Rejecting Dr. David Liepert's Apologetic Myth that Aisha's Age is in Question

I have not yet watched the "Innocence of Muslims" clip, and doubt that I ever will. This is because I can think of better ways of spending a spare quarter-hour than staring at rubbish. The film includes references to the Prophet Muhammad's 9-year-old child bride, Aisha. I know this because people in the skeptics community are asking, how factual is this movie really? And some well-intentioned people are replying with claims that "not one thing in the movie is factual", that , "Most scholars for the last 1200 years suggest Aisha was 11-14", and one person even provided a link to an apologetic piece by a Muslim named Dr. David Liepert at the Huffington Post titled, "Rejecting the Myth of Sanctioned Child Marriage in Islam".

Apparently the arguments raised by Liepert and others have given many the false impression that Aisha's age is a long contested issue in Islam, and that it is a valid argument over interpretation that could eventually lead to reforms within mainstream Islam. The problem I have with this, is that it is certainly not an argument over interpretation. The text clearly say one thing and one thing only. For anyone with a little knowledge on the subject and who has actually read the source material, it is disingenuous to claim otherwise. For people like Liepert, simply lying about what sources say may be effective in apologetic pieces, but they are useless if the intentions behind them are to reform the religion.

To explain in a language my readers may understand better; there are valid theological or factual arguments/disagreements, and then there is absurd nonsense that is not worthy of being entertained. For example; there are lots of creationists who claim evolution is not factual because "monkeys still exist, so we haven't evolved from them!!!", and other such ignorant rubbish. Scientists schooled in evolution (in fact, anyone with an ounce of knowledge on the subject) will either laugh or feel pity for those gullible enough to fall for these arguments. The last thing they or anyone will do is claim evolution is in doubt because there are some non-peer reviewed arguments to the contrary posted by obscure loonies on the Internet.... 

Can you see where I'm going with this?

The claim that most scholars for the last 1200 years have suggested Aisha was 11-14 at the time of her marriage to Muhammad is blatantly in error. To the best of my knowledge, the first ever pro-Muhammad and provably faulty objection raised to Aisha's age was by Maulana Muhammad Ali who lived from 1874 to 1951 (see here). He is a nobody as far as mainstream Islam is concerned, since he belonged to the Ahmadiyya whose beliefs drastically differ from them (think of the difference between Judaism to Christianity, or Christianity to Islam, and you're on the right track). The Ahmadiyya and their writings are heavily focused on missionary work (see here for a previous response to a disingenuous Ahmadiyya missionary at the Huffington Post, where I touch upon some of the major differences).

Then there is Habib Ur Rahman Siddiqui Kandhalvi who in his Urdu booklet, "Tehqiq e umar e Siddiqah e Ka'inat" (English trans. 1997), laments that he is "tired of defending this tradition" that is "laughed" at and "ridiculed" by English-educated individuals he meets in Karachi who claim it is against "sagacity and prudence" and "preferred English society to Islam over this", and he readily admits his "aim is to produce an answer to the enemies of Islam who spatter mud at the pious body of the Generous Prophet". Unsurprisingly, a posthumous fatwa was issued against him in November 2004, labeling him a "Munkir-e-Hadith" (hadith rejector) and a "Kafir" (infidel) on the basis of being a rejector of hadith.

More recently, we have Moiz Amjad (who refers to himself as "The Learner"). He readily admits to having lifted these faulty arguments from them, summarizing and presenting them in response to a Muslim asking him how he can respond to Christians who called Muhammad a pedophile (i.e. all of his arguments, like Ali's and Kandhalvi's before him, were apologetic in nature rather than scholarly). It was at this very recent point in history that the arguments originating from the Ahmadiyya in the 1920s and 1930s finally achieved some limited popularity among a few orthodox Muslims on the Internet. Clearly a knee-jerk reaction to the avalanche in criticism of Muhammad's life, as opposed to any real significant shift in beliefs.

Since then, his arguments have been rehashed by countless apologists on the Internet with the same missionary and apologetic focus. Dr. David Liepert's copy of these arguments are clearly aimed at Christians and other "Islamophobes"  (apparently, he cannot envision a fourth reason for disagreeing with his ignorance, e.g. for the reason of Intellectual honesty). The funny thing about these people is that they have evidently not read the source material, or are not knowledgeable on the subjects they discuss with such feigned authority, because, even though Liepert claims his "conclusions [are] little more than simple common sense", they lift these highly convoluted arguments based on assumptions from Moiz Amjad with all of their obvious lies and faults intact. Additionally, since these 'arguments' are so specific, their original source is obvious, but Liepert and others never choose to reveal this to their readers. Instead they play on their target audience's ignorance, choosing to peddle it as their own 'research' (only recently, I dealt with another apologist doing the very same thing. After I replied to him, he deleted his article within 2 hours).

What I'm saying is, there is not a single serious Muslim scholar (someone who is not considered a complete kook by mainstream Muslims or has less knowledge of the sources than a layman like myself) who would repeat these arguments. Shaykh Gibril F. Haddad, who was listed amongst the inaugural "500 most influential Muslims in the world" (p. 94), is a Muslim scholar who is taken very seriously by mainstream Muslims, and deserves my respect simply for taking a stand against Salafi fundamentalism without having to lower himself to the standards held by the likes of Dr. Liepert and others. He responded to Amjad's polemics more than 5 years ago and it has remained unanswered. There has never been a response to "Our Mother A'isha's Age At The Time Of Her Marriage to The Prophet". I've presented it to many apologists and they have never countered any of it, simply because they cant. Shaykh Haddad's response is quite literally the "be all and end all of the argument". Including many facts that are easily verifiable for those who have access to the hadith and sira literature, he annihilates the lies and distortions being spread by apologists.

Fact; Liepert is lying through his teeth when claiming there is only 1 chain of narration for Aisha's age. There are in fact multiple reliable narrations from many different chains of narrators (lifting their classification from sahih to mutawatir, the highest class of narrations). I've read at least 4 different narrations in Sahih Bukhari and 3 in Sahih Muslim that state she was 9. There are many others in Abu Dawud, Ibn Ishaq, Al Tabari's History, etc., that state the same thing. There is none to the contrary.

Fact; even though he claims "it is a matter of incontrovertible historical record", Liepert is lying through his teeth when claiming Aisha took part in the Battle of Badr and Uhud, and thus was fifteen years of age. Sahih hadith state the exact opposite, that she only bid farewell to the combatants of Badr and only carried water skins back and forth to the combatants of Uhud (the age restriction applied only to combatants. It applied neither to non-combatant boys nor to non-combatant girls).

Fact; Liepert is lying through his teeth when claiming Aisha accepted Islam shortly after it was revealed -- 12 years before her marriage. Nowhere does Ibn Hisham's recension of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah say this. Rather, Ibn Hisham lists Aisha among "those that accepted Islam because of Abu Bakr." Abu Bakr being Aisha's father, the first Rightly-Guided Caliph of Islam.

Liepert shamelessly spews lie after lie and distortion after distortion, but rather than me going through every single one of them, I suggest reading Shaykh Haddad's unanswered reply to Moiz Amjad, and WikiIslam's and MuslimHope's article on the same subject. 

Some of the things that are not covered in those replies include:

Liepert's claim that "the Quran doesn't condone wife-beating either. In pre-Islamic Arabia, men did not need permission to beat their wives. And although the Arabic root Dzaraba does mean "beat" it also means "heal." Dzaraba denotes action for a higher purpose, such as "striking (or minting) a coin," or "striking out on a new path." Note that Liepert's deception is two-fold here. Not only is he playing on his target audiences ignorance of the Arabic language, he is also playing on their ignorance of Arabian History.

His first claim was lifted from another American Muslim apologist named Laleh Bakhtiar. "Dzaraba" and its usage in Qur'an 4:34 linguistically does not leave room for any other meaning than to physically beat someone. His second claim is not original either. Muslim apologists love to exaggerate the so-called "Period of Ignorance" (Jahiliyah), painting all pre-Islamic Arabians as backward, cave-dwelling Neanderthals. This is a view that is contradicted by Islam's own text. In Sahih Bukhari 7:6:715, a Muslim woman complains to Muhammad about her husband beating her until her skin literally turned green. Muhammad refuses to condemn this behavior. Instead choosing to provide his tacit approval of wife-beating by siding with the husband. Ironically, it is the young Aisha who refutes Liepert's claim when she exclaims, "I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women. Look! Her skin is greener than her clothes!" This of course means Muslim women in Arabia were being treated worse than their pagan and Abrahamic Arabian counterparts.

Liepert claims that "the Sunnah confirms that both Aisha's betrothal and consummation occurred with Aisha's enthusiastic agreement. In fact, some even imply she went against the initial wishes of her Dad!". This is a blatant lie. In Islam, a bride's father or father's father may "compel their charge to marry... without her consent." In fact, Muslim scholars are "unanimously agreed that a father may marry off his young daughter without consulting her". This is all based on the unquestionable fact that Aisha did not give her consent to the marriage. 

Liepert also claims that Christians attack Islam for pedophilia, but Muslims never attack Christianity for it. This is, once again, a provable lie. Muslims often attack both Christians and Jews with the accusation that their faiths allow pedophilia. Most Western Christians are either too stupid or too infatuated with Zionism to care less, but I have several pages that destroy their very silly and desperate arguments (for example; see here, here and here). Not only do Muslim apologists erroneously accuse Judaism of permitting pedophilia, they actually go one step further than the Christian "Islamophobes" and accuse the Christian god himself of being a pedophile (how's that for some Muslim "Christophobia"?).  

Liepert amazingly blames "Islamophobes", in addition to blaming Muslims (including imam Bukhari, who is considered to be one of the greatest Muslims to have ever lived), for perpetuating child marriages in the Muslim world. Well, I have news for him. The blame squarely falls on one individual. With an age difference of 45 years, this individual married a child 6 times younger than himself (Aisha was 9 and he was 54). Because of this individual's actions, millions of young girls today are forced into pedophilic child marriages by individuals, and even entire nations, who explicitly use Aisha's relationship with him as justification. Yes, this man is none other than Prophet Muhammad. Someone who more than a billion people believe is the greatest and most moral man to have ever walked this earth.

If anything today is helping to perpetuate the existence of pedophilic child marriages in the Muslim world, it is the lies peddled by these shameless individuals. Change and reform is a result of honest discussion and criticism, the same honest discussion that these people are trying to avoid through inventing false myths, and the same honest criticism that these people are trying to stifle by smearing everyone who raises them as "Islamophobic" bigots.  Change and reform is also the result of human self-reflection, the same self-reflection that these shameless people are trying their damnedest to isolate and immunize the Muslim world from.

