Fatwa Issued Over Pakistan Minister’s Embrace of Foreign Man
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ Islamic clerics at a radical mosque in Pakistan’s capital have demanded the minister for tourism be fired, after she was pictured committing a “great sin” by hugging a foreign man. Minister for Tourism Nilofar Bakhtiar on Monday rejected the Taliban-style edict against her by clerics at Islamabad’s Red Mosque, who last week set up their own court to deliver Islamic justice. Photos carried in the Pakistani press showed Bakhtiar, helped by a male instructor during a charity parachute jump she made in France last month to raise money for victims of the massive earthquake that hit Pakistan in October 2005. Another picture shows a woman ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ apparently Bakhtiar ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ hugging the instructor. On Sunday, two clerics at the mosque’s Darul Afta or Department of Edicts issued a fatwa, or edict, that this was “an illegitimate and forbidden act.”….”Without any doubt, she has committed a great sin,” a copy of the fatwa seen by The Associated Press said. It declared that Muslim women must stay at home and must not venture out uncovered.
I had to read this story a couple of times to be certain that it was some sort of tardy April Fools joke. No, these knuckle-dragging troglodytes are dead serious. A woman happens to (gasp! horrors!!) hug a man who isn’t her husband (the HARLOT!!) and suddenly everyone wants to stone the wench.This alleged incident didn’t even take place in Pakistan, yet the trolls seem unable to recognize that most of the rest of the world is at least a wee bit less uptight and intolerant. Surprisingly, not everyone views women as the property of men.
The sad thing about this travesty is that it has nothing to do with true Islam. The radical nutjobs who’ve issued this fatwa are far more concerned with treating women as the property of men and with maintaining an oppressive social system designing to benefit men and men alone. Nice religion, eh? Well, it would be if it weren’t manipulated for political advantage by those with their own agenda and who care less about Islam than power. Ultimately, this has nothing to do with Islam; it has everything to do with political power and who has it.
The fatwa demanded that Bakhtiar be sacked, given some other unspecified punishment and that her family should “force her to ask for forgiveness so that she does not repeat this un-Islamic act.”….
She accused Pakistani newspapers of presenting “distorted” captions accompanying the pictures. She said she had jumped without any previous training and her French instructor had just given her a pat.
“It was just a pat because he felt so proud of me,” Bakhtiar said. “I felt very happy also because it was affectionate and very encouraging.”
The decree from the Red Mosque is the latest chapter in a Taliban-style anti-vice campaign launched by its hardline clerics in defiance of state authority in the relatively liberal Pakistani capital ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ despite President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s sworn hope to promote moderate Islam.
Much as in Afghanistan, the radical nutjobs fomenting this fatwa aren’t advocating anything that has ANYTHING to do with Islam. It’s about political power and social control. It’s about doing whatever it takes to force their narrow brand of radical Islam upon enough people to ensure that they control the levers of political power, and in doing so bringing down the Musharraf government.
The Religion of Peace © ? Yeah right. Then again, we should probably be able to recognize this dangerous strain of zealotry in our own country. Though people like Pat Robertson, James Dobson, John Hagee, and Rick Scarborough may not (yet) be advocating violence, it’s not as if they and their kind aren’t working hard to turn this country into a narrow-minded theocracy ruled by Christian zealots. When you think about it, what’s happening in Pakistan has a good deal in common with what’s happening here in America.
Man, I can hardly wait until we start stoning adulterers in the village square….
