Iranian proxy state. Although Tehran certainly exerts a powerful grip on the various Shi’a parties that now dominate Iraqi politics, it’s by no means an uncomplicated relationship. The country’s supreme spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has rejected Iranian-style theocratic rule and insists he should have no role in Iraq’s politics. This is far from being anything like a separation of church and state ¬ Sistani’s fatwas and spiritual advice extend from the courts of law to the education system,¬ but it has suggested a different, Iraqi path. The radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has also found Iraqi nationalism and Shari’a law to be a potent rallying cry among the poor in his various battles with coalition forces and the central government (although he regularly dabbles in politics.] Iran remains the dominant power in the region. The U.S. believes that Iran continues to support al-Sadr, the Shi’ite coalition in the government, and the reconstruction projects of the Marjiya, the quartet of ayatollahs that rule the Shi’ite faithful in Iraq. Galal says that any new building work in Najaf will require significant Iranian involvement and funding. But Galal’s vision for his city, as you can see, embodies a set of qualities quite different from those usually associated with Iran. It is open, expansive, and incorporates a touch of Disneyland with an otherwise imperial façade. The plans are only in their initial stages, and will require years and billions of dollars to implement. But Galal believes Najaf will ultimately become the capital of the Shi’ite world. "We want Najaf to be an international city, to which tourists and pilgrims will travel from all around the world," Galal said. ³Iran can be our partner in that, but it is ultimately Iraqis who will shape our city’s look and its direction.” Incidentally, his master plan for the city is being drawn up by a British design firm, which previously designed the slightly less exotic new town of Milton Keynes in the UK.

(Dis)honor Killings

2008-04-21T15:30:42Z

Note: Please upgrade your Flash plug-in to view our enhanced content.

Lina Nabil was writing glossy features for a Middle Eastern women’s magazine when she found the story that changed her life. In the 1980s, while she was working on an investigative report on the situations of Jordan’s imprisoned women, she was shown a cell in the Central Jail in the capital of Amman. It was packed with women in their early to late teens. “I asked, what had these girls done?” recalled Lina. “I was told they were being held for their own protection because their families had tried to kill them. Some of them had been there for years. Others were released and later murdered. I knew this was a story I had to tell, whatever the consequences.” ]]> Honor killings, in which women are murdered for tarnishing their family’s honor, are prevalent throughout the Middle East. In Jordan they account for one-third of all violent deaths, on the order of twenty-five a year. Although they are illegal, the murders are prosecuted leniently in a country where tribal custom and Islamic teachings often hold sway in the courts. It’s a practice that dates back through the ages, but what’s new about honor killings in Jordan is that women like Lina have started talking about them. Her series of articles about the women in prison, published in the late 1980s in a leading Arabic-language newspaper, attracted a storm of controversy, including a number of death threats. “The subject was a taboo when I started writing about it. At first people were in a state of denial; then they accused me of being un-Jordanian, a whore, an enemy of religion,” she said. “But slowly the truth emerged.” As Lina discovered, the motivations for the killings vary. Most common, in a culture that prizes a woman’s virginity, is an accusation of sex before marriage, although Lina estimates that in 90% of the cases the victims are virgins. “In the small communities where honor killings often take place, a rumor that a woman was seen talking to another man is enough to ruin the family’s reputation in the eyes of society,” she said. Other cases involve rape, often by a member of the family. In the story Lina recounts at the start of the video, the 17-year-girl was raped by a cousin from a nearby farm. After her family’s first attempt to kill her failed, she was taken into police custody. That’s where Lina first met her, during a visit from the girl’s father and son. “I left the room for a moment with the supervisor, and the next thing we heard was a gunshot, and she was lying on the floor in a pool of blood,” said Lina. “The father and son who did this thought they were upholding the family’s honor, that they were doing the right things according to their customs and their religion.” As Lina has strived to make clear, honor killings have nothing to do with Islam. “Nowhere in the Koran does it tell you kill women like this. In fact it’s just the opposite: it says that men and women should be treated equally,” she said. Since her first article ran almost 20 years ago, Lina has dedicated herself to changing these perceptions. Along with women like Rana Husseini, another journalist who has publicized honor killings, and the Jordan Women’s Union, an education center and shelter for abused women, they have broken down the silence that has surrounded the issue. But there has been no real reduction in honor killings. To achieve that, Lina believes, the law courts must start prosecuting as murderers the men who kill their female family members. Currently, under Article 98 of the Jordanian Penal Code, a man can claim “mitigating circumstances”, and receive a light custodial sentence, Lina said. “In every murder I’ve investigated, the woman was held to be responsible for the crimes committed against her, even though she was actually the victim,” said Lina, “What we want is equality before the law. Then we will see change.”

