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Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The negotiation on Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Indonesia and New Zealand is expected to be resumed in March 2009 after the signing of the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA agreement in February, 2009.
"We hope that the negotiation could be resumed soon after the signing of ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTAB. Hopefully it could be done in March," Director General for International Trade Cooperations of the Trade Ministry Gusmardi Bustami here on Saturday.
Gusmardi denied allegation that there had been such a tension between the two countries which caused a cancellation of the negotiations concerned. "It is not true there is no friction. We have agreed to continue the talks between the two countries` trade ministers."
According to him, the follow up negotiation between the two countries would focus on the details of agreements ever made by the two trade ministers.
In the meantime, ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA launched in November 2004 will expire at the end of this year.
In the agreement, Indonesia will scrap import duty for 10,397 post tariff or 93.17 percent of the total post tariff as of 2009 till 2020. As many as 645 others are to have their tariff lowered, while other 117 will be subject to an exception.
Australia will abolish all kind of import duties from ASEAN as of 2009 till 2015 and at least 91,77 percent of the total post tariff will be lowered in 2009-2010 period, while New Zealand will remove 97,4 percent of the total post tariff at a stage of 80 percent in 2009 and 90 percent in 2012.
During the negotiation, Australia will target the opening of Indonesian automotive products, while New Zealand will open beef market and diary products.
For automotive, Indonesia will render a different treatment between Australia and Japan. The agreement on automotive sector with Australia will take into account the agreement between Indonesia and Japan.
"Little bit different, because what is asked by Australia like passenger car we have to allow it in 2020 and not in 2018 like that with Japan," Gusmardi said.
Indonesia asked the two countries to accelerate the abolition of tariff for textile product and garment which is currently standing in a range of 5 to 17.5 percent from 2009 or 2010 for Australia and 7.75 to 19 percent for New Zealand starting 2017 or 2018.
In addition, Australia also provided an investment in agribusiness to review and arrange the capacity of development working programs as well as to push an investment in meat sector and diary products.
New Zealand also offered a facility like the sending of 100 Indonesian workers under a working holiday scheme, job opportunity for 100 cooks, 20 slaughters for halal certified meat and 20 teacher assistant for Indonesian language.
Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Interview : Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (3)
Who decides the rules of Islamic jurisprudence?
The thing about the Islamic situation is we don't have a church. We don't have an ordained priesthood, which makes it a little complicated. But we do have a tradition of scholarship, and rules of scholarship. It's very much like any field of knowledge.
Take any field of knowledge, like physics or biology or chemistry. Anybody can become a chemist or a biologist or a physicist. But there are rules [developed], and a kind of a growing consensus of opinion on how one should think correctly to arrive at what would be deemed a right, a correct decision.
Analogously, there is, in Islam, a tradition of theological interpretation, of [juridical] understanding and knowledge. And as long as you abide by these, the consensus of understanding on how you arrive at a decision, certain differences of opinion are considered equally valid.
What about interpretations regarding women, in particular? We find, in many parts of the world that tend to be populated by Muslims, it seems that women are getting the short end of the stick.
Well ... the prophet, for his times, was a feminist. And there are certainly voices within the Muslim world who believe and argue very strongly for the rights of women. But gender relationships really deal with the cultural norms of a particular group and the times in which they live. If one were to say, for instance, that American women are behind Muslim women -- and I pick the fact that there have been five Muslim women heads of state, and that the United States is behind the Muslim world in this regard -- that would not be considered to be an accurate assessment of how women are regarded in a particular society. One has to look at the sum total ... of the norms and the relationships and the understandings that exist in a given society in a given time. ...
Some of what we see may be considered to be inequities. But we have to remember that when Islam spread from Arabia to what we consider the Muslim world today, it spread through countries and societies which had very ancient traditions. Egypt had an ancient tradition, Iran, another ancient country, Persia before that. The subcontinent of India: another ancient culture. Same thing with current-day Turkey, the Byzantine Empire. ...
