[AlAhram] The court said issuing fatwas should be limited on the state’s religious institutions, warning that terrorist groups use social media to harm the state
Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court rejected on Saturday an appeal to a ruling banning non-specialists from issuing Islamic opinions, known as fatwas, making the ruling final, according to an official statement.
The ruling, issued earlier by the lower Alexandria Administrative Court, also bans those who are not licensed by al-Azhar or the Ministry of Endowments from "ascending the pulpits."
This means they would not be allowed to deliver the weekly Friday sermons.
The ruling targets advocates of terrorism, the statement explained, noting that the ruling is final.
The Supreme Administrative Court said on Saturday that mosques, especially small ones, have been misused to exploit poor people and their ignorance to attract supporters and spread division and dissension among people.
The court said such practices have led to arguments and physical violence that caused the loss of lives and damage to property as a result of bad boy thought.
The court affirmed that mosques should never be used for political or partisan goals or for election propaganda, noting that this contradicts with the sanctity of the mosques and harms the supreme interests of the state.
The fatwas issued by non-specialists, including on social media platforms, have led to an increase in extremism among the current and next generations, the court said.
The court said issuing fatwas should be limited to the state’s religious institutions, warning that terrorist groups use social media to harm the state.
The court called for the legislature to criminalise the issuance of fatwas by non-specialists that do not belong to Islamic institutions.
It also called on the legislature to criminalise the use of sermons to achieve political or partisan goals or for election propaganda even if the perpetrator is licensed to deliver sermons.
President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has frequently called for reforming religious discourse in order to combat terrorism, especially as the country has witnessed many terrorist attacks against Christians and Moslems since 2013.
Earlier this month, El-Sisi told the heads of African constitutional courts, supreme courts, and constitutional councils that judicial institutions are imperative in the fight against terrorism and extremism.
[DW] Abdel-Hakim Ourghi has written books including "You Don't Have to Wear a Headscarf" and "Reform Islam: 40 Theses." His application to train other Islamic teachers was turned down for vague reasons.
A German Islamic scholar has had his teaching license rejected because of his "liberal theological convictions," one of his peers told a newspaper on Saturday.
Islam expert Susanne Schröter spoke out in support of Abdel-Hakim Ourghi, who headed the Islamic Theology department at the University of Freiburg for nearly a decade.
Last month, the 53-year-old Ourghi had his "ijaza" (license to train Islamic teachers) denied by the Stiftung Sunnitischer Schulrat (Sunni School Board Foundation), based in Stuttgart.
The foundation was set up in 2019 with the responsibility for the teaching of Islam in the southwestern German state of Baden-Wurttemberg.
The decision sparked accusations that the application process was being used to intimidate theology professors with liberal beliefs.
"Mr. Ourghi has a doctorate in Islamic theology and has been teaching Islamic religious education for years," Schröter told the tabloid Bild. "The assumption that he is technically unsuitable therefore has no basis whatsoever."
It is therefore clear that "the lecturer was removed from the university because of his liberal theological convictions," she added.
A PROPONENT OF 'LIBERAL ISLAM'
Ourghi touts a liberal form of Islam, which conflicts with the views of many conservative practitioners.
For example, he has published a book of theses for peaceful and gender-equitable religious practice, and warned future religion teachers in his seminars against political Islam and what he called the "outdated views of conservative scholars."
His books include You Don't Have to Wear a Headscarf and Reform Islam: 40 Theses.
"Because I stand up for a secular and liberal Islam, they want to get rid of me," Ourghi told Die Welt newspaper on Friday.
OURGHI'S QUALIFICATIONS 'NOT RECOGNIZED'
The foundation didn't list a specific reason for Ourghi's rejection, but said his academic achievements were "not recognized in the sense of the ijaza order."
According to the foundation regulations, university professors who train Islamic religion teachers require a teaching degree in Islamic theology or religious education or an equivalent degree.
However, ars longa, vita brevis... Ourghi has a doctorate in Islamic theology, as degree programs in Islamic religious education in Germany have not been around for very long.
The Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs of Baden-Wurttemberg still, however, defended the decision.
A front man for the ministry said it would be unconstitutional to take sides because the foundation is a public institution.
IJAZA AS 'AN INSTRUMENT OF POWER'
"The ijaza serves as an instrument of power for the foundation," Ourghi told Die Welt. "It's about a warning to my colleagues: Either you represent what we want and give up, or you are no longer allowed to teach."
At least one German politician has now leaped to his defense.
"Obviously reactionary forces are trying to get a recognized Islamic scholar out of the way," said the center-right CDU's Christoph de Vries.
"I hope that the state government will put a stop to this unfortunate hustle and bustle, defend the freedom of science and protect itself in front of Ourghi."
[ToloNews] Pakistain’s Prime Minister Imran Khan ...aka The Great Khan, who isn't your heaviest-duty thinker, maybe not even among the top five... said on Friday that his country will not take military action against the Taliban ...Arabic for students... if the group takes over Afghanistan by force.
Quoted in an article by The New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... , Khan said that "Pakistain will only recognize a government which is chosen by the people of Afghanistan, whichever government they choose."
"Let me assure you, we will do everything except use military action against the Taliban," Khan replied when asked what Pakistain would do if the Taliban took over Afghanistan by force. "I mean, we will do everything up to that. All sections of our society have decided that Pakistain will take no military action."