Dying to Escape Iraq

2008-04-18T19:08:29Z

Note: Please upgrade your Flash plug-in to view our enhanced content.

The last time I wrote about Haider, he had just arrived in Amman, Jordan after fleeing for his life from southern Iraq. The story of his narrow escape from the Mahdi Army’s death squads is worth repeating, not least because Haider’s struggle represents the continuing plight of thousands of Iraqis who are desperately trying to leave. Haider worked as a translator for British forces in Basra, but the list of those targeted includes doctors, nurses, teachers and engineers. Their aggressors are, more often than not, poor, uneducated Shi’a from the slums of southern Iraq. Many were themselves victimized by Saddam Hussein’s regime; they found in the Mahdi Army’s leader, Moqtada al-Sadr, an angry voice that echoed their own. The fact that Sadr clothes his message in Islamic rhetoric gives them an additional sense of legitimacy, and a brutal, reductive vision of Islam to enforce. ]]> Haider and others like him come from a liberal, professional class in Iraq that represents everything the Mahdi Army opposes. I should add that Haider himself spent a year in Saddam Hussein’s prisons for protesting against the regime, and his father was murdered. That’s one the reasons he is able to provide such insight into the minds of the Shi’ite militia members, as you’ll hear in the video. Last summer, Haider received a number of threats from the militia to stop working with the Coalition. When he did not, his brother-in-law was murdered, and a note pinned to his body telling Haider to turn himself in. He fled illegally to Iran, where his wife and newborn son planned to join him, along with his uncle-in-law, Ali. But the three were seized by the Mahdi army. Ali was shot four times in the chest; Haider’s wife and son were released. Haider rushed back to join them, and spent two weeks moving from hiding place to hiding place until the British government arranged for him to fly to Jordan. His ordeal is far from over. He has lived for the past five months in a state of limbo in Jordan, where I met him; he is still waiting for the British government to arrange his asylum. Although the British government said last summer that it would grant asylum to military interpreters, none has won it to date, and many have died in the meantime. The U.S. government’s track record with its Iraqi assistants isn’t much better. Haider is one of the lucky ones: the British have at least agreed to consider his case. For other professionals who seek asylum, mostly in European countries, the Iraqi government has recently asked the British government to reject their cases because it claims Iraq is now safe enough for them to return. But as the past week’s events have shown, Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army remains as potent a force as ever, and a return to Iraq will mean a death sentence. Although the issues of the Islamic world may often seem far away, I hope that Haider’s story makes us all realize the duty we have toward those who suffer from extremism.

Exploring the Roots of Terror

2008-03-31T13:46:41Z

video post on a would-be Afghan suicide bomber prompted some serious debate on this page. One viewer asked whether the bomber, Mohammed Ramazan, was representative of the thousands who have blown themselves across the Middle East: uneducated, isolated and preyed upon by mullahs with perverted views of the Koran. Or is there another path to extremeism, like the one that sucks in the malcontents we usually associate with al Qaeda -- sophisticated, university-schooled, but just as hate-filled?]]> They are important distinctions to make. Many, including the Afghan Education Ministry and most of the aid world, believe that those in the first category, like Ramazan, can be stopped through education and poverty reduction measures. To that end the Ministry is building a new system of madrassahs to take education out of the hands of extremists. It's the most ambitious and long-term project I came across in the country. But what about those from richer societies in the region, where wealth and opportunity have created a generation of Islamic radicals who have chosen to reject the modern world? How can radicals from two extremes of the Islamic world lead to the same gruesome end, and what is the connection between the two? Shortly after recording the Ramazan interview I left Afghanistan to continue my exploration of these issues, and the usual Islam's Advance topics of how this religion is adapting to, and resisting, the changes of the 21st Century. Over the next few weeks I will be visiting Jordan, Iraq and the Gulf. These are places with complex societies, ambitious and educated middle classes and their own particular issues with fundamentalism. Jordan, my next stop, is often held up as an example of successful modernization in the Muslim world: a vibrant consumer economy, with a tech-savvy younger generation, few natural resources but a knack for adapting to a hostile neighborhood. What are the secrets of Jordan's success and just how effective have it been in tackling fundamentalism and banishing the likes of Mohammed Ramazan. I hope you¹ll join me in finding out and adding your voices to the debate.

