China's Female Imams

Here is something we don't hear about often when we hear about Islam in the media:

As early as the late Ming dynasty (around the 17th century), the faithful had set up female Muslim schools around the country. These turned into female mosques operated by women imams in late Qing dynasty (around the 19th century). The practice of female imams then spread to all the Chinese Muslim societies, said Shui Jingjun, a Henan Provincial Academy of Social Sciences researcher. Currently, Ningxia has more than 80 female imams. There are more than 3,600 registered mosques and 6,000 ahongs in the region, he said.

NPR also reports:

This city in central China's Henan province has an Islamic enclave, where Muslims have lived for more than 1,000 years.

In an alleyway called Wangjia hutong, women go to their own mosque, where Yao Baoxia leads prayers. For 14 years, Yao has been a female imam, or ahong as they are called here, a word derived from Persian.

As she leads the service, Yao stands alongside the other women, not in front of them as a male imam would. But she says her role is the same as a male imam.

"The status is the same," Yao says confidently. "Men and women are equal here, maybe because we are a socialist country."

China has an estimated 21 million Muslims, who have developed their own set of Islamic practices with Chinese characteristics. The biggest difference is the development of independent women's mosques with female imams, something scholars who have researched the issue say is unique to China.

Yao studied to become an imam for four years, after being laid off from her job as a factory worker. First she studied under a female imam, then with a male imam alongside male students.

Her main role is as a teacher, she says.

"When people come to pray, they don't know how to chant the Quran, so my job is teaching people about Islam, helping them to study one line at a time and leading the prayers," she says.

However there is still opposition against this more Progressive breed of Islam wherever Fundamentalist Islam holds influence:

Opposition Still Exists To Women's Roles

In central China, most Muslims support the female mosques, but there is some resistance closer to China's border with Pakistan and Afghanistan, closer to the harder-line Wahhabi and Salafi influences.

"Historically in northwestern China, there were no female mosques," says Shui, the researcher. "There was resistance because people thought that building female mosques was against the rules of religion. But in central China and most provinces, people think it's a good innovation for Islam."

In the past decade, some women's mosques have been established in northwest China. The phenomenon appears to be spreading, helped politically by the Islamic Association of China, a state-controlled body that regulates Islam and issues licenses to practice to male and female imams alike.

See also: China's Female Imams and NPR: Female Imams Blaze Trail Amid China's Muslims.

Coming Soon Muslim Superheroes

Here's some interesting stuff for you:

World's first Muslim superheroes, the 99, are headed for British television screens
The world's first Muslim cartoon superheroes have taken the Arab world by storm, and now they are headed for British television screens.

Published: 11:00AM BST 20 Aug 2009


Jabbar, is one of The 99, the world's first Muslim cartoon superheroes
Named the 99, as each possesses one of Allah's 99 attributes, the characters include a burka-clad woman named Batina the Hidden and a Saudi Arabian Hulk-type man named Jabbar the Powerful.

They have proved a hit from Morocco to Indonesia and were recently named as one of the top 20 trends sweeping the world by Forbes magazine.

Now they are being brought to British television by Endemol, the production company behind Big Brother, with a mission to instill Islamic values in children across all faiths.

Until now, the superhero market has been dominated by the likes of Batman, Spiderman and Superman who have typically limited their crime-fighting abilities to America and the Western world.

They were created by Dr Naif al-Mutawa, a clinical psychologist from Kuwait, who felt Muslim children needed a new set of heroes to look up to, to counter jihadist role models.

“It hit me that the stories I was hearing were from men who grew up believing that their leader, Saddam, was a hero, a role model — only to one day be tortured by him,” he told The Times. “I decided the Arab world needed better role models.”

However, despite being called the 99, there will never be a full cast of 99 superheroes since it is forbidden to depict all Allah's attributes

Dr al-Mutawa hopes the cartoons will have a universal appeal.

He said: “It is based on attributes such as generosity and mercy. These are not things that Islam has a monopoly over.”

Grace Truly Wins Out

Here's an interesting article:

Pope Gunman Wants to Convert
AP
posted: 5 DAYS 12 HOURS AGOcomments: 226filed under: World NewsPrintShareText SizeAAA

ANKARA, Turkey (May 13) -- The gunman who shot Pope John Paul II says he would like to convert to Christianity at a baptism ceremony at the Vatican after his release from prison in January.
In comments relayed by his lawyer on Wednesday, Mehmet Ali Agca also says he wants to visit the grave of Pope John Paul II, meet with Pope Benedict XVI and produce a television documentary on the Vatican.

Agca shot and seriously wounded John Paul on May 13, 1981. The late pope met with Agca in an Italian prison in 1983 and forgave him for the shooting.
Agca served 19 years in an Italian prison for the attack and is currently serving a prison term in Turkey for killing journalist Abdi Ipekci.
He is due to be released from Sincan Prison, near Ankara, on Jan. 18, 2010.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2009-05-13 06:00:35

Regardless of one's stance on the Papacy, Grace truly wins out in the end and God used Pope John Paul II's relationship with Mehmet Ali Agca as part of Agca's conversion process rather than the Pope force-feeding Agca a list of manmade propositions and telling him to believe these things or go to hell like Fundamentalist Pharisees do.

The Sloppy Theology Of Henry Poole Is Here: Part 2

"On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur, l'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux." (It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye).
— Les hommes ont oublié cette vérité, dit le renard. Mais tu ne dois pas l’oublier. Tu deviens responsable pour toujours de ce que tu as apprivoisé. Tu es responsable de ta rose…
Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose..."
— C’est le temps que tu as perdu pour ta rose qui fait ta rose si importante.
"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important." ----Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince

Sorry for the week long wait, but last week I got a stomach bug that has been going around our church so that wasn't fun. Anyways, continuing from where I left off---I believe like Fosdick that miracles still happen, but we must be careful how we approach miracles---because sometimes our approaches to miracles lead to dangerous theology such as in these ways:

1- Sometimes how we approach miracles leads to spiritual materialism---turning our walk with God into one of sight and proofs rather than belief/faith in the unseen Risen Lord (John 20:28-30).

2- Sometimes our approaches lead to spiritual arrogance and pride---in that those who have experienced miracles sometimes feel spiritual more superior than those that haven't or feel that God specially chose them and not others such as: how Adolf Hitler believed God chose him to rule the world after he escaped death several times in WWI.

3- Some of our approaches downgrade theodicy (the problem of evil and suffering in the world)---which poses the question of why God would choose to heal some people and not others whom have just as much faith or more than those whom did get healed?

4-

Do you ever wonder just what God requires?
You think He's just an errand boy to satisfy your wandering desires.

--- Bob Dylan, When You Gonna Wake Up? This thought by Bob Dylan which echoes something Fosdick said is another problematic approach to miracles.



Tying miracles back to my quote from The Little Prince---a modern day view of miracles is finding God and beauty in all things. No one exemplified this more than Mister Rogers did:

No matter the weather, Mr. Rogers would still come in his house and say it’s a
beautiful day. Why do we think sunny, bright days are beautiful but if it’s raining it’s a dreary
day? I don’t think Mr. Rogers was talking about the weather when he said it’s a
beautiful day in the neighborhood. Mr. Rogers looked for the beauty in every
day things, every day life. Sitting down with a neighbor, drinking tea, taking time to play,
pretend, paint, and be creative. One day of breathing normally is a beautiful day for
someone with Asthma, Bronchitis or Emphysema. One more day to enjoy the
color of the sky is a beautiful day for someone loosing his or her eyesight.
One more day with your son or daughter before they report to boot camp is a beautify day!
Think like Mr. Rogers and enjoy the beauty of this life, this day! Yes we’ve got problems,
yes there is a war going on, sure we’ve got poverty and political unrest but there are still
miracles every day if you take the time to look. Find something today to make you say
“It truly is a beautiful day in this neighborhood”!

In conclusion, despite it's sloppy theology, Henry Poole Is Here was an interesting movie that in the end showed that love is the truest miracle of all.

