MUSLIM HATE FOR LOVE

6) Being loyal to the disbelievers and celebrating their religious holidays are forbidden in Islaam.

O believers! Allaah blessed us with this great religion and guided us to the straight path; and it is more than sufficient for our requirements. Through this great religion, we receive contentment and guidance; from it we attain peace and security; and because of it love and harmony are spread. Allaah will grant might and honour to people in proportion to how much they adhere to this religion - and will humiliate people relative to how much of it they abandon and neglect.

The religion of Islaam is complete, so there is absolutely no need for invented opinions, innovated desires or man-made legislation. The blessings and favours that have been given to us by Islaam are all-inclusive and so we do not have any need for seasons and occasions to be invented so that we may celebrate them. Allaah says that which translates as: “This day I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favour upon you and have approved for you Islaam as a religion” (Al-Maa’idah: 3).

O believers! Our religion is supreme; it is the most perfect one. It combines the good of this life and the Hereafter; it addressed the soul and was not heedless of the body; it gave preference to the Hereafter but did not neglect our needs in this life. Allaah says that which translates as: “But seek, through that which Allaah has given you, the home of the Hereafter” (Al-Qasas: 77).

O believers! Our religion is a moderate religion that is neither negligent of any matter, nor does it exaggerate any issue beyond its rightful status. There is no monasticism in Islaam, nor blind-materialism, Allaah says that which translates as: “Thus We have made you a median (i.e. just) community that you will be witnesses over the people and the Messenger will be a witness over you” (Al-Baqarah: 143).

I ask you all, for Allaah’s sake; how is it that the believers can squander this position, which Allaah granted them and become humiliated while they still have the Qur’aan and the Sunnah to refer to? Why would we be pleased with becoming mere followers after enjoying the position of leadership? How can we go astray and become blind-imitators after being guides? What possesses a person to become a slave who carries out orders, after being a master? The answer to these questions lies in the saying of the Prophet sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam as narrated by Abu Sa’eed Al-Khudri, may Allaah be pleased with him: “You will follow in the footsteps of those who came before you hand-span by hand-span and (the length of an) arm by arm, such that even if they enter into the dwelling place of a lizard you would still follow them” his companions asked: “O Messenger of Allaah, do you mean (by ‘those who came before you’) the Jews and the Christians?” he replied: “Who else?” (Bukhaari & Muslim).

O Muslims! It is no secret that the Jews and Christians conspire against the Muslim ummah in order to destroy their morals and principles. They spend their valuable time, sacrifice their wealth, lay out elaborate plans and fully utilise all their resources in order to accomplish this. I swear by Allaah they have hit their target and wounded us deeply. It is from the unwavering characteristics of Allaah that he who works hard gets results and he who sows, shall reap a harvest. We are observing a new phenomenon recently that we never saw previously; we are seeing the different ways in which women are leaving their homes, uncovered and indecently dressed; we are witnessing people commit sins openly and unashamedly and even boast about them – and this is to say nothing of the trend of people casting doubts about the very fundamentals of Islaam.

If we go back in time to just thirteen years ago or so, we will remember that high values and good morals were prevalent in our communities. Shyness and chastity were the common held values and it was easier for a young man to carry a mountain on his back than to be seen walk along side a girl - and the consequences of being seen were even worse for the girl. If such people were to enter any neighbourhood, the people would remove them by force and if they were to be seen by others, they would be looked at as being beneath contempt. Now, look at the situation through which we presently live and the diabolical low that we have sunk to and learn a lesson from that.

So, once again, we have the army of disbelief attacking us, propagating the celebration of a holiday - and what a deceitful and treacherous holiday it is! A holiday which they have given a name other than its actual one in order to mislead people, they gave it a noble name to deceive the pure and the chaste. They called it the ‘day of love’, while it is actually the day of immorality, prostitution and drinking. They spread immorality dressed in the garment of virtue and this is the age-old method that Satan uses. Allaah exposed this tactic in His Book when He says regarding the deception of Satan of our father Aadam and our mother Hawwaa’ that which translates to: “And he swore (by Allaah) to them both: ‘Indeed, I am to you from among the sincere advisors’” (Al-A’raaf: 21).

O Muslims! Beware of the deceiver who approaches you with an advising tongue, for he knows that if he were to openly state his intention, he would never attain his objectives. Allaah says that which translates to: “But they plan, and Allaah plans. And Allaah is the best of planners” (Al-Anfaal: 30).

The history behind this innovated, immoral and infidel holiday is not known by many, here is a brief overview:

It is claimed that pagan Greece used to celebrate on the fifteenth day of February every year which coincided with a spring holiday. At that time Christianity was new to the area. The emperor Claudius II forbade marriage for his soldiers. Valentine, a Christian priest challenged this command and used to conduct secret marriage sermons. He was soon discovered and was sentenced to death. While in prison he fell in love with the daughter of a prison guard, but this was a secret since Christianity forbade priests to marry or have romantic relations with women, but since he remained steadfast on Christianity, the people overlooked his crime of falling in love. The emperor offered to forgive him and make him one of his close companions and marry one of his daughters to him, on the condition that he gave up Christianity, but Valentine favoured Christianity and was executed on the fourteenth of February, 270 CE - the night before the celebration of the Greek spring holiday of the fifteenth of February. Ever since then, it was called ‘Priest Valentine’s holiday’. After the spread of Christianity throughout Europe, February the fourteenth was re-named ‘Valentine’s Day’ in his memory because (they claim) he sacrificed himself for Christianity and fostered those in love.

That was the story behind this holiday. Unfortunately many young men and women were deceived by this, due to the weakness of their faith, ignorance of Islaam, heedlessness and the lack of guidance by the Muslim scholars and leaders. The ignorant youth were hoodwinked into celebrating this holiday.

Among the manifestations of this holiday are the giving of red roses, the wearing of red dresses, and exchanging special greetings, cards and gifts. This is a day where one is ‘supposed’ to remember their wives or lovers. This holiday is so ingrained in western culture that remembering this day and celebrating it has become a sign of ‘true and sincere love’ and it is not uncommon for one who forgets about this day to be thought of as ‘insincere’ and ‘untrue’ in his or her love!

Every Muslim must know that this holiday was invented by the disbelievers and it is therefore unlawful to celebrate it according to the religion of Islaam. There is no difference of opinion among the Muslim scholars regarding this. In fact, even if this holiday was invented by the Muslims it would still be unlawful to celebrate it. ‘Aa’ishah, may Allaah be pleased with her, narrated that the Prophet sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam said: “He who innovates something in our matter (i.e. the religion of Islaam), will have it rejected” (Bukhaari & Muslim) Anas bin Maalik, may Allaah be pleased with him, narrated that when the Prophet sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam came to Madeenah, he found people celebrating a two-day memorial which dated back to the time of Jaahiliyyah (the pre-Islamic era) he sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam said: “Allaah Has replaced these for you with two better days; the day of ‘Eedul-Adh-haa (sacrifice) and the day of ‘Eedul-Fitr (following Ramadaan) (Ahmad, Nasaa’i & Abu Daawood). Imaam Ibn Hajar said: “It was extracted from this Hadeeth that it is not permissible to even be happy on any day which is celebrated by the disbelievers, and it is not permissible to resemble them. Shaykh Abu Hafs An-Nisfi Sr. went as far as to say: ‘He who offers an egg as a gift to a disbeliever in glorification of their day of celebration becomes a disbeliever’”.

Slaves of Allaah! I say again that if this holiday was invented by the Muslims it would still be unlawful to celebrate it. How terrible and how much worse is it then, when the innovators of such celebrations are the misguided disbelievers? It is enough of a burden on our Muslim scholars that they have to exert their maximum efforts in fighting the innovations that the Muslims have perpetrated, without having to come up against those which the disbelievers are concocting. Fear Allaah, seek His pleasure and stay away from that which earns His wrath.