Through that, many cultural norms became to be considered by societies as being Islamic, but they're really cultural. So in matriarchal societies, which you will see some matriarchal societies like in West Africa or in Egypt, you'll find women very, very influential. Women hold the purse strings; women determine a lot of what happens, because ancient Egypt had a tradition of having women kings, women queens, queens of Egypt.
Whereas in some societies, which tended to be nomadic, it was very much more male-oriented, and the patriarchal and very strong male orientation became predominant. So as you go across much of the Muslim world, you will see this diversity, which really entered into Muslim life through custom, and not through the Quran and the hadith itself.
Can you define "hadith" for an American audience?
The word "hadith" means any report of something the prophet either said or did. That's hadith with small "h.". Hadith with capital "H" is the collection of all these reports.
Which have been carefully substantiated or authenticated?
There are all kinds of grades of hadith, from the most authentic to those that have been forged, and various degrees in between. Islamic hadith scholarship actually is a very fascinating study, because through the different hadith you get a slice of Islamic history. The politics of what happened at different periods of time are all manifest in the hadith.
And the Sunna, similarly.
The word "Sunna" is used to mean the normative practice of the prophet. In fact, the jurists have defined the general Sunna of the prophet to mean everything the prophet did or said. The hadith is the report of the Sunna. And of the practice of the prophet, there's a certain class of actions that are normative for Muslims to follow, Sunna which has legal value, has a precedent value. And there is Sunna which has no Sharia value. For instance, the prophet prayed a certain way. This has Sharia value, we're supposed to pray that way. The prophet went to hajj on a camel -- doesn't mean that we have to ride a camel from Medina to Mecca for our hajj to be valid. We can take a car. We can take a plane, because that Sunna has no Sharia value.
Source : Frontline : Muslims
The thing about the Islamic situation is we don't have a church. We don't have an ordained priesthood, which makes it a little complicated. But we do have a tradition of scholarship, and rules of scholarship. It's very much like any field of knowledge.
Take any field of knowledge, like physics or biology or chemistry. Anybody can become a chemist or a biologist or a physicist. But there are rules [developed], and a kind of a growing consensus of opinion on how one should think correctly to arrive at what would be deemed a right, a correct decision.
Analogously, there is, in Islam, a tradition of theological interpretation, of [juridical] understanding and knowledge. And as long as you abide by these, the consensus of understanding on how you arrive at a decision, certain differences of opinion are considered equally valid.
What about interpretations regarding women, in particular? We find, in many parts of the world that tend to be populated by Muslims, it seems that women are getting the short end of the stick.
Well ... the prophet, for his times, was a feminist. And there are certainly voices within the Muslim world who believe and argue very strongly for the rights of women. But gender relationships really deal with the cultural norms of a particular group and the times in which they live. If one were to say, for instance, that American women are behind Muslim women -- and I pick the fact that there have been five Muslim women heads of state, and that the United States is behind the Muslim world in this regard -- that would not be considered to be an accurate assessment of how women are regarded in a particular society. One has to look at the sum total ... of the norms and the relationships and the understandings that exist in a given society in a given time. ...
Some of what we see may be considered to be inequities. But we have to remember that when Islam spread from Arabia to what we consider the Muslim world today, it spread through countries and societies which had very ancient traditions. Egypt had an ancient tradition, Iran, another ancient country, Persia before that. The subcontinent of India: another ancient culture. Same thing with current-day Turkey, the Byzantine Empire. ...
Through that, many cultural norms became to be considered by societies as being Islamic, but they're really cultural. So in matriarchal societies, which you will see some matriarchal societies like in West Africa or in Egypt, you'll find women very, very influential. Women hold the purse strings; women determine a lot of what happens, because ancient Egypt had a tradition of having women kings, women queens, queens of Egypt.
Whereas in some societies, which tended to be nomadic, it was very much more male-oriented, and the patriarchal and very strong male orientation became predominant. So as you go across much of the Muslim world, you will see this diversity, which really entered into Muslim life through custom, and not through the Quran and the hadith itself.