The Sloppy Theology Of Henry Poole Is Here: Part 1

For we walk by faith, not by sight. (II Corinthians 5:7 RSV)



Two weeks before last we watched Henry Poole Is Here in our Wed. night group, but since I had a cold I had to rent the movie the week before last in order to finish it for last week's discussion. Anyways, the main theme of the movie is miracles and in that regard I felt the theology was rather sloppy. It seemed the whole of the movie was focused on having faith in this "supposed miracle" rather than the Risen Lord whom we've never seen yet believe. Don't get me wrong---God was a pervasive presence throughout the film, but God seemed overshadowed by the "supposed miracle." Anyways, Vick brought up the Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano which is interesting in that it's mysterious. Also, the Shroud of Turin was mentioned (which has been proven to be a hoax over and over again) in our discussion. The problem with these sorts of things are the reason Luther wanted to reform the Roman Catholic Church. Indulgences, anyone? In Luther's time the abuse of indulgences included the sell of religious relics with supposedly miraculous properties. A lot of these so-called "relics" were forged.

A second problem with the film is people see what they want to see. Take these supposed "Islamic miracles" for example: Allah Written in Arabic on Tsunami Wave — Miracles of ALLAH !, A Miracle: The Splitting of the Moon, Islam’s “Miracles”, Miracle of Islam, In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful or
Miracles can be subjective and relative to the individual.

Next I would like to say an individual's definition of miracles shapes their view. Here is a detailed definition of miracles by Harry Emerson Fosdick which has help shaped my view of miracles:

You are right, however, in feeling, as your letter reveals, that the prescientific world view which is the matrix in which the Bible’s treasures are set, does pose some difficult problems -- miracles, for example. A letter offers no adequate space for the treatment of that problem, but I venture some homely advice.

First, remember that the ancient world took what we would call miracles for granted. Not having even the idea of natural law in their heads, "signs and wonders," as the New Testament calls them, did not bother the ancients intellectually at all. Almost anything could happen. The records of Buddhism and Islam are full of miracle stories. A contemporary of Jesus, a man named Apollonius, had his biography written, and the miracles ascribed to him are so like those attributed to Jesus that some at first supposed the biography to be a deliberate attempt to discredit the Gospels. No! That whole ancient world thought in terms of miracles, and one often feels that they represent real events, looked at and thought about in a way utterly different from ours. Mohammed, for example, was credited with having made the sun stand still, with having obtained water from a flinty rock, with having fed thousands with a little food.

Second, consider the fact that some miracle stories in the Bible are more easy to believe now than they were a generation ago. This is especially true about miracles of healing. How many bodily ills, which in my youth were supposed to be physically caused, are now known to be caused or complicated by mental and emotional disorders! If you know anything about the development of psychosomatic medicine, you will understand this. When one considers that over half the beds in all the hospitals in the United States are filled with mental patients, and that many more are filled with patients whose physical ills are emotionally caused, so that cure must come rather from the spiritual than from the bodily end, Jesus’ healings become much more credible than they used to be.

Third, don’t suppose that a miracle means the breaking of natural law. I do not think that natural laws are ever broken. Ask nature the same question in the same way and it will always give you the same answer. But our knowledge of nature’s laws is limited. When I consider how many new regularities in nature have been discovered in my lifetime, I am sure that there are infinitely more yet to be discovered. Indeed, if we are tempted to look back two thousand years and condescend to the writers of the Bible because our science is so superior to theirs, we had better watch our step. Imagine the science of two thousand years ahead! How will men then think about us? They will be doing many things then that are absolutely incredible now. So a marvelous occurrence, then or now or in the ancient world, could conceivably be not a rupture of nature’s laws but a fulfillment of laws beyond our ken. Every time we learn a new law we get our hands on a new law-abiding force and can do a new thing. Cannot God do at least that?

Fourth, don’t suppose that you have to believe every miracle story just because it is in the Bible. Dr. W. E. Orchard was orthodox enough -- he ended in the Roman Catholic priesthood -- but he said once, "If I saw someone walking on the sea, I would not say, ‘This man is Divine’: I would say, ‘Excuse me, do you mind doing that again? I didn’t see how you did it.’" That is the typical modern-minded attitude, and you are in good Christian company if you feel the same way about some miracle stories in the Bible. Moses is said to have cast a stick on the ground and it became a snake, and to have seized the snake by its tail and it became a stick. Well, I wonder! Certainly my Christian faith does not depend on believing things like that.

