The following is an abbreviated translation from some of the Arabic-language blogs. It was initially published at Global Voices!

This week in the Arabic Language blogsphere:

Let’s start with the hard stuff. Tara from Iraq, has some rare seen images:

Tara then writes:

From Kuwait... The Kuwaiti bloggers are playing major role in the recent campaign to modify the electoral law. They launched many online campaigns which were supported by political bodies. However, recently, there is counter unrest between bloggers about the credit of such campaigns.

kila ma6goog writes about this and say:

Speaking of electoral laws in Kuwait reminds us that for the first time, Woman’s will have the right to practice their rights in the coming elections. However, recent news about a fatwa that governs the woman’s vote right makes it sounds fiction.

Zaydoun wrote:

Inspired by the World Cup 2006, which will start very soon, Amal, the Palestinian cartoonist living in the Diaspora at Lebanon published one of her cartoons, which is self-explanatory:

Along the same lines of World Cup fever, Saad writes about the TV broadcasting Exclusivity and the poor people who can’t afford it. He writes:

Ending with blogging itself, Mohammed writes about freedom in blogging and what should govern what bloggers write. Mohammed writes:

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Be aware, this sin will get you a ticket to hell: Egypt's Grand Mufti, Shaikh Ali Gomaa, has issued a fatwa against the display of statues in private homes. Many Egyptians have small knock offs of busts of Ramses and other mementos of ancient Egyptian culture.

Just add it to the list of stupid FATWA'S!

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As scholars question the place of nudity in marriage, Islamic clerics are hotly debating exactly what sexual practices are acceptable. This is how Brian Whitaker of The Guardian started his article.

So, it seems that Brian was watching the discussion going on the Arab blogsphere lately and made his own search to come up with of examples being discussed over the Online Islamic Fatwa websites and forums. Some of which are, anal sex, kissing, masturbation and a lot more other practices. You can read all here.

However, in my humble opinion, the two most important conclusions that Brian came up with is the following:

Unlike Christianity, which tends to be squeamish about sex, Islam has a long tradition of talking about it openly. Up to a point, this is much more healthy. While Catholic priests are enjoined to remain celibate, Muslim clerics are expected to marry and indulge heartily with their wives in the pleasures of the flesh. In many parts of the Muslim world, especially where folk are poor and uneducated, the local imam is the person many turn to for guidance on matters relating to sex and marriage.

Well, honestly, I never looked at it that way. While this might be true, but I think Brain miss the fact that had it not been online and hiding behind anonymous names, I doubt that the examples he mention could have been discussed. At least not until the last few years, when we started to see such questions, publicly discussed on our TV channels.

But that also alert us to the fact, that while all of this is happening now, one can ask, why we are not teaching all of this in our schools? Why is it haram (forbidden) or shame to talk openly about sex issues inside our class rooms? Probably the elderly people felt that it's shame to talk of these at their time. But now, new generations are exposed to so much that makes them feel lost. This is why you should not be surprised to see thousands of emails and comments coming out of discussing such issues. The lack of knowledge in one of the basic human practices, sex, hijacks and occupies a very large space of the so called Online Islamic Fatwa websites.

Unfortunately this is seen as a negative sign. Well, at least this is how Brain sees it in his closing:

Much of the discussion is sadly reminiscent of the old Christian debate about the number of angels that can dance on a pinhead, but sex is only one part of the problem. The current fashion for online fatwas has created an amazingly legalistic approach to Islam as scholars - some of whom have only a tenuous grip on reality - seek to regulate all aspects of life according to their own interpretation of the scriptures. It is much harder to find any discussion on Muslim websites of matters that some would say form the basic substance of religion, such as the nature of love and spiritual experiences.

Sadly true! But then, "Better Late Than Never."

[Hat tip: El-Oso]

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Feeling horny? Grab your clothes and keep your eyes off your partner's privates!

Cairo - An Egyptian cleric's controversial fatwa claiming that nudity during sexual intercourse invalidates a marriage has uncovered a rift among Islamic scholars.

