The past couple of days the London BBC radio station has had features on possible candidates for the next London mayoral election. Yesterday, on Eddie Nestor and Kath Melandri's drive-time show, the candidate was Gary Bushell, a columnist for various tabloid papers who was originally a socialist and moved in a much more libertarian direction, and now belongs to the "English Democrats", an anti-EU party which supports an English parliament. Now, something I noticed from the 2004 election was that at least one far right candidate was talking about things he could not deliver as mayor - such as immigration. Gary Bushell, yesterday evening, was moaning about Londoners' tax money going up north and to Scotland, which is obviously unjust and has to stop according to him, but it's not something he can deliver. Where income tax money goes is decided by Parliament, not by the Greater London Authority.
More scary is Boris Johnson, who was being discussed on Vanessa Feltz's show this morning. Feltz told us that apparently women love him for some reason which I can't quite remember. One male caller said that if women were really going to vote for him on that basis, then they should have locked Miss Pankhurst (the suffragette) up and thrown the key away, and that underneath his blond hair and his charisma was an old Etonian, right-wing Tory. This is the closest anybody said to why this man is a dangerous prospect for mayor of London.
While I know some Muslims will disagree with me about this, I don't mind whether the mayor of London is pro-Israel or supported the Iraq war. The mayoralty isn't about that, it's about things like transport (with Ken Livingstone having been mayor for as long as the position has existed, it's hard to think of what else it's about). It's important, however, that the mayor is not a bigot, which on the strength of his coverage of Muslim affairs while editor of the Spectator, Boris Johnson is. In that position, Johnson reacted to the July 2005 London bombings and the Paris slum riots of that year with horrendously unbalanced coverage, commissioning articles from the likes of Patrick Sookhdeo, full of sweeping generalisations, plain falsehoods and outright absurdities. The tone was that Islam itself, not an extremist movement, or the western policies off which it thrives, was to blame.
I took a look in the Spectator today, and my first impression was that Boris's ghost lives on at the Spectator even though the editorship was in the hands of Matthew D'Ancona. However, this time round, the Sookhdeos, Steins and even Johnsons are gone, replaced with Alex Lewis of Oxford Student, Saira Khan (of The Apprentice fame) and Stephen Schwartz and Irfan al-Alawi. On this occasion, Schwartz manages to get through an article without attacking Shaikh Hamza Yusuf. Their article is mostly about the links between medicine and Islam, the fact that several prominent radical Islamists have been physicians and that their organisations have built clinics and other community facilities, and that moderate, Sufi groups like the Indonesian Nahdatul-Ulama have also built hospitals and clinics. Their assertion that "the West has got radical Islam wrong: it is less a product of misery and the sense of extreme oppression than of the thwarted aspirations of the Muslim middle classes" seems contentious, since these particular physicians are not the thwarted ones but had every opportunity. If they were less literate and wealthy, like the residents of Imbaba in Cairo, they might have concerned themselves with local acts of rebellion aimed at getting rid of the likes of Mubarak.
The Alex Lewis article describes how he sought for proof of Anthony Glees's claims that "prior to the 7 July bombings up to 48 universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and LSE, had been infiltrated by the now-banned extremist group al-Muhajiroun". He was not convinced, and had never seen any evidence of extremist activity and nobody he spoke to, including Muslim students, had either. So, he decided to speak to Omar Bakri, over the phone at his house in Tripoli, Lebanon, and guess what? Omar Bakri said that everything Glees said was true, and that he had used innocuous names like "peaceful society" and "shisha society":
Bakri claimed to have been visiting Oxford since the 1980s, and to have spoken there during the Bosnian crisis and the first Gulf War. It fitted — in 1996 he’d told the Guardian that al-Muhajiroun planned to recruit from Oxbridge using friendly-sounding front organisations. ‘They will not be able to ban peace and human societies,’ he said, ‘because if they do, it will only backfire!’
Not entirely convinced, we contacted Anjem Choudary, Bakri’s second in command in al-Muhajiroun, and Abu Izzadeen, who has called for the Pope’s assassination and described the 7 July attacks as ‘completely praiseworthy’. (Izzadeen was arrested just days later under the Terrorism Act after an extensive surveillance operation.) Both men confirmed that they had visited Oxford with Omar Bakri as part of a nationwide recruitment campaign — which Bakri claimed secured up to seven converts a day. ‘Sheikh Omar Bakri had many platforms around the country, and I definitely remember watching him speak in a debate in Oxford,’ said Choudary.
