Our daughters are a blessing, not a burden!!

Children are no doubt a great gift from Almighty Allah to all parents. Parents must think of their children as such treasures that all the wealth and material resources are worthless as when compared to one’s children. We, as parents, should thank and be grateful to Almighty Allah for blessing us with children whether they are boys or girls.

Today, it is quite disheartening to see that some parents rejoice when the newborn child is a male and show their dissatisfaction when the child is a female. But, this should not be the attitude. Islam does not condone this type of behavior, as such was the manner of the parents in the time of ignorance.

In pre-Islamic times, the Arabs used to be disheartened and annoyed with the birth of girls, so that a father, when informed his wife had given birth to a girl, said, “By Allah she is not as blissful as a son; her defense is crying and her care is but stealing!”

He meant she could not defend her father and her family except by screaming and crying, not by fighting and carrying arms. She also cannot be good to them and care for them except by taking from her husband’s money to give to her family. Their traditions allowed the father to bury his daughter alive for actual poverty, or for expected poverty, or out of fear of a disgrace she might bring upon them when she grew up. In that context, the Qur’an says, denouncing and derogating them:

“And when the girl-child who was buried alive is asked. Upon what sin was she killed for.” [Surah al-Takweer, Verses 8-9]

The Qur’an also describes the condition of fathers when daughters were born:

“And when one among of them receives the glad tidings of a daughter, his face turns black for the day, and he remains seething. Hiding from the people because of the evil of the tidings; “Will he keep her with disgrace, or bury her beneath the earth?”; pay heed! Very evil is the judgment they impose!” [Surah al-Nahl, Verse 58-59]

The Qur’an led an uncompromising campaign against those cruel people who kill children-whether male or female. Allah says in the Qur’an:

“Indeed ruined are those who slay their children out of senseless ignorance and forbid the sustenance which Allah has bestowed upon them, in order to fabricate lies against Allah; they have undoubtedly gone astray and not attained the path.” [Surah al-Anaam, Verse 140]

And Allah Almighty says:

“And do not kill your children, fearing poverty; We shall provide sustenance to them as well as to you; indeed killing them is a great mistake.” [Surah Bani Israel, Verse 31]

Some ancient laws gave the father the right to sell his daughter if he wished; while others allowed him to hand her to another man who would either kill her or own her if the father killed the other man’s daughter.

When Islam was revealed, it decreed a daughter – like a son – was a gift from Allah, to be granted to whomever Allah wishes of His worshipers:

The Prophet (blessings and peace be upon him) of Islam made Paradise the recompense of every father who conducts himself well with his daughters, has patience in raising them, provides their moral education, and observes Allah’s commands concerning them until they come of age or until his . The Prophet (blessings and peace be upon him) made the place of the father in Paradise next to him. Hadrat Anas reported that the Messenger of Allah SallAllahu Alaihi wa Sallam said,

“Whoever brings up two girls till they reach the age of puberty, he and I will come on the Day of Resurrection like this,” (and he joined his blessed fingers.)

The beloved Prophet (Peace and Blessings of Allah be Upon Him) has stated that

“When a boy is born, then he brings one Noor (light) and when a girl is born, then she brings two Noors.”

It has been narrated in a Hadith that the Holy Prophet (Peace and Blessings of Allah be Upon Him) has stated that

“If parents are kind and generous towards their daughters, then they will be so close to Him (The Holy Prophet Peace and Blessings of Allah be Upon Him) in Jannah, like one finger is to the next.”

The Holy Prophet (Peace and Blessings of Allah be Upon Him) has also stated that

“The person who is faced with hardship due to his daughters, and makes Sabr (is patient), then his daughters will be a Pardah (curtain) between him and the Hell-fire.”

Hadrat Ibn ‘Abbas reported that the Messenger of Allah SallAllahu Alaihi wa Sallam said,
“…and whoever brings up three daughters or a like number of sisters, training them well and showing kindness to them till Allah enriches them (i.e. till they reach the age of puberty), Allah will guarantee Paradise for him.” A man asked: “O Messenger of Allah! Does this apply to two also?” He said: “even to two.” If they had asked whether to one also, the Messenger of Allah would have said that, “even to one…”

Sayyiduna Ibn ‘Abbas (Radi Allahu Ta’ala Anhu) recounted,

“Whoever had a female who was not buried nor insulted by him, and had not preferred his male children to her, Allah admits him to Paradise.”

Daughters are without doubt a great blessing from Almighty Allah. They are a means of salvation and a path to Jannah (Heaven) for their parents. The crux of one narration states that

“One who loves his daughters and withstands the hardship of grooming and getting them married, Almighty Allah makes Jannah compulsory (Waajib) on him and keeps him protected from the Fire of Hell.”