Reforming Scripture and Culture

2008-03-30T19:52:33Z

Few verses in the Koran are more controversial that those advising Muslims on how to treat women. Among the most hotly contested is 4:34, which suggests men should punish a disobedient woman first by admonishing her, then by isolating her in the bedroom. If neither of those work, the Koran advises him to beat her. That verse can be a jarring discovery for first-time Koran readers. How do Middle Easterners who are seeking reform come to terms with "wife-beating" verse, as it¹s sometimes called? Is it just a case of sweeping it under the table, along with other ancient customs now deemed less than acceptable? Can there be a compromise for devout Muslims, who passionately believe in the Koran as the word of God? idrib as "beat," she chose a more obscure variant that means "to go away" (other possibilities include strike, scourge, make an example of, and spank.) Bakhtiar suggests "Husbands at that point should submit to God, let God handle it -- go away from them and let God work His Will instead of a human being inflicting pain and suffering on another human being in the Name of God." (The passage is generally translated: "And as for those women whose ill will you have reason to fear, admonish them; then leave them alone in bed; then beat them; and if thereupon they pay you heed, do not seek to harm them. Behold, God is indeed most high, great!") The publication of Bakhtiar¹s transliteration met with muted controversy when it was published in the U.S. last year, with some Muslim academics asking whether Baktiar was merely making the Koran "more palatable" to Western sensibilities. Is this the first politically correct version of the Koran, some have asked dubiously. But what has been its wider impact in the Middle East? I should add here that although violence against women in cities with substantial middle class populations is on a par with the number of attacks in the West, in rural areas violence is prevalent. In Afghanistan, UN figures suggest that 75% of women experience domestic violence, and few cases make it to court. Jamila Afghanni, a women¹s rights activist in Afghanistan told me Bakhtiar¹s interpretation was not well known but it comes at a pivotal moment. "I am seeing a change among the women I speak to who have suffered from domestic violence," she said. "They are developing an emotional fortitude to stand up to abuse that wasn¹t there before. If we can develop an intellectual framework for them in the Koran as well, then we can make real in roads into changing the way society treats women."]]>

The Face of Terror: Confessions of a Failed Suicide Bomber

2008-03-25T11:20:29Z

Note: Please upgrade your Flash plug-in to view our enhanced content.

In this video you will see Mohammed Ramazan, who came within a few moments of blowing himself up during an attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul earlier this year, allegedly gunning down at least two people before he was captured. Ramazan’s views and his lack of remorse for his actions are clearly those of a deeply disturbed young man with only a tenuous grip on reality. But he is also a creation – or a perversion – of Afghanistan’s mullahs and Taliban commanders, who took an uneducated Pakistani with almost no knowledge of the Koran and told him to kill in the name of Islam.]]> madrassas in Pakistan where their study of the Koran was steadily subverted by anti-American brainwashing, including video presentations of Guantanamo prison and Abu Ghraib. Neither man speaks Arabic nor has read the Koran in its entirety. That January night, as the two men approached the hotel, they thought they were defending the Muslim world against the worst kind of abuse. The reality was altogether sadder and more grim. They rapidly gunned down the four startled guards outside and forced their way into the inner courtyard of the hotel. Farouk then detonated his suicide vest, killing himself. Ramazan approached the hotel’s gym, where he allegedly killed a Western contractor and journalist, before taking off his explosive vest and attempting to flee. “God told me it wasn’t my time to die,” Ramazan told me. I lived through a suicide bombing when I was reporting in Iraq, so I’ve experienced what some of the survivors of these attacks go through: the initial confusion and adrenaline, followed by anger and guilt. On the night of the Serena bombing, I remembered that feeling again. I had arrived in Afghanistan only a week before, and had been contemplating visiting the hotel that evening. Instead, I arrived half an hour after the attack to find a chaotic scene, with Afghan police clearing the road for a steady stream of ambulances. I was able to speak to one ashen-faced businessman who had been in the hotel during the attacks, as he was being escorted from the building. “Who would do such a thing?” he said simply to a pack of Afghan journalists before being led away to a nearby car. The man’s shocked comment reminded me that in reacting to suicide bombings, we tend to view the individuals who commit these crimes in broad strokes: as embodiments of pure evil, as sociopaths following a perverted view of Islam. But when I met Ramazan earlier this month in a Kabul prison, two months after the attack, he wasn’t quite that. He was emaciated, nervous, and unable to really grasp his situation. The answers he gave to my questions will never be fully satisfactory. No matter what explanations one could craft for his behavior – and in this video you will hear his own sad mixture of naivete, ignorance and fanaticism - there is an insurmountable gulf of understanding here. He is likely to face a death sentence later this year.