I can understand creationists and religious zombies repeating rubbish as facts without doing any fact-checking, but it is not something I expect to see from skeptics. There seems to exist a collective fear that the truth may be too "Islamophobic" for us to acknowledge, so people tend to accept any excuse, any lie, put forward in defense of Islam. If the truth is too Islamophobic, then maybe we should reconsider flinging such a word so frivolously at anyone who criticizes Islam. Maybe it is about time we all got ourselves educated on Islam, on what its texts actually say, and on the views the majority of the world's Muslims still hold today. For this, we certainly do not need to waste precious time on reading fanciful fairy-tales written by apologists or watching trash like "Innocence of Muslims".


Additional notes

1. Since writing this response to Liepert, WikiIslam's article, "Refutation to Muslim Apologetics against Aisha's Age of Consummation", has been updated to include much of my information and commentary on the origins and history of the "Aisha was older" apologetic argument.

2. From my tone in this piece, you've probably guessed I do not hold a positive view of this "Innocence of Muslims" clip. I personally have nothing against satire aimed at religious or political beliefs (e.g. see here and here), but even I have my standards.

3. For examples of people claiming  "monkeys still exist, so we haven't evolved from them!!!" , just Google: http://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=monkeys+still+exist,+so+we+haven't+evolved+from+them

4. Considering that Liepert is a "National Board member of the Canadian Islamic Chamber of Commerce" and is involved with many other Canadian-based Islamic initiatives, some may think my comparing him to "obscure individuals on the Internet" is unfair. But, in the grander scale of things, an "obscure individual" is in fact a very good description of what he actually is. According to a 2011 Pew Report, only "3% of the world’s Muslims live in more-developed regions, such as Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan." Only three percent. If we consider Canada on its own, that figure drops below single digits. Why is this statistic important to us? It is important because these provably false "modernist" claims are almost exclusively entertained by Muslims in these "more-developed" secular regions of the earth. Even within these secular regions, many, if not the majority of Muslims, still hold on to the mainstream Islamic views concerning Aisha's young age. Outside of this measly 3%, we have the other 97%, the 1.5 billion Muslims of the Middle-East, Africa, and Asia. Now, we evidently have these two opposing Muslim groups, but which of the two is more representative of mainstream Islam; the tiny percentage within an already tiny 3% or the 97+%? Make no mistake, the unorthodox views espoused by the likes of Liepert and other apologists are highly controversial, even among their Western co-religionists. For example, take the case of American Muslim apologist Laleh Bakhtiar whom I mentioned earlier. Liepert conveniently borrows her "Dzaraba" argument to deny that wife-beating is approved by the Qur'an. However, not so long ago, this very same argument landed Laleh Bakhtiar in hot water. In fact her claim was so controversial among the "moderate" Muslims of Canada, that the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) refused to sell her translation in their bookstores. So, when all things are considered, we can conclude that, certainly they, i.e. the Muslims that actually matter, overwhelmingly agree on Aisha's age and couldn't care less about what an obscure, white, convert in Canada has to say regarding their beliefs.

5. Text from, "Age of Aisha (ra) at time of marriage",  by Zahid Aziz that discuss Maulana M. Ali: "It appears that Maulana Muhammad Ali was the first Islamic scholar directly to challenge the notion that Aisha was aged six and nine, respectively, at the time of her nikah and consummation of marriage. This he did in, at least, the following writings: his English booklet Prophet of Islam, his larger English book Muhammad, the Prophet, and in the footnotes in his voluminous Urdu translation and commentary of Sahih Bukhari entitled Fadl-ul-Bari, these three writings being published in the 1920s and 1930s. In the booklet Prophet of Islam, which was later incorporated in 1948 as the first chapter of his book Living Thoughts of the Prophet Muhammad..." 

6. On the major differences between mainstream Islam and the Ahmadiyya: the Ahmadiyya have an additional Prophet, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, and some additional religious texts (Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's writings). So they are as different to mainstream Islam as Islam is to Christianity. After all, Islam is simply an additional Prophet (Muhammad) and some additional religious texts (Qur'an and Sunnah). Accordingly, Ahmadis are widely persecuted in Islamic countries because they are viewed as infidels by Muslims. In fact, they are often viewed as more heretical than Christians and Jews. Likewise, according to Ahmadi beliefs, only those who accept Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's prophethood are considered Muslims.

7. All  Habib Ur Rahman Siddiqui Kandhalvi quotations are taken from the Preface of the 2007 English translation of his Urdu booklet, "Tehqiq e umar e Siddiqah e Ka'inat", translated by Nigar Erfaney and published by Al-Rahman Publishing Trust under the title, "Age of Aisha (The Truthful Women, May Allah Send His Blessings)"

8. The fatwa in full, branding  Habib Ur Rahman Siddiqui Kandhalvi's beliefs outside of Islam, thus making him a 'kafir', from "Fatwa's on hadith rejectors?": "QUESTION: A book by the name of 'Mazhabi Dastanain Aur Unn Ki Haqeeqat' comprising of four volumes. This book is authored by Habib ar-Rahman Siddiqui Khandhalvi. Is the afore-mentioned person a Munkir-e-Hadith (Hadith Rejector) or a Pervaizi or does he in reality hold any scholarly status? Please tell me briefly about him. In this book, many views that are contradictory to the Aqeedah of Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jamaah are written, for example denial of Imam Mahdi and denial of Hazrat Ali being the 4th Caliph etc. What is the ruling for such a person and those who agree with his views, follow or propogate them?

