From a Radio Free Europe interview with Irshad Manji:

RFE/RL: You argue that Islam needs to be reformed and that the Koran — the holy book of Muslims — is a contradictory human book. Is your view, your perspective, being taken seriously in the Muslim world?

Irshad Manji: Well, it is in fact being taken seriously; and the reaction is most intense among young people in Muslim countries. It’s interesting [that] when my book first came out in English, and because of the burst of international press that it received, my e-mail box overflowed with messages from young Muslims in the Arab world begging me to get the book translated into Arabic so they could share these ideas with their friends, whom they said were hungry for honest conversation about Islam. My standard unimaginative response to them was, “Come one, name one Arab publisher that will have the guts to translate this book, let alone publish it.” And most of these young people wrote back to say, “You’re right, but so what, Irshad? You get the book translated into Arabic [and] you then post that translation on your website; and when we can download it privately, that means that we can read it privately and therefore safely.”

Well only a year and a half later, I can tell you that there have been already 200,000 downloads of the Arabic version of the book. Just last week, I received an e-mail from a reporter with “The New York Times” magazine who said that she saw how the book in Arabic is being distributed among young people in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. Even when I was in Cairo this time last year, young Muslim men — not just women — would approach me to say, “Thank you, we’re reading it, our friends are reading it, and it’s now making the rounds of the democracy movement.” So much of the criticism that you hear is more from an older generation. The younger generation — the one that knows that it lives in a very interdependent, wired, and connected world — is hungry for more information and wants these debates even when the conclusions are ones that they can disagree with.

Drops in an ocean or a sign of changing currents? Proceed with caution.

Writer and philosopher Dariush Shayegan believes that the currents are indeed changing in.. Iran:

. In a lecture given last year and now translated for the magazine, he comes to a surprisingly optimistic conclusion. “Tehran is on the brink of fundamental change. In the shadows of this grey and sad city an astonishing new world lies hidden, and when its underground powers surface one of these days, we will witness a radical change in perspective. Its lay character will emerge in all its freshness from inside the so-called Islamic society. We hope that we are gradually beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel through which other Islamic countries, in the hope of establishing a religiously determined order, are travelling in the opposite direction. In the not too distant future Tehran will become the lively and eloquent example for change.”

And Fareed Zakaria concurs:

In five or ten years, an Iran will emerge with more modern policies than the other countries of the Middle East, putting religion once more firmly in the private sphere. That’s just the way it is: life exerts a natural pressure toward modernisation, and sooner or later religion follows.

Ever the optimist Zakaria has recently written that the Islamic Reformation has already started, pointing at the conflict between the Shia and the Sunnis. No, I don’t understand his logic either. For now I am taking his opinion with more than a grain of salt.

Back to Irshad though, with a bit of a feel good story:

RFE/RL: You have proposed the plan of reforms that you call Operation Ijtihad. What does that include?

Manji: The idea would be here for one plan to happen in the traditional Islamic world and another plan to take place among Muslims in the West. In the traditional Islamic world, the idea would be to offer women microcredit loans so that they can start their own businesses, earn money from their businesses. And there is consensus within Islam that when a woman owns her own assets, she gets to keep 100 percent of those assets and do with them as she sees fit. Now what could women do with the money they earn from micro-businesses? Well, for a starter they could become literate — learn to read the Koran for themselves instead of relying only on imams to give them selected verses. And when they learn to read the Koran for themselves, they see all of the passages that the Koran has that give them dignity and self-respect — passages that, for example, tell them that they have the right to choose marriage or not choose marriage. Let me tell you a quick story.

About eight months ago, a journalist in Kabul e-mailed me to say, “Remember those progressive female-friendly verses of the Koran that you identified in your book?” “Yes,” I said. And she said, “Today I met a Muslim woman in Afghanistan who took a microcredit loan from a nongovernmental organization; she started her own candle-making business, she earned her own money, and she learned to read the Koran for herself with that money. And she saw all the passages in there that give her options for dignity; she then recited those passages to her husband, who was illiterate and who had been beating her ever since they got married. And when he realized that these passages are in God’s book, he has never hit her again.

Good for her of course, but whats going to happen when she reads him the various “war verses” or even the verse that instructs that men are actually allowed to beat their wives? Something tells me she may skip that last one. Maybe she can explain that the Koran is a “contradictory human book” first.

MEMRI has extensive quotes from three liberal Arab authors who have criticized the support for terrorism in Arab and Muslim society. Here’s what two of the them had to say.

Iraqi Author Riyadh ‘Abd compares the reaction of Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui’s family to that of families of suicide bombers in Iraq:

“What caught my attention was a report… that the criminal’s family… offered its apologies and expressed grief, embarrassment, and shame, as well as consternation and incomprehension of their son Cho Seung-Hui’s atrocious crime… This Korean family expressed a sense of sadness and grief, profound remorse, and a sense of partial responsibility for what their son did.

“Let’s compare this natural, human, civilized behavior that places value on human life with [that of] the families of Arabs in Islamic lands who lost their sons in Iraq in criminal suicide operations whose victims number tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians.

“Instead of the Iraqis receiving apologies and feelings of grief and consolation for these filthy criminals’ killing and slaughtering of innocents and their demolishing and destroying of property, we see the families of these killers holding mourning ceremonies and bragging of the ‘martyrdom’ of their sons the mujahideen – [and at these ceremonies] they receive congratulations instead of condolences.

“This strange behavior and sick pride in criminal acts can only be explained as a conclusive sign of the moral decline and deterioration of contemporary Islamic and Arab civilization.”

“Don’t the Iraqi People Deserve an Apology From the Family” of Abu Mus’ab Al-Zarqawi?

“There are hundreds of examples of this barbaric and disgraceful behavior, from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab countries. Where is the apology from the family of the barbaric criminal, the beheader known as Abu Mus’ab Al-Zarqawi, to the Iraqi people for the crimes of mass murder, destruction of property, and cutting off [people's] livelihoods? Don’t the Iraqis deserve an apology from the family, tribe, and village of this dirty scoundrel?

“Where is the apology from the family of the Jordanian criminal who caused the deaths of 200 innocent civilians in Al-Hilla, in a suicide bombing in a popular market in 2005? It is known that there was a large mourning ceremony after the death of this criminal, that was attended by a number of important Jordanian statesmen…

“I read an article from a few years ago about an attempt by CNN… to interview, in Cairo, the father of the criminal Muhammad ‘Atta, the commander of the group responsible for [9/11]… It is known that this individual had at first spread made-up stories about the Mossad kidnapping his son, stories snatched up at the time by the Egyptian media, which is known for its addiction to invented stories and raving analyses…

“Later he began to brag about what his son did, calling his abominable criminal act ‘jihad.’ When CNN asked him for an interview, he made it contingent upon them paying him $5,000 for it. When they told him that it is station policy not to pay interviewees, Muhammad ‘Atta’s father turned down the interview, claiming that a Muslim is not allowed to aid the infidels without remuneration. Did the Muslims disapprove of this disgraceful position?… I don’t think so.

Saudi author Rim Al-Salih wrote about the differences between the Virginia Tech killer and the culture of Islamic terrorism:

[..] without lying to ourselves, can we compare the crime committed by an individual due to madness, mental illness, depression, or even due to the desire to kill and avenge, and the death supported by organizations, fatwas, [TV] stations, websites, funding by the millions, and pledges of allegiance taken in front of the holy Ka’ba?…

“The sanctification of death for death’s sake is a distinctly Islamic-Arabic specialization. Coveting death, suicide, and the killing of innocents as a shortcut to Paradise is not shared by anyone else among Allah’s creation. Is there any non-Arab who cuts the throat of journalists and peace workers – [people] who left their homes to do a true service or to aid our causes – for the crime of being fair-skinned and because of their eye color?…

“Some even go so far as to accuse the news channels of treason if they use the words ‘killing’ or ‘killed’ [instead of 'martyrdom' and 'martyr'], despite the fact that these terms are more accurate. Our vulgarization of the term ‘martyrdom’ (shahada) has made it lose its meaning, and death has lost its value and awe. The martyrdom-seeking (istishhad) of the Arabs has become like a reward for them, instead of a disaster or a calamity…

“The exaggeration in sanctifying death has made many youth prefer taking a shortcut to Paradise, instead of obeying the will of the Creator, who considers whoever kills one soul without justification as though he has killed all humanity, and considers whoever saves one life as though he has saved all humanity. [The Creator] wants [this youth] to strive to work, to live, to use the great energies he granted him in order to make the world flourish, and to leave his human imprint on existence…”

MEMRI also has quotes from Kuwaiti columnist Khalil ‘Ali Haydar who gives 10 differences between Islamist terrorism and other forms of extremism and terrorism in the non-Muslim world.

Yet another Muslim Arab author who has been bitterly speaking out about the decline of his culture is the Syrian poet Adonis (Ali Ahmad Said):

“I don’t understand what is happening in Arab society today. I don’t know how to interpret this situation, except by making the following hypothesis: When I look at the Arab world, with all its resources, the capacities of Arab individuals, especially abroad–you will find among them great philosophers, scientists, engineers, and doctors. In other words, the Arab individual is no less smart, no less a genius, than anyone else in the world. He can excel–but only outside his society. I have nothing against the individuals–only against the institutions and the regimes.

“If I look at the Arabs, with all their resources and great capacities, and I compare what they have achieved over the past century with what others have achieved in that period, I would have to say that we Arabs are in a phase of extinction, in the sense that we have no creative presence in the world.”

Interviewer: “Are we on the brink of extinction, or are we already extinct?”

Adonis: “We have become extinct. We have the quantity. We have the masses of people, but a people becomes extinct when it no longer has a creative capacity, and the capacity to change its world.”

[. . .]

“The great Sumerians became extinct, the great Greeks became extinct, and the Pharaohs became extinct. The clearest sign of this extinction is when we intellectuals continue to think in the context of this extinction.”

Interviewer: “That is very dangerous.”

Adonis: “That is our real intellectual crisis. We are facing a new world with ideas that no longer exist, and in a context that is obsolete. We must sever ourselves completely from that context, on all levels, and think of a new Arab identity, a new culture, and a new Arab society.”

[. . .]

“Imagine that Arab societies had no Western influence. What would be left? The Muslims must . . .”

Interviewer: “What would be left?”

Adonis: “Nothing. Nothing would be left except for the mosque, the church, and commerce, of course.”

[. . .]

“The Muslims today–forgive me for saying this–with their accepted interpretation [of the religious text], are the first to destroy Islam, whereas those who criticize the Muslims–the non-believers, the infidels, as they call them–are the ones who perceive in Islam the vitality that could adapt it to life. These infidels serve Islam better than the believers.”

A fascinating insight into what went on behind the scenes in Israel in the lead up to the Second Lebanese War, from an article by Caroline Glick:

At first glance the [Winograd Committee's] report reads like an ideological indictment. The commission wrote that a great portion of the blame for the lack of preparedness of both the government and the IDF was rooted in the belief that “the era of big wars had ended.” Yet that belief did not stand on its own. It is rooted in the Left’s peace ideology.

This ideology maintains that even if a country is forced to fight a war, the aim of the war is to remain at the starting gate and give the enemy what it wants, not to defeat it. The belief that the era of wars is over stems directly from the Left’s ideological commitment to the belief that everyone is a potential negotiating partner.

The report demonstrates that from the outset of the war, it was this view that informed the decisions of both the government and the IDF. The report relates a notable exchange between Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Halutz during the cabinet meeting on July 12 when the decision to go to war was made. Livni asked Halutz, “What is victory?”

Halutz responded, “There is no victory here….What we need to do is to respond with a sufficiently strong reaction that will call the international forces to get involved and to intervene at the proper intervention points in order to place pressure on the right forces.”

Livni testified before the commission that the next day the Foreign Ministry began preparing position papers setting out the government’s preferred end state: foreign forces on the border separating the IDF from an undefeated Hizbullah.

And now to a far more important piece of the puzzle: evoking the “Away From My Desk” effect. More revealing quotes, this time from an Israeli General Staff meeting in the lead-up to the war (h/t Normblog):

Gentleman C: On the table before each of you, you’ll find a comprehensive study compiled by Middle East 101, looking at the academic year factor in Israel’s wars since 1948. What we’ve done is a statistical comparison of the amount of anti-Israel verbiage expended by American and European professors in all of Israel’s wars. I draw your attention to Table 8. You’ll see that in every war, our military operations have taken less incoming criticism during summer months. We call this the “Away From My Desk” effect. Professors on summer break are less likely to write op-eds and show up in the media. There aren’t any students to attend their campus teach-ins, and there’s no student press to cover them.

Bottom line is that summer remains an ideal time to launch a war. The operational readiness of academe is at its lowest.