Afghan Feminists See Koran as Strongest Weapon

2008-03-18T16:39:12Z

Note: Please upgrade your Flash plug-in to view our enhanced content.

Fatima Gailani believes that women’s rights can be achieved by a return to the teachings of the Koran. She is one of a small but growing number of Islamic feminists in the Middle East who are seeking to challenge both the dominant patriarchal culture in the region, and the assumptions of an earlier generation of women rights activists in the West. ]]> There’s no set creed as to what makes an Islamic feminist. Most are university-educated women who took feminism’s critique of male-dominated society (prevalent in the Middle East’s largely secular-minded campuses in the ‘70s) and combined it with the dictates of Sharia Law and the rising Islamist tide over the past decade. In doing so, they have been able to show how poor treatment of women is rarely condoned by the Koran. “Forced marriage, child brides, honor killings – none of this is in the Koran,” Fatima told me, when we met in her office at Kabul’s Red Crescent Society, which she directs. “Women are treated like chattel, and in the name of Islam. This is not sanctioned in the Koran,” she said. What Fatima, and others like her, are attempting to do is use the Koran and its huge cultural weight to steer Middle Eastern societies towards a more generous treatment of women. It’s not an easy task. For a start, their numbers are small - Fatima estimates there no more than a few dozen Islamic feminists like her in Afghanistan. And then there are the entrenched interests they are battling, none more stark than in Afghanistan, where adult illiteracy is estimated at 75%. “If we want to change Islam from within, we have to be totally committed to the religion. That’s the only way to succeed,” said Fatima, “The men in this country, and most of the women, will only be convinced to change their behavior if they know it is in the Koran. That’s the highest authority here.” The solution that Fatima proposes is a re-configuration of village life, starting with the village imam, or religious leader. “We can’t have semi-illiterate preachers defining who women are and what they can do,” she says. Unfortunately for Islamic feminists, they have largely been ignored by traditional women’s movements in the U.S. and Europe, who see Islam as the final frontier in the struggle. They are put off when women like Fatima insist that wearing a veil or headscarf is an Islamic duty clearly spelled out in the Koran, and that they cannot pick and choose elements of their creed. “What Western feminists don’t understand is that we don’t want freedom,” Gailani said. “We want to be able to follow the Koran, minus all the anti-women dogma that surrounds it.”

Impotency, Afghanistan's Taboo

2008-03-13T15:25:45Z

Note: Please upgrade your Flash plug-in to view our enhanced content.

One of the many unique things about Farid, the subject of this video, is his openness about his impotency. He was diagnosed within the first few months of his marriage. In other households, the issue would be hushed up and the woman would often be blamed for this state of affairs, allowing the man to hastily divorce or take another wife. Not so with Farid. He chose to tackle the issue head-on. The subject of male impotency is rarely, if ever, discussed in the Middle East. The taboo operates on many different levels: it challenges the roles of men as all-powerful providers, of women as passive child-bearers, and of children as the sole purpose of wedlock. ]]> This video looks at Farid’s long, painful and at times extraordinary journey to find a cure. Farid has tried everything from Western-style medicine in Pakistan to more traditional and esoteric forms of Islamic healing that are fused with older, Shamanic beliefs. This later cure involves the laying on of hands and recitation of verses from the Koran, along with the use of ritual objects and tokens (resembling some Christian faith-based cures). “I’m not ashamed about this problem that I have,” said Farid, a guard at Western NGO in Kabul, where I met him. “It’s God’s will that I have this, and it will be by God’s grace that I find a cure.” Farid is also driven by a desire to keep his wife of the past four years, whom he says he loves dearly. The flip side of male domination in the Muslim world is that if he cannot perform his conjugal duties, and the wife succeeds in publicizing this fact, he will face a humiliating divorce. Farid has pre-empted that possiblity through his openness about the problem, but if he doesn’t find a suitable solution, his wife will face tremendous pressure from her family to leave him and find a husband who can provide her with children. If that happens – inevitable, according to Farid – the best he can hope for is to marry a widow and raise her children. “But I haven’t given hope just yet of having [my own] children,” he says.

