Mali’s Ansar Dine Islamists destroy holy Sufi sites in Timbuktu
Al Qaeda-linked Mali Islamists armed with Kalashnikovs and pick-axes destroyed centuries-old mausoleums of saints in the UNESCO-listed city of Timbuktu on Saturday in front of shocked locals, witnesses said.
The Islamist Ansar Dine group backs strict sharia, Islamic law, and considers the shrines of the local Sufi version of Islam to be idolatrous. Sufi shrines have also been attacked by hard-line Salafists in Egypt and Libya in the past year.
The attack came just days after UNESCO placed Timbuktu on its list of heritage sites in danger and will recall the 2001 dynamiting by the Taliban of two 6th-century statues of Buddha carved into a cliff in Bamiyan in central Afghanistan.
“They are armed and have surrounded the sites with pick-up trucks. The population is just looking on helplessly,” local journalist Yeya Tandina said by telephone.
Tandina and other witnesses said Ansar Dine had already destroyed the mausoleums of three local saints – Sidi Mahmoud, Sidi El Mokhtar and Alfa Moya – and at least seven tombs.
“The mausoleum doesn’t exist anymore and the cemetery is as bare as a soccer pitch,” local teacher Abdoulaye Boulahi said of the Mahmoud burial place. “There’s about 30 of them breaking everything up with pick-axes and hoes. They’ve put their Kalashnikovs down by their side. These are shocking scenes for the people in Timbuktu.”
Locals said the attackers had threatened to destroy all of the 16 main mausoleum sites by the end of the day. UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova called for an immediate halt.
German verdict aims to delay circumcision, not ban it, jurist says
A widely criticized German court verdict on religious circumcision this week aims only to delay the act, not ban it, and is not directed against any faith, a jurist with a leading role in the legal debate said on Friday.
The operation does serious bodily harm and only males old enough to consent to it freely should undergo it, said Holm Putzke, law professor at Passau University in southern Germany.
Using arguments Putzke has published in recent years, a court in the western city of Cologne ruled on Tuesday that the circumcision there of a Muslim boy who suffered post-operative bleeding had violated a German law against causing bodily harm.
Jewish, Muslim, Catholic and Protestant leaders in Germany denounced the ruling as a serious intrusion on religious freedom. Even Germany’s foreign minister spoke out, saying such faith traditions must be allowed in a tolerant modern society.
“I can understand that this verdict has irritated people around the world, but this irritation can be resolved if people look at the reasons for it,” Putzke told Reuters by telephone.
“Nobody wants to ban religious circumcision in Islam and Judaism, not at all,” he said. “It should just be decided by those who undergo it.”
Read the full story here. . Follow all posts on Twitter @ RTRFaithWorld
History repeats itself… and Libs like last time give their consent.
Factbox: Islam and Islamists in West Africa
Al Qaeda-linked Islamists declared on Thursday they had secured full control of Mali’s desert north from separatist rebels with whom they had temporarily joined forces to seize territory earlier this year.
Separatist Tuareg-led MNLA rebels and armed Islamist groups, swept through northern Mali in March and April and declared an independent state of “Azawad” in the north after routing the regular troops, in disarray after a March 22 coup in the West African country.
The Tuareg separatists said they wanted an independent secular state while the Islamists said their objective was to impose sharia or Islamic law across the whole of Mali, which mostly follows a moderate form of Islam.
The relationship between the state and Islam differs significantly across western Africa, in part because of variations in the complex interaction between Islam and ethnic politics.
Here is a factbox on Islam and Islamists in a few West African countries: Factbox: Islam in West Africa | Reuters. Follow all posts on Twitter @ RTRFaithWorld
Palestinians seek UN funds, heritage status for Bethlehem Nativity Church
Palestinians hope to persuade UNESCO this weekend to declare parts of Bethlehem and its Church of the Nativity endangered World Heritage sites in order to expedite funding for repairs.
Debate on the highly politicised issue is due to start on Friday at an annual meeting of the global cultural organisation’s World Heritage Committee in St. Petersburg, Russia, with a vote possible on Saturday or Sunday.
The 4th century church – built over a grotto where Christian tradition says Jesus was born – needs repairs, especially to its roof, and the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, is short of funds.
It has come up with only $3 million dollars for renovations, a small fraction of promised international aid. Palestinian officials said a decision by UNESCO to recognise the church as an endangered site would get money to Bethlehem faster.
The nomination request includes a short section of the Pilgrimage Route, the path which tradition says Joseph and Mary took into the city in their trek from Nazareth 2,000 years ago.
Palestinian civic groups, in a letter to UNESCO, pointed to what they describe as the dangers of Israeli occupation, citing in particular Israel’s 2002 siege of the Church of the Nativity where militants took sanctuary during a Palestinian uprising.
