Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Djoko Suyanto said the Indonesian president “has instructed military, police, and people who care about combating terrorism to ensure security ahead of Easter”.

“Starting tonight, tomorrow morning and on easter day, the military and the police will be on the highest alert at all designated places,” Suyanto said.

National police spokesman Anton Bachrul Alam said that anti-terror police have arrested a total of 19 people, including two in Aceh province, north Sumatra.

The “book bombs” were sent to several addresses including those of liberal Muslim figures and a counter-terrorism official, but no one was killed.

Another parcel bomb was found Thursday morning near a church in Serpong on the outskirts of Jakarta, local police chief Heribertus Ompusunggu told AFP.

“The bomb was placed on an empty plot with a gas pipe running underground,” he said.

Officials said several of the 19 arrested people could be linked to last week’s suicide bombing in a mosque inside local police headquarters compound in the city of Cirebon in West Java.

The bomber, who detonated his explosives during Friday prayers, was killed instantly and injured 30 people.

The attack was the first suicide bombing inside a mosque in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation of 240 million people.

Indonesia has been rocked by a series of attacks staged by regional terror network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) in recent years, including the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people.

Brussels-based think-tank International Crisis Group (ICG) on Tuesday pointed to a new trend of small violent groups adopting “individual jihad” aimed at local “enemies”, including police and Christians.

Jakarta police are deploying 20,000 officers to safeguard Easter celebrations in the capital Friday.

Two anonymous young men in Iran, one Iranian and one Afghan, have burned a Koran in protest. This seven-and-a-half minute long video shows the two men, their faces obscured, holding the Muslim holy book and reading prepared statements. They say that Arabs have foisted this book and their homelands and because of it they have gone backwards for 1400 years. They say they dislike the Koran and want it to disappear, adding “Viva freedom!”

Afterwards they stand the Koran on a flat rock, douse it alcohol and light it. One of them hoots and laughs. The book burns fiercely, and after a few moments one of them sprays more alcohol into the flames. The video ends with them warming their hands over the blazing book.

Despite some high-profile protests, France’s banning of the burka is enormously popular with the public. Unfortunately, as in Britain, almost anything politicians do that the voters approve of tends to be denounced as populisme – a particularly dread charge among the over-earnest French political class – and instead of enjoying the deserved benefits, President Nicolas Sarkozy has found himself on the defensive.

Sarko’s modest measure (the burka is forbidden only in public places, the fines are piffling and the enforcement procedures incomprehensible) has led to much talk of sledgehammers and nuts, warnings of an apocalyptic Muslim backlash and claims that the Republican tradition of liberté is being compromised in a seedy ploy to combat the resurgence of the hard-Right Front National under its new leader Marine Le Pen.

Almost anything, in fact, than an acknowledgement that the public overwhelmingly sees the ban as right for France, beneficial to its Muslim communities and justified – if on no other grounds – as a statement in support of liberalism against darkness. Approval runs right across the spectrum, with Fadela Amara, the Algerian-born former housing minister in Sarkozy’s government, calling the burka “a kind of tomb, a horror for those trapped within it”, and André Gerin, the Communist MP who headed the commission investigating the grounds for a ban, describing it as “the tip of an iceberg of oppression”.

So what do we get in Britain? Theresa May, the Home Secretary, rules out a ban because “it would be out of keeping with our nation’s longstanding record of tolerance”, while the Leftist commentariat continues – with apparent seriousness – to suggest that the face veil is a “lifestyle choice” and essentially no different from a balaclavas worn by middle-class types on the ski slopes of Courcheval. I suspect this thinking is going to have to change.

During the years I lived in Paris it became clear that what people in polite society alluded to as the “Muslim issue” was, actually, a fiendishly complex knot of social, religious and historical threads all bundled up as one. On the surface – and there was no need to doubt the genuineness of this – most French Muslims declared themselves to be patriotic, and resoundingly supportive of the constitutional separation of church and state.

It wasn’t surprising. The post-war Muslim presence in France had been built around the harkis who had lived and worked under French administrations in north Africa, often serving in the French forces and seeing France as their true home across the Med. Like the West Indians who came to Britain in the 1950s, they were astonished on arrival to discover that the natives were far less respectful of the mother country and its institutions than they were.

But this generation’s influence was starting to fade, and in the unlovely satellite suburbs where many Muslim immigrants settled, or – to be more accurate – were dumped, a new kind of identity began to emerge. Today, virtually cut off from mainstream society, the populations of many of these places have become hostages to virulent strains of radicalism. Women who refuse to wear the hijab, and, increasingly, the burka, are intimidated and brutalised by gangs whose ideas about female emancipation are on an exact par with those of the Taliban.

