Sharīʿah ( '''', , "way" or "path") is the code of conduct or religious law of Islam. Most Muslims believe Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Qur'an, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of Sharia to questions not directly addressed in the primary sources by including secondary sources. These secondary sources usually include the consensus of the religious scholars embodied in ijma, and analogy from the Qur'an and Sunnah through qiyas. Shia jurists prefer to apply reasoning ('aql) rather than analogy in order to address difficult questions.

Muslims believe Sharia is God's law, but they differ as to what exactly it entails. Modernists, traditionalists and fundamentalists all hold different views of Sharia, as do adherents to different schools of Islamic thought and scholarship. Different countries and cultures have varying interpretations of Sharia as well.

Sharia deals with many topics addressed by secular law, including crime, politics and economics, as well as personal matters such as sexuality, hygiene, diet, prayer, and fasting. Where it enjoys official status, Sharia is applied by Islamic judges, or qadis. The imam has varying responsibilities depending on the interpretation of Sharia; while the term is commonly used to refer to the leader of communal prayers, the imam may also be a scholar, religious leader, or political leader.

The reintroduction of Sharia is a longstanding goal for Islamist movements in Muslim countries. Some Muslim minorities in Asia (e.g. in India) have maintained institutional recognition of Sharia to adjudicate their personal and community affairs. In western countries, where Muslim immigration is more recent, Muslim minorities have introduced Sharia family law, for use in their own disputes, with varying degrees of success (e.g. Britain's Muslim Arbitration Tribunal). Attempts to impose Sharia have been accompanied by controversy, violence, and even warfare (cf. Second Sudanese Civil War).

Etymology

In ''The Spirit of Islamic Law'', Professor Bernard G. Weiss states "In archaic Arabic, the term sharì'a means 'path to the water hole.' When we consider the importance of a well-trodden path to a source of water for man and beast in the arid desert environment, we can readily appreciate why this term in Muslim usage should have become a metaphor for a whole way of life ordained by God."

In ''Understanding Islamic Law: From Classical to Contemporary'', Professor Irshad Abdal-Haqq states "Shar'iah, or more properly ''Al-Shari'ah'', literally means the ''pathway'', ''path to be followed'', or ''clear way to be followed'', and has come to mean ''the path upon which the believer has to tread''. In original usage Shar'iah meant ''the road to the watering place or path leading to the water'', i.e., the way to the source of life. The technical application of the term as a reference to the law of Islam is traced directly to the Qur'an, wherein the adherents of Islam, ''the believers'', are admonished by Allah (God) to follow the clear and right way, the path of Shari'ah: ''Then we put thee on the (right) Way of religion so follow thou that (Way), and follow not the desires of those who know not.''"

According to Abdul Mannan Omar in his ''Dictionary of the Holy Quran'', the word at 45:18 (see Abdal-Haqq above) derives from the "Quranic root" shara'a. Derivations include: Shara'a (as prf. 3rd. p.m. sing.), meaning "He ordained", appearing once in the Qur'an at verse 45:13; Shara'u (prf. 3rd. p.m. plu.) "They decreed (a law)" appearing once at 42:21; Shir'atun (n.) "Spiritual law", used at 5:48; finally, ''Shariatun (act. 2nd. pic. f. sing.) "System of divine law, Way of belief and practice" is used at 45:18''.

Definitions and descriptions

Sharia has been defined as: "Muslim or Islamic law, both civil and criminal justice as well as regulating individual conduct both personal and moral. The custom-based body of law based on the Quran and the religion of Islam. Because, by definition, Muslim states are theocracies, religious texts are law, the latter distinguished by Islam and Muslims in their application, as Sharia or Sharia law." "a discussion on the duties of Muslims," —Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb "a long, diverse, complicated intellectual tradition," rather than a "well-defined set of specific rules and regulations that can be easily applied to life situations," —Hunt Janin and Andre Kahlmeyer "a shared opinion of the [Islamic] community, based on a literature that is extensive, but not necessarily coherent or authorized by any single body," —Knut S. Vikor

From the 9th century, the power to interpret and refine law in traditional Islamic societies was in the hands of the scholars (ulema). This separation of powers served to limit the range of actions available to the ruler, who could not easily decree or reinterpret law independently and expect the continued support of the community. Through succeeding centuries and empires, the balance between the ulema and the rulers shifted and reformed, but the balance of power was never decisively changed. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution introduced an era of European world hegemony that included the domination of most of the lands of Islam. At the end of the Second World War, the European powers found themselves too weakened to maintain their empires. The wide variety of forms of government, systems of law, attitudes toward modernity and interpretations of Sharia are a result of the ensuing drives for independence and modernity in the Muslim world.

Traditional perspectives

The majority of Muslims regard themselves as belonging to either the Sunni or Shi'a sect of Islam. Within these sects, there are different schools of religious study and scholarship. The schools within each sect have common characteristics, although each differs in its details.

Sunni

In addition to the "Basic Code" of the Qur'an and Sunnah, traditional Sunni Muslims also add the consensus (''ijma'') of Muhammad's companions (''sahaba'') and Islamic jurists (''ulema'') on certain issues. In situations where no concrete rule exists in the sources, law scholars use ''qiyas'' — various forms of reasoning, including analogy, to derive law from the essence of divine principles and preceding rulings. The consensus of the community, public interest, and other sources are used as an adjunct to Sharia where the primary and secondary sources allow. This description can be applied to the major schools of Sunni fiqh, which include the Hanafi, Shafi'i, Maliki and Hanbali.

Salafi

The Salafi movement looks to the actions and sayings of the first three generations of Muslims for guidance, in addition to the Qur'an and Sunnah. Salafis take these exemplary early Muslims as the source of their fiqh. The Salafi movement has attracted followers from many Muslim cultures and schools of fiqh.

Muslims who subscribe to the teachings of scholar Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab are considered part of the Salafi movement.

Shi'a

Shi'a Muslims also extend the "Basic Code" with fiqh, and in some aspects reject analogy. At the same time, they believe Islam was long designed to meets today's innovations and culture. During the period after Prophet's death, Sunni scholars developed, at the same time the Shi'a Imams were alive teaching and spreading the original message of Islam. Since the 12 Imams are descendent of the Prophet's family Shi'a believe they have a greater right on leadership and spreading the message of Islam, as a result Shi'a view them as an extension of the original Sunnah taught by the Prophet himself. A recurring theme in Shi'a jurisprudence is logic (''mantiq''), something most Shi'a believe they mention, employ and value to a higher degree than most Sunnis do. They do not view logic as a third source for laws, rather a way to see if the derived work is compatible with the Qur'an and Sunnah.

In Imami-Shi'i law, the sources of law (''usul al-fiqh'') are the Qur'an, anecdotes of Muhammad's practices and those of The Twelve Imams, and the intellect ('''aql''). The practices called ''Sharia'' today, however, also have roots in comparative law and local customs (''urf'').

Modern perspectives

Muslims have responded in a variety of ways to the forces of modernity. These responses cross the lines of tradition, sect and school. They affect the way Sharia is interpreted by individuals in their personal lives, and the extent to which Sharia is implemented in the public sphere by the state. These diverse movements can be referred to collectively as contemporary Sharia(s).

Spectrum of Muslim legal systems

The legal systems in 21st century Muslim majority states can be classified as follows:

''Sharia in the secular Muslim states:'' Muslim countries such as Mali, Kazakhstan and Turkey have declared themselves to be secular. Here, religious interference in state affairs, law and politics is prohibited. In these Muslim countries, as well as the secular West, the role of Sharia is limited to personal and family matters. The Nigerian legal system is based on English Common Law and the constitution guarantees freedom of religion and separation of church and State. However eleven northern states have adopted Sharia law for those who practice the Muslim religion.

''Muslim states with blended sources of law:'' Muslim countries including Pakistan, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Egypt, Sudan, Morocco and Malaysia have legal systems strongly influenced by Sharia, but also cede ultimate authority to their constitutions and the rule of law. These countries conduct democratic elections, although some are also under the influence of authoritarian leaders. In these countries, politicians and jurists make law, rather than religious scholars. Most of these countries have modernized their laws and now have legal systems with significant differences when compared to classical Sharia.

''Muslim states using classical Sharia:'' Saudi Arabia and some of the Gulf states do not have constitutions or legislatures. Their rulers have limited authority to change laws, since they are based on Sharia as it is interpreted by their religious scholars. Iran shares some of these characteristics, but also has a parliament that legislates in a manner consistent with Sharia.

Factors influencing the modern role of Sharia

Against the backdrop of differing religious sects, scholarship, classical schools of thought, and governmental implementations, the following forces are at work influencing future developments in Sharia law.

Rapid exchange of cultures and ideas

Around the world, Muslims are becoming more connected by the Internet and modern communications. This is leading to wider exchanges of ideas and cultures. Reactionary and fundamentalist movements are unlikely to halt this trend, as the Sharia itself defends the right to privacy within the home.

Schools of thought

Legal scholar L. Ali Khan claims that "the concept of Sharia has been thoroughly confused in legal and common literature. For some Muslims, Sharia consists of the Qur'an and Sunnah. For others, it also includes classical fiqh. Most encyclopedias define Sharia as law based upon the Qur'an, the Sunnah, and classical fiqh derived from consensus (ijma) and analogy (qiyas). This definition of Sharia lumps together the revealed with the unrevealed. This blending of sources has created a muddled assumption that scholarly interpretations are as sacred and beyond revision as are the Qur'an and the Sunnah. The Qur'an and the Sunnah constitute the immutable Basic Code, which should be kept separate from ever-evolving interpretive law (fiqh). This analytical separation between the Basic Code and fiqh is necessary to dissipate confusion around the term Sharia."

Revival of the religion

Simultaneously with liberalizing and modernizing forces, trends towards fundamentalism and movements for Islamic political power are also taking place. There has been a growing religious revival in Islam, beginning in the eighteenth century and continuing today. This movement has expressed itself in various forms ranging from wars to efforts towards improving education.

''A return to traditional views of Sharia:'' There is a long-running worldwide movement underway by Muslims towards a better understanding and practice of their religion. Encouraged by their scholars and imams, Muslims have moved away from local customs and culture, and towards more universally accepted views of Islam. This movement towards traditional religious values served to help Muslims cope with the effects of European colonization. It also inspired modernist movements and the formation of new governments.

''The Islamist movement:'' Since the 1970s, the Islamist movements have become prominent; their goals are the establishment of Islamic states and Sharia within their own borders, their means are political in nature. The Islamist power base is the millions of poor, particularly urban poor moving into the cities from the countryside. They are not international in nature (one exception being the Muslim Brotherhood). Their rhetoric opposes western culture and western power. Political groups wishing to return to more traditional Islamic values are the source of threat to Turkey's secular government.

''The Fundamentalist movement:'' Fundamentalists, wishing to return to basic religious values and law, have in some instances imposed harsh Sharia punishments for crimes, curtailed civil rights, and violated human rights. These movements are most active in areas of the world where there was contact with Western colonial powers.

''Extremism:'' Extremists have used the Qur'an and their own particular version of Sharia to justify acts of war and terror against Western individuals and governments, and also against other Muslims believed to have Western sympathies. Friction between the West and Islam, particularly with regard to the Palestinian question, continues to fuel this conflict.

Immutability of God's will

Although there are many different interpretations of Sharia, and differing perspectives on each interpretation, there is consensus among Muslims that Sharia is a reflection of God's will for humankind. Sharia must therefore be, in its purest sense, perfect and unchanging. The evolution or refinement of Sharia is an effort to more perfectly reflect God's will.

Confusion between Sharia and customary law

According to Jan Michiel Otto, Professor of Law and Governance in Developing Countries at Leiden University, "Anthropological research shows that people in local communities often do not distinguish clearly whether and to what extent their norms and practices are based on local tradition, tribal custom, or religion. Those who adhere to a confrontational view of sharia tend to ascribe many undesirable practices to sharia and religion overlooking custom and culture, even if high ranking religious authorities have stated the opposite." Professor Otto's analysis appears in a paper commissioned by the Netherlands Foreign Ministry.

Characteristics

Origins

According to Muslims, Sharia law is founded on the words of Allah as revealed in the Qur'an, and traditions gathered from the life of the Prophet Muhammad. Muhammad was born ca. 570 CE in Mecca, a trading city in the Arabian desert. In addition to being a center of trade on the caravan routes, Mecca was a place of pilgrimage for Arabs of many beliefs. The focus of religion in Mecca was the Ka'aba, a stone building believed to have been built by Adam at the beginning of time, and rebuilt by the Prophet Abraham and his son Ishmael.

Mecca was inhabited by the Quraysh, a mostly pagan tribe with some Jews and Christians among them. Muhammad was orphaned at an early age, and came under the protection of an uncle. He grew up to become a trader and married his employer, a prosperous merchant named Khadija. It was in middle age that Muhammad began to speak of revelations received from Allah through the angel Gabriel. Muhammad told others of his revelations, and attracted followers who transcribed them onto available materials. Over the twenty three years from his first revelation until his death, Islam became the dominant force in the Arabian peninsula, and a serious challenge to the Byzantine and Sasanian empires. After Muhammad's death, the revelations were collected and organized into the Qur'an, and accounts of his life eventually formed the basis for the Sunnah.

In pre-Islamic Arabia, bonds of common ancestry formed the basis for tribal association. The advent of Islam brought the tribes together under a single religion. As Islam is not just a religion, but also a complete way of life, a new common basis of law and personal behavior (Sharia) began to take shape.

Sharia continued to undergo fundamental changes, beginning with the reigns of caliphs Abu Bakr (632–34) and Umar (634–44), during which time many questions were brought to the attention of Muhammad's closest comrades for consultation. During the reign of Muawiya b. Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, ca. 662 CE, Islam undertook an urban transformation, raising questions not originally covered by Islamic law. without contradiction, tribal life brought about a sense of participation. Such participation was further reinforced by Muhammad who stated, "My community will never agree in error". Progress in theory happened with the coming of the early Muslim jurist Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi'i (767-820), who laid down the basic principles of Islamic jurisprudence in his book ''Al-Risala''. The book details the four roots of law (Qur'an, Sunnah, ''ijma'', and ''qiyas'') while specifying that the primary Islamic texts (the Qur'an and the ''hadith'') be understood according to objective rules of interpretation derived from careful study of the Arabic language.

A number of important legal concepts and institutions were developed by Islamic jurists during the classical period of Islam, known as the Islamic Golden Age, dated from the 7th to 13th centuries.

Categories of human behavior

Fiqh classifies behavior into the following types or grades: fard (obligatory), mustahabb (recommended), mubah (neutral), makruh (discouraged), and haraam (forbidden). Every human action belongs in one of these five categories.

:Actions in the fard category are those required of all Muslims. They include the five daily prayers, fasting, articles of faith, obligatory charity, and the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

:The mustahabb category includes proper behavior in matters such as marriage, funeral rites and family life. As such, it covers many of the same areas as civil law in the West. Sharia courts attempt to reconcile parties to disputes in this area using the recommended behavior as their guide. A person whose behavior is not mustahabb can be ruled against by the judge.

:All behavior which is neither discouraged nor recommended, neither forbidden nor required is of the Mubah; it is permissible.

:Makruh behavior, while it is not sinful of itself, is considered undesirable among Muslims. It may also make a Muslim liable to criminal penalties under certain circumstances.

:Haraam behavior is explicitly forbidden. It is both sinful and criminal. It includes all actions expressly forbidden in the Qur'an. Certain Muslim dietary and clothing restrictions also fall into this category.

The recommended, permissible and discouraged categories are drawn largely from accounts of the life of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. To say a behavior is sunnah is to say it is recommended as an example from the life and sayings of Muhammad. These categories form the basis for proper behavior in matters such as courtesy and manners, interpersonal relations, generosity, personal habits and hygiene.

Topics of Islamic law

Sharia law can be organized in different ways:

Sharia can be divided into five main branches: # ibadah (ritual worship) # mu'amalat (transactions and contracts) # adab (morals and manners), # i'tiqadat (beliefs) #'uqubat (punishments).

"Reliance of the Traveller", an English translation of a fourteenth century CE reference on the Shafi'i school of fiqh written by Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, organizes Sharia law into the following topics: # Purification # Prayer # The Funeral Prayer # Taxes # Fasting # The Pilgrimage # Trade # Inheritance # Marriage # Divorce # Justice

In some areas, there are substantial differences in the law between different schools of fiqh, countries, cultures and schools of thought.

Purification

In Islam, purification has a spiritual dimension and a physical one. Muslims believe that certain human activities and contact with impure animals and substances cause impurity. Classic Islamic law details how to recognize impurity, and how to remedy it. Muslims use water for purification in most circumstances, although earth can also be used under certain conditions. Before prayer or other religious rituals, Muslims must clean themselves in a prescribed manner. The manner of cleansing, either wudhu or ghusl, depend on the circumstances. Muslims' cleaning of dishes, clothing and homes are all done in accordance with stated laws.

Prayer

Muslims are enjoined to pray five times each day, with certain exceptions. These obligatory prayers, salat, are performed during prescribed periods of the day, and most can be performed either in groups or by oneself. There are also optional prayers which can be performed, as well as special prayers for certain seasons, days and events. Muslims must turn to face the Kaaba in Mecca when they pray, and they must be purified in order for their prayers to be accepted. Personal, informal prayer and invocation is practiced as well. Classic Islamic law details many aspects of the act of prayer, including who can pray, when to pray, how to pray, and where to pray.

Funeral prayer

Muslims are encouraged to visit those among them who are sick and dying. Dying Muslims are reminded of God's mercy, and the value of prayer, by those who visit them. In turn, the visitors are reminded of their mortality, and the transient nature of life. Upon death, the Muslim will be washed and shrouded in clean, white cloth. A special prayer, Janazah, is performed for the deceased, preferably by the assembled Muslim community. The body is taken to a place which has ground set aside for the burial of Muslims. The grave is dug perpendicular to the direction of Mecca, and the body is lowered into the grave to rest on its side, with the face turned towards Mecca. Classic Islamic law details visitation of the ill, preparation of the dead for burial, the funeral prayer and the manner in which the Muslim is buried.