Searching For a Fourth Wife

2008-03-04T16:38:32Z

Note: Please upgrade your Flash plug-in to view our enhanced content.

Farid would take a fourth wife if he could afford one. This 29-year-old gravel supplier says he has already received a dozen calls from single women in his neighborhood who want to join his three current wives. He is something of a catch. His hillside house has no water or electricity, but his business hauling gravel provides a steady income. The fact that he has three wives and seven children, three of them sons, is a mark of his status in the community.]]> If marriage is the building block of society, then polygamy represents one of the profounder differences between Islam and the West. There are no comprehensive figures for the number of polygamous marriages in the Middle East. The practice is outlawed in Tunisia and Turkey, but may be as high as 25% in Afghanistan, according to UN estimates here. Whatever the figures, polygamy’s legal standing in Sharia law and idealized position in some communities have led to a very different view of society. A certain utilitarianism puts the demands of family and tribal loyalty – and the production of sons – far before the romantic love that’s central to the concept of marriage in the West. Some history first: the Koran allows men to have up to a maximum of four wives. When this Koranic verse was revealed, many Muslim men divorced wives in excess of four in order to comply. The Prophet Muhammad had a total of eleven wives throughout his life, though no more than nine at any one time. One of the primary motives both then and now for multiple wives is the need for sons, who will inherit the family’s estate (women, when they marry, effectively join their husband’s family). A common justification among Middle Eastern men for taking a second wife is that their first has not produced a son. Another reason is that first marriages are often arranged by families between cousins, without consent from either man or woman. A second wife can often be a “love match.” On other occasions widows, of which there are many in Afghanistan, are re-married to surviving brothers to keep the children in the family. In all of these circumstances women are clearly treated as commodities. with little say in whom they marry. There are further, psychological ramifications. In Iraq, I witnessed one family torn apart by a man’s decision to take a second wife. The man, called Ali, had begun work as a driver with a Western security firm and was earning a large salary ($2000 a month), giving him the financial means to take another wife. His original wife, however, refused to accept the legitimacy of the second, leading to a painful rivalry, which ultimately split the children, the sons favoring the father, the daughters the mother, and led to divorce. In other cases I’ve seen in Yemen, the husband has inevitably favored certain wives, leading to simmering rivalries played out among the children. When I asked Farid if there was rivalry between the different wives and their children, he told me to look at them happily playing together. Farid insists his relationship with his three wives is happy. He says his wives form a tight family unit, sharing the housework. His first wife was happy for him to take a second wife, he claims. “She went to the family of the second woman and made the proposal on my behalf,” says Farid. Each time he gets a new wife, Farid adds a new room to the house, spending one night in turn with each wife. But Farid did not allow me to interview his wives for this video, after deciding that their views, if publicly broadcast, would bring shame to the family. He only allowed me to film them on the condition that they wear burqas. (One wife was visiting family in the north during my visit). “Neither I nor my wives come from a rich or well-educated family, so we value things different to the smart people in the city,” said Farid. “We want lots of sons, and for them to grow up clever and strong.”