But back to the serious stuff. The former IDF chief of General Staff Dan Halutz may no longer believe in victory. But here are some people that do. The following quotes from a sermon from Friday before last by the acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Sheik Ahmad Bahr:

Ahmad Bahr began: ‘“You will be victorious” on the face of this planet. You are the masters of the world on the face of this planet. Yes, [the Koran says that] “you will be victorious,” but only “if you are believers.” Allah willing, “you will be victorious,” while America and Israel will be annihilated. I guarantee you that the power of belief and faith is greater than the power of America and Israel. They are cowards who are eager for life, while we are eager for death for the sake of Allah. That is why America’s nose was rubbed in the mud in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Somalia, and everywhere.

Bahr continued and said that America will be annihilated, while Islam will remain. The Muslims ‘“will be victorious, if you are believers.” Oh Muslims, I guarantee you that the power of Allah is greater than America, by whom many are blinded today. Some people are blinded by the power of America. We say to them that with the might of Allah, with the might of His Messenger, and with the power of Allah, we are stronger than America and Israel.’

The Hamas spokesperson concluded with a prayer, saying: ‘Oh Allah, vanquish the Jews and their supporters. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them all, down to the very last one. Oh Allah, show them a day of darkness. Oh Allah, who sent down His Book, the mover of the clouds, who defeated the enemies of the Prophet, defeat the Jews and the Americans, and bring us victory over them.’

Melanie Phillips comments:

Horrifying? Undoubtedly. Unequivocal? Most assuredly. No-one who is sentient and decent could possibly have anything to with such a bunch of genocidal psychopaths. Right?

Er, not quite. There is someone. It happens to be the British Prime Minister.

Last February, Tony Blair suggested that the British government might be prepared to do business with ‘the more sensible elements of Hamas’ in order to restore negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. This was about as rational as suggesting in 1942, say, that one might do business with the more sensible elements of the SS. But hey — this is Britain. It does appeasement. Produce a sect of fanatics who are totally beyond reason and bent on wiping out every last Jew and American, defeating the west and taking over the world and Britain will be beating a path to their door, cap in hand. This is because, in its unsurpassed cynicism, Britain believes there is no-one on the planet who is not basically turnable, susceptible to bribes or threats or flattery or what have you because everyone is out for their own self-interest.

Not quite alright, genocidal psychopaths abound as do Tony Blairs willing to “do business” with them, as Diana West points out:

Marvelous, isn’t it, that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled to an Egyptian resort for a summit on stabilizing Iraq that was attended by, among other “neighbors” and interested parties, Iran and Syria? I mean, who better to discuss stabilizing Iraq than the very countries that are actually trying to de-stabilize it?

Such wily statecraft. Now I see how it works: Only honest-to-goodness state sponsors of terrorism like Iran or Syria can really understand what it takes to stabilize a country, since it’s only honest-to-goodness state sponsors of terrorism like Iran and Syria that really understand what it takes to de-stabilize it — what it takes to smuggle into Iraq men and munitions, including deadly IEDs, what it takes to organize and sustain resistance to our utopian efforts. Iranian and Syrian expertise on such matters will prove invaluable to those same utopian efforts, right? After all, as Miss Rice put it, “Iraq’s neighbors have everything at stake here. Iraq is at the center of a stable Middle East or an unstable Middle East. We should therefore align our policies in ways that contribute to stability.”

“Therefore.” Isn’t that brilliant? Never mind that Iran and Syria are in many ways responsible for the unstable Middle East Miss Rice is talking about. Let’s “therefore align our policies” just the same. Meanwhile, why haven’t we thought of talking with terror-states before?

Edward Luttwak on the anti-democratic goals of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which grew from the ashes of an Islamist party banned for extremism:

Since coming to power, the AKP has done nothing revolutionary, but it does have a revolutionary agenda. For all their suavity, its leaders seek to transform the country into a Sunni Muslim republic. This collides with institutions and laws strictly limiting Islam’s role in public life, and with a long-standing security alliance with Israel.

It also collides with democracy itself, for no Koranic state can have a sovereign parliament free to legalise such abominations as equal rights for women and homosexuals or the drinking of alcohol.

A sinister slogan attributed to the AKP is that democracy is ‘a bus we can ride until we reach our station’. Under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his foreign secretary Abdullah Gul, the party has been cautious until now.

But abroad the AKP has been more strident. Turkey has stepped up relations with Muslim countries and cooled them with Israel. They have capitalised on public suspicion of the Western war on terror and yet have pursued Turkey’s application to join the EU.

There is no inconsistency. The AKP’s apparent ambitions in Europe are its most strategic deceptions. Ostensibly, the aim is simply to accelerate Turkey’s climb to prosperity.

However, a key condition imposed by the EU is the army’s abrogation of political authority – which suits the AKP just fine, for the military is the greatest barrier to Islamization. Moreover, the party shares the Islamist belief that Europe will inevitably be conquered by the high birthrates of its Muslim inhabitants – and Turkey’s entry would immediately add some 70 million.

There is also some essential Luttwak reading in this month’s Prospect too, on why the Middle East is “less relevant than ever” and the rest of the world should learn to ignore it. Interesting theory, if only that were possible and “it” hadn’t gotten so damn good at drawing attention to itself. Any ideas on how to distract all the Christians, Muslims and Jews of the world?

If thats not enough Luttwak controversy for you in one post, check out “Give War a Chance” and “Civil war: the only way to bring peace to Iraq”. Although the titles sound like they could be for same article they were in fact written seven years apart.

The Sydney Morning Herald travel blog recently had a post about “travelling through the developing world as a single female”, where people were invited to share their travel stories and opinions on which countries were the worst for Western female travellers.

The starting point for the discussion was an email from a reader:

Jane wrote to me a few weeks ago to suggest this topic, saying she was shocked at the hard time she’d been given while travelling by herself through countries such as Morocco and Egypt. In Egypt she was on a Nile cruise, but still got hassled whenever she stepped off her boat full of English tourists.

“When I managed to escape the confines of my floating little Manchester and actually go into the port towns (Luxor, Aswan), the locals were terrifying,” Jane writes. “I’m not a stupid traveller, nor a disrespectful traveller. But I was spat at, called a white bitch and hassled by one guy who went into great detail about what he and his four mates would like to do to me.

“With this in mind, when I flew into Morocco last week I decided to keep to daylight hours as much as possible and stick to only touristy spots. Even so, on my penultimate day in Casablanca, while walking to Hassan II Mosque, a guy walked up next to me and shoved his exposed tackle against my thigh while trying to herd me down another street. This was about 11am on a main road.”

And here are some of the comments:

Interestingly, the place I had the most trouble was London.

I lived in North London for the better part of a year in an area that was predominantly Turkish. I was spat at on a couple of occasions, groped a couple more and had more leers and snide comments made at me in the months I was there than I’ve had in my entire life. There was also a memorable occasion where two boys of no older than 17 threw rocks at me while I was jogging (in trackpants and a baggy t-shirt, I might add).
Emma at April 10, 2007 8:23 PM

The worst place I’ve been for harassment is Casablanca in Morocco. Like the story from Jane, almost every man I passed spat on me or at me. I had lots of really scary occasions where men followed me around for hours. Even the male hostel manager attacked me in the ladies bathroom and broke into my dorm room to try the same thing.
Posted by: Jessie at April 10, 2007 8:23 PM

however having a man with you doesnt necessarily keep you out of trouble… i was in Morocco with a girl i had met earlier in my trip and she still was treated like dirt. We ended up cutting short our trip to morocco by a couple of days because she felt so uncomfortable. Its a shame though because it was such a nice place, sadly marred by the locals…

I can say Morocco would be great… if not for the Moroccans.
* Posted by: Rich at April 10, 2007 9:56 PM

However, despite always wearing loose-fitting clothing, covering up and wearing a fake wedding band, I still ended up being groped on a few occassions in India (once shockingly), being hassled by men to buy me in Egypt, and generally being stared at and touched by men throughout Asia. Unfortunately it is just one of those things that comes with travelling in those sort of countries.
Posted by: Laura at April 10, 2007 11:55 PM

I know of a couple who travelled Turkey together. It was fine when they were by the coast, but one day in a restaurant/bar they met an (supposed) government official who seemed very friendly and with whom they enjoyed dinner and a night out. At the end of the night, he offered to give them a present – a trip to the mountains so they could have a romantic picnic. it was an offer which they thought twice about but, as often happens when you’re travelling, sometimes a little risk can bring about a great adventure. So, they accepted his offer.

the next morning, a jeep picked them up and drove them to a beautiful spot in the mountains. They started to picnic and then heard a vehicle approach. It turned out to be filled with armed men. Next thing, the men were out of the jeep and held the guy at gun point while they took turns raping the woman. A disgusting tragedy and needless to say, the relationship did not survive the holiday. the guy is sort of broken and as for the woman, I can only imagine….

I myself travel solo and have had to defend myself physically on a few occasions (india and Egypt were worst) but generally I just ignore the more benign stuff. Of course I wish I didn’t have to deal with it – that I could just enjoy the journey but what can be done if that is the culture of the men in that country?
* Posted by: anouk at April 11, 2007 6:54 AM

I lived in Egypt for a year, and it was hard work. As a white woman, every day was an obstacle course of being hissed at, spat at, yelled at, ripped off and propositioned by Egyptian men.
posted by: ejcd at April 16, 2007 2:07 PM

i had a wonderful experience in alexandria, egypt. i was walking aone around the souk (far too deep into the souk really) when a bloke in a salwar kameez began vigourously masturbating (imagine the fabric going up and down). i was very tired and sarcastically said to him, in english, ‘not getting any mate’.
Posted by: monica at April 17, 2007 10:28 PM

As an explanation for this kind of behaviour a number of people wrote that the inhabitants of these countries think all Western women are “sluts”, “‘whores” and “prostitutes” because of what they see on Western TV shows. There was even the token clown who’s “lived in Australia for a long time” and wrote that Western women deserve this treatment (“but im telling you that the western women get all what they deserve in this regard”), just to prove to any unbelievers that there really are men out there who think this way. Hmm, he’s lived in Australia all these years and he still hold those views? Amazing. Well, this is multiculturalism and thats his culture. Plenty more like him.

Maybe those men did think of Western women as “sluts”. Or maybe some of them thought of Western women as Bible-readers. Maybe even Bible-spreaders. Or maybe they were just bored mysogynist cowards who saw an easy target and what they did reflects a general cultural attitude towards women. Because there was this little incident in Egypt, when women didn’t need to be either hijab-less nor foreign to be randomly sexually assaulted.

Maybe they did because their own religious leaders tought them hatred:

Al-Fawzan: “Someone who denies Allah, worships Christ, son of Mary, and claims that God is one third of a trinity – do you like these things he says and does? Don’t you hate the faith of such a polytheist who says God is one third of a trinity, or who worships Christ, son of Mary?
“Someone who permits and commits fornication – as is the case in Western countries, where fornication is permitted and not considered a problem – don’t you hate this? Whoever says ‘I don’t hate him’ is not a Muslim, my brother.”
[...]
“But if this person is an infidel – even if this person is my mother or father, God forbid, or my son or daughter – I must hate him, his heresy, and his defiance of Allah and His prophet. I must hate his abominable deeds. Moreover, this hatred must be positive hatred. It should make me feel compassion for him, and should make me guide and reform him.”

So maybe they were expressing their “positive hatred” and “compassion” through attempt to “guide and reform” the infidel harlots.

Maybe even Dr. Tawfik Hamid (who was once a member of Jemaah Islamiya_ has a point about a simple but shocking truth:

“North Americans are too squeamish about discussing the obvious sexual dynamic behind suicide bombings. If they understood contemporary Islamic society, they would understand the sheer sexual tension of Sunni Muslim men.

Maybe this explains some other things too, Dr Hamid continues:

Look at the figures for suicide bombings and see how few are from the Shiite world. Terrorism and violence yes, but not suicide. The overwhelming majority are from Sunnis. Now within the Shiite world there are what is known as temporary marriages, lasting anywhere from an hour to 95 years. It enables men to release their sexual frustrations.

“Islam condemns extra-marital sex as well as masturbation, which is also taught in the Christian tradition. But Islam also tells of unlimited sexual ecstasy in paradise with beautiful virgins for the martyr who gives his life for the faith. Don’t for a moment underestimate this blinding passion or its influence on those who accept fundamentalism.”

A pause. “I know. I was one who accepted it.”

This partial explanation is shocking more for its banality than its horror. Mass murder provoked partly by simple lust. But it cannot be denied that letters written by suicide bombers frequently dwell on waiting virgins and sexual gratification.

“The sexual aspect is, of course, just one part of this. But I can tell you what it is not about. Not about Israel, not about Iraq, not about Afghanistan. They are mere excuses. Algerian Muslim fundamentalists murdered 150,000 other Algerian Muslims, sometimes slitting the throats of children in front of their parents. Are you seriously telling me that this was because of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians or American foreign policy?”

He’s exasperated now, visibly angry at what he sees as a willful Western foolishness. “Stop asking what you have done wrong. Stop it! They’re slaughtering you like sheep and you still look within. You criticize your history, your institutions, your churches. Why can’t you realize that it has nothing to do with what you have done but with what they want.”

Lebanese terrorist propaganda rag Al-Akhbar had this positively gorgeous photograph of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on their front page a couple of days ago
(h/t The Ouwet Front):

Today they’ve gone for a cross-eyed Commie retard with a shit-eating grin. The guy next to her doesn’t seem impressed.

They are protesting at Lebanese University on a rumour that US Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman was going to accompany Craig Barrett, the chairman of Intel Corporation, on his visit to the University yesterday afternoon.

Al Akhbar was launched during last summer’s war by rabidly anti-American and pro-Hezbollah far left nationalists. Its newspaper license was leased from the Lebanese Communist Party. Looks like the LCP donated much more than just a newspaper license.

From an interview with Larry Elder, for WorldNetDaily:

Larry Elder: You are of Christian Lebanese descent. When you heard what Rosie O’Donnell said, that Christian extremism is as bad as Islamic extremism, how did you react?

Brigitte Gabriel: Well, I do not know what land she is living in, but I do not recall when the last time I saw a Christian behead anybody on television, or behead somebody and advertise it on the Internet. I do not recall hearing a Christian preach that Muslims are apes and pigs because they are cursed by Jesus, the way that Muslims are teaching that we are apes and pigs. I do not recall the last time a Christian went into an elementary school, hijacked children and started shooting them in the back like the Muslims did in Beslan in Russia when they went into a schoolyard and took over the children and started butchering them and killing them. [Rosie] better be thankful that she is living in America, because if she were living in Iran and spoke against her country – or any Arabic country – she would be beheaded or actually buried halfway in the ground, to be stoned to death.
[..].

Elder: You were raised in Lebanon. You were 10 years old and living in southern Lebanon when militant Muslims … poured into your country and declared jihad against Lebanese Christians such as yourself.

Gabriel: Yes, my 9-11 happened to me in 1975 when I was a 10-year-old child, living and minding my own business [in] a small town in south Lebanon. I was an only child to a businessman and his wife. I was blessed with a wonderful childhood. … They showered me with love and everything life had blessed them with. However, our lives were turned upside down because in 1975, the Muslims declared holy war on the Christians of Lebanon. My home exploded around me, buried in the rubble, wounded as the perpetrators shouted, “Allahu Akbar” [God is great]. My only crime was that I was a Christian living in a Christian town. I learned at 10 years old the meaning of the word “infidel.” I had a crash course in survival not in the Girl Scouts, but in the bomb shelter that I lived for seven years of my life in freezing cold, pitch darkness, drinking stale water and eating grass to live. I remember at the age of 13, I dressed in my burial clothes going to bed at night, waiting to be slaughtered. By the age of 20, I had buried most of my friends, who were slaughtered by Muslims.
[..]

The rest on WorldNetDaily.

Taqiyya: easy as ABC.

Yvonne Ridley ducks, weaves, splutters, lies, goes berzerk on the ABC’s AM radio program last Saturday:

JANE COWAN: Can you categorically condemn suicide bombing?

YVONNE RIDLEY: You know, the greatest purveyors of suicide bombing are the Tamil Tigers, a Marxist-Leninist organization, largely of the Hindu faith; I’m not really quite sure why it is being attached specifically towards Muslims.

JANE COWAN: But if you’ve been reported as saying you support suicide bombing, would you now here condemn it, no matter who perpetrates it?

YVONNE RIDLEY: I condemn shoddy journalism and poor research, and people like you should know better than to try and tackle people like me over things that have allegedly been said or not said.

ANE COWAN: But this is an opportunity for you to clarify your views, and …

YVONNE RIDLEY: I’ve clarified them. What don’t you understand?

Listen, I have told you exactly what I have said, now you tell me why you need me to condemn something that is as plain as, you know, as the language that I’ve just said. What didn’t you understand about what I have just said?

JANE COWAN: My question is, do you or do you not support suicide bombing?

YVONNE RIDLEY: Of course I don’t.

Feel free to read the whole thing, just to make sure she is not being taken out of context and that it still makes no sense what-so-ver. There is not much more to it.

Anyhow, of course she doesn’t support suicide bombing. The term that is. She much prefers the more glorifying description of martyrdom operations:

A: Yvonne Ridley – “Muslims have lost confidence since September 11th. Something as simple as suicide bombers being martyrs is being denied by prominent sheikhs. The dictionary definition of a martyr is a person who gives up their life for a cause – suicide bombers are martyrs.”

Now, about that bit on the Tamil Tigers and why oh why, as Yvonne wonders indignantly above, is suicide bombing associated with Islam.

Suicide bombing: 1980 – 2001

Lets start with the following numbers on Wikipedia and go from there:

“Lebanon saw the first bombing, but it was the LTTE Tamil Tigers who perfected the tactic and inspired its use elsewhere [2]. Their Black Tiger unit has committed between 76 and 168 (estimates vary) suicide bombings since 1987.

That first statement is a strange one to make, considering the Black Tigers carried out their first suicide bombing in 1987, by which time they were already common place in Lebanon, for example the suicide car bombing of the Iraqi embassy by Islamists in 1981, the bombing of the U.S. embassy by Hezbollah in 1983 and the bombing of the American and French barracks, also in 1983 and also by Hezbollah and Iran. In the least the word “bombing” above should be plural. Further, for a decade after 1987, most of the suicide bombings perpetrated by groups other than the Tamil Tigers were carried out by groups originating either in Lebanon or Israel, ie Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa Brigades. Did Hamas need inspiration from Sri Lanka, when they already had plenty from next door in Lebanon, where they were also involved in the Lebanese uncivil free-for-all?

A quick look at those numbers on Black Tiger bombings – “between 76 and 168″.

The lower number, 76, is taken from Robert Pape’s book, “Dying to Win”:

Pape says that the group [the Tamil Tigers] accounted for 76 of 315 suicide attacks carried out around the world from 1980 through 2003, compared with 54 for the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, and 27 for Islamic Jihad.

The higher number, 168, is taken from this report by Jane’s Intelligence Review (note these numbers stop just before the start of the intifada in Israel in 2000, see more recent figures from that region further down):

NUMBER OF SUICIDE ATTACKS BETWEEN 1980 – 2000

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka and in India 168
Hizbullah and pro-Syrian groups in Lebanon, Kuwait and Argentina 52
Hamas in Israel 22
The Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) in Turkey 15
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Israel 8
Al Quaida in East Africa 2
The Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) in Croatia 1
The Islamic Group (IG) in Pakistan 1
Barbar Khalsa International (BKI) in India 1
The Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in Algeria 1

What we have above is 10 groups out of which 7 are Islamic, 2 are Marxists-Leninist nationalists (the LTTE and the PKK, although the latter began reclaiming their Islamic identity from the late 1980s on) and one Sikh separatist group, BKI. What we also have, by the way, is numbers pretty damn different to Robert Pape, whom everyone (and especially Islamist apologists) seems to quote, usually out of context, as an expert on suicide bombing.

The list from Jane’s seem far from exhaustive, for example the suicide bombing of the Iraqi embassy in 1981 in Beirut was carried out by the Islamic Dawa Party, which is a militant Shiite party, to which the current Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki belongs. Others were also carried out in Lebanon by groups like Amal and even the schitzophrenically fascist Syrian Social Nationalist Party, who are credited with the first suicide bombing by a woman. Overall however, terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman calculates that 31 out of the 35 groups that have carried out suicide bombings since 1980 are Islamic (2005 figure).

Suicide bombing since 2001.

Looking at the numbers above, Yvonne would have had a point had she made her statement, often repeated by Islamist apologists, 5 or more years ago. Since then however the picture has changed completely, no matter how you look at it. As the number below will show, 95% – 97% of the suicide attacks in the last 5-6 years have been carried out by Islamists, with a large number against civilian targets.

In 2002 a ceasefire was signed in Sri Lanka and the suicide bombings ceased, until renewed hostilities in 2004. In the three years since 16 suicide bombings have been carried out by the Tamil Tigers. Taking the 168 from the Jane’s article, and adding the 16 recent one, plus 7 that occured between October 2000 (when the Jane’s article was published) and the ceasefire and we get a total of 191 in 20 years. Note however that most although certainly not all, of these were against military targets.

In the meantime the Second intifada started in Israel in September 2000. In 2002, as a ceasefire was signed in Sri Lanka, the intifada was at its peak – 42 suicide bombings were carried out by Palestinian Islamists that year, killing 228 people. Dozens more followed since. About 130 suicide bombings have been carried out in Israel in the last 15 years, about 75 of those by Hamas, 22 by Al-Aqsa Martyrs brigades and 32 by Islamic Jihad. The number would be much higher had it not been for the excellent work of the Israeli security services and the security wall. And then came Iraq. There were about 30 suicide bombings in Iraq in 2003. Then two to three times that in 2004. In 2005 the numbers went off the chart, as this Washington Post article from July 2005 that I’ve already quoted above documents:

The numbers in Iraq alone are breathtaking: About 400 suicide bombings have shaken Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003, and suicide now plays a role in two out of every three insurgent bombings. In May, an estimated 90 suicide bombings were carried out in the war-torn country — nearly as many as the Israeli government has documented in the conflict with Palestinians since 1993.

Hundreds more have followed in Iraq since. A November 2006 estimate by David Cook put the number at 540, with a death toll between 16,000 and 18,000. Stratfor put the number above 500 for 2005 alone (subscription only). Dozens more have followed in other countries. In the 1980x only three countries experienced suicide attacks – Labanon, Kuwait and Sri Lanka. By 2002 this had risen to 15, including countries as far and wide as Croatia and Argentina, Russia (23 suicide attacks since 2000, 6 against civilian targets) and Algeria. The number is now above 30 (hint: the Tamil Tigers have not expanded their area of operation). The Tamil Tigers have long been superseded by the various Islamist groups in terms of number bombings and even more so in number of casualties, especially civilian casualties. Islamist terrorist groups are responsible for the most deadly suicide attacks – at least the top 10, the suicide attacks that killed the most civilians – again easily the top 10, and the attacks that used the most bombers at one time. The genocidal Islamist terrorist organization Lashkar e-Toiba pioneered the use of suicide squads (fedayeen) in their operations. Just in 2005 Islamist groups in Iraq alone carried out more attacks than all non-Islamist groups in the last 30 years combined, the civilian death toll has also been proportionally larger. Islamists have flown planes into building killing thousands of civilians, blown themselves up to kill hundreds on trains, in mosques, and in crowded markets, walked into weddings, cafes, nightclubs and onto buses killing dozens or more. All the while they were screaming “Allahu Akbar!”, fantasizing of virgin flesh and yearning to please Allah. In the background of the carnage Islamic clerics have been issuing fatwas that support these suicide attacks, not only against military targets, but also against civilians. Is it clear yet why the question is being asked specifically in relation to Muslims yet, Yvonne?

Perhaps it isn’t, after all, this is Yvonne Ridley we’re talking about, so lets continue.

So how about your pals, the Taliban then, who claim to have 2000 suicide bombers (and 10,000 fighters) ready for the imminent spring offensive? OK, we all know thats bullshit, but even if we go with the much lesser estimate given by the commander of US forces in Afghanistan Major General David Rodriguez, who says they have more like 500 suicide bombers and 3,000 fighters, thats still a substantial number. Potentially record breaking even. Speaking of breaking records, lets see – Afghanistan had 25 bombings in 2004, 139 in 2005 and about 30 so far this year, targeting not only military targets but also civilian buses and markets, with 84% of the victims of these attacks being civilians (Feb 2007 figure). Add to that their 8 suicide attacks in Pakistan this year so far (ie not even looking at previous years) we get a total of 201, thus making the Taliban greater “purveyors of suicide bombing” than the Tamil Tigers (in 3 years versus 20). And all they are trying to do is catch up with their friends in Iraq.

Speaking of Pakistan, last week the chief cleric of the Red Mosque [Lal Masjid] in Islamabad had this to say:

“Our youth will commit suicide attacks, if the government impedes the enforcement of the Sharia and attacks Lal Masjid and its sister seminaries,” Maulana Abdul Aziz, the in-charge of the mosque said in his Friday sermon. The fresh suicide bombing threat is stated to be the strongest given so far by the hard-line clerics of the Lal Masjid, intensifying fear among Islamabad residents.

