The Ayatollah Under the Bed(sheets)

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, all politics may not be sexual, but all sex is political.

BY KARIM SADJADPOUR | MAY/JUNE 2012

In the early years of the Iranian Revolution, an obscure cleric named Ayatollah Gilani became a sensation on state television by contemplating bizarre hypotheticals at the intersection of Islamic law and sexuality. One of his most outlandish scenarios — still mocked by Iranians three decades later — went like this:

Imagine you are a young man sleeping in your bedroom. In the bedroom directly below, your aunt lies asleep. Now imagine that an earthquake happens that collapses your floor, causing you to fall directly on top of her. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that you’re both nude, and you’re erect, and you land with such perfect precision on top of her that you unintentionally achieve intercourse. Is the child of such an encounter halalzadeh (legitimate) or haramzadeh (a bastard)?

Islamic ‘Adult Breastfeeding’ Fatwas Return

by Raymond IbrahimJihad WatchApril 12, 2012

Back in May 2007, Dr. Izzat Atiya, head of Al Azhar University‘s Department of Hadith, issued a fatwa, or Islamic legal decree, saying that female workers should “breastfeed” their male co-workers in order to work in each other’s company. According to the BBC:

He said that if a woman fed a male colleague “directly from her breast” at least five times they would establish a family bond and thus be allowed to be alone together at work. “Breast feeding an adult puts an end to the problem of the private meeting, and does not ban marriage,” he ruled. “A woman at work can take off the veil or reveal her hair in front of someone whom she breastfed.”

One of many satirical cartoons that appeared in Egypt in response to the “adult breastfeeding” fatwas: the man says, “I have some cookies and am only here to breastfeed for breakfast.”

Atiya based his fatwa on a hadith—a documented saying or doing of Islam’s prophet Muhammad and subsequently one of Sharia law’s sources of jurisprudence.

Muslims Plan “Parallel Parliament” In Switzerland

by Soeren Kern at Stonegate Institute:

A growing immigrant population determined to avoid assimilation.

Leading Islamic groups in Switzerland are seeking to establish a single national representative body that will enable all of the country’s Muslims to “speak with one voice.”

The organizers say their new “parliament” will be called “Umma Schweiz” and be based on the principles of Islamic Sharia law. The headquarters of the organization will be located in Basel with “representatives” in all 26 cantons (or “states”) of Switzerland. The first “test vote” of Umma Schweiz will be held in the fall of 2012; the group will be fully functional in 2013.

Ummah, an Arabic word that means “nation,” refers to the entire Muslim community throughout the world. In recent years, Muslims have stepped up efforts to unify the globally fragmented ummah in an effort to revive an Islamic Caliphate or empire. Many Muslim scholars view the political unification of the ummah as a prerequisite to the consolidation of global Muslim power and the subsequent establishment of an Islamic world order.

Swiss analysts say the initiative is an effort to establish a “parallel” legislative body in Switzerland that will be a mouthpiece for Islamic fundamentalists who are seeking to impose Sharia law on the country, according to an exposé published by the newspaper Basler Zeitung.

Umma Schweiz is being spearheaded by two of the leading Muslim groups in Switzerland: the Coordination of Islamic Organizations of Switzerland (KIOS), led by an Iranian; and the Federation of Islamic Umbrella Organizations in Switzerland (FIDS), led by a Palestinian.

Playing Chess with the Imams

Thursday, September 23, 2010

As is often noted, political Islam — which is sometimes referred to as “radical Islam” or “Islamism” — is a totalitarian ideology. All four schools of Sunni Islamic law, along with Shi’a jurisprudence, affirm the orthodox political interpretations of the Koran and the hadith that justify the establishment of an all-powerful theocratic state by any and all means. These interpretations of Islam’s core scriptures are validated by traditional doctrine as taught by scholars at all major Islamic universities, especially the most prestigious of them all, al-Azhar University in Cairo.

For these reasons we may assert that Islam is inherently totalitarian. Muslims themselves may or may not have totalitarian tendencies — it’s certainly true that many millions of Muslims, whether they really believe in their religion or not, are politically apathetic and indifferent to any practical political application of their creed. But official Islamic doctrine promotes a totalitarian political philosophy.

Westerners who long for a “reform” of Islam — which they imagine will somehow purge Islamic theology of its violent tendencies — fail to realize that a reform is already well underway. The latest wave began in 1928 in Egypt with the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood by Hassan al-Banna, and it continues to this day. Followers of al-Banna have returned to the core scriptures of Islam and studied the life and sayings of Mohammed. They take what is written in these texts and commentary seriously, and are thus driven to implement various totalitarian political practices, through violent means or otherwise.

John J. Dziak points out that political Islam, like other totalitarian systems such as those of China, Cuba, the U.S.S.R., and Nazi Germany, takes the form of a diffuse counterintelligence state, with its typical characteristics: