Call for Divorce Law Change in Pakistan

Pakistan’s top Islamic advisory body has urged the government to amend divorce laws to give more say to women, triggering a controversy with religious hardliners vowing to resist the move. The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) proposed to the government at the weekend that a divorce should go into effect within three months of a woman’s request for it. Under existing Pakistani laws, men are free to divorce their wives, but a woman can only start divorce proceedings if she first surrenders her right to ‘mehr,’ or money pledged to her at the time of wedding as a token of her husband’s earnestness.

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National Council of Churches, Interfaith Relations Commission Speaks out against the Obsession DVD.

In recent weeks many Americans have found in their mailboxes and morning papers a DVD called ‘Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.’ As the Interfaith Relations Commission of the National Council of Churches, we are alarmed by the massive distribution of some 28 million copies of this DVD through paid advertisement by the Clarion Fund in more than seventy newspapers. While this film purports to educate and offers, at the outset, a disclaimer that it is not about the majority of peaceful Muslims, we see its content as serving only the aims of distorting truth and misleading viewers, fanning the sparks of mistrust, bigotry, and hatred that undermine the very foundations of a multi-religious democracy.

The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., bringing together thirty-five national Protestant and Orthodox churches, is concerned not only with relations among Christian churches, but also with our relations with neighbors of other faiths. Toward that end, we participate in a national dialogue between Christians and Muslims. We believe that deep relationship as neighbors calls us to common moral engagement and leadership in a world plagued by violence, poverty, atrocities, and environmental degradation.

We are deeply troubled by the apparent intent of a film that presents a barrage of violent images, pieced together with the voices of commentators who move from speaking of ‘radical Islam’ to impugning Islam and Muslims more generally and presenting fear-mongering parallels between today’s extremist terrorists and the Nazis. The National Council of Churches and its member churches consistently and adamantly denounce anti-Semitism in all its forms and condemn all forms of ethnic, racial, and religious hatred, including the Islamophobia typified in this film.

The stated aim of this film is to alert and educate the public about the dangers of terrorism perpetrated in the name of Islam. We recognize that in all our traditions, extremists and radicals have forged the weaponry of violence. The National Council of Churches condemns extremism, terrorism, and religiously motivated violence, as do our Muslim dialogue partners here in the United States and globally. We stand firmly against terrorism in all its manifestations. However, the content of this film has no useful analysis of terrorism beyond a shallow, monolithic, clash-of-civilizations theme that suggests that the only two responses to ‘radical Islam’ are war or appeasement. Such a false choice serves only to incite the fear of Islam and aggression against Muslims.

As an alternative to the message of this DVD, we lift up the current and unprecedented worldwide exchange between Christians and Muslims. The Muslim initiative, ‘A Common Word Between Us and You,’ has gained wide response from the churches and has generated an ongoing process of dialogue. Building constructively on the foundations that unite us in fractured world provides a far more hopeful way ahead for Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike.

In the National Council of Churches, we stand with our Muslim colleagues and fellow citizens who have experienced the de-humanizing effects of stereotyping and bigotry. As Christians, we are mandated to uphold the values of the Gospel. As Americans, we stand with all who are determined to create just and fair democracy.

The American Crescent: Islam in America

In a special two-part documentary Rageh Omaar journeys across the United States exploring the story of Islam in the country.

He attempts to discover if – far from being fundamentally incompatible – Islamic America holds the seeds of a lasting solution to global discord between east and west.

Watch Online

WISE Update: September 2008; Issue 5

Read the WISE Newsletter for September 2008; Issue 5

Muslim Women’s Newsletter – Vol. 2 No.21, December, 2008

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Video Response to Obsession from MAS Charlotte