How about Morocco, where 4 bombers were killed or killed themselves yesterday and another detonated himself last month, his exposition leading the the uncovering of a plot involving at least 12 bombers? These bombers were working in Casablanca, by the way, where 45 people died in the Islamist suicide bombings in 2003 carried out by 14 bombers from the Al-Qaeda linked group Salafia Jihadia. The list goes on and on – London, Bali, Moscow, Riyadh. Islamists, Islamists, Islamists, Islamists. And the latest news – a twin suicide car bombing in Algeria, that killed 30 people. What kind of group may the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) be? Oh sorry, I see they’ve recently changed their name to the Al-Qa’ida Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb.

The “martyrdom-seeking nation of Iran”.

No martyrdom-seeking roll call can be complete without the “martyrdom-seeking nation of Iran”:

In an earlier interview with Parto-Sokhan, Jaafari [commander of the “Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison”] announced that more than 50,000 individuals had been enlisted in the Iranian military garrison opened to recruit and train volunteers for “martyrdom-seeking operations”.

He added that several military divisions of the “Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison” had already been established in several of Iran’s provinces and others were presently being formed to “confront threats by America and Israel”.

The leader of the glorious Iranian bullshit-spinning entity praised his death-seeking fanatical compatriots a couple of weeks ago: “Suicide bombers in this land showed us the way, and they enlighten our future”, brimming with pride that Iran is capable of recruiting “hundreds of suicide bombers a day”.

In the name of Islam.

Perhaps its time to hear from a Muslim, here’s Yasmin Al-Mas in “Something has gone wrong” where she looks at challenging the Islamic justification for suicide terror, used by the Salafi-Jihadists, Q-News Magazine, November 2005:

Worldwide, in merely three years after 9/11, the number of suicide bombings in the name of Islam had increased three-fold than it had over two decades whilst the number of people killed had doubled. Suicide bombing in the name of Islam had now occurred in 26 countries: Lebanon [1981], Kuwait [1983], Argentina [1992], Panama, Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories [1994], Pakistan, Croatia [1995], Saudi Arabia [1996], Tanzania, Kenya [1998], Yemen, Chechnya [2000], USA, Kashmir, Afghanistan [2001], Tunisia, Indonesia, Algeria [2002], Morocco, Russia, India, Iraq, Turkey [2003], Uzbekistan and Spain [2004] and the United Kingdom [2005].

The bigger picture.

Here’s Walid Phares, with some more numbers (Feb 2007):

Asked to estimate the number of jihadist insurgents worldwide, Phares had some unsettling news.

“It depends on what the duty of such people [insurgents] would be,” he told NewsMax. “Suicide bombers would be lower in number than of those who will fight, those who will spy, those who will provide funds. There are about from 5% to 6% to 8% jihadist sympathizers in the Muslim world, which is 1.1 billion, so we are talking about 50 to 60 million who sympathize with these ideas.

“They are all not committed, but out of those you have probably 1% of people who would fight. That’s an army of 1 million. Among those, if you want to go to the most narrow dimension, there are about 100,000 suicide bombers around the world. For example, in Iraq there are probably 5,000, in Iran another 8,000 to 10,000, and within Hezbollah, 2,000.

“There is a pool of 100,000 people who have received this jihadist ideology and could be recruited for suicide bombing. Internationally, from an operational standpoint, there are somewhere around 5,000, and that’s a huge number of suicide bombers. Look at England, for example the operation of [July 7, 2005 -- the subway bombings] involved eight terrorists The next year, in the operation that wanted to bring down the airliners, there were about 50. So it grows geometrically.”

Why you should verify what you read on Wikipedia.

While we’re on the subject of “shoddy” reporting, take a look at this Wikipedia article on the Tamil Tigers:

LTTE had carried out more suicide bombings than any other organization on the face of the earth. According to the experts at Janes securities, between 1980 to 2000, LTTE had carried out a total number of 1,680 suicide attacks on civilians, political, and military targets. The number of suicide attacks easily exceeded the combine total of Hizbullah and Hamas suicide attacks carried out during the same period.[48]

Reference 48 is the Jane’s article which I quoted above. As you can see the original Jane’s article seems to be missing that extra 0.

UPDATE: I compiled the data above into the table below.

Top perpetrators of suicide attacks since 1980.

Al Qaeda in Iraq/Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) 500-800
Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan 200+
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka and in India 190+
Hamas in Israel 75
Hizbullah and pro-Syrian groups in Lebanon, Kuwait and Argentina 52
Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades 32
Chechen groups in Russia 23
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Israel 22
Al Qaeda outside of Iraq 20+
The Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) in Turkey 15

Note: Where I am not quoting other sources, for attacks where multiple attackers were involved I am adding up the number og targets attacked, not the number of attackers. Thus for the Casablanca 2003 bombings, there were 5 targets attacked, with 14 bombers, 12 of which detonated successfully, so I am counting that as 5. I wanted to avoid skewing the numbers by counting it as either 1 or 14.

Regarding the Al Qaeda in Iraq estimate, in 2006 Ayman Al Zawahiri, claimed Al Qaeda carried out 800 suicide bombings in Iraq. Al Zawahiri is of course exaggerating, but the total number of attacks over the last 4 years would be approaching that number. Also according to a report from the Gulf Research Center (see last link), there is four groups other than Al Qaeda that have carried out suicide attacks in Iraq. The same report also states that suicide attacks in Afghanistan increased 750% between 2001 and 2006, jumping from 21 to 180, suggesting a total far higher than what I’ve stated above, so as you can see I am playing it safe with the numbers.

Trackposted to Right Pundits, Outside the Beltway, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Perri Nelson’s Website, Maggie’s Notebook, basil’s blog, Stuck On Stupid, The Bullwinkle Blog, The Amboy Times, Cao’s Blog, The Pet Haven, Conservative Cat, Conservative Thoughts, , Bumpshack, third world county, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, The Pink Flamingo, Planck’s Constant, CORSARI D’ITALIA, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

“Can you do that Michael Jackson thing you do, again, Nancy?”

Michael Young with a reminder for Nancy Pelosi:

We can thank the US speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, for having informed Syrian President Bashar Assad, from Beirut, that “the road to solving Lebanon’s problems passes through Damascus.” Now, of course, all we need to do is remind Pelosi that the spirit and letter of successive United Nations Security Council resolutions, as well as Saudi and Egyptian efforts in recent weeks, have been destined to ensure precisely the opposite: that Syria end its meddling in Lebanese affairs.