Alms

All Muslims who live above the subsistence level must pay an annual alms, known as ''zakat''. In the modern sense, this would be Islam's equivalent to US Social Security or UK National Insurance. This is not charity, but rather an obligation owed by the eligible Muslim to the poor of the community. The amount is calculated based on the wealth of the Muslim. There is no fixed rate stated in Quran; but the generally practiced rate is 2.5%. Eligibility and total payable varies; depending on the type and quantity of wealth being assessed. . If the Government wishes to create a comprehensive and robust welfare state, the rate can be increased. Wealth includes savings, jewelry and land. Classic Islamic law details the tax, how it is assessed, its collection, and its distribution.

Fasting

During the Islamic month of Ramadan, Muslims abstain from food, drink, sex, between dawn and sunset. Exceptions to this obligation are made for the young, the infirm, and women during their periods of menstruation. During Ramadan, the daylight hours will often begin and end with a large meal. After dinner, many Muslims participate in special communal prayers held during Ramadan. The end of Ramadan fasting is celebrated with special prayers, gatherings of family and friends, and specially prepared meals. Muslims may also fast on other special days of the year, and to make up for missed days of fasting. Classic Islamic law details the exact definition of the fast, the times of fasting, how a fast may be broken, who must fast, and permitted exceptions to the fast.

Pilgrimage

At least once in each Muslim's lifetime, they must attempt a visit to the Holy Places of Islam located in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The focus of this journey is the Kaaba, a small rectangular building around which a huge mosque has been built. This pilgrimage, known as the Hajj, begins two months after Ramadan each year. Dressed in symbolically simple clothing, Muslim pilgrims circle the Kaaba seven times, often followed by a drink from a special stream. Next, a symbolic search for water is performed by travelling back and forth between two nearby peaks. On the eighth day of the month, the pilgrims travel to Mina in the desert and spend the night in tents. The following day, over two million Muslims gather on the slopes of Mount Arafat, where the afternoon is spent in prayer. The Feast of Sacrifice, celebrated by Muslims worldwide, is performed by pilgrims in Mina the next day, and includes the slaughter of an animal. Finally, the pilgrims perform a ritual Stoning of the Devil by tossing pebbles at three pillars. Classic Islamic law details the manner in which the pilgrim dresses, behaves, arrives, departs and performs each of these rituals.

Trade

Islamic law recognizes private and community property, as well as overlapping forms of entitlement for charitable purposes, known as waqf or trusts. Under Sharia law, however, ownership of all property ultimately rests with God; while individual property rights are upheld, there is a corresponding obligation to share, particularly with those in need. The laws of contract and obligation are also formed around this egalitarian Qur'anic requirement, prohibiting unequal exchanges or unfair advantage in trade. On this basis, the charging of interest on loans is prohibited, as are other transactions in which risks are borne disproportionately to the potential returns between parties to a transaction. The limits on personal liability afforded by incorporation are seen as a form of usury in this sense, as is insurance. All these inequities in risk and reward between parties to a transaction, known collectively as riba, are prohibited. For this reason, Islamic banking and financing are partnerships between customers and institutions, where risk and reward are distributed equitably. Partnerships, rather than corporations, are the key concept in collective Islamic business. Financing and investments are accomplished in this manner, as purchases and resales, with equity shifting over time between the institution and the client as payments are made or returns are recognized. Conversely, no individual is shielded from the consequences of poor judgement or bad timing. The Islamic financial and investment models have taken root in the West and begun to flourish, even as the financial underpinnings of large Western corporations collapse under the weight of unevenly distributed risks. Classic Islamic law details the manner of contracting, the types of transactions, the assignment of liability and reward, and the responsibilities of the parties in Islamic trade.

Inheritance

The rules of inheritance under Sharia law are intricate, and a female's portion is generally half the amount a male would receive under the same circumstances. Up to one third of a person's property may be distributed as bequests, or wasiyya, upon their death. After debts are settled, the remainder of the estate will be divided among the family of the deceased according to the rules of inheritance, or irth. In Islamic societies, inherited wealth and property do not easily accumulate to, or remain in, certain families. Large concentrations of property will be divided into smaller portions over time among male inheritors. Property will tend to flow to other families as female inheritors take their shares into their marriages. Classic Islamic law details the division of property, the shares family members are entitled to, adjustments and redistributions in the shares, orders of precedence among inheritors, and substitution among inheritors.

Marriage

The laws governing Islamic marriage vary substantially between sects, schools, states and cultures. The following outline is general in nature.

There are two types of marriage mentioned in the Qur'an: nikah and nikah mut'ah. The first is more common; it aims to be permanent, but can be terminated by the husband in the talaq process, or by the wife seeking divorce using khul'.

In nikah the couples inherit from each other. A dowry known as mahr is given to the bride, a legal contract is signed when entering the marriage, and the husband must pay for the wife's expenses. For the contract to be valid there must be two witnesses under Sunni jurisprudence. There is no witness requirement for Shia contracts. In Sunni jurisprudence, the contract is void if there is a determined divorce date in the nikah, whereas, in Shia jurisprudence, nikah contracts with determined divorce dates are transformed into nikah mut'ah.

Under Shia jurisprudence, nikah mut'ah is the second form of marriage. It is "Haram" in sunni islam according to muslim scholars. it is a fixed-term marriage, which is a marriage with a preset duration, after which the marriage is automatically dissolved. Traditionally the couple does not inherit from each other, the man usually is not responsible for the economic welfare of the woman, and she usually may leave her home at her own discretion. Nikah mut'ah does not count towards the maximum of four wives the Quran allows to Muslim men. The woman is still given her mahr dowry, and the woman must still observe the iddah, a period of five months at the end of the marriage where she is not permitted to remarry in the case she may have become pregnant before the divorce took place. This maintains the proper lineage of children. There is controversy about the Islamic legality of this type of marriage since the Prophet Muhammad is said by Sunnis to have prohibited the practice after having temporarily allowed it.

A third type of marriage contract, known as misyar, is emerging in Sunni Islam. This marriage is not for a fixed period of time like nikah mut'ah, but is similar in other respects including lack of inheritance, lack of financial responsibility and freedom of movement on the part of the wife. In misyar marriage, the couple need not cohabit. There is lots of controversy regarding this form of marriage.

Muslims do, on occasion, marry according to urf, or local custom, without following the requirements set forth in Sharia law. This may be done for various reasons, such as an inability of the couple to obtain permission from the bride's guardian. In these cases, they may find their marriage to be unrecognized at a later point, and have difficulty availing themselves of legal remedies under Sharia.

Requirements for Islamic Marriages:

The man who is not currently a fornicator may marry only a woman who is not currently a fornicatress or a chaste woman from the people of the Book.

The woman who is not currently a fornicatress may marry only a man who is not currently a fornicator.

The fornicator may marry only a fornicatress.

The Muslim woman may marry only a Muslim man.

Permission for a virgin female to marry must be given by her guardian, usually her father.

Any Muslim woman may demand her guardian marry her to a Muslim male, provided he is suitable. If the guardian refuses, a judge will effect the marriage. The father, or in some cases the paternal grandfather, may choose a suitable partner for a virgin girl.

The guardian may not marry the divorced woman or the widow if she did not ask to be married.

Without the permission of the girl an Islamic marriage is considered invalid.

It is obligatory for a man to give bride wealth (gifts) to the woman he marries – "Do not marry unless you give your wife something that is her right."

Polygamy

In Sharia law, a Muslim man is permitted up to four wives under the rules for nikah. All wives are entitled to separate living quarters at the behest of the husband and if possible. All should receive equal attention, support, treatment and inheritance. In modern practice, it is uncommon for a Muslim man to have more than one wife; if he does so, it is often due to the infertility of his first wife. The practice of polygamy has been regulated or abolished in some Muslim states.

Historically, Muslim rulers have often remarried the wives of their conquered opponents in order to gain ties of kinship with their new subjects. In these cases, the wives of leaders have sometimes numbered in the tens or even hundreds. In Ottoman Turkey, the practice also filtered down to the aristocracy. This became the basis for the Western image of a powerful, wealthy Muslim with a vast harem.

Divorce

The laws governing divorce vary substantially between sects, schools, states and cultures. The following outline is general in nature.

A marriage can be terminated by the husband in the talaq process, or by the wife seeking divorce through khul'. Under faskh a marriage may be annulled or terminated by the qadi judge.

Men have the right of unilateral divorce under classical Sharia. A Sunni Muslim divorce is effective when the man tells his wife that he is divorcing her, however a Shia divorce also requires four witnesses. Upon divorce, the husband must pay the wife any delayed component of the dower. If a man divorces his wife in this manner three times, he may not re-marry her unless she first marries, and is subsequently divorced from, another man. Only then, and only if the divorce from the second husband is not intended as a means to re-marry her first husband, may the first husband and the woman re-marry.

In practice, unilateral divorce is only common in a few areas of the Islamic world. It is much more common for divorces to be accomplished by mutual consent.

If the wife asks for a divorce and the husband refuses, the wife has a right, under classical Sharia, to divorce by khul'. Although this right is not recognized everywhere in Islam, it is becoming more common. In this scenario, the qadi judge will effect the divorce for the wife, and she may be required to return part, or all, of her dowry.

Under faskh, a qadi judge can end or annul a marriage. Apostasy, on the part of the husband or wife, ends a Muslim marriage in this way. Hardship or suffering on the part of the wife in a marriage may also be remedied in this way. This procedure is also used to annul a marriage in which one of the parties has a serious disability.

Except in the case of a khul' divorce initiated by a woman, the divorced wife generally keeps her dowry from when she was married. A divorced woman is given child support until the age of weaning. The mother is usually granted custody of the child. If the couple has divorced fewer than three times (meaning it is not a final divorce) the wife also receives spousal support for three menstrual cycles after the divorce, until it can be determined whether she is pregnant. Even in a threefold divorce, a pregnant wife will be supported during the waiting period, and the child will be supported afterwards.

Child custody

In a divorce, the child will stay with its mother until it is weaned, or until the age of discernment, when the child may choose whom it lives with. The age of discernment is 7 or 8 years. Muslims believe the Sharia law has been revealed by God. In Islam, the laws that govern human affairs are just one facet of a universal set of laws governing nature itself. Violations of Islamic law are offenses against God and nature, including one's own human nature. Crime in Islam is sin. Whatever crime is committed, whatever punishment is prescribed for that crime in this world, one must ultimately answer to God on the Day of Judgement.

Legal and court proceedings

Sharia judicial proceedings have significant differences with other legal traditions, including those in both common law and civil law. Sharia courts traditionally do not rely on lawyers; plaintiffs and defendants represent themselves. Trials are conducted solely by the judge, and there is no jury system (as is found in civil law in countries such as Russia and France). There is no pre-trial discovery process, and no cross-examination of witnesses. Unlike common law, judges' verdicts do not set binding precedents under the principle of stare decisis, and unlike civil law, Sharia does not utilize formally codified statutes (these were first introduced only in the late 19th century during the decline of the Ottoman Empire, cf. ''mecelle''). Instead of precedents and codes, Sharia relies on jurists' manuals and collections of non-binding legal opinions, or hadith, (''ulama'', particularly a mufti); these can be made binding for a particular case at the discretion of a judge.

There are three categories of crimes in Sharia law, qisas, hudud, and tazir. ''Qisas'' involves personal injury and has several categories: intentional murder (first-degree), quasi-intentional murder (second-degree), unintentional murder (manslaughter), intentional battery, and unintentional battery. A qisas offense is treated as a civil case rather than an actual criminal case. If the accused party is found guilty, the victim (or in death, victim's family) determines the punishment, choosing either retribution (qesas-e-nafs), which means execution in the case of intentional murder, imprisonment, and in some cases of intentional battery, the amputation of the limb that was lost; or compensation (diyya) for the loss of life/limb/injury. The Sharia judge (or in modern Sharia systems like Iran or Iraq, the state) can convict for and legally punish only qesas crimes on his own authority. However, the state itself may prosecute for crimes committed alongside the qisas offense. If the victim's family pardons the criminal, in addition to the Sharia punishment he would normally receive a tazir prison sentence (such as 10–20 years in prison) for crimes such as "intentional loss of life", "tazir assault and battery" "disturbance of the peace", and so forth.

The second category of crimes is ''hudud'' (or ''hadd''). Hadd crimes are crimes whose penalties were laid down by the Quran, and are considered to be "claims against God". Hadd crimes are: adultery (zina): includes adultery, fornication, incest/pedophilia, and rape, pimping; sodomy/lesbianism (or sodomy rape); hiraba (uniquely known as moharebeh/mofsed-e-filarz in Iran) waging war against God and society: armed robbery, terrorism, armed violence; theft; use of intoxicants (alcohol/drug use); apostasy/blasphemy; and defamation (meaning false accusation of any of these things). These cases not meant as actual punishments, but as deterrents, to simply to set an example to the general public, and to prosecute the most flagrant violations. Hudud is meant as a deterrent, not a general punishment. The process is extremely exacting, a minimum of two witnesses are required to corroborate the evidence, and in the case of sex crimes, four witnesses, thus making it in most cases hard, if not impossible, to receive the violent punishments. Circumstantial evidence is not allowed to be part of the testimony. When one does receive them, it usually would occur in a case where the offense was so obvious, obscene or flagrant that it is impossible to not be convicted.

Very often, Westerners mistake hudud punishment as punishment regularly given under Sharia law, but that is inaccurate; hudud punishments are only meant as a deterrent for rare cases. Most punishments are given under tazir rules.

As a result most countries do not prosecute hudud offenses (the exceptions being Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan under the Taliban, which regularly managed to prosecute offenses in the hudud manner) Almost all other countries, such as Iran, would usually punish the same offense as a tazir crime.

The third category of crimes is ''tazir''. It covers all other offenses not mentioned already. It is a "claim of the state" and it receives a discretionary sentence. The punishment may not be more severe than the punishment of a hudud crime. It can range, depending on the crime or circumstances, from death to imprisonment to even community service. Circumstantial evidence is allowed, and most countries prosecute their crimes as tazir crimes, due to the flexibility of the evidence-gathering and sentencing. The punishment is meant to fit the crime. For example, a rapist may not be able to be prosecuted for zina, but would still be convicted of tazir rape, or in theft, they would be found guilty of tazir theft and given prison time rather than amputation. A murderer would still spend time in prison if he had received the forgiveness of the family. The heavy hudud penalties of amputation and stoning are not applied (although some countries do use corporal punishment). Most modern countries such as Iran have a fixed penal code that regulate what sentences should be given depending on the crime and circumstances of the case.

Sharia courts' rules of evidence also maintain a distinctive custom of prioritizing oral testimony. A confession, an oath, or the oral testimony of a witness are the main evidence admissible in a hudud case, written evidence is only admissible when deemed reliable by the judge, i.e. notaries. Testimony must be from at least two witnesses, and preferably free Muslim male witnesses, who are not related parties and who are of sound mind and reliable character; testimony to establish the crime of adultery, or zina must be from four direct witnesses. Forensic evidence (i.e. fingerprints, ballistics, blood samples, DNA etc.) and other circumstantial evidence is likewise rejected in hudud cases in favor of eyewitnesses, a practice which can cause severe difficulties for women plaintiffs in rape cases. Testimony from women is given only half the weight of men, and testimony from non-Muslims may be excluded altogether (if against a Muslim). Non-Muslim minorities, however, could and did use Sharia courts, even amongst themselves.

Sharia's rules on written evidence necessarily diminish the utility of written contracts to structure economic relations, and Timur Kuran has noted the predominance of a "largely oral contracting culture" in pre-modern Islamic society.

In lieu of written evidence, oaths are accorded much greater weight; rather than being used simply to guarantee the truth of ensuing testimony, they are themselves used as evidence. Plaintiffs lacking other evidence to support their claims may demand that defendants take an oath swearing their innocence, refusal thereof can result in a verdict for the plaintiff. Taking an oath for Muslims can be a grave act; one study of courts in Morocco found that lying litigants would often "maintain their testimony 'right up to the moment of oath-taking and then to stop, refuse the oath, and surrender the case." Accordingly, defendants are not routinely required to swear before testifying, which would risk casually profaning the Qur'an should the defendant commit perjury; instead oaths are a solemn procedure performed as a final part of the evidence process.

In some countries, sharia courts, with their tradition of ''pro se'' representation, simple rules of evidence, and absence of appeals courts, prosecutors, cross examination, complex documentary evidence and discovery proceedings, juries and voir dire proceedings, circumstantial evidence, forensics, case law, standardized codes, exclusionary rules, and most of the other infrastructure of civil and common law court systems, have as a result, comparatively informal and streamlined proceedings. This can provide significant increases in speed and efficiency, and can be an advantage in jurisdictions where the general court system is slow or corrupt, and where few litigants can afford lawyers. In Nigeria, where imposition of Sharia was highly controversial, even Nigeria's justice minister was compelled to admit that in Sharia courts, "if a man owes you money, you can get paid in the evening. Whereas in the regular courts, you can sit in court for ten years and get no justice." Other systems, such as Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan, use a civil Sharia code similar to western countries, and do have defense attorneys, prosecutors, and appeals courts. They also have a Supreme Court, and a definite civil law style penal code, but are still heavily based on the informality and simplicity of a "pure" Sharia court, and trials often still take a matter of hours or sometimes days.

Penalties

The punishment depends on whether the criminal was convicted of qesas, hudud, or tazir.

In a tazir crime, the penalty would be usually a prison sentence, corporal punishment in some countries, or a execution in a more serious case (such as a case that was not prosecuted as hudud, like rape/drug trafficking). Since hudud crimes are extremely hard to punish, this is the usual route that would be taken. Stoning and amputation would certainly not be carried out in a tazir sentence, and the punishment would not be fixed, but discretionary. Most countries have a civil code that regulates the penalties that should be received in a tazir crime, such as a death sentence in the case of drug trafficking, aggravated rape, or prison time in the case of other offenses.