Violence has subsided dramatically in recent years and more than 2 million people now visit the church annually.
Pope puts U.S. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen on the road to sainthood
Pope Benedict put the late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, seen as the world’s first televangelist because of his popular programs in the 1950s-1960s in the United States, on the road to sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church on Thursday.
The pope signed a decree recognizing that Sheen lived a life of “heroic virtues”, an early step in the path that can lead to sainthood.
Now a miracle must be attributed for him to be beatified, which is the last step before sainthood.
Sheen, who died in 1979 at the age of 84, was one of the most famous Catholic Church figures in the United States for nearly half a century.
He had a hugely popular radio show in the 1930 called “The Catholic Hour”. He moved to television in the 1950s, where he used his show” Life Is Worth Living,” which drew audiences of tens of millions, to denounce communism during the Cold War.
Sheen used television as a tool for evangelization so successfully that he won an Emmy award in 1952.
Time magazine called Sheen, who wrote some 80 books, the first televangelist and put him on its cover.
German court’s circumcision ban for young boys meets wave of criticism
Germany’s foreign minister has added his voice to a chorus of criticism of a court decision to ban the circumcision of young boys for religious reasons, arguing that such traditions must be permitted in a tolerant society.
“Germany is an open-minded, tolerant country where religious freedom is firmly established and religious traditions like circumcision are considered an expression of religious pluralism,” Guido Westerwelle told the daily Bild in an interview published in its Friday edition (here in German).
A court in Cologne ruled on Tuesday that involuntary religious circumcision should be illegal as it could inflict serious bodily harm on people who had not consented to it.
The ruling, which applies only to the area around the western city of Cologne but sparked fears among Muslims and Jews in particular that other German states could copy the ban, said boys can consciously decide to be circumcised later in life.
According to the court ruling, “the fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity outweighs the fundamental rights of the parents”.
Westerwelle said the ruling caused “irritation” around the world after being reported in the international media.
Read the full story by Elisa Oddone here. . Follow all posts on Twitter @ RTRFaithWorld
Hey, but more so the German court’s circumcision ban for young boys meets wave of APPROVAL!!
How does any one disagree with the point that amputating nerves, blood vessels, protective covering and pleasure zones is bodily HARM?
Finally a country is standing up for the basic human right of a human to keep all of his sensory system, all of his nerves, all of his blood vessels, protective covering and pleasure zones.
Other countries should follow this lead. Baby boy penis parts removal should be considered illegal NOW in the United States under the 1996 federal law banning genital cutting — 14th Amendment equal protection clause.
Those saying that preventing the cutting off of penis parts of a baby boy violates the cutter’s freedom of religion, are way out there in irrational land. One’s religion ends where their knife touches another human’s body. The idea that another human’s ritual (rite) trumps ones right to body parts is insane and creepy. Baby boy penis parts removal cuts off thousands of fine touch and stretch nerves. This is like disconnecting the fingertips, nipples or lips from the brain. No human should be subjected to sensory system harm as well as a forced decrease of sexual function and PLEASURE for life!
Korean shamanism finds new life in the modern era
Colourful flags snapped in the sea breeze as more than a dozen Korean shamans, dressed in bright colours, danced and chanted prayers in front of a huge cow’s head stuck to a trident.
The ceremony on a ship was designed to exorcise demons that threaten fishermen and bring good luck to everybody on board. The presence of several hundred spectators underlined how the ages-old trance rituals were going strong again, having been shunned as recently as 30 years ago.
“People are trying to understand more, learn more, and see more. They are very interested in this,” said Kim Keum-hwa, one of South Korea’s most famous shamans, who led the ceremony.
Though an ancient practice, Korean shamanism – in which singing and dancing are used in trance rituals addressed to specific gods, often to get an answer to specific questions – had long been suppressed in Asia’s second most Christian nation.
In leaping from poverty to rapid modernization, the county’s dictatorship in the 1970s tried to eliminate shamanism, claiming that shamans deluded the world, while some Christian missionaries demonized them and their followers.
But today, visiting a mudang – shaman priest or priestess – is so common that politicians consult them seeking answers to questions such as whether they should relocate their ancestors’ remains to ensure good luck in the next election. Shaman characters have also featured in popular television shows.
Read the full story by Ju-min Park here. . Follow all posts on Twitter @ RTRFaithWorld
The quiet influence of Kuwait’s Salafis
When Salafi Islamists objected to a youth forum on politics and religion in Kuwait earlier this year they took to Twitter and other media, but not to the streets.
While the Gulf state’s Salafis follow an interpretation of Islam that is just as puritanical as that of counterparts elsewhere, the means they use to assert their influence are more sophisticated – lobbying cabinet members, comments on social media and seminars.
Allowed relative freedom within Kuwait’s circumscribed and turbulent political system, they see themselves as an example for Salafis taking part in politics for the first time in other countries after the Arab Spring uprisings.