Can you define "hadith" for an American audience?
The word "hadith" means any report of something the prophet either said or did. That's hadith with small "h.". Hadith with capital "H" is the collection of all these reports.
Which have been carefully substantiated or authenticated?
There are all kinds of grades of hadith, from the most authentic to those that have been forged, and various degrees in between. Islamic hadith scholarship actually is a very fascinating study, because through the different hadith you get a slice of Islamic history. The politics of what happened at different periods of time are all manifest in the hadith.
And the Sunna, similarly.
The word "Sunna" is used to mean the normative practice of the prophet. In fact, the jurists have defined the general Sunna of the prophet to mean everything the prophet did or said. The hadith is the report of the Sunna. And of the practice of the prophet, there's a certain class of actions that are normative for Muslims to follow, Sunna which has legal value, has a precedent value. And there is Sunna which has no Sharia value. For instance, the prophet prayed a certain way. This has Sharia value, we're supposed to pray that way. The prophet went to hajj on a camel -- doesn't mean that we have to ride a camel from Medina to Mecca for our hajj to be valid. We can take a car. We can take a plane, because that Sunna has no Sharia value.
Source : Frontline : Muslims
Interview : Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (2)
If the message is the same, then how come the people don't agree with each other?
Well, God's perennial lament -- not only in the Quran, but in other scriptures as well -- is that people generally do not follow God's dictates and the guidance and the mandate that God has offered to humanity to follow. We tend to be recalcitrant. We tend to be disobedient to divine guidance. And if you look at human conflict, it has even existed within people of the same religious tradition. I don't need to remind you that even among those who call themselves Muslims there has been a lot of bloodshed.
We're finding that it's very hard to define who Muslims are. Every time we figure, oh, that's what it is, or that's who they are, there's an exception to the rule. There's a very traditional housewife-looking lady in Malaysia who's also an OB/Gyn who ministers to unwed mothers. We have girls in Turkey who are saying, "Look, we want to express ourselves as Muslims. We want to cover our hair." And we have a secular government that's discriminating against them -- women who want to cover, women who don't. Men who want to keep women in the house; men who agree that women have absolute opportunity to do what they need to do in society. How does this all fit?
The definition of the faith of Islam that I gave you before is the Quranic universal definition of the human being vis-a-vis the creator. There is a narrower definition of Islam which is used, which is those who follow the teachings of the prophet Muhammad. Now, according to that definition, their Islam is defined by what was commonly called the five pillars of faith. This is what theologians call the orthopraxy, or the orthopraxis. It means the practices which define you as a Muslim.
There are also five articles of creed, of belief, which theologians call the orthodoxy. That which defines you as a Muslim, if you adhere to these beliefs, [parallels] to, say, [Christianity] and Judaism, that in the Jewish faith, there is an orthopraxy, not much of an orthodoxy. As long as you abide by the rituals, the dietary laws, male circumcision, et cetera, et cetera, there is flexibility within the Jewish tradition on what you might choose to believe in to be considered as a member of the Jewish faith community. So there is flexibility in whether [you] believe in an afterlife, heaven and hell and so forth.
In the Christian faith, you have the opposite situation. You have a fundamental orthodoxy, which is, you have to believe that Jesus Christ is savior. If you believe wholeheartedly that Jesus Christ is savior, you are saved; you receive salvation. And there's a great flexibility on the ritual end. What you do in terms of prayers or dietary laws, circumcision, et cetera, there's flexibility on that.
In Islam, we have both an orthodoxy and an orthopraxy. The orthodoxy of the Islamic faith is defined as a belief in the oneness of God and the right attitude, the right understandings of God, as I mentioned earlier. A belief in the angels, beings created of light, who convey the divine commandments. The belief that God communicated to humanity via scriptures. And these scriptures are considered to be both oral and written form. ... And the belief that God also communicated his guidance and messages and teachings to humanity via human intermediaries, human messengers, we call them. prophets, or messengers.