Bakri had claimed al-Muhajiroun had the support of up to 30 Oxford students and that they regularly distributed leaflets from a street stall under the name of the ‘Dawah Society’. At our request, Choudary sent the leaflets to us from an email account belonging to Ahlus Sunnah wal-Jamaa’ah, a successor organisation to al-Muhajiroun. One, entitled ‘The Rotten Fruits of Democracy’, described paedophilia and adultery as the products of liberalism: ‘Democracy and all that emanates from it is retarded and perverse. Truly the Kuffaar are upon a falsehood and what they believe in and live according to is what will make them residents of the hellfire. Do you really want to live in a society where people live like animals?’
There are a few problems with this story. First of all, Omar Bakri and his gang are notorious braggarts and loudmouths, and appear to relish being media sensations. It is not certain that their boasts can be trusted.
Second, if these people were active on your campus, you certainly could not say you'd "not had a whiff of al-Muhajiroun", as the author of that article was told by Muslim students. Any function they could arrange would have the stamp of al-Muhajiroun over it. Unless they had maintained enormous secrecy, people would definitely have noticed. Besides which, since he had already told the press that his group would arrange under innocuous names, some of which don't look like real student society names (Human Society, Intellectual Society), it should be pretty easy to check records to see if functions had been arranged under those names.
Third, there is the obvious difference between members of al-Muhajiroun and terrorists. Even if there are people on campus shouting about the kuffar and paedophilia and the idea of a global Caliphate, it does not prove Glees's claim that terrorists are recruiting on campus.
However, the article I found most obnoxious was that by Saira Khan. This is not the first time I've seen this woman presented as a media example of a moderate Muslim: Jeremy Vine put her up against Anjum Choudhary last September on his lightweight lunchtime current affairs programme on Radio 2, and the inevitable result was a personal slanging match. In this article she tells us about her two cousins who ditched their Pakistani culture and started wearing hijab and "Middle Eastern outfits" after coming across some Islamic organisation at university (which sounds like al-Muhajiroun, or its predecessor, branded as Hizb-ut-Tahreer). The women proclaimed that they were Muslim and not British, and told their mother that she was not a proper Muslim because she was still into Pakistani culture and did not dress as they did.
She alleges:
My point here is not to say that women who wear the hijab are extremists — far less that they will at some stage be involved in some terrorist activity — but to suggest that this is how, in many cases, extremism starts.
Al-Muhajiroun was not by any means the only way women got into wearing hijab. While it was certainly a noisy presence and did advocate hijab, the position that hijab is compulsory is the standard one, and Muslims and Muslim groups which had nothing to do with al-Muhajiroun or any other extremism advocated and defended wearing the hijab. Extremism starts when you hook up with extremists, not when you start wearing hijab. Richard Reid and the individuals allegedly behind last week's incident did not get into extremism by wearing hijab, after all. They are all male.
Two paragraphs down, we get this staggering generalisation:
Of course, most British Muslims won’t become violent extremists, but most will endanger society — albeit unwittingly — by supporting and condoning the actions of extremists. Very few will admit this in public, but many will say behind closed doors that they are sympathetic to the bombers’ cause and that they can understand why they are doing it. These things are said in front of young children and justified by various conspiracy theories which nearly always involve Jews, America and the CIA.
This is an appalling piece of slander, or what we call in Islam nameema, which refers to gossip, betraying secrets and telling people what someone else says behind their back in order to foster enmity for that person. She is telling an audience of hostile non-Muslims that, behind their backs, most Muslims actually "support and condone the actions of extremists", or their cause, which is simply not true, in my experience. I know there are those who support suicide bombings, but those who support international terrorism are considerably fewer than those who support such actions in the particular circumstances of the Palestinian situation, which is certainly not everyone. I haven't done a census, so I can't say what percentage it is, but then I presume Saira Khan has not done one either.
She goes on to promote Hassan Butt, even suggesting that the government engage with him and those like him, rather than people who have practised Islam without falling into extremism or terrorism, and even worked to keep mainstream Islam alive despite sectarian attack, for the last two decades while Butt and those like him were making trouble. The fact that Butt has simply started telling politicians what they want to hear, and that he echoes the arguments of anti-Muslim bigots regarding "those passages of the Koran which instruct on killing unbelievers" without mentioning the context, which is not circumstances in which those non-Muslims are not harming Muslims, means nothing to Saira Khan.
