Al-Jazeera

Launch

Al Jazeera Satellite Channel was launched on 1 November 1996 following the closure of the BBC's Arabic language television station, a joint venture with Orbit Communications Company, owned by Saudi King Fahd's cousin, Khalid bin Faisal Al Saud. It had fallen apart after a year and a half when the Saudi government attempted to kill a documentary on executions under sharia law.

The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa, provided a loan of QAR 500 million ($137 million) to sustain Al Jazeera through its first five years, as Hugh Miles detailed in his book Al Jazeera The Inside Story of the Arab News Channel That Is Challenging the West. Shares were held by private investors as well as the Qatar government.

Prior to Al Jazeera, even before he deposed his father the previous year, the Emir had been contemplating a satellite channel. A free press complemented his vision of the emirate as a center of commercial development and progress.

Sheikh Hamad bin Thamir Al Thani, previously Qatar's Deputy Minister of Information, was chairman of the enterprise, although Al Jazeera maintained editorial independence. It was hoped the channel would break even in five years through sales of advertising, news feeds and programs, as well as equipment rental. Much of the staff came from the 250 journalists displaced by the closure of BBC Arabic.

Al Jazeera's first day on the air was 1 November 1996. It offered 6-hours of programming per day; this would increase to 12-hours by the end of 1997. It was broadcast to the immediate neighborhood as a terrestrial signal, on cable, as well as through satellites (which was also free to users in the Arab world). Ironically Qatar, like many other Arab countries, barred private individuals from having satellite dishes until 2001.

At the time of Al Jazeera's launch, Arabsat was the only satellite broadcasting to the Middle East, and for the first year could only offer Al Jazeera a weak Ku-band transponder that needed a large satellite dish for reception. A more powerful C-band transponder became available after its user, Canal France International, accidentally beamed 30 minutes of pornography into ultraconservative Saudi Arabia.

Al Jazeera was not the first such broadcaster in the Middle East; a number had appeared since the Arabsat satellite, a Saudi Arabia-based venture of 21 Arab governments, took orbit in 1985. The unfolding of Operation Desert Storm on CNN International underscored the power of live television in current events. While other local broadcasters in the region would assiduously avoid material embarrassing to their home governments (Qatar had its own official TV station as well), Al Jazeera was pitched as an impartial news source and platform for discussing issues relating to the Arab world.

In presenting "The opinion and the other opinion" to which the Arabic script in the network's logo refers, it did not take long for Al Jazeera to shock local viewers by presenting the Israeli speaking Hebrew on Arab TV for the first time. Lively and far-ranging talk shows, particularly a popular, confrontational one called The Opposite Direction, were a constant source of controversy regarding issues of morality and religion. This prompted a torrent of criticism from the conservative voices among the region's press. It also led to official complaints and censures from neighboring governments. Some jammed Al Jazeera's terrestrial broadcast or booted its correspondents. In 1999, the Algerian government reportedly cut power to several major cities to censor one broadcast. There were also commercial repercussions; Saudi Arabia reportedly pressured advertisers to avoid the channel, to great effect. Al Jazeera was also becoming a favorite sounding board for militant groups such as Hamas and Chechen separatists.

Al Jazeera was the only international news network to have correspondents in Iraq during the Operation Desert Fox bombing campaign in 1998. In a precursor of a pattern to follow, its exclusive video clips were highly prized by Western media.

Banning Halal Meat?

Banning Halal Meat?

Muslims in the United Kingdom have a new challenge facing them. Following attempts by other European nations like France, some British politicians have called for a ban on any meat that comes from an animal which has not been stunned before slaughter. Thus, the ban affects halal (sometimes also called dhabiha or zabiha) and kosher meats.

According to supporters of the ban, the manner in which Muslims and Jews traditionally slaughter is more painful to the animal than stunning the animal first and then slaughtering it. As in the Jewish tradition, Muslims have a particular manner in which they must slaughter an animal. The animal’s throat is slit to induce quick bleeding to reduce suffering. In order to do this, Muslims are instructed to make sure that the knife is sharpened. Also, in order to be as humane as possible, the knife should not be sharpened in front of any animals and one animal should not be slaughtered in front of another.

While this ban affects both Muslims and Jews, Muslims see it as another example of the anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe. In the past few years, there have been several bans that targeted Muslim communities in particular, for example, the bans on the face veil in France, Belgium, and Italy as well as the minaret ban in Switzerland. Moreover, in the recent French elections, French Muslims were upset that Nicholas Sarkozy made the issue of halal meat a central concern.

Many Muslims would prefer to eat meat slaughtered according to Islamic law. Thus, any attempt to ban this type of meat is problematic. British Muslims are not convinced by the arguments that the Islamic means of slaughter is more inhumane than stunning and maintain that their way minimizes the pain to the animal. Whether or not these new calls for bans are another example of an anti-Muslim sentiment, they certainly make the situation more difficult for the Muslim citizens living in these countries.

What do you think of the calls for bans on halal and kosher meat? Do you think that they are meant to target Muslims? Are they an example of anti-Muslim sentiment? What do you think about the arguments for the ban? Should religious communities be prevented from preparing their meat in accordance with their religious law? Please share your comments below.

Inside Islam’s culture war

      

Inside Islam’s culture war

By David Rohde 

ISTANBUL – In a state-of-the-art television studio here, the Islamic world’s version of America’s culture war is playing out in a lavishly re-created 16th century palace.

A dashing Turkish actor plays Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman ruler who conquered vast swaths of the Middle East and Europe, granted basic rights to Christians and Jews, and promoted education, science and art.

