Indian pol: "There is a sinister ploy to link terrorism with Islam"

All right, you "Islamophobes." Knock it off. Stop trying to link Islam with terrorism. Everyone knows there are just as many Methodist terrorists worldwide as there are Islamic terrorists. Just as many Quaker terrorists, just as many Episcopalian terrorists, just as many Baptist terrorists -- what's that? There aren't? The only global network of terrorists justifying their actions by reference to their religion's texts and teachings is Muslim? And only Islam has a developed doctrine, theology and legal system mandating war against and the subjugation of unbelievers?

You mean -- the truth is "Islamophobic"?

"It's sinister to link Islam with terrorism: Pranab," from PTI, December 21:

Kolkata, Dec 21 (PTI) External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee today said there was a sinister design to link Islam with terrorism.

"There are some scholars who had coined the term Islamic terrorism. Islam is a religion of love and compassion. There is a sinister ploy to link terrorism with Islam," the minister said here at a seminar organised by a city-based trade body.

There may be some socio-economic indicators which may lead to some frustration among some Muslim youths who had gone astray. "These are exceptions," he said.

He described terrorists as the "biggest violators of human rights having no religion or boundary." The minister also strongly endorsed the view of founder president of the trade body Feroze Ali that India was not a 'soft state' and was determined to fight the menace of terrorism.

Saudi court says no to divorce for eight-year-old girl

She has to wait until puberty.

RIYADH (AFP) - A Saudi court has rejected a plea to divorce an eight-year-old girl married off by her father to a man who is 58, saying the case should wait until the girl reaches puberty, a lawyer involved told AFP.

"The judge has dismissed the plea (filed by the mother) because she does not have the right to file such a case, and ordered that the plea should be filed by the girl herself when she reaches puberty," lawyer Abdullah Jtili told AFP in a telephone interview after Saturday's court decision.
The divorce plea was filed in August by the girl's divorced mother with a court at Unayzah, 220 kilometres (135 miles) north of Riyadh just after the marriage contract was signed by the father and the groom.

"She doesn't know yet that she has been married," Jtili said then of the girl who was about to begin her fourth year at primary school.

Relatives who did not wish to be named told AFP that the marriage had not yet been consummated, and that the girl continued to live with her mother. They said that the father had set a verbal condition by which the marriage is not consummated for another 10 years, when the girl turns 18..

The father had agreed to marry off his daughter for an advance dowry of 30,000 riyals (8,000 dollars), as he was apparently facing financial problems, they said....

Lawyer Jtili said he was going to appeal the verdict at the court of cassation, the supreme court in the ultra-conservative kingdom which applies Islamic Sharia law in its courts.

Arranged marriages involving pre-adolescents are occasionally reported in the Arabian Peninsula, including in Saudi Arabia where the strict conservative Wahabi version of Sunni Islam holds sway and polygamy is common....