At the end, she dictates to us that "British Muslims have to realise that there is no ‘but’ after a sentence like, ‘I wholeheartedly disagree with the terrorist actions and the killings of innocent civilians’". In terms of public pronouncements by mainstream Muslim representatives, I can't remember hearing one in which a "but" appeared at the end, this being mainly the preserve of the likes of Omar Bakri. As for opinions we express in private conversations amongst ourselves, that is our right and our business (unless it is for planning a crime, of course). If the "but" is usually that it's western government actions that draw terrorists in, it is not without basis.
It is rather galling to be dictated to by this woman, who has come out of pretty much nowhere, at least nowhere which has significance for Muslims, like a mosque, a centre of Islamic learning or a Muslim charity or organisation, or any position of secular authority for that matter. She is just a runner-up in a BBC competition - nothing more than that - and she is no advertisement for an Islamic lifestyle, yet she feels free to tell non-Muslims who the authentic Muslims are, and it's (guess what) people like her. It is no skin off my nose, or our noses as Muslims, if Saira Khan or some other petty TV personality chooses not to wear hijab; that's her business; however, her fame and background do not make her an authority on Islam or on the Muslims, and she should recognise this. Her article in the Spectator is a disgrace; it is nothing more than a tissue of smears and generalisations.
Salaams,
Good analysis. There's a stack of these non-practising Muslims like Saira who are suddenly becoming experts on Islam. There's an interesting article on Butt in the US media.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/global.php?id=840561
Good to see you're reading the Spectator.
Boris for Mayor! He can't be any worse than Red Ken.
I have perused the Spectator on and off over the last few years, checked out BJ's blog and seen Johnson on Question Time. Just one example of his attitude to Islam/Muslims is his love of citing aya from the Qur'an out of context to prove Islam is a 'violent, dangerous religion'. The stuff in the Spec has been, at times, far worse than even The Express in terms of its sheer mendacity. Given his academic background, Boris should know better. The way Have I Got News have turned him into some kind of popular hero is truly appalling and I can no longer stomach the show simply for that. As Ernst rightly points out, Islamophiobia, like 19th century anti-Semitism, is trendy, and for Boris and his ilk, it is a right-wing fashion statement. He joins the likes of Ron Liddle in my personally hall of infamy and I am in no doubt that history will remember them with utter contempt.
saira khan should be ashamed of herself.
people like her and their disgusting actions are more likely top cause reactionary extremism - anybody who saw her in the apperentice will appreciate the very essence of all we hate about ourselves in her - beiong prepared to sell your granma for 2 dollars
Boris doesn't talk that much about Islam, and I'm sure, if elected mayor, Muslims would have nothing to worry about.
Women, gays and Jews, on the other hand, must worry when Red Ken cozies up to Sheik "beat your wives, kill the gays/Jews" Qaradawi.
ASLK,
Very well written post there Yusuf.
And so on it goes. A huge effort is being made for the main themes in articles like Saira's to propogate through all media channels. Of course, we have just been informed that the fight against 'terror' in the UK will take somewhere between 15 to 40 years. Classic psyops here, where the same message is battered out over and over in an effort to brainwash or confuse the younger generations growing up here. I think the point here is to lose objectivity and replace it with FUD.
The worst part is that this can cause a lot of strife somewhere down the line if it continues. People are liable to be marginalised and open to racial abuse more than ever before.
I am not even sure if my post adds anything to this discussion tbh. Merely stating the obvious.
Hi all
Can I just ask you why so much antipathy towards Sister Saira?
And who are you to say that she is not a practicing Muslim?
OK, she is married to a white non-Muslim Englishman, so what?
She dares to speak out her mind, so what?
Can someone please elaborate?
About myself: Francesca is my adoptive Italian name.
Born in Britain into an extremely strict South Asian Sunni Muslim family, when I turned 18 I was forced into marrying a man I immensely disliked, and when I eventually had enough of his beatings, I fled to a women's hostel, where I got not only refuge but also legal help in getting the marriage void in a court of law.
Then I fled to Italy, where I got to know my current husband, a lovely and educated Italian gentleman who accepted from the beginning my decision not to embrace the Roman Catholic religion.
Actually he even encouraged me to wear hijab, as the Quran dictates, to fast during Ramadan, etc.
Thankfully, our marriage has been blessed with 4 lovely children.
More in the next postings.
I'm not convinced Bushell has ever been a socialist, but I'm quite sure he's never been a libertarian - ask Searchlight.
