THE MUSLIM WORLD

‘Holy Prophet's Marriage with Ayesha (RA) cannot be a precedent’

Jeddah: Sheikh Abdullah Al-Mane', a member of the Board of Senior Ulema and an Advisor to the Royal Court in Saudi Arabia, has said that Prophet Muhammad's (pbuh) marriage to Ayesha when she was nine years old cannot be used as justification for child marriage today due to the “different circumstances” of the time, said a news report in Saudi Gazette.

According to Sheikh Al-Mane', when Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) was contemplating marrying off his daughter he was unable to find anyone better than the Prophet (pbuh). “It is impossible to use the marriage of Ayesha, the 'Mother of Believers' (May Allah be pleased with her) as a measure for child marriage because of the incompatibility of the conditions and circumstances,” Sheikh Al-Mane' said.

Child marriage is an issue that has come to the fore in recent months following reports in the local media of aged men marrying young girls, the most recent being the marriage of a 12-year-old to a man in his eighties in Buraidah. A court in Qassim is scheduled to look into the case on Monday, while the Human.

Rights Commission has also set up a Shariah specialist team to investigate and meet with the marriage official who conducted the marriage rites.

The Human Rights Commission is also waiting for the Board of Senior Ulema to set the age of minors after having contacted the board concerning the issue over two years ago. Sheikh Al-Mane' also urged scholars and preachers to take responsibility in making parents aware of the social and mental damage caused by the marriage of minors. “It is a grave error to burden a child with responsibilities beyond her years,” the Sheikh said. “Marriage should be put off until the wife is of a mentally and physically mature age and can care for both herself and her family,” he said.

“We need a law banning and preventing the marriage of under-18s,” said Mufleh Al-Qahtani, Chairman of the National Society for Human Rights, which has taken part in drawing up a law to protect children and is pushing for its legal approval.

Spectacular fireworks illuminated the skies of Istanbul early January to mark the launch of the city's nomination as one of three 'European Capitals of Culture' for 2010.

Istanbul on January 16 night officially launched a year of art events, feting the occasion with cultural performances, concerts, street shows and firework displays in the vicinity of the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia Museum. With its rich heritage of Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman history and its pulsating contemporary urban life, Istanbul is already recognized as one of the world's great cultural capitals.

The new prestigious title gives the Turkish city the opportunity and funding to showcase and enrich it cultural life. Moreover, the title means a great deal in a country which has been striving for decades to become a member of the European Union.

Islam Channel, a London-based satellite broadcaster, has been accused of providing a platform for Anwar al-Awlaki, an extremist cleric with ties to al-Qaida, Major Hasan of the Fort Hood shooting, and Abdulmutallab, who recently tried to blow up a plane on a flight to Detroit. Islam Channel is said to have advertised a box set of DVDs of Awlaki's sermons and events at which he was supposed to speak. Furthermore, the channel's website facilitates download of other Awlaki sermons, such as “Stop Police Terror”, “Brutality Towards Muslims” and “It's a War against Islam”.

Islam Channel is the largest Islamic program airing in the UK, claiming to be “the voice of authority for Muslims in the UK”. The channel denies having given a platform to Awlaki and removed the links on the website. Many Muslim scholars have expressed concern, such as Dr. Irfan al-Alawi of the Centre for Islamic Pluralism, who fears that young people might get radicalized. Maajid Nawaz, a former presenter on the Islam Channel who is now director of the counter-extremism thinktank Quilliam says the channel has a large influence, and should exercise responsibility.

Geert Wilders, the far-right MP who likens the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kampf, went on trial on December 19 in a politically charged test of the limits of tolerance and free speech in the Netherlands.

Mr Wilders, 46, leader of the Freedom Party, is charged with incitement and discrimination against Muslims over his outspoken comments attacking Islam and for his film, Fitna, which juxtaposed images of 9/11 and beheadings with verses of the Koran. He has called the Koran “a fascist book” and described Islamic culture as retarded.

Mr Wilders, who has made no secret of his ambition to become Prime Minister, has called his indictment a political trial but the Amsterdam Court of Appeal decided that it was in the public interest to prosecute him because his comments have been “so insulting to Muslims”.

“I am being prosecuted for my political convictions,” Mr Wilders said this week.

“The freedom of speech is on the verge of collapsing,” Mr Wilders added. “If a politician is not allowed to criticize an ideology anymore this means that we are lost, and it will lead to the end of our freedom. However, I remain combative: I am convinced that I will be acquitted.”

The maverick politician was banned from Britain last February on the grounds that he would “threaten community harmony and therefore public security” but travelled to London in October when the restriction was dropped.