Fifth, don’t complicate your problem by being a wooden headed literalist. The way many Western Christians think about the Book of Jonah, for example, is a tragedy. That book is one of the most magnificent affirmations of God’s universal care for all mankind, across all boundaries of race and nation, that ever was written in the ancient world. Some scholars call the book fiction with an ethical purpose, others call it a parable or an allegory, but no competent scholar that I know of thinks that the book was intended to be taken as historical fact. Of course it wasn’t. At the time the book was written -- probably somewhere around 300 B.C.-- there was developing in Israel an embittered hatred of the Gentiles. Israel was God’s chosen people, and he would destroy the others, who so often had mistreated Israel. Well, Jonah is Israel, refusing God’s commission to be a missionary to Nineveh, the Gentile city, and fleeing across the Mediterranean to escape. But God proves himself omnipresent: he sends a deadly storm; Jonah, spotted by lot as the guilty man, is thrown overboard; a great fish swallows him and three days later disgorges him. I wonder whether that is not an allegory of the exile in Babylon and the return. At any rate postexilic Israel still begrudged any help from God to Nineveh, and when, in response to Jonah’s reluctant preaching, the city repented, "it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry." Read the book and see how it ends, with God rebuking the surly Jonah and saying, "Should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?" How utterly ridiculous to interpret this moving and prophetic affirmation of God’s universal care for all mankind as a literal miracle story about a whale swallowing a man!

Sixth, don’t be afraid to doubt certain miracles which some Christians consider essential to their faith. If, for example, you doubt the virgin birth of Jesus, you have plenty of good Christian company. I am not trying to tell you what you should think about the virgin birth; I am simply indicating that personally I cannot believe it. Paul apparently never heard of it; Mark, the earliest Gospel, does not mention it; John in his first chapter seems deliberately to bypass it. Only twice in the New Testament is it mentioned -- in Matthew and Luke -- and even there it seems to be a late addition, because the two genealogies of Jesus both come down to Joseph, not to Mary. In the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai I have myself seen a Syriac translation of Matthew --evidently from an earlier Greek version than the one we now have -- in which the genealogy of our Lord ends as it must logically have ended: "Joseph begat Jesus." Moreover, so many Christians seem to think that the story of the virgin birth confers uniqueness on Jesus, whereas the fact is that miraculous birth, without human fatherhood, was a familiar explanation of distinguished persons in all the ancient world. Such miraculous birth, in one form or another, was ascribed to Buddha, Zoroaster, Lao-tse, and Mahavira in the religious realm, and to personalities like Persius and Augustus Caesar in the secular realm. A familiar argument among early Christian apologists was that, if the Romans and Greeks believed that so many other people were born of a virgin, why could they not believe that Jesus was so born. Anyway, whatever conclusion you come to, don’t treat that kind of miracle story as basic to your Christian faith. Jesus’ divinity surely was not physical -- what could that mean? His divinity lay in his spiritual quality.

Finally, never forget that, despite modern science, this is still a miraculous world. As Walt Whitman said,

Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles. . . .
To me every hour of light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.

Imagine yourself back millions of years ago, when earthquakes and volcanoes ruled the uninhabited earth, and along the ocean’s edge the first microscopic forms of cellular life were emerging --on which would you have placed your bet, volcanoes or cells? How utterly unpredictable the future of life on earth then was! So modern science has not reduced this universe and us within it to dull, monotonous, predictable uniformity. Something marvelously creative and unforeseeable is going on here. And, as for the New Testament, think as honestly and intelligently as you can about miracles attributed to Christ, but don’t forget the major fact: he is the miracle. Who ever could have foreseen a life like that?

See also: Harry Emerson Fosdick, What Keeps Religion Going and Miracles, Mormons, and Harry Emerson Fosdick: the challenge of inoculation. I shall continue my analysis of Henry Poole Is Here in my next post.