Keeping the Sharia Peace

2008-02-29T16:22:45Z

Sharia law gets bad press in the West. It’s the body of law drawn from the Koran, reported sayings of the prophet, and centuries of jurisprudence, and in its most extreme form it prescribes punishments such as beheadings, amputations and stonings. Cases like that of the Saudi rape victim, who was sentenced to 200 lashes for meeting a man who eventually raped her, have largely come to define how we see Islamic law: at best, a kind of medieval anachronism; at worst, barbarous and anti-women. In Afghanistan, tribal law suffused with Sharia is the only form of legal redress for the vast majority of the country. (A central justice system has yet to take off anywhere other than the capital, Kabul). Terrorism aside, few would argue the sophistication of Afghan crime; most is gun battles between warring families, theft of livestock and land, and government brutality. Those offenses can be found anywhere. But what's remarkable about Afghanistan, and rural areas of countries like Jordan and Syria, is the degree of community and family cohesion. Terrorism again aside, crime is rarely committed by strangers. Tribal law, usually administered by elders or the local religious leader, is intended not as a form of public punishment but as conflict resolution. This point was rammed home to me on a recent trip to Khowst in Eastern Afghanistan. The town is nestled in a leafy bowl on the mountainous border with Pakistan, with a Californian climate and powerful tribal code known as Pashtun Walia. I was driving through the town with Afghan security forces last week, when they pointed out a man crossing the street ahead. “He killed his neighbor last night,” said the driver. “Why?” I asked. “There was a dispute over land between their families. He’s crazy,” he said as we drove past the man. “Why don’t you arrest him?” “That’s not our job. Their tribal leaders will gather tonight to decide on how much compensation the man should pay,” he said. That amount could range anywhere between $10 and $100 depending on the family¹s demand, explained the driver. Once paid, the dispute is laid to rest. This is how tribal justice works in many areas of the Middle East: traditional, influenced but not dominated by the Koran, and effective (in contrast to Khost’s criminal justice system, which has failed to prosecute a case in two years and has a medieval-style vault for a prison.) “No one is a loser in this system,” said Nasir Ahmed, one of two general attorneys in the city. “No one loses face, and that is important for keeping the peace.” There is, of course, a more developed form of Islamic jurisprudence that constitutes Sharia. Centuries of Koranic interpretation have built of a vast body of legal precedents that have developed with the changing demands of society. At the core of Sharia,¬ in contrast to tribal law, is the principle of punishment for transgression. That’s where the stonings and beheadings come in. Nasir, who describes himself as opponent of Sharia’s harsher punishments, says there’s no point in trying to gloss over them. “They’re there in the Koran, and they’ve been established by centuries of use,” he said. He singles out relatively few countries that use Sharia as their only source of jurisprudence: Saudi Arabia is one, Iran another (and Afghanistan too, if the system worked). The vast majority of Muslim countries use Islamic law mixed with Western-style legal codes. “A far bigger issue for me, no matter the system, is whether there is justice,” he said. “That’s where the real problem lies.” For Nasir, the harsher Sharia punishments are often a response to failing judicial systems, although he does not doubt that groups like the Taliban use these punishments to create fear. “Is Sharia compatible with justice? The answer, of course, is yes,” he said. “But can it be abused? Also yes.”

Measuring Progress By the Koran

2008-02-26T21:33:11Z

We take for granted the idea of progress in America. It's rooted in the collective narrative, and comes with a healthy sense of entitlement, responsibility and pride. But Afghanistan's progress has been fleeting over the past 50 years, and in its absence, the country’s own history has become a more provisional affair. Whether it’s Karzai’s government presenting itself as a restoration of the benign period under the former monarchy, or the Taliban’s insistence that they are the heirs to the Soviet jihad, all sides dip selectively into the past, often giving the eerie impression that instead of progress, history is repeating itself. Amid this historical confusion, Islam offers a rare sense of continuity to Afghanistan’s faithful. As Mullah Saiqal, an Islamic history professor at Kabul University, put it bluntly to me: “The past is a mess, and we could do with forgetting several decades.” “If we want history, we should turn to the Koran. We don’t want to go back to the time of the prophet like the Taliban. We want to live with our faith in the present,” said Saiqal, who has a bushy white beard, rheumy eyes, and a habit of lacing his Dari with formal Arabic. He was imprisoned for two years under the Taliban for a failed uprising he had supported. For Saiqal, Islamic history is a powerful mix of historical reality and an ideal world, where the Prophet’s code of governance and personal behavior form a direct link between the past and the present. His views are not unusual among the many conservatives in Afghanistan, and reflect a deep skepticism about the role of government that’s common across the Middle East. Those with more liberal views sometimes argue that the pull of Islam to a glorified past is one reason why Middle Eastern governments have failed to develop modern national histories that positively re-enforce good governance and civic responsibility. It’s an argument that certainly resonates with Western beliefs in the need for separation of church from state. But on the other, the Middle East’s recent history of government corruption and ill-judged warfare has done little to endear it to theorists like Saiqal. “Islam is about progress, but it’s in a different sense than in the West. For Muslims, progress is about deeper connection with God and following his will. Of course, we also want the other type of progress like roads and schools,” he said, “but I believe we can have both.”