He faces up to two years in prison if convicted but his opponents fear that, win or lose, his Freedom Party will receive a boost in next year's election where it is expected to challenge the ruling Christian Democrats for the largest party vote.

In last summer's European Parliament elections Mr Wilders's party took 17 per cent of the vote, second to the CDA of Jan Peter Balkenende, the Prime Minister, on 19.9 per cent.

Mr Wilders has received numerous death threats for his campaign against the “Islamisation of our societies” views but has built a large following by exploiting a backlash against relaxed Dutch immigration policies, vowing to close Holland's borders if he comes to power. “My supporters say, 'At last there is someone who dares to say what millions of people think'. That is what I do.” Today's hearing in Amsterdam district court is a formal opening session to determine who will be called as witnesses and whether they will all be heard in public.

A spokeswoman for the Public Prosecution Office said that the demand for the case came from a variety of individuals and organisations which complained about comments made by Mr Wilders.

The minaret of the new Grand Mosque of Marseille, whose cornerstone will be laid here in April, will be silent — no muezzin will disturb the neighborhood with the call to prayer. Instead, the minaret will flash a beam of light for a couple of minutes, five times a day.

Normally, the light would be green, for the colour of Islam. But Marseille is a port, and green is reserved for signals to ships at sea. Red? No, the firefighters have reserved red.

Instead, said Noureddine Cheikh, head of the Marseille Mosque Association, the light will almost surely be purple — a rather nightclubby look for such an elegant building.

So is this assimilation? Cheikh laughs. "I suppose it is," he said. "It's a good symbol of assimilation."

But as Western Europe is plunged into anxiety over the impact of Muslim immigration — reeling from the implications of a Swiss vote to ban minarets altogether — some scholars see a destructive dynamic, with assimilation feeding a reaction that, in turn, spawns resentment, particularly among young Muslims.

Vincent Geisser, a scholar of Islam and immigration, believes that the more Europe's Muslims establish themselves as a permanent part of the national scene, the more they frighten some who believe their national identity could be altered forever. "Today in Europe the fear of Islam crystallizes all other fears," Geisser said. "In Switzerland, it's minarets. In France, it's the veil, the burqa and the beard."

The large new mosque is a source of pride here in France's second-largest city, which is at least 25 per cent Muslim. But it is also cause for alarm, Geisser said.

At the Grand Bar Bernabo, a cafe near the site of the new mosque, an older man who refused to give his name said, "I'm going to bomb it when it opens." Asked why, he said: "There are a lot of them already, and this will bring more of them, and there will be trouble.”

When Lamya Kaddor started teaching at the Gluecklauf School in this mining town, where most children are of Turkish origin, she didn't expect her “Islamic Studies in German” class to focus on everyday life.

But it has, says Ms. Kaddor, a Muslim whose parents are Syrian. Her students ask all sorts of questions: “Is it OK to have boyfriends? Can I wear nail polish? Will I go to hell if I'm gay?”

Germany's Constitution stipulates that religion be part of school curriculum. The initiative was born out of the atrocities of the Nazi era, and aimed at giving young people an ethical foundation and a sense of identity. Roman Catholics and Protestants have conducted such classes (publicly funded) for decades, and Jews were given similar rights in 2003.

Muslims, however, have faced roadblocks. But some observers argue such classes could help Muslims, some six per cent of the population, better integrate their religious and German identities. Now, pilot projects that are chipping away at the barriers represent the latest evidence of Germany's changing attitude toward its booming Muslim minority.

“Muslim classes in public schools are a litmus test for integration,” says Michael Kiefer, author of a history of teaching Islam in German classrooms. “Muslims can see that they're getting something other religions are getting. That has an enormously positive symbolic impact on them.”

Taught by church- or synagogue-appointed teachers with curricula certified by the state's education ministries, religion classes are graded, but not mandatory.

One of the obstacles to including Islam in school-taught religions, some say, is that it lacks an accepted entity to offer guidance. Germany's Muslims are mostly Sunnis; the rest are mainly Shiites, Alevis, or followers of the south Asian Ahmaddiyya sect. “There isn't one Islam, and it's not easy to reflect the different manifestations of Islam's pluralism in a class on Islam,” says Jamal Malik, chair of Islamic Studies at the University of Erfurt.

Acceptance of immigrants grows: For decades, Germany did little to help its Muslim minority settle, classifying immigrants from countries such as Turkey as “guest workers.” But Germans are now more willing to view immigration as part of the country's identity, and not long ago, then-Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said that it was urgent for Germany's 900,000 Muslim pupils to be granted state-funded religious teaching. “It can be an exemplary way for our society to acknowledge and overcome all the differences that confront us,” Mr. Schäuble said.