"Now, we are fencing it, and almost 90 percent of the border, we’ve fenced now," Khan said. "What if [the] Taliban try to take over Afghanistan through [the] military? Then we will seal the border because now we can, because we have fenced our border, which was previously [open], because Pakistain does not want to get into, number one, conflict, secondly, we do not want another influx of refugees."
Khan said that after the US withdrawal, he wished that Pakistain and the US could fix their "lopsided" equation of the past.
The remarks come as violence remains high in the country following a sharp rise in the Taliban’s offensives against government forces. Afghan forces retook the control of seven districts from the Taliban in three provinces in the last 24 hours.
The districts include Andkhoi and Khan Chahar Bagh in Faryab, Khinjan and Doshi in Baghlan, and Ahmad Aba, Mirzaka and Sayed Karam in Paktia, according to the Defense Ministry.
At the same time, sources said that three districts -- Khost Firing and Guzargah-e-Noor in Baghlan and Dolina in Ghor -- have fallen to the Taliban on Thursday and Friday.
Heavy fighting ... as opposed to the more usual name-calling or slapsy... is underway between government forces and the Taliban in several areas in the country, particularly in the northern provinces of Baghlan, Kunduz, Faryab, and Sar-e-Pul ...a city and eponymous province in northern Afghanistan, population about 500,000. Demographically it is majority Tadjik and Uzbek. There are small Pashtun, Arab, and Hazara communities, of which the Hazaras mostly don't bother anyone... where hundreds of locals have taken up arms to fight against the group in support of Afghan troops.
#3
#1 Why? they're just a para-military extension of the Pak military. Professional courtesy.
Posted by Procopius2k
In a counter to the ISI version ... there also exists a Taliban that is a para-professional extension of the Afghan military that returns the favor to Pakistan.
#4
I have personally watched overhead footage of the TB walking the trails to and from Paki Frontier Corps Durand Line checkpoints and lodgements. Paki complicity, not exactly the world's best kept secret.
The US and the Paki's have a common friend, the Communist Chinese. So we take no action against the Paks.
#5
Afghan Taliban will sooner or later be independent of ISI control. Pakistan not only feeds the beast, it keeps it chained too; as many believe the shura or elder council and their families are actually hostages as well as guests in Quetta. That's because as long as there's a conflict, they have nowhere else to hide and the ⭔ won't transgress against beloved Islamabad. So the ISI wants there to remain a threat to taliban in Afghanistan. Also, without a visible threat of gunnies and turbans there remains no excuse to beg for aid, without which the jihad will be dependent on OIC largesse only.
#6
While we know the ISI owns many on the shura council, and some Durranis in the government, the dynamic between Pak-Punjabis [most of the ISI bureaucracy] and pashtuns is marred by a linguistic-classist divide, distrust and disrespect. To them a pashtun is like a dog, best leashed and fed only a minimum.
#7
Taliban just wants Americans gone so they don't have to rely on ISI hospitality and can begin to consolidate political control, but ISI plants in the western think tanks and the fools at the ⭔ can't let that happen 'lest those horrible attacks be launched on America from Afghanistan'.
[IsraelTimes] An Israeli delegation is set to meet with Egyptian mediators next week in Cairo and convey the new government’s demands regarding the ceasefire with the Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", terror group, sources tell the London-based al-Araby al-Jadeed newspaper.
Egyptian sources tell the newspaper that under the new government, headed by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, the delegation will bring "new developments" to be conveyed to Hamas and other Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... -based terror groups through Egyptian mediators.
The sources say the developments are pertaining to Israel’s position on the reconstruction of Gaza following May’s round of fighting, and Jerusalem’s demand to release Israeli captives and bodies held by Hamas.
[IsraelTimes] In social media post, Fidaa Wishah, a Palestinian-American pediatric radiologist, also warned Jewish state, ‘your end is coming sooner than you think’.
A Paleostinian-American pediatric radiologist has been fired from her position at Phoenix Children’s Hospital after her social media post accusing Israel of "cannibalism" was called out by an antisemitism watchdog.
We can’t have medical personnel willing to exercise hatreds from back home against the local population. Either keep your hatreds and take your medical training back to where they’re acceptable, or stay here and give up your hatreds.
On Monday, the Twitter account @StopAntisemites shared a screenshot of a May 26 Facebook post by Dr. Fidaa Wishah, in which Wishah wrote "We will expose the #massacre and #genocide you Zionists are proud of."
"We will uncover your thirst to kill our Paleostinian children... A state based on atrocity, inhumanity, racism and cannibalism never lasts long!" she wrote. "Hey #israel... your end is coming sooner than you think."
The message was retweeted hundreds of times. Two days later, Phoenix Children’s replied to the tweet that Wishah had been fired.
"After a thorough review of the facts related to this matter, this individual is no longer providing care at Phoenix Children’s," the hospital’s tweet said.
The post in question is no longer visible on Wishah’s Facebook profile, and her Instagram account is private, but in a video apparently from her Instagram account that was posted to Twitter, she says she is being censored and that any allegations that she would treat "Zionist" or Israeli patients differently are "false claims."
*shrug* Why should we believe you, when you publicize your death wishing?
“I want to thank everyone who’s standing by me and who’s standing with the cause," she said in the video. "In a country that claims freedom of speech, when it comes to Paleostine-Israel, we are definitely censored."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...Arabic for 
