Diary of a Pakistani schoolgirl

Page last updated at 11:03 GMT, Monday, 19 January 2009
Diary of a Pakistani schoolgirl
Private schools in Pakistan's troubled north-western Swat district have been ordered to close in a Taleban edict banning girls' education. Militants seeking to impose their austere interpretation of Sharia law have destroyed about 150 schools in the past year. Five more were blown up despite a government pledge to safeguard education, it was reported on Monday. Here a seventh grade schoolgirl from Swat chronicles how the ban has affected her and her classmates. The diary first appeared on BBC Urdu online.

THURSDAY JANUARY 15: NIGHT FILLED WITH ARTILLERY FIRE (click on title link)

"...A Taleban edict banning girls education. Militants seeking to impose their austere interpretation of Sharia law have destroyed 150 schools in the past year..."

Austere-
aus⋅tere   /ɔˈstɪər/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [aw-steer] Show IPA Pronunciation

–adjective 1. severe in manner or appearance; uncompromising; strict; forbidding: an austere teacher.
2. rigorously self-disciplined and severely moral; ascetic; abstinent: the austere quality of life in the convent.
3. grave; sober; solemn; serious: an austere manner.
4. without excess, luxury, or ease; simple; limited; severe: an austere life.
5. severely simple; without ornament: austere writing.
6. lacking softness; hard: an austere bed of straw.
7. rough to the taste; sour or harsh in flavor.

Zardari: We Underestimated Taliban Threat
Pakistan's President Tells 60 Minutes The Country Is In A Battle To Survive

Pakistan government makes deal with Islamic miitants
Posted on Sunday, February 15, 2009 By Saeed Shah McClatchy Newspapers

Nerve Centre of Islamic Extremism is Saudi Arabia, not Pakistan Freedom House study 2005

Sharia law in UK is 'unavoidable'
Thursday, 7 February 2008, 16:55 GMT
Dr Williams says Muslims should have a choice in legal disputes

The Archbishop of Canterbury says the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK "seems unavoidable".
Dr Rowan Williams told Radio 4's World at One that the UK has to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.

Laying down the law: ministers cool on archbishop's sharia suggestion· Williams' view out of line with 'British' agenda
Phillips fears giving succour to extremists
Will Woodward and Riazat Butt The Guardian, Friday 8 February 2008

...Umar expressed concerned, however, that Williams had reiterated his support for the Bishop of Rochester and his remarks on there being geographical "no-go" areas for non-Muslims.

In Britain?
Brits can't be in certain areas if they're not Muslim?
What, like in Mecca?
This 2007 study leaves no doubt that the Saudis were still exporting hatred towards non- Wahhabis

Revealed: UK’s first official sharia courts
From The Sunday Times September 14, 2008
Abul Taher

Decapitates Wife Because She Wanted Divorce
Published: February 15, 2009 18:09h

Muzzammil Hassan established his own TV network to show Muslims in a good light. Decapitation charges will not help.
Muzzammil Hassan (44) established Bridges TV network in the suburbs of Buffalo, New York in 2004, with the hope of showing American Muslims in positive way, Buffalo news reports.

However, his idea and reputation were questioned when the police arrested him under suspicion that he decapitated his 37-year-old wife Aasiya.

Hassan turned to a police station and reported his wife`s death. He told the officers that his wife was at his office, thus the police went to the TV network to find the headless body.

The husband was the prime suspect, because Aasiya filed for divorce and she recently requested a restraining order, thus he was not allowed to come home.

- Obviously, this is the worst form of domestic violence possible - the Buffalo district attorney told the media.

The police are still looking for the murder weapon, while Hassan has been detained under second-degree murder.

Muslims in USA
The number of Muslims in the USA amounted to 7 to 8 million last year, which is a significant increase in relation to 2001, where there were only a million Muslims in America.

(same story from raw story )

Allah's ambassadors
Edna Fernandes gains unique access to the ultra-orthodox Deoband madrassa in rural India
Edna Fernandes Articles > Volume 122 Issue 6 November/December 2007 >

...Deobandi Islam is now the dominant force in British Islam, controlling 600 of its 1,350 mosques and 17 of the country’s 26 seminaries. That means 80 per cent of Muslim clerics preaching in Britain are Deobandis....
(author of article tells of visiting the source of Deobandis in India to find out about them)
... Darul Uloom is just five hours’ drive from Delhi and yet on entering the Deoband madrassa it feels like a different country. I arrived at sundown with my Sikh driver Mr Singh, a usually unflappable character who was uncharacteristically anxious as we approached the campus. He was well aware of the madrassa’s reputation. A tight nexus of alleys and a medieval-style bazaar surrounded the school itself. Carts, sorrowful-looking mules and skittish goats thronged the dark walkways as crowds of white-capped and turbaned young men filled lanes lined with Islamic bookshops supplying textbooks, literature and copies of the Koran. No women were on the streets.
I was greeted by the madrassa’s official spokesman, Mr Adil Siddiqui, an austere man sporting a camouflage puffa jacket and regulation-length white beard. His favourite catchphrase when introducing me to people was “This is Mr So-and-So. He is not a terrorist.”


I read these articles and it just seems so weird to me. I worked with a Muslim man from India and he was the nicest guy. My neighbors are Muslim and they are the nicest people. If you believe some of these articles you would think that there is some sort of Islamic doctrine that orders Muslims to spread the faith world wide and treat non-Muslims differently.