ANSWER: Habib ar-Rahman Siddiqui Kandhalvi is a Pervaizi (Munkir-e-Hadith). And Pervaiz and his adherents (Parvezi's) - the Ulema have declared them as Kafirs, on the basis of being rejectors of hadith. Habib ar-Rahman Siddiqui Kandhalvi [deceased] is the son of a renowned scholar of Islam, Ashfaq ar-Rahman Khandhalvi. Ashfaq ar-Rahman Kandhalvi is famous for his book Hujjat-al-Hadith. Both of them are relatives of Sheikh-ul-Hind Muhammad Idrees Khandhalvi (Sheikh-ul-Hadith). We do not know anything about Habib ar-Rahman Kandhalvi's scholarly status [calibre, competence, qualification] and neither are we aware of any details in regards to his Shuhrat [recognition, popularity, reputation] and Allah Ta'ala Knows Best

Answer is correct/approved: Mufti Hameedullah Jhaan, Darul Iftaa Jamia Ashrafia Lahore, Pakistan November 5th 2004".

9. For the apologetic article that really started it all, see: "What was Ayesha's (ra) Age at the Time of Her Marriage?", by Moiz Amjad. And for examples  of Moiz Amjad's arguments being rehashed by countless apologists on the Internet with the same missionary and apologetic focus, see: "Ayesha’s Age: The Myth Of A Proverbial Wedding Exposed," by T.O Shanavas; "What Was The Age of Ummul Mo'mineen Ayesha (May Allah be pleased with her) When She Married To Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him)?," by 'Imam' Chaudhry (word-for-word plagiarism of Amjad's work); and "Of Aisha’s age at marriage," by Nilofar Ahmed.

10. The  only 3 reasons behind disagreeing with apologetic lies and ignorance,  according to Liepert are, "Either you are such a crazy Islamophile that you are willing to go to your grave insisting Muhammad could do whatever he wanted, or you are such a crazy Islamophobe that you want to insist he did, or you are such a weirdly religious sex-crazed pervert that you hope accusing him makes it OK for you to do it too. There is absolutely no other reason to either make or repeat that disgusting claim." This is of course a false dichotomy, meant to smear anyone who speaks honestly about what Islam's sources say as either a bigot or pervert.

11.  All of the ages for Aisha provided by the major hadith collections and the sira literature agree on her age at consummation. However, a Wikipedia article claims Tabari states  Aisha was 10 at consummation. The reference given for the claim is Tabari, Volume 9, Page 131; Tabari, Volume 7, Page 7. I own all 40 volumes of Tabari's History. Opening up both pages, Volume 9, Page 131 says she was aged 9. Nowhere does it claim she was 10. Volume 7, Page 7 says she was 9 three times. Nowhere does it claim she was 10. 

"Moderate Indonesia": Atheist Jailed for 2 ½ Years for Writing ‘God Doesn’t Exist’ on his Facebook Page

From Mail Online:

An Indonesian man was jailed for 30 months after writing "God doesn't exist" on his Facebook page.

Alexander Aan, 30, was imprisoned on Thursday for sharing explicit material about the Prophet Mohammed online.

He started an atheist group on Facebook on which he shared comic strips of the prophet having sex with his servant, a court in western Sumatra heard today.

Alexander Aan, 30, waits in the jail holding area during his verdict
at the Muaro Sijunjung district court in West Sumatra today

He was found guilty of 'deliberately spreading information inciting religious hatred and animosity', presiding judge Eka Prasetya Budi Dharma told the Muaro Sijunjung district court in western Sumatra.

Aan also uploaded three articles on his Facebook account, including one describing the prophet being attracted to his daughter-in-law.

'Under the Electronic Information and Transactions law, we sentence him to prison for a length of two years and six months,' Dharma said.

'What he did has caused anxiety to the community and tarnished Islam.'

Aan listens to the judges before being jailed for 30 months for setting
up an atheist Facebook group, writing "God doesn't exist" on his Facebook
page, and for sharing explicit material about the Prophet Mohammed online

Aan was beaten by an angry mob and arrested by police in his hometown of Pulau Punjung in western Sumatra in January after posting the material online and declaring himself an atheist.

The court had earlier indicted Aan with two other charges - persuading others to embrace atheism and blasphemy.

Prosecutors had sought a three-and-a-half-year jail term for him.

But the court convicted him of the most serious charge and dropped the other two.

Alexander Aan has been jailed for setting up an
atheist Facebook group

Aan's arrest sparked outrage among Indonesians and international activists, who showed their support on his Facebook group and circulated petitions to have his charges dropped.

Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority nation, guarantees freedom of religion in its constitution and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but only recognises six faiths: Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism, Protestantism and Confucianism

Its courts have in recent years given light sentences to perpetrators of violent attacks on Christians and Islamic minority Ahmadis, some of which have been fatal.

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi: Moderate Indonesia? The Limits of Islamic Democracy

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is a student at Brasenose College, Oxford University, and an adjunct fellow at the Middle East Forum. His website is http://www.aymennjawad.org.

From The American Spectator:

Indonesia -- the world's largest Muslim country by population (with over 200 million Muslims constituting a demographic of just under 90 percent of the population) -- is often held up as an example of a modern, moderate Islamic democracy.

Indeed, this is precisely how David Cameron -- the current UK prime minister -- characterized Indonesia in a visit to the capital Jakarta back in April, addressing students there with the following remarks: "The people of Indonesia can show through democracy there is an alternative to dictatorship and extremism. That here in the country with the biggest Muslim population on the planet, religion and democracy need not be in conflict."