And in another Hadith, the beloved Prophet SallAllaho Alaihi wa Sallam said:

“They will be a shield for him from the Fire.”

The beloved Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi wa Sallam commanded:

“Whenever you buy anything from the market place first present it to your female children then to your male children.”

“Daughters are a gift from Almighty Allah. Those parents who are kind towards them, then Almighty Allah is generous towards such parents. Those who are merciful to their daughters, Almighty Allah is Merciful towards them.”

“When a girl is born to a family, then between the parents and Hell, there shall be a distance of five hundred years.”

It has been stated that:

When parents rejoice at the birth of a daughter, this is greater than making Tawaaf of the Kaaba seventy times.

When Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (Radi Allahu Ta’ala Anhu) would hear that one of his relatives or friends had a baby girl, he would say to them,

“Congratulations for the Prophets were mostly fathers of daughters.”

Muslims should also remember that the family of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace and Blessings of Allah be Upon Him) is from his beloved daughter Sayyidah Fatima Zahra (Radi Allahu Ta’ala Anha).

With these open and authentic texts, with the enhanced and repeated good news, the birth of girls is not at all a fearful burden nor is it a bad omen. On the contrary, it is a blessing to be thanked for and a mercy to be desired and requested because it is a blessing of the Almighty and a reward to be gained.

Dear brothers and sisters! Rejoice on the birth of your daughters, love and guide them and give them that which is due to them from your belongings. Do not deprive them of their inheritance as they also have say in this. Remember! Daughters are a blessing and not a burden.

Turkish fashion designers make Muslim style chic

In Istanbul on a recent Friday, it was time to send the page proofs of Ala magazine to the printer. Ala, which means “the most beautiful of the beautiful,” is the world’s first fashion publication for conservative Muslim women. Its office doesn’t feel like a bastion of traditional Islam: The talk is of models, photo shoots, deadlines, and accessories.

Zeynep Hasoğlu, Ala’s new editor in chief, sits behind a giant desk, her brown eyes amplified with dark eyeliner and mascara. She wears a black blazer with matching pants, her tiny frame weighted by a massive tiered rhinestone collar necklace. Stiletto shoes complete her outfit—a look that many of her readers want. “We are trying to convey international fashion to ladies without infringing on our values,” says Hasoğlu. She flicks through her iPad as she describes an unfulfilled need of affluent women who have money to burn but little understanding of how to spend it. They don’t know about Islamic designers because Muslim fashion has been a word of mouth industry.

Ala, launched in 2011, is the primer these women want. It features models in head scarves with well-crafted outfits in the latest colors. One recent article, titled “Looooooong skirts!” gives tips on skirt designs and mixing and matching. A recurring section visits Istiklal Street, the central retail promenade on the European side of Istanbul, to photograph fashionable but conservative women. Like many of Ala’s readers, they sport sleeves that fall at least to the middle of the forearm and no bare leg is revealed. Yet with their head scarves they wear jeans and boots or skirts and form-fitting jackets.

Taha Yasin Toraman launched Etesettür.com 15 months ago. That’s Turkish for hijab, the veil worn by observant Muslim women. The site sells black cloaks that cover the whole body as well as tight pea coats that hug the waistline. “There are many online shopping websites in Turkey, but there were none for conservative women,” Toraman says. He is launching an English-language site by August for the rest of the Muslim world.

Turkey’s fashion industry has its detractors, who condemn the idea that conservative women can wear flattering modern apparel. Women should instead avoid drawing attention to themselves, as Islam calls for. Female attire has long been a contentious subject. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the secular founder of modern Turkey in the 1920s, urged Turkish women not to cover their hair. After a military coup in 1980 momentarily checked the rise of the Islamic parties, the government banned head scarves for university students and public servants. The ban was partially lifted in 2010.

Under Sunni Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey has enjoyed a decade of prosperity, which has given rise to an Islamic middle class. It is widely reported in the media that around 60 percent of Turkish women now wear a head covering. Mehmet Dursun, chief executive officer of Armine, Turkey’s top retailer of Islamic fashion, cornered the local head scarf market nine years ago before becoming a one-stop brand for middle-class Muslims. The retailer has a house line of apparel, shoes, and soon handbags, to be made in the same factory that makes Michael Kors bags. Armine apparel and accessories are sold in 1,400 stores, including in the U.S., the Netherlands, and Britain. Gross revenue in 2012 was $56 million. “I would like to be the conservative Hermès further down the line,” Dursun says.

The one thing absent from Turkey’s fashion scene is name-brand designers: Most work in relative obscurity for retailers like Armine. One exception is Filiz Yetim, maker of bridal gowns for the modest. Yetim, who on an April day was wearing a beige head scarf, a black blouse tucked into a long beige pencil skirt featuring floral appliqués, and gold and silver bracelets, designs gowns that feature a head scarf, full sleeves, and a floor-length hemline. The going price averages $4,000 to $5,000—not much for a handmade item. Yetim says she’ll charge more in time. “In two years, this vision of personal fashion will be more established, and we will ask what is due,” she says.