According to the religious edict issued by Rashad Hassan Khalil, a former dean of Al-Azhar University's faculty of Sharia (or Islamic law), "being completely naked during the act of coitus annuls the marriage".

The religious decree sparked a hot debate on the private satellite network Dream's popular religious talk show and on the front page of Sunday's Al-Masri Al-Yom, Egypt's leading independent daily newspaper.

Suad Saleh, who heads the women's department of Al-Azhar's Islamic studies faculty, pleaded for "anything that can bring spouses closer to each other" and rejected the claim that nudity during intercourse could invalidate a union.

During the live televised debate, Islamic scholar Abdel Muti dismissed the fatwa: "Nothing is prohibited during marital sex, except of course sodomy."

For his part, Al-Azhar's fatwa committee chairman Abdullah Megawar argued that married couples could see each other naked but should not look at each other's genitalia and suggested they cover up with a blanket during sex.

Probably keep your eyes closed will do, but if you bang the wall (or something else), don't come and blame me :-D

Damn, what the hell these guys want us to live like? Everything is Haram, everything is wrong, everything is against God's well. Why do they rarely tell us anything constructive or useful? Why can't we have a dozen of Amr Khaled like?

Well, again, like many teachers in our society; who actually goes and study in these religion schools all around the Muslim world? Yes, yeah... I can hear it spin inside your brain. 99% they are the most backward, close-minded, extremist, dumpiest in school, just name it...

And after they finish school, they come out to teach us how we should be living. What should we eat and drink, what we should wear, what we should watch and hear, and finally, how we should make sex. The dumpiest guys teach us all of that and we have to listen and abide to our brilliant clerics.

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Saudi mobile phone company Mobily has barred users from text message voting in the pan-Arab version of Star Academy, after an earlier religious edict deemed the show immoral. The program is carried by the Lebanese channel LBC and was very popular in its first two seasons. [Source: Reuters]

Business decision based on funny Fatwa (religious decree), branding the reality show-Star Academy- immoral. Well, I don't like the show myself, and I said that before, but that does not mean that I agree to zone it into the "Haram" list. After the infamous fatwa last year, the winner of the show; who happened to be a Saudi, was detained by the Saudi religious authorities for causing an �indecent scene.�

From my experience in the telecom market in this part of the world, I can confidently claim that Mobily press release has nothing to do with religion and it is just playing a cleaver marketing game. Keeping in mind that Mobily was newly launched at Saudi Arabia, and will do anything to eat part of the Saudi telecom market share.

On the other hand, such fatwa is so meaningless and aimless, that it seems to be directed to a particular show but not the other. Why? Just because it is reality show? Under their terms, does Superstar qualify as not Haram? What about the 100's music and chat-TV channels? Are they Halal?

This is where I noticed that the Saudi mobile companies are playing on using religion and Islam in their marketing ads, directly and indirectly. I wonder how many noticed the brainless religious ads of Saudi Telecom (Mobily competitor) during the month of Ramadan. While they had good intentions, but the ads were always negative. I think they had the chosen the worst marketing companies to come with these TV ads

It seems that Mobily understood the game of commissioning the religious game in their marketing campaign, but in more clever way than Saudi Telecom did. After all, as I said before, there are 100's of music and chat-TV channels as well other reality shows, which I personally see more fundamentally destructive to our youth and culture than a talent reality show like Star Academy. And none of these are banned, and the customers of both of the Saudi mobile companies have full access to these channels and shows!

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Whoever says "foul," "penalty", "corner," "goal", "out" and others, should be punished and ejected from the game. Do not call "foul" and stop the game if someone falls, instead, it should be adjudicated according to Sharia rulings concerning broken bones and injuries. Do not play with 11 people. Add to this number or decrease it. Play in your regular clothes or your pyjamas or something like that, but not coloured shorts and numbered T-shirts. Do not play in two halves. Rather, play in one half or three halves in order to completely differentiate yourselves. Do not add extra time or penalties. Instead leave the field, because winning with extra time and penalty kicks is the pinnacle of imitating heretics and international rules. Young crowds should not gather to watch when you play because if you are there for the sake of sports and strengthening your bodies as you claimed, why would people watch you? You should spit in the face of whoever puts the ball between the posts or uprights and then runs in order to get his friends to follow him and hug him like players in America or France do. You should use two posts instead of three pieces of wood or steel that you erect in order to put the ball between them, meaning that you should remove the crossbar. Do not do what is called "substitution," that is, taking the place of someone who has fallen, because this is a practice of the heretics.

