I am proud to announce the first release of Nurani, Meedan’s platform for cross-language scriptural discussion for Muslim and Christian scholars managed by the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme at the University of Cambridge, a programme of the Faculty of Divinity.

Nurani is a cross-language open source platform for inter-religious dialogue developed by Meedan. The goal is to facilitate improved understanding between different faith communities and between speakers of Arabic and English.

Nurani achieves this by enabling users to share and discuss scriptural and commentary texts from their faith traditions in two languages – Arabic and English – and annotate important terms and concepts from these texts and dialogues into a cross-language glossary. Test dialogues are already taking place behind the scenes, and there are exciting plans afoot for a forthcoming series of  dialogues that is public.

The platform, which is powered by open source technology developed by Meedan, was designed primarily for scholars taking part in an established practice of inter-faith dialogue developed by the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme over the past ten years called Scriptural Reasoning. The goal of Scriptural Reasoning is not to reach consensus, but rather to explore how we read texts and so better understand each other.

At Meedan, we paid close attention to Scriptural Reasoning in developing the site and talking extensively to prospective users about what they needed from it.  As part of this, I was lucky to observe a three-day academic Scriptural Reasoning forum in Cambridge and a civic Scriptural Reasoning group attended by 80 participants in the city. We also held test dialogues – synchronous and asynchronous, annotative and threaded – using a variety of existing software.

From these experiences, many of the key features of Nurani were developed:

• the discussion page, for example, features a palette of text passages gathered by a moderator at the top of the page, imitating the Scriptural Reasoning text packs used in face-to-face settings;
• the prominent attention to profile images is designed to help build trust and give users the sense they are seated around a table;
• the Nurani glossary was designed to encourage discussions around the precise meanings of important terms, and their differences in different languages and faiths, as observed in live Scriptural Reasoning;
• discussions are facilitated by a moderator who invites users and puts a time limit on the discussion, as in Scriptural Reasoning workshops and symposia.

We are also grateful to the many people in the field who we consulted about their motivations for using a site like this, including Grand Mufti of Egypt, Cairo Sheikh Ali Gomaa, Sheikhs Amr Wardani and Mahmoud Shabieb at Dar al-Iftaa, Cairo, internationally recognised translator Tarek Ghanem, Director of the  Woolf Institute for Muslim-Jewish Understanding Yousef Meri, AUD scholar and Tafsir translator Feras Hamza, University of Toronto and Al-Azhar trained scholar of fiqh Ahmed Saleh, and Tarek Elgawhary, former adviser to Ali Gomaa and Director of the Coexist Foundation’s US office.

Nurani was initially conceived of as a platform for dialogue around the A Common Word initiative (hence the colour scheme of the brand) and so supports bi-lateral Muslim-Christian discussion.  However, given CIP’s focus on the three Abrahamic faiths more broadly, we expect to develop other instances of the platform under different branding for different configurations of language and faith communities. For example,  we expect to replicate the technology under the branding of ScripturalReasoning.org for three-faith Jewish-Christian-Muslim dialogue, particularly civic dialogue, in the near future. Because the technology is modular, it can accommodate  many different configurations of discussions flexibly.

The long term goal is a federated system of discussion fora (Nurani, ScripturalReasoning.org and others run by new partners) drawing upon a common textual resource (the library).  The next phase in this vision is to be funded over 18 months by a UK Research Council Digital Economy Grant with two new developer positions to be hired at Cambridge with project management, design and strategy provided by Meedan.

Under this grant, we aim to develop the world’s first inter-faith library with available translations, including scriptures, commentary texts and other primary religious literature. Not only should users of Nurani and other fora built from the Meedan stack be able to draw seamlessly on this library for citations and translations, but visitors to the library itself should be able to see published discussion content alongside the appropriate passage. Additionally, glossary terms should provide dynamic concordance of references and linkages across the faith traditions for comparison and exploration. We think it’s a powerful vision for taking our users on a new journey of discovery and learning. To learn more about this please contact gweyman [at] meedan.net.

We hope you will soon have the chance to explore Nurani discussions and take part yourself. If you would like to be considered for a future dialogue series on Nurani or ScripturalReasoning.org send an email to cip@divinity.cam.ac.uk.

We are grateful to all the hard work and commitment of Kairm Ratib, Chris Blow, Zeinab Samir, and Andrea Burton in the development of Nurani.

A mockup of how the Nurani Library might look, developed by George Weyman and Chris Blow.

Earlier this year, I was invited to sit in on a theological gathering at Cambridge University.  With few expectations about what I was to experience, I turned up on the first morning armed with a pen and paper, and a cup of fresh coffee. Over three intense days, I watched scholars from as far afield as Asia, North America, the Middle East and Russia pour over passages of scripture in small mixed faith groups.  Although the academic surroundings were familiar to me, I was to be exposed to a form of shared study that I had never witnessed before.

The study group was taking part in a form of inter-faith discussion called Scriptural Reasoning (SR).  It involves members of different religious traditions meeting together in small groups to discuss extracts from their sacred or authoritative texts together.  Texts are selected by members of each faith, and questions are posed from right round the table as part of a shared effort to unravel meaning from these abundantly layered texts.  A moderator keeps the discussion on track and introduces new topics.

Ed Bice, Meedan CEO, talks with former Academic Director of CIP Dr Nick Adams and Prof Bob Gibbs, director of Jackman Humanities Institute during meetings in Cairo, May 2010.