In the rarest of rare case (more common in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan under Taliban rule) when a person is convicted of a hudud crime, the punishment is much harsher. In accordance with the Qur'an and several hadith, theft is punished by imprisonment or amputation of hands. Several requirements are in place for the amputation of hands, they are:

There must have been criminal intent to take private (not common) property.

The theft must not have been the product of hunger, necessity, or duress.

The goods stolen must: be over a minimum value, not haraam, and not owned by the thief's family.

Goods must have been taken from custody (i.e. not in a public place).

There must be reliable witnesses.

All of these must be met under the scrutiny of judicial authority.

In accordance with hadith, stoning to death is the penalty for married men and women who commit adultery. In addition, there are several conditions related to the person who commits it that must be met. One of the difficult ones is that the punishment cannot be enforced unless there is a confession of the person, or four male eyewitnesses who each saw the act being committed. All of these must be met under the scrutiny of judicial authority For unmarried men and women, the punishment prescribed in the Qur'an and hadith is 100 lashes.

The "four witness" standard comes from the Qur'an itself, a revelation Muhammad announced in response to accusations of adultery leveled at his wife, Aisha: "Why did they not produce four witnesses? Since they produce not witnesses, they verily are liars in the sight of Allah."

Punishments are authorized by other passages in the Qur'an and ''hadiths'' for certain crimes (e.g., extramarital sex, adultery), and are employed by some as rationale for extra-legal punitive action while others disagree:

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Leaving Islam/Apostasy

In most interpretations of Sharia, conversion by Muslims to other religions or becoming non-religious, is strictly forbidden and is termed apostasy. Non-Muslims, however, are allowed to convert into Islam. Muslim theology equates apostasy to treason, and in most interpretations of Sharia, the penalty for apostasy is death. During the time of Muhammad, treason and apostasy were considered one and the same; nowadays, many scholars differentiate between treason and apostasy, believing that the punishment for apostasy is not death, while the punishment for treason is death.

The accusation of apostasy may be used against non-conventional interpretations of the Qur'an. The severe persecution of the famous expert in Arabic literature, Nasr Abu Zayd, is an example of this. Similar accusations and persecutions were famously leveled against the author Salman Rushdie.

Dietary

Islamic law does not present a comprehensive list of pure foods and drinks. However, it prohibits:

Swine, blood, the meat of dead animals and animals slaughtered in the name of someone other than God.

Slaughtering an animal in any other way except the prescribed manner of ''tazkiyah'' (cleansing) by taking God's name, which involves cutting the throat of the animal and draining the blood. Slaughtering with a blunt blade or physically ripping out the esophagus is strictly forbidden. Modern methods of slaughter like the captive bolt stunning and electrocuting are also prohibited. Causing the animal excessive pain during slaughter is a sin.

Intoxicants

The prohibition of dead meat is not applicable to fish and locusts. Also hadith literature prohibits beasts having sharp canine teeth, birds having claws and talons in their feet, ''Jallalah'' (animals whose meat carries a stink in it because they feed on filth), tamed donkeys, and any piece cut from a living animal.

Liquor and gambling

Liquor and gambling are expressly prohibited in the Qur'an, and Sharia law.

Muhammad is reported to have said: "He who plays with dice is like the one who handles the flesh and blood of swine."

Abd-Allah ibn Amr reported that Muhammad prohibited all games of chance and card playing that caused financial gain or loss.

Customs and behaviour

Practitioners of Islam are generally taught to follow some specific customs in their daily lives. Most of these customs can be traced back to Abrahamic traditions in Pre-Islamic Arabian society. Due to Muhammad's sanction or tacit approval of such practices, these customs are considered to be Sunnah (practices of Muhammad as part of the religion) by the Ummah (Muslim nation). It includes customs like: Saying "''Bismillah''" (in the name of God) before eating and drinking. Using the right hand for drinking and eating. Saying "''As-Salaam Alaikum''" (peace be upon you) when meeting someone and answering with "''Wa 'alaikumus salam''" (and peace be upon you). Saying "''Alhamdulillah''" (all gratitude is for only God) when sneezing and responding with "''Yarhamukallah''" (God have mercy on you).

Saying the "''Adhan''" (prayer call) in the right ear of a newborn and the Iqama in its left.

In the sphere of hygiene, it includes:

* Clipping the moustache

* Cutting nails

Circumcising the male offspring

Cleaning the nostrils, the mouth, and the teeth and

Cleaning the body after urination and defecation

Abstention from sexual relations during the menstrual cycle and the puerperal discharge, and ceremonial bath after the menstrual cycle, and ''Janabah'' (seminal/ovular discharge or sexual intercourse). Burial rituals include funeral prayer of bathed and enshrouded body in coffin cloth and burying it in a grave.

Rituals

There are two festivals that are considered Sunnah.

Eid ul-Fitr

Eid al-Adha

Rituals associated with these festivals: Sadaqah (charity) before Eid ul-Fitr prayer.

The Prayer and the Sermon on Eid day.

Takbirs (glorifying God) after every prayer in the days of ''Tashriq'' (Normally these days are considered to be the ones in which pilgrims stay at Mina once they return from Muzdalifah i.e. 10th, 11th , 12th, and 13th of Dhu al-Hijjah.)

Sacrifice of unflawed, four legged grazing animal of appropriate age after the prayer of Eid al-Adha in the days of ''Tashriq''.

Dress codes

The Qur'an also places a dress code upon its followers. The rule for men has been ordained before the women: Allah then says in the Qur'an, All those men in whose presence a woman is not obliged to practise the dress code are known as her ''mahrams''. Men have a more relaxed dress code: the body must be covered from knee to waist. However, under Sharia Law, women are required to cover all of their bodies except hands and face. The rationale given for these rules is that men and women are not to be viewed as sexual objects. Men are required to keep their guard up and women to protect themselves. In theory, should either one fail, the other prevents the society from falling into ''fitna'' (temptation or discord).

There are many different opinions, however, as to whether the veil or headscarf is a real Qur'anic obligation. Some scholars such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi claim it is, while others, such as Mohammed Arkoun, Soheib Bencheikh, Abdoldjavad Falaturi, Jamal al Banna claim it isn't. However, the first group appears dominant: ''"Jamal al Banna has been for a number of years one of the few mainstream Muslim scholars to argue that the Muslim headscarf, or hijab, is not an Islamic obligation."''

Historical developments and contemporary issues

During the 19th century, the history of Islamic law took a sharp turn due to new challenges the Muslim world faced: the West had risen to a global power and colonized a large part of the world, including Muslim territories. In the Western world, societies changed from the agricultural to the industrial stage, new social and political ideas emerged, and social models slowly shifted from hierarchical towards egalitarian. The Ottoman Empire and the rest of the Muslim world were in decline, and calls for reform became louder. In Muslim countries, codified state law started replacing the role of scholarly legal opinion. Western countries sometimes inspired, sometimes pressured, and sometimes forced Muslim states to change their laws. Secularist movements pushed for laws deviating from the opinions of the Islamic legal scholars. Islamic legal scholarship remained the sole authority for guidance in matters of rituals, worship, and spirituality, while they lost authority to the state in other areas. The Muslim community became divided into groups reacting differently to the change. This division persists until the present day (Brown 1996, Hallaq 2001, Ramadan 2005, Aslan 2006, Safi 2003, Nenezich 2006).

Secularists believe that the law of the state should be based on secular principles, not on Islamic legal doctrines.

Traditionalists believe that the law of the state should be based on the traditional legal schools. However, traditional legal views are considered unacceptable by some modern Muslims, especially in areas like women's rights or slavery. Reformers believe that new Islamic legal theories can produce modernized Islamic law and lead to acceptable opinions in areas such as women's rights. However, traditionalists believe that any departure from the legal teachings of the Qur'an as explained by the Prophet Muhammad and put into practice by him is an alien concept that cannot properly be attributed to "Islam".

Contemporary practice

There is tremendous variety in the interpretation and implementation of Islamic Law in Muslim societies today. Liberal movements within Islam have questioned the relevance and applicability of Sharia from a variety of perspectives; Islamic feminism brings multiple points of view to the discussion. Some of the largest Muslim countries, including Indonesia, Bangladesh and Pakistan, have largely secular constitutions and laws, with only a few Islamic Law provisions in family law. Turkey has a constitution that is officially strongly secular. India and the Philippines are the only countries in the world that have separate Muslim civil laws, wholly based on Sharia. In India, Muslim civil laws are framed by the Muslim Personal Law board while in the Philippines, it is framed by the ''Code of Muslim Personal Laws''. However, the criminal laws in both the countries are uniform.

In September 2008, newspapers in the United Kingdom stated the government had "quietly sanctioned" the recognition of Sharia courts. This refers to situations where both sides in a legal dispute freely choose a Sharia court as a binding arbitrator rather than taking a matter before the official courts. The decision did not break new ground: the decisions of similar Jewish beth din court arbitrations have been recognized in England for over 100 years. Neither party can be forced into arbitration by a Sharia or a Jewish court.

Most countries of the Middle East and North Africa maintain a dual system of secular courts and religious courts, in which the religious courts mainly regulate marriage and inheritance. Saudi Arabia and Iran maintain religious courts for all aspects of jurisprudence, and the Mutaween (religious police) assert social compliance, while Somaliland, and Maldives adopted Sharia in legal aspects but with westrn style of judiciary system (Common law or civil law). Laws derived from Sharia are also applied in Afghanistan, Libya and Sudan. Sharia law is officially recognised by the justice system in Israel in matters of personal status of Muslims if they choose a Sharia court (e.g. marriage, divorce, guardianship.) Judges' salaries are paid by the state. Lebanon also incorporates Sharia law for Muslims in family matters. Some states in northern Nigeria have reintroduced Sharia courts. In practice the new Sharia courts in Nigeria have most often meant the re-introduction of harsh punishments without respecting the much tougher rules of evidence and testimony. The punishments include amputation of one/both hands for theft and stoning for adultery.

Many, including the European Court of Human Rights, consider the punishments prescribed by Sharia in some countries to be barbaric and cruel. Islamic scholars argue that, if implemented properly, the punishments serve as a deterrent to crime. In international media, practices by countries applying Islamic law have fallen under considerable criticism at times. This is particularly the case when the sentence carried out is seen to greatly tilt away from established standards of international human rights. This is true for the application of the death penalty for the crimes of adultery, blasphemy, apostasy and homosexuality, amputations for the crime of theft, and flogging for fornication or public intoxication.

A bill proposed by lawmakers in the Indonesian province of Aceh would implement Sharia law for all non-Muslims, the armed forces and law enforcement officers, a local police official has announced. The news comes two months after the Deutsche Presse-Agentur warned of "Taliban-style Islamic police terrorizing Indonesia's Aceh".

Contemporary issues

Democracy

On the one hand, there is much common ground between Sharia and democracy: for example, both value electoral procedure. On the other hand, official institutions in democratic countries, such as the European Court of Human Rights, argue that Sharia is incompatible with a democratic state.

Legal scholar L. Ali Khan concludes "that constitutional orders founded on the principles of Sharia are fully compatible with democracy, provided that religious minorities are protected and the incumbent Islamic leadership remains committed to the right to recall".

Western courts have criticized Sharia. In 1998 the Constitutional Court of Turkey banned and dissolved Turkey's Refah Party on the grounds that the "rules of sharia", which Refah sought to introduce, "were incompatible with the democratic regime," stating that "Democracy is the antithesis of sharia."

On appeal by Refah the European Court of Human Rights determined that "sharia is incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy". Refah's Sharia based notion of a "plurality of legal systems, grounded on religion" was ruled to contravene the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. It was determined that it would "do away with the State's role as the guarantor of individual rights and freedoms" and "infringe the principle of non-discrimination between individuals as regards their enjoyment of public freedoms, which is one of the fundamental principles of democracy".

Human rights

Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam

Several major, predominantly Muslim countries criticized the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) for its perceived failure to take into account the cultural and religious context of non-Western countries. Iran claimed that the UDHR was "a secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition", which could not be implemented by Muslims without trespassing the Islamic law. Therefore in 1990 the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, a group representing all Muslim majority nations, adopted the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam.

Ann Elizabeth Mayer points to notable absences from the Cairo Declaration: provisions for democratic principles, protection for religious freedom, freedom of association and freedom of the press, as well as equality in rights and equal protection under the law. Article 24 of the Cairo declaration states that "all the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic ''shari'a''".

Professor H. Patrick Glenn asserts that the European concept of human rights developed in reaction to an entrenched hierarchy of class and privilege contrary to, and rejected by, Islam. As implemented in Sharia law, protection for the individual is defined in terms of ''mutual obligation'' rather than ''human rights''. The concept of human rights, as applied in the European framework, is therefore unnecessary and potentially destructive to Islamic societies.

Many secularist, human rights, and leading organisations have criticized Islamic states' stance on human rights. In 2009, the journal ''Free Inquiry'' summarized this criticism in an editorial: "We are deeply concerned with the changes to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by a coalition of Islamic states within the United Nations that wishes to prohibit any criticism of religion and would thus protect Islam's limited view of human rights. In view of the conditions inside the Islamic Republic of Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, Syria, Bangdalesh, Iraq, and Afghanistan, we should expect that at the top of their human rights agenda would be to rectify the legal inequality of women, the suppression of political dissent, the curtailment of free expression, the persecution of ethnic minorities and religious dissenters — in short, protecting their citizens from egregious human rights violations. Instead, they are worrying about protecting Islam."

Freedom of speech

Qadi 'Iyad argues that Sharia does not allow freedom of speech in such matters as criticism of Muhammad. Such criticism is blasphemy and punishable by death.

Slander, gossip, and backbiting, or "ghiba" is regarded as a major sin.

Homosexuality

Homosexual activity is illegal under Sharia; however, the prescribed penalties differ from one school of jurisprudence to another. For example, these Muslim-majority countries may impose the death penalty for sodomy and homosexual activities: Iran, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia. In contrast, in some Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia (outside of Aceh province), Jordan, Egypt and Iraq same-sex sexual acts are illegal but there is no specific penalty.. In Turkey, homosexual acts in private between consenting individuals are legal.

Women

In terms of religious obligations, such as certain elements of prayer, payment of the ''zakat'' poor-tax, observance of the Ramadan fast, and the ''Hajj'' pilgrimage, women are treated no differently from men. There are, however, some exceptions made in the case of prayers and fasting, as women are relieved from the duty of the five daily prayers or fasting during their menstruation.

There are no priests or clergy needed in order to perform rites and sacraments in Islam. The leader of prayer is known as an imam. Men can lead both men and women in prayer, but women do not traditionally lead men in prayer. In practice, it is much more common for men to be scholars than women, however in the early days of Islam, female scholars were much more common. Islam does not prohibit women from working, as it says "Treat your women well and be kind to them for they are your partners and committed helpers." Married women may seek employment although it is often thought in patriarchal societies that the woman's role as a wife and mother should have first priority.

Islam unequivocally allows both single and married women to own property in their own right. Islam grants women the right to inherit property from other family members, and these rights are detailed in the Qur'an. A woman's inheritance is different from a man's, both in quantity and attached obligations. For instance, a daughter's inheritance is usually half that of her brothers. Sharia law requires family members females or males to support each other as needed; compare female inheritance in Salic law. Men are fully obliged to financially maintain their household, whereas women are not; it is often said that even if the woman is a millionaire and he is poor, he is still obliged to spend on her. She is not obliged to share her wealth with her husband unless she does so out of kindness.

Islamic jurists have traditionally held that Muslim women may enter into marriage with only Muslim men, although some contemporary jurists question the basis of this restriction. On the other hand, the Qur'an allows a Muslim man to marry a chaste woman from the People of the Book, a term that includes Jews, Sabians, and Christians. However, fiqh law has held that it is mukrah (reprehensible) for a Muslim man to marry a non-Muslim woman in a non-Muslim country.

In 2003 a Malaysian court ruled that, under Sharia law, a man may divorce his wife via text messaging as long as the message was clear and unequivocal.

The divorced wife always keeps her dowry from when she was married, and is given child support until the age of weaning. The mother is usually granted custody of the child. If the couple has divorced fewer than three times (meaning it is not a final divorce) the wife also receives spousal support for three menstrual cycles after the divorce, until it can be determined whether she is pregnant.

Women's rights

;Status of women under Islamic law prior to the 19th century Islamic law grants women some legal rights they did not have under Western legal systems until the 19th and 20th centuries. Noah Feldman, a Harvard University law professor, notes: }}

;Status of women under Islamic law since the 19th century Some argue that at this point in history the aforementioned exploration of freedom is no longer true — that is to say that whilst it is arguable that women had more extensive legal rights under Islamic law than they did under Western legal systems in the past, it is no longer true today.

Slavery and emancipation

The major juristic schools of Islam have traditionally accepted the institution of slavery. However, Islam has prescribed five ways to free slaves, has severely chastised those who enslave free people, and regulated the slave trade. The source of slaves was restricted to war in preference to killing whole tribes en masse, as was the tradition at the time. Slaves also had more rights under Islam as an owner could not mistreat them. Many slaves were freed after a certain period of time, if they accepted to convert to Islam, or if they were ransomed.

Sharia and non-Muslims

Based on Quranic verses and Islamic traditions, classical Sharia distinguishes between Muslims, followers of other Abrahamic monotheistic religions, and pagans or people belonging to other polytheistic religions. As monotheists, Jews and Christians have traditionally been considered "People of The Book," and afforded a special status known as dhimmi derived from a theoretical contract - "dhimma" or "residence in return for taxes". There are parallels for this in Roman and Jewish law. Hindus were originally considered pagans and given the choice between conversion to Islam and death (or slavery), as pagans are not afforded the rights and protections of the dhimma contract. By the Middle Ages, the Hindus and Buddhists of India had come to be considered dhimmis by their Muslim rulers. Eventually, the largest school of Islamic scholarship applied this term to all non-Muslims living in Islamic lands outside the sacred area surrounding Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Classical Sharia attributes different legal rights and obligations to different religious groups; in practice, this consisted of curbs on the rights and freedoms of non-Muslims. However, the classical dhimma contract is no longer enforced. Western influence has been instrumental in eliminating the restrictions and protections of the dhimma contract, thereby contributing to the current state of relations between Muslims and non-Muslims living in Islamic lands.