And the last item of the Islamic orthodoxy is the belief in the last day. The last is a compound concept which means that this creation will, in fact, come to an end. So those of us who believe in the big bang theory, there will be a big implosion, in other words, at the end of time, so to speak, followed by a day of resurrection, where all the souls shall be resurrected; followed by a day of judgment, where all souls will be judged; followed by the obtaining of divine approval or divine disapproval. A pass grade or a failing grade. Those who get a passing grade will be in paradise. Those who get a failing grade will be in what we call hell. And the underlying theme of the last day is that we are all accountable for our ethical actions. ... That's the orthodoxy.
The orthopraxy of Islam is a declaration of faith: the statement that there is no God but God; that Muhammad is the messenger of God; the five-time daily prayer; the giving of alms, typically 2.5 percent of one's income or assets; the fasting of the month of Ramadan; and the going to pilgrimage, or hajj, once in one's lifetime, if one can afford it, financially and physically. Anybody who does these things is within the box of Islam.
There are other things, secondary things. Rules of dress and rules of behavior and rules of what may be considered right or wrong. And these come from cultural norms and from secondary sources of jurisprudence. But anybody who believes in these things and practices these things is a Muslim. ...
Source : Frontline : Muslims
Well, God's perennial lament -- not only in the Quran, but in other scriptures as well -- is that people generally do not follow God's dictates and the guidance and the mandate that God has offered to humanity to follow. We tend to be recalcitrant. We tend to be disobedient to divine guidance. And if you look at human conflict, it has even existed within people of the same religious tradition. I don't need to remind you that even among those who call themselves Muslims there has been a lot of bloodshed.
We're finding that it's very hard to define who Muslims are. Every time we figure, oh, that's what it is, or that's who they are, there's an exception to the rule. There's a very traditional housewife-looking lady in Malaysia who's also an OB/Gyn who ministers to unwed mothers. We have girls in Turkey who are saying, "Look, we want to express ourselves as Muslims. We want to cover our hair." And we have a secular government that's discriminating against them -- women who want to cover, women who don't. Men who want to keep women in the house; men who agree that women have absolute opportunity to do what they need to do in society. How does this all fit?
The definition of the faith of Islam that I gave you before is the Quranic universal definition of the human being vis-a-vis the creator. There is a narrower definition of Islam which is used, which is those who follow the teachings of the prophet Muhammad. Now, according to that definition, their Islam is defined by what was commonly called the five pillars of faith. This is what theologians call the orthopraxy, or the orthopraxis. It means the practices which define you as a Muslim.
There are also five articles of creed, of belief, which theologians call the orthodoxy. That which defines you as a Muslim, if you adhere to these beliefs, [parallels] to, say, [Christianity] and Judaism, that in the Jewish faith, there is an orthopraxy, not much of an orthodoxy. As long as you abide by the rituals, the dietary laws, male circumcision, et cetera, et cetera, there is flexibility within the Jewish tradition on what you might choose to believe in to be considered as a member of the Jewish faith community. So there is flexibility in whether [you] believe in an afterlife, heaven and hell and so forth.
In the Christian faith, you have the opposite situation. You have a fundamental orthodoxy, which is, you have to believe that Jesus Christ is savior. If you believe wholeheartedly that Jesus Christ is savior, you are saved; you receive salvation. And there's a great flexibility on the ritual end. What you do in terms of prayers or dietary laws, circumcision, et cetera, there's flexibility on that.
In Islam, we have both an orthodoxy and an orthopraxy. The orthodoxy of the Islamic faith is defined as a belief in the oneness of God and the right attitude, the right understandings of God, as I mentioned earlier. A belief in the angels, beings created of light, who convey the divine commandments. The belief that God communicated to humanity via scriptures. And these scriptures are considered to be both oral and written form. ... And the belief that God also communicated his guidance and messages and teachings to humanity via human intermediaries, human messengers, we call them. prophets, or messengers.