But is this conventional wisdom accurate? To begin with, it is worth noting that as of this year, Indonesia is still denoted "Free" by Freedom House, scoring (on a descending scale of 1 to 7) 2 for political rights and 3 for civil liberties. A report by the think-tank from last year affirmed, "Indonesia is an electoral democracy. In 2004, for the first time, Indonesians directly elected their president and all members of the House of Representatives (DPR), as well as members of a new legislative body, the House of Regional Representatives (DPD)."

These elections -- as well as direct elections for regional leaders that began in 2005 -- have generally been judged free and fair. In addition, Freedom House declared that "Indonesia is home to a vibrant and diverse media environment."

However, these points do not make Indonesia a model of democracy and civil rights for the Muslim world.

To begin with, consider the case of Aceh, an autonomous region of Indonesia in the far north of Sumatra. Aceh rigorously enforces aspects of Islamic law that curtail civil liberties. For example, the sale of alcohol is banned and those caught gambling are subjected to caning. Further, there is a special Islamic police force in the province known as "Wilayatul Hisbah" that oversees observance of a dress code, targeting women wearing shorts or seemingly tight trousers.

Debate also continues over whether adulterers should be beaten publicly -- as is the current practice -- or subject to the punishment of stoning. In fact, the question of whether Islamic law is enforced strictly enough was a talking point behind the election of the provincial governor back in April. The incumbent Irwandi Yusuf, who opposes stoning for adultery, lost out to Zaini Abdullah, who promises to introduce a "purer" form of Shari'a to the province.

It should be noted that Abdullah was a former rebel leader in the Free Aceh Movement, which waged a 30-year insurgency campaign against the central government. Autonomy and local elections came as part of a peace agreement in 2005.

Yusuf, who was elected governor for a five-year term in December 2006, has always been seen as a maverick among the rebel movement that has since morphed into the Aceh Party, which is described by the International Crisis Group as an "autocratic, almost feudal party that brooks no dissent." With the rise of Abdullah, who is strongly backed by the Aceh Party, the latter can consolidate its power in the province.

Aceh was probably the first area in what is now Indonesia to adopt Islam. The Sultanate of Aceh that emerged in 1496 always had a reputation for religious observance and fierce independence. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was renowned for its pirates who regularly conducted raids against Thailand, besides attacking European and American trade convoys in the straits of Malacca. This was one of the motives behind the eventual Dutch conquest of Aceh in 1913.

As scholar and adviser on colonial affairs Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje noted in his work The Acehnese:

From Mohammedanism (which for centuries she [i.e., Aceh] is reputed to have accepted) she really only learnt a large number of dogmas relating to hatred of the infidel without any of their mitigating concomitants; so the Acehnese made a regular business of piracy and man-hunting at the expense of the neighboring non-Mohammedan countries and islands, and considered that they were justified in any act of treachery or violence to European (and latterly to American) traders who came in search of pepper, the staple product of the country. Complaints of robbery and murder on board ships trading in Acehnese parts thus grew to be chronic."

Now, it could be argued that Aceh is only an anomaly in Indonesia. To be sure, the sale of alcohol is allowed elsewhere in Indonesia. In addition, it would be wrong to generalize and claim that Islam as practiced in Aceh is the same across the entire country.

For instance, on the island of Java, which is home to the country's capital of Jakarta and has a population of 138 million, the conversion from Islam to Hinduism was for many only a nominal process, unlike Aceh. Consequently, they practiced a rather syncretic form of the religion, and in recent years there has been to a certain extent a Hindu revival in Java.

Nonetheless, the overall trend is pointing in a negative direction with respect to treatment of religious minorities. In February of last year, a Christian man was convicted of "blasphemy" against Islam and sentenced to five years in prison. For Islamists in Java, this punishment was not enough, and in a subsequent rampage they attacked members of the Ahmadiyya sect that affirms its Muslim identity but is deemed heretical by most orthodox Muslims. At the same time, two churches were burned and a third razed to the ground.

To take another example, in May of this year, on the outskirts of Jakarta, a Muslim mob threw stones and bags of urine at a church on Ascension Day: the culmination of an intimidation campaign that had begun in January.

One could go on (a Christian center burned by a mob believing that a new church was being built in violation of traditional Islamic law), and the problem is that the government has failed to protect religious minorities, with violence against them on the rise.

For concrete statistics, one need only look at a Guardian report from last month, which points out that "last year, the local Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace recorded 244 acts of violence against religious minorities -- nearly double the 2007 figure."

The Guardian article, which focuses on the case of a civil servant facing a prison sentence for posting "God doesn't exist" on Facebook, also points to the Indonesian Communion of Churches, which says that around "80 churches have been closed each year since President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono took power in 2004, and an additional 1,000 congregations have faced harassment."

In the case of West Papua, which has like Aceh been the center of a separatist movement, it is reported that the Indonesian security forces are actively persecuting Christians (see here as well).

This is exactly reminiscent of the security forces' behavior not only in what is now East Timor but also in the Maluku Islands in 2000-2002, where many Indonesian soldiers cooperated with the Islamist militant group Laskar Jihad's campaign against Christian Melanesians that killed up to 10,000 Christians.

The trend towards increasing intolerance was also noted by the liberal Muslim writer Irshad Manji, who faced harassment multiple times during her recent book tour in Indonesia to promote her book Allah, Liberty, and Love, which has now been banned in neighboring Malaysia.