As I was to learn, SR is a practice rich in possibilities.  SR done well allows participants to explore their authoritative texts in new ways, to learn to explain them, and to better understand the practices of reading those texts by which their judgments are shaped. The aim is not to convert your co-participants or show how one faith is superior, but to come away both a more learned, confident, and articulate member of your faith tradition and a citizen more aware of the lived traditions of other faiths. As Mike Higton, academic director of the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme, has argued, this is a practice with a potential for ‘transformational impact’ where religious commitment and commitment to shared public discourse are often assumed to be opposed.

In SR there are no pacts, no signed statements of consensus at the end of a meeting, in fact in the meeting I witnessed there was virtually no tangible outcome bar short meditations the participants wrote in a closing exercise. Rather there is more understanding and a sense of stronger friendship.   Through shared study, Scriptural Reasoners learn what Nick Adams has described as ‘collegiality’ – a kind of cooperative civility that can transform relationships and plausibly provide a bulwark against religious hostility.

Since 2009, Meedan has been working with the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme to explore ways to take these forms of scriptural study online so that the resulting dialogues can be more sustainable, more accessible and more polyglot.  We have done lots of hard work, conducting countless consultations and research interviews, designing tools and building partnerships. But most importantly here, I want to think about the ways in which the approaches of SR could provide a lesson for other kinds of cross-cultural interaction.

I want to ask the question, what are the ingredients of a successful cross-cultural encounter? In SR there is something on the table – scripture – and a shared acknowledgement that the participants have broadly similar relationships to their respective scriptures (ie. These scriptures are sacred and need to be treated sensitively – although it is worth pointing out that SR participants do not assume that the meaning and function of these scriptures are equivalent across the different faiths).  Everyone at the table also signs up to a broadly common approach to the discussion (ie. Scriptural Reasoning with a facilitator guiding the interaction).  Beyond that, there is a recognition that there will be disagreement (conducted in a civil way).

Could these approaches – civility, shared interest, and a common approach to shared study – be applied to other forms of dialogue entirely? Could you, for example, bring citizens with extracts from their respective constitutions into dialogue? Could you have a set of baseball enthusiasts sit down with a set of football enthusiasts, and study sections of their rulebooks?  Or what about exploring canonical histories of common events?

This brings me to news.meedan.net – Meedan’s attempt to re-think how we collaborate in ‘writing the first version of history’. If you have different linguistic and cultural communities sharing their narratives as events of common interest are happening, you can begin to build a tapestry of understanding. Searching for sources, annotating links and commentaries and engaging in conversations is a form of shared study that demands civility and sensitivity.  We may never end up with agreement, but we may end up with better quality disagreement, collegiality and a sense of common understanding.

As the sole London-based member of Meedan’s far flung team (we have developers in Damascus, Amman, San Francisco and Portland, not to mention our team of editors and translators across the Middle East), I was glad to have some company last week when some of my colleagues dropped in for a visit.

King's College, Cambridge courtesy of inkelv1122 on Flickr.

The occasion was a two-day gathering at the University of Cambridge with the academic partners behind our inter-faith project. We are working on a multi-year project with the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme to develop cross-language approaches to inter-faith study and discussion online.  It is a very exciting project which has the potential to provide new directions not just in models of inter-faith engagement, but in the digital humanities too.

A view of the inter-faith platform discussion page in English with model content provided by Mike Higton. Note this is work in progress.

We were joined at the meetings by members of CIP’s core staff, including the world renowned director of the programme, Professor David Ford, as well as scholars from a series of other key partners: Sohail Nakhooda, inter-faith research fellow at Kalam Research and Media; Director of the Jackman Humanities Institute, Professor Robert Gibbs; Professor in Foundations of Information at the University of Toronto, Brian Cantwell Smith; Director of Development for the Cambridge Abraham Project and former Head of Religion and Ethics at the BBC, Michael Wakelin; and former academic director at CIP, Dr Nicholas Adams.

The meetings provided us with an opportunity to show the platform development to date (due for a more formal release in early 2011), explore use cases and discuss the next phase of development of the tools. We paid particular attention to the cross-language tools we hope will set this platform apart in the field: the glossary, the discussion and annotation tools, and the text library.

The aim of this work is to bring texts to life through shared study.  Scholars will be able to explore and learn about practices of reasoning across different faiths in a collaborative environment.  If you would like to learn more or contribute suggestions, contact me on Twitter.

Taken from the Meedan blog.

On Wednesday 8 September, with the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks still three days away, Kabul police went on high alert for violent protests in the Afghan capital. The move was triggered not by the repercussions of a local conflict, but the actions of a little-known American church pastor thousands of miles away in Florida who was planning to burn copies of the Qur’an in a protest against what he called ‘radical Islam’.

The crisis, which elicited stark warnings from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan General David Petraeus, and NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, followed weeks of intense debate in the United States about the viability of establishing a mosque and inter-faith center in the Manhattan district adjacent to Groud Zero. Detractors of the plan spoke in apocalyptic terms, referring variously to the ‘Ground Zero mosque’ as a plan to establish a ‘Muslim Caliphate on the ashes of Ground Zero’ and a ‘center for training terrorists’.

Just a week before Pastor Terry Jones’ controversial move, bottles, cans, stones and three smoke bombs were thrown in the northern English town of Bradford at a protest by the English Defence League (EDL), a far right group that aims to counter the ‘Jihad movement based in England’. The group has rallied in many British cities, each time bringing wide media attention to its actions. The reason broadcasters make sure to cover EDL events, even though protests are often small, is that they are almost guaranteed to result in pictures of violence. The EDL’s founder, Tommy Robinson, in turn admitted that his movement in part grew up in response to a tiny vociferous protest by some very extreme Muslims who greeted the homecoming of the 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment with banners reading “Butchers of Basra” and “Anglian soldiers go to hell”.