And the last item of the Islamic orthodoxy is the belief in the last day. The last is a compound concept which means that this creation will, in fact, come to an end. So those of us who believe in the big bang theory, there will be a big implosion, in other words, at the end of time, so to speak, followed by a day of resurrection, where all the souls shall be resurrected; followed by a day of judgment, where all souls will be judged; followed by the obtaining of divine approval or divine disapproval. A pass grade or a failing grade. Those who get a passing grade will be in paradise. Those who get a failing grade will be in what we call hell. And the underlying theme of the last day is that we are all accountable for our ethical actions. ... That's the orthodoxy.
The orthopraxy of Islam is a declaration of faith: the statement that there is no God but God; that Muhammad is the messenger of God; the five-time daily prayer; the giving of alms, typically 2.5 percent of one's income or assets; the fasting of the month of Ramadan; and the going to pilgrimage, or hajj, once in one's lifetime, if one can afford it, financially and physically. Anybody who does these things is within the box of Islam.
There are other things, secondary things. Rules of dress and rules of behavior and rules of what may be considered right or wrong. And these come from cultural norms and from secondary sources of jurisprudence. But anybody who believes in these things and practices these things is a Muslim. ...
Source : Frontline : Muslims
Interview : Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (1)
What are the fundamentals of Islam? What does it teach to be a Muslim?
The fundamental idea which defines a human being as a Muslim is the declaration of faith: that there is a creator, whom we call God -- or Allah, in Arabic -- and that the creator is one and single. And we declare this faith by the declaration of faith, where we ... bear witness that there is no God but God. And that we are accountable to God for our actions.
And that's the bottom line?
That is the universal Quranic definition of a person who is a Muslim. Because God says in the Quran that there is only one true religion, God's religion. It's the same theme that God revealed to all of the prophets, even before Muhammad. They all came to express the truth about ultimate reality: that the ultimate reality, with a capital "R" is God; that God created this universe; and God created humanity for a very specific purpose and mandate, which is to recognize what he or she truly is -- a being created, as we say in the Judeo-Christian world, in the image of God. The Quran uses a different language. It says, created out of a divine in-breathing, because the Quran says when God created the shape, the form of Adam from clay, God says, "When I shall have breathed into him from my spirit." Then he announced to the angels, "Fall in prostration to Adam."
So the defining aspect of a human being is that the human being has within its envelope a piece of the divine breath. This is the Quranic definition of what you might call the quote, unquote, "divine image in the human envelope." And the human mandate is to recognize this essential definition of self, and to acknowledge the very special relationship that exists between that self and the creator.
It doesn't sound so different from Christianity or Judaism.
The Quran does not speak about Christianity or Judaism. You will not find that word once mentioned in the Quran. But you'll find many, many instances of Christians and Jews, because the definitions the Quran uses are human-based definitions. Not conceptual definitions; very much it speaks about the realities. So God, for example, is creator. God is seeing. God is knowing. God is all-powerful. You don't have words of concepts as much. God is beautiful. So the ascriptions or the descriptions or the adjectives are what are used to describe the creator. Religion is defined by the relationship between God and man. And Islam is the submission and the acknowledgment of the human being to the creator.
Could you just give me a short version on how these two religions are related to one another?
God says in the Quran that there is not a single community on earth to whom we did not send a messenger. So the same message, the same truth, was revealed to all of humanity through a series of prophets; whose complete number, we don't know. The Quran mentions 25 of them by name. But the message is one: that God is one; that the creator is single; that the creator has no partner; that the creator is described by the perfection of a number of attributes, which Muslims call the divine names. So God is one; God is almighty; God is all-seeing; God is all-knowing; God is all-hearing. God is compassionate, merciful, forgiving, loving. God is just. And so forth.
So we are forbidden to ascribe to God attributes of weakness or imperfection. So we cannot say God is one, but God is poor; God is one, but God is blind, for instance, or doesn't have the attribute of seeing. It is equally important for Muslims to assert, not only the oneness of God, but the perfection of his attributes.