This, as Mme Amara painstakingly tries to explain, is the problem with all those charming liberal pieties about allowing women to choose how they wish to dress. Large numbers of the women who wear the burka – whether in France, Britain or anywhere else – don’t have a choice.

So France has taken a stand. The first country in Europe to do so, and, I would suggest, by far the best equipped for the task. Secularism is taken seriously in French society – a legacy of revolutionary anti-clericalism that was further enshrined in the landmark 1905 law that prohibits the state from recognising, funding or favouring any religion. Schools are strictly non-faith, and all public bodies must be free of religious influence. As recently as 2007, a public outcry resulted from the disclosure that a senior government minister had sought informal advice from a Catholic priest on matters of policy.

Perhaps the big question is why the burka hasn’t been banned earlier. There’s some truth in the charge that M Sarkozy needs a boost, especially as Mme Le Pen, daughter of the FN’s founder Jean-Marie, has proved such a hit with the voters.

Sarko can’t compete with the far-Right’s populist rhetoric. What he has been able do is to recognise that populism isn’t always wrong. And, in banning the burka, to demonstrate that France has a more sophisticated concept of tolerance than Britain.

Her fellow villagers in Bangladesh’s Shariatpur district had already passed harsh judgment on her. Guilty, they said, of having an affair with a married man. The imam from the local mosque ordered the fatwa, or religious ruling, and the punishment: 101 lashes delivered swiftly, deliberately in public.

Hena dropped after 70.

Bloodied and bruised, she was taken to hospital, where she died a week later.

Amazingly, an initial autopsy report cited no injuries and deemed her death a suicide. Hena’s family insisted her body be exhumed. They wanted the world to know what really happened to their daughter.

Sharia: illegal but still practiced

Hena’s family hailed from rural Shariatpur, crisscrossed by murky rivers that lend waters to rice paddies and lush vegetable fields.

Hena was the youngest of five children born to Darbesh Khan, a day laborer, and his wife, Aklima Begum. They shared a hut made from corrugated tin and decaying wood and led a simple life that was suddenly marred a year ago with the return of Hena’s cousin Mahbub Khan.

Mahbub Khan came back to Shariatpur from a stint working in Malaysia. His son was Hena’s age and the two were in seventh grade together.

Khan eyed Hena and began harassing her on her way to school and back, said Hena’s father. He complained to the elders who run the village about his nephew, three times Hena’s age.

The elders admonished Mahbub Khan and ordered him to pay $1,000 in fines to Hena’s family. But Mahbub was Darbesh’s older brother’s son and Darbesh was asked to let the matter fade.

Many months later on a winter night, as Hena’s sister Alya told it, Hena was walking from her room to an outdoor toilet when Mahbub Khan gagged her with cloth, forced her behind nearby shrubbery and beat and raped her.

Hena struggled to escape, Alya told CNN. Mahbub Khan’s wife heard Hena’s muffled screams and when she found Hena with her husband, she dragged the teenage girl back to her hut, beat her and trampled her on the floor.

The next day, the village elders met to discuss the case at Mahbub Khan’s house, Alya said. The imam pronounced his fatwa. Khan and Hena were found guilty of an illicit relationship. Her punishment under sharia or Islamic law was 101 lashes; his 201.

Mahbub Khan managed to escape after the first few lashes.

Darbesh Khan and Aklima Begum had no choice but to mind the imam’s order. They watched as the whip broke the skin of their youngest child and she fell unconscious to the ground.

“What happened to Hena is unfortunate and we all have to be ashamed that we couldn’t save her life,” said Sultana Kamal, who heads the rights organization Ain o Shalish Kendro.

Bangladesh is considered a democratic and moderate Muslim country, and national law forbids the practice of sharia. But activist and journalist Shoaib Choudhury, who documents such cases, said sharia is still very much in use in villages and towns aided by the lack of education and strong judicial systems.

The Supreme Court also outlawed fatwas a decade ago, but human rights monitors have documented more than 500 cases of women in those 10 years who were punished through a religious ruling. And few who have issued such rulings have been charged.

Last month, the court asked the government to explain what it had done to stop extrajudicial penalty based on fatwa. It ordered the dissemination of information to all mosques and madrassas, or religious schools, that sharia is illegal in Bangladesh.

“The government needs to enact a specific law to deal with such perpetrators responsible for extrajudicial penalty in the name of Islam,” Kamal told CNN.

The United Nations estimates that almost half of Bangladeshi women suffer from domestic violence and many also commonly endure rape, beatings, acid attacks and even death because of the country’s entrenched patriarchal system.