Cancel the last, as I've just remembered that Searchlight got sued for calling Bushell a fascist and paid up. So don't ask them anything.
Bushell's never struck me as a libertarian, though.
ASLK Sister Francesca,
Thank you for your post. It sounds like you had a very bad experienece when you were younger. I am glad, Alhamdulillah, that you are in a better place today.
Speaking for myself, let me clarify my negativity to Saira. She is speaking as if she is an authority for the community when she is nothing of the sort. Her comments can spread hatred and cast a huge net of suspicion on the majority of muslims in the UK. So she is (1) misrepresenting the community, and (2) opening up avenues for ignorant people to make incorrect assumptions about ALL muslims, solely based on Saira's experience.
Do you not see a problem here, sister?
Wrt the freedom of expression that Saira has - good for her, I can applaud it. But she is not simply expressing a view. She is making a high profile, politicised and potentially damaging statement that can affect more people than just her. Speak freely, if it affects you alone. But tread carefully if you are affecting others with your words. That is my point.
Does that make sense?
Yunus
PLEASE, DON'T BE RIDICOLOUS!!!
Sister Saira being ready to sell her grandma for 2 dollars? For (ehm) sake !!!
Even if I don't live in Britain, I have seen "The Apprentice" via satellite, and nowhere I got the impression that Sister Saira is that kind of person.
And then, have you read her book, "Push for success"?
And have you seen the CBBC program "Beat the Boss", (which my kids absolutely love)?
STOP SMEARING SISTER SAIRA NOW !!!
Sister Francesca
Hi Random guy, thanks for your nice message.
I totally understand where you are coming from.
1- OK, whom do you regard as an authority on Muslim affairs?
2- IMHO Sister Saira should calibrate her public statements a bit better, however she has already expressed her vehement opposition not only to religious and cultural ghettos, faith schools and forced marriages (uh, an argument so dear to my heart) but also to the Iraqi war.
One point that Sister Saira has repeatedly missed is the fact that too many Western governments, including the British one, have consistently closed an eye on the activities of radical clerics when it suited these governments.
However no one can deny that Sister Saira is talented, dynamic and really determined to fight against prejudice and bigotry.
Take care for now
Sister Francesca
Dear Random Guy
OK, I have to admit that politically speaking Sister Saira is not my favourite cup of tea, the reasom being that I am a communist and a member of the Italian far-left party Rifondazione Comunista, while Sister Saira is essentially a capitalist.
However I do have to give her credit for her efforts to promote inter-religious tolerance, even if sometimes she does not use the happiest choice of words.
Peace
Sister Francesca
ASLK Sr. Francesca,
Thanks for your response. In answer to your question about the authority on muslims in the UK: -
That is a very difficult and important question to answer. Socially/Politically speaking there are very few people I personally would 'trust' to speak for the community. Iqbal Sacranie and Inayat Bungawala are 2 names that I would be comfortable as being REPRESENTATIVE of the community, but not authoratative. Then there are numerous commentators and blogs (like this one) run by intelligent and thoughtful muslims. There is no lack of people who are qualified to speak on behalf of the community because they have the right education and background to deal with the community.
This is where the major problem and fitna is at of course. There are parties trying to push certain individuals to the front of the line and proclaiming them as moderates and therefore the muslim voice that should be listened to. This naturally disassociates the remainder of muslims.
I have no easy answers to this, I am afraid. Sister, this is probably the biggest issue that needs resolution from a community perspective. And the most contentious. One last point on this - to be an authoratative voice means exposure in the media and politically. Who dictates the level of exposure such an individual can have? The problem here is that external parties to the community (government/media etc) have a vested interest in this "voice of authority". So ironically we are left with the stupid situation where that even if the community did choose a representative(s), if he/she/they were not approved by these parties, then smear campaigns/similar alienation tactics would inevitably follow.
In a way, we are all responsible as being authoratative on the community, because our actions and words and deeds will reflect on the wider community. So do we do something for the good or the bad for the community? Clearly the effects of our actions will show what we have achieved in our efforts.
One last word on Saira: she may do commendable things, but she is clearly crossing the line into unwelcome territory if she is making statements like "Muslims should do x, y and z", for reasons I have pointed out in my earlier post.
Ok, I am going to stop because I feel like I am rambling. I don't know if I am making any sense here or if anyone else agrees or disagrees with me, but please feel free to post your honest thoughts as a reply. I seek guidance from Allah as do we all, so please forgive me if anything I said was offensive to anyone.
Dear Random Guy, thanks for your articulated answer.
