" ... Muslim women who oppose polygamy ... "

Yes, in Indonesia this is my experience. I have not met a single Islamic girl who does not have the same aspirations of Luv and faithfullness and loyalty to a single partner that aussie girls have.

However, I have met numerous girls here who have been dumped whilst pregnant, been slashed on the arms with a knife and had cigarettes stubbed out on them for refusing to accept becoming a multiple wife family.

Part of the problem is the fundamentalist attitude to no sex before marriage and prohibition on co-habitation outside wedlock, which leads to kids moving out young getting knocked up and ending up very unhappy.

Fortunately contraception is available over the counter for less than a $AU1 per pack or 3 mth shot, (which all appear to be excessive doses for such relatively small girls leading to weight gain etc) yes the same thing that we pay $30 a month for e.g. MicroGynon ED + a visit to the quack ...

Regrettabley, u still have the problem of catholics espousing anti contraception drivel but fortunately they are in the minority.
(I reckon Mary & Joseph used to pork themselves silly as do all happy Love Poppets - Does anyone know if the Jews then were into Greek or did they just do the pull out and blow method?)

Incidentally, I know a couple here who are trying to get married currently. Their divorce has been legally state approved but the local idiot catholic wont. Regrettabley, in Indo, couples are required to be of the same religion which is why we married in Oz:

1 Muslim Babe + 1 Me

recognised also in Indo as

1 Muslim Girl + 1 Christian Boy

(U have to be a bit careful in Indo as not having a religion can put u in the category of Komunis (Communist))

My Mrs is non practising incidentally but likes to get together on days like today and have a big nosh up with the family much as we do at Chrissy.

pericles, i'll take the blame for your soaked keyboard: as i'm sure you're aware, i had simply decided that sauce for the goose was sauce for the bigger goose.

banjo, thanks for the SMH tip: excellent article. i semi-agree with you in terms of interest in the issue: more, i don't have a clear understanding of the solidity of tradition in religious practice. what is clear is trad's sleazy sweeping away of the issue.

katieo, a couple points:

1) what evidence do you have that that the non-releasing of the report is an attempt to "water down" the report?

2) what is the source for your 2)? not that i see it is a watering down anyway.

3) keysar trad's article "demonstrates" as much about the muslim community as fred nile does about the christian community. please refrain from silly sweeping generalisations.

the rest of your post is simply unsubstantiated. in brief, you ask the right questions, but with a speculative sense of the answers which you do not support.

once again, i take what these women say seriously. but i want to read the report itself. the report may well have "considerable credibility", but i have no intention of taking a newspaper's word, or your word, for it.

tang: you have your own "stone tablets", and they are nothing to write home about.

bushbasher,
In relation to the seating arrangements in mosques. I suppose the segregation only serves to illustrate further that females are not rated very highly in Islam. In todays press there is an article about an English female doctor being held captive, by her family, in Bangladesh for the purpose of forced marriage.

Reading Trad's article again, I see he states that in relation to divorce, there needs to be reciprocal arrangements made with other countries. That is pure hogwash!

Everybody in Australia, born here, citizens and others, need to understand and accept that here Australian law is supreme. It overides any cultural or religous practice or rule. So if our courts grant a divorce that is the end of the matter. There is no need what so ever to get agreement from a religion or culture.

If muslim females are having problems with divorce or forced marriages they need to be informed what their rights are under Australian law. If somebody does not accept that then they should not be here. They do not belong in our community.

I just hope the government releases that report soon. I am anxious to see what the governments response is to the report.

bushbasher: on my previous, I'll try more succinctness here by calling some general trends.

Australia's prevailing clique of evangelical christian fanatics, in its self-defined “Christian” lobby, is still busy chasing the role of leading anti-Muslim demonizer. This jostling is against a secular and often atheist crowd typically associated with neoliberalism but, for often different motives, itself venomously hostile to the traditionalist and moralist resistance posed by Islam. I refer here to a general Islamic challenge, not the “approved” stereotype of Muslim fundamentalist puritans, which is usually compatible with some western christian counterparts or, at least, so outlandish as to discredit Islam in a way useful both for their western counterparts and neoliberalist powers.