“The Salafi movement is known for its credibility and it takes a middle position between government and the opposition,” Kuwaiti Salafi MP Abdulatif al-Ameeri told Reuters after a parliamentary session earlier this month.
In the most recent election, four Salafis were elected to the 50-member parliament and six other men who share their line of thought also gained seats, he said. In Tunisia, by contrast, thousands of Salafis rioted in the capital last month over an art exhibition they said insulted Muslims.
One of Kuwait’s most vocal Salafi MPs, Waleed al-Tabtabie, has more than 198,000 followers on Twitter.
Some worry that the Salafis’ ties to neighboring Saudi Arabia, strengthened during Iraq’s 1990-91 occupation, have made them into a fundamentalist force that will push Kuwait toward a more austere form of Islam and closer to the Saudi sphere of influence.
German court bans circumcision of young boys for religious reasons
Jewish and Muslim groups protested after a German court banned the circumcision of young boys for religious reasons in the first ruling of its kind in the country.
The court in the western city of Cologne handed down the decision on Tuesday in the case of a doctor prosecuted for circumcising a four-year-old Muslim boy who had to be treated two days later for post-operative bleeding.
It ruled involuntary religious circumcision should be made illegal because it could inflict serious bodily harm on people who had not consented to it.
However the ruling, which applies only to the Cologne area, said boys who consciously decided to be circumcised could have the operation. No age restriction was given, or any more specific details.
The doctor, who was prosecuted after the hospital doctor who treated the boy for bleeding called police, was acquitted as there was no law banning religious circumcision at the time.
The Central Council of Jews in Germany called the ruling an “unprecedented and dramatic intrusion” of the right to religious freedom and an “outrageous and insensitive” act. The Central Council of Muslims in Germany called the sentence a “blatant and inadmissible interference” in the rights of parents.
Read the full story by Elisa Oddone here. . Follow all posts on Twitter @ RTRFaithWorld
from The Great Debate:
Running al Qaeda
This piece originally appeared in Reuters Magazine.
We now have the first public release of goodies from Osama bin Laden’s redoubt at Abbottabad: 17 letters to and from bin Laden and his crew that spell out vision, plans and tactics for the global jihad. The letters span a decade and outline the dimensions of a would-be caliphate – a truly global theater of war conceived, plotted and executed by bin Laden. They also reveal bin Laden to be a highly accomplished orchestrator of a global network struggling with the challenges of collaboration. Three issues consume him, and they happen to be the classic political tasks in the management of collaboration.
First, and most important: keeping everyone on track. For bin Laden, the primary management task was clearly holding everyone to a solitary vision, staying true to values (Islamic law, as he read it), and aligning deeds with words. Across his network bin Laden had little command or control over who operates in the name of Allah or even al Qaeda. As a result, nothing bugged him more than dummies among al Qaeda’s formal franchisees, loose affiliates or allies getting distracted from killing Americans; or butchering innocent Muslims; or blowing chances for alliances he sorely wanted to create. Bin Laden’s advisers were astounded, for example, when al Qaeda in Iraq attacked Catholics in an attempt to pressure Coptic Christians into releasing prisoners. It’s as if, one wrote, someone took Sunnis hostage to pressure Shias – “Does this satisfy any sane person?” The sheer horror of the geopolitical and historical error left bin Laden’s deputies shaking their heads.
Second: managing franchise relations. Getting second-rung leadership right is important for any enterprise, and for al Qaeda that meant assuring the brand and building network capacity for terror. Bin Laden was careful about deciding who would be anointed with two powerful gifts – his blessing of leadership, and formal affiliation of groups to al Qaeda central (a term he heard used by the media and, amazingly, appropriated). Bin Laden was no pushover. In fact, the letters show that he was hands-on and prickly about all such organization matters, going so far as to require memoranda of understanding with affiliates. As for appointments, bin Laden was a stickler for a good résumé that detailed education, battlefield experience, and religious training.
“How excellent would it be,” bin Laden wrote, “if you ask brother Basir to send us the résumé, in detail and lengthy, of brother Anwar al-Awlaki.” And don’t forget the career goals and cover letter. “Also ask brother Anwar al-Awlaki to write his vision in detail in a separate message.” This, for the man nominated to run al Qaeda in Yemen.
Third: delivering on the promise of his brand and staying in the headlamps of his political support. Managing both the Arab street, upon which he counted for support, and his franchises, which were tasked to execute plots, required careful negotiation. The key was right-sizing terror. Too much wrist-chopping would serve only to alienate the street, whereas anemic targets would demoralize his men in the field. Violent, cataclysmic, high-value American kills like the Twin Towers, the USS Cole and the Nairobi embassy bombings worked for both, and for bin Laden.
-
Resident FaithWorld Expert
-
