Religion Dispatches
…e uncovering the face is either prohibited or severely restricted, like in Saudi Arabia itself, for the hajj, the face must be uncovered. Technically, hajj is one long ritual and women are also prohibited to cover the face for the other ritual performances like salah. But what is the idea behind a woman not having any other particular specifications for ihram? Well, honestly I have no idea. It does mean she can wear red, or blue or green if she wa…
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…hief of staff and closest advisor, Huma Abedin, an Indian Muslim raised in Saudi Arabia. The sources of threat and emasculation sit at the table. Insidious workings are afoot. Trump is the political master of conspiracy theories, of infiltration and deceit, imagining amazing things such as the Chinese invention of global warming to undercut American production. Right-wing religious, too, tend to look behind the surface flux for both divine and nef…
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…: Independent justice reform group criticizes Aceh’s harsh anti-LGBT legal code The Jakarta Post reported on April 1 that the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform “has lambasted the Aceh administration’s Islamic criminal code bylaw, or Qanun Jinayat, saying it could potentially provoke discrimination and over-criminalization of LGBT communities and other vulnerable groups.” The Aceh province is governed by the conservative Islamist legal code. No…
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…hear the word “Shari’ah” and reflexively think of oppressive regimes like Saudi Arabia. Fish heightens such anxieties when he passes along a generalization about the difference between Muslims and the West made by Ann Black in her book Shari’a in the West (Oxford, 2010), “Muslims do not conceptualize Islam in terms of the Westernized sociological categorization of religion which places the individual at the centre of all analyses.” This isolated…
Read More…latter. Zuhura’s question is simple. Why ban Muslim women from fasting because of their period? I use the word women are exempted, because to make it a ban overlooks its corollary with other types of bleeding, thereby making menstruation some kind of problem. And although this problem has resulted, the fact that women are also exempted when not menstruating but lactating or pregnant I use to keep away from the word “ban.” If it was a ban then ther…
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…uples. The third criterion Dr. King identifies is that “an unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.” For same sex couples to have legal access just like heterosexual couples…
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…inline counterparts. So in 1954, Congress enacted the provision of the tax code at stake in Gaylor v. Mnuchin. A House committee said that the aim of the new subsection was to treat equally those ministers for whom churches provided housing and those who were paid housing allowances instead. The sponsor of the legislation, Illinois Democratic Rep. Peter Mack, justified the law in terms resonant of the fight against communism: Certainly, in these t…
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…t elicited a real reaction from the Israeli Ambassador to the US. While in Saudi Arabia, Trump laid hands on a glowing globe and joined in a traditional sword dance. In Israel, the first lady swatted away his hand and he offered a hasty, strangely timed corrective to the press, who, he says “got another story wrong” because he “never mentioned the word Israel” when speaking with Russians in the Oval Office. At the Vatican, Trump paused for a much-…
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…t and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries—Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In Kuwait, convicted homosexuals could face up to 10 years in prison, if the engaged parties are under the age of 21. Haiti: Senate votes to ban marriage and pro-LGBT advocacy, citing ‘deep religious beliefs’ The Senate voted to ban same-sex couples from getting married and to an “public demonstration of support” for homosexuality, affirming the tr…
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…Rights Watch has consistently criticized in countries as diverse as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Nigeria, among others. International human rights law supports the principle that everyone should be able form a family as he or she sees fit. Guatemala: Evangelical leaders back ban on marriage equality, prison sentences for abortion Legislation banning same-sex couples from getting married was introduced in Guatemala; the bill would also imprison…
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