Hena might have quietly become another one of those statistics had it not been for the outcry and media attention that followed her death on January 31.

‘Not even old enough to be married’

Monday, the doctors responsible for Hena’s first autopsy faced prosecution for what a court called a “false post-mortem report to hide the real cause of Hena’s death.”

Public outrage sparked by that autopsy report prompted the high court to order the exhumation of Hena’s body in February. A second autopsy performed at Dhaka Medical College Hospital revealed Hena had died of internal bleeding and her body bore the marks of severe injuries.

Police are now conducting an investigation and have arrested several people, including Mahbub Khan, in connection with Hena’s death.

“I’ve nothing to demand but justice,” said Darbesh Khan, leading a reporter to the place where his daughter was abducted the night she was raped.

He stood in silence and took a deep breath. She wasn’t even old enough to be married, he said, testament to Hena’s tenderness in a part of the world where many girls are married before adulthood. “She was so small.”

Hena’s mother, Aklima, stared vacantly as she spoke of her daughter’s last hours. She could barely get out her words. “She was innocent,” Aklima said, recalling Hena’s last words.

Police were guarding Hena’s family earlier this month. Darbesh and Aklima feared reprisal for having spoken out against the imam and the village elders.

They had meted out the most severe punishment for their youngest daughter. They could put nothing past them.

“The number of expatriates in Madinah — those who are resident, legal or illegal — has far exceeded the number of Saudis here,” said a source at Madinah Municipality, who asked his name not be published.

“Some expatriates try to earn cash by marrying their daughters or sisters to Saudis. This has resulted in a remarkable increase in the number of such marriages,” he added.

Marriage registers — known in the Kingdom as “mazuns” — are accredited by the Saudi authorities and are not allowed to carry out marriages, especially those between Saudis and non-Saudis, without legal permits. Saudis wanting to marry non-Saudis must first obtain marriage permits from the Ministry of Interior, something that can take months to years to acquire.

There are, however, unregistered expatriate sheikhs who are ready to conduct the rites of an Islamic nikah. Such marriages are legal according to Islamic Law, but not acceptable under Saudi rules.

Kamal Muhammad, an IT teacher at a boys’ school in Madinah, said such marriages cost no more than SR10,000. “I learned about them from a friend who arranged an appointment for me with an expatriate man who was looking for a husband for his daughter,” he said.

“The father showed me three of his daughters and asked me to choose one. He made a condition that the dowry should be no less than SR7,000 and that I should stay with her at the same house,” he said.

He added that after agreeing to the condition he made his choice. “The father brought a sheikh who was of his own nationality to write the contract. I paid them SR5,000 and promised to give the remainder of the money later. We then underwent a wedding party that was attended by the bride’s mother and other close relatives. I never expected things to move so fast and to be married within a few minutes for such a small amount of money,” he said.

Kamal said his father-in-law also asked him to pay SR600 each month for his wife’s upkeep. “Of course I readily agreed. Where can you find such a young and beautiful wife?” he said.

He, however, divorced his wife after five months after he came to know such marriages were common trade among some foreigners. “She won’t lose any time and will remarry the next day,” he added.

Saudi businessman Ghazi said he has unofficially married and divorced a number of expatriate women. “My Saudi wife is the principal of a school; her work is her priority. I do not want to have a normal second marriage and all the responsibilities that come with it such as setting up another home and having children,” he said. “I want a woman who spoils me and makes me happy. So I’ve married five foreign ladies in this unofficial way. These marriages are cheap and nor do I need to rent a home. I just live with them at their own homes,” he said.

Ghazi said his five wives were of different nationalities. He added that the “best” was an African woman from Chad.

Khaled, a secondary school teacher, also agrees. “The common law marriage provides us with the opportunity to change. We can tie the knot with all kinds of women, old or young, white or black, without our Saudi wives and relatives finding out,” he said.

“The foreign wives will prefer to keep silent for fear of deportation because most of them are illegally staying in the Kingdom,” he said.

Fatima, an Afghan woman, said she underwent an unofficial marriage with a Saudi man who promised to make their marriage legal afterward. “He divorced me when he learned I was pregnant. My father had to beg him to come to hospital to name my baby boy after him. He did that but has disappeared since,” she said.

Fatima said her baby boy is now two and that she loves him dearly. “I was warned several times about marrying in such a way but I wouldn’t listen. I was tempted by money and my ex-husband’s promises to make the marriage legal afterward,” she said.

“I have become an example for many unmarried Afghan women who are now totally against such marriages,” she said.