Picture courtesy Yannig Van de Wouwer under creative commons license.

In an interconnected world, mass media can lose sight of the boundaries between the local and obscure on the one hand, and the global on the other. A pastor’s tiny and inane protest becomes an issue of global significance. But really it shouldn’t be.

Syrian school students tussle to be in shot. Picture by Itab Azzam.

A BBC Open University series is providing a UK audience with a rare view of life inside Syria’s schools.

The Syrian Schools series gives UK viewers an unprecedented opportunity to learn what ‘Syrians are really like and what hopes and aspirations they have’, according to the series’ associate producer Itab Azzam.

The first hour-long episode, broadcast last night on BBC 4 and available on the BBC iPlayer, shows students debating with teachers about the importance of the hijab, examines the role of the ruling Ba’ath party in schools and considers the taboo topic of Iraqis Christians living in Damascus.

Azzam says the film can bring an important new perspective on the Arab republic.

“The aim of series is to look at education and show life as it is lived in syria, from the perspective of ordinary school pupils, their families and teachers,” she said in a Skype interview.

“In Britain people rarely see the human face of Syria.”

According to Azzam, the film benefited from the involvement of the British Syrian Society which helped gain official access so that producers could film students and teachers in their daily lives.

The Ministry of Education was given the opportunity to review the films before broadcast but an access agreement prevented censorship beyond factual inaccuracies.

“The Syrian Government didn’t have any editorial rights, only factual, as we signed an access agreement that clearly stated that,” she said.

With an appearance from Syria’s glamorous first lady – who was born and brought up in the UK – the film gives a sense of young Syrians working to reconcile tradition with a modern education.

Asma Al-Assad asks the students of an all-girls school what they would do if a husband urged them to drop their careers and ambitions before marriage.

“We could get married and continue working,” says one.

“If he loves me he has to understand what makes me happy,” says another.

Soon after, Mrs. Al-Assad is talking to the girls about the need for critical skills when the Muslim Call to Prayer begins.

A wry smile crosses her face.

In another scene, a devout Muslim student who memorized the Qu’ran by the age of 14 explains why she believes education is important.

“Maybe people in the west think that Arabs only fast and pray and stuff but we have knowledge,” Dua’a says.

“God urged us to seek knowledge.”

But despite a thirst for knowledge in Syria, teaching could be better, Azzam suggests.

“The education in Syria still suffers. It needs more interaction between teachers and students.

“The education system does not allow students to think for themselves because there is a lot of memorization that exhausts students. It is merely lecturing.

“This year the Ministry of Education is starting to change the curricula to be more interactive, but the key issue is that they don’t have trained teachers who can adapt to the change.

“If a teacher studied history in university for example then they are eligible to teach history in schools. And that applies to all subjects,” she adds.

Read more:

Review in the Scotsman by Paul Whitelaw

Review in the New Statesman by Rachel Cooke

*Disclaimer: Itab Azzam is a friend who I met in Syria 2005/6.

A bride's hands. Picture courtesy of the Humanette on Flickr.

The girl at the center of a child marriage dispute in Saudi Arabia has unexpectedly withdrawn her petition for divorce.

The 12-year-old told the court in Buraidah, Al-Qasim province, that her marriage to an 80-year-old man had her full agreement, the news website Okaz reported.

“I agree to the marriage. I have no objection. This is in filial respect to my father and obedience to his wish,” she said despite earlier objections from her mother.

The story was brought to light after the girl’s divorced mother reported the marriage to the Human Rights Commission (HRC) and asked for it to be ended.

The man at the center of the row, who was featured in a picture interview with Al Riyadh – Saudi’s national daily newspaper, insisted he had done nothing wrong and said the girl and her father consented to the marriage.

Reports suggest he won the girl’s affections after he offered her toys and paid her father a dowry worth USD $22,700.

The latest twist was greeted with interest in the Saudi media, where questions were raised about what brought about the girl’s change of heart, as the Saudi news website Okaz reported:

The new turn of events in the case which has become the focus of public opinion, has raised question marks. Attorney Salih al-Debibi who was hired by Mawadda, a charity organization, said that the mother never told him in person of her wish to drop the case and did not even inform the organization that adopted the case from the beginning.

وأثار التغيير الحاصل في مسار القضية التي تحولت إلى قضية رأي عام، علامات استفهام المتابعين لها، إذ أكد لـ «عكاظ» المحامي صالح الدبيبي والذي وكلته جمعية مودة الخيرية في القضية، أن الأم لم تبلغه شخصيا بالتنازل عن القضية، كما لم تبلّغ الجمعية التي تصدت للجمعية منذ البداية

One commenter to the website going by the name of Umm Lana was outraged that such a young girl could be held responsible for her decision to marry a man seven decades older than her:

this is marriage not a game .. I wish the decision was for the human rights committee and that her family had no power to change it .. I got married when I was 18, I was a child I do not remember anything about my first years of marriage!! How would such girl be wedded to a man who is 70 years older?!!!!!!!!

.دا زواج مو لعب .. ياريت الحكم يكون بيد لجنه حقوق الانسان بدون مايكوزن لاهلها اي قدره على تفيير القرار …انا اتزوجت وانا عمري 18 وانا كنت طفله لا اتذكر من حياتي الزوجيه في بدايتها شيء !! كيف بهذي البنت الي زوجها اكبر منها ب 70 سنه

A Saudi user on Meedan.net agreed, suggesting men who opt for such marriages might be ‘mentally disturbed’ or ‘deviant’:

I am against this kind of marriage because marriage is about affinity and cordiality before it is about sensual pleasure. I think that those who go for this type of marriage are mentally disturbed and deviated from the right path and the higher purposes of marriage. It is unacceptable to use the pretext that religion permitted him four wives; there are conditions for polygamy.