Compared with much of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as countries like Pakistan, Indonesia is distant from Islamist theocracy. It should be noted that many of the reports linked to above come from Indonesian outlets like the Jakarta Post. This indicates a commendable degree of press freedom that is by contrast being increasingly eroded in Turkey, which is also upheld as a model for the Muslim world but leads the globe in the number of imprisoned journalists.

Nevertheless, the recent trends in Indonesia point to an environment increasingly intolerant of religious minorities and civil liberties: not only in Aceh, but also the nation in general.

Observers often point to an influx of Wahhabi clerics from the Middle East as the cause, but in my view one should also bear in mind that what Daniel Pipes terms the "Islamic revival," which began in the 1970s on a global scale, is deeply rooted in issues of identity and cannot simply be put down to oil revenues flowing into Saudi Arabia, has not quite run out of steam.

In sum, one cannot put it any better than the headline of an op-ed by Andreas Harsono in the New York Times: Indonesia today is "no model for Muslim democracy."

Update from June 6, 2012: Today comes a report in the Jakarta Post, in which an Indonesian think-tank called Charta Politika discusses encroachment of Shari'a into local politics, mentioning the specific case of the city of Taskimalaya in West Java that will soon require all Muslim women -- visitors or residents -- to wear veils. Again, it should be emphasized that the secular trend that was certainly apparent in the early 1970s is being reversed.

New York Times‎ Op-Ed: "Moderate" Indonesia Not so Moderate

I've made several posts about this in relation to Indonesia, Malaysia and Turkey who are all continually mislabeled by the media and apologists as "moderate".

Their logic goes something like this; what? Malaysia has banned homosexuals and the portrayal of homosexual characters from appearing on television, radio or in movies? Well, Iran has executed 4,000 homosexuals between 1979-1999, so Malaysia is moderate!

As you're probably all aware, apologists often try to paint critics (even non-white critics such as myself) as racist bigots. But the truth is, it is them who are the bigots for holding followers of Islam and Islam-dominated governments to a much lower moral standard than the rest of us.

Thankfully, the tide appears to be turning.

Someone else (I forget who) noted that Turkey had recently been referred to as "semi-democratic" by a mainstream media outlet, and now this by Andreas Harsono (a researcher for the Asia division at Human Rights Watch) on Indonesia.

As another blogger pointed out, "yet again, the mainstream media is behind the game, for the trampling of minority religions by this, the largest Muslim majority nation in the world, has been regularly reported in blogs for years now. Still, it's good to see some straight reporting from 'the newspaper of record'"

From The New York Times:

IT is fashionable these days for Western leaders to praise Indonesia as a model Muslim democracy. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has declared, “If you want to know whether Islam, democracy, modernity and women’s rights can coexist, go to Indonesia.” And last month Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, lauded Indonesia for showing that “religion and democracy need not be in conflict.”

Tell that to Asia Lumbantoruan, a Christian elder whose congregation outside Jakarta has recently had two of its partially built churches burned down by Islamist militants. He was stabbed by these extremists while defending a third site from attack in September 2010.

This week in Geneva, the United Nations is reviewing Indonesia’s human rights record. It should call on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to crack down on extremists and protect minorities. While Indonesia has made great strides in consolidating a stable, democratic government after five decades of authoritarian rule, the country is by no means a bastion of tolerance. The rights of religious and ethnic minorities are routinely trampled. While Indonesia’s Constitution protects freedom of religion, regulations against blasphemy and proselytizing are routinely used to prosecute atheists, Bahais, Christians, Shiites, Sufis and members of the Ahmadiyya faith — a Muslim sect declared to be deviant in many Islamic countries. By 2010, Indonesia had over 150 religiously motivated regulations restricting minorities’ rights.

In 2006, Mr. Yudhoyono, in a new decree on “religious harmony,” tightened criteria for building a house of worship. The decree is enforced only on religious minorities — often when Islamists pressure local officials not to authorize the construction of Christian churches or to harass and intimidate those worshiping in “illegal” churches, which lack official registration. More than 400 such churches have been closed since Mr. Yudhoyono took office in 2004.

Although the government has cracked down on Jemaah Islamiyah, an Al Qaeda affiliate that has bombed hotels, bars and embassies, it has not intervened to stop other Islamist militants who regularly commit less publicized crimes against religious minorities. Mr. Yudhoyono’s government is reluctant to take them on because it rules Indonesia in a coalition with intolerant Islamist political parties.

Mr. Yudhoyono is not simply turning a blind eye; he has actively courted conservative Islamist elements and relies on them to maintain his majority in Parliament, even granting them key cabinet positions. These appointments send a message to Indonesia’s population and embolden Islamist extremists to use violence against minorities.

In August 2011, for example, Muslim militants burned down three Christian churches on Sumatra. No one was charged and officials have prevented the congregations from rebuilding their churches. And on the outskirts of Jakarta, two municipalities have refused to obey Supreme Court orders to reopen two sealed churches; Mr. Yudhoyono claimed he had no authority to intervene.

Christians are not the only targets. In June 2008, the Yudhoyono administration issued a decree requiring the Ahmadiyya sect to “stop spreading interpretations and activities that deviate from the principal teachings of Islam,” including its fundamental belief that there was a prophet after Muhammad. The government said the decree was necessary to prevent violence against the sect. But provincial and local governments used the decree to write even stricter regulations. Muslim militants, who consider the Ahmadiyya heretics, then forcibly shut down more than 30 Ahmadiyya mosques.