According to law professor H. Patrick Glenn of McGill University, "Today it is said that the dhimmi are 'excluded from the specifically Muslim privileges, but on the other hand they are excluded from the specifically Muslim duties' while (and here there are clear parallels with western public and private law treatment of aliens - Fremdenrecht, la condition de estrangers), [f]or the rest, the Muslim and the dhimmi are equal in practically the whole of the law of property and of contracts and obligations."

Classical Sharia incorporated the religious laws and courts of Christians, Jews and Hindus, as seen in the early Caliphate, Al-Andalus, Indian subcontinent, and the Ottoman Millet system. In medieval Islamic societies, the ''qadi'' (Islamic judges) usually could not interfere in the matters of non-Muslims unless the parties voluntarily choose to be judged according to Islamic law, thus the ''dhimmi'' communities living in Islamic states usually had their own laws independent from the Sharia law, such as the Jews who would have their own ''Halakha'' courts. These courts did not cover cases involved other religious groups, or capital offences or threats to public order. By the 18th century, however, dhimmis frequently attended the Ottoman Muslim courts, where cases were taken against them by Muslims, or they took cases against Muslims or other dhimmis. Oaths sworn by dhimmis in these courts tailored to their beliefs.

Non-Muslims were allowed to engage in certain practices (such as the consumption of alcohol and pork) that were usually forbidden by Islamic law. Zoroastrian "self-marriages", that were considered incestuous under Sharia, were also tolerated. Ibn Qayyim (1292–1350) opined that non-Muslims were entitled to such practices since they could not be presented to Sharia courts and the religious minorities in question held it permissible. This ruling was based on the precedent that the prophet Muhammad did not forbid such self-marriages among Zoroastrians despite coming into contact with Zoroastrians and knowing about this practice. Religious minorities were also free to do whatever they wished in their own homes, provided they did not publicly engage in illicit sexual activity in ways that could threaten public morals.

Parallels with Western legal systems

Comparisons with common law

Parallels to common law concepts are found in classical Islamic law and jurisprudence including ''ratio decidendi'' (''illah''). Several fundamental common law instutitions may have been adapted from similar legal instututions in Islamic law and jurisprudence, and introduced to England after the Norman conquest of England by the Normans, who conquered and inherited the Islamic legal administration of the Emirate of Sicily, and also by Crusaders during the Crusades. In particular, the “royal English contract protected by the action of debt is identified with the Islamic Aqd, the English assize of novel disseisin is identified with the Islamic Istihqaq, and the English jury is identified with the Islamic Lafif.” The English trust and agency institutions in common law were possible adapted from the Islamic Waqf and Hawala institutions respectively during the Crusades. It is worth noting, however, that transferring property to another for the “use” of another developed largely in response to the requirements of feudal inheritance law. Trust law, in particular, is a creature of equity which derived from the parallel jurisdiction of the Lord Chancellor to decide matters independently to the Royal Courts.

Other English legal institutions such as “the scholastic method, the license to teach,” the “law schools known as Inns of Court in England and Madrasas in Islam” and the “European commenda” (Islamic Qirad) may have also originated from Islamic law. The methodology of legal precedent and reasoning by analogy (Qiyas) are also similar in both the Islamic and common law systems. These similarities and influences have led some scholars to suggest that Islamic law may have laid the foundations for “the common law as an integrated whole”.

Comparisons with civil law

One of the institutions developed by classical Islamic jurists that influenced civil law was the ''Hawala'', an early informal value transfer system, which is mentioned in texts of Islamic jurisprudence as early as the 8th century. ''Hawala'' itself later influenced the development of the ''Aval'' in French civil law and the ''Avallo'' in Italian law. The "European ''commenda''" limited partnerships (Islamic ''Qirad'') used in civil law as well as the civil law conception of ''res judicata'' may also have origins in Islamic law.

International law

Islamic law also made "major contributions" to international admiralty law, departing from the previous Roman and Byzantine maritime laws in several ways. These included Muslim sailors being "paid a fixed wage "in advance" with an understanding that they would owe money in the event of desertion or malfeasance, in keeping with Islamic conventions" in which contracts should specify "a known fee for a known duration", in contrast to Roman and Byzantine sailors who were "stakeholders in a maritime venture, in as much as captain and crew, with few exceptions, were paid proportional divisions of a sea venture's profit, with shares allotted by rank, only after a voyage's successful conclusion." Muslim jurists also distinguished between "coastal navigation, or ''cabotage''," and voyages on the "high seas", and they also made shippers "liable for freight in most cases except the seizure of both a ship and its cargo." Islamic law also "departed from Justinian's ''Digest'' and the ''Nomos Rhodion Nautikos'' in condemning slave jettison", and the Islamic ''Qirad'' was also a precursor to the European ''commenda'' limited partnership. The "Islamic influence on the development of an international law of the sea" can thus be discerned alongside that of the Roman influence.

Legal education

The origins of the Ijazah dates back to the ''ijazat attadris wa 'l-ifttd'' ("license to teach and issue legal opinions") in the medieval Islamic legal education system, which was equivalent to the Doctor of Laws qualification and was developed during the 9th century after the formation of the ''Madh'hab'' legal schools. To obtain a doctorate, a student "had to study in a guild school of law, usually four years for the basic undergraduate course" and ten or more years for a post-graduate course. The "doctorate was obtained after an oral examination to determine the originality of the candidate's theses," and to test the student's "ability to defend them against all objections, in disputations set up for the purpose," which were scholarly exercises practiced throughout the student's "career as a graduate student of law." After students completed their post-graduate education, they were awarded doctorates giving them the status of ''faqih'' (meaning "master of law"), ''mufti'' (meaning "professor of legal opinions") and ''mudarris'' (meaning "teacher"), which were later translated into Latin as ''magister'', ''professor'' and ''doctor'' respectively.

Role in economic development and corporate law

Sharia classically recognizes only natural persons, and never developed the concept of a legal person, or corporation, i.e. a legal entity that limits the liabilities of its managers, shareholders, and employees; exists beyond the lifetimes of its founders; and that can own assets, sign contracts, and appear in court through representatives. Thus, Sharia has no native tradition of corporate law. This, combined with egalitarian rules of inheritance for male descendants (compare with primogeniture), hindered the concentration of wealth and the development of larger and more sophisticated enterprises, according to Timur Kuran of Duke University. Prohibitions on interest, or "riba" also disadvantaged Muslims vis-à-vis non-Muslim minorities in accessing banks and insurance when these services were first introduced by Westerners. Interest prohibitions, also imposed secondary costs by discouraging record keeping, and delaying the introduction of modern accounting. Such factors, according to Kuran, have played a significant role in retarding economic development in the Middle East. Though, it is argued, the West caught up in the economic crises at the outset of the 21st century when many of the aforementioned economic policies backfired on a global scale and threatened to bankrupt entire countries.

Qanun

After the fall of the Abbasids in 1258, a practice known to the Turks and Mongols transformed itself into Qanun, which gave power to caliphs, governors, and sultans alike to "make their own regulations for activities not addressed by the sharia." The Qanun began to unfold as early as Umar I (586-644 CE). Many of the regulations covered by Qanun were based on financial matters or tax systems adapted through the law and regulations of those territories Islam conquered. Qanun in Arabic means law or rules.

See also

Caliphate

Dīn

Glossary of Islam

Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists

Halakha - Jewish law

Islamic Sharia Council - a United Kingdom court with no legal authority

Islamic theology

Ma'ruf

Mizan - A comprehensive treatise on the contents of Islam written by Javed Ahmad Ghamidi

Theonomy

Ban on Sharia law

;Specific issues

Diyya - Compensation for crimes

Islamic inheritance jurisprudence

Qisas - Retaliatory crimes

Tazir - Less severe crimes (thus, "crimes against individuals", not God)

;Schools of Jurisprudence

Hanafi

Hanbali

Ja'fari jurisprudence

Maliki

Shafi'i

References

Sources

Bakhtiar, Laleh and Kevin Reinhart (1996). ''Encyclopedia of Islamic Law: A Compendium of the Major Schools''. Kazi Publications, ISBN 1-56744-498-9

Brown, Daniel W. (1996). ''Rethinking traditions in modern Islamic thought''. Cambridge University Press, UK. ISBN 0-521-65394-0

Darwish, Nonie (2008), ''Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law'', Thomas Nelson. ISBN 9781595551610

Doi, Abd ar-Rahman I., and Clarke, Abdassamad (2008). ''Shari'ah: Islamic Law''. Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd., ISBN 978 1 842000 85 3 (paperback), ISBN 978 1 842000 87 8 (hardback)

El-Fadl, Khaled Abou (2003), ''Reasoning with God: Rationality and Thought in Islam'', Oneworld, ISBN 1-85168-306-2

Kafadar, Cemal (1996), ''Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State'', University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-20600-2

Mumisa, Michael (2002) ''Islamic Law: Theory & Interpretation'', Amana Publications, ISBN 1-59008-010-6

Musa, A. Y. ''Hadith as Scripture: Discussions on The Authority Of Prophetic Traditions in Islam'', New York: Palgrave, 2008

Ayaz, Maryam (2007), "Sharia'h and Profits", Apvision Revolutionary Islamic Profitability Models

Coulson, Noel James. A history of Islamic law (Islamic surveys). Oxford: University Press, 1964.

Dien, Mawil Izzi. Islamic Law: From Historical Foundations To Contemporary Practice. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004.

Liebesny, Majid &, and Herbert J. (Editors) Khadduri. Law in the Middle East: Volume I: Origin and Development of Islamic Law. Washington D.C.: The Middle East Institute, 1955.

Berg, Herbert. "Islamic Law." Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History 3 (2005): 1030. In History Reference Center[database online]. Available from Snowden Library (accessed February 11, 2008).

Safi, Omid (2003). ''Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism''. Oneworld Publications. ISBN 1-85168-316-X

ash-Shafi'i, Muhammad ibn Idris (1993), ''Risala: Treatise on the Foundations of Islamic Jurisprudence'', Islamic Texts Society, ISBN 0-946621-15-2

Shahin, Omar (2007), ''The Muslim Family in Western Society: A Study in Islamic Law (English)'', Cloverdale Corporation, ISBN 978-1-929569-30-4

Further reading

Ali, Abdullah Yusuf (2000), ''The Holy Quran * Translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali''. Wordsworth Editions. ISBN 978-1-85326-782-6. ''A popular translation of the Quran''

Khan, Muhammad Muhsin (1996), ''The English Translation of Sahih Al Bukhari With the Arabic Text''. ISBN 978-1-88196-359-2. ''The complete translation (in nine volumes) of a popular Sunni collection of hadith''

Hussain, Jamila, ''Islam: Its Law and Society''. The Federation Press. ISBN 1-86287-499-9. ''A modern discourse on Sharia law''

External links

World Database for Islamic Banking and Finance

Al-Mawrid Institute of Islamic Sciences

Shariah Institute

Human Rights and Islamic Law

The Islamic Sharia Council UK

Muslim Arbitration Tribunal

Private Arrangements: 'Recognizing Sharia' in Britain - anthropologist John R. Bowen explains the working of Britain's Sharia courts in a ''Boston Review'' article

Khalid Chraibi: Reforming Islamic family law within the religious framework - The "best practices" strategy

Division of Inheritance According to Qur'an

Category:Religious law Category:Legal codes Category:Arabic words and phrases Category:Islamic terms

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name	Glenn Beck
birth name	Glenn Edward Lee Beck
birth date	February 10, 1964
birth place	Everett, Washington, U.S.
education	Sehome High School
nationality	American
occupation	Political commentator, author, media proprietor, entertainer
spouse	Claire (1983–1994)Tania (m. 1999); 4 children total
website	Glenn Beck's Official Website
religion	The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon)
Residence	Manhattan, New York City
Home town	Mount Vernon, Washington, U.S. }}

Glenn Edward Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative radio host, vlogger, author, entrepreneur, political commentator and former television host. He hosts the ''Glenn Beck Program'', a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks. He formerly hosted the ''Glenn Beck'' television program, which ran from January 2006 to October 2008 on HLN and from January 2009 to June 2011 on the Fox News Channel. Beck has authored six ''New York Times''-bestselling books. Beck is the founder and CEO of Mercury Radio Arts, a multimedia production company through which he produces content for radio, television, publishing, the stage, and the Internet. It was announced on April 6, 2011, that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News later in the year but would team with Fox to "produce a slate of projects for FOX News Channel and FOX News' digital properties". Beck's last daily show on the network was June 30, 2011.

Beck's supporters praise him as a constitutional stalwart defending their traditional American values, while his critics contend he promotes conspiracy theories and employs incendiary rhetoric for ratings.

Personal life

Early years

Glenn Edward Lee Beck was born in Everett, Washington, to William and Mary Beck, who lived in Mountlake Terrace, Washington at the time of their son's birth. The family later moved to Mount Vernon, Washington, where they owned and operated City Bakery in the downtown area. He is descended from German immigrants who came to the United States in the 1800s. Beck was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Mount Vernon.

Glenn and his older sister moved with their mother to Sumner, Washington, attending a Jesuit school in Puyallup. On May 15, 1979, while out on a small boat with a male companion, Beck's mother drowned just west of Tacoma, Washington in Puget Sound. The man who had taken her out in the boat also drowned. A Tacoma police report stated that Mary Beck "appeared to be a classic drowning victim", but a Coast Guard investigator speculated that she could have intentionally jumped overboard. Beck has described his mother's death as a suicide in interviews during television and radio broadcasts.

After their mother's death, Beck and his older sister moved to their father's home in Bellingham, Washington, where Beck graduated from Sehome High School in June 1982. In the aftermath of his mother's death and subsequent suicide of his stepbrother, Beck has said he used "Dr. Jack Daniel's" to cope. At 18, following his high school graduation, Beck relocated to Provo, Utah, and worked at radio station KAYK. Feeling he "didn't fit in", Beck left Utah after six months, taking a job at Washington D.C.'s WPGC in February 1983.

Adulthood

While working at WPGC, Beck met his first wife, Claire. In 1983, the couple married and had two daughters, Mary and Hannah. Mary developed cerebral palsy as a result of a series of strokes at birth in 1988. The couple divorced in 1994 amid Beck's struggles with substance abuse. A recovering alcoholic and drug addict, Beck has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

By 1994, Beck was suicidal, and imagined shooting himself to the music of Kurt Cobain. He credits Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) with helping him achieve sobriety. He said he stopped drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis in November 1994, the same month he attended his first AA meeting. Beck later said that he had gotten high every day for the previous 15 years, since the age of 16.

In 1996, while working for a New Haven area radio station, Beck took a theology class at Yale University, with a written recommendation from Senator Joe Lieberman, a Yale alumnus who was a fan of Beck's show at the time. Beck enrolled in an "Early Christology" course, but soon withdrew, marking the extent of his post-secondary education.

Beck's then began a "spiritual quest" in which he "sought out answers in churches and bookstores". As he later recounted in his books and stage performances, Beck's first attempt at self-education involved six wide-ranging authors, comprising what Beck jokingly calls "the library of a serial killer": Alan Dershowitz, Pope John Paul II, Adolf Hitler, Billy Graham, Carl Sagan, and Friedrich Nietzsche. During this time, Beck's Mormon friend and former radio partner Pat Gray argued in favor of the "comprehensive worldview" offered by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an offer that Beck rejected until a few years later.

In 1999, Beck married his second wife, Tania. After they went looking for a faith on a church tour together, they joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in October 1999, partly at the urging of his daughter Mary. Beck was baptized by his old friend, and current-day co-worker Pat Gray. Beck and his current wife have had two children together, Raphe (who is adopted) and Cheyenne. Until April 2011, the couple live in New Canaan, Connecticut, with the four children.

Beck announced in July 2010 that he had been diagnosed with macular dystrophy, saying "A couple of weeks ago I went to the doctor because of my eyes, I can't focus my eyes. He did all kinds of tests and he said, 'you have macular dystrophy ... you could go blind in the next year. Or, you might not. The disorder can make it difficult to read, drive or recognize faces.

In July 2011, Beck leased a house in the Dallas–Fort Worth suburb of Westlake, Texas.

Career

In 2002 Beck created the media platform Mercury Radio Arts as the umbrella over various broadcast, publishing, Internet, and live show entities.

Radio

In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called ''Captain Beck and the A-Team''. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management.

Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings.

Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in Hamden, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gagineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999.

The ''Glenn Beck Program'' first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, Florida, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, ''The New York Times'' reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. Glenn Beck is number three in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

Television

In January 2006, CNN's ''Headline News'' announced that Beck would host a nightly news-commentary show in their new prime-time block ''Headline Prime''. The show, simply called ''Glenn Beck'', aired weeknights. ''CNN Headline News'' described the show as "an unconventional look at the news of the day featuring his often amusing perspective". At the end of his tenure at CNN-HLN, Beck had the second largest audience behind Nancy Grace. In 2008, Beck won the Marconi Radio Award for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year.

In October 2008, it was announced that Beck would join the Fox News Channel, leaving CNN Headline News. After moving to the Fox News Channel, Beck hosted ''Glenn Beck'', beginning in January 2009, as well as a weekend version. One of his first guests was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin He also has a regular segment every Friday on the Fox News Channel program ''The O'Reilly Factor'' titled "At Your Beck and Call". Beck's program drew more viewers than all three of the competing time-slot shows combined on CNN, MSNBC and HLN.

His show's high ratings have not come without controversy. ''The Washington Post''s Howard Kurtz reported that Beck's use of "distorted or inflammatory rhetoric" has complicated the channel's and their journalist's efforts to neutralize White House criticism that Fox is not really a news organization. Television analyst Andrew Tyndall echoed these sentiments, saying that Beck's incendiary style had created "a real crossroads for Fox News", stating "they're right on the cusp of losing their image as a news organization."

