The Chronikler

They say that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. But it does: the roaring rage of injured male pride. This was amply demonstrated in Egypt when a female Saudi journalist had the audacity to apply logic and consistency to challenge an area of traditional male privilege.

In an article provocatively entitled My four husbands and I, Nadine al-Bedair quite sensibly posed the logical question: if Muslim men are entitled to marry up to four wives, why can't women, in the spirit of equality between believers, have four husbands?

"I have long questioned why it is men have a monopoly on this right. No one has been able to explain to me convincingly why it is I'm deprived of the right to polyandry," she complains.

The outspoken Saudi then goes on to deconstruct and question the traditional justifications for polygamy, including that, in a traditional patriarchal society, it is a shelter for widows, divorcees and women who can't find a spouse; that men have greater sexual appetites than women and get easily bored; that women can't handle more than one man; and that, if women could have multiple husbands, determining paternity would not be possible (an excuse made obsolete by modern science).

"They tell me that I, as a woman, can't handle more than one man physically. I say that women who cheat on their husbands and the 'sellers of love' [ie prostitutes] do much more," she counters.

Unsurprisingly, the article's honest tone and irreverence has triggered a furious response from the traditional male establishment. Some Islamic clerics have denounced the article and promised the "blaspheming" author divine retribution, while an Egyptian MP has decided not to wait that long and has already brought a lawsuit against her.

While few have openly voiced support for al-Bedair's call for this kind of equality in the Islamic marriage stakes, some Islamic authorities have defended her by saying that her true purpose was to highlight how badly some women are treated by their husbands, especially those who take on second or third wives, despite Islam's demand that a man treats all his wives equally.

For her part, al-Bedair ends her article with a call that society either allows polyandry for women or comes up with a new "map of marriage". One Cairo imam, Sheikh Amr Zaki, believes the way to go is to confine polygamy to the scrapheap of history. "In our world today, polygamy should be unacceptable. There is no need for it and, besides, no man can truly love more than one woman and vice versa," he opined.

And his view corresponds with that of the Egyptian mainstream. Although Islam permits polygamy, most Egyptians are jealously monogamous, with men who take on more than one wife often mocked or marginalised by the community and the first wife often so full of shame that she requests a divorce. Nevertheless, the question remains: which is fairer and more equitable – monogamy or polygamy for all?

Even in monogamous societies, informal polygamy is a reality. In Europe, for instance, though most people, myself included, are serial monogamists, many men and women have multiple partners or lovers simultaneously, and there is a growing tendency to be open about this. However, the law has not kept up.

"A man can live with two women in Britain perfectly legally, but if he marries them both it's a crime punishable by up to seven years in jail," Brian Whitaker observed on CiF. "If a man wants to have more than one wife, or a woman to have more than one husband, and everyone enters into the arrangement openly and voluntarily, what exactly is wrong with that?" he asks.

Of course, traditional models of polygny (and polyandry, in a minority of societies) tend to reflect social inequalities, both between genders, generations and classes. And assuming a 50:50 gender divide, polygamy not only means that women in polygamous relationships not only receive a small fraction of a man, but that some unfortunate men lower down the pecking order will get no woman at all.

But there are perhaps more equitable modern models of polygamy and polyandry emerging in which men and women who are largely social equals enter into complex relationships that go beyond the nuclear family through which they hope better to fulfil their emotional and physical needs.

Of course, as my wife points out, marriage is becoming, in many ways, obsolete, as fewer and fewer people choose to take that path, and European largely have the freedom to choose the living arrangement that best suits them. But to my mind, it's a question of principle. For example, gay people don't need to marry to share a life together, but that should not mean they have no right to.

In my view, if the institution of marriage is to survive, it should not be so limiting and be made flexible enough to enable people to customise it to their unique needs.

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 2 January 2010. Read the related discussion.

Though Muslims don't need minarets to worship, the Swiss vote to ban them is a troubling sign of mounting intolerance.