أنا ضد هاذا النوع من الزواج لان الزواج ألفه وموده قبل ان تكون استمتاع جنسي واعتقد ان من يقبل على هاذا النوع من الزواج انه يعاني اظطرابا عقليا وفاقدا للصواب ومحيدا عن الهدف الاسمى لمعنى الزواج وليس مقبول مايتحجج به من ان الشرع احل له أربع زوجات فهناك شروط يجب توفرها لمن يريد الزواج بأخرى

But opinions on the case in Saudi Arabia are divided.  Though Al-Qasim province is often derided by city liberals as behind the times, the debate about child marriage reaches all corners of the Kingdom.

Also commenting on Meedan.net, a Saudi user called lxuslx showed  support for child marriage suggesting the greater social problem instead lay with violent husbands:

I am for marrying young girls. What’s the problem with that? It’s utmost pleasure actually, and this was what I had with my wife, and nothing went wrong. The whole problem lies in violence, so the husband can treat his wife gently, provided that he is much much younger than 80 years old. I guess 30 or younger would be okay.

أنا ممن يؤيد الزواج من صغيرات فما المانع مكن ذلك فقمة المتعة فيها فام زوجتي تزوجت وهي بهذا السن ولم يحصل شي المشكله تمكن بالعنف فقط
لكن بإستطاعة الزوج ان يعاملها برفق لكن بشرط أن يكون الزوج أصغر من ذلك بكثير وليس عمره ٨0 سنه بل لا مانع بعمر الثلاثين أو اقل

Perhaps the most common view though relates to whether child marriages meet the requirements of Islamic law.  In this respect, a commenter on the Al Arabiya news site felt there was no room for debate:

The question that poses itself is: is there anything in our Islamic Shari’a that prevents this marriage? It satisfies the conditions of the marriage contract. We want proof from the Quran and the Sunnah, not from human rights laws.

السؤال الذي يطرح نفسه هل في شريعتنا الإسلامية ماينص على منع هذا الزواج طالما استكمل شروط عقد النكاح . نريد دليلا من القران والسنة وليس من قوانين حقوق الإنسان

Switzerland's anti-Minaret campaign poster. Picture by rytc.

By Tom Trewinnard.

Switzerland’s controversial referendum decision to ban the construction of new minarets for Swiss mosques has caused varying degrees of concern in the Arab world, and attracted a wide ranging debate about the reasons behind the decision.

Independent online daily Nawwar reports that amongst observers, whether Swiss, Arab, or Muslims of any ethnicity “understanding the nature and significance of this initiative differs from one person to the next, some see it as a storm in a teacup, while others see it as flagrant evidence of the “spirit of religious war” persisting in the subconscious of many people in the West.”

فهم طبيعة هذه المبادرة ودلالتها يختلف من فئة إلى أخرى، فهناك من يرى أنها زوبعة في فنجان، وهناك من يرى أنها تعبير قاطع على أن “روح الحروب الدينية” لا تزال تتحكم في لاشعور فئات واسعة في الغرب

While observers playing down the significance of this vote are few and far between, this decision has left many Arab Muslims feeling angry and scared. “I don’t know what is happening in Switzeland. Islam is fought in every age by all possible means. May Allah (God) guide everyone. Oh Allah. Do not impose upon us, because of our sins, those who lack mercy and do not fear You,” reads one comment on the story, from popular Egyptian news site Al-Youm Al Sabia.

انا مش عارف ايه اللى بيحصل ده فى سويسرا ، الاسلام حظه كده فى كل عصر انه يتحارب باى شكل من الاشكال ، وربنا يهدى الناس جميعا ، اللهم لا تسلط علينا بذنوبنا من لا يخافك ولا يرحمنا

As for why the Swiss took the decision to ban new minarets, many commentators refer to a growing anti-Islam push that is taking place throughout Europe. Renowned novelist and political activist Alaa al-Aswani, in an Op-Ed for independent Egyptian daily Al-Shrouq, insists this is not the case:

“This incident proves to us that in reality not all westerners are enemies of Islam, as some of our extremist sheikhs would have us believe…. The western racist and islamophobic ideology is not new. What is new is the fact that this ideology has increased in support because of Westerners’ fear of the bloody, backwards image that some Muslims voluntarily portray of their religion. Those who signed the petition for the ban of minarets, are not necessarily racist haters of Islam, but they are afraid of a religion that they do not know and is only associated, in their minds, with murder, bloodshed and oppression of women…”

ن الفكر العنصرى الغربى الكاره للعرب والمسلمين، ليس جديدا لكن الجديد أنه يكتسب المزيد من المؤيدين وذلك بسبب خوف الغربيين من الصورة الدموية المتخلفة التى يتطوع بعض المسلمين بتقديمها عن دينهم، فالذين وقعوا العريضة من أجل منع المآذن، ليسوا بالضرورة عنصريين كارهين للإسلام، لكنهم خائفون من دين لا يعرفونه يرتبط دائما فى أذهانهم بالقتل والدماء واضطهاد المرأة.. ولنا أن نتخيل رد فعل المواطن الغربى عندما يشاهد فى التليفزيون السيد أسامة بن لادن وهو يطالب بذبح أكبر عدد من النصارى والكفار أو رد فعل المرأة الغربية عندما تستمع إلى أحد شيوخ التطرف وهو يؤكد أن المرأة المسلمة يجب أن ترتدى نقابا بعين واحدة

Another interesting dimension to this debate, is the way the decision in Switzerland has led many to question how religious minorities are treated in the Middle East. One of the 500 or so comments on al-Aswani’s post asks “Why does the author bother himself with what is happening in Switzerland but does not start a campaign to eradicate the cultural roots of the repeated and ongoing attacks against Copts in Egypt?”.