Burmese security filled mass graves with Muslims

Evidence of official involvement in the massacres that left hundreds dead was gathered by HRW researchers at 27 different sites in Arakan State, including at four mass graves dug between June and October last year.

The report is the most comprehensive evidence yet that the Burmese government colluded in a wave of ethnic attacks and was released just hours before the EU was due to drop sanctions on the Burmese regime as a reward for reformist pledges at a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday.

At one mass grave near the town of Sittwe, local residents took photographs of the 18 bodies dumped in a freshly dug grave. The corpses had their hands tied behind their back with plastic strips used by the police.

“They dropped the bodies right here,” a Rohingya man, who saw the bodies being dumped and later buried told HRW. “Three bodies had gunshot wounds. Some had burns, some had stab wounds. One gunshot wound was on the forehead, one on the chest. Two men’s hands were tied at the wrists in front and another one had his arms tied in the back.”

More than 100 witnesses to the violence, which was speared by Buddhist monks and a nationalist political movement in the region, Rakhine Nationalities Development Party, cited repeated cases in which the police and army would arrive at the scene prior to an attack. Having reassured locals with a cordon, they would then breach promises by allowing attacks and joining in the violence.

US urges NATO to consider role in Syria

The US Secretary of State has said that NATO needs to consider its role in the Syrian crisis, including how prepared it is to respond to a potential chemical weapons threat.

John Kerry told a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on Tuesday that the planning that the alliance had already done was appropriate.

“We should also carefully and collectively consider how NATO is prepared to respond to protect its members from a Syrian threat, including any potential chemical weapons threat,” he said.

NATO, a US-led military alliance of 28 countries, has said repeatedly it has no intention of intervening militarily in the Syrian war.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Israeli military’s top intelligence analyst said Syrian government forces had used chemical weapons – probably nerve gas – in their fight against rebels trying to force out President Bashar al-Assad

Brigadier General Itai Brun made the comments at a Tel Aviv security conference a day after US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said, at the end of a visit to Israel, that US intelligence agencies were still assessing whether such weapons had been employed.

‘Threat to regional stability’

US President Barack Obama has called the use of chemical weapons a red line for the United States that would trigger unspecified US action.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the secretary-general of NATO, said the organisation was “extremely concerned about the use of ballistic missiles in Syria and the possible use of chemical weapons.”

Rasmussen also said that NATO was concerned about the risk of the conflict spilling over Syria’s borders.

“I can assure you that we stand ready to defend, protect our allies, in this case Turkey, as a neighbour of Syria. We have all plans ready to ensure effective defence and protection of Turkey,” he added.

“The situation in Syria has dramatically deteriorated,”  Rasmussen said. “This continues to pose a threat to regional stability.”

NATO has previously sent Patriot missile batteries to neighbouring Turkey to help defend the NATO member against possible missile attack from Syria.

Nerve-gas

Brun said that evidence of the usage of chemical weapons could be seen in the physical symptoms suffered by those who had apparently been exposed to chemical agents.

“The reduced pupils, the foam coming out of the mouth and other additional signs provide evidence that deadly chemical weapons have been used,” he said adding that the chemical used is most likely Sarin, a deadly, colourless and odourless nerve agent.

Sarin, which was developed as a pesticide in Germany in 1938, in high doses, paralyses the muscles around the lungs and prevents chemicals from “switching off” the body’s secretions, so victims suffocate or drown as their lungs fill with mucus and saliva.

There were more than a thousand tonnes of chemical agents in Syria and “a lot” of warheads and missiles that could be armed with the deadly substance, reported Haaretz newspaper quoting Brun.

Moms with elite education opting out of careers

VANDERBILT (US) —Female graduates from top-ranked universities who become mothers are working less despite the promise of higher wages, new research finds.

The battle for work-life balance among female white-collar employees, especially those with children, is something women have struggled with for decades. Though past studies have found little evidence that women are opting out of the workforce in general, first-of-its-kind research shows that female graduates of elite universities are working much fewer hours than those from less selective institutions.

“Even though elite graduates are more likely to earn advanced degrees, marry at later ages and have higher expected earnings, they are still opting out of full-time work at much higher rates than other graduates, especially if they have children,” says Joni Hersch, professor of law and economics and of management at Vanderbilt University.Hersch’s research, published in the Vanderbilt Law School, Law and Economics Research Paper Series, finds that 60 percent of female graduates from elite colleges are working full time compared to 68 percent of women from other schools.It’s all about the kidsThe presence of children strongly influences how much a woman works. Labor market activity is lower for women with children, but the gap between those women with and without children is largest for elite graduates. Among elite graduates, married women without children are 20 percentage points more likely to be employed than their elite counterparts with children, while among non-elite graduates, the difference in the likelihood of employment is 13.5 percentage points.