A Saudi wife, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said she discovered her husband had married three women in such a way. “I became suspicious of his behavior. So I kept a close eye on him until I saw him one day entering a house, which was occupied by foreigners. When I confronted him, he confessed that he had secretly married,” she said.

“He said he resorted to them because he did not want to commit adultery. I forgave him because his marriages were only on paper; he had no children from them and did not rent a home for them,” she added.

According to marriage registers in the Kingdom, marriages with overstayers are illegal since overstayers are not recognized by law as living in the Kingdom.

Women who undergo nikahs with Saudi men without official recognition from the state usually lose their legal rights as wives in the eyes of the law. Women who are divorced cannot claim their rights — such as alimony — as their marriages are not legally registered in the Kingdom.

In a previous Arab News article, Mohammed Saeed Tayib, a legal consultant, said there are legal channels through which marriages conducted abroad can be legalized under Saudi law. He added there is little that can be done to legalize “unofficial” marriages conducted in the Kingdom.

The leftwing political websites lit up over my column of last week in which I took the position that the First Amendment provides no guarantees to practitioners of the Islamic faith, for the simple reason it wasn’t written to protect the free exercise of Islam. It was written to protect the free exercise of the Christian faith.

I was quite explicit that all non-Christian religions ought to enjoy the presumption of religious freedom, although none of the critical reactions to the column even mentioned that clear and unambiguous statement. In other words, the First Amendment does not explicitly protect the Islamic faith, nor does it prohibit it. The First Amendment is simply silent about the issue of Islam.

Thus Islam should enjoy only the liberty it merits, and permission, for example, to build new mosques can be revoked if Islam does in American what Islam does everywhere it exists in the world, which is labor to subvert democracy and impose sharia law.

This view of the First Amendment is confirmed by a review of the debate surrounding the First Amendment in Congress in 1789. A re-reading of the all the entries in the congressional record of the debate over the First Amendment reveals no mention – zero, nada, zilch – of Islam.

Instead, as the Founders grappled with the wording of the First Amendment, they road-tested several variations, all of which make it clear that the objective here was specifically to protect the free exercise of the Christian faith.

Here are some of the alternative versions that were considered:

• “Congress shall make no law establishing One Religious Sect or Society in preference to others.“
• “Congress shall not make any law, infringing the rights of conscience or establishing any Religious Sect or Society.“
• “Congress shall make no law establishing any particular denomination of religion in preference to another, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, nor shall the rights of conscience be infringed.”
• “Congress shall make no law establishing articles of faith, or a mode of worship, or prohibiting the free exercise of religion…”
• “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”

The last, of course, is the wording Congress finally chose and passed on to the states for their approval.

The use of words and phrases such as “religious sect or society,” “particular denomination,”  “articles of faith” and “mode of worship,” all terms exclusively used at the time for variations of Christian expression, confirm that what the First Amendment was all about was simply prohibiting Congress from picking one denomination and making it the official church of the United States, and about protecting all Christian denominations from the intrusion of the federal government.

There was no mention of Islam, no reference to Islam, no effort to protect the free exercise of the Islamic faith.

Since the Founders intended the First Amendment to apply only to Congress (“Congress shall make no law…”), this leaves the states free to do as they wish on matters of religious expression.

Some critics have pointed to the religious liberty plank in the Virginia constitution, and the statement of some of its advocates at the time that it specifically provided for the free exercise of Islam as well as Buddhism and Hinduism. But this only illustrates my point, because that has to do with religious expression in a state constitution, not the federal constitution.

States, under the Constitution as established by the Founders (that is, the Constitution before federal judges got hold of it and mangled it beyond recognition), were permitted to establish any denomination they wanted to and to prohibit any religious expression they wanted to. In fact, nine or 10 of the original 13 states did have an “established” Christian denomination in their states, that is, a denomination that was officially supported by the state and supported by the tax dollars of the citizenry. (By 1833, all state established denominations had wisely been removed from state constitutions.)

But states still maintain, in an originalist view, a great deal of latitude in matters of religious expression. They are restrained in this matter only by  the strictures of their own state constitutions. From the standpoint of the federal constitution, they remain free, for example, to ban the building of any more mosques in their state, in the interest of societal security and tranquility. They would not be in violation of the federal constitution in doing so, since the First Amendment ties the hands of Congress and Congress alone.

The incorporation doctrine, by the way, which argues that the 14th Amendment imposed the First Amendment on the states, is a bogus doctrine and another manifestation of rank judicial activism. Years after the 14th Amendment was passed, Sen. Blaine attempted to amend the federal constitution by explicitly imposing the wording of the First Amendment  (“No State shall make any law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”) on the states. His proposed amendment never made it out of Congress.

Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, in what is the most important speech of the 21st century thus far, has argued that the spread of Islam to the West must be stopped. His speech is positively Churchillian, and anyone who cares about the survival of Western civilization in general and America in particular should read it. (American Thinker has posted his speech here.)

Wilders points out that the heads of Germany, France and England have all publicly proclaimed that multiculturalism is a dismal failure and that Islamic immigration is largely to blame, and yet have offered no solutions to solve the problem.

Wilders has, and his prescription is timely and of necessity must be followed to the letter by America if we are to stop the catastrophic Islamization of our culture.

His strategy can be pursued in America in a way that is perfectly consistent with our federal constitution.

First, Wilders says “we have to defend freedom of speech.” As I have often said, we are at a place where truth about Islam is now considered hate speech, as if criticism and disagreement were by definition expressions of hatred. This demonization of free speech must stop.

Islam should be no more exempt from criticism than Christianity is, and it’s quite obvious that every sector in society, including media, politicians, educators and pundits feel perfectly free to pummel the Christian faith at will. Unless that is criminal hate speech, then they have no right to complain when we point out the simple and straightforward truth about Islam.

Secondly, Wilders says we “must end cultural relativism,” and “proudly proclaim: Our Western culture is far superior to the Islamic culture.” He’s exactly right. It’s time we all stop apologizing for America, starting with the occupant of the Oval Office on down, and without hesitation affirm that a culture shaped by the Judeo-Christian tradition is vastly superior to anything we see in the Islamic world.

Third, Wilders says we must “stop Islamization…we must stop immigration from Islamic countries, we must expel criminal immigrants, we must forbid the construction of new mosques. There is enough Islam in Europe (note: and in America as well) already.”

Immigration is obviously a matter for Congress, since authority to control immigration is vested by the Constitution in Congress. But we must never forget that immigration to the United States is a privilege, not a right, and that we should follow the wisdom of the Founders who urged that we only admit to our shores those who will strengthen our nation and assimilate themselves into it, adopting our flag, our history, our heroes, and our values. This is something that devout Muslims simply cannot do. The privilege of immigration should be reserved for those willing to integrate into our culture, become unhyphenated Americans, and adopt American values.

So immigration is a congressional issue. But as I explained above, states have considerable latitude in religious liberty matters, and states are thus free to ban the building of any more mosques within their borders. If states won’t do it, then local planning and zoning commissions can and must do it. And if we understand the Constitution as given to us by the Founders, there is no constitutional impediment in their doing so.

Local governments are well within their rights to protect their citizens from the encroachment of a toxic ideology that will in time threaten religious liberty and equality under the law in their own communities.

As Wilders point out, based on the bitter experience of Europe, “The truth is that Islam is evil, and the reality is that Islam is a threat to us.” He reminds us that, while there may be moderate Muslims, there is no such thing as moderate Islam.

We must learn from our friends across the pond. The time to stop the spread of Islam in America is now. We have the constitutional power to do it. The only question is whether we have the will.

Sirat p. 314
When the Meccans sent to ransom their prisoners, Zaynab [daughter of Muhammad, Muslim] sent the money for Abul-As [son-in-law, non-Muslim]; with it she sent a necklace which Khadija [her mother, first wife of Muhammad] had given her on her marriage to Abul-As. When Muhammad saw it, his feelings overcame him, and he said: “If you would like to let her have her captive husband back and return her money to her, do so.” The people at once agreed, and they let him go and sent her money back. Muhammad was not all greed and gloating. When his daughter asked to have her husband back, sending even the necklace from Khadija, his family feeling took over. He was released free of charge, and the entire ransom returned.

Epilogue

A significant event
This is the Battle of Badr, in all its glory. This is where Muhammad, took his religion from a fledgling tribe of emigrants to a considerable power in Medina, by at the same time deepening his alliance with the Medina Muslims and dealing the Meccans a dramatic blow. By any measure a defining moment in history. In the Quran and other places it is frequently referred to as “The day the two armies met.” It is significant that the battle took place in the holy month of Ramadan. This underlines that fighting, even non-defensively, in the cause of Allah, is a divinely sanctioned undertaking, obliberating the traditional ban on fighting in the holy months. The victory became legendary among the Muslims. The fast of Ramadan, which is still strictly obeyed by Muslims worldwide, was instituted at this time. It might even be seen as a kind of celebration of the victory.