No, you haven't been offensive at all.
Keep up the good work.
Peace
Sister Francesca
Dear Random Guy and all
What about the following people:
- Baroness Uddin
- Lord Ahmed
- Sayeeda Warsi (it seems to me that she is the deputy chairwoman of the Conservative Party, isn't she? And she also seems to be quite balanced and not so explosive like Sister Saira)
Oops, I pressed the POST key a bit too early.
And what about that smart lady from Birmingham, that Salma Yaqoob?
Peace
Sister Francesca
Ah, dear Random Guy and others, it might be a bit off-topic, but would anyone care to answer the following question?
I have heard many times before that a Muslimah cannot marry a non-Muslim, because Islam forbids that.
But does the Quran say anything like that?
And where does this rule come from?
PLEASE HELP !!!
I am saying this because last year in Italy a 20 years old Pakistani girl, certain Hina Saleem, was ordered by her father to marry her cousin, but when she told him tha she was in love with a local Italian and Roman Catholic man he brutally killed her.
Needless to say that the case has shaken a usually tolerant nation to the core.
Thanks
Sister Francesca
Hi Sr. Francesca,
Thanks for your replies. The people you have mentioned all represent different parts of the community. I am not familiar with all of their points of views or actions in the past, but I have heard of them many times. What was your question regading them? Are you asking what my view is on them? I have read quite a few of Salma Yaqoob's articles on the Guardian (and the inevitable trash talk that follows in the replies) and think she is a very astute and intelligent observer. If you are asking me why I find their view tolerable as opposed to Saira's, I would respond by saying that the question is not one of how palatable I find their opinions, but rather of the degree of division and misunderstanding their respective comments can cause. In these terms there is an ocean between the two, although one may disagree.
If we avoid questions of legitimacy (i.e. I don't recall ever selecting these people to speak for me) I suppose that we can at present only judge 'public' authorities on Islam as those who have the most exposure in media. Personally, I have never met these people, don't know what they do, who they are, what their rationale is at the end of the day.
Still it has been an interesting discussion so far. You really made me think about this one and helped me come to some useful insights, so thank you Sister!
With regard to your other question about marriage, please find the following link: -
here
Let me say that I can not tell you what is exactly stated in the Quran, but my understanding of it has always been that a muslim and non-muslim marriage is only acceptable if the non-muslim party crosses into Islam. In practice I tend to find that this is not always followed, but it is not for me to judge another person's decision. Also, as the link will show, there are a number of different opinions about this.
Can I ask you, Sister, if you do not mind, what your feelings are on this?
Dear Random Guy
my question regarding Salma Yaqob, Sayeeda Warsi (please see the site sayeedawarsi.com), Lord Ahmed (no personal website, but a long record of fighting against Islamophobia and for integration) and Baroness Uddin (baronessuddin.com) was if you regard them as being enough representative or authoritative to speak for the Muslim community.
But if you are not very familiar with them, never mind.
As to the link, sorry, it does not work.
Can you please reproduce it again under the form
xyz.com, without the http and the www part?
As to my feelings, I am waiting to see that link, but I still cannot help weeping when I think of those poor girls, Banaz Mahmoud in Britain and Hina Saleem in Italy (Please see the following links, truncated of the http and www part:
[link](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6251046.stm)
or
[link](http://corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Cronache/2006/08_Agosto/14/pakistana.shtml)) who had everything to live for.
They remind me of what would have happened to me had my own family or the family of that brute [to whom I was forcibly married] managed to locate me.
Anyway, I am really glad to see those Muslim women holding a pro-Hina demonstration outside the court and showing the whole nation that honour killing is as unacceptable in the Muslim world as anywhere else.
Peace
Sister Francesca
Dear Random Guy
nice to hear from you your belief that it is not for you to judge another person's decision.
You see, love is blind, and when a Muslim Sister falls in love for a non Muslim, she is usually the subject of strong reproach within her family and community.
If you read Sister Saira's book, "PUSH for success", you will see that her family initially reacted with strong hostility when she told them about her impending marriage with Steve.
It was Steve (I don't know him personally, but he seems to be pretty much like my husband) who wento to visit her mum and told her how much he was committed to Sister Saira, how much he respected Islam, etc.
If there were more people like Steve around (laid-back, open-minded, liberal, tolerant, empathetic) there would be much less Islamophobia and much more mutual respect.