To Turkish conservatives, the series maligns a revered ruler known as “the lawgiver” whose military prowess and legal reforms placed the Ottomans at the zenith of their power. Set in the palace harem, early episodes featured a young Suleiman cavorting with scantily clad women and drinking wine. The sex was frequent.

The show’s producers point to other themes. The dominant character is a woman, a real-life, Ukrainian slave-turned-concubine who eventually became Suleiman’s queen. And in the program, members of different faiths coexist.

“This is the most important thing of the Ottoman Empire, that allowed one family to rule for centuries,” Halit Ergenc, the actor who plays Suleiman, told me during a break in filming. “Sharing the same land with different cultures and different religions and respecting their rights.”

After its January 2011 debut, critics hurled eggs at billboards advertising the program, protested outside the production company’s office and filed more than 70,000 complaints with the Turkish government television agency. The show’s producers shortened kissing scenes and toned down certain elements.

Today, Magnificent Century is the most popular program in Turkey and one of the most popular shows in the Middle East. Aired in 45 countries, it is the latest Turkish soap opera to take the region by storm. And according to Turkish academics, the programs are subtly changing cultural norms.

“Somehow, in those serials, you have a very balanced adjustment,” said Aydin Ugur, a professor of sociology at Istanbul Bilgi University. “Women are modern, but they are not degenerate.”

What may someday be known as the Islamic world’s accidental cultural revolution began in 2006. A Saudi-owned, Arabic-language satellite television channel, MBC, bought the rights to a Turkish soap opera about a young woman named Gumus who marries into a wealthy family.

Dubbed into colloquial Arabic, censored of its raciest scenes and renamed Noor, the series was a phenomenal hit. Unlike Western soap operas, it focused on an extended family, a strong tradition in Turkey and the region. In 2008, the show’s final episode drew an estimated 85 million viewers over the age of 15, according to MBC, including 50 million women, a figure that represents more than half the adult women in the Arab world.

Like Magnificent Century, the show violated conservative cultural norms. Some Muslim characters drank wine with dinner and engaged in premarital sex. In one case, a character had an abortion. The lead male character, Muhannad, was the show’s handsome hero. A loving, attentive and loyal husband, he supported his wife’s career as a fashion designer and treated her as an equal. Their successful marriage — which combined traditional loyalty and modern independence — was both popular among women and groundbreaking. Some Arabic-language newspapers reported that arguments and even divorces occurred in several countries as a result.

In Saudi Arabia, conservative Islamic clerics issued Limbaugh-like denunciations. They declared the show “wicked and evil” and a “secular Turkish assault on Saudi society.” They issued fatwas against watching it and forbade people from praying in T-shirts that depicted the show’s two stars. The head of a Saudi religious council said the owner of MBC should be tried and potentially executed for airing indecent material.

Since then, Turkish soap operas have grown even more popular and received glowing coverage from Arab and Western journalists. Beyond breaking cultural taboos, the shows display something else: Turkey’s rapid economic growth. Today, the country boasts one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. In its soap operas, Turkey is modern, Muslim and prosperous at the same time.

The soap opera about Suleiman is the most expensive television program in Turkish history. Roughly $500,000 is spent per episode, twice the amount of other serials. The show’s launch party was held in Cannes, France. Its elaborate, 15-room re-creation of Istanbul’s Topkapi Palace has real marble floors, handcrafted woodwork and a mock European throne room. Actors wear exquisite silk and velvet gowns crafted by a leading Turkish costume designer. And the series is directed by Durul and Yagmur Taylan, two siblings known as the Coen Brothers of Turkey.

“It’s never been done before,” Durul Taylan told me during a tour of the studio. “Not in this way.”

The program, as well as Turkey’s economic growth, has generated “Ottomania,” an interest among prosperous young Turks in the country’s past glories.

Beyond its onscreen success, though, deep divisions exist in Turkey. As the country grows, two contradictory Turkeys are emerging. One is a prosperous, modern nation that is an economic model for the Middle East. The other is a popular but increasingly repressive elected government that appears intolerant of dissent.

Far from soap opera sets, the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has jailed thousands of Turkish military officers, businessmen, academics and perceived opponents on charges of plotting coups. Some of the charges appear legitimate. Others are dubious. In December, Turkish police arrested 29 journalists in a series of countrywide raids broadly viewed as an effort to intimidate critics.

When Magnificent Century debuted, Erdogan, whose conservative AKP party has its roots in political Islam, was among the critics. He called the series “an attempt to insult our past, to treat our history with disrespect and an effort to show our history in a negative light to the younger generations.”

In interviews, the show’s directors and actors insisted the show was apolitical. “There is no political message or any other cultural message,” said Ergenc, the actor who plays Suleiman. “This is a TV series. It is a soap opera.”

Intentionally or not, the makers of Turkey’s soap operas are creating new roles, new heroes and new cultural norms in a rapidly changing region. I applaud them.

Over many years of reporting, I have heard a consistent message from moderate Muslims. They said they were interested in a “third way” where they could be both Muslim and modern. They did not want to become completely Western nor did they want be ruled by xenophobic fundamentalists. Turkish soap operas are an example of that third way.

Link : http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/2012/03/08/inside-islams-culture-war/

Inside Islam

Inside Islam is a History Channel documentary talking about the history of Islam. It shows Islam as a peaceful religion with several similarities to Judaism and Christianity and that some people fear Islam because of the extremists who claim to act in the name of Islam. They show the Radical Islamists as just such extremists. It talks about the days of Muhammad and his clashes with his tribe that disapproved of his monotheistic religion to their empires to the nation of Islam and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

It is also played on Wealth TV.