1. The Sirat has additional three sections related to Badr:
2. The 8th Sura “Spoils of War”, revealed as a response to the quarrels over the spoils. Sirat p. 321
3. Lists of participating Muslims, Ansar, Quraysh, prisoners etc. Sirat p. 327
4. A full 21 pages of poetry inspired by Badr. Sirat p. 340

Tidings reached me of their wicked treatment of Zaynab, It was so criminal, men could hardly imagine it. Muhammad was not put to shame when she was sent forth Because of the result of the bloody war between us. From his alliance with Damdam and his war with us Abu Sufyan got but disappointment and remorse. We bound his son Amr and his sword friend together In well-wrought jangling irons. I swear we shall never lack soldiers, Army leaders with many a companion. Driving before us infidel Quraysh until we subdue them With a halter above their noses and a branding iron. We will drive them to the ends of Najd and Nakhla. If they drop to the lowland we will pursue them with horse and foot So that our road will never deviate. We will bring upon them the fate of the Ad and Jurhum. A people that disobeyed Muhammad will regret it. And what a time for showing repentance! Tell Abu Sufyan if you meet him If you are not sincere in worship and embrace Islam Then shame will come on you speedily in this life And in hell you will wear a garment of molten pitch forever! Religious indeed. The Quraysh also have an opinion on the battle: Sirat p. 342: Al-Harith said: “I wonder at foolish men like these who sing frivolously and vainly of the slain at Badr. This was nothing more than an impious and odious crime. Men fought against their brothers, fathers, and sons. Any with discernment and understanding recognize the wrong that was done here.” Without using any molten pitch metaphors, this is one of the most apt descriptions of this battle of Badr.

Aftermath

Sirat p. 360
A few raids take place in the wake of Badr: Muhammad stayed only seven nights in Medina before he himself made a raid against B. Sulaym. He got as far as their watering place called al-Kudr and stayed there three nights, returning to Medina without any fighting. The motivation of the raid is not listed. It might have been plunder, like most raids. Nothing significant happens, though, and Muhammad returns without any booty. He stayed there for the rest of Shawwal and Dhul-Qada, and during that time he accepted the ransom of most of the Quraysh prisoners. At least he is able to gain some income from his prisoners being bought free by his clan.

The raid of al-Sawiq

Sirat p. 361
Then Abu Sufyan made the raid of Sawiq in Dhul-Hijja. The polytheists were in charge of the pilgrimage that year. When Abu Sufyan returned to Mecca and the Quraysh fugitives returned from Badr, he swore that he would not practice abolution [sexual intercourse] until he had raided Muhammad. The desire for revenge is hot. Accordingly, he sallied forth with two hundred riders from Quraysh to fulfill his vow. He took the Nejd road and stopped by the upper part of a watercourse which led to a mountain called thayb about one post distance from Medina. Then he sallied forth by night and came to the B. al-Nadir under the cover of darkness. He came to Huyayy b. Akhtab and knocked upon his door, but as he was afraid of him re refused to open the door. So he went to Sallam b. Mishkam, who was their chief at that time, and keeper of the public purse. He asked permission to come in, and Sallam entertained him with food and drink, and gave him secret information about the Muslims. He rejoined his companions at the end of the night and sent out some of them to Medina. Forging alliances against the Muslims has always been tricky. Many fell apart over time. They came to an outlying district caled Al-Urayd and there they burnt some young palm-trees, and finding one of the Helpers [Ansari] and an ally of his working in the fields there, they killed him and returned. People got warning of them and so Muhammad went out in pursuit. He got as far as Qarqratul-Kudr and then returned, because Abu Sufyan and his companions had eluded him. Thus ends this quite feeble attempt at getting revenge for Badr. A much more concerted effort is the Battle of Uhud.

The raid on Dhu Amarr

Sirat p. 362
When Muhammad returned form the raid of al-Sawiq, he stayed in Medina for ther rest of Dhul-Hijja, or nearly all of it. Then he raided Najd, making for Ghatafan. This is the raid of Dhu Amarr. He stayed in Najd during the month of Safar, or nearly all of it, and then returned to Medina without any fighting. There he remained for the month of Rabiul-Awwal, or a day or two less. Another raid, where Muhammad and the Muslims conquor Najd (presumably a village). The raid against the Ghatafan tribe is not accomplished.

The raid on Al-Furu of Bahran

Sirat p. 362
Then he made a raid on Quraysh as far as Bahran, a mine in the Hijaz in the neighbourhood of Al-Furu. He stayed there for the next two months and then returned to Medina without any fighting. Yet another raid against the Quraysh. This time the Muslims apparently didn’t encounter anyone to fight.