In the deadliest attack, in western Java in February 2011, three Ahmadiyya men were killed. A cameraman recorded the violence, and versions of it were posted on YouTube. An Indonesian court eventually prosecuted 12 militants for the crime, but handed down paltry sentences of only four to six months. Mr. Yudhoyono has also failed to protect ethnic minorities who have peacefully called for independence in the country’s eastern regions of Papua and the Molucca Islands. During demonstrations in Papua on May 1, one protester was killed and 13 were arrested. And last October, the government brutally suppressed the Papuan People’s Congress, beating dozens and killing three people. While protesters were jailed and charged with treason, the police chief in charge of security that day was promoted.

Almost 100 people remain in prison for peacefully protesting. Dozens are ill, but the government has denied them proper treatment, claiming it lacks the money. Even the Suharto dictatorship allowed the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit political prisoners, yet the Yudhoyono government has banned the I.C.R.C. from working in Papua.

Instead of praising Indonesia, nations that support tolerance and free speech should publicly demand that Indonesia respect religious freedom, release political prisoners and lift restrictions on media and human rights groups in Papua.

Mr. Yudhoyono needs to take charge of this situation by revoking discriminatory regulations, demanding that his coalition partners respect the religious freedom of all minorities in word and in deed, and enforcing the constitutional protection of freedom of worship. He must also make it crystal clear that Islamist hard-liners who commit or incite violence and the police who fail to protect the victims will be punished. Only then will Indonesia be deserving of Mr. Cameron and Mrs. Clinton’s praise.

Muslims (a.k.a. "Asians") and their Persecution of Non-Muslim Asians in the UK

Race hate fear over attacks on Sikhs

POLICE and community leaders say they are struggling to contain racial tensions in Derby after a young Sikh was badly hurt when ambushed by a gang of Muslims carrying hammers and crowbars.

Harjit Singh Sandhu, 22, was in hospital with a broken leg, ankle and nose and cuts to his face and head after being attacked for 20 minutes in the Normanton area on Monday.

About 50 Sikh youths went on to the streets to protest at the rising number of assaults by Muslim youths, but were dispersed by police. [...]  Harninder Singh, a close friend of Mr Sandhu, said: "It was a totally unprovoked attack and the worst thing was he ran into a few Muslim shops for help and received none. When they had finished he was absolutely covered in blood. I was with him last Wednesday when Muslim lads mounted the pavement and tried to run him over." 

Battered Stepney man in recovery

Monzur Rahman was left with a broken arm, damaged eye and lying unconscious in the street after the violent attack earlier this month.

The 39-year-old atheist claims he was brutally set upon by a pack of youths for failing to observe Ramadan. [...] He claims he was then approached by a group of around ten young men who asked him why he wasn’t observing Ramadan. When he replied that he was an atheist they are believed to have chased him to nearby Walburgh Street, attacking him outside his home.

Monzur was reportedly battered until unconscious and later taken to the Royal London Hospital. His left arm was broken and metal bolts later put in.

Minister beaten after clashing with Muslims on his TV show

A [Pakistan-born] Christian minister who has had heated arguments with Muslims on his TV Gospel show has been brutally attacked by three men who ripped off his cross and warned: ‘If you go back to the studio, we’ll break your legs.' [...] Mr Samuel, based at Heston United Reformed Church, West London, said: ‘He put his hand into my window, which was half open, and grabbed my hair and opened the door.

He started slapping my face and punching my neck. He was trying to smash my head on the steering wheel. Then he grabbed my cross and pulled it off and it fell on the floor. He was swearing. The other two men came from the car and took my laptop and Bible.’ [...]  He said that he, his wife Louisa, 48, and his son Naveed, 19, now fear for their safety, and police have given them panic alarms. ‘I am frightened and depressed,’ he said. ‘My show is not confrontational.’

Hindu girl tells of school hall hammer attack

A TEENAGE Hindu girl who suffered a fractured skull when a gang of Muslim youths rampaged through her school with hammers and axes told of her ordeal yesterday.

Radhika Shukla, 15, was walking to the dinner hall at Derby Moor Community School when up to 10 youths burst in, smashing more than 40 windows and assaulting staff and pupils.

Radhika was chased, pushed to the floor and hit on the head with a hammer. She said: "I was crying and trying to roll up in a ball as he was hitting me. He was telling me he was going to kill me. I just closed my eyes and hoped he would stop."

She suffered a fractured skull, internal bleeding in her ear, a black eye and bruising on her back and shoulders. [...] Muslim youths had sprayed graffiti supporting Osama bin Laden on a school building, and even Muslim children from Derby Moor had joined in the attack. Two members of staff and four other pupils were injured.

Sikh man 'was beaten up by gang in street'

A Sikh man told a jury he was beaten up by a group of Muslim-looking men who knocked off his turban and pulled off his necklace and religious pendant.

The 25-year-old alleged victim suffered a cut head and other injuries after being hit to the ground and struck with a weapon, possibly a spanner, it was claimed. [...] He looked out to see five or six Asian males, of Muslim appearance and dress, whom he did not know. [...] The court heard the necklace and religious pendant were later found and returned to the complainant.

Mark Achurch, prosecuting, said one of the witnesses claimed he heard members of the group shouting "Allah, Allah" during the alleged attack.