Alongside the crescent, the minaret is one of the most instantly recognisable symbols of Islam. However, it's only functional purpose – to call worshippers to pray – has, in the modern age, become obsolete. And even then, it is not absolutely necessary, as attested to by the earliest mosques which did not have minarets.

That is why, at face value, the Swiss referendum on whether to ban minarets, especially since there are only four of them in the entire country, as Tariq Ramadan points out, seems superficial and pointless. In fact, when my wife first heard the news she wondered whether the Swiss didn't have anything more important to go to the ballot box for.

Preposterous as the whole campaign is, especially given that Zurich's oldest minaret is so much a part of the cityscape that most passers-by don't even notice it, it does carry certain ominous undertones.

Although mosques don't need minarets to function and Muslims don't need them to worship, the Swiss decision – by a majority of 57% – to ban their construction carries enormous symbolic significance. Ironically, it even came on the weekend in which Muslims were celebrating one of their holiest festivals, Eid al-Adha.

To be clear, Muslims in Switzerland are still legally entitled to practise their faith. However, the message this vote sends is one that undermines the principle of religious freedom. The Swiss are effectively saying that, even if Muslims have the legal right to gather together for communal prayer, mainstream society wants them to be invisible.

In addition, one can't help thinking that for one of the main sponsors of the referendum, the far-right and populist Swiss People's Party (SVP), the heart of the issue is not so much minarets, but Muslims themselves. If it were up to them, I suspect, they would much rather ban Islam than minarets – but fortunately the law would never allow them to organise such a vote and Swiss voters don't fear Muslims enough to go that far – judging by some of the statements members of the party made in the run-up to the vote.

For example, the SVP's Ulrich Schlüer described the minaret as "a symbol of political power, a prelude to the introduction of sharia law". In this, the SVP is like far-right parties across Europe who subscribe to the preposterous notion of the imminent emergence of a "Eurabia", a myth I've deconstructed before.

As a sign of the deeper hatred upon which this ban is built – and a foretaste of things to come if we do not address the issue of intercommunal relations in Europe urgently – anti-Muslim politicians in other parts of Europe are already jumping on the Swiss bandwagon.

The party of the infamous Geert Wilders – who has already called unsuccessfully for the banning of the Qur'an – has demanded a similar referendum to be carried out in the Netherlands.

Mario Borghezio of Italy's Northern League also called for a vote in Italy, surreally suggesting that: "The flag of a courageous Switzerland which wants to remain Christian is flying over a near-Islamised Europe."

Unsurprisingly, the Swiss decision has not gone down well in Arab and Muslim countries. But I offer a similar observation to the one I made at the time of the German hijab murder controversy: troubling and Islamophobic as this vote is, millions of Swiss and other Europeans also find it reprehensible. In addition, it is not a sign that European Muslims are being persecuted. In fact, the Muslim minority in most of Europe enjoys more freedom of faith and conscience than minorities in many Muslim countries.

Nevertheless, the vote does fill me with foreboding. If matters are left unchecked, then European Muslims could well one day, become an oppressed or persecuted minority, and the artificial divide between western and Muslim countries could widen until it becomes an unbridgeable chasm.

We like to take pride in the fact that we live in the most tolerant times ever. But there were periods in Europe's history where Christianity and Islam actually may have co-existed more harmoniously than they do today. An interesting example of this was Sicily, under both Arab and Norman rule.

On the eve of the Swiss minaret referendum, our son, who is of mixed Arab and European background, was born. Although we are sceptical of religion, intend to give him a secular upbringing and let the choice of belief system be his when he comes of age, I hope that by the time Iskander is an adult, he will be able to live comfortably and proudly with his multicultural heritage and not be discriminated against because of it.

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 1 December 2009. Read the related discussion.

Our unborn child is so hip that he is fashionably late for his own birthday reception. Though he is already something of a globetrotter, he seems unwilling to wean himself off the five-star womb service to which he has grown accustomed.