MBA moms work least of all

Hersch found that when comparing graduates from elite and less selective schools, the largest gap in full-time labor market activity is among women who also earned a master’s in business degree.

“Married MBA mothers with a bachelor’s degree from the most selective schools are 30 percentage points less likely to be employed full time than are graduates of less selective schools,” says Hersch.

The full-time employment rate for MBA moms who earned bachelor’s degrees from a tier-one institution is 35 percent. In contrast, the full-time employment rate for those from a less-selective institution is 66 percent. The gap remains even after taking into account the selectivity of MBA institution, personal characteristics, current or prior occupation, undergraduate major, spouse’s characteristics, number and age of children, and family background.

Fewer female CEOs?

Hersch contends these statistics show that the greater rate of opting out by MBA moms with undergraduate degrees from elite institutions has implications for women’s professional advancement.

“Elite workplaces, like Fortune 500 companies, prefer to hire graduates of elite colleges,” says Hersch. “Thus, lower labor market activity of MBAs from selective schools may have both a direct effect on the number of women reaching higher-level corporate positions as well as an indirect effect because a smaller share of women in top positions is associated with a smaller pipeline of women available to advance through the corporate hierarchy,” says Hersch.

Comparing degrees

Hersch found a similarly large gap among women who later earned a master’s in education. Sixty-six percent of tier-one graduates are employed full time compared to 82 percent of graduates from non-elite institutions.

Other factors also contribute to which women are working more hours.

“Estimates show greater labor activity among women with a bachelor’s degree in a field other than arts and humanities; those with graduate degrees; those in higher-level occupations such as management, science, education and legal; and women who are not white,” says Hersch.

Why opt out?

A common question associated with opting out is whether highly educated women are willingly choosing to exit the labor force to care for their children or whether they are “pushed out” by inflexible workplaces. But Hersch says this hypothesis of inflexible workplaces does not explain why labor market activity differs between graduates of elite and non-elite schools.

“Graduates of elite institutions are likely to have a greater range of workplace options as well as higher expected wages than graduates of less selective institutions, which would suggest that labor market activity would be higher among such women,” Hersch writes.

“Without discounting the well-known challenges of combining family and professional responsibilities, increasing workplace flexibility alone may have only a limited impact of reducing the gap between graduates of elite and non-elite schools.”

Gathering the data

Hersch gathered her data from the 2003 National Survey of College Graduates, which provided detailed information for more than 100,000 college graduates. The survey was conducted by the US Census Bureau for the National Science Foundation.

To identify schools considered elite and to put these schools into tier levels, Hersch used both the Carnegie Classifications of institutions of higher education and Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges. Barron’s Profiles looks at quality indicators of each year’s entering class (SAT or ACT, high school GPA and high school class rank, and percent of applicants accepted). Barron’s then places colleges into seven categories: most competitive, highly competitive, very competitive, competitive, less competitive, noncompetitive, and special.

The Carnegie Classifications are based on factors such as the highest degree awarded; the number, type, and field diversity of post-baccalaureate degrees awarded annually; and federal research support. For example, Research universities offer a full range of baccalaureate programs through the doctorate, give high priority to research, award 50 or more doctoral degrees each year, and receive annually $40 million or more in federal support.

Burmese Bin Laden’ monk spreads anti Muslim hate

Flying in the face of the Western stereotypes about Buddhists, a highly popular monk in Myanmar is using his position to call for persecution of the country’s Muslims, going so far as to deem himself the “Burmese Bin Laden.”

Wirathu is a 45-year old monk, dressing in traditional saffron-colored robes, living in a monastery in Mandalay where he produces DVDs and pieces for social media spreading his bigotry. The monk first rose to prominence in 2001 during a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment and was originally sentenced to 25 years in jail for incitement to violence before being released in Myanmar’s general amnesty granted to political prisoners in 2012.

Since his release, Wirathu has been a key leader in the “969″ movement, a highly nationalist group so named for the nine attributes of the Buddha, his Sixfold Path, and the nine attributes of monkhood. What has followed has been a campaign of harassment towards Myanmar’s Muslim population, including boycotting Muslim-owned businesses and urging Buddhists to only patron Buddhist establishments which more and more frequently display the 969 symbol.