Allaah warned us from following the disbelievers or supporting them and commanded us to differ from them. He said that which translates to: “O you who have believed! Take not those who have taken your religion in ridicule and amusement among the ones who were given the Scripture before you nor the disbelievers as allies. And fear Allaah if you should (truly) be believers” (Al-Maa’idah: 57). The Prophet sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam said: “He who resembles a group of people will be with them (in the Hereafter)” (Ahmad and others).

O Muslims! Know that holidays are from the rituals of religions and that he who believes in a religion will celebrate its holidays and not the holidays of other religions. Moreover, misguidance has many ways that lead to it, but the shortest of all of them is loyalty and love for the disbelievers. If there was anything that indicated loyalty and love for someone, it would be imitating them; and the surest sign of imitation of a people is to celebrate their holidays.

How can it be that a Muslim accepts for himself and his family the celebration of an immoral holiday innovated by disbelievers; Valentine’s Day, the claimed celebration of love? How can he allow his family to celebrate the holiday of a Christian priest, Valentine, who was cursing Allaah day and night by saying: “He is one of three, He had a wife, He had begotten a son etc.”? Allaah is exalted far above what they attribute to Him.

Allaah says that which translates to: “And they say: ‘The Most Merciful (Allaah) has taken (for Himself) a son. You have done an atrocious thing. The heavens almost rupture therefrom and the earth splits open and the mountains collapse in devastation. That they attribute to the Most Merciful a son. And it is not appropriate for the Most Merciful that He should take a son. There is no one in the heavens and earth but that he comes to the Most Merciful as a servant. He has enumerated them and counted them a (full) counting. And all of them are coming to Him on the Day of resurrection alone.” (Mariam: 88-95).

Slaves of Allaah! Beware of being less concerned about Allaah than the heavens, the earth and the mountains are. Beware that inanimate objects become better than you are, which will be the case if you are not concerned about this atrocious fabrication that has been made by the liars and continue to celebrate this and others of their holidays.

Also, I ask you: what kind love is celebrated by these people who are the enemies of humanity and even the enemies of themselves? How many villages have they demolished? How many nations have they oppressed? How much wealth of innocent people did they seize and looted? How much destruction did have they caused? They oppress people in the name of ‘human rights’ and kill people under the banner of ‘protection’. How can one who manufactures weapons of mass destruction, then tries them out on the weakest people in the poorest countries, lecture anybody on love? How is it that one who sheds innocent people’s blood and increased the numbers of orphans and widows be an authority on love? As for the one who punishes the innocent simply because of others around them, due to a mere suspicion of their guilt, which is not even founded on any credible evidence, this person does not even know justice, let alone love! How can anyone believe that those who disregard covenants, breach agreements, break promises and transgress all boundaries know anything about love?

Slaves of Allaah! When did you know a wild beast to be tame? Do snakes deliver anything but snakes?

O Muslims! No mater how much the misguided talk about love, their crimes expose the reality of their intentions. No mater how much they glorify love, we as Muslims have a worthier to claim it. In fact our religion is based on it; it is a pillar of belief, whereby no one is a believer unless he loves Allaah, the Prophet sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, Islaam and all its rulings. No one is a true believer unless he loves his family, wife, and friends. Nobody can claim to be a believer until he loves for his brother that which he loves for himself.

A Muslim loves all that is good and the people of good, he wishes good for everybody.

A Muslim loves his parents and does not disobey them, he shelters them and never shuns or abandons them, he cares for them and never deserts them or puts them in nursing homes as people do in the west, the home of immorality and disbelief.

Note: Daily Muslims are deserting their parents to become suicide murderers.

A Muslim loves his children and provides for them; he treats them fairly and equally and is a source of guidance for them.

A Muslim loves his wife and respects her; he does not humiliate or embarrass her, he fulfils all her rights that she has upon him and he will never abuse her.

A Muslim loves his brothers and sincerely advises them; he does not expose and advertise their mistakes, he keeps ties with them, protects their honour and dignity and never backbites or slanders them.

Note: Muslims protect their honor through murder of family members who leave Islam.

A Muslim loves his sisters in faith and protects them; he respects them by lowering his gaze in front of them and would never be alone with one of them in a room.

Note: Muslims will murder their sisters if they leave Islam. This occurs daily in Europe not to mention Muslim countries.

If you were to ask western women about their lifestyles, you would hear stories of misery and humiliation, abuse and exploitation. No one has mercy on them, neither their husbands, nor their friends – not even their brothers or sons. If the western woman were not able to feed herself of secure her means of provisions, she would find herself to be viewed as completely useless and an unnecessary burden; her rights are rejected by oppressive and unjust rules. This is the situation of anyone who does not live by the Book of Allaah.

Beloved brothers! To us Muslims, love has a great meaning as Ibn Al-Qayyim said: ‘For love and with love the heavens and the earth where created, galaxies formed and every aim reached its objective. Love is in the nature of people; it helped people overcome their shortcomings; it brought people close to Allaah; through it people lived a joyful life, tasted the sweetness of belief and accepted Allaah as their Lord, Muhammad as His Messenger and Islaam as the only religion.

Our Prophet sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam set the very best example for love. ‘Aa’ishah, may Allaah be pleased with her, told of his lasting loyalty to Khadeejah, may Allaah be pleased with her, she said: “I was never jealous of any other wife of the Prophet as I was of Khadeejah, she died three years before the Prophet married me, but he would still mention her abundantly” and in another narration, “he used to slaughter animals and send the meat as gifts to some of her friends (after her death)” (Bukhaari & Muslim). This is well-founded love that is reflected by actions.

Out of concern for the ummah, the Prophet sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam guided to that which establishes love between them and explained that it is the means by which they will attain Jannah, he sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam said as narrated by Abu Hurayrah, may Allaah be pleased with him: “You will not enter Jannah until you believe, and you will not believe until you love one another. Shall I guide to that which would make you love one another? Spread greetings (salaam) abundantly amongst yourselves” (Muslim).

The Prophet sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam guided us to another way to establish love amongst ourselves, as Abu Hurayrah, may Allaah be pleased with him, narrated: “Exchange gifts, you would thereby attain love for one another” (Al-Bayhaqi and others) and he sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam also said, as narrated by Anas bin Maalik, may Allaah be pleased with him, and others that: “If a man feels love for his brother, then let him inform him of this” (Ahmad, At-Tirmidhi and others) there are many other Ahaadeeth which reflects his eagerness to spread love amongst the community as well as all the things that would lead to it. He would also warn against things that might weaken or obstruct it.

Some of the liars, the weak-hearted, the hypocrites and their arrogant and deceived followers evilly misuse this word (love) and attribute it to premarital love relationships, which are mostly experiences that are illusion-like and evaporate fast.

We are living in an era where values are upside down, facts are hidden and things are given other than their actual name. Immorality, sinning and adultery are called love; Decency, chastity and respect are called sicknesses; Living a respectable married life is thought of as burdens and restrictions; Killing innocent people and muggings are called Jihaad; Real Jihaad for the sake of Allaah to propagate Islaam and support the Muslims is labelled as terrorism; Enjoining good and forbidding evil has become known as aggression and intrusion into private affairs; Traditions and worn out customs have become ‘culture’ and added to the religion of Islaam; Those who adhere to Islaam and practice the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam are labelled as backward and old-fashioned; Imitating disbelievers and resembling sinners is called known as progression and development; Dancing, singing and impudence has become known as ‘art’. All these are signs of the impending Hour.

Slaves of Allaah! Allaah says that which translates as: “Be not deceived by the (uninhibited) movement of the disbelievers throughout the land, (It is but) a small enjoyment; then their (final) refuge is Hell, and wretched is the resting place!” (Aal-‘Imraan: 196-197) Do not be deceived by them and what they doing because this life is a temporary one and it is vanishing fast. Allaah says that which translates to: “But the Hereafter is better and more lasting” (Al-A’laa: 17) and also: “It will be, on the Day they see it, as though they had not remained (in the world) except for an afternoon or a morning thereof” (An-Naazi’aat: 46).

Beware of these holidays which have been invented by the disbelievers and warn people against them; Be proud of your religion; Be distinct from the misguided; Do not follow in their footsteps or be affected by their ideas; Ask Allaah to guide you and keep you steadfast.