Sirat p. 307
Muhammad ordered that everything that had been collected in the camp should be brought together, and the Muslims quarrelled over it. Quarrels over booty is a recurring event among the early Muslims. Nothing surprising here. Allah took it out of their hands and gave it to Muhammad, and he divided it equally among the Muslims. At this time, equal distribution was the norm. Later the owners of horses and camels would get two extra shares, and even later the newly-converted Muslims would get the lions share of the booty to reward their conversion. Sura 8 (aptly named “The Spoils of War”) was revealed as a response to the quarrels. While we will not include the entire Sura here, nor comment on it, it is recommended reading in connection with the battle of Badr. We note that Allah, as always, is on the side of Muhammad when problems arise. Abu Usayd al-Saidi said: “I got a sword belonging to B. Aidh the Makhzumites which was called al-Marzuban, and when the messenger ordered everyone to turn in what they had taken, I came and threw it into the heap of spoils. Now the messenger never held back anything he was asked for, and al-Arqam knew this and asked him for it, and the messenger gave it to him.” It’s tricky to divy up the spoils. Abu Usayd was a good Muslim and threw in his new-found sword, only to see it given to the first person asking for it. Incidentically, we see in other places that Muhammad was perfectly capable of rejecting requests for particular pieces of booty. But that was later, when there were more Muslims and relatively less booty.

The homecoming

Sirat p. 308
Muhammad marched until he reached Rauha, when the Muslims met him congratulating him and the Muslims on the victory Allah had given him. Salama b. Salama said: “What are you congratulating us about? By Allah, we only met some bald old women like the sacrificial camels who are hobbled, and we slaughtered them!” While calling the Meccan men ‘women’ is demeaning, Salama has a point. The people they had killed were family men, merchants and caravan runners. Head of their clans and families, hardly fighters. It was an easy victory. Muhammad smiled and said: “But, nephew, those were the chiefs.” Muhammad knew the significance of this victory. By taking out the most experienced and respected leaders of the Meccan families, he had dealt them a significant blow, weakening their future prospects.

Uqba

Sirat p. 308
Uqba had been captured by Abdulla b. Salima. When Muhammad ordered him to be killed, Uqba said: “But who will look after my children, Oh Muhammad?” “Hell”, he said, and Asim b. Thabit killed him according to what Abu Ubayda told me. No comment needed.

Wailing and veils

Sirat p. 309
The first to come to Mecca with news of the disaster was al-Haysuman, and, when they asked for news, he enumerated all the Quraysh chiefs who had been killed. Safwan, who was sittingin the hijr said: “This fellow is out of his mind. Ask him about me.” So they said: “What happened to Safwan b. Umayya?” He answered: “There he is sitting in the hirj, and by Allah, I saw his father and his brother when they were killed.” There is no way around it. The disaster is real, in all its blood-soaked detail. The prisoners were brought in when Sauda d. Zama’a, a wife of Muhammad, was with the family of Afra when they were bewailing Auf and Muawwidh, Afra’s sons, this being before the veil was imposed on them. Apart from the wailing over the dead, the comment on the veil is interesting. It has been debated wether the Islamic veil is voluntary or mandatory. This hadith indicates that it was percieved as being mandatory, and that it was a significant shift from the previous Arab tradition.

Sorrow and prisoners

Sirat p. 311
As the two prophetic dreams by the Quraysh had come true in the worst imaginable way, there was much sorrow after the battle of Badr. Several pages are dedicated to the aftermath, including the ransom of prisoners. Being businessmen to their fingertips, wailing is banned and sending messengers to the Muslims suspended, in order that Muhammad and his companions should not demand too excessive ransoms. A woman is heard wailing over her lost camel, which prompts al-Aswads to bring out this poetry: Does she weep because she has lost a camel? And does this keep her awake all night? Weep not over a young camel But over Badr where hopes were dashed to the ground. Over Badr the finest of the sons of Husays And Makhzum and the clan of Abul-Walid. Weep if you must over Aqil Weep for Harith the lion of lions, Weep unweariedly for them all, For Abu Hakima had no peer. Now they are dead, men bear rule Who but for Badr would be of little account The Quraysh, like Muhammad, were aware that the real loss was that the best of their leader were now all gone, and the second-rate persons would have to step up. Much more exchange and redeeming of prisoners follows. Muhammad and the Muslims may not have capture the caravan, but the capture of noblemen at Badr filled up their coffers instead. While he was held prisoner in Medina, Sad b. al-Numan went forth on pilgrimage accompanied by a young wife of his. He was an old man and a Muslim who had sheep in al-Naqi. An interesting piece. Sad was a Muslim, yet went on pilgrimage to the Ka’aba, which was in the hands of the non-Muslim Quraysh. Yet, it does make sense. Both Muslims and non-Muslims were worshipping Allah. Apparently, the real difference was of accepting Muhammad as the messenger of Allah or not. He left that place on pilgrimage without fear of any untoward events, never thinking that he would be detained in Mecca, as he came as a pilgrim, for he knew that the Quraysh did not usually interfere with pilgrims, but treated them well. Confusing prisoner/not prisoner details aside, this is interesting, too. We know that Muhammad condemned the Quraysh for keeping people from the sacred mosque (the Ka’aba). Yet, here we see a Muslim going on pilgrimage (a ritual shared between Muslims and non-Muslims), fully expecting to be admitted and treated well. For that was how the Quraysh were percieved. Apparently, the Quraysh were opposing Muhammad in particular, not people in general.

