Free Republic

Saudi scholar's fatwa wades into controversy Saudi scholar gets into trouble for saying that women could give their milk to men for maternal relations Manama: A Saudi scholar has waded into controversy after he said that women could give their milk to men to establish a degree of maternal relations and get around a strict religious ban on mixing between unrelated men and women. According to Shaikh Abdul Mohsin Al Abaican, a consultant at Saudi Arabia's royal court, a man who often entered a house and came in contact with the womenfolk there should be made symbolically related to the...

A Minnesota community college has "a Muslim place of worship" featuring "a schedule for Islam's five daily prayers," according to a local newspaper columnist who visited the campus. Tax-supported Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minn., also has a "sign requesting that shoes be removed" and a barrier that divides men's and women's "prayer spaces," writes Katherine Kersten of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. College officials denied it was anything more than a "meditation" room available for "all faiths." The description of the facility, however, led one faculty member to tell Kersten the room is "unprecedented" and "goes beyond religious toleration." "For all...

SULTANWALA, Pakistan, Nov. 22 (UPI) -- Five young Pakistani women, who were married in absentia when very young, now face abduction, rape or even death for refusing to honor the unions. An order issued by a village council in the Punjab province says any one of the punishments can be carried out. The women, all cousins, were married in absentia by a Mullah to illiterate sons of their family's enemies when the girls were between the ages of 6 and 13. The marriages were part of a compensation after the father of one of the girls shot and killed a...