But the Christian Lobby's more desperate efforts to shift focus from itself and onto Islam are probably best demonstrated around senior gay clergy in Anglican, Presbyterian and various evangelical denominations. This dynamic would be funny if its results were not so sick and destructive. That's why I alluded to large-scale war crimes and persecution of Middle Eastern war refugees. The Christian Lobby's hypocritical influence was clearest when that Fielding guy made his nervous spin around the farcical West Papuan asylum seekers case.

You're right referring us back to the original context of Trad's article! On two such aspects, domestic violence and polygamy/divorce, I believe it is important to recall KatieO's (and The Age's) source material coming from Muslim women themselves. But, as Trad suggests, that's not to assume these matters amount to some general truth about Muslims in Australia, any more than comparable focus would deserve alarms about such problems within say WASP, Catholic or indigenous communities. And KatieO's conclusion that Australian Muslims are living under Sharia is wrong: such impressions may arise from Australian institutional preference for simplistic and stereotypical interpretations of Islam. Again the UK case of Sharia is a useful point: influential UK Muslim leadership opposed such developments as hasty and unnecessary.

Although I agree with Trad's relativism about western secular and “christian”-hypocrite serial monogamy, I differ with his explanation and implied defence around traditional Muslim polygamy. Muslim women opposing polygamy are many: wives'

(cont.)
consent is meant to be normal for Muslim polygamy in Indonesian law, for example. But Muslims against polygamy have valid and scriptually sound arguments about historical context in formative Islam i.e., when warfare had so damaged traditional society and its gender balance that needs for repopulation compelled a return to ancient, Old Testament-style polygamy, or a “regeneration” by definition. Of course, it would be relevant to consider whether more recent war crimes/crimes against humanity in the Middle East had caused such gender imbalance as to make polygamy more reasonable for helping to restore civilization there. However, I fear modern warfare's effects have made victims of the female population in at least equal measure, even worse.

Likewise, such arguments against modern polygamy are logically and morally sound i.e., endorsement for males' expanded love interests would help cause gender imbalance among marriageable adults, weakening society in various ways. Therefore, Keysar Trad should be wary of relativist traps and corruptions that neoliberalist degeneracy threatens. The catch here is in Quranic discussion of divorce, where Muslim women have apparently simple and fast rights to dump their husband. Serial monogamy and its hypocrisies may be established practices in the non-Muslim west, but it seems a shame if Muslims only ameliorate such practice through formal recognition of contextually unjust and irrational conduct. Oh, and pre-nups are toxic!

KatieO: On the above-mentioned “'approved' stereotype of Muslim fundamentalist puritans”, I refer to that exceptionally superficial Muslim identity targeted and publicized via such a Howard-funded commission (the report's quote seemed almost sarcastic when adding: “it has considerable credibility”). The Howard regime's purpose (not altered now either) was to target “Muslims” as a generally identified pathology anyway, in similar fashion to what is still done to indigenous Australians. Imagine specific parallel efforts made against predominant, nonstigmatized white Australians.

Tang (and other vilifying bigots): your claims are very weak. Khadijah, successful businesswoman and Muhammad's first wife, gave Muhammad permission to marry again. Muhammad worked for Khadijah's business too. A warrior, but Sensitive New Age Prophet too?

Also, Nadia Jamal's article actually doesn't criticise Islam at all.

Islam is an ideology threatening the non-Muslims' liberal democratic principle of secular government which espouses the separation of religion and state.

Mosques and Koranic "religious" schools are the contagion which spreads the deadly disease of shariah law.

Muslims who choose to live in (non-Muslim) liberal democracies of the 1st world, and enjoying the benefits of peace, economic prosperity, progress and freedom, and yet choose to uphold the ideology of Islam (ie remain Muslims) should NOT be given the right to vote in a general election.

They should be in Pakistan, Bangadesh, Saudi Arabia (or any of the 50 plus Islamic countries) which practices the full range of shariah law. There, they can beat their wives as many times as they want, stone people to death, chop off hands of petty thieves, bomb churches, burnt temples, all according to what the Koran instructs them to do.

Launch of One Law for All - Campaign against Sharia law in Britain http://maryamnamazie.blogspot.com/

"The campaign calls on the UK government to recognise that Sharia law is arbitrary and discriminatory and for an end to Sharia courts and all religious tribunals on the basis that they work against and not for equality and human rights."