Joseph Francis, who leads the Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS) in Pakistan, said he received death threats after speaking about the “misuse” of the law to punish innocent people, including Christians, on programs ‘Policy Matters’ of Duniya TV and Kal Tak aired by the Express TV channel.

“After the murder of Punjab [province] Governor Salman Taseer and Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti in the last few months, these threats are being taken extremely seriously,” the group’s British affiliate CLAAS UK told BosNewsLife in a statement.

It was not immediately clear who threatened him. However suspected Islamic militants who killed Bhatti in Islamabad on March 2 left leaflets at the scene saying terror group al-Qaida and the Pakistani Taliban Movement in Punjab province would kill all those openly opposing the anti-blasphemy legislation.

GOVERNMENT BLAMED

They blamed the government for putting Bhatti, an “infidel Christian,” in charge of an unspecified committee, apparently in reference to his support for changing the law.

“With the blessing of Allah, the mujahedeen will send each of you to hell,” said the note, which did not name any other targets.

Despite the dangers, the publicly vocal Francis said he is refusing to end his campaign against the controversial legislation. “Even though I am receiving threats to my life, as a soldier of Christ I am willing to stand up for the rights of those persecuted and pressed down by these unjust laws, even if the ultimate goal demands my blood too,” he added in remarks obtained by BosNewsLife.

“I know I have opposition from the religious extremists who want to stop me from defending my brothers and sisters in Christ from all kinds of persecution, but I will continue my struggle for the repeal of blasphemy and other Islamic discriminatory laws.”

HARSH LAW

Under the law, anyone who speaks ill of Islam and the Prophet Mohammad commits a crime and faces the death penalty or life imprisonment, but activists say the vague terminology has led to its misuse.

The law stipulates that “derogatory remarks” about Prophet Mohammad, “either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo or insinuation, directly or indirectly shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.”

CLAAS and other organizations say Christians, who make up four percent of Pakistan’s population, have been especially concerned about the legislation as it offers them no protection. Convictions hinge on witness testimony and often these are linked to personal vendettas, they say.

Among those sentenced to death is a Christian mother, 45-year-old Asia Bibi, who allegedly made “derogatory remarks” about Islam while working on a farm, charges she strongly denies.

INTERNATIONAL CONCERN

The European Union is among those expressing concerns about Bibi, who has said she may be killed in her prison while awaiting an appeal against her death sentence.

Earlier in December, a pro-Taliban Muslim cleric offered a $5,800 reward to anyone who killed Bibi.

Although blasphemy convictions have been often thrown out on appeal after lengthy procedures, angry mobs have killed many many accused of blasphemy.

In 2009, 40 houses and a church were set ablaze by a mob of 1,000 Muslims in the town of Gojra, Punjab. At least seven Christians were burned to death, according to rights activists. The attacks were triggered by reports of the desecration of the Koran, deemed a holy book by Muslims.

BROTHERS KILLED

Last July, Christian brothers Rashid Emmanuel and Sajid Masih Emmanuel, accused of writing a blasphemous letter against the Prophet Mohammad, were shot to death outside a court in the eastern city of Faisalabad.

The attacks confirmed the impression that a conviction or even an accusation under this law is often a death sentence, activists said. Other Christians have also been targeted for openly expressing their faith in Christ, added CLAAS UK.

In one of the latest incident reported by BosNewsLife, two Christians were shot and killed in an attack Monday, March 21, on the Solvation Army church in the Hyderabad area of Pakistan’s Sindh Province.

The victims were identified as 47-year-old father of four Yunis Ilyas and a 21-year-old newly-wed, Jameel Masih. Two others were injured in Monday’s attack in the mainly Christian colony of Hoor Camp, one of whom remains in a critical condition, Christians said.

CLAAS UK Director Nasir Saeed told BosNewsLife his group has urged Christians to “remember” the troubled Islamic nation of 170 million people in their “daily prayers”.