O sisters in Islaam! Do not allow the uncertain to fool you; don’t allow the disbelievers to misguide you; be proud of your religion and your celebrations; preserve your identity; and do not resemble or imitate the disbelievers because it leads to destruction and Hell.

Pakistan bans Valentine's Day for promoting 'nudity and indecency'

Valentine's Day is often met by a mixed reaction in the predominantly Muslim country.
By Dan Cancian
February 8, 2018

TV and radio stations in Pakistan will be banned from broadcasting any programming relating to Valentine's Day, in compliance with a court order the Islamabad High Court issued last year.

On Wednesday (7 February), the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) announced it will comply with the ban.

"Respondents are directed to ensure that nothing about the celebrations of Valentine's Day and its promotion is spread on the Electronic and Print Media," the regulator said in a statement.

"No event shall be held at official level and at any public place."

In early 2017, Abdul Waheed filed a petition arguing the celebrations around Valentine's Day were spreading "immorality, nudity and indecency" in Pakistan.

His case struck a chord and a day before Valentine's Day last year, Judge Shaukat Siddiqui issued a binding notice ordering a blanket broadcasting ban of any material related the celebration.

"No event shall be held at official level and at any public place," the court ordered at the time.

Waheed's petition was not the first time the celebration had attracted criticism in Pakistan, which is home to the second-highest number of Muslim in the world after Indonesia.

Last year, Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain claimed the event was a Western import which threatened to undermine the foundation of the Pakistani society.

"Valentine's Day has no connection with our culture and it should be avoided," Hussain said.

However, despite the bans and the fact it celebrates a Christian saint, Valentine's Day remains extremely popular in Pakistan. Just as is the case in the West, florists in Pakistan enjoyed a booming trade in the days leading up to the celebration, while retailers advertise themed sales and restaurants offer special deals aimed at attracting couples.

Last year, online retailers promoting Black Friday sales were strongly criticised for denigrating the Muslim day of weekly congregational prayers.

Valentine's Day banned in Pakistan's capital

February 14, 2017
CBS News

ISLAMABAD -- A Pakistani judge on Monday banned all Valentine’s Day celebrations in the country’s capital, Islamabad, saying they are against Islamic teachings.

The judge ruled on a petition seeking to ban public celebrations of the Western holiday, court official Niaz Saleh said. He said the order had been sent to Pakistan’s media regulator to ensure a blackout on any Valentine’s Day promotions in print or electronic media.

The ban applies only to Pakistan’s capital as the Islamabad high court has no jurisdiction beyond the city.

The regulator in a statement directed all Pakistani media outlets not to print or broadcast anything that promotes Valentine’s Day. No event shall be held at any official level and at any public place, the statement quoted a part of the court order.

Later on Monday, the government issued an order to local police to enforce the court ban. A similar order was in place last year in Islamabad.

Islamist and right-wing parties in Pakistan view Valentine’s Day as vulgar Western import.

However, the annual homage to romance on Feb. 14 has become popular in recent years across the Middle East and also in Pakistan.

Though some Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia also have sought to stamp out Valentine’s Day, with the religious police mobilizing ahead of Feb. 14 and descending on gift and flower shops to confiscate all red items, including flowers, it is still celebrated widely in other places such as Dubai.

In 2013, Indonesian officials and Muslim clerics called for young people to skip Valentine’s Day, saying it’s an excuse for couples to have forbidden sex.

Minister orders ban on Valentine’s Day celebration in Islamabad

February 11, 2016
Daily Times

ISLAMABAD – The district administration of Islamabad has banned all kind of celebrations in connections with the upcoming Valentine’s Day.

Private TV channel reported that the ban was put in place following orders from Minister for Interior Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. In its announcement, the Islamabad district administration said that strict action will be taken against those celebrating the Valentine’s Day in any part of Islamabad.

Valentine's Day – also known as Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine – is a celebration observed on February 14 each year. It is celebrated in many countries around the world, although it is not a public holiday in most of them.

Five Saudi men sentenced to 32 years in prison and 4,500 lashes for holding a Valentine’s Day party with ‘unrelated women, drinking and dancing’

•    The men were arrested by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice
•    All five have admitted to the charges of illicit seclusion with unrelated women, dancing and drinking
•    A judge will decide the fate of the six women caught with the men

By BELINDA ROBINSON
PUBLISHED: 08:33 EST, 9 May 2014

Five Saudi men have been sentenced to 32 years in prison and 4,500 lashes by a criminal court in Saudi Arabia - for holding a Valentine's Day party.

The law breaking men were caught at a rented rest house in the Al-Farouq area of Buraidah Qassim province and accused of holding a party with women who were unrelated to them, drinking and dancing.

Police from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (CPVPV) rounded up the men with the help of security patrols for their offences along with six women on February 14.

The men have all admitted to the charges, which include illicit seclusion with unrelated women, dancing and drinking.
A judge will decide the fate of the six women.

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice is the Saudi Arabian government's agency's religious police or mutaween (meaning pious) to enforce Sharia Law within the Islamic nation.

Altogether, it has 3,500 to 4,000 police officers who enforce a strict religious code among citizens.

Members patrol the streets checking dress code, strict separation of men and women, salat prayer by Muslims during prayer times, and other behavior it believes to be commanded by Islam.

The mutaween (CPVPV) are known for having full beards and wearing their headscarves (ghutrah or shemagh) loose without an agal and often come from Saudi Arabia's lower classes.

The body has widespread powers to detain and berate offenders and shut down businesses and are employed directly by the King. The organization's 2013 budget was the equivalent of US$390million.

In a separate case, Raif Badawi, a Saudi blogger recently fell foul of the authorities and faces ten years in jail, a thousand lashes and a million riyal fine for 'insulting Islam'.

Mr Badawi' was arrested in June 2012 and charged with cyber crime and disobeying his father - a crime in Saudi Arabia - in relation to his Saudi Liberal Network website..

The site included articles that were critical of senior religious figures such as Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti, according to Human Rights Watch.

He had originally faced seven years in jail and 600 lashes, but an appeal court overturned that sentence and ordered a retrial.

Amnesty International called the new sentence 'outrageous' and said Badawi is a 'prisoner of conscience'. His website has been closed since his first trial.

Citizens of Saudi Arabia are constantly encouraged to inform on others who break the law.
Punishment for many offenses is severe, often involving beatings and humiliation and foreigners are not excluded from arrest.

Philip Luther, director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Amnesty International, urged Saudi authorities to quash blogger Badawi's conviction.

'The decision to sentence Raif Badawi to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes is outrageous,' he said.

Human Rights Watch said Saudi Arabia, a staunch ally of the West in the Middle East, has a long history of suppressing free expression.

RED ROSES LURK hidden in flower shop back rooms and heart-shaped chocolates are sold under the counter, but Saudis still manage to buy Valentine’s gifts and defy the religious police.

Florist Hussein came up with a simple solution to a ban on red tokens of love: he filled his window with white roses, orange irises and violet hydrangeas.

“I’ve hidden everything red in the shop, so when a religious police patrol comes along, they find nothing to complain about,” he said.

Anti-Valentine’s Day patrols by the Muttawa religious police, formally known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, started on Wednesday.

They began entering premises stocking chocolates, flowers and souvenirs to warn proprietors against selling anything red or heart-shaped and linked to the annual “infidel celebration” of matters romantic.

Saudi Arabia applies a rigorous interpretation of Islam under which the sexes are strictly segregated and any public display of affection is completely taboo.

Hussein’s shop window may be blooming with white, orange and violet, but he still has the real thing, red roses, out the back.

Kumar, another florist, was persuaded by a Muttawa visit not even to consider flouting the Valentine’s Day ban, however.

“We’re going to sell these to a chocolate shop,” he said, pointing to bouquets of red flowers in a back room of his store.

Confectioners do have chocolate hearts for discreet sale, but only to the right people.

“Of course we have them, but the religious police came by and warned us against selling them,” said one chocolate shop owner who asked not to be identified.