Malaysian Council Bans Yoga for Muslims

John MacArthur surely would agree with this---after all he said that 'all Christians need for meditation is the bible,' so why not the Koran for Muslims. Here is a clip of John MacArthur telling Doug Pagitt that some aspects are dangerous for Christians as they may welcome demons into their life:

John also said why borrow a term from a false pagan religion. Well there goes the idol and false god of John MacArthur, the manmade pages of the bible---after all, the Greek word "biblos" from which the word bible derives was invented by Zeus-worshiping Greeks. The pagan Egyptians invented paper and not to mention the pagan and imperialistic terms which the Gospels themselves are comprised of. What do you expect from people who worship manmade paper and 'golden' calfskin leather instead of the One True Risen and Living God, Jesus Christ. Anyways, sorry for getting sidetracked---here is the full article on the Muslim ban on Yoga:

Malaysian Council Bans Yoga for MuslimsBy VIJAY JOSHI, AP
posted: 1 DAY 22 HOURS AGOcomments: 169filed under: World News

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (Nov. 22) — Malaysia's top Islamic body, fresh from banning tomboys, issued an edict Saturday that prohibits Muslims from practicing yoga, saying that elements of Hinduism in the ancient Indian exercise could corrupt them.
The National Fatwa Council's chairman, Abdul Shukor Husin, said many Muslims fail to understand that yoga's ultimate aim is to be one with a god of a different religion — an explanation disputed by many practitioners who say yoga need not have a religious element.

"We are of the view that yoga, which originates from Hinduism, combines physical exercise, religious elements, chanting and worshipping for the purpose of achieving inner peace and ultimately to be one with god," Abdul Shukor said.
News of the yoga ban prompted activist Marina Mahathir to wonder what the council will ban next: "What next? Gyms? Most gyms have men and women together. Will that not be allowed any more?"
The edict reflects the growing influence of conservative Islam in Malaysia, a multi-ethnic country of 27 million people where the majority Muslim Malays lost seats in March elections and where minority ethnic Chinese and mostly Hindu ethnic Indians have been clamoring for more rights.
Recently, the council said girls who act like boys violate Islam's tenets. The government has also occasionally made similar conservative moves, banning the use of the word "Allah" by non-Muslims earlier this year, saying it would confuse Muslims.
Analysts say the fatwa could be the result of insecurity among Malay Muslims after their party — in power since 1957 — saw its parliamentary majority greatly reduced in elections because of gains by multiracial opposition parties.
Malay Muslims make up about two-thirds of the country's 27 million people. About 25 percent of the population is ethnic Chinese and 8 percent is ethnic Indian, most of whom are Hindu.

"They are making a stand. They are saying 'we will not give way,'" said Ooi Kee Beng, a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.
Decisions by Malaysia's Fatwa Council are not legally binding on the country's Muslims, however, unless they also become enshrined in national or Shariah laws. But many Muslims abide by the edicts out of deference, but some, like Putri Rahim, plan not to follow the latest fatwa.
"I am mad! Maybe they have it in mind that Islam is under threat. To come out with a fatwa is an insult to intelligent Muslims. It's an insult to my belief," said Putri, a Muslim who has practiced yoga for 10 years.
In recent years, yoga — a collection of spiritual and physical practices, aimed at integrating mind, body and spirit — has been increasingly practiced in gyms and dedicated yoga centers around the world.
There are no figures for how many Muslims practice yoga in Malaysia, but many yoga classes have Muslims attending.
In the United States, where it has become so popular that many public schools began offering it in gym classes, yoga has also come under fire.
Some Christian fundamentalists and even secular parents have argued that yoga's Hindu roots conflict with Christian teachings and that using it in school might violate the separation of church and state. Egypt's highest theological body also banned yoga for Muslims in 2004.

Yoga drew the attention of the Fatwa Council last month when an Islamic scholar said that it was un-Islamic.
A top yoga practitioner in India, Mani Chaitanya, said the Malaysian clerics seem to have "misunderstood the whole thing." Chanting during yoga is to calm the mind and "elevate our consciousness," said Chaitanya, the director of the Sivananda Ashram in New Delhi.
"It is not worship. It's not religious at all. Yoga is universal. All religions can practice yoga. You can practice yoga and still be a good Christian or a good Muslim," he said.
Malaysian yoga teacher Suleiha Merican, 56, who has been practicing yoga for 40 years, also denied there is any Hindu spiritual element to it. "It's a great health science that is scientifically proven and many countries have accepted it" as alternative therapy, said Merican, a Muslim.
Associated Press writer Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur and Muneeza Naqvi in New Delhi contributed to this report.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2008-11-22 14:33:54

Muslims Outnumber World's Catholics - AOL News

This is old news, but it's interesting nonetheless.