Five in court on shopkeeper murder

Five men have appeared in court accused of murdering a shopkeeper who was beaten to death during a robbery at his store.

Umare Aslam, 20, Muawaz Khalid, 20, Shoaib Khan, 18, Nabeel Shafi, 18, and Rehman Afzal, 18, are charged with the murder and robbery of Huddersfield shopkeeper Gurmail Singh.

Mr Singh, 63, died from head injuries after he was struck at least nine times with a weapon, believed to be a hammer, in the shop in the Cowcliffe area of Huddersfield on February 20.

Police protect girls forced to convert to Islam

Extremist Muslims who force vulnerable teenage girls to convert to Islam are being targeted by police, Met chief Sir Ian Blair has revealed.

 Police are working with universities to clamp down on "aggressive conversions" during which girls are beaten up and forced to abandon university courses.

The Hindu Forum of Britain claims hundreds of mostly Sikh and Hindu girls have been intimidated by Muslim men who take them out on dates before terrorising them until they convert.

Sir Ian spoke about the problem at a conference organised by the forum.

Wear headscarf or face death, woman told in Britain

A non-Muslim woman in Britain, who wears Western clothes, was told to wear a hijab or face death, a media report said Monday.

The non-Muslim Asian pharmacist in Whitechapel said she was told to cover up with a hijab headscarf or face boycott, the media report said.

She said that later a second man said: 'If you keep doing these things, we will kill you.'

UK’s Hindu And Sikh Organizations Also Accused Muslim Groups Of Sexually Targeting Their Communities

A day after UKs’ former home secretary Jack Straw blamed some Pakistani Muslim men for targeting “vulnerable” White girls sexually, UK’s Hindu and Sikh organizations also publicly accused Muslim groups of the same offence. [...] Sikhs and Hindus are annoyed that Straw had shown concern for White girls and not the Hindu and the Sikh teenage girls who have been coaxed by some Pakistani men for sex and religious conversion.

“Straw does other communities a disservice by suggesting that only white girls were targets of this predatory behaviour. We raised the issue of our girls with the previous government and the police on several occasions over the last decade. This phenomenon has been there because a minority of Islamic extremists view all ‘non believers’ as legitimate targets,” said director NSO Inderjit Singh.

Minister to take legal action after radio show cancelled

A minister is taking legal action against a radio station which allegedly cancelled his show because his defence of Christianity was offensive to Muslims. [...] The dispute arose during a show where Mr Masih and his co-presenter Asif Mall debated with prominent Muslim speaker Zakir Naik, who the pair said had patronised Christianity during a previous speaking appearance. [...] Mr Mall then accused the guest of having a "superficial knowledge" of holy texts, including the Bible and the Koran, and his comment is said to have offended followers of Islam. 

Mr Masih made an on-air apology, he said, reading from a statement prepared by station manager Javed Sattar, but refused to apologise in person at Glasgow's Central Mosque because he did not feel he had anything to apologise for, and feared for his safety should he appear in person.

Muslim students preventing Hindus from using QMU's Multi-faith centre

A row has broken out at Queen Mary University, London about the use of its multi-faith centre. The National Hindu Students Forum (UK) claims that members of the Queen Mary’s Islamic Society have been physically preventing students of the university’s Hindu society from offering prayers at the multi-faith centre on the premises by standing 15 students at the door. The last Hindu prayer in the evenings is normally at 6pm, but the Muslim group who have a prayer session before the Hindus say that there is "no demand for the use of the multifaith centre by other faith communities" and they cannot therefore allow Hindus to use the premises even though they have a valid booking for its use. 

The Islamic Society refuses to move out of the room even though we have a booking to use it for this week (13 March 2009). They did not even allow security to enter the premises and we were left standing outside the room unable to offer our prayers,” explained Kajal Valani, Chair of the National Hindu Students Forum. “The men who stood barricading the door issued verbal threats to us. We are going there again this evening, and we await to see if good sense will prevail.” 

Minority Report: Freshers week 'seduction website' angers Sikhs

Sikhs have angrily condemned a website (left) which appears to be run by young male Muslims and boasts about seducing Sikh women during freshers week at university.

 The website contains pictures of at least 25 Sikh women which the site's administrators claim to have seduced alongside highly provocative remarks about the women and the Sikh religion.

 Timed to coincide with the start of the university year - described in the site as a time when "[Muslim] soldiers go hunting for Sikh slappers" - the website's creators encourage friends and readers to send in pictures of Sikh women they have seduced during freshers week.

Machine-gun thug killed 'blameless' pair in a row over parking 

After his car was blocked in by a van, Ayub Khan went to fetch a MAC-10 pistol capable of firing 1,000 rounds a minute.

Khan, then only 20, gunned down hotelier Amarjit Singh Tiwana and his nephew Rajinder Singh Tiwana at point-blank range.

He then turned the weapon on Amarjit’s daughter Harjinder but did not fire – possibly because the gun had jammed.

Khan fled the country after the attack but was extradited from Bangladesh in 2010. [...]

Harjinder Tiwana watched in horror as the gunman aimed the gun at her, before the gang fled with hoods pulled over their faces. In February 2004 she identified Khan as the gunman. She told the court: ‘I will never forget the face of the man who murdered my father.’

Mobile phone evidence revealed that after leaving the scene Khan repeatedly phoned another man, Abu Bakr Mansha Khan – who was later jailed for six years in 2006 for plotting to kill a decorated British soldier, Corporal Mark Byles.