And the message, in its substance, embodies what Jesus said were the two greatest commandments. When Jesus was once asked, "Rabbi, or Rebbe, what are the greatest commandments?" he said, "To love the lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul and all of your mind." And the second, which is co-equal with it: that you love your neighbor as you love yourself. Love for your brother or your sister, what you love for yourself. Not to harm them in a way that you do not wish to be harmed.
That again embodies these two principles: A, that you have to acknowledge the creator correctly. And B, that you are going to be held accountable for your ethical decisions and choices. And the particular form of revelation was a function of society. So every prophet or messenger spoke in his own language to his own community. Some words were spoken in Hebrew, or in ancient Egyptian. Every revelation was given in the language of the community to whom it was sent. The rituals may have been a little bit different, but the essence of the rituals were there: prayer, charity, and fasting.
Source : Frontline : Muslims
The fundamental idea which defines a human being as a Muslim is the declaration of faith: that there is a creator, whom we call God -- or Allah, in Arabic -- and that the creator is one and single. And we declare this faith by the declaration of faith, where we ... bear witness that there is no God but God. And that we are accountable to God for our actions.
And that's the bottom line?
That is the universal Quranic definition of a person who is a Muslim. Because God says in the Quran that there is only one true religion, God's religion. It's the same theme that God revealed to all of the prophets, even before Muhammad. They all came to express the truth about ultimate reality: that the ultimate reality, with a capital "R" is God; that God created this universe; and God created humanity for a very specific purpose and mandate, which is to recognize what he or she truly is -- a being created, as we say in the Judeo-Christian world, in the image of God. The Quran uses a different language. It says, created out of a divine in-breathing, because the Quran says when God created the shape, the form of Adam from clay, God says, "When I shall have breathed into him from my spirit." Then he announced to the angels, "Fall in prostration to Adam."
So the defining aspect of a human being is that the human being has within its envelope a piece of the divine breath. This is the Quranic definition of what you might call the quote, unquote, "divine image in the human envelope." And the human mandate is to recognize this essential definition of self, and to acknowledge the very special relationship that exists between that self and the creator.
It doesn't sound so different from Christianity or Judaism.
The Quran does not speak about Christianity or Judaism. You will not find that word once mentioned in the Quran. But you'll find many, many instances of Christians and Jews, because the definitions the Quran uses are human-based definitions. Not conceptual definitions; very much it speaks about the realities. So God, for example, is creator. God is seeing. God is knowing. God is all-powerful. You don't have words of concepts as much. God is beautiful. So the ascriptions or the descriptions or the adjectives are what are used to describe the creator. Religion is defined by the relationship between God and man. And Islam is the submission and the acknowledgment of the human being to the creator.
Could you just give me a short version on how these two religions are related to one another?
God says in the Quran that there is not a single community on earth to whom we did not send a messenger. So the same message, the same truth, was revealed to all of humanity through a series of prophets; whose complete number, we don't know. The Quran mentions 25 of them by name. But the message is one: that God is one; that the creator is single; that the creator has no partner; that the creator is described by the perfection of a number of attributes, which Muslims call the divine names. So God is one; God is almighty; God is all-seeing; God is all-knowing; God is all-hearing. God is compassionate, merciful, forgiving, loving. God is just. And so forth.
So we are forbidden to ascribe to God attributes of weakness or imperfection. So we cannot say God is one, but God is poor; God is one, but God is blind, for instance, or doesn't have the attribute of seeing. It is equally important for Muslims to assert, not only the oneness of God, but the perfection of his attributes.
And the message, in its substance, embodies what Jesus said were the two greatest commandments. When Jesus was once asked, "Rabbi, or Rebbe, what are the greatest commandments?" he said, "To love the lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul and all of your mind." And the second, which is co-equal with it: that you love your neighbor as you love yourself. Love for your brother or your sister, what you love for yourself. Not to harm them in a way that you do not wish to be harmed.