In April 2011, Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Beck's production company, announced that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News in 2011. His last day at Fox was later announced as June 30. FNC and Beck announced that he would be teaming with Fox to produce a slate of projects for Fox News and its digital properties. Fox News head Roger Ailes later referenced Beck's entrepreneurialism and political movement activism, saying, "His [Beck's] goals were different from our goals ... I need people focused on a daily television show." Beck hosted his last daily show on Fox on June 30, 2011, where he recounted the accomplishments of the show and said, "This show has become a movement. It's not a TV show, and that's why it doesn’t belong on television anymore. It belongs in your homes. It belongs in your neighborhoods." In response to critics who said he was fired, Beck pointed out that his final show was airing live. Immediately after the show he did an interview on his new GBTV internet channel.

GBTV

On June 7, 2011, Beck's company, Mercury Radio Arts, announced the new subscription-based internet TV network, GBTV. Glenn Beck's Fox News one-hour show ended June 30, 2011, and his new two-hour show will begin on GBTV.com starting September 12, 2011.

Books

Beck has reached #1 on the ''New York Times'' Bestseller List in four separate categories : Hardcover Non-Fiction, Paperback Non-Fiction, Hardcover Fiction, and Children's Picture Books.

''The Real America: Messages from the Heart and Heartland'', Simon & Schuster 2003. ISBN 978-0-7434-9696-4

''An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems'', Simon & Schuster 2007. ISBN 978-1-4391-6857-8

''The Christmas Sweater'', Simon & Schuster 2008. ISBN 978-1-4165-9485-7

''America's March to Socialism: Why We're One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades'', 2008 (Audiobook) ''An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck'', Deseret Book 2008 (Audiobook). ISBN 978-1-59038-944-7

''The Christmas Sweater: A Picture Book'', Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing 2009. ISBN 978-1-4169-9543-2

''America's March to Socialism: Why We're One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades'', Simon & Schuster Audio 2009 (Audio CD). ISBN 978-0-7435-9854-5

''Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government'', Simon & Schuster 2009. ISBN 978-1-4391-6857-8

''Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government'', Simon & Schuster 2009. ISBN 978-1-4165-9501-4

''Idiots Unplugged'', Simon & Schuster 2010 (Audio CD). ISBN 1-4423-3396-0

''The Overton Window'', Threshold Editions 2010. ISBN 1-4391-8430-5 ''Idiots Unplugged'', 2010 (Audiobook) ''Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth, and Treasure'', Simon & Schuster 2010. ISBN 1-4423-3457-6.

''The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life'', Keith Ablow, co-author; Threshold Editions, 2011; ISBN 978-1451625516.

''The Original Argument: The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century'', with Joshua Charles; Threshold Editions, 2011; ISBN 978-1451650617.

Beck also authorized a comic book: ''Political Power: Glenn Beck'', by Jerome Maida, Mark Sparacio (illus.); Bluewater Productions, 2011; ISN B004VGB4FO

Stage shows and speeches

Since 2005, Beck has toured American cities twice a year, presenting a one-man stage show. His stage productions are a mix of stand-up comedy and inspirational speaking. In a critique of his live act, ''Salon Magazine's'' Steve Almond describes Beck as a "wildly imaginative performer, a man who weds the operatic impulses of the demagogue to the grim mutterings of the conspiracy theorist". A show from the ''Beck `08 Unelectable Tour'' was shown in around 350 movie theaters around the country. The finale of 2009's ''Common Sense Comedy Tour'' was simulcast in over 440 theaters. The events have drawn 200,000 fans in recent years.

In March 2003, Beck ran a series of rallies, which he called Glenn Beck's Rally for America, in support of troops deployed for the upcoming Iraq War. On July 4, 2007, Beck served as host of the 2007 Toyota Tundra "Stadium of Fire" in Provo, Utah. The annual event at LaVell Edwards Stadium on the Brigham Young University campus is presented by America's Freedom Foundation. In May 2008, Beck gave the keynote speech at the NRA convention in Louisville, Kentucky.

In late August 2009, the mayor of Beck's hometown, Mount Vernon, Washington, announced that he would award Beck the Key to the City, designating September 26, 2009 as "Glenn Beck Day". Due to local opposition, the city council voted unanimously to disassociate itself from the award. The key presentation ceremony sold-out the 850 seat McIntyre Hall and an estimated 800 detractors and supporters demonstrated outside the building. Earlier that day, approximately 7,000 people attended the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's "Take the Field with Glenn Beck" at Seattle's Safeco Field.

In December 2009, Beck produced a one-night special film titled "The Christmas Sweater: A Return to Redemption". In January and February 2010, Beck teamed with fellow Fox News host Bill O'Reilly to tour several cities in a live stage show called "The Bold and Fresh Tour 2010". The January 29 show was recorded and broadcast to movie theaters throughout the country.

Projects and rallies

9-12 Project and Tea Party protests

In March 2009 Beck put together a campaign, the 9-12 Project, that is named for nine principles and twelve values which he says embody the spirit of the American people on the day after the September 11 attacks. The Colorado 9-12 Project hosted a "Patriot Camp" for kids in grades 1–5, featuring programs on "our Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and the values and principles that are the cornerstones of our nation".

Restoring Honor rally

The Restoring Honor rally was promoted by Beck and held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 2010. The rally — which purported to embrace religious faith and patriotism — was co-sponsored by the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, promoted by FreedomWorks, and supported by the Tea Party movement.

''America's First Christmas''

In December 2010, Beck went to Wilmington, Ohio, a town devastated by the late-2000s recession, to host live events to encourage his fans to go to the town to boost the local economy in a project called "America's First Christmas". He hosted an event and his radio and television shows from the local theater.

2011 international tour

Beck headlined his "Restoring Courage" events in Jerusalem, Israel, in August 2011 in a campaign Beck said was designed to encourage people worldwide "to stand with the Jewish people". After Jerusalem, Beck visited Cape Town, South Africa, and was scheduled to visit Venezuela.

Political views

Beck has described himself as a conservative with libertarian leanings. Among his core values Beck lists personal responsibility, private charity, the right to life, freedom of religion, limited government, and family as the cornerstone of society. Beck believes in low national debt, and has said "A conservative believes that debt creates unhealthy relationships. Everyone, from the government on down, should live within their means and strive for financial independence." He supports individual gun ownership rights and is against gun control legislation.

Beck believes that there is a lack of evidence that human activity is the main cause of global warming. He holds that there is a legitimate case that global warming has, at least in part, been caused by mankind, and has tried to do his part by buying a home with a "green" design. He also views the American Clean Energy and Security Act as a form of wealth redistribution, and has promoted a petition rejecting the Kyoto Protocol.

Opposition to progressivism

During his 2010 keynote speech to Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Beck wrote the word "progressivism" on a chalkboard and declared, "This is the disease. This is the disease in America", adding "progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating our Constitution!" According to Beck, the progressive ideas of men such as John Dewey, Herbert Croly, and Walter Lippmann, influenced the Presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; eventually becoming the foundation for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Beck has said that such progressivism infects both main political parties and threatens to "destroy America as it was originally conceived". In Beck’s book ''Common Sense'', he argues that "progressivism has less to do with the parties and more to do with individuals who seek to redefine, reshape, and rebuild America into a country where individual liberties and personal property mean nothing if they conflict with the plans and goals of the State."

A collection of progressives, whom Beck has referred to as "Crime Inc.", comprise what Beck contends is a clandestine conspiracy to take over and transform America. Some of these individuals include Cass Sunstein, Van Jones, Andy Stern, John Podesta, Wade Rathke, Joel Rogers and Francis Fox Piven. Other figures tied to Beck's "Crime Inc." accusation include Al Gore, Franklin Raines, Maurice Strong, George Soros, John Holdren and President Barack Obama. According to Wilentz, Beck's "version of history" places him in a long line of figures who have challenged mainstream political historians and presented an inaccurate opposing view as the truth, stating:

Conservative David Frum, the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, has also alleged Beck's propensity for negationism, remarking that "Beck offers a story about the American past for people who are feeling right now very angry and alienated. It is different enough from the usual story in that he makes them feel like they’ve got access to secret knowledge."

Ideological influences

Political and historical

An author with ideological influence on Beck is W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006), a prolific conservative political writer, American Constitutionalist and faith-based political theorist. As an anti-communist supporter of the John Birch Society, and limited-government activist, Skousen, who was Mormon, wrote on a wide range of subjects: the Six-Day War, Mormon eschatology, New World Order conspiracies, even parenting. Skousen believed that American political, social, and economic elites were working with Communists to foist a world government on the United States. Beck praised Skousen's "words of wisdom" as "divinely inspired", referencing Skousen's ''The Naked Communist'' and especially ''The 5,000 Year Leap'' (originally published in 1981), which Beck said in 2007 had "changed his life". According to Skousen's nephew, Mark Skousen, ''Leap'' reflects Skousen's "passion for the United States Constitution", which he "felt was inspired by God and the reason behind America's success as a nation". The book is touted by Beck as "required reading" to understand the current American political landscape and become a "September twelfth person". Beck authored a foreword for the 2008 edition of ''Leap'' and Beck's on-air recommendations in 2009 propelled the book to number one in the government category on Amazon for several months. In 2010, Matthew Continetti of the conservative ''Weekly Standard'' criticized Beck's conspiratorial bent, terming him "a Skousenite". Additionally, Alexander Zaitchik, author of the 2010 book ''Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance'', which features an entire chapter on "The Ghost of Cleon Skousen", refers to Skousen as "Beck's favorite author and biggest influence", while noting that he authored four of the 10 books on Beck's 9-12 Project required-reading list.

In his discussion of Beck and Skousen, Continetti said that one of Skousen's works "draws on Carroll Quigley’s ''Tragedy and Hope'' (1966), which argues that the history of the 20th century is the product of secret societies in conflict", noting that in Beck's novel ''The Overton Window'', which Beck describes as "faction" (fiction based on fact), one of his characters states "Carroll Quigley laid open the plan in ''Tragedy and Hope'', the only hope to avoid the tragedy of war was to bind together the economies of the world to foster global stability and peace."

Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz says that alongside Skousen, Robert W. Welch, Jr., founder of the John Birch Society, is a key ideological foundation of Beck's worldview. According to Wilentz: "[Beck] has brought neo-Birchite ideas to an audience beyond any that Welch or Skousen might have dreamed of."

Other books that Beck regularly cites on his programs are Amity Shlaes's ''The Forgotten Man'', Jonah Goldberg's ''Liberal Fascism'', Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen's ''A Patriot's History of the United States'', and Burton W. Folsom, Jr.'s ''New Deal or Raw Deal''. Beck has also urged his listeners to read ''The Coming Insurrection'', a book by a French Marxist group discussing what they see as the imminent collapse of capitalist culture, and ''The Creature from Jekyll Island'', which argues that aspects of the U.S. Federal Reserve system assault economic civil liberties, by G. Edward Griffin.

On June 4, 2010, Beck endorsed Elizabeth Dilling's 1936 work ''The Red Network: A Who's Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots'', remarking "this is a book, ''The Red Network'', this came in from 1936. People — [Joseph] McCarthy was absolutely right ... This is, who were the communists in America." Beck was criticized by an array of people, including Menachem Z. Rosensaft and Joe Conason, who stated that Dilling was an outspoken anti-Semite and a Nazi sympathizer.

Religious

Beck has credited God for saving him from drug and alcohol abuse, professional obscurity and friendlessness. In 2006, Beck performed a short inspirational monologue in Salt Lake City, Utah, detailing how he was transformed by the "healing power of Jesus Christ", which was released as a CD two years later by Deseret Book, a publishing company owned by the LDS Church, entitled ''An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck''.

Religious scholar Joanna Brooks contends that Beck developed his "amalgation of anti-communism" and "connect-the-dots conspiracy theorizing" only after his entry into the "deeply insular world of Mormon thought and culture". Brooks theorizes that Beck's calls to fasting and prayer are rooted in Mormon collective fasts to address spiritual challenges, while Beck's "overt sentimentality" and penchant for weeping represent the hallmark of a "distinctly Mormon mode of masculinity" where "appropriately-timed displays of tender emotion are displays of power" and spirituality. Philip Barlow, the Arrington chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, has said that Beck's belief that the U.S. Constitution was an "inspired document", his calls for limited government and for not exiling God from the public sphere, "have considerable sympathy in Mormonism". Beck has acknowledged that the Mormon "doctrine is different" from traditional Christianity, but said that this was what attracted him to it, stating that "for me some of the things in traditional doctrine just doesn't work."

Particularly as a consequence of Beck's Restoring Honor rally in 2010, the fact that Beck is Mormon caused concern amongst some politically sympathetic Christian Evangelicals on theological grounds. Tom Tradup, vice president at Salem Radio Network, which serves more than 2,000 Christian-themed stations, expressed this sentiment after the rally, stating "Politically, everyone is with it, but theologically, when he says the country should turn back to God, the question is: Which God?" Subsequently, a September 2010 survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and Religion News Service (RNS) found that of those Americans who hold a favorable opinion of Beck, only 45% believe he is the right person to lead a religious movement, with that number further declining to 37% when people are informed he is Mormon. Daniel Cox, Director of Research for PRRI, summed up this position by stating:

Pete Peterson of Pepperdine's Davenport Institute said that Beck's speech at the rally belonged to an American tradition of calls to personal renewal. Peterson wrote: "A Mormon surrounded onstage by priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams, Beck [gave] one of the more ecumenical jeremiads in history." Evangelical pastor Tony Campolo said in 2010 that conservative evangelicals respond to Beck's framing of conservative economic principles, saying that Beck's and ideological fellow travelers' "marriage between evangelicalism and patriotic nationalism is so strong that anybody who is raising questions about loyalty to the old, lassez-faire capitalist system is ex post facto unpatriotic, un-American, and by association non-Christian.” ''Newsweek'' religion reporter Lisa Miller, after quoting Campolo, opined, "It's ironic that Beck, a Mormon, would gain acceptance as a leader of a new Christian coalition. ... Beck's gift ... is to articulate God's special plan for America in such broad strokes that they trample no single creed or doctrine while they move millions with their message."

After attempting unsuccessfully for a year to arrange a meeting with Protestant evangelist Billy Graham, Beck was invited to meet with Graham on February 19, 2011. Days later, Beck described the circumstances, writing: "Two weeks ago, as I have been struggling with some ideas and some things that I am working on for the future and I am trying to get clarity again, I thought of Billy Graham. When the phone rang and they said the Reverend feels it’s time to meet, I met with him. We had an hour scheduled. It lasted three hours." Earlier, in a January 2011 interview with ''Christianity Today'', Graham had said he regretted instances where he had strayed into politics in the past.

Public reception

In 2009, the Glenn Beck show was one of the highest rated news commentary programs on cable TV. For a Barbara Walters ABC special, Beck was selected as one of America’s "Top 10 Most Fascinating People" of 2009. In 2010, Beck was selected for the Times top 100 most influential people under the "Leaders" category.

Beck has referred to himself as an entertainer, and a "rodeo clown".

thumb|Beck at the [[Time 100|''Time'' 100 Gala, 2010]]''Time Magazine'' described Beck as "[t]he new populist superstar of Fox News" saying it is easier to see a set of attitudes rather than a specific ideology, noting his criticism of Wall Street, yet defending bonuses to AIG, as well as denouncing conspiracy theories about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) but warning against indoctrination of children by the AmeriCorps program. (Paul Krugman and Mark Potok, on the other hand, have been among those asserting that Beck helps spread "hate" by covering issues that stir up extremists.) What seems to unite Beck's disparate themes, ''Time'' argued, is a sense of siege. One of Beck's Fox News Channel colleagues Shepard Smith, has jokingly called Beck's studio the "fear chamber", with Beck countering that he preferred the term "doom room".

Republican South Carolina U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham criticized Beck as a "cynic" whose show was antithetical to "American values" at ''The Atlantic'''s 2009 First Draft of History conference, remarking "Only in America can you make that much money crying." The progressive watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's (FAIR) Activism Director Peter Hart argues that Beck red-baits political adversaries as well as promotes a paranoid view of progressive politics. Howard Kurtz of ''The Washington Post'' has remarked that "Love him or hate him, Beck is a talented, often funny broadcaster, a recovering alcoholic with an unabashedly emotional style."

Glenn Beck was honored by Liberty University during their 2010 Commencement exercises with an honorary Doctoral Degree. During his keynote address to the students, he stated "As a man who was never able to go to college — I’m the first in my family that went; I went for one semester; I couldn’t afford more than that — I am humbly honored." In June 2011, Beck announced he was to be the honored with the Zionist Organization of America's 2011 Defender of Israel Award.

Laura Miller writes in Salon.com that Beck is a contemporary example of "the paranoid style in American politics" described by historian Richard Hofstader:

"The Paranoid Style in American Politics" reads like a playbook for the career of Glenn Beck, right down to the paranoid's "quality of pedantry" and "heroic strivings for 'evidence, embodied in Beck's chalkboard and piles of books. But Beck lacks an archenemy commensurate with his stratospheric ambitions, which makes him appear even more absurd to outsiders.

Critical biographies

In June 2010, investigative reporter Alexander Zaitchik released a critical biography titled ''Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance'', with a title mocking Beck's work, ''Common Sense''. In an interview about the book, Zaitchik theorized that "Beck’s politics and his insatiable hunger for money and fame are not mutually exclusive", while stating: "Beck’s true religion is not Patriotism, Mormonism, or Conservatism. His true religion is cross-platform self-marketing ... According to Beck’s worldview, there’s no inherent contradiction between his sophisticated instinct for self-promotion, his propagandist rodeo clown act, his self-image as a media mogul, and his professed belief system. I think he actually believes that God wants him to make a ton of money and become this huge celebrity by fear mongering and generally doing whatever it takes in the media to promote right-wing causes."