Peace
Sister Francesca
Assalaamu alaikum,
Francesca, I think there is a consensus that Muslim women cannot marry non-Muslim men, although Muslim men can marry chaste women from the People of the Book (Christians and Jews). Do you have a scholar that you can go to for questions?
Of course, there are many non-Muslims who are nice people, and I'm sure your husband is a nice guy. But for a devout Muslim, marriage - like everything else in life - is seen in the context of Islam, and the children should be brought up as Muslims.
A "blind" love with a non-Muslim is not considered a good foundation for an Islamic marriage.
Assalamu allaikum
Dear Ummabdulla, believe it or not, I PROUDLY wear the hijab, and I feel that my Muslim faith is strongest than ever.
Surprised? Ok, now read the following.
When I was a little girl, and during my forced marriage,I was forced to wear hijab, I didn't believe in it but I had to.
Plus, there was no excuse for mixing up with non-Muslims, especially on the way back from school.
Plus, most of the afternoon time was spent at the local madrasa, where I and my peers learned ONLY how to pronounce in Arabic, and we would spend most of the time reading the Quran without understanding the meaning.
When I fled to the hostel the first thing I did was to throw the hijab into the bin, and I started drinking beer and eating pork.
But in Italy, encouraged by my husband, I started again reading the Koran, this time in Italian and in English, and everything made sense, and my Muslim identity grew stronger and stronger.
I started thinking of wearing the hijab again, but I was held back by the idea of embarrassing my husband and his family and to expose them to prejudice and ridicule in his community.
However my husband strongly encouraged me also to wear hijab, and the whole process was smooth and trouble-free.
Shame that I haven't been in touch with my family for almost 20 years, actually I feel I am still on the run from them, but if they are so narrow-minded I feel I am better off without them.
As to the children, they haven't been brought up as Muslims but I have taken great care to teach them not only the Quran, but also to respect all religions, however my eldest daughter has recently signalled her intention to be a Muslimah and to wear hijab, with my husband's blessing.
As to the scholars, I contacted one of them online, and when he suggested that I divorce my husband I immediately responded with a string of 4 letters words.
How could I divorce the man who has given me everything, my self-esteem, my happiness and my Muslim faith?
He said that I would go to hell, and I replied that I had already left teh hell of my first forced marriage.
Sorry to have to say those things which I have kept inside for so long, but I really feel I have to let everyone know that IMHO a marriage is a declaration of love witnessed by Allah, and if a non-Muslim is willing to marry a Sister, to respect her religious sensitivities and to let her follow the way dictated by Allah then there is nothing wrong with the marriage.
Peace
Sister Francesca
Assalamu alaikum Sr. Francesca,
It is indeed a paradoxical world we live in when the people who bring us close to our faith are from outside it. I am glad that you have strength in your beliefs and that your children are also following Islam. It must be difficult to know that a certain degree of acceptance in your community will never be obtained because of your choice of partner. But you should know that there a large number of muslims who would empathise with you and be happy for you.
Francesca
What an amazing story, it has really touched me.
I am a convert to Islam and after 20 years of marriage and three children i have recently applied for divorce. I am in the process of getting to know a non-Muslim man and i have been doing a bit of research on how Muslim women stand when contemplating marriage outside their faith.
I could be wrong, but i understand that in the Quran there is only specific reference to women not being able to marry polytheists, idolaters and atheists. I think the reasoning is that a man is considered as the head of the household, so a Muslimah could be refrained from practicing her religion or bringing the children up as muslims. Therefore, logic would suggest that if you are going to marry a person belonging to People of the Book, and as long as you remain a muslim, then it it is not haram?
Hi Mar
Surah 2:221 says that believing women should not be married to idolaters, while surah 60:10 says that infidels are not lawful for believing women, however it is not clear if in this case the word "infidel" means idolater or non-Muslim.
Then there is the Hadith, but that is a totally unfamiliar ground for me.
Then the scholars, who believe that a man is by nature strong while the woman is naturally inclined to compromise, therefore the general idea is that a non-Muslim husband will force his Muslim wife away from Islam.
I don't know, each situation is different.
When I met my husband I was a very vulnerable person, a miserable waitress who had just lost her family, totally on my own and in a foreign country (Italy) while he, an accomplished professional (engineer) was basically the knight in shining armour.
However he never took advantage of me, he never tried to convert me to Catholicism, always respected my own views and encouraged me to rediscover my lost faith and to teach Islam to our children, essentially raising them as Muslims.
Like random guy said, it is a paradoxical world!
Peace
Sister Francesca