“We hid them because we don’t want any problems,” he added, smiling, indicating that an illicit transaction involving the chocolate contraband would be more than acceptable.

In another shop in a commercial district of the capital, an Egyptian employee said the religious police had told them not to sell heart-shaped chocolate or sweets wrapped in red paper.

One man browsing in the shop was clearly unhappy: “Why are they forbidden? It’s only chocolate!” he complained.

Only a liberal fringe of Saudis actually celebrates Valentine’s Day in an ultra-conservative society in which clerics and their pronouncements are widely respected.

One of the most popular, Mohammed al-Oreifi, this year took to Twitter where he has hundreds of thousands of followers, decreeing that those in the kingdom who celebrate Valentine’s Day “want to copy the infidels”.

In the Red Sea port of Jeddah, the country’s commercial capital in the west, a more liberal attitude towards the lovers’ festival can be noted.

This year, some florists have been openly selling red roses, and are unafraid to give their names.

“The religious police didn’t come. We’re doing nothing wrong anyway,” said Abu Zakaria, who runs a flower shop in the north of the city.

Another man, Thamer Hussein, said some people with romantic yearnings marked the Valentine’s festival a day in advance, to ensure the experience was hassle-free.

“Some young people celebrated St Valentine’s Day on Wednesday evening, with small parties and exchanges of gifts,” he said.

In this way they managed to avoid the attentions of the Muttawa, who are expected to perform their duties religiously on Friday, ensuring that for unmarried couples a quick canoodle is definitely unacceptable.

“Every year when Valentine’s comes around, the Muslim world erupts with ferocious rage”
Robert Spencer
Feb 14, 2014

Today, Friday, February 14, is Valentine’s Day, the sacred day that intimate companions mark to celebrate their love and affection for one another. If you’re thinking about making a study of how couples celebrate this day, the Muslim world and the milieus of the radical Left are not the places you should be spending your time. Indeed, it’s pretty hard to outdo jihadists and “progressives” when it comes to the hatred of Valentine’s Day. And this hatred is precisely the territory on which the contemporary romance between the radical Left and Islamic fanaticism is formed.

The train is never late: every year when Valentine’s comes around, the Muslim world erupts with ferocious rage, with its leaders doing everything in their power to suffocate the festivity that comes with the celebration of private romance. Imams around the world thunder against Valentine’s every year — and the celebration of the day itself is literally outlawed in Islamist states.

This year, the Indonesian Ulema Council in Dumai, Riau, and the Education, Youth and Sport Agency in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara, issued a dire warning to people against celebrating Valentine’s Day, stating that the Day of Love “is against Islam.” This is because, as the Indonesian Ulema Council 2011 judgment explained, Valentine’s Day takes young people into a “dark world.”

Malaysia’s State mufti chief assistant Mat Jais Kamos keeps his mind focused on that dark world and so, a few days ago, he ordered young people to stay clear of Valentine’s Day: “The celebration emphasizes the relationship between two individuals rather than the love between family members or married couples,” he affirmed, and department officials backed up his command by distributing leaflets to remind Muslims of the 2006 ban on Valentine’s Day issued by the state fatwa council.

In Islamic Uzbekistan this year, several universities have seen to it that students actually sign contracts promising not to celebrate Valentine’s.

In Pakistan on Valentine’s Day last year, supporters of Jamat-e-Islami, Pakistan’s main religious party, took to the streets in Peshawar to vehemently denounce the day of love. Demonizing it as “un-Islamic,” the Muslim protestors shouted that the day has “spread immodesty in the world.” Shahzad Ahmed, the local leader of the student wing of Jamat-e-Islami, declared that the organization will not “allow” any Valentine’s Day functions, warning that if Pakistani law enforcement did not prevent Pakistanis from holding such functions, that the Jamat-e-Islami would stop them “in our own way.” Khalid Waqas Chamkani, a leader in Jamat-e-Islami, calls Valentine’s a “shameful day.”

These Islamist forces in Pakistan cannot, of course, completely succeed in preventing couples from showing love to each other on this special day, and so many Pakistanis still cryptically celebrate Valentine’s Day and exchange presents in secret.

All these Islamic outcries against Valentine’s Day reflect myriad other efforts to suffocate the day of love throughout the Muslim War. For instance, in Aceh province in Indonesia every year, Muslim clerics issue stern warnings to Muslims against observing Valentine’s Day. Tgk Feisal, general secretary of the Aceh Ulema Association (HUDA), stated two years ago that “It is haram for Muslims to observe Valentine’s Day because it does not accord with Islamic Sharia.” He added that the government must watch out for youths participating in Valentine’s Day activities in Aceh. One can only imagine what happens to the guilty parties.

The Saudis consistently punish the slightest hint of celebrating Valentine’s Day. The Kingdom and its religious “morality” police always officially issue a stern warning that anyone caught even thinking about Valentine’s Day will suffer some of the most painful penalties of Sharia Law. This is typical of the Saudis of course. As Daniel Pipes has reported, the Saudi regime takes a firm stand against Valentine’s every year, and the Saudi religious police monitor stores selling roses and other gifts. They arrest women for wearing red on that day. Every year the Saudis announce that, starting the week of Valentine’s and until a certain day in the future, it is illegal for a merchant to sell any item that is red, or that in any way hints of being connected to Valentine’s Day. As Claude Cartaginese has reported, any merchant in Saudi Arabia found selling such items as red roses, red clothing of any kind (especially dresses), toys, heart-shaped products, candy, greeting cards or any items wrapped in red, has to destroy them or face the wrath of Saudi justice.

Christian overseas workers living in Saudi Arabia from the Philippines and other countries always take extra precautions, heeding the Saudis’ warning to them specifically to avoid greeting anyone with the words “Happy Valentine’s Day” or exchanging any gift that reeks of romance. A spokesman for a Philippine workers group has commented: “We are urging fellow Filipinos in the Middle East, especially lovers, just to celebrate their Valentine’s Day secretly and with utmost care.”

The Iranian despots, meanwhile, consistently try to make sure that the Saudis don’t outdo them in annihilating Valentine’s Day. Iran’s “morality” police consistently order shops to remove heart-and-flower decorations and images of couples embracing on this day — and anytime around this day.

Typical of this whole pathology in the Islamic world was a development witnessed back on February 10, 2006, when activists of the radical Kashmiri Islamic group Dukhtaran-e-Millat (Daughters of the Community) went on a rampage in Srinagar, the main city of the Indian portion of Kashmir. Some two dozen black-veiled Muslim women stormed gift and stationery shops, burning Valentine’s Day cards and posters showing couples together….

Muslim watchdog in Malaysia slams festivities as 130 couples get married in a mass wedding.
Last updated: 14 Feb 2014 AFP

In its official Friday sermon text distributed to mosques in the Muslim-majority country, the Malaysian Islamic Development Department blamed Valentine's Day for everything from alcoholism to abortion.

"Social ceremonies such as this are a stepping-stone towards greater social ills such as fraud, mental disorder caused by alcohol, abortion and baby-dumping, and other negative ills that can invite disaster and moral decay among youths," it said.

Known by its Malay-language acronym JAKIM, the department is an official watchdog of Muslim values. It regularly denounces Valentine's Day as encouraging vice and promiscuity.

However, members of the large Chinese minority celebrated the day with a mass wedding of 138 couples.

The lovers tied the knot at the Thean Hou temple in the capital Kuala Lumpur, releasing scores of red, heart-shaped balloons after the ceremony.   Another 70 couples were to wed in the afternoon in individual ceremonies, an official at the Confucian temple told the Agence-France Press news agency.

"We're doing it specially for this year as only once in 19 years does Valentine's Day coincide with Chap Goh Mei," the official said.

Chap Goh Mei is the term used in Malaysia for the annual Chinese Lantern Festival.

The temple has staged mass weddings before on dates deemed auspicious. More than 500 couples wed at the temple on September 9, 2009.

The number 9 in Chinese is a homophone for a word meaning "forever". The date was seen to signify long-lasting unions.