That again embodies these two principles: A, that you have to acknowledge the creator correctly. And B, that you are going to be held accountable for your ethical decisions and choices. And the particular form of revelation was a function of society. So every prophet or messenger spoke in his own language to his own community. Some words were spoken in Hebrew, or in ancient Egyptian. Every revelation was given in the language of the community to whom it was sent. The rituals may have been a little bit different, but the essence of the rituals were there: prayer, charity, and fasting.
Source : Frontline : Muslims
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Do Muslims Want Democracy and Theocracy?
According, John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, cutting across diverse Muslim countries, social classes, and gender differences, answers to our questions reveal a complex and surprising reality. Substantial majorities in nearly all nations surveyed (95% in Burkina Faso, 94% in Egypt, 93% in Iran, and 90% in Indonesia) say that if drafting a constitution for a new country, they would guarantee freedom of speech, defined as "allowing all citizens to express their opinion on the political, social, and economic issues of the day."
However, while acknowledging and admiring many aspects of Western democracy, those surveyed do not favor wholesale adoption of Western models of democracy. Many appear to want their own democratic model that incorporates Sharia -- and not one that is simply dependent on Western values. Actually, few respondents associate "adopting Western values" with Muslim political and economic progress. Abuses in the name of Sharia have not led to wholesale rejection of it.
In our data, the emphasis that those in substantially Muslim countries give to a new model of government -- one that is democratic yet embraces religious values -- helps to explain why majorities in most countries, with the exception of a handful of nations, want Sharia as at least "a" source of legislation.
• In only a few countries did a majority say that Sharia should have no role in society; yet in most countries, only a minority want Sharia as "the only source" of law. In Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, majorities want Sharia as the "only source" of legislation.
• Most surprising is the absence of systemic differences in many countries between males and females in their support for Sharia as the only source of legislation. For example, in Jordan, 54% of men and 55% of women want Sharia as the only source of legislation. In Egypt, the percentages are 70% of men and 62% of women; in Iran, 12% of men and 14% of women; and in Indonesia, 14% of men and 14% of women.
Ironically, we don't have to look far from home to find a significant number of people who want religion as a source of law. In the United States, a 2006 Gallup Poll indicates that a majority of Americans want the Bible as a source of legislation.
• Forty-six percent of Americans say that the Bible should be "a" source, and 9% believe it should be the "only" source of legislation.
• Perhaps even more surprising, 42% of Americans want religious leaders to have a direct role in writing a constitution, while 55% want them to play no role at all. These numbers are almost identical to those in Iran.
However, while acknowledging and admiring many aspects of Western democracy, those surveyed do not favor wholesale adoption of Western models of democracy. Many appear to want their own democratic model that incorporates Sharia -- and not one that is simply dependent on Western values. Actually, few respondents associate "adopting Western values" with Muslim political and economic progress. Abuses in the name of Sharia have not led to wholesale rejection of it.
In our data, the emphasis that those in substantially Muslim countries give to a new model of government -- one that is democratic yet embraces religious values -- helps to explain why majorities in most countries, with the exception of a handful of nations, want Sharia as at least "a" source of legislation.
• In only a few countries did a majority say that Sharia should have no role in society; yet in most countries, only a minority want Sharia as "the only source" of law. In Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, majorities want Sharia as the "only source" of legislation.
• Most surprising is the absence of systemic differences in many countries between males and females in their support for Sharia as the only source of legislation. For example, in Jordan, 54% of men and 55% of women want Sharia as the only source of legislation. In Egypt, the percentages are 70% of men and 62% of women; in Iran, 12% of men and 14% of women; and in Indonesia, 14% of men and 14% of women.
Ironically, we don't have to look far from home to find a significant number of people who want religion as a source of law. In the United States, a 2006 Gallup Poll indicates that a majority of Americans want the Bible as a source of legislation.
• Forty-six percent of Americans say that the Bible should be "a" source, and 9% believe it should be the "only" source of legislation.