Tensions have reached a breaking point, however, including destroying mosques and inciting mob violenceagainst Muslims. In March, a string of clashes between Buddhists and Muslims left at least 40 dead and12,000 Muslims displaced from their homes. A Reuters report on the riots that lead to the bloodshed said that the riots and the killing that followed “took place in plain view of police, with no intervention by the local or central government.” Graffiti seen in the aftermath called for “Muslim extermination.”

Wirathu recently spoke to the Guardian, proving he isn’t shy about voicing his opinions towards Muslims and their supposed role in causing the violence in the country. Much like biases against Jewish and other minority faiths in communities around the world, Wirathu’s views are full of unsubstantiated rumors and outright fear-mongering:

Wirathu says part of his concern with Islam is that Buddhist women have been converted by force and then killed for failing to follow Islamic rules. He also believes the halal way of killing cattle “allows familiarity with blood and could escalate to the level where it threatens world peace”. [...]

A minority population that makes up just 5% of the nation’s total, Wirathu says Burma’s Muslims are being financed by Middle Eastern forces: “The local Muslims are crude and savage because the extremists are pulling the strings, providing them with financial, military and technical power,” he said.

Wirathu also places the blame for any violence firmly at the feet of the Muslim community, claiming that any acts his followers have carried out was merely a response to Muslim attacks. In interviews, he refers to Muslims as “Bengalis,” a reference to the widespread belief in Myanmar that members of the ethnic minority Rohingya population are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The Burmese government does little to stopdiscrimination towards the Rohingya, a people stripped of Burmese citizenship under a 1982 citizenship law.

Mistreatment of minority Muslims is currently taking place in majority Buddhist country Sri Lanka as well. Groups there — that call themselves names like the Buddhist Strength Force and Sinhala Echo — havestirred up anti-Muslim sentiment but have not produced the same death toll that the preaching of Wirathu has — yet.

Boston coverage points to need for Muslims in the media

As details continue to emerge about the two brothers suspected of planting bombs at the Boston Marathon on Monday, many American Muslims are processing the treatment that this story has gotten in the mainstream news media. The brothers are ethnic Chechens from Russia, but little is still known about their motives or other affiliations.

Even before the suspects were identified, news shows and commentary programs on outlets such as Fox News, CNN and Glenn Beck speculated that the perpetrator of the attack was Saudi, Arab, “dark-skinned,” or Muslim. Fox News pundit Erik Rush provoked particular outcry when he tweeted “Let’s kill them all,” in response to a message about Muslims —a tweet that he later said was sarcastic.

“[The] Islamophobia machine is out there, it’s well-funded, well-oiled,” said Abdul Malik Mujahid, a Chicago-area imam and founder of SoundVision, an Islamic educational media organization. “Muslims have a responsibility to move forward and use the media which they have the freedom to use to say their opinion.”

Mujahid said the coverage has bolstered his belief that Muslims need to play a bigger role in crafting media coverage, whether by creating their own media outlets or by joining the newsrooms of existing ones. It’s a battle that Mujahid began nearly ten years ago, with the launching of Radio Islam, a daily, current affairs program that streams online and at 6 p.m. nightly on WCEV 1450AM.

A recent show focused on Muslims who were at the Boston Marathon as runners or as first responders. Mujahid said the idea is to counter a trend toward unfavorable attitudes toward Muslims.

“Despite the fact that Muslims have done a lot of effort to reach out to their neighbors, [perceptions of] Muslims and Islam in America continue to go on the negative side,” he said.

In the wake of the Boston coverage, Mujahid has stepped up a call for donations to expand Radio Islam’s programming. He wants to build a new studio downtown to increase the amount of programming, as well as foster the training of Muslim journalists.

“We’ve made this switch from more of a victim mentality, more of this idea of please don’t beat me up, and kind of scared and not knowing what to expect, as opposed to now taking a more confident and proactive position,” said Asma Uddin, an attorney at the Becket Foundation for Religious Liberty and the founder of Altmuslimah, a blog about gender and Islam.

Uddin said since 9/11, more Muslims have started to think like Mujahid, focusing on how to disseminate their stories through the media. She said she saw the effect of that in the media coverage of the Boston bombings. Although some news outlets rushed to connect the attack to Islam, she said many more were careful not to jump to conclusions.

“It’s become increasingly sophisticated, and part of that, is because Muslims are speaking up and nuancing people’s perceptions,” Mujahid said.

Odette Yousef is WBEZ’s North Side Bureau reporter. Follow her at @oyousef and @WBEZoutloud.

President Karzai: CIA responsible for the death of 10 children

President Hamid Karzai is determined to curb CIA operations in Afghanistan after the death of a US agent and 10 Afghan children in a battle he believes was fought by an illegal militia working for the US spy agency.

The campaign sets the Afghan leader up for another heated showdown with the US government, and will reignite questions about the CIA’s extensive but highly secretive operations in the country.