Once our son finally decides to shine for his parents,  he will be the biological embodiment of innocence, a clean sheet, unaware of the world or of his place in it. Our choices and decisions on his behalf will have potentially lifelong consequences. Even something as apparently straightforward as a name, especially given his mixed cultural background, will play a significant role in shaping his identity.

Although there are many things a child cannot choose or change, including the parents (s)he is lumbered with and where (s)he is born, one area that should certainly not be hereditary is faith. We are determined to leave the choice of belief systems to our son to make for himself, once he is old enough to do so.

In this, we agree with the message of Ariane Sherine's 'Please don't label me' campaign, though this is something Katleen and I have had an understanding about for many years, in the context of the hypothetical 'what if' games we're so fond of.

This is partly due to our belief in freedom of choice, and there is no domain so personal as the belief system one subscribes to. We also do not wish to deprive him of the beautiful aspects of his triple heritage – secular humanist, Muslim and Christian.

In addition, since we are both of a sceptical bent, reject dogma and accept the possibility that we may be wrong in our evolving beliefs, we think it is only sensible that our child should reach its own conclusions. Until that time, he will not be exposed to the overtly ritualistic or liturgical aspects of religion, except as an outside observer: no church or mosque, no Bible or Qur'an, no circumcision or communion.

Despite our rejection of organised religion, we will raise our son to appreciate the power of faith and attempt to give him a balanced appreciation of both the beauty and ugliness of religion and its role in shaping human civilisation.

That's not to say we will actually go out of our way to educate him about religion, not least because we're not that interested in it. As Katleen rightly asserts, we will approach the topic from a cultural perspective and try to discuss and contextualise what exposure he has to religion as and when it occurs.

But certain things will be harder in practice than in theory. It is inevitable that our own views and biases will be conveyed to our son. Perhaps understandably given our own convictions, we will wish him to grow up to be an adult for whom religion is inconsequential, except on an intellectual and cultural level, and who respects our common humanity above all else. But if he decides to embrace a faith, we will also be happy that he has found his own path, as long as he is tolerant of other world views.

Another major challenge will be society. In spite of our best efforts not to label our child, there is no guarantee that others will not go ahead and do so anyway – or try to introduce him by stealth to their chosen faith.

Although Europe has largely moved away from the assumption that a child is born into a faith, some may presume on the strength of his surname and possibly his appearance (if his North African side shows through strongly in his features) that he is a Muslim, and even discriminate against him on that basis.

Education is also a concern, and we will have to monitor carefully his schools activities – especially if he ends up in a "Catholic" school – to ensure that he receives no religious instruction.

In the Arab world, it is widely believed, among both Muslims and Christians, that faith is hereditary – an issue I addressed in this article – and so many will also make unwelcome assumptions.

This won't be a problem with immediate family and is also no longer an issue with the Egyptian bureaucracy. Luckily, earlier this year, Egyptians got the right to leave the religion field blank in their ID cards.

And when our son comes of age, it will be up to him and no one else to decide which faith ticks his box.

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 26 November 2009. Read the related discussion.

While justice can never resurrect the fallen, it can lay them to rest in dignity and help their loved ones better come to terms with their loss.

In the case of Marwa al-Sherbini, the 31-year-old Egyptian pharmacist who was brutally murdered in a German courtroom this summer, the life sentence handed down by a Dresden court to her racist murderer should help ease tensions surrounding the case, which seems to have been hijacked for political point scoring.

First, let me be clear. This was an ugly and disgusting crime and caused the untimely death of an intelligent mother whose loss has undoubtedly left a huge hole in the lives of her husband and her three-year-old son. Her murderer, Alexander (or Axel) Wiens, a 28-year-old German of Russian origin, was certainly a racist and Islamophobe of the first order whose blind, irrational hatred of Muslims is frighteningly common in far-right circles.