Muslim conservatives in multi-faith Malaysia have become increasingly outspoken in recent years against perceived threats to Islamic values, challenging the country's moderate Muslim image.

In 2011, authorities arrested nearly 100 Muslims in a crackdown on Valentine's Day.

They were detained for "khalwat", or "close proximity", the crime of being alone with a member of the opposite sex other than one's spouse or close relative.

It can bring up to two years in jail upon conviction in Islamic law courts that handle religious and moral offences by Muslims.

Concerts by a number of major Western musical artists have also been scrapped over the years after Muslims complained they could encourage immoral behaviour.

Muslim authorities in the central state of Selangor this week launched a campaign to distribute thousands of leaflets to youths warning against celebrating Valentine's Day, reports said.

February 12, 2013

PESHAWAR: Supporters of Pakistan's main religious party staged a noisy protest against Valentine's Day on Tuesday, denouncing it as un-Islamic and calling for a "day of modesty" instead.

The student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami rallied outside the press club in the northwestern city of Peshawar, chanting slogans against Valentine's Day, saying it had "spread immodesty in the world".

Valentine's Day is increasingly popular among younger Pakistanis, many of whom have taken up the custom of giving cards, chocolates and gifts to their sweethearts to celebrate the occasion.

But Pakistan remains a deeply traditional Muslim society where many disapprove of Valentine's Day as a Western import.

The demonstrators, who carried a banner urging February 14 to be a "day of modesty", said the tradition encouraged unmarried men and women to live together in sin.

"We will not allow holding of any Valentine's Day function," Shahzad Ahmed, the local head of the student organisation, said.

"The law enforcing agencies must prevent such gatherings, otherwise we will stop in our own way."

Peshawar is a conservative city on the edge of Pakistan's restive tribal belt, where most women go out in public wearing veils and few girls go out alone.

Many of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked bombings which have killed thousands of people in Pakistan in the past several years have focused around Peshawar and the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. (AFP)

Written by Jamie Glazov - FrontPageMag.com
Monday, 15 February 2010

This Sunday, February 14, is Valentine's Day, the sacred day that intimate companions mark to celebrate their love and affection for one another. If you're thinking about making a study of how couples celebrate this day, the Muslim world and the milieus of the radical Left are not the places you should be spending most, if any, of your time. Indeed, it's pretty hard to outdo jihadists and "progressives" when it comes to the hatred of Valentine's Day. And this hatred is precisely the territory on which the contemporary romance between the radical Left and Islamic fanaticism is formed.

The train is never late: every time Valentine's comes around, the Muslim world reacts with ferocious rage, with its leaders doing everything in their power to quash the festivity that comes with the celebration of private romance. Imams around the world thunder against Valentine's every year - and the celebration of the day itself is literally outlawed in Islamist states. The Saudis, for instance, ruthlessly punish the slightest hint of celebrating Valentine's Day. Just a few days ago, the Kingdom and its religious "morality" police officially issued a stern warning that anyone caught even thinking about Valentine's Day will suffer some of the most painful penalties of Sharia Law.

This is typical of the Saudis of course. As Daniel Pipes has reported, the Saudi regime takes a firm stand against Valentine's every year, and the Saudi religious police monitor stores selling roses and other gifts. They have even arrested women for wearing red on that day. This time around, the narrative is no different: the Saudis have announced that, starting the week of Valentine's and until February 15, it will be illegal for a merchant to sell any item that is red, or that in any way hints of being connected to Valentine's Day.

As Claude Cartaginese reports at Newsreal Blog, any merchant found selling such items as red roses, red clothing of any kind (especially dresses), toys, heart-shaped products, candy, greeting cards or any items wrapped in red, must destroy them or face the wrath of Saudi justice.

Christian overseas workers living in the Kingdom from the Philippines and other countries are taking extra precautions, heeding the Saudis' warning to them specifically to avoid greeting anyone with the words "Happy Valentine's Day" or exchanging any gift that reeks of romance. A spokesman for a Philippine workers group commented: "We are urging fellow Filipinos in the Middle East, especially lovers, just to celebrate their Valentine's Day secretly and with utmost care."

The Iranian despots, meanwhile, are trying to make sure the Saudis don't outdo them in suffocating Valentine's Day. Iran's "morality" police order shops to remove heart-and-flower decorations and images of couples embracing on this day - and anytime around this day. In Pakistan, the student wing of the fundamentalist Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami has called for a complete ban on Valentine's Day celebrations. Khalid Waqas Chamkani, a leader in the party, calls it a "shameful day."

In the West, meanwhile leftist feminists are not to be outdone by their jihadi allies in reviling - and trying to kill - Valentine's Day. Throughout all Women's Studies Programs on American campuses, for instance, you will find the demonization of Valentine's Day, since, as the disciples of Andrea Dworkin angrily explain, the day is a manifestation of how capitalist and homophobic patriarchs brainwash and oppress women and push them into spheres of powerlessness. As a person who spent more than a decade in academia, I was privileged to witness this grotesque attack and "deconstruction" of Valentine's Day at close range. Feminist icons like Jane Fonda, meanwhile, help lead the attack on Valentine's Day in society at large. As David Horowitz has documented, Fonda has led the campaign to transform this special day into "V-Day" ("Violence against Women Day") - which is, when it all comes down to it, a day of hate, featuring a mass indictment of men.

So what exactly is transpiring here? What explains this hatred of Valentine's Day by leftist feminists and jihadis? And how and why does it serve as the sacred bond that brings the radical Left and Islam into its current feast of solidarity?

The core issue at the foundation of this phenomenon is that Islam and the radical Left both revile the notion of private love, a non-tangible and divine entity that draws individuals to each other and, therefore, distracts them from submitting themselves to a secular deity.

The highest objective of both Islam and the radical Left is clear: to shatter the sacred intimacy that a man and a woman can share with one another, for such a bond is inaccessible to the order. History, therefore, demonstrates how Islam, like Communism, wages a ferocious war on any kind of private and unregulated love. In the case of Islam, the reality is epitomized in its monstrous structures of gender apartheid and the terror that keeps it in place. Indeed, female sexuality and freedom are demonized and, therefore, forced veiling, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, honor killings and other misogynist monstrosities become mandatory parts of the sadistic paradigm.

The puritanical nature of totalist systems (whether Fascist, Communist, or Islamist) is another manifestation of this phenomenon. In Stalinist Russia, sexual pleasure was portrayed as unsocialist and counter-revolutionary. More recent Communist societies have also waged war on sexuality - a war that Islam, as we know, wages with similar ferocity. These totalist structures cannot survive in environments filled with self-interested, pleasure-seeking individuals who prioritize devotion to other individual human beings over the collective and the state. Because the leftist believer viscerally hates the notion and reality of personal love and "the couple," he champions the enforcement of totalitarian puritanism by the despotic regimes he worships.

The famous twentieth-century novels of dystopia, Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, George Orwell's 1984, and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, all powerfully depict totalitarian society's assault on the realm of personal love in its violent attempt to dehumanize human beings and completely subject them to its rule. In Zamyatin's We, the earliest of the three novels, the despotic regime keeps human beings in line by giving them license for regulated sexual promiscuity, while private love is illegal. The hero breaks the rules with a woman who seduces him - not only into forbidden love but also into a counterrevolutionary struggle. In the end, the totality forces the hero, like the rest of the world's population, to undergo the Great Operation, which annihilates the part of the brain that gives life to passion and imagination, and therefore spawns the potential for love. In Orwell's 1984, the main character ends up being tortured and broken at the Ministry of Truth for having engaged in the outlawed behavior of unregulated love. In Huxley's Brave New World, promiscuity is encouraged - everyone has sex with everyone else under regime rules, but no one is allowed to make a deep and independent private connection.