لماذا يوجع الكاتب رأسه بما يحدث في سويسرا ولا يقوم بتوجيه حملة تحاول القضاء على الجذور الثقافية للاعتداءات المتوالية على الأقباط في مصر

In a fascinating blog post discussing the role of the minaret not only in religion, but also in identity and heritage, Egyptian Muslim blogger Tarek closes by voicing his dissatisfaction at the ban, “in the end I am against the Swiss decision. But I am also against the Egyptian non-decision which contributes, in one way or another, to the oppression and dissolution of a people and its culture. While in Switzerland and other places, the governments may be to blame. Here the blame lies with the people.”

ففي النهاية أنا ضد القرار السويسري. لكنني أيضا ضد اللا قرار المصري الذي ساهم بشكل أو بأخر في طمس هوية شعب و ثقافته. و إن كان اللوم في سويسرا و غيرها قد يقع على الحكومات فاللوم هنا يقع على الناس

Thanks to Tom, Rebecca, and Nouran for help with translations.

Picture courtesy Kevin Dean and www.betaart.com

The discovery of Ardi, the oldest hominid skeleton ever found, was big news for the science community around the world.

But in the Middle East, the news triggered a different order of debate.

‘A research team revealed Thursday that the discovery of “Ardi” proves humans did not evolve from chimpanzee-like ancestors,’ reported Al Jazeera on its Arabic language website under the headline ‘Ardi rebuts Darwin’s theory’.

الجزيرة: “أردي” تطعن بصحة نظرية داروين – وأعلن فريق البحث أمس الخميس أن اكتشاف “أردي” يثبت أن البشر لم يتطوروا عن أسلاف يشبهون قردة الشمبانزي، مبطلين بذلك الافتراضات القديمة بأن الإنسان تطور من أصل قرد

The question at hand was, what does Ardi do for Darwin’s Theory of Evolution? For many it was proof Darwin was wrong all along, and by extension Western society was wrong.

‘Dr. Zaghloul El-Naggar, professor of geology at a number of Arab universities, said that Westerners had started to return to their senses after having approached human origin on the basis of materialism and the denial of religion,’ reported the news website Science in Morocco.

‘In an interview with Aljazeera TV channel he said that the latest scientific findings were a strong blow to Darwin’s theory…’

علق الدكتور زغلول النجار أستاذ الجيولوجيا في عدد من الجامعات العربية، بأن الغربيين بدأوا يعودون إلى صوابهم بعد أن كانوا يتعاملون مع أصل الإنسان من منطلق مادي وإنكار للأديان. وقال في اتصال نقلته قناة الجزيرة أن هذا الكشف العلمي الذي وجه ضربة قوية لنظرية داروين يمثل تطورا هاما جدا.ع – اكتشاف يضع نظرية داروين محل شك

The newspaper offered no counter opinion to contrast El-Naggar’s, who represents Egypt’s Committee of Scientific Notions in the Qur’an.

In the UAE, Hamdan Al Shaer, wrote: ‘The scientific community still insists on revising the Theory of Evolution for purely ideological motives, supported by Western media and educational curricula based on promoting materialism and the denial of God’s creation.

‘The theory of evolution is, in fact, based on a doctrine of pure racism, especially as it is known that Darwin was a racist who believed in the superiority of the European race over all other races.’

فإن الدوائر العلمية مازالت تصر على تنقيح النظرية وتطويرها لخدمة أغراض أيديولوجية بحتة، تدعمها في ذلك وسائل الإعلام الغربية ومناهج التعليم القائم على تعزيز المادية وإنكار قيام الله سبحانه بالخلق. نظرية التطور في حقيقتها ترتكز إلى عقيدة عنصرية خالصة، خصوصاً أن من المعروف أن داروين كان عنصرياً يؤمن بتفوق الجنس الأوروبي على سائر الأجناس

The Algerian elchoroukonline.com reported: ‘While Muslims received the news with a broad smile, joyous at the wonder and surprise of the discovery, the western world was shaking last week as media sources reported the latest findings of US researchers which silence Darwin ’s theory on human origins, after centuries of cheering its principles and its consequences, adopting it as their flawless scientific belief system.’

فيما استقبل المسلمون الخبر بابتسامة عريضة تجمع بين فرحة الاستفاقة واستغراب الاكتشاف، اهتز العالم الغربي نهاية الأسبوع المنصرم حال تناقل وسائل الإعلام لآخر ما توصل إليه باحثون أمريكيون يسقط ما ذهبت إليه نظرية داروين حول أصل الإنسان بعدما ظلوا يهتفون بمبادئها ونتائجها لقرون، بل وجعلوها مذهبهم العلمي الذي لا يخطئ أبدا

Newspapers that attempted to report the findings in more detail often received angry comments from users.

Abu Khaled, a reader of London-based Arabic news website Elaph, commented: ‘Enough hypocrisy and nepotism Elaph. Let us say our word, then show the reply.

‘Evolution is a hypothesis, or a lie even, made and adopted by the West and they wanted us to believe it too… To serve materialism and atheism, that’s their winning card.

‘Muslims, the 51st verse, read it a thousand and hopefully you will understand it… God Almighty said (I did not make them witnesses of the creation of the heavens and the earth, nor of the creation of their own selves; and neither do I [have any need to] take as My helpers those [beings] that lead [men] astray).