But it was the extent and fury of the reaction in Egypt that astounded me. Although it is understandable that public sympathy for al-Sherbini – whose story is set to be turned into a film – and a certain amount of anger would pour out, I was shocked by the fact that she became popularly known as "the martyr of terrorism" and her case was used by some to claim that European Muslims were a "persecuted" minority and Europe was irredeemably Islamophobic.

Rising anti-German sentiment in Egypt even led to calls for sanctions against Germany. For example, the Egyptian Pharmacists' Association, of which al-Sherbini was a member, unfairly called for a boycott of German drugs.

While this over-reaction probably has some roots in the very real discrimination some Muslims face in Europe and the popular anger at US-led western intervention in places like Iraq, and the heavy human toll this has inflicted, Egyptians should not have allowed the actions of a tiny minority to lead them to make unfair generalisations.

As fellow Cif commentator Nesrine Malik said at the time: "Muslims (me included) constantly protest that the actions of a few extremists should not be allowed to denigrate Islam and its adherents as a whole – but this is exactly what they are doing themselves in connection with Europeans and the actions of Axel W."

At the time of the murder, I was struck by the ironic parallel between the one-sided self-righteous indignation being expressed by some conservative Egyptian Muslims and the almost identical brand of righteous anger targeted at Muslims by the European far right.

For example, many Egyptians pointed to western prejudice against the hijab and how it was prohibited in government institutions by some European states, such as France, as examples of this alleged persecution. "But what about Muslim prejudice against bare heads?" I asked in an article at the time. "In the interest of fairness, why aren't more Muslims openly outraged by attempts to force women to wear the headscarf against their will, as in Saudi Arabia?"

In Egypt, few protests are raised when the mutaween, the Saudi morality police, routinely arrest and beat Saudi women who are out alone or not wearing a headscarf. In an extreme manifestation of their puritanical attitude, they even caused, in 2002, the death of 15 schoolgirls who were not allowed to flee a burning building because they were not dressed in decent Islamic fashion.

In addition, while European Muslims can and do face discrimination, this Egyptian criticism overlooks the fact that Muslims often have more freedom of conscience in Europe than they do in Egypt, and that non-Muslims can also be the victims of enormous prejudice in Egypt.

Copts have to deal with a lot of unofficial and even some institutionalised discrimination in Egypt, as I highlighted in a recent article.

On hearing that the German courts had given the murderer the stiffest possible sentence – life, without eligibility for early release – my first reaction was that this should help restore shaken confidence, though there have been some complaints that the sentence was too lenient.

Some of the people interviewed on al-Jazeera last night and posting on newspaper message boards today expressed the view that Wiens should have been tried in Egypt and sentenced to death. They are obviously unaware of European laws banning the extradition of suspects to countries where they may face capital punishment.

But the verdict has generally gone down well. For instance, Egypt's ambassador to Germany welcomed the court's ruling, while the independent al-Dostour newspaper called it a "victory for justice". This should demonstrate to the doubters that, though there may be racist and Islamophobic Germans and Europeans, discrimination against Muslims is not universal nor is it generally institutionalised.

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 12 November 2009. Read the related discussion.

Baggy trousers are definitely 'in' this season. I have it on no lesser authority than Egypt's grand mufti, Ali Goma'a, that icon of clerical cool.

The esteemed Azharite's informal fashion fatwa – you could call it a fadwa – just happened to be all the rage this summer in the form of 'harem pants', as Rachel Shabi assures me.

But I doubt Goma'a is interested in developing a career as a style guru or a modish mufti or getting his mug on the cover of Elle magazine. Known as woman-friendly by the standards of the clergy, Goma'a was making it clear that he disapproved of what happened in neighbouring Sudan, where falling foul of the regime's 'fashion police' can have serious consequences, as the courageous Lubna Hussein and other unfortunate Sudanese women have discovered.