In September 2010, ''Philadelphia Daily News'' reporter Will Bunch released ''The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama''. One of Bunch's theses is that Beck is nothing more than a morning zoo deejay playing a fictional character as a money-making stunt. Writer Bob Cesca, in a review of Bunch's book, compares Beck to Steve Martin's faith-healer character in the 1992 film ''Leap of Faith'', before describing the "derivative grab bag of other tried and tested personalities" that Bunch contends comprises Beck's persona: In October 2010 a polemical biography by Dana Milbank was released: ''Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America''.

Satire, spoof and parody

Beck has been the subject of mockery and ridicule by a number of humorists. In response to Beck's animated delivery and views, he was parodied in an impersonation by Jason Sudeikis on ''Saturday Night Live''. ''The Daily Show''s Jon Stewart has spoofed Beck's 9-12 project with his own "11-3 project", consisting of "11 principles and 3 herbs and spices", impersonated Beck's chalk board-related presentation style for an entire show, and quipped about Beck "finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking". Stephen Colbert of ''The Colbert Report'' satirized Beck's "war room" by creating his own "doom bunker". Through the character Eric Cartman, ''South Park'' parodied Beck's television program and his commentary style in the episode "Dances with Smurfs". ''The Onion'', a satirical periodical and faux news site, ran an ''Onion News Network'' video "special report" where it lamented that the "victim in a fatal car accident was tragically not Glenn Beck". Meanwhile, the ''Current TV'' cartoon ''SuperNews!'' ran an animated cartoon feature titled "The Glenn Beck Apocalypse", where Beck is confronted by Jesus Christ who rebukes him as the equivalent of "Sarah Palin farting into a balloon". Political comedian and satirist Bill Maher has mocked Beck's followers as an "army of diabetic mallwalkers", while ''The Buffalo Beast'', named Beck the most loathsome person in America in 2010, declaring "It's like someone found a manic, doom-prophesying hobo in a sandwich board, shaved him, shot him full of Zoloft and gave him a show." The October 31 Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, hosted by Comedy Central personalities Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, was conceived as a parody of Beck's earlier Rally to Restore Honor, even though Stewart and Colbert said that they came up with the idea of holding a rally in March and Stewart had put down the deposit for the National Mall before Beck announced his rally.

Public disputes

Obama

Several incidents involving Beck and President Barack Obama have resulted in notable public controversy. In response to Obama's remarks on the Henry Louis Gates controversy, Beck argued that Obama has repeatedly shown "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture", saying "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist." These remarks drew criticism, and resulted in a boycott promulgated by Color of Change. In 2009, the boycott resulted in at least 57 advertisers requesting their ads be removed from his programming, to avoid associating their brands with content that could be considered offensive by potential customers. He later apologized for the remarks, telling Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace that he has a "big fat mouth" and miscast as racism what is actually, as he theorizes, Obama's belief in black liberation theology.

Van Jones

In July 2009, Beck began to focus what would become many episodes on his TV and radio shows on Van Jones, Special Advisor for Green Jobs at Obama's White House Council on Environmental Quality. Beck was critical of Jones' involvement in STORM, a left wing non-governmental group, and his support for death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, who had been convicted of killing a police officer. Beck spotlighted video of Jones referring to Republicans as "assholes", and a petition Jones signed suggesting that George W. Bush knowingly let the 9/11 attacks happen. In a move attributed by ''The New York Times'' to criticism of his earlier statements by conservatives and Republicans, Jones resigned his position in September 2009. ''Time'' magazine credited Beck with leading conservatives' attack on Jones. Jones characterized the attacks from his opponents as a "vicious smear campaign" and an effort to use "lies and distortions to distract and divide".

ACORN

In 2009, Beck and other conservative commentators were critical of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) for various reasons, including claims of voter registration fraud in the 2008 presidential election. In September 2009, he broadcast a series of heavily edited undercover videos by conservative activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, which seemed to portray ACORN community organizers offering inappropriate tax advice to people who said they were engaged in illegal activities. Following the videos' release, the U.S. Census Bureau severed ties with the group while the U.S. House and Senate voted to cut all of its federal funding.

Satire website

In 2009, lawyers for Beck brought a case (''Beck v. Eiland-Hall'') against the owner of a satirical website named ''GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com'' with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The claim that the domain name of the website is itself defamatory was described as a first in cyberlaw. Beck's lawyers argued that the site infringed on his trademarked name and that the domain name should be turned over to Beck. The WIPO ruled against Beck, but Eiland-Hall voluntarily transferred the domain to Beck anyway, saying that the First Amendment had been upheld and that he no longer had a use for the domain name.

Jewish Funds for Justice

In January 2011, in protest at what they saw as inappropriate references to the Holocaust and to Nazis by Beck (and by Roger Ailes of Fox News), four hundred rabbis signed an open letter in paid advertisement in the Wall Street Journal. The ad was paid for by Jewish Funds for Justice which had previously called for Beck's firing. The JFFJ have claimed on their website that Beck seems "to draw his material straight from the anti-Semitic forgery, the ''Protocols of the Elders of Zion''". The letter states that Beck and Fox had "...diminish[ed] the memory and meaning of the Holocaust when you use it to discredit any individual or organization you disagree with. That is what Fox News has done in recent weeks." In response, a Fox News executive said to Reuters that the letter was from a "George Soros-backed leftwing political organization".

Reform Judaism

On February 22, 2011, during a discussion on his radio show about the controversy surrounding his earlier comments about Soros, Beck said "Reform Rabbis are generally political in nature. It's almost like radicalized Islam in a way where it's less about religion than it is about politics." He was quickly criticized by other conservatives, Jewish rabbis, and others. The Anti-Defamation League labeled Beck's remarks as "bigoted ignorance". On February 24, Beck apologized on air, agreeing that his comments were "ignorant".

2011 Norway attacks

In the wake of the 2011 Norway attacks, Beck received condemnation for his comparison of murdered and surviving members of the Norwegian Workers' Youth League to the Hitler Youth: "There was a shooting at a political camp which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever, you know what I mean. Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing." The statement was ill-received in Norway, leading senior political commentator Frank Aarebrot to label Beck as a "vulgar propagandist" and a "fascist", and Torbjørn Eriksen, former press secretary to Norway's prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, to describe Beck's comment as "a new low", adding that "Glenn Beck's comments are ignorant, incorrect and extremely hurtful". Commentators pointed out that groups affiliated with the Tea Party movement and the Beck-founded 9-12 Project also sponsor politically oriented camp programs for children. Beck condemned the attack in spite of his statements about its victims.

See also

Beck University

Conservative talk

List of most-listened-to radio programs

References

External links

Glenn Beck's Radio Program

Glenn Beck – The 912 Project

Official Site at Fox News

Multimedia

A Day in the Life of Glenn Beck - slideshow by ''Time magazine''

Katie Couric Interview of Glenn Beck - video by ''CBS News''

"Brand it like Beck" - video interview by ''Forbes magazine''

John Stossel: "Glenn Beck, Conservative Narcissist?" - video by ''ABC News''

Glenn Beck Discusses his Mormonism - video testimonial at ''The Week''

In the Words of Glenn Beck - slideshow by ''Life magazine''

Category:1964 births Category:American anti-communists Category:American Latter Day Saints Category:American magazine editors Category:American magazine founders Category:American non-fiction environmental writers Category:American people of German descent Category:American political pundits Category:American political writers Category:American talk radio hosts Category:American television talk show hosts Category:Anti-globalist activists Category:Conservatism in the United States Category:Conspiracy theorists Category:Converts to Mormonism from Roman Catholicism Category:Environmental skepticism Category:Fox News Channel people Category:Living people Category:People from Bellingham, Washington Category:People from Everett, Washington Category:People from Fairfield County, Connecticut Category:People from Mount Vernon, Washington Category:People self-identifying as alcoholics Category:Tea Party movement Category:Writers from Washington (state) Category:Writers from Connecticut

ar:غلين بيك cs:Glenn Beck da:Glenn Beck de:Glenn Beck et:Glenn Beck es:Glenn Beck fa:گلن بک fr:Glenn Beck is:Glenn Beck he:גלן בק la:Glenn Beck nl:Glenn Beck no:Glenn Beck ru:Гленн Бек simple:Glenn Beck sk:Glenn Beck sh:Glenn Beck fi:Glenn Beck sv:Glenn Beck uk:Гленн Бек yi:גלען בעק

Name	Nouman Ali Khan
Religion	Sunni Islam }}

Nouman Ali Khan is the CEO and founder of Bayyinah, an Arabic educational institution in the United States.

His early education in Arabic started in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and continued in Pakistan. His serious Arabic training began in 1999 in the United States. He has been teaching Modern Standard and Classical Arabic at various venues for several years with over 10,000 students nationwide. Nouman Ali Khan preaches the religion of Islam through his video speeches. He also frequently speaks at Islamic Circle of North America Conventions about Islam, family, and other life topics.

His students have been taking notes of his works on blogs such as; LinguisticMiracle, and others. He is a very eloquent speaker who certainly knows how to get the message across. As a new modern speaker the youth find him easy to listen to and find religion engaging.

References

Category:American Muslims Category:Living people

name	Christopher Hitchens
birth name	Christopher Eric Hitchens
birth date	April 13, 1949
birth place	Portsmouth, England
death date	December 15, 2011
death place	Houston, Texas, U.S.
occupation	Writer, journalist, public speaker
alma mater	Balliol College, Oxford
nationality	English American
citizenship	British and American
religion	None
subject	Politics, religion, history, biography, literature
spouse
relatives	Peter Hitchens (brother)
influences	George Orwell, Leszek Kolakowski, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, George Eliot, Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, John Stuart Mill, Joseph Heller, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, Edward Said, Salman Rushdie, Vladimir Nabokov, Richard Llewellyn, Aldous Huxley, PG Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, Richard Hofstadter, Paul Mark Scott, James Fenton, James Joyce, Albert Camus, Oscar Wilde, Conor Cruise O'Brien, Martin Amis, Kingsley Amis, Ian McEwan, Colm Tóibín, Bertrand Russell, Wilfred Owen, Israel Shahak, Isaiah Berlin, Émile Zola, W. H. Auden, Susan Sontag
influenced	Johann Hari, Martin Amis, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins
signature	CH Signature 2.jpg|200px
website	}}

Christopher Eric Hitchens, nicknamed "Hitch", (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was an English American author, essayist and journalist, whose books, essays, and journalistic career spanned more than four decades. He was a columnist and literary critic for ''The Atlantic'', ''Free Inquiry'', ''The Nation'', ''Salon'', ''Slate'', ''Vanity Fair'', ''World Affairs'', and became a media fellow at the Hoover Institution in September 2008. He was a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits and in 2005 was voted the world's fifth top public intellectual in a ''Prospect''/''Foreign Policy'' poll.

Hitchens was known for his admiration of George Orwell, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson and for his excoriating critiques of Mother Teresa, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Henry Kissinger and Britain's royal family, among others. His confrontational style of debate made him both a lauded and controversial figure. As a political observer, polemicist and self-defined radical, he rose to prominence as a fixture of the left-wing publications in his native Britain and in the United States. His departure from the established political left began in 1989 after what he called the "tepid reaction" of the Western left following Ayatollah Khomeini's issue of a ''fatwā'' calling for the murder of Salman Rushdie. The September 11 attacks strengthened his internationalist embrace of an interventionist foreign policy, and his vociferous criticism of what he called "fascism with an Islamic face". His numerous editorials in support of the Iraq War caused some to label him a neoconservative, although Hitchens insisted he was not "a conservative of any kind".

Identified as a champion of the "New Atheism" movement, Hitchens described himself as an antitheist and a believer in the philosophical values of the Enlightenment. Hitchens said that a person "could be an atheist and wish that belief in god were correct", but that "an antitheist, a term I'm trying to get into circulation, is someone who is relieved that there's no evidence for such an assertion." According to Hitchens, the concept of a god or a supreme being is a totalitarian belief that destroys individual freedom, and that free expression and scientific discovery should replace religion as a means of teaching ethics and defining human civilization. He wrote at length on atheism and the nature of religion in his 2007 book ''God Is Not Great''.

Though Hitchens retained his British citizenship, he became a United States citizen on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial on 13 April 2007, his 58th birthday. Asteroid 57901 Hitchens is named after him. His memoir, ''Hitch-22'', was published in June 2010. Touring for the book was cut short later in the same month so he could begin treatment for newly diagnosed esophageal cancer. On 15 December 2011, Hitchens died from pneumonia, a complication of his cancer, in the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

Life and career

Early life and education

His mother, Yvonne Jean (née Hickman), and father, Eric Ernest Hitchens (1909–1987), met in Scotland while both were serving in the Royal Navy during World War II. Yvonne was at the time a "Wren" (a member of the Women's Royal Naval Service), and Eric a "purse-lipped and silent" commander, whose ship HMS ''Jamaica'' helped sink Nazi Germany's battleship ''Scharnhorst'' in the Battle of the North Cape. His father's naval career required the family to move a number of times from base to base throughout Britain and its dependencies, including in Malta, where Christopher's brother Peter was born in Sliema in 1951.

Hitchens's mother having argued that "if there is going to be an upper class in this country, then Christopher is going to be in it,", in the late fifties and early sixties he was educated at Mount House School in Tavistock in Devon, then at the independent Leys School in Cambridge, and then at Balliol College in Oxford, where he was tutored by Steven Lukes and read philosophy, politics, and economics. Hitchens was "bowled over" in his adolescence by Richard Llewellyn's ''How Green Was My Valley'', Arthur Koestler's ''Darkness at Noon,'' Fyodor Dostoyevsky's ''Crime and Punishment'', R. H. Tawney's critique on ''Religion and the Rise of Capitalism,'' and the works of George Orwell. In 1968, he took part in the TV quiz show ''University Challenge''.

Hitchens has written of his homosexual experiences when in boarding school in his memoir, ''Hitch-22''. These experiences continued in his college years, when he allegedly had relationships with two men who eventually became a part of the Thatcher government.

In the 1960s Hitchens joined the political left, drawn by his anger over the Vietnam War, nuclear weapons, racism, and "oligarchy", including that of "the unaccountable corporation". He would express affinity with the politically charged countercultural and protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s. However, he deplored the rife recreational drug use of the time, which he describes as hedonistic.

He joined the Labour Party in 1965, but along with the majority of the Labour students' organization was expelled in 1967, because of what Hitchens called "Prime Minister Harold Wilson's contemptible support for the war in Vietnam". Under the influence of Peter Sedgwick, who translated the writings of Russian revolutionary and Soviet dissident Victor Serge, Hitchens forged an ideological interest in Trotskyist and anti-Stalinist socialism. Shortly after he joined "a small but growing post-Trotskyist Luxemburgist sect".

Journalistic career (1970–1981)

Hitchens began working as a correspondent for the magazine ''International Socialism'', published by the International Socialists, the forerunners of today's British Socialist Workers Party. This group was broadly Trotskyist, but differed from more orthodox Trotskyist groups in its refusal to defend communist states as "workers' states". Their slogan was "Neither Washington nor Moscow but International Socialism".

Hitchens left Oxford with a third class degree. His first job was with the London ''Times Higher Education Supplement'', where he served as social science editor. Hitchens admitted that he hated the position, and was later fired; he recalled, "I sometimes think if I'd been any good at that job, I might still be doing it." In the 1970s, he went on to work for the ''New Statesman'', where he became friends with the authors Martin Amis and Ian McEwan, among others. At the ''New Statesman'' he acquired a reputation as a fierce left-winger, aggressively attacking targets such as Henry Kissinger, the Vietnam War, and the Roman Catholic Church.

In November 1973, Hitchens' mother committed suicide in Athens in a suicide pact with her lover, a former clergyman named Timothy Bryan. They overdosed on sleeping pills in adjoining hotel rooms, and Bryan slashed his wrists in the bathtub. Hitchens flew alone to Athens to recover his mother's body. Hitchens said he thought his mother was pressured into suicide by fear that her husband would learn of her infidelity, as their marriage had been strained and unhappy. Both her children were then independent adults. While in Greece, Hitchens reported on the constitutional crisis of the military junta. It became his first leading article for the ''New Statesman''.

American career (1981–2011)

After moving to the United States in 1981, Hitchens wrote for ''The Nation'', where he penned vociferous critiques of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and American foreign policy in South and Central America. He became a contributing editor of ''Vanity Fair'' in 1992, writing ten columns a year. He left ''The Nation'' in 2002 after profoundly disagreeing with other contributors over the Iraq War. There is speculation that Hitchens was the inspiration for Tom Wolfe's character Peter Fallow in the 1987 novel ''The Bonfire of the Vanities'', but others — including Hitchens (or he indicated as such while alive) — believe it to be ''Spy Magazine''s "Ironman Nightlife Decathlete" Anthony Haden-Guest. In 1987, his father died from cancer of the esophagus.

Hitchens spent part of his early career in journalism as a foreign correspondent in Cyprus. Through his work there he met his first wife Eleni Meleagrou, a Greek Cypriot, with whom he had two children, Alexander and Sophia. His son, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, born in 1984, has worked as a researcher for London think tanks the Policy Exchange and the Centre for Social Cohesion. Hitchens continued writing essay-style correspondence pieces from a variety of locales, including Chad, Uganda and the Darfur region of Sudan. His work took him to over 60 countries. In 1991 he received a Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction.

Before Hitchens' political shift, the American author and polemicist Gore Vidal was apt to speak of Hitchens as his "Dauphin" or "heir". In 2010, Hitchens attacked Vidal in a ''Vanity Fair'' piece headlined "Vidal Loco," calling him a "crackpot" for his adoption of 9/11 conspiracy theories. Also, on the back of his book ''Hitch-22,'' among the praise from notable writers and figures, a Vidal quote endorsing Hitchens as his successor is crossed out with a red 'X' and a message saying "NO C.H." His strong advocacy of the war in Iraq had gained Hitchens a wider readership, and in September 2005 he was named one of the "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" by ''Foreign Policy'' and ''Prospect'' magazines. An online poll ranked the 100 intellectuals, but the magazines noted that the rankings of Hitchens (5), Noam Chomsky (1), and Abdolkarim Soroush (15) were partly due to supporters publicising the vote.

