Wedded Bliss?
I found this little tidbit about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (courtesy of the BBC), which put a smile on my face this morning.
“Grand mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh said forced marriage was against Islamic law and those responsible for it should be jailed. “
Now that is a turn up for the books. I could say that it is a little late and say that they have been forced to do this, but at the end of the day, at least they are now making efforts to acknowledge what Islam is really about. And seemingly KSA has a higher divorce rate than the UK…50% vs 33%!
And just to put a lighten things up a bit….Britney is expecting….
No More Shisha 
Speaking of interesting bits of news, remember the lecture on Make Poverty History that I attended? Well part of that campaign is to make trade fair. This is Make Trade Fair week, and there was a pillow fight as a demonstration in front of the Bank of England yesterday. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4436283.stm Thats the link to the coverage. Also go to http://www.maketradefair.com/en/index.htm for background on the campaign and to give the pillow fight some context.
Especially poignant given Tesco have now broken the £2bn profit record…For all you non UK readers, Tesco is a large Supermarket chain. And now they are being questioned on their trade practices, i.e. Fairtrade seems to have left the building.
Why anyone thinks this is news I have no idea – the Saudi Wahhabis have been saying that forced marriage is against Islam for years. I read material from them (on the old Essex Uni Islamic Society website) to this effect in the mid 1990s.
Could you point me to this material? Id be interested to read some more about them.
i love your blog, great !