‘This verse proves those people’s fallacy and the misguidance of their words. What they say about creation only proves the sincerity of what was written in the Qu’ran.’

يكفى يا إيلاف نفاقا ومحاباة دعونا نقول كلمتنا وأظهروا الرد التطور فرضية أو كذبة قالها الغرب وصدقها وأرادوا منا تصديقها.. لتخدم المادية والإلحاد فهى الكارت الرابح عندهم .. يـــا مسلمين سورة الكهف الآية 51 إقرأوها ألف مرة عسى أن تفهموا .. قال الله عز و جل (ما أشهدتهم خلق السماوات والأرض ولا خلق أنفسهم وما كنت متخذ المضلين عضدا ) عضدا أى نصير ومعين .. فهذه الآية إثبات على كذب هؤلاء وضلالهم وما كلامهم فى خلق الإنسان إلا دليل على صدق القرآن .. واقرأوا معجزة القرآن للشيخ محمد متولى الشعرواى

But there was another view. Many Arab writers hit back at the early reporting on Ardi as incomplete or factually inaccurate.

‘In their enthusiasm to attack Darwin’s theory, most Arab media outlets overlooked the fact that this discovery does not in any way undermine Darwin’s evolution theory,’ wrote Batir Mohamed Ali on AHewar – The Dialogue.

‘In the research, published in the American magazine Science (in which eleven researches were published by the way, not just one) as well as in other international scientific news, there is no mention of Darwin’s theory being undermined.

‘What happened was a unique case of editors’ personal convictions interfering in scientific reporting which led to the dissemination of false information in Arab media outlets.’

الحقيقة التي غابت عن بعض وسائل الإعلام العربية في خضم حماسها لإسقاط نظرية داروين أن هذا الأكتشاف لم يسقط النظرية ابدا، ولا يوجد في البحث المنشور في مجلة ساينس الأميركية (المكون من 11 بحثا متكاملا وليس بحثا واحدا بالمناسبة) ولا في الأخبار العلمية الدولية ما يشير إلى إسقاط النظرية، وما حدث هو حالة فريدة من التدخل في الأخبار العلمية وتحويرها بما يتناسب مع قناعات ذاتية لدى بعض المحررين وهذا ما تسبب في نشر أخبار خاطئة في وسائل الإعلام العربية — باتر محمد علي وردم

Writing on halwasat.com, Mohammad Zakariya Tawfiq accused Al Jazeera of ‘pure fabrication’.

Al Jazeera had ‘falsely claimed that U.S. scientists have proved the theory of evolution a failure,’ he said.

إدعت كذبا أن العلماء الأمريكيين قد أثبتوا فشل، وسقوط نظرية التطور . وهذا محض إفتراء

Blogger Zamakan Gharbeia went further still in criticizing Al Jazeera and Zaghloul El-Naggar: ‘We have said 4.4 million times that Darwin did not say that man originated from chimpanzees, but rather that chimpanzees and humans (and all primates) share a common ancestor.

‘English language news sources were quite clear on this point, but the Arabic versions of the main headlines read “Humans did not originate from monkeys” and “Ardi triumphs over Darwinism”.

‘This indicates the great, often ideologically motivated, stupidity of the Al-Jazeera channel and all other news sites that quoted it, seeking to please Arab and Muslim audiences, added to the nonsense of Zaghloul El-Naggar.’

قلنا 4.4 مليون مرة أن دارون لم يقل أن الإنسان أصله قرد، بل قال إن القرد و الإنسان (و كل الرئيسيات) لها سَلَفٌ مُشترَك.
الأخبار في المواقع الإخبارية باللغة الإنجليزية واضحة تماما في هذه النقطة، و تفسير العناوين الرئيسية على أنها تعني “أن الإنسان ليس أصله قرد” و أن “أردي تبطل نظرية دارون” يدل على غباء شديد، غالبا عقائدي متعمد، و استغفال لنا، من قبل قناة الجزيرة و كل المواقع الإخبارية الأخرى التي نحت نحوهم أو نقلت عنهم، في استجداء لاستحسان جمهورها العربي المسلم، مرفقا بترهات زغلول النجّار.
كل ما تخبرنا به المواقع بالإنجليزية أن علماء إحاثة اكتشفوا في إثيوبيا حفرية لسلف عتيق للإنسان أسموها أردي، و أن أردي عاشت في وقت سابق على أقدم سَلَف كان قد اكتشف حتى الآن و هي الجدة لوسي التي كان سبق اكتشاف مستحاثتها في إثيوبيا كذلك، و أن أردي لا تشبه الشمبانزي

‘The Darwin controversy is a unique one — and not just because of the powerful evolution theory and its implications,’ wrote Science journalist Waleed Al-Shobbaky in a prescient post on Islam Online before Ardi was unveiled.

‘Like most protracted controversies, the one over Darwin in the Arab-Muslim worlds perhaps tells more about the debaters than the subject of the debate.’

A typical front page of the Daily Mail with shrill anti-immigrant headline. Image by Malias.

One of Britain’s leading right wing newspapers, The Daily Mail, appears to have lost touch with its readers over its criticism of the fascist Islamophobic British National Party and its leader Nick Griffin.

In recent days, Mail readers have overwhelmingly voiced support for Griffin and the BNP on the paper’s website, despite trenchant attacks on the party by the outlet’s leading commentators.

The clash comes on the back of Griffin’s first ever appearance on the BBC’s flagship political debate programme, Question Time, on Thursday night in which the extremist defended his description of Islam as ‘vile and wicked’, repeated his view that homosexuals were ‘creepy’, and failed to refute that he had a record of Holocaust denial.