Yet as these novels demonstrate, no tyranny's attempt to turn human beings into obedient robots can fully succeed. There is always someone who has doubts, who is uncomfortable, and who questions the secular deity - even though it would be safer for him to conform like everyone else. The desire that thus overcomes the instinct for self-preservation is erotic passion. And that is why love presents such a threat to the totalitarian order: it dares to serve itself. It is a force more powerful than the all-pervading fear that a totalitarian order needs to impose in order to survive. Leftist and Muslim social engineers, therefore, in their twisted and human-hating imaginations, believe that the road toward earthly redemption (under a classless society or Sharia) stands a chance only if private love and affection is purged from the human condition.

This is exactly why, forty years ago, as Peter Collier and David Horowitz document in Destructive Generation, the Weather Underground not only waged war against American society through violence and mayhem, but also waged war on private love within its own ranks. Bill Ayers, one of the leading terrorists in the group, argued in a speech defending the campaign: "Any notion that people can have responsibility for one person, that they can have that 'out' - we have to destroy that notion in order to build a collective; we have to destroy all 'outs,' to destroy the notion that people can lean on one person and not be responsible to the entire collective."

Thus, the Weather Underground destroyed any signs of monogamy within its ranks and forced couples, some of whom had been together for years, to admit their "political error" and split apart. Like their icon Margaret Mead, they fought the notions of romantic love, jealousy, and other "oppressive" manifestations of one-on-one intimacy and commitment. This was followed by forced group sex and "national orgies," whose main objective was to crush the spirit of individualism. This constituted an eerie replay of the sexual promiscuity that was encouraged (while private love was forbidden) in We, 1984, and Brave New World.

Thus, it becomes completely understandable why leftist believers were so inspired by the tyrannies in the Soviet Union, Communist China, Communist North Vietnam and many other countries. As sociologist Paul Hollander has documented in his classic Political Pilgrims, fellow travelers were especially enthralled with the desexualized dress that the Maoist regime imposed on its citizens. This at once satisfied the leftist's desire for enforced sameness and the imperative of erasing attractions between private citizens. The Maoists' unisex clothing finds its parallel in fundamentalist Islam's mandate for shapeless coverings to be worn by both males and females. The collective "uniform" symbolizes submission to a higher entity and frustrates individual expression, mutual physical attraction, and private connection and affection. And so, once again, the Western leftist remains not only uncritical, but completely supportive of - and enthralled in - this form of totalitarian puritanism.

This is precisely why leftist feminists today do not condemn the forced veiling of women in the Islamic world; because they support all that forced veiling engenders. It should be no surprise, therefore, that Naomi Wolf finds the burqa "sexy." And it should be no surprise that Oslo Professor of Anthropology, Dr. Unni Wikan, found a solution for the high incidence of Muslims raping Norwegian women: the rapists must not be punished, but Norwegian women must be veiling themselves.

Valentine's Day is a "shameful day" for the Muslim world and for the radical Left. It is shameful because private love is considered obscene, since it threatens the highest of values: the need for a totalitarian order to attract the complete and undivided attention, allegiance and veneration of every citizen. Love serves as the most lethal threat to the tyrants seeking to build Sharia and a classless utopia on earth, and so these tyrants yearn for the annihilation of every ingredient in man that smacks of anything that it means to be human.

And so perhaps it is precisely on this Valentine's Day that we are reminded of the hope that we can realistically have in our battle with the ugly and pernicious unholy alliance that seeks to destroy our civilization. On this day, we are reminded that we have a weapon, the most powerful arsenal on the face of the earth, in front of which despots and terrorists quiver and shake, and sprint from in horror into the shadows of darkness, desperately avoiding its piercing light. That arsenal is love. And no Maoist Red Guard or Saudi fascist cop ever stamped it out - no matter how much they beat and tortured their victims. And no al-Qaeda jihadist in Pakistan or Feminazi on any American campus will ever succeed in suffocating it, no matter how ferociously they lust to disinfect man of who and what he is.

Women's Rights: Cats and Dogs in the Developed World Have More Rights than Women in the Arab and Muslim World

Marking Valentine's Day and International Women's Day, the Arabic press published numerous articles dealing with the status of women in the Arab and Muslim world and the denial of their rights, on the part of both governments and public in general. The progressive websites www.metransparent.com and www.elaph.com published articles by feminist authors harshly critical of the state of women's rights in these countries. The following are excerpts from articles by Saudi author W aj iha Al-Huweidar and by Tunisian authors and researchers Dr. Iqbal Al-Gharbi [1], Dr. Munjiyah Al-Sawaihi, and Dr. Raja bin Salama:

Wajiha Al-Huweidar: "Covert Animosity and Open Discrimination Against Women Prevail in Arab Countries"

Writing in Elaph.com on March 7, 2005 Saudi author Wajiha Al-Huweidar explained: "All of the Arab regimes are U.N. members and have ratified the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights, which clearly establishes justice and equality in the rights and obligations of all citizens. Despite this, women in our chauvinist countries are still considered the property of their relatives. All Arab countries, without exception, harbor covert animosity and open discrimination against women. To this day, all official bodies reject any scientific discussion of a solution to women's problems – while on the other hand the men, who benefit from women's oppression, continue to regurgitate [the mant r a] that 'women are respected' [in Arab and Muslim societies]…

"Arab countries' legislation patently discriminates against women and clearly denies their rights, which affronts them as human beings. They are still treated as though they contaminate purity, and arouse temptation and immorality. What is astounding is that most Arabs, at all levels and in every area – whether governments, institutions, or individuals – still consider women's issues a religious issue, and thus believe that her concerns should be dealt with through outdated chauvinist [religious] interpretations…

"An improvement in women's status will not come through invalid solutions which have been proven ineffectual. The laws grant female citizens only half a voice, diminish women's rights, classify them as having only partial sense, denigrate their importance, doubt their capabilities, permit beating and banishing them, permit their caging within four walls, allow their husbands to treat them as they see fit, and allow them to be bought and sold according to legal agreements. When women fail [in matters forbidden by religious law], the laws welcome their barbarous execution.

"These laws are clearly no longer suited to an era in which cats and dogs in the developed world have more rights than Arab women, and more even than those of Arab men…

"Women's problems, which await a solution, are not religious problems, but are purely legal. They should be addressed in accordance with the international declarations that guarantee human liberty and honor ratified by all the countries of the world, in the East and West, including the confused Arab countries…

"The legislation which curtails women's rights as citizens must be replaced by legislation guaranteeing their full rights. This does not require wasting time on discussions, consultations, interpretations and counter-interpretations, debates and conferences … because it is nothing new for Islamic countries to change their form of government or to repeal their religious legislation so as to adapt these to their international interests and to the requirements of the era in which they live.

"It is known that in the Muslim countries the system permitting buying and selling slaves was abolished, as was the jizya [poll tax] system imposed on the dhimmi s – the Jews and the Christians – from the Islamic conquests until the last century. This is despite the fact that there are still religious texts that permit slave trading and thepoll tax – but both of these were suppressed so that [Muslims] could act according to [modern values]…

"These practices were abolished years ago, and people have forgotten them... because they violated civil and human rights… It is also time to abolish all chauvinistic interpretations that incite to violence, discriminate, and persecute women, and deprive them of their rights..." [2]

Al-Huweidar discussed the never-ending cycle of discrimination against Arab women in a pervious article in Elaph.com on February 5, 2005: "The cycle of discrimination against women generally starts at home. From an early age, sons receive the lion's share (double that of the daughter) of love, money spent on them, status, and even education. Many families send their sons to private schools but their daughters to public schools, so the sons receive a better education. The son grows up to be an engineer, a doctor, an officer, or whatever he wants; the daughter grows up to be a wife, a mother, and later a grandmother. Boys have opportunities, whereas girls have duties…

"The second phase of the cycle of discrimination against women is in the schools. In most Arab schools, boys and girls are separated. The overall goal of Arab schools, especially the state schools, is to reshape the pupil, and to work towards distorting [the personality] so as to make him a submissive citizen. Girls, however, receive much larger doses of submissiveness and prevention of thinking…

"The last phase of the cycle of discrimination is the workplace. The working woman in the Arab world is of course no more than a servant, slaving away outside her own home while raising her children within it – except for women from the Gulf, who have housekeepers to assist them. Yet the discrimination prevalent among Gulf women, especially Saudis, is even harsher and crueler in every aspect. Most labor laws do not treat the Arab woman equitably, and she also suffers from [harassment] and racism…

"In the Arab countries, and especially the Gulf countries, the cycle of discrimination against women begins when they are still in utero. It continues when they emerge into the world, and goes on until death. According to the male interpretation, women are always 'lewdness and pudenda' and part of the time 'impure'…

"Women are considered 'mentally and religiously deficient' – yet it was the mothers of the Muslims [i.e. the Prophet's wives] who taught many of the religion's precepts and principles. Women are 'weak and controlled by their emotions' – yet they are charged with educating the young generation, the country's source of pride... Women are 'temptation' – yet they were created for men to trust, and to give [men] a sense of tranquility. Women 'have more tricks than Satan' – yet men take two, three, or four wives. Women are 'vases' which must be handled gently to avoid scratching them – yet they are banished from the conjugal bed and beaten harshly.