This is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. I can't believe such a thing can be called, but by an insane man. It's so ridiculous, not even a 6 years old boy can believe it.

[Guardian]: The legal opinions proclaimed by Islamic scholars, known as fatwas, have proliferated in the Muslim world since the 1980s. The growth in fatwas - some of them contradictory - has led to debate over who can legitimately issue them. As part of a government drive to eliminate frivolous fatwas, the Saudi newspaper Al Watan recently published one such edict setting out new rules for football. We publish an edited translation here.

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Al Azhar wants to screen Fatwas TV Show's. Seems the guys in Al Azhar are running out of business!

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Want to have breast implants but worried they may not be so pleasing to God? Wondering if the marketing campaign devised to boost your business is spiritually sound? If you are a Shia looking for guidance, what you may find useful is your very own online ayatollah - a sort of electronic agony aunt with a broadband connection to God. The good thing about the site that it's not only in Persian, but also Arabic, English and Urdu.

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Last month they detained him. Yesterday, Saudi religious scholars have condemned an Arab television "Star Academy" competition as a crime against Islam and urged the Saudi Arabian pop singer who triumphed last month to repent. More than 60 sheikhs rounded on the fresh-faced Hisham Abdulrahman, whose victory in the Star Academy reality show triggered the closest thing to pop hysteria seen in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom. In a statement posted on the Saudi news Web site Al-Wifaq (www.al-wifaq.net), they also criticized the "depraved" Lebanese television station which broadcast the show.

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Last week, Guardian-organised event at which more than 100 young British Muslims were brought together at University College London. The delegates came from all walks of life, and held a wide range of views.

The one thing that came across very clearly was that the media are often wrong to refer to "the Muslim community", when the 1.54 million Muslims in the UK have roots as far apart as Malaysia, Nigeria and Pakistan. More than half the attendees were women; some wore the Hijab, but others looked very "western".

In some ways, the event raised more questions than it answered.

Is deprivation the main obstacle to progress for Immigrant Muslims? Why should Immigrant Muslims always be called on to condemn what goes on abroad? On integration, one delegate asked: "What are we integrating into? People feel well integrated, thank you very much. Why aren't the BNP asked if they're well integrated?"

On table 6, the main subject was : The widespread perception is that Islam discriminates against women. Why is that so?
Out of all the opinions, I was particularly impressed with one of the panellist, Abdurahman Jafar of the Muslim Council of Britain. His answer was:

We agree that Islam doesn't discriminate, but men do discriminate, and men control society," he said. "Muslim men seek to justify that oppression under the guise of Islam.

Although men control all societies. IMHO, in the Arab world, the number of illiterate may be one of the main reasons. According to UNESCO's Global Monitoring Report 2003/04:

The Arab States have some of the world's lowest adult literacy rates, with only 60% of the region's population of 15 and over able to read and write in 2000, well below world average of 80%. The rate is less than 50% in some countries (Iraq, Morocco and Yemen). Woman account for nearly two-thirds of the region's illiterate, a figure not expected to change much by 2015.

As far as eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education, the report states:

Countries that have already achieved gender parity:

Primary education: Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Palestine, Qatar and United Arab Emirates

Secondary education: Jordan Kuwait and Oman.

Gender parity prospects:

Countries likely to achieve parity in 2005: Egypt, Mauritania, Oman.

Contries likely to miss parity in 2005 but achieve it by 2015: Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria

Countries that may not achieve parity by 2015 either at primary, secondary or both levels: Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates.

What do you think?

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... except in the presence of a male guardian.

From Al-Qabas, via Kuwait Unplugged

[via: AraBlog, Chan'ad]

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