The Daily Mail, which is renowned for its ability to provide what its right-leaning readers want to hear, will undoubtedly be concerned by the comments, some of which cite Mail reporting as part of an establishment conspiracy against Griffin and his party.

“Most of the idiots writing pieces such as this live in large houses , miles away from towns that no longer look British but more like third world slums,” wrote one reader called Sammy.

“Shops, market stalls,and language are all foreign,” she continues.  ”That is why the BNP are popular and these so called writers have no real concept of what is happening in the UK , rather like the thieving , too busy filling in my fraudulent expense claims to worry about what the voters want , politicians.”

Writing in today’s Mail Online, Edward Heathcoat Amory attempts to debunk Nick Griffin’s ‘empty rhetoric’ casting  a critical eye on the BNP leader’s claims on Question Time.

Amory says: ‘The BNP’s immigration policy is voluntary repatriation of ‘immigrants’ (ie non-whites) regardless of whether they were born here. There is no evidence that any but a tiny minority of British people support such a plan.”

Greg from Coalville in Leicestershire responds: “Well mr amory i dont know where you get this “tiny minority” you mention who want repatriation, i suggest you get out and about a bit more to where the real people live and you will find that ii is a lot lot more than a tiny minority.”

Cedric from Hickinbottom says: “I am totally fed up with this “witch-hunt”.”

“In the past you have stood up for nearly all the points Nick Griffin as said his party would do if elected, all but in a less extreme way.

“You should be criticising the Libs,Labs& Cons. for not pursuing the things that matter most to the British people!”

A Richards in London says: “Mr Heathcoat Amory, where have you been, on holiday? We’ve heard all this before – the usual lies, smears and innuendos wearing thinner every time they’re wheeled out. ”

John Gray in Stamford says: “Reality. Their policies are representative of the mainstream which apparently does not include the author of this skewed dross.”

Earlier, star commentator Max Hastings described Griffin as an ‘empty vessel’ who had nothing to say, and was easily made to seem ’slippery and repugnant’ when asked about his attitude to the Holocaust.

But, in a difficult balance to strike with angry readers, Hastings tried to address their concerns on immigration.

On Tory Baroness Warsi’s suggestion of a cap in immigration numbers, Hastings said: “At last almost everybody in the studio could address what they know is the real issue. ”

“Nobody except Nick Griffin wants to send every immigrant in Britain home. But almost everybody outside the current government knows that the current policy of allowing unrestricted entry has been a catastrophe.”

He also attacked the Labour representative, Jack Straw.

” It was a very bad night for Straw, and for the Government on an issue of vital concern to millions of people.”

But it wasn’t enough for readers.

A reader from Glasgow commented: “Well, I won’t be tuning for Max Hastings worthless opinions on anything in future. Ever”

B Brodie said: “Max Hastings I thought journalists were supposed to report facts! This is a biased and inaccurate piece of writing.”

“Griffin was hounded last night by the so called ‘acceptable’ political parties and a ‘historian’ who came across as an idiot.

“The BNP will continue to do well until people are alowed to state what they really think, NO MORE IMMIGRATION of any colour.”

“I think the Daily Mail should employ Nick Griffin as a columnist,” said Ivor Wynard from Nantwich, Cheshire.

“How about listening to what the man actually said, he was brilliant and represents a growing number of people,” said Hugo in London.

The criticism of Hastings focused on the fact that – in the minds of readers – the Question Time panel and audience was set up to be biased against the BNP by the BBC and that the words ‘repugnant’ and ’slippery’ should be applied to Jack Straw instead.

John Salkfield in Sheffield said: “Last night, as expected, was a concerted effort to shout down Griffin. The establishment will not allow the people a voice.”

Mike in Alicante said: “Sorry Max, all that was exposed yesterday was the levels to which the liberal left stoop.”

“And tonight we abandon the normal Question Time and present the ‘Nick Griffin is a very bad man show’”,” said Patrick Harrington in Edinburgh.

“Mr Hastings – firstly a man of your intelligence should have seen that last nights Question Time, was nothing more then a political show trial, aimed at one man to knock him back from where he came,” said Michael West in Yeovil.

Others described the BBC programme as an ‘asbsolute stitch up’, ‘biased’ and ‘in breach of charter’.

One went as far as to say: “Griffin was clearly set up, hundreds of people onto one man, the room was full of foreigners masquerading as Brits who showed their true colours with their lack of the British sense of fair play, a principle any true Brits would of shown without hesitation.”

The comments suggest the Daily Mail is struggling to keep up with the increasingly right wing, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant readership that it has long tried to stir with articles like ‘Muslim student, 18, banned from college because she refuses to remove her burkha’ which appears on the front page today.

Muslims in particular feature as a source of agitation for the Daily Mail, which seeks to present Muslims as foreign, monolithically determined to undermine Britain’s culture, and incapable of integrating.

But it appears the position has stirred a readership more right wing than the Daily Mail is prepared to go.

One reader, Mike Slaw from Manchester, summed up the growing chasm between readers and the paper’s editorial line: “The Daily mail columnists, almost to a man (and woman) bleat on about immigration, Islamism and Europe and how these are the key issues of the day. But..they never provide any credible course of action.”

The Daily Mail responded to the fracture today by publishing an article turning the focus of its ire away from Nick Griffin to the BBC, stoking MPs’ concerns that the public service broadcaster was  ’playing into Nick Griffin’s hands by stage-managing the Question Time onslaught.’