The Lebanese people with a different take on what lies for Lebanon on the road through Damascus.

and with another reminder on the nature of Hezbollah:

For years, pundits and analysts have spoken of Hizbullah’s “integration into Lebanese society.” Their underlying premise was that the party somehow desired this. Optimists pointed to Hizbullah’s participation in successive parliamentary elections as an example of its willingness to “assimilate.” The naivete deployed was remarkable.

It rarely occurred to the experts that Hizbullah did not start as, nor truly is, a social services organization. It is an Iranian-financed military and security enterprise overseeing a vast and competent patronage system designed to win Shiite backing, allowing Hizbullah to retain its weapons. It never occurred to the experts that Hizbullah’s objective in participating in the political system was not to jettison its military identity, but rather to safeguard it within the confines of Lebanese institutions it could thereafter influence. And it never occurred to the experts that Hizbullah was not interested in integration at all, at least on terms that would require surrendering its autonomy, even if it readily exploited its stake in the state as an additional means of patronage, much like other Lebanese political actors.

h/t Across the Bay, which has an excellent post on the topic.

By the way, apparently the Alawites, a pseudo-Islamic sect that Syrian President Bashar Assad belongs to, believe women do not have souls:

The father of Syrian President Bashar Assad, the late Hafez Assad, led a regime dominated by the belief that women do not have souls.

Assad originated from the Alawite religious minority, though in essence a sect of Shiite Islam is a world apart from Islam in doctrine and practice.

“The secretive faith—in name indicating followers of Ali, son-in-law of Islam’s founding Prophet Mohammed—also combines elements of Christianity and astrology.” (Apologetics Index).

Peculiar to the Alawites is the belief that women do not have souls.

Politically Bashar Assad is a chip off the proverbial old block. Shaped by his father’s lifetime crusade against Israel, he has steadfastly resisted Israeli and American pressure to abandon support for Hezbollah.

Head scarf for the mosque, mini-skirt for the Presidential Palace. I see where she is going with this.

Baby Assad: “Don’t give me that smile, I know what you’re trying to do. I’ve seen Basic Instinct.”

(h/t Wake up America)

So many friends, so little time.

I am having a visual day, evidently.

A great three part essay on slavery in the Islamic world, entitled “Should The Islamic World Apologize For Slavery?” has been posted at Western Resistance. Extract:

[..] Modern Western nations’ involvement in the black slave trade lasted little more than 350 years, yet Islam has been involved in the black slave trade for more than 14 centuries, from the time of its founder. Mohammed owned black slaves, and in countries like the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, the black slave trade continues. According to Murray Gordon, the amount of black slaves taken by Muslims amounted to 11 million, though this figure is probably an underestimate. While white (and Arab) slave merchants bought and sold black people from the west coast of Africa, Muslim slavers in north Africa also engaged in a trade of white Christians, a trade that politically correct history books conveniently ignore. [TOD: some two million European Christians were enslaved by some accounts]

[..]
According to Bernard Lewis, author of Race and Slavery in the Middle East: “Black slaves were brought into the Islamic world by a number of routes – from West Africa across the Sahara to Morocco and Tunisia, from Chad across the desert to Libya, from East Africa down the Nile to Egypt, and across the Red Sea and Indian Ocean to Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Turkish slaves from the steppe-lands were marketed in Samarkand and other Muslim Central Asian cities and from there exported to Iran, the Fertile Crescent, and beyond. Caucasians, of increasing importance in the later centuries, were brought from the land bridge between the Black Sea and the Caspian and were marketed mainly in Aleppo and Mosul.”

Slavery is advocated in the Koran. Though Mohammed states that freeing slaves gains merit, he made no prohibitions against acquiring slaves. Women and girl slaves could be gained as “booty” in raids. Sura 33, verse 50 states: “Prophet, we have made lawful for you…. the slave-girls whom God has given you as booty.” These could be raped at will by Muslims who in no way contradicted the Koran – Suras 23:1 and 70:22 state that it is lawful to have sex with slave girls. The Hadiths are filled with references to slaves owned by Mohammed and his associates. In one Hadith Mohammed intervened to reverse one man’s emancipation of six slaves. By casting lots, Mohammed denied freedom to four of them.

[..] According to Bernard Lewis (page 38) the Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun (1332 – 1406) wrote: “The only people who accept slavery are the Negroes, owing to their low degree of humanity and their proximity to the animal stage.”

Such attitudes still exist in Mauritania and also Sudan, where Arab elites enslave black people from the Dinka and the Shilluk tribes who live in southern Sudan. Since 1983 when the northern government of Simon Deng had been a Shilluk child slave, abducted to live in northern Sudan by an Arab. In May 2006 he went on a fact-finding mission to southern Sudan. He said that “villages are still being burnt, women are still being raped, and people are being sold into slavery.” Mr Deng now lives as a US citizen in New York.

Another Sudanese-born black man who is now a US citizen is Francis Bok. He came from a Catholic family in a Dinka village. In 1986, when aged seven, he was abducted by Arabs from the north who decapitated adults at a local market and stole the children. For ten years Mr Bok was a slave in a Muslim household – forced to convert to Islam – until he ran away. Some Dinka slaves who do not convert to Islam have had their Achilles tendons cut.

In 2000, a UNICEF representative estimated that 5,000 to 10,000 children were still slaves in Sudan. The Dinka Committee in 2001 claimed that 14,000 children have been abducted since 1983. In Sudan, as elsewhere, child slaves are subjected to cruel punishments.

[..] In 2003, it was revealed that a Saudi Sheik, Saleh Al-Fawzan, said: “Slavery is a part of Islam. Slavery is part of jihad, and jihad will remain as long there is Islam.”

Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.

If you only read one part, read the third, which describes how slavery continues to this day in some Muslim cultures.

“A Mauritanian woman and child stand inside a makeshift shelter in the Keube slum in the capital Nouakchott in this March 13, 2007 file picture. Herding camels or goats out in the sun-blasted dunes of the Sahara, or serving hot mint tea to guests in the richly carpeted villas of Nouakchott, Mauritanian slaves serve their masters and are passed on as family chattels from generation to generation. Reuters correspondent Ed Stoddard reports that U.S. evangelical Christians are united behind a new campaign to end modern slavery around the world. (Finbarr O’Reilly/Reuters)”

But there is a bit of surprisingly good news coming out of Mauritania – their recent elections have been deemed free and fair by observers, showing promise of a real transition to democracy, following a military coup in 2005. Also the UN Economic Commission for Africa has just released a report ranking Mauritania as the best economically performing country in Africa in 2006.