In 2007 Hitchens' work for ''Vanity Fair'' won him the National Magazine Award in the category "Columns and Commentary". He was a finalist once more in the same category in 2008 for some of his columns in ''Slate'' but lost out to Matt Taibbi of ''Rolling Stone''. He won the National Magazine Award for Columns about Cancer in 2011. Hitchens also served on the Advisory Board of Secular Coalition for America and offered advice to Coalition on the acceptance and inclusion of nontheism in American life.

Literature reviews

Hitchens wrote a monthly essay on books in ''The Atlantic'' and contributed occasionally to other literary journals. One of his books, ''Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere'', is a collection of such works, and ''Love, Poverty and War'' contains a section devoted to literary essays. In ''Why Orwell Matters'', he defends Orwell's writings against modern critics as relevant today and progressive for his time. In the 2008 book ''Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left'', many literary critiques are included of essays and other books of writers, such as David Horowitz and Edward Said.

During a three-hour interview by ''Book TV'', he named authors who have had influence on his views, including Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Evelyn Waugh, P. G. Wodehouse and Conor Cruise O'Brien.

Political views

The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' referred to Hitchens as a "gadfly with gusto". In 2009, Hitchens was listed by ''Forbes'' magazine as one of the "25 most influential liberals in the U.S. media". However, the same article noted that he would "likely be aghast to find himself on this list", since it reduces his self-styled radicalism to mere liberalism. Hitchens' political perspective can be found in his wide ranging writings which include many of the political dialogues he published.

Socialism

Hitchens became a socialist "largely [as] the outcome of a study of history, taking sides ... in the battles over industrialism and war and empire." In 2001, he told Rhys Southan of ''Reason'' magazine that he could no longer say "I am a socialist." Socialists, he claimed, had ceased to offer a positive alternative to the capitalist system. Capitalism had become the more revolutionary economic system, and he welcomed globalisation as "innovative and internationalist", but added, "I don't think that the contradictions, as we used to say, of the system, are by any means all resolved." He stated that he had a renewed interest in the freedom of the individual from the state, but that he still considered libertarianism "ahistorical" both on the world stage and in the work of creating a stable and functional society, adding that libertarians are "more worried about the over-mighty state than the unaccountable corporation" whereas "the present state of affairs ... combines the worst of bureaucracy with the worst of the insurance companies."

In 2006, in a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania debating the Jewish Tradition with Martin Amis, Hitchens commented on his political philosophy by stating, "I am no longer a socialist, but I still am a Marxist". In a June 2010 interview with ''The New York Times'', he stated that "I still think like a Marxist in many ways. I think the materialist conception of history is valid. I consider myself a very conservative Marxist". In 2009, in an article for ''The Atlantic'' entitled "The Revenge of Karl Marx", Hitchens frames the late-2000s recession in terms of Marx's economic analysis and notes how much Marx admired the capitalist system he was calling for the end of, but says that Marx ultimately failed to grasp how revolutionary capitalist innovation was. Hitchens was an admirer of Che Guevara, commenting that "[Che's] death meant a lot to me and countless like me at the time, he was a role model, albeit an impossible one for us bourgeois romantics insofar as he went and did what revolutionaries were meant to do — fought and died for his beliefs." However, in an essay written in 1997, he distanced himself somewhat from some of Che's actions.

He continued to regard both Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky as great men, and the October Revolution as a necessary event in the modernization of Russia. In 2005, Hitchens praised Lenin's creation of "secular Russia" and his discrediting of the Russian Orthodox Church, describing it as "an absolute warren of backwardness and evil and superstition".

Iraq War and the war on terror

The years after the ''fatwa'' issued against Salman Rushdie saw Hitchens looking for allies and friends. In the United States he became increasingly critical of what he called "excuse making" on the left. At the same time, he was attracted to the foreign policy ideas of some on the Republican-right that promoted pro-liberalism intervention, especially the neoconservative group that included Paul Wolfowitz. Around this time, he befriended the Iraqi dissident and businessman Ahmed Chalabi. In 2004, Hitchens stated that neoconservative support for US intervention in Iraq convinced him that he was "on the same side as the neo-conservatives" when it came to contemporary foreign policy issues. Hitchens had also been known to refer to his association with "temporary neocon allies".

Following the September 11 attacks, Hitchens and Noam Chomsky debated the nature of radical Islam and the proper response to it. In October 2001, Hitchens wrote criticisms of Chomsky in ''The Nation''. Chomsky responded and Hitchens issued a rebuttal to Chomsky to which Chomsky again responded. Approximately a year after the September 11 attacks and his exchanges with Chomsky, Hitchens left ''The Nation'', claiming that its editors, readers and contributors considered John Ashcroft a bigger threat than Osama bin Laden, and that they were making excuses on behalf of Islamist terrorism; in the following months he wrote articles increasingly at odds with his colleagues.

Christopher Hitchens argued the case for the Iraq War in a 2003 collection of essays entitled ''A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq'', and he has held numerous public debates on the topic with George Galloway and Scott Ritter. Though he admitted to the numerous failures of the war, and its high civilian casualties, he stood by the position that deposing Saddam Hussein was a long-overdue responsibility of the United States, after decades of poor policy, and that holding free elections in Iraq had been a success not to be scoffed at. He argued that a continued fight in Iraq against insurgents, whether they be former Saddam loyalists or Islamic extremists, was a fight worth having, and that those insurgents, not American forces, should have been the ones taking the brunt of the blame for a slow reconstruction and high civilian casualties.

Criticism of George W. Bush

Prior to September 11, 2001, and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, Hitchens was highly critical of Bush's "non-interventionist" foreign policy. He also criticized Bush's support of intelligent design and capital punishment.

Although Hitchens defended Bush's post-September 11 foreign policy, he criticized the actions of U.S. troops in Abu Ghraib and Haditha, and the U.S. government's use of waterboarding, which he unhesitatingly deemed as torture after being invited by ''Vanity Fair'' to voluntarily undergo it. In January 2006, Hitchens joined with four other individuals and four organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Greenpeace, as plaintiffs in a lawsuit, ''ACLU v. NSA'', challenging Bush's warrantless domestic spying program; the lawsuit was filed by the ACLU.

Presidential endorsements

Hitchens would elaborate on his political views and ideological shift in a discussion with Eric Alterman on Bloggingheads.tv. In this discussion Hitchens revealed himself to be a supporter of Ralph Nader in the 2000 U.S. presidential election, who was disenchanted with the candidacy of both George W. Bush and Al Gore.

Hitchens made a brief return to ''The Nation'' just before the 2004 U.S. presidential election and wrote that he was "slightly" for Bush; shortly afterwards, ''Slate'' polled its staff on their positions on the candidates and mistakenly printed Hitchens' vote as pro-John Kerry. Hitchens shifted his opinion to "neutral", saying: "It's absurd for liberals to talk as if Kristallnacht is impending with Bush, and it's unwise and indecent for Republicans to equate Kerry with capitulation. There's no one to whom he can surrender, is there? I think that the nature of the jihadist enemy will decide things in the end".

In the 2008 presidential election, Hitchens in an article for ''Slate'' stated, "I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian protectors, and on that 'issue' I hope I can continue to expose and oppose any ambiguity." He was critical of both main party candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain. Hitchens went on to support Obama, calling McCain "senile", and his choice of running mate Sarah Palin "absurd", calling Palin a "pathological liar" and a "national disgrace".

Blumenthal–Hitchens feud

Hitchens and Carol Blue chose to submit an affidavit to the trial managers of the Republican Party in the trial of impeachment of Bill Clinton. In the affidavit, Blue and Hitchens swore that their then-friend, Sidney Blumenthal, had described Monica Lewinsky as a stalker. This allegation contradicted Blumenthal's own sworn deposition in the trial, and it resulted in a hostile exchange of opinion in the public sphere between Hitchens and Blumenthal. Following the publication of Blumenthal's ''The Clinton Wars,'' Hitchens wrote several pieces in which he accused Blumenthal of manipulating the facts.

Israel–Palestine

Hitchens had said of himself, "I am an Anti-Zionist. I'm one of those people of Jewish descent who believes that Zionism would be a mistake even if there were no Palestinians."

A review of his autobiography ''Hitch-22'' in the ''Jewish Daily Forward'' refers to Hitchens as "a prominent anti-Zionist" and says that he views Zionism "as an injustice against the Palestinians". Others have commented on his anti-Zionism as well suggesting that his memoir was "marred by the occasional eruption of [his] anti-Zionism". The ''Jewish Daily Forward'' quoted him saying of Israel's prospects for the future, "I have never been able to banish the queasy inner suspicion that Israel just did not look, or feel, either permanent or sustainable."

In ''Slate'', Hitchens pondered the notion that, instead of curing antisemitism through the creation of a Jewish state, "Zionism has only replaced and repositioned" it, saying: "there are three groups of 6 million Jews. The first 6 million live in what the Zionist movement used to call Palestine. The second 6 million live in the United States. The third 6 million are distributed mainly among Russia, France, Britain, and Argentina. Only the first group lives daily in range of missiles that can be (and are) launched by people who hate Jews." Hitchens argued that instead of supporting Zionism, Jews should help "secularize and reform their own societies", believing that unless one is religious, "what the hell are you doing in the greater Jerusalem area in the first place?"

During a town hall function in Pennsylvania with Martin Amis, Hitchens stated that "one must not insult or degrade or humiliate people" and that he "would be opposed to this maltreatment of the Palestinians if it took place on a remote island with no geopolitical implications". Hitchens described Zionism as "an ethno-nationalist quasi-religious ideology" and stated his desire that if possible, he would "re-wind the tape [to] stop Hertzl from telling the initial demagogic lie (actually two lies) that a land without a people needs a people without a land".

He continued to say that Zionism "nonetheless has founded a sort of democratic state which isn't any worse in its practice than many others with equally dubious origins." He stated that settlement in order to achieve security for Israel is "doomed to fail in the worst possible way", and the cessation of this "appallingly racist and messianic delusion" would "confront the internal clerical and chauvinist forces which want to instate a theocracy for Jews". However, Hitchens contended that the "solution of withdrawal would not satisfy the jihadists" and wondered "What did they imagine would be the response of the followers of the Prophet [Muhammad]?" Hitchens bemoaned the transference into religious terrorism of Arab secularism as a means of democratization: "the most depressing and wretched spectacle of the past decade, for all those who care about democracy and secularism, has been the degeneration of Palestinian Arab nationalism into the theocratic and thanatocratic hell of Hamas and Islamic Jihad". He maintained that the Israel-Palestine conflict is a "trivial squabble" that has become "so dangerous to all of us" because of "the faith-based element."

Hitchens collaborated on this issue with prominent Palestinian advocate Edward Said, in 1988 publishing ''Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question''.

Domestic policy

Hitchens actively supported drug policy reform and called for the abolition of the "War on Drugs" which he described as an "authoritarian war" during a debate with William F. Buckley. He supported the legalization of cannabis for both medical and recreational purposes, citing it as a cure for glaucoma and as treatment for numerous side-effects induced by chemotherapy, including severe nausea, describing the prohibition of the drug as "sadistic". On the issue of abortion, Hitchens prioritized in affirming that he believed a fetus should be regarded as an "unborn child", but opposed the overturning of ''Roe v. Wade'' and supported the development of medical abortion techniques, and fundamentally believed in access to contraceptives and reproductive rights as "the only thing that is known to cure poverty", and in order to prevent surgical abortion altogether.

Other

Other issues Hitchens wrote on the subjects of included his support for the reunification of Ireland, abolition of the British monarchy, and his condemnation of the war crimes of Slobodan Milošević and Franjo Tuđman in Yugoslavia, and the Bosnian War.

Critiques of specific individuals

Hitchens was known for his scathing critiques of public figures. Three figures — Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger, and Mother Teresa — were the targets of three separate full length texts, ''No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton'', ''The Trial of Henry Kissinger'', and ''The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice''. Hitchens also wrote book-length biographical essays about Thomas Jefferson (''Thomas Jefferson: Author of America''), George Orwell (''Why Orwell Matters''), and Thomas Paine (''Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man": A Biography'').

However, the majority of Hitchens's critiques took the form of short opinion pieces, some of the more notable being his critiques of: Jerry Falwell, George Galloway, Mel Gibson, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, Michael Moore, Daniel Pipes, Ronald Reagan, Jesse Helms, and Cindy Sheehan.

Views on religion

Hitchens often spoke out against the Abrahamic religions, or what he called "the three great monotheisms" (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). He said: "The real axis of evil is Christianity, Judaism, and Islam". In his book, ''God Is Not Great'', Hitchens expanded his criticism to include all religions, including those rarely criticized by Western secularists such as Hinduism and neo-paganism. His book had mixed reactions, from praise in ''The New York Times'' for his "logical flourishes and conundrums" to accusations of "intellectual and moral shabbiness" in the ''Financial Times''. ''God Is Not Great'' was nominated for a National Book Award on 10 October 2007.

Hitchens contended that organized religion is "the main source of hatred in the world", "[v]iolent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children", and that accordingly it "ought to have a great deal on its conscience". In ''God Is Not Great'', Hitchens contends that:

[A]bove all, we are in need of a renewed Enlightenment, which will base itself on the proposition that the proper study of mankind is man and woman [referencing Alexander Pope]. This Enlightenment will not need to depend, like its predecessors, on the heroic breakthroughs of a few gifted and exceptionally courageous people. It is within the compass of the average person. The study of literature and poetry, both for its own sake and for the eternal ethical questions with which it deals, can now easily depose the scrutiny of sacred texts that have been found to be corrupt and confected. The pursuit of unfettered scientific inquiry, and the availability of new findings to masses of people by electronic means, will revolutionize our concepts of research and development. Very importantly, the divorce between the sexual life and fear, and the sexual life and disease, and the sexual life and tyranny, can now at last be attempted, on the sole condition that we banish all religions from the discourse. And all this and more is, for the first time in our history, within the reach if not the grasp of everyone.

His book rendered him one of the major advocates of the "New Atheism" movement, and he also was made an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society. Hitchens said he would accept an invitation from any religious leader who wished to debate with him. He also served on the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America, a lobbying group for atheists and humanists in Washington, DC. In 2007, Hitchens began a series of written debates on the question "Is Christianity Good for the World?" with Christian theologian and pastor, Douglas Wilson, published in ''Christianity Today'' magazine. This exchange eventually became a book by the same title in 2008. During their book tour to promote the book, film producer Darren Doane sent a film crew to accompany them. Doane produced the film ''Collision'': "Is Christianity GOOD for the World?" which was released on 27 October 2009.

On 26 November 2010 Hitchens appeared in Toronto, Canada at the Munk Debates, where he debated religion with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a convert to Roman Catholicism. Blair argued religion is a force for good, while Hitchens was against it. Preliminary results on the Munk website said 56 per cent of the votes backed the proposition (Hitchens' position) before hearing the debate, with 22 per cent against (Blair's position), and 21 per cent undecided, with the undecided voters leaning toward Hitchens, giving him a 68 per cent to 32 per cent victory over Blair, after the debate.

In February 2006, Hitchens helped organize a pro-Denmark rally outside the Danish Embassy in Washington, DC in response to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.

Hitchens was accused by William A. Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Liberties of being particularly anti-Catholic. Hitchens responded "when religion is attacked in this country [...] the Catholic Church comes in for a little more than its fair share". Hitchens had also been accused of anti-Catholic bigotry by others, including Brent Bozell, Tom Piatak in ''The American Conservative'', and UCLA Law Professor Stephen Bainbridge. In an interview with ''Radar'' in 2007, Hitchens said that if the Christian right's agenda were implemented in the United States "It wouldn't last very long and would, I hope, lead to civil war, which they will lose, but for which it would be a great pleasure to take part." When Joe Scarborough on 12 March 2004 asked Hitchens whether he was "consumed with hatred for conservative Catholics", Hitchens responded that he was not and that he just thinks that "all religious belief is sinister and infantile". Piatak claimed that "A straightforward description of all Hitchens's anti-Catholic outbursts would fill every page in this magazine", noting particularly Hitchens' assertion that U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts should not be confirmed because of his faith.

Hitchens was raised nominally Christian, and went to Christian boarding schools but from an early age declined to participate in communal prayers. Later in life, Hitchens discovered that he was of partially Jewish ancestry. According to Hitchens, when his brother Peter took his fiancée to meet their maternal grandmother, who was then in her 90s, she said of his fiancée, "She's Jewish, isn't she?" and then announced: "Well, I've got something to tell you. So are you." Hitchens found out that his maternal grandmother, Dorothy Levin, was raised Jewish (Dorothy's father and maternal grandfather had both been born Jewish, and Dorothy's maternal grandmother – Hitchens' matrilineal great-great-grandmother – was a convert to Judaism). Hitchens' maternal grandfather converted to Judaism before marrying Dorothy Levin. Hitchens' Jewish-born ancestors were immigrants from Eastern Europe (including Poland). In an article in the ''The Guardian'' on 14 April 2002, Hitchens stated that he could be considered Jewish because Jewish descent is matrilineal. In a 2010 interview at New York Public Library, Hitchens stated that he was against circumcision, a Jewish tradition, and that he believed "if anyone wants to saw off bits of their genitalia they should do when they're grown up and have made the decision for themselves".

In February 2010, he was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.

Personal life

Marriages and children

Hitchens married Eleni Meleagrou, a Greek Cypriot, in a Greek Orthodox church in 1981; the couple had a son, Alexander and a daughter, Sophia. In 1989 Hitchens left Meleagrou for Carol Blue, an American writer. The couple married in a New York synagogue; they had a daughter, Antonia.