"From cradle to grave, women are prohibited from being their own masters because they are 'incompetent and incapable of responsibility for their own affairs' – yet the Prophet's dearest and most beloved wife ['Aisha] headed the first opposition in Islam, led an entire army, and conducted a crucial historic battle [i.e. the Battle of the Camel in 656]...

"This abhorrent cycle of discrimination in which the Arab woman lives began centuries ago, yet still exists today – fastened around her neck and restricting her movements, as if she were born [only] yesterday. This suffocating cycle wastes the talents of half of society – the more human and more giving half... The most important question today is: What is the best way to break out of the cycle of discrimination against Arab women?…" [3]

Dr. Iqbal Al-Gharbi: "Any Misogynist Can Find What He Seeks in a Partial Reading of Islam's Teachings"

Asking whether Islam really honored women, Dr. Iqbal Al-Gharbi, a Tunisian lecturer in psychology at Al-Zaytouna University in Tunis, wrote an article on metransparent.com on March 13, 2005: "All the international reports highlight the Muslim world's many failings in gender equality. Moreover, the 2003 U.N. [Arab] Human Development Report attributed the failure of development in our region to three main shortcomings: lack of knowledge, lack of freedoms, and lack of gender equality. These reports are based on numerous important indicators, such as the 60% illiteracy among women, and women's [low] representation in decision-making positions – women's representation in Arab parliaments does not exceed 6%.

"The contemptible circumstances of Muslim women takes on nightmarish proportions when we hear of crimes of honor not only in Bedouin areas, but also across continents and oceans, and haunting women in Islamic communities in Britain and Scandinavia – or when we read a UNICEF report indicating demographic catastrophe in India because of families who, in their desire for sons, have done away with 40 million female fetuses through voluntary abortion.

"Further, the way of life in the Islamic world underscores the primitive nature of social relations between man and woman. The woman's role is to concede to and appease the man on a daily basis, in all possible ways, out of fear of divorce. This occurs in societies that to this day have been unable to give women the right to live alone, independent of the protection of patriarchal authority... The inability of Muslim society to accept women as mature beings is what causes our failure at modernity, since modernity is first and foremost the right of the individual – man or woman – to own his or her own body and mind...

"The religious discourse that discriminates against women occurs on three levels: establishment, imagery, and justification.

"In terms of the establishment, it is crystal clear that official religious activity makes man an intermediary between heaven and earth, and puts him in charge of sacred matters... According to religious law, Allah reserved certain roles for men: prophecy, divine mission, the caliphate, jihad, the sounding of the call to prayer, and the delivering of sermons. Women's participation in these sacred roles alongside men is, of course, a forbidden innovation. These acts of distancing women [from these roles] is undoubtedly one of the reasons for the fundamental discrepancy between the [good] intentions [favoring equality for women] that appear in the Koran and the historical reality, in which chauvinistic custom, habit, and tradition prevail...

"In terms of imagery, there is a salient contrast between [Islam's] innovations [regarding women] and the burden of cultural heritage [which weighs upon] religious discourse and further degrades the woman in the popular imagination... Religious discourse contains dual imagery of women that on the one hand sanctifies and glorifies her, yet on the other hand disparages her…

"Women occupy a place of honor in every literary or artistic piece, and in every work of art or epic. Moreover, some fanatical clerics write splendid love poetry about the woman, praising her and honoring her loyalty, motherhood, and devotion. However, this ideal and abstract image of the woman contradicts the reality of women's lives.

"Consequently... there are also images that condemn women, and there are religious traditions that blame all the [Muslim] nation's difficulties and disasters on women. The woman is Eve, created as a companion for Adam in his loneliness in the Garden of Eden. Her evil nature led her to tempt him, bringing about his banishment from the garden, where he was supposed to live forever. The woman is Zalikha, the wife of Al-'Aziz [Potiphar's wife in the Koran], who represents unbridled libido and who wanted to seduce the prophet Joseph. One of the effects of this story on the collective unconscious is to render 'artifice' and 'treachery' synonymous with 'woman'...

"…Any misogynist can find what he seeks in a partial reading of Islam's teachings – since [it is written in the Koran that] men are the custodians of women, the husband is entitled to banish his wife and to discipline her with beatings. He is permitted to rape her... [and] the testimony of two women is considered equivalent to that of one man.

"This misogynistic Islam is based on an ideology focused on the natural differences between the sexes... in order to justify discrimination against women. This is based on theories found in ancient Greek thought. For example, the woman represents nature while the man represents culture; the man excels in vitality and warmth while the woman is characterized by frigidity and negativity; the man is rational while the woman is emotional; the man is strong while the woman is fragile and weak, etc... Natural evidence plays a fundamental role in justifying religious discourse, since it is presented as incontrovertible and incontestable. This is despite the fact that the natural order, on which the fanatics rely, does not hold up [in light of] modern biology, history, and anthropology…" [4]

Dr. Munjiyah Al-Sawaihi: "I Look Beyond the Horizon and See Nothing but the Tightening of the Noose Around the (Arab) Woman"

Presenting Tunisia's family law as an example of progressive legislature on the status of women, Dr. Munjiyah Al-Sawaihi, a Tunisian lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Higher Institution of Religion at Al-Zaytouna University in Tunis, wrote in an article on metransparent.com on March 19, 2005: "Thank God we live in Tunisia. Women [here] live in the light of laws that keep misogynistic ideas limited to words alone, spoken among narrow circles only.

"However, elsewhere in the world, these misogynistic ideas are put into practice, and women are marginalized … under the illusion that the man is protecting them – although he is not in fact able to even protect himself…

"In addition, ignorant clerics are to this day controlling and dominating [public] thought in order to sanctify women's inferiority through their chauvinistic interpretations of religious texts. These interpretations support discrimination against women, like the story about Eve being created from Adam's rib and [thus] being subject to him, and being bent since her very creation – and if you attempt to straighten it, the rib breaks. These interpretations still exist in 2005.

"On one of the Islamic satellite TV channels, the Koranic verse about wife-beating was interpreted to mean beating with a toothpick – blows that do not wound or break [bones], avoiding the face. Bravo! What genius in innovative interpretation and reading of a religious text!…

"Is it logical that on a religious program marking the celebration of [Women's Day] 2005, we hear discourse allowing legal wife-beating? Aren't those using this discourse, and the people around them, familiar with the prophetic traditions [ Hadith ] forbidding wife-beating?… Aren't they familiar with the human rights laws and the international conventions forbidding discrimination against women?

"The question that must be asked is what the Arab and Islamic countries have given women on their world day of celebration. I look beyond the horizon and see nothing. I see nothing but the tightening of the noose around the woman, to the point where she is prevented from owning her own face. [Her face] is the property of the man, and she must not uncover it. Of what modernization in women's issues can these countries speak, when the men of this world pass a law permitting the stoning of the woman [for violating religious convention], because she [harmed] man's honor? Has he any honor in the world of today?"

Dr. Al-Sawaihi spoke of Tunisian family law as a light "in the darkness enveloping women's rights in the Arab and Islamic world." According to this law, the woman has the right to choose her own husband, and to marry at age 17 without a guardian's permission. The wedding will take place only if both parties desire it, and polygamy is forbidden. The couple's relationship is based on cooperation, not on the wife's obedience to the husband. The husband is head of the family, and responsible for making a living. If the wife has means of her own, she helps him support the family, but he has no control over her funds. Parents are responsible for supporting daughters until they marry or until they find work with which they can support themselves.

According to Dr. Al-Sawaihi, the most important innovation in Tunisian family law concerns divorce. In Tunisia, divorce can be decreed only by a court of law; the husband cannot divorce his wife arbitrarily. The child of divorced parents lives with his or her mother. The father must pay alimony and child support, and if he does not, the mother is paid from a special fund for divorcees. The father may not take the child abroad without the mother's permission, and the mother has the authority to decide on child-rearing matters. Moreover, the child of a Tunisian mother is a Tunisian citizen even if his father is not. Tunisia's law also deals with eliminating gender discrimination in employment, and punishes all forms of violence against women.

After presenting examples of Tunisia's progressive family law, Dr. Al-Sawaihi concludes her article with a call to Arab intellectuals "to address the problem of the woman courageously and with strong resolve – and not to settle for sidestepping it out of fear of reactionary forces." [5]

Dr. Raja bin Salama: "If You Look at a Woman Enveloped in the Hijab, You Will Read on it: No Courting. No Loving. No Looking. No Touching"

To mark Valentine's Day, Tunisian author and researcher Dr. Raja bin Salama wrote on metransparent.com on February 2, 2005 of the Arabs' hatred of love: "For a long time, Arab men have boasted of powerful love in song and story, but have not actually lost their wits or their bearings and have never boasted of powerful love for their wives – because the wife must remain subject to the laws of marriage as set out by Shari'a, not to the laws of love…

"The Islamic Shari'a, like most ancient laws, did not respect women. The songs and poems 'honor the woman'… But love runs counter to the manly ideology based on control… [So] began the denigration of passion, after centuries filled with songs of love and passion, and tales of lovers.

"In the 10th century, [the poet Abu Al-Tayyib] Al-Mutanabi mocked the poetry of love and preferred a riding animal to a woman, and a desert voyage to love. In the 12th century, the [cleric close to Muslim mystic circles Muhammad] Al-Ghazali referred … to passion as a deviation from the path of righteousness, as decline, and also as 'the disease of an empty heart…' In the 13th century, the [preacher and cleric] Ibn Al-Jawzy wrote the book In Condemnation of Passion…

"And so we come to our time, to black woolen robes that turn women into faceless creatures, lumps of flesh sold at tribal auctions, and to scarves that cover the head and face and arouse morbid yearnings for white shrouds and wrapped-up corpses… If you look at the body of a woman enveloped in the hijab, you will read on it the following signs: No courting. No loving. No looking. No touching. And if one of these is permitted, it is behind the hijab, beneath the slogan, 'If you rebel, conceal yourself,' or 'If you rebel, let none rebel after you.'

"Today, despite all the programs and conferences on the struggle against terror, the clerics of terror – who go wild regarding anything connected to women, men, love, hate, and sex – continue … to forbid celebrating Valentine's Day so that man remains the guardian and woman remains a creature practically unfit to live and practically unworthy of being seen, from whose body the aura of Hell arises…

"The tragedy of sex and passion among the Muslim Arabs has today reached the point where the intellectuals and enlightened amongst them seek to enshrine in law that type of prostitution that Islam recognizes as mut'a marriage [temporary pleasure marriage] – and those amongst them who express solidarity with the problem of women … keep silent regarding basic issues such as the adult's freedom to maintain any relationship with anyone he wishes, and to be master of his own body, heart, face, hands, and tongue.

"You can barely find amongst them anyone who will move past the preoccupation with the veil and scarf, and with the prohibited and the permitted, to the simplest thing of all: To praise the beauty of the bare face and unbound hair, and the virtue of short handsome garments that do not distort the shape of the body nor restrict its movement…" [6]

Group Vows to Prevent Couples From Celebrating Valentine's Day

February 12, 2006 12:00 p.m. EST

Srinagar, India (AHN) - Separatist group Dukhtaran-e-Millat, or Daughters of Faith, has vowed to stop couples from celebrating Valentine's Day in Kashmir. The group is known for fiercely opposing Western-style romance.

Aasiya Andrabi, leader of the group, said in a statement, "We will not allow anyone to observe Valentine's Day as it does nothing but spread immorality among youth."

She also said the holiday was against the Islamic teachings of the Muslim culture. The group kicked off its crusade by raiding shops and taking Valentine's Day cards to create a large bonfire.

The group's purpose is to rid the region of immorality and Western influence. They've smeared black paint on movie posters in the past.

The Kashmir region is socially conservative as a whole, however, in recent years, couple have begun to openly date.

ANGRY Muslim women set fire to Valentine's Day cards as they led a protest march in Indian Kashmir today.

Veiled supporters of Islamic separatist group Dukhtaran-e-Millat - or Daughters of the Community - carried placards urging Muslims to fight against imposed Western culture and condemned the "day of lust".

Wearing long black cloaks, the marchers also held banners that read: "Vulgarity in the name of Valentine’s Day is not acceptable".

Leader Asiya Andrabi delivered a sermon on Islamic ethics in Srinagar, the summer capital of India’s Jammu-Kashmir state.

Traditional Indian society frowns upon public displays of affection between the sexes, even hand-holding, and Dukhtaran has been campaigning to weed out what she calls immorality.

Last week, Andrabi’s supporters stormed gift and stationery shops in India’s only Muslim-majority state and burned Valentine’s Day cards and posters.

Saudi Arabia bans all things red ahead of Valentine's Day

February 12, 2008

(CNN) -- Saudi Arabia has asked florists and gift shops to remove all red items until after Valentine's Day, calling the celebration of such a holiday a sin, local media reported Monday.

"As Muslims we shouldn't celebrate a non-Muslim celebration, especially this one that encourages immoral relations between unmarried men and women, " Sheikh Khaled Al-Dossari, a scholar in Islamic studies, told the Saudi Gazette, an English-language newspaper.

Every year, officials with the conservative Muslim kingdom's Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice clamp down on shops a few days before February 14, instructing them to remove red roses, red wrapping paper, gift boxes and teddy bears. On the eve of the holiday, they raid stores and seize symbols of love.

The virtue and vice squad is a police force of several thousand charged with, among other things, enforcing dress codes and segregating the sexes. Saudi Arabia, which follows a strict interpretation of Islam called Wahhabism, punishes unrelated women and men who mingle in public.

Ahmed Al-Omran, a university student in Riyadh, told CNN that the government decision will give the international media another reason to make fun of the Saudis "but I think that we got used to that by now."

"I think what they are doing is ridiculous," said Al-Omran, who maintains the blog 'Saudi Jeans.' "What the conservatives in this country need to learn is something called 'tolerance.' If they don't see the permissibility of celebrating such an occasion, then fine -- they should not celebrate it. But they have to know they have no right to impose their point of view on others."

Because of the ban on red roses, a black market has flowered ahead of Valentine's Day. Roses that normally go for five Saudi riyal ($1.30) fetch up to 30 riyal ($8) on February 14, the Saudi Gazette said.

"Sometimes we deliver the bouquets in the middle of the night or early morning, to avoid suspicion," one florist told the paper.

Saudi Arabia has often come under criticism for its treatment of women, most recently in a United Nations report that blasted the kingdom for widespread discrimination. Under Saudi law, women are subject to numerous restrictions, including a prohibition against driving and a requirement that they get a man's permission to travel or have surgery.

A businesswoman told the Times of London this month that she was detained and strip-searched by the religious police for holding a meeting in a coffee shop with male colleagues.

Two years ago, a teenager was raped by seven men who found her alone with a man unrelated to her. The government sentenced the 19-year-old woman to 200 lashes and six months in prison for being in the company of a man who wasn't a family member or her husband. She was later pardoned. The seven rapists were sentenced to two to nine years in prison.