Isim Review: Youth

Posted on September 6th, 2005 by .
Categories: Important Publications.

The latest issue of the ISIM Review (formerly known as ISIM Newsletter) is out now!

It is a very interesting issue again with ‘youth’ as the main theme. Contributions of Miriam Gazzah (Maroc-Hop: Music and Youth Identities), Pierre Hecker (Heavy Metal in a Muslim Context), Saeid Golkar (Black Crow to Barbie: Changing Student Norms in Iran) and Amel Boubekeur (Cool and Competitive: Muslim Culture in the West) make this theme very worthwile.

Other interesting articles are Queer Jihad: a View from South Africa (from Scott Kugle) and Salafis, Jihad and Drama (about the Laskar Jihad Movement by Noorhaidi Hasan).

You can read it online here (*.pdf)

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Islamic Trojan

Posted on September 6th, 2005 by .
Categories: Misc. News.


An Islamic Trojan! A trojan horse? The wellknown fifth column? No a computer virus that tries to disrupt visits the pornographic websites by displaying messages from the Qur�an.

The low-risk Yusufali-A Trojan horse monitors the websites Windows users are visiting. If the malware sees one of a set of trigger words (such as “teen� or “sex”) in the url it minimises the window so the user cannot see its content and displays a message from the Qur�an instead. The message, partly written in Arabic, contains the following English text:

Know, therefore, that there is no god but Allah, and ask forgiveness for they fault, and for the men and women who believe: for Allah knows how ye move about and how ye dwell in your homes.

“Unlike other malware, it appears this Trojan horse isn’t trying to steal money or confidential information, but acting as a moral guardian instead – blocking the viewing of websites it determines are unsavoury,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.

Nothing new but certainly kind of funny. Other examples are:

Malware featuring an Islamic theme is rare but not unprecedented. Previous examples have include the Mawanella worm which highlighted the friction between Muslims and Buddhists in Sri Lanka and the Cycle worm which contained a message about life in Iran.

For my Dutch speaking readers, see also Nu.nl: Pornosurfer geconfronteerd met koranteksten

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Fatwa Crackdown

Posted on September 6th, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates.

Issuing misleading fatwas should be punished by Sharia law, says the Grand Mufti.
Fatwa Crackdown:

Whoever intends to make a mockery of the edicts mocks the faith and scholars. Such a person deserves to be punished in accordance with the Sharia rules in order to deter others from giving misleading edicts usually transmitted on the Internet

Saudi Grand Mufti for action against ‘unofficial’ fatwas

The trustworthy ancestors used not to rush in giving an edict not because of any shortcoming in themselves but just teach and enlighten others about the position of the rulings in Islam so that unqualified people may refrain from involving themselves in matters that they ignorant about

Nothing wrong with teaching and enlighten others instead of rushing into giving an edict of course. Several interesting issues are touched upon here. Referring to the internet: this means a decline of traditional religious authority and the rise of new authorities who are difficult to control. Also of course the increase of educational levels among young people create a situation in which they do not rely anymore on those traditional authorities but interpret islam by themselves and search for their own authorities (who do not ‘sell out’ to the west).

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