Relationship with his younger brother

Hitchens' younger brother by two-and-a-half years, Peter Hitchens, is a Christian and socially conservative journalist in London, although, like his brother, he had been a Trotskyist in the 1970s. The brothers had a protracted falling-out after Peter wrote that Christopher had once joked that he "didn't care if the Red Army watered its horses at Hendon" (a suburb of London). Christopher denied having said this and broke off contact with his brother. He then referred to his brother as "an idiot" in a letter to ''Commentary'', and the dispute spilled into other publications as well. Christopher eventually expressed a willingness to reconcile and to meet his new nephew (born in 1999); shortly thereafter the brothers gave several interviews together in which they said that their personal disagreements had been resolved. They appeared together on 21 June 2007 edition of the BBC current affairs discussion show ''Question Time''. The pair engaged in a formal televised debate for the first time on 3 April 2008, at Grand Valley State University, and at the Pew Forum on 12 October 2010.

Smoking and drinking

A June 2006 profile on Hitchens by NPR stated: "Hitchens is known for his love of cigarettes and alcohol — and his prodigious literary output." However, in late 2007 he gave up smoking, undergoing an epiphany in Madison, Wisconsin. His brother Peter later wrote of his surprise at this decision. It was while writing his memoir ''Hitch-22'' that he resumed smoking cigarettes and continued until his cancer diagnosis. Hitchens admitted to drinking heavily; in 2003 he wrote that his daily intake of alcohol was enough "to kill or stun the average mule", noting that many great writers "did some of their finest work when blotto, smashed, polluted, shitfaced, squiffy, whiffled, and three sheets to the wind."

British politician George Galloway, founder of the socialist Respect Party, on his way to testify in front of a United States Senate sub-committee investigating the scandals in the U.N. Oil-for-Food programme, called Hitchens a "drink-sodden ex-Trotskyist popinjay", to which Hitchens quickly replied, "only some of which is true". Later, in a column for ''Slate'' promoting his debate with Galloway which was to take place on 14 September 2005, he elaborated on his prior response: "He says that I am an ex-Trotskyist (true), a 'popinjay' (true enough, since the word's original Webster's definition is a target for arrows and shots), and that I cannot hold a drink (here I must protest)."

Oliver Burkeman writes, "Since the parting of ways on Iraq [...] Hitchens claims to have detected a new, personalised nastiness in the attacks on him, especially over his fabled consumption of alcohol. He welcomes being attacked as a drinker 'because I always think it's a sign of victory when they move on to the ad hominem.' He drinks, he says, 'because it makes other people less boring. I have a great terror of being bored. But I can work with or without it. It takes quite a lot to get me to slur.'"

In the question and answer session following a speech Hitchens gave to the Commonwealth Club of California on 9 July 2009, one audience member asked what was Hitchens' favorite whisky. Hitchens replied that "the best blended scotch in the history of the world" is Johnnie Walker Black Label. He also playfully indicated that it was the favorite whisky of, among others, the Iraqi Ba'ath Party, the Palestinian Authority, the Libyan dictatorship, and "large branches of the Saudi Arabian Royal Family". He concluded his answer by calling it the "breakfast of champions" and exhorted the audience to "accept no substitute".

In his 2010 memoir ''Hitch-22'', Hitchens wrote: "There was a time when I could reckon to outperform all but the most hardened imbibers, but I now drink relatively carefully." He described his current drinking routine on working-days as follows: "At about half past midday, a decent slug of Mr. Walker's amber restorative, cut with Perrier water (an ideal delivery system) and no ice. At luncheon, perhaps half a bottle of red wine: not always more but never less. Then back to the desk, and ready to repeat the treatment at the evening meal. No 'after dinner drinks' — ​most especially nothing sweet and never, ever any brandy. 'Nightcaps' depend on how well the day went, but always the mixture as before. No mixing: no messing around with a gin here and a vodka there."

Reflecting on the lifestyle that supported his career as a writer he said:

I always knew there was a risk in the bohemian lifestyle ... I decided to take it because it helped my concentration, it stopped me being bored — it stopped other people being boring. It would make me want to prolong the conversation and enhance the moment. If you ask: would I do it again? I would probably say yes. But I would have quit earlier hoping to get away with the whole thing. I decided all of life is a wager and I'm going to wager on this bit ... In a strange way I don't regret it. It's just impossible for me to picture life without wine, and other things, fueling the company, keeping me reading, energising me. It worked for me. It really did.

Esophageal cancer and death

In June 2010, Hitchens postponed his book tour for ''Hitch-22'' to undergo treatment for esophageal cancer. He announced that he was undergoing treatment in a ''Vanity Fair'' piece entitled "Topic of Cancer". Hitchens said that he recognised the long-term prognosis was far from positive, and that he would be a "very lucky person to live another five years". In November 2010, Hitchens canceled a scheduled appearance in New York, where he was to debate religion writers David Hazony and Stephen Prothero on the subject of the Ten Commandments. Earlier that year, he published a piece in ''Vanity Fair'' on the subject, and was working on a book about the Ten Commandments as well.

During his illness, Hitchens was under the care of Francis Collins and was the subject of Collins' new cancer treatment which maps out the human genome and selectively targets damaged DNA.

In April 2011, Hitchens was forced to cancel an appearance at the American Atheist Convention, and instead sent a letter that stated, "Nothing would have kept me from joining you except the loss of my voice (at least my speaking voice) which in turn is due to a long argument I am currently having with the specter of death." He closed with "And don't keep the faith." The letter also dismissed the notion of a possible deathbed conversion, in which he claimed that "redemption and supernatural deliverance appears even more hollow and artificial to me than it did before." In June 2011, he spoke to a University of Waterloo audience via a home video link.

In October 2011, Hitchens made a public appearance at the Texas Freethought Convention in Houston, TX. ''Atheist Alliance of America'' was also a participant in the joint convention.

In November 2011, George Eaton wrote in the ''New Statesman'':

The tragedy of Hitchens' illness is that it came at a time when he enjoyed a larger audience than ever. Of his tight circle of friends – Amis, Fenton, McEwan, Rushdie – Hitchens was the last to gain international renown, yet he is now read more widely than any of them." Eaton revealed that Hitchens would like to be remembered as a man who fought totalitarianism in all its forms although many remember him as a "lefty who turned right", and his support of the Iraq War and not his support of the War in Bosnia on the side of the Moslems. Eaton concluded, "The great polemicist is certain to be remembered, but, as he is increasingly aware, perhaps not as he would like."

Hitchens died on December 15th, 2011 at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

In accordance with his wishes, his body was donated to medical research.

Reactions to death

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said, "Christopher Hitchens was a complete one-off, an amazing mixture of writer, journalist, polemicist, and unique character. He was fearless in the pursuit of truth and any cause in which he believed. And there was no belief he held, that he did not advocate with passion, commitment and brilliance. He was an extraordinary, compelling and colorful human being whom it was a privilege to know."

Richard Dawkins, British evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford and a friend of Hitchens', said, "I think he was one of the greatest orators of all time. He was a polymath, a wit, immensely knowledgeable, and a valiant fighter against all tyrants including imaginary supernatural ones."

Norman Finkelstein, American political scientist and author, wrote, "When I first learned that Hitchens was diagnosed with an excruciating and terminal cancer, it caused me to doubt my atheism. The news came just as Hitchens was about to go on a book tour for his long-awaited memoir. It was as if he was setting out on his victory lap when the adulating crowds were supposed to fawn over him and — wham! — his legs were lopped off at the kneecaps. The irony could not be more perfect: the god that the vindictive but witty Mr. Hitchens made a career scoffing at turns out to be ... vindictive but witty. When I heard that Hitchens was dead, I took a deep breath. The air felt cleaner, as if after a 40-day and 40-night downpour." Finkelstein also added, "I get no satisfaction from Hitchens's passing. Although he was the last to know it, every death is a tragedy, if only for the bereft child — or, as in the case of Cindy Sheehan, bereft parent — left behind.

Sam Harris, American writer and neuroscientist, wrote, "I have been privileged to witness the gratitude that so many people feel for Hitch’s life and work — for, wherever I speak, I meet his fans. On my last book tour, those who attended my lectures could not contain their delight at the mere mention of his name — and many of them came up to get their books signed primarily to request that I pass along their best wishes to him. It was wonderful to see how much Hitch was loved and admired — and to be able to share this with him before the end. I will miss you, brother."

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health and former head of the Human Genome Project who helped treat Hitchens' illness, wrote, "I will miss Christopher. I will miss the brilliant turn of phrase, the good-natured banter, the wry sideways smile when he was about to make a remark that would make me laugh out loud. No doubt he now knows the answer to the question of whether there is more to the spirit than just atoms and molecules. I hope he was surprised by the answer. I hope to hear him tell about it someday. He will tell it really well."

British columnist and author Peter Hitchens, who had a tumultuous relationship with his older brother Christopher, wrote that he and Christopher "got on surprisingly well in the past few months, better than for about 50 years as it happens," and praised his brother as "courageous."

Irish-American political journalist Alexander Cockburn, founder of the left-wing political magazine ''CounterPunch'' wrote an obituary critical of Hitchens, criticizing his support for the Iraq War, criticisms of Mother Teresa, and criticisms of their mutual friend Edward Said and concluded, "I found the Hitchens cult of recent years entirely mystifying. He endured his final ordeal with pluck, sustained indomitably by his wife Carol."

Tributes followed from the philosopher Daniel Dennett, the physicist Lawrence Krauss, the actor Stephen Fry, the writer Ian McEwan, the philosopher A.C. Grayling; and ''Vanity Fair'', in which he was remembered as an "incomparable critic and masterful rhetorician".

Film and television appearances

As referenced from the Internet Movie Database, Hitchens Web or Charlie Rose. {|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" |- ! Year ! Film and/or Television |- |1984 |align="left" | ''Opinions'': "Greece to their Rome" |- |1988 |align="left" | ''Frontiers (TV series)'' |- |1993 |align="left" | ''Everything You Need to Know'' |- |1994 |align="left" | ''Tracking Down Maggie: The Unofficial Biography of Margaret Thatcher'' |- |1994 |align="left" | ''Hell's Angel'' |- |1996 |align="left" | ''Where's Elvis This Week?'' |- |1996–2010 |align="left" | ''Charlie Rose (talk show)'' (13 episodes) |- |1998 |align="left" | ''Princess Diana: The Mourning After'' |- |1999–2002 |align="left" | ''Dennis Miller Live'' (TV show) (4 episodes) |- |2002 |align="left" | ''The Trials of Henry Kissinger'' |- |2003 |align="left" | ''Hidden in Plain Sight'' |- |2003–2009 |align="left" | ''Real Time with Bill Maher'' (TV show) (6 episodes) |- |2004 |align="left" | ''Mel Gibson: God's Lethal Weapon'' |- |2004–2006 |align="left" | ''Newsnight'' (TV show) (3 episodes) |- |2004–2010 |align="left" | ''The Daily Show'' (TV show) (4 episodes) |- |2005 |align="left" | ''Penn & Teller: Bullshit!'' (TV show)(1 episode, s03e05) |- |2005 |align="left" | ''The Al Franken Show'' (TV show)(1 episode) |- |2005 |align="left" | ''Confronting Iraq: Conflict and Hope'' |- |2005 |align="left" | ''Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism'' |- |2005–2008 |align="left" | ''Hardball with Chris Matthews'' (TV show)(3 episodes) |- |2006 |align="left" | ''American Zeitgeist'' |- |2006 |align="left" | ''Blog Wars'' |- |2007 |align="left" | ''Manufacturing Dissent'' |- |2007 |align="left" | ''Question Time (TV series)'' (1 episode) |- |2007 |align="left" | ''Your Mommy Kills Animals'' |- |2007 |align="left" | ''Personal Che'' |- |2007 |align="left" | ''Heckler'' |- |2007 |align="left" | ''In Pot We Trust'' |- |2008 |align="left" | ''Discussions with Richard Dawkins'': Episode 1: "The Four Horsemen" |- |2008 | style="text-align:left;"| ''Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed '' |- |2009 |align="left" | ''Holy Hell'' |- |2009 |align="left" | ''Presidency'' |- |2009 |align="left" | ''Collision: "Is Christianity GOOD for the World?"'' |- |2010 |align="left" | ''Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune'' |}

Selected publications

1984 ''Cyprus''. Quartet. Revised editions as ''Hostage to History: Cyprus from the Ottomans to Kissinger'', 1989 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and 1997 (Verso)

1988 ''Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question'' (contributor; co-editor with Edward Said) Verso, ISBN 0-86091-887-4 Reissued, 2001

1990 ''The Monarchy'', Chatto & Windus Ltd

1990 ''Blood, Class and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies'', Farrar Straus & Giroux (T)(June 1990)

1995 ''The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice'', Verso

1997 ''The Parthenon Marbles: The Case for Reunification'', Verso

1999 ''No One Left to Lie To: The Values of the Worst Family'', Verso

2000 ''Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere'', Verso

2001 ''The Trial of Henry Kissinger''. Verso.

2001 ''Letters to a Young Contrarian'', Basic Books

2002 ''Why Orwell Matters'' also ''Orwell's Victory'', Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-03050-5

2004 ''Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays'', Thunder's Mouth, Nation Books, ISBN 1-56025-580-3

2005 ''Thomas Jefferson: Author of America'', Eminent Lives/Atlas Books/HarperCollins Publishers, ISBN 0-06-059896-4

2007 "Thomas Paine's Rights of Man: A Biography ", Atlantic Monthly Press, ISBN 0871139553

2007 ''The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer'', [Editor] Perseus Publishing. ISBN 978-0-306-81608-6

2007 ''God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything'', Twelve/Hachette Book Group USA/Warner Books, ISBN 0-446-57980-7 / Published in the UK as ''God Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion'', Atlantic Books, ISBN 978-1-84354-586-6

2008 ''Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq and the Left'' (with Simon Cottee and Thomas Cushman), New York University Press

2008 ''Is Christianity Good for the World? — A Debate'' (co-author, with Douglas Wilson), Canon Press, ISBN 1-59128-053-2

2010 ''Hitch-22: A Memoir'', Twelve, ISBN 978-0-446-54033-9

2011 ''Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens'', Twelve. UK edition as ''Arguably: Selected Prose'', Atlantic, ISBN 1-4555-0277-4 / ISBN 978-1-4555-0277-6

References

External links

Daily Hitchens, an archive of material on or by Hitchens

in 2010

Drexel Interview (One-hour video interview) with Paula Marantz Cohen, June 2010

Christopher Hitchens collected news and commentary at ''The Boston Globe''

"Journalist Christopher Hitchens fully embraces the Bush war camp" from the World Socialist Website, October 2002

"Christopher Hitchens" feature story in ''Prospect'' magazine, May 2008

"Incendiary Author Spares No Targets" feature story in ''The New Zealand Herald'', May 2008

"Such, Such are His Joys" David Brooks assessment in ''The New York Times'', 1 July 2010

Hitchens on Dying with Cancer, video interview with ''The Atlantic'', August 2010

"Christopher Hitchens: 'You have to choose your future regrets'" ''The Guardian'', 13 November 2010

"Christopher Hitchens's Jewish Problem" feature article on ''Jewish Ideas Daily,'' 13 December 2010

A debate between Hitchens and Berlinski 2010

Outspoken and outrageous: Christopher Hitchens a 60 Minutes profile aired 6 March 2011

''Booknotes'' interview with Hitchens on ''For the Sake of Argument'', 17 October 1993.

;Articles by Hitchens

Contributor page at ''Vanity Fair''

Column archive at ''The Atlantic''

Article archive at ''The Guardian''

Hitchens articles at ''Slate''

Article archive at Journalisted

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Maryam Namazie is a human rights activist, commentator and broadcaster. Namazie has served as the executive director of the International Federation of Iranian Refugees. She is spokesperson for the One Law for All Campaign against Sharia Law in Britain. The campaign is opposed to faith based laws and promotes citizenship rights and one secular law for all. She is Spokesperson of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain which aims to break the taboo that comes with renouncing Islam and to oppose apostasy laws and political Islam. She hosts and produces a weekly TV International programme broadcast in the Middle East via New Channel TV.

Moreover, she is a National Secular Society Honorary Associate and the NSS' 2005 Secularist of the Year award winner; spokesperson of Equal Rights Now - Organisation against Women's Discrimination in Iran; Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association; Central Committee member of the Worker-communist Party of Iran and co-editor of WPI Briefing. She is involved in the Third Camp against US militarism and Islamic terrorism among other things. Her blog has been rated one of the top 100 atheist blogs and she was selected one of the top 45 women of the year 2007 by Elle magazine Quebec.

She has spoken at numerous conferences and written many articles on women's rights issues, violence against women, political Islam, and secularism - some of which have been translated into various languages.

Previously, Namazie was the elected Executive Director of the International Federation of Iranian Refugees, a refugee run organisation with 60 branches in 15 countries worldwide and founded the Committee for Humanitarian Assistance to Iranian Refugees (CHAIR).

Namazie was born in Tehran but left with her family during the 1980 Iranian revolution. Presently, she lives in the United Kingdom.

After the Muhammad cartoons controversy, she, together with 11 other activists, published a declaration named ''MANIFESTO: Together facing the new totalitarianism''. MANIFESTO portrayed the rise of Islamism as a new totalitarianism.

On 15 September 2010, Namazie, along with 54 other public figures, signed an open letter published in The Guardian, stating their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI's state visit to the UK.

See also

Criticism of Islam

References

External links

Maryam Namazie

One Law for All Campaign against Sharia Law in Britain

Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain

TV International English

Equal Rights Now

Worker-communist Party of Iran

Maryam Namazie Named “Secularist of The Year”

Profile: Maryam Namazie

Category:Living people Category:Iranian atheists Category:Atheism activists Category:Criticism of Islam Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Iranian former Muslims Category:Worker-communist Party of Iran politicians Category:Iranian women in politics

de:Maryam Namazie fa:مریم نمازی fr:Maryam Namazie pt:Maryam Namazie fi:Maryam Namazie tr:Meryem Namazie ur:مریم نمازی