• Perhaps even more surprising, 42% of Americans want religious leaders to have a direct role in writing a constitution, while 55% want them to play no role at all. These numbers are almost identical to those in Iran.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Global Islamic Market
Mohammed Yussuf picks up a giant onion and smiles as he admires it. The vegetable on display at a trade fair here pleases him not only because of its proportions; the onion's main virtue in his eyes is that it is halal, acceptable on Muslim dining tables.
Mr. Yussuf, a Malaysian businessman, makes a tidy profit importing halal foods from this remote corner of northwestern China. He's the type of foreign trader this Muslim region hopes to attract more of, in its bid to grab a slice of the multibillion dollar global Islamic food business.
"One-third of our population is Hui," says Ma Yingqiu, this city's deputy mayor, referring to the Muslim ethnic minority who live in the Autonomous Region of Ningxia. "They have the same habits as people in Islamic countries. They are this region's competitive advantage."
As the local government strives to forge new economic ties with Middle Eastern and other Muslim nations, citizens of this impoverished part of China bordering the Gobi Desert are rediscovering Islam. Emerging from centuries of religious isolation, Ningxia Muslims are developing "an international sense of community," says Ma Ping, head of the Institute of the Hui and Islam here.
While that might once have unnerved the Chinese government, always uneasy about divided loyalties, Ningxia's desperate economic straits – it is the country's third poorest province – have prompted a rethink, says Professor Ma.
"Stability used to be the top priority here, but now it is development," he says. "What the government wants most is money."
It was in search of money that the Ningxia government last week held the third annual International Halal Food and Muslim Commodities Trade Fair, which closed here over the weekend. "This fair is Ningxia's chance to march into the world," provincial governor Wang Zhengwei proclaimed at the opening ceremony.
For four days, local producers manned stands offering meats and vegetables, which Hui Muslims consider halal if they don't use manure made from human or animal excrement to grow them. Vendors also sold clothes, ceramics, and other goods aimed at Muslim consumers.
Yussuf was one of the few foreign buyers at the fair, however, and his supplier, Ma Shengke, seemed to be one of only a handful of success stories so far in Ningxia's efforts to break into the competitive Islamic food market.
Most producers are having difficulty carving out a niche, a challenge to all newcomers but one that is heightened for Ningxia's would-be exporters by the recent rise in the value of the Chinese currency, which makes their goods more expensive on world markets.
"We have lost our price advantage, so the solution is to produce better quality meat," says Zhang Hongen, a local sheep farmer. "We need to impose standards."
Ningxia's halal food industry is worth nearly $700 million a year, according to government statistics, but less than 3 percent of its output is sold abroad, Ma Yingqiu points out. "We are still at the beginning of this and we have to work on it," the deputy mayor acknowledges. "But since we are starting from such a small base, it should be easy to grow fast", reported by msmonitor.com
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Moderates Versus The Radicals: Democracy And Freedom Versus Islam?
Yamin Zakaria examines closely what ‘freedom and democracy’ really means in western ‘democratic countries’ and looks at their grow...
The moderates ask: Is Islam compatible with democracy and freedom? The radicals ask: Is democracy and freedom compatible with Islam? So what’s the difference? The difference is in the ordering of the words - that determines which notion (Islam or freedom and democracy) is used as the reference point. That will be taken as the axiom to evaluate other idea(s). Therefore, the moderates use democracy and freedom as the yardstick to judge Islam, but the radicals take, Islam as the reference point to judge democracy and freedom. Let us first elucidate some of these terms, before examining the aforementioned questions
The moderates ask: Is Islam compatible with democracy and freedom? The radicals ask: Is democracy and freedom compatible with Islam? So what’s the difference? The difference is in the ordering of the words - that determines which notion (Islam or freedom and democracy) is used as the reference point. That will be taken as the axiom to evaluate other idea(s). Therefore, the moderates use democracy and freedom as the yardstick to judge Islam, but the radicals take, Islam as the reference point to judge democracy and freedom. Let us first elucidate some of these terms, before examining the aforementioned questions
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