Jordanian King Urges Tolerance, Rejection of Islamic Extremists - (08.12.2002)

Encouraging news in case of Jordanian widow- (17.06.2002)

Jordanian Christian widow loses custody of her children- (08.04.2002)

Jordanian King Urges Tolerance, Rejection of Islamic Extremists

Voice of America (08.12.2002)/ HRWF Int. (19.12.2002) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - Jordan's King Abdullah has called on Muslims around the world to embrace tolerance of all faiths and reject Islamic extremists.

In a letter marking the end of the Muslim holy month Ramadan printed in Saturday'sWashington Post, the leader of the Hashemite kingdom said that the true voice of Islam is not one that Americans always hear.

King Abdullah also said it is wrong to label those who promote hatred in the name of Allah as Islamic fundamentalists. He said the fundamental message of Islam is to live and work for justice and promote tolerance.

The Jordanian monarch said religious totalitarians who carry out and defend acts of intimidation and violence are practicing power politics, not faith. He also said violent acts do not constitute "jihad," or holy war, because the Prophet Muhammad taught that the greater struggle was against one's own ego and shortcomings.

King Abdullah also pointed out that Islamic extremists are only a tiny minority of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims. He also urged Muslims to express their outrage over those who would exploit the religion to sanction the killing of innocents.

Back to the Table of Contents

Encouraging news in case of Jordanian widow

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (13.06.2002)/ HRWF International Secretariat (17.06.2002) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - E-mail info@hrwf.net - Mrs. Siham Qandah, a Jordanian Christian who was ordered by Jordan's Supreme Court to surrender custody of her children to a Muslim guardian after the