It is not clear, however, how many commenting readers over the past three days have been BNP supporters defending their man.  The challenge the comments present to Mail coverage would suggest its columnists should engage with readers in a style in keeping with bloggers, rather than remaining aloof.

On an article reporting Griffin’s claim he had been unfairly treated on the show, Simon from Oxford said: “ I was happy that he was going to appear, because it would reveal how his policies are either repellant or non-existent (I’d love it if they’d asked him how his party would handle national debt, or the environment, or anything other than their single-policy of immigration).

“And, having watched it, I felt sure that nobody could come away thinking the BNP viable or anything other than morally reprehensible.”

“And then I come here, and see that the most popular comments are those supporting the BNP, whereas the least popular is a completely innocuous one in support of (the rather wonderful) Bonnie Greer!”

“How incredibly worrying. It just goes to show that people will see what they want to see – did you really see a future prime minister on that programme last night?? Oh, I hope not.”

The comment was one of the most negatively ranked in the thread.

DISCLAIMER: I used to work as a Mail Online producer.  The staff were from different backgrounds, friendly and supportive.

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Picture by Jacek.NL.

A Muslim blogger is creating waves for a book that tells her story of finding love.

Shelina Zahra Janmohamed’s ‘memoir of growing up as a Muslim woman’ tells of her quest to find the right man through the traditional route of arranged marriage.

With an extract published in The Daily Mail and an interview in The Guardian, Janmohamed has seen her book Love in a Headscarf shoot to a five star rating on Amazon, suggesting it has hit a chord with readers.

“I was really overwhelmed by how connected people felt to the story and how it had humanised what it meant to be a Muslim woman,” Janmohamed said. “That for me was really important.”

As a blogger writing about Muslim issues, Janmohamed has long sought to give  women within the Muslim community a voice.

“One of the reasons I wrote the book was to reach out to people who would never ordinarily read a book called, ‘What is Islam?’, or maybe never even had the opportunity to meet someone who is Muslim.”

“It becomes very challenging when the media creates very polarized characters to create narratives outside that.

“This is one of the challenges we’re facing as a Muslim community – if you’ve never met a Muslim and all you have is The Sun, The Daily Mail and Fox News then of course you’re not going to know what it’s like to be a Muslim.

“There are terrible things that happen to women who are Muslim but when you assign someone by only one story it becomes very difficult to break out of that mould.”

Janmohamed said the book was written to provide a narrative about a Muslim woman’s search for love from a ‘universal’ perspective.

“What I wanted to do was provide another portrayal of Muslim women so we can start to have a discussion about what it means to be a Muslim woman.”

“I wanted to write something that would have a universal appeal and have the kind of human tale that anyone can reach out to, and say ‘yeah that’s a little bit like my life’.”

“The closest story to that for everybody is the story of love. Everyone gets so intrigued when the topic of ‘How did you meet your partner?’ comes up.”

“The more I thought about that topic, the more I thought whatever culture you’re from the subject of love and what is love, and how do you find it and when you’ve got it what does it mean -  some critical questions come up with every generation as time changes.”

For Janmohamed, the universal concept of love is romantic rather than patriarchal.

But the pursuit of romance is set within the narrative of how a Muslim family approaches marriage.

In extracts published in The Mail Online, Janmohamed tells of the moment she is first formally introduced to a potential suitor at the age of 19.

In the encounter the men and women of the families take different sides of the room, ‘as is the norm’ in a Muslim setting according to Janmohamed.

When Janmohamed is given the chance to talk to her suitor – a 23-year-old accountant from a ‘good family’ – the door has to remain open, as ‘propriety dictates’.

But she remains adamant that this is how relationships should begin.

“I don’t find it strange that I might meet my future life partner this way,” she says.

“Is this any different to chatting to someone in a bar, club or restaurant?”

“At 19, all I want is to fall in love,” she adds.

Mail Online readers were won over, according to the comments thread.

“Very funny – I laughed out loud during a number of passages!” said Alison from Sheffield. “It just goes to show that we really are all sisters under the skin!!”

“That was a brilliant story, it goes to show that arranged marriages do not have to be painful,” said Sue from Surrey.

“It was really exciting that the Mail loved the book and it was even more overwhelming that their readers connected with the book,” Janmohamed told Muez i Diin Street blog.

“It’s that humanisation that we need to inject into the discussion. Muslims have the same kinds of aspirations as anyone else.”

“That kind of cross-cultural communication where you can look at all cultures and see what is good and what isn’t, and still love human beings – it just isn’t out there right now.”

But how does Janmohamed respond to the question of whether writing chick lit about her personal experiences of meeting men is acceptable in an Islamic context?

“What I find objectionable is when people talk about Muslim women and don’t let them talk for themselves. That’s what we need to address.

“Let Muslim women have their voices and decide for themselves what they want to do.

“Many Muslim women find their faith very important to  them and are remarkably well balanced. Where there are cases where women are not comfortable with their faith that’s usually because there’s a pressure on them to conform in particular way.”

“As a Muslim you can’t force anyone to do anything.  There are standards of tolerance we have to respect, and one of them is giving people their own opinion and their own voice.”

As a Muslim writer hoping to appeal to non-Muslim readers, it’s hardly surprising that Janmohamed has some advice for how individuals can better learn to live in a multicultural society.

“The best way to learn about anything when it comes to people is to talk to someone from that background.

“As soon as you make a personal connection to someone your whole attitude to them will change.  It’s about hearing the view from that person rather than making assumptions.

“That personal connection that can turn into understanding and dialogue, and create a way of living together.

“That was one of the reasons I wrote the book was to write people who might never meet a Muslim to see the world through our eyes and see it’s not that different.”