Luckily, in Egypt, Goma'a and the religious establishment's views are non-binding, although there are some worrying signs that the country is slowly developing its very own de facto 'morality police'. Nevertheless, in principle, Egyptians are free to dress pretty much as they please – even if hijabless women are an increasingly marginalised minority, as Gihan Abou Zeid points out in this article.

Despite the fact that Sudan and some Muslim countries have laws defining what a woman can wear, the Qur'an does not actually prescribe any particular form of dress for women, beyond asking them to be modest and cover their cleavage, and the "hijab" (originally a physical curtain or barrier) was only applied to Muhammad's wives.

Despite this vagueness, Egypt's Dar el-Ifta' (House of Fatwas), which is led by Goma'a and has the role of issuing opinions on matters of Islamic jurisprudence, followed the mufti's trouser comments by issuing an official statement reaffirming the hijab's unofficial position as the 'sixth pillar of Islam', which claimed that praying and fasting were not complete without the hijab.

Interestingly, although not quite as detailed as for women, the Qur'an also carries clear injunctions on male modesty. "It is men from the eighth century onward who interpreted the passage in the Qur'an which enjoins men and women to dress modestly to mean that women should be totally covered and segregated, neither seen nor heard," observed Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot, a prominent Egyptian historian and feminist and the first Egyptian woman to obtain a degree from Oxford. How convenient. This kind of vindicates Egyptian culture minister Farouk Hosni's controversial claim that if women should wear the hijab, so should men.

So the issue is more a question of fatwa (religious opinion) than divine injunction. But then how reliable are fatwas as a guide to personal behaviour for the faithful? As Islam has no centralised "church" structure and no vested clergy, any scholar with an ijazah (the academic qualification at the root of the modern university system) is qualified to issue fatwas. In addition, qualified or not, any person with a cult following also issues fatwas.

This has led to some bizarre interpretations, especially with the ratings wars between 'satellite muftis' on TV. As a result, a whole line in "have you heard the latest fatwa" jokes has emerged. Egyptians, when they dismiss nonsensical, uninformed talk, say: "Batal tefti" ("Stop making fatwas").

Consider, for instance, the Little Britainesque fatwa – which caused mass public indignation – issued a couple of years ago by a cleric of al-Azhar, which purported to resolve the thorny issue of mixed gender workplaces by advising female workers to breastfeed their male colleagues, thereby becoming their "mother through breastfeeding" (umm fil reda'a).

Then, there are the fatwas on bathroom etiquette. Speaking of bowel movements, Goma'a, the Egyptian mufti, has not been immune to issuing surreal fatwas, such as the one declaring the holiness of the prophet's urine – and, no, he wasn't taking the proverbial.

Of course, these are extreme and extremely funny examples and most fatwas deal with mundane issues of worship and righteous behaviour, although few mainstream scholars are willing to stick their neck out and pronounce their opinion on more significant issues, such as politics, corruption, etc.

Nevertheless, sensible or not, the trouble with fatwas is that they discourage individuals from thinking for themselves, undermine the notion of individual choice, and deprive people of the moral responsibility for their own actions.

As everyone's doing it, my fatwa for today is: enough with fatwas!

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 19 September 2009. Read the related discussion.

Muslims in Europe are secretly amassing an arsenal of the deadliest in biological weaponry: the demographic time bomb. The first phase of the Muslim invasion – or should I say reinvasion – of Europe has already begun with the deployment of an expeditionary force of womb-men: a fearsome army of mutant ninja warriors whose function is to go forth and multiply. Their turbo-charged and perhaps even genetically modified uteruses mass produce the deadly biological agent which is currently being stockpiled in Muslim homes across the continent.

And their mission: to create Eurabia – or, better said, since many European Muslims are not Arabs, to turn the EU into the European Umma. Having been driven out of Europe once and unable to reconquer it through force of arms, those crafty and cunning Muslims are back to do it through the Trojan horse of immigration and reproduction.

