Shari'a in Aceh

Stoning instituted in Aceh as punishment for adultry!

From the field: Thugs attack Ayman Nour in Hurghada: standard--state encouraged--practice for dealing with dissidents in Egypt

From the field: Thugs attack Ayman Nour in Hurghada: standard--state encouraged--practice for dealing with dissidents in Egypt

Professor Turam on "Muslim Politics, Secular Predicaments and State Transformation."

From the field: Professor Turam on "Muslim Politics, Secular Predicaments and State Transformation."

From the field: BJ remembered

Samurai

Art Review - 'Art of the Samurai' - Way of the Artful Warriors, at the Metropolitan Museum - NYTimes.com

Reclaiming treasures

A 3,500-Year-Old Queen Causes a Rift Between Germany and Egypt - NYTimes.com

Mapping the Global Muslim Population - Pew Research Center

Mapping the Global Muslim Population - Pew Research Center

World Distribution of Muslims Map.

Swat trying to return to "normal"

In Pakistan's Swat Valley, an Eid Tempered by Recent Dangers - washingtonpost.com

Iran's numerous sex change operations, and a marial first

"Iran is set to allow what is believed to be its first transsexual marriage after the would-be bride asked a court to override her father's opposition to the match."

There are several ways of "reading" Iran's legitimation of sex change operations. A positive reading might extol the use of ijtihad to legitimate a procedure that acknowledges that a person's genetic tooling does not always match their private parts. This would credit Shi'i clerics with a willingness to examine scientific evidence in a way that Sunni legal experts would not be prone to do.  A negative reading would see the procedure as a form of imposed surgical disfigurement that homosexuals are pressured to suffer to comply with regime imposed norms.

Notwithstanding, the persecution of homosexuals in Iran, I am not inclined to see the prevalence of sex change operations in Iran simply as another example of repression in Iran.  It is surprising to discover that the same author, Robert Tait, who reports a connection between Iran ban of homosexuality and sex change surgery, wrote a piece for the Guardian in 2005 drawing very different conclusions (in line with the first reading, above).

"The woman, named only as Shaghayegh, told Tehran's family court that she wanted to wed her best friend from school, who had recently undergone a sex-change operation to become a man, but was unable to obtain her father's blessing, as legally required.""

..........

"Iran carries out more sex change operations than any other country apart from Thailand after the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, spiritual leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution, issued a religious fatwa approving the practice, which has government funding. Critics have suggested that some of those changing sex are not true transsexuals but gays or lesbians who feel forced into the operation by social pressure."

Meanwhile, in Iraq gays using cyber chat rooms are being pursued by Islamist goons.

Moroccan Rapper--barking softly

Muhammad Bahri "Barry"

Sikhs seeking religion in the U.S.

Religious adaptation for immigrant Sikhs.