Heroic, Female and Muslim

[shireen]

Source: New York Times

What’s the ugliest side of Islam? Maybe it’s the Somali Muslim militias that engage in atrocities like the execution of a 13-year-old girl named Aisha Ibrahim. Three men raped Aisha, and when she reported the crime she was charged with illicit sex, half-buried in the ground before a crowd of 1,000 and then stoned to death.

That’s the extremist side of Islam that drives Islamophobia in the United States, including Congressional hearings on American Muslims that House Republicans are planning for next year.

But there’s another side of Islam as well, represented by an extraordinary Somali Muslim woman named Dr. Hawa Abdi who has confronted the armed militias. Amazingly, she forced them to back down — and even submit a written apology. Glamour magazine, which named Dr. Hawa a “woman of the year,” got it exactly right when it called her “equal parts Mother Teresa and Rambo.”

Dr. Hawa, a 63-year-old ob-gyn who earned a law degree on the side, is visiting the United States to raise money for her health work back home. A member of Somalia’s elite, she founded a one-room clinic in 1983, but then the Somalian government collapsed, famine struck, and aid groups fled. So today Dr. Hawa is running a 400-bed hospital.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/opinion/16kristof.html

[left coaster]

1. Dr. Hawa.. HUMAN BEING of the year!

Thanks for sharing this story, shireen. :)

[Hell Hath No Fury]

2. Kick ass, Doc!

:applause:

[phasma ex machina]

3. Given NYT comments about Christians it seems fair to ask if Dr Hawa provides any medical treatment

to Somali Christians? How do Hawa and other Muslim elites treat Somali Christians who comprise the poorest, most powerless class in Somalia?

[shireen]

4. google 'Somali Christians'

I did. From what i've read, there are estimated to be about 1,000 Christians in a country of 8 million. Because of persecution, Christians generally do not identify themselves publicly.

I doubt if Dr. Hawa and her staff would know if they were treating Christians.

Dr. Hawa may have been born into Muslim elite society, but she's not one anymore. I doubt if there are any Muslim elite any left in Somalia.