Some dismiss this demographic time bomb as being far-fetched and as fantastical as Saddam Hussein's non-existent arsenal of WMD, but yet another smoking gun has been found in the Netherlands. Troubling evidence has emerged that Muhammad has become the most popular boy's name in the country's four biggest cities. And a similar situation is emerging in other European urban centres.

In fact, five centuries after the reconquest of Granada, that last Muslim stronghold, Eurabia has established its first de facto capital in Rotterdam.

And when the number of Muhammads and other assorted Mohammedans become a majority over the coming century – as the great Bernard Lewis warned – they will form an army of mujahideen of Talibanesque horror which will subjugate the natives and make them live as second-class dhimmis under sharia law.

As far-fetched conspiracy theories go, the Eurabia myth is one of the most persistent and dangerous of recent years – and the Daily Telegraph fanned the controversy this month with its claims that it had carried out an investigation which revealed that the EU's Muslim population would jump from the current 4-5% to an improbable 20% by 2050.

The six-paragraph article gives no indication of how the projections were arrived at, nor the assumptions upon which they were based. In fact, as the BBC pointed out in a piece debunking a popular YouTube hit on 'Muslim Demographics', population projection is an inexact science. It cites, as an example, the projections made in the 1930s that the UK's population would fall to 20 million by the end of the 20th century.

Most projections that foresee a massive increase in Europe's Muslim population are based on certain assumptions which are hard to justify. They assume that recent immigration trends will continue indefinitely for decades to come, but this is unlikely as Europe continuously raises the immigration bar for non-EU citizens, and it is not far-fetched to expect that many European countries may call a halt to immigration or draw their future immigrants from certain more 'desirable' countries.

The projections also assume that European Muslims will continue to have a significantly higher fertility rate than the population at large. But evidence suggests that the fertility rates of Muslim women are gradually converging with those of the wider population. And there are signs that the fertility rate among the white population of some European countries, such as France, is recovering.

So, given that the only hard facts we can be sure of is that a small minority of about 4% of the EU's population is Muslim, why is this fear of a coming Eurabia so strong in certain quarters? Many of the biggest proponents of the Muslim demographic time bomb myth are cheerleaders of and apologists for US imperialism in the Middle East, such as Bat Y'eor and Bernard Lewis.

Some Europeans, particularly from conservative and Christian circles and the intolerant wing of liberalism, have fallen for the myth for a variety of reasons. One is the relatively rapid shift in western Europe towards multicultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies in recent decades, which has caused a certain sense of alienation and insecurity, especially for those whose economic security has been undermined by neo-liberal economics and globalisation.

Other reasons are the massive lifestyle and social changes. These have caused distress for traditionalists and people who still identify themselves as Christian: they have seen their religion die a slow death, while Islam seems to go from strength to strength.

Then, there is the plain old fear stoked by the overexposure given to the most intolerant Islamic fringe groups and individuals. Certainly, there are some European Muslims who want to live according to sharia and there is even a lunatic fringe who would like to see Europe incorporated into some fantastical global caliphate.

But Muslims in Europe are not some unified, monolithic force. Not only are they ethnically diverse and from communities that are not the greatest fans of each other – consider the animosity between Moroccans and Algerians, for example – they are also as varied ideologically as the rest of the population.

Although Muslims tend to be more religious and conservative than the rest of society, there are also plenty of secular, non-practising, cultural and even non-believing Muslims. In addition, it is impossible to tell what kind of identities future European Muslims will have, but I suspect that the future cultural fault lines in Europe will not run along traditional religious lines, but will pit believers against non-believers, creating a kind unity of purpose between conservative Muslims and Christians intent on preserving faith in a 'Godless Europe'.

While Eurabia is a fantasy, Europe is almost certainly going to become more diverse in the future, and so a debate is worth having about how to adapt to this reality and what constitutes citizenship in an increasingly mobile world.

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 21 August 2009. Read the related discussion.