Karzai’s spokesman Aimal Faizi said the CIA controlled large commando-like units, some of whom operated under the nominal stamp of the Afghan government’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), but were not actually under its control.

“Some of them are said to be working with the NDS, but they are not armed by the NDS, not paid by the NDS, and not sent to operations by the NDS. Sometimes they only inform the NDS minutes before the operation,” Faizi said. “They are conducting operations without informing local authorities and when something goes wrong it is called a joint operation.”

One of these groups was involved in a battle with insurgents in a remote corner of eastern Kunar province in early April that left several Afghan children dead, Faizi said. Karzai has fired the provincial head of intelligence in connection with the incident.

The US citizen who died during the battle was advising the Afghan intelligence service, and the airstrike that killed the children is believed to have been called in after he was fatally injured.

The US embassy declined to comment on CIA issues, but sources with knowledge of the battle said he was an agent, and his name has not been released, usually an indication of intelligence work.

Bob Woodward in his 2010 book Obama’s Wars described a 3,000-strong Afghan militia working for the CIA, and Faizi said the Afghan government had little information about the teams. “There is a lack of clarity about their numbers and movement,” he said when asked how many men the CIA had on their payroll, or where these large teams might be based.

Woodward said the unofficial commando units were known as counter-terrorism pursuit teams, and described them as “a paid, trained and functioning tool of the CIA”, authorised by President George W Bush.

They were sent on operations to kill or capture insurgent leaders, but also went into lawless areas to try to pacify them and win support for the Afghan government and its foreign backers. Woodward said the units even conducted cross-border raids into Pakistan.

In the wake of the Kunar battle, Karzai has also ordered his security officials to step up implementation of a presidential decree issued in late February abolishing “parallel structures”. Faizi said this order was aimed primarily at dismantling CIA-controlled teams.

“The use of these parallel structures run by the CIA and US special forces is an issue of concern for the Afghan people and the Afghan government,” he said.

For Karzai the move is another step towards reasserting Afghan sovereignty, part of a long campaign waged against US forces and their allies. He has already won control of the main US-run prison in the country, andended unilateral night raids on insurgent hideouts that coalition commanders once described as critical to the war.

But Karzai’s move comes at a critical time for an already volatile relationship, when Washington and Kabul are trying to negotiate what, if any, military presence the US will have in Afghanistan beyond 2014, and curbing the CIA’s reach could strike at the heart of US strategic interests there.

Barack Obama has been clear that the US does not plan to fight the Taliban after next year. Instead some foreign troops will train Afghan soldiers to fight the insurgency while US special forces pursue groups such as al-Qaida hiding along the lawless border with Pakistan.

While the US is expected to keep a few thousand soldiers in Afghanistan, bolstered by troops from Nato allies, Obama has also made clear there is “zero option” of a complete US withdrawal, as happened in Iraq

Short term Muslim marriages boom in India

Suffering from abject poverty, Indian parents are putting their daughters in short-term marriages with wealthy Muslim tourists for money.

“In India the girls are coming for a cheaper rate and they are beautiful,” Inspector Vijay Kumar told The Telegraph.

“Even if they are only staying for a few days they are doing this kind of illegal marriages for sex.”

Many Indian families are putting their daughters in contracted marriages for short periods with wealthy Muslim travelers.

One of girls engaged in this kind of marriages was Nausheen Tobassum, a 17-year-old girl from Hyderabad in southern India.

Tobassum escaped a one-month marriage arranged by her family with a wealthy Sudanese tourist.

“I had to show courage to go to police against my parents,” she told The Telegraph.

“I don’t want to go back to my home, I am scared.”

The 44-year-old groom, married with two children in Khartoum, had paid around £1,200 for his would-be Indian wife for four weeks.

The story began when the young Indian girl was accompanied by her aunt to a hotel to be introduced with three other girls to the Sudanese man.

The man had paid 100,000 Rupees (around £1,200) to the girl’s aunt, who in turn paid 70,000 Rupees to her parents, 5,000 Rupees to the imam who conducted the marriage, 5,000 Rupees to an Urdu translator and kept 20,000 Rupees for herself.

Haram

A wedding certificate was prepared with fixed terms of divorce at the end of the groom’s holiday.

“I didn’t know what was happening and I agreed in ignorance. They forced me,” Tobassum said.

“They changed my date of birth certificate and made a fake one, where I was shown as 24 years old.”

Terrified by the situation, the would-be wife escaped and went to the police to report the incident.

“They exploit girls and that’s why I went to police,” she said.

The police arrested the groom, the victim’s aunt and the imam and issued a warrant for her parents’ arrest.

Shiraz Amina Khan of Hyderabad’s Women and Child Welfare Society, said there were up to 15 contract marriages in the city every month and that the number is rising.

“They come to Hyderabad because it has maximum downtrodden families,” she said.

“Thirty to forty percent of families are going for the option of contract marriages to relieve their poverty. It has to be stopped.”

Marriage in Islam is of utmost importance as it is upon the lawful union of a man and a woman that society grows strong and that moral is preserved.

The majority of the Prophet’s Companions hold the view that after the completion of the Islamic legislation, mut`ah marriage was made absolutely haram.

‘Hard Luck’ Cafe? Cairo’s debut Islamic coffee-shop allows no gender-mixing

When the D. Cappucino café opened its doors last May it attracted little attention outside of Cairo’s upscale Nasser City neighborhood.

But a political crisis that has polarized Egypt and set liberals and Islamists at loggerheads has suddenly focused nationwide attention on the café, which caters to conservative values.

The café is identical in almost every way to the fashionable western style espresso bars that have become increasingly popular in Egypt over the last decade.

But there are key differences – customers are encouraged to conform to gender segregation, with separate sections for families, single men and single women.

Customers in search of a traditional waterpipe, or sheesha, will be disappointed. There’s no smoking of any kind allowed.

And while most cafes in Egypt sport flatscreen TVs that blare the latest Arab music videos, there is no music in D. Cappucino. Just the hum of conversation and the occasional clatter of typing.

But while the café’s conformity to conservative Islamic values is a respite for some, it has raised alarm bells for others.

A recent article in the liberal ‘Al-Watan’ newspaper published an article about the café, citing it as just more example of an attempt by Egypt’s Islamist led government and their supporters to change the traditionally permissive Egyptian identity. Step by step, liberals fear, Islamists are using their growing weight to implement their vision for Egyptian society.

The owners of D. Cappucino have now become unwilling foils in the highly charged political and cultural tug-of-war that has raged in Egypt ever since the Muslim Brotherhood began to dominate the country’s political transition, first by winning parliamentary elections and then the presidency.

But customer Mohamed Islam says that he simply feels more at home in the cafe’s conservative setting, which is similar in style to cafés and restaurants in Arab Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia, where Islam used to live.

“We were not able to go to places where single men and women sit together, because people used to look at us with disdain. Some people would ask what brought us to such a place, since the majority of the people who go to such coffee shops say that people with beards and veiled woman are not supposed to chat together in such places or to socialize amongst others,”he said.

The café’s owners deny claims that they are connected in any way to the Muslim Brotherhood, and say that the gender segregation they offer is no more foreign to Egypt than separate subway train cars for women, which is offered on Cairo’s metro service.

Jihad Amin, a journalist, says that labelling D. Cappucino as an ‘Islamist’ café is unfair, and that those scrutinizing it are showing a lack of tolerance.

“I don’t see it as an ‘Islamic café’, but I can say that it is a café for families. I like this idea, that just as there are coffee shops for foreigners, and coffee shops where singles can sit together, there are also some people who don’t like either, so those people have the right to find a suitable place for them to go out. It is so simple – people are living together in one community so there is no reason to accept a certain lifestyle and to reject the other, “she said.

While the café has been a draw for conservative Muslims and women who simply want to avoid being hassled or gawked at, the quiet atmosphere has also attracted businessmen wanting to hold lunchtime meetings without having their conversations drowned out by the latest music video.

Whatever the intentions of D. Cappucino’s owners, the café was certain to make opponents of the country’s ascendant Islamist parties nervous.

The domination of Egypt’s nascent political scene by Islamist parties after the fall of Hosni Mubarak nearly two years ago has unsettled liberals and many religious Egyptians who oppose the imposition of moral and social strictures.

The fight over Egypt’s new Islamist-backed constitution has only sharpened the divide, and street battles between liberal protesters and supporters of the Muslim brotherhood raised the spectre of Egypt’s political divide leading to uncontrollable civil strife.

But that debate is far from the mind of customers like Ahmed Zein.

“We are looking for a certain environment, which is calm, where there is separation, no smoking of cigarettes or waterpipes, and at the same time, we are looking for quality of the services as well. In D. Cappuccino Café they provide us with all of these things, and they provide me with extra privacy and a high quality product, whether food or drink. I don’t see any need to classify it – the description of ‘Café for Islamists’ is untrue, “he said.

So while Egypt’s culture wars continue with no end in sight, customers at the D. Cappucino café are just hoping to be left on the sidelines.

Coffee and qahwa: How a Sufi drink went global

The Arab world has given birth to many thinkers and many inventions – among them the three-course meal, alcohol and coffee. The best coffee bean is still known as Arabica, but it’s come a long way from the Muslim mystics who treasured it centuries ago, to the chains that line our high streets.

Think coffee, and you probably think of an Italian espresso, a French cafe au lait, or an American double grande latte with cinnamon.

Perhaps you learned at school that the USA became a nation of coffee drinkers because of the excise duty King George placed on tea? Today ubiquitous chains like Starbucks, Cafe Nero and Costa grace every international airport, and follow the now much humbler Nescafe as symbols of globalisation.

Coffee is produced in hot climates like Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Vietnam and Indonesia, and you could be forgiven if you thought it is a product from the New World like tobacco and chocolate. After all, all three became popular in Europe at more or less the same time, in the 16th and 17th Centuries.

In fact, coffee comes from the highland areas of the countries at the southern end of the Red Sea – Yemen and Ethiopia.

Although a beverage made from the wild coffee plant seems to have been first drunk by a legendary shepherd on the Ethiopian plateau, the earliest cultivation of coffee was in Yemen and Yemenis gave it the Arabic nameqahwa, from which our words coffee and cafe both derive.

Qahwa originally meant wine, and Sufi mystics in Yemen used coffee as an aid to concentration and even spiritual intoxication when they chanted the name of God.

By 1414, it was known in Mecca and in the early 1500s was spreading to Egypt from the Yemeni port of Mocha. It was still associated with Sufis, and a cluster of coffee houses grew up in Cairo around the religious university of the Azhar. They also opened in Syria, especially in the cosmopolitan city of Aleppo, and then in Istanbul, the capital of the vast Ottoman Turkish Empire, in 1554.

In Mecca, Cairo and Istanbul attempts were made to ban it by religious authorities. Learned shaykhs discussed whether the effects of coffee were similar to those of alcohol, and some remarked that passing round the coffee pot had something in common with the circulation of a pitcher of wine, a drink forbidden in Islam.

Coffee houses were a new institution in which men met together to talk, listen to poets and play games like chess and backgammon. They became a focus for intellectual life and could be seen as an implicit rival to the mosque as a meeting place.

Some scholars opined that the coffee house was “even worse than the wine room”, and the authorities noted how these places could easily become dens of sedition. However, all attempts at banning coffee failed, even though the death penalty was used during the reign of Murad IV (1623-40). The religious scholars eventually came to a sensible consensus that coffee was, in principle, permissible.

Coffee spread to Europe by two routes – from the Ottoman Empire, and by sea from the original coffee port of Mocha.

Both the English and Dutch East India Companies were major purchasers at Mocha in the early 17th Century, and their cargoes were brought home via the Cape of Good Hope or exported to India and beyond. They seem, however, to have only taken a fraction of Yemeni coffee production – as the rest went north to the rest of the Middle East.

Coffee also arrived in Europe through trade across the Mediterranean and was carried by the Turkish armies as they marched up the Danube. As in the Middle East, the coffee house became a place for men to talk, read, share their opinions on the issues of the day and play games.

Another similarity was that they could harbour gatherings for subversive elements. Charles II denounced them in 1675 as “places where the disaffected met, and spread scandalous reports concerning the conduct of His Majesty and his Ministers”.

A century later Procope, the famous Parisian coffee house, had such habitues as Marat, Danton and Robespierre who conspired together there during the Revolution.

At first, coffee had been viewed with suspicion in Europe as a Muslim drink, but around 1600 Pope Clement VIII is reported to have so enjoyed a cup that he said it would be wrong to permit Muslims to monopolise it, and that it should therefore be baptised.

Austrian coffee drinking is said to have received a big boost when the Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683 was broken, and the European victors captured huge coffee supplies from the vanquished.

Perhaps that is why, to this day, coffee is served in Vienna with a glass of water – just like the tiny cups of powerful Turkish coffee with its heavy sediment in Istanbul, Damascus or Cairo. Is this just a coincidence, or a long forgotten cultural borrowing?

The beverage we call “Turkish coffee” is actually a partial misnomer, as Turkey is just one of the countries where it is drunk. In Greece they call it “Greek coffee”, although Egyptians, Lebanese, Syrians, Palestinians, Jordanians and others do not seem to care overmuch about the name.

But there are other coffee drinking traditions in the Arab world. The coffee which is native to the Gulf is bitter and sometimes flavoured with cardamom or other spices.

It is often served a decent interval after a guest has arrived – to serve it too soon might be an impolite suggestion of haste – and then once again before departure.

It often comes just before or after a small glass cup of black, sweet tea. The order in which the two beverages are served varies, and seems to have no significance. What is remarkable for a Western visitor is the idea that the two very different drinks should be offered in such quick succession.

Sadly, however, while coffee has gone truly global production has declined in Yemen, the victim of cheap imports and rival crops like the narcotic qat.

In 2011, Yemen exported a mere 2,500 tonnes although there are attempts to revive cultivation of the best coffee in its original home. Today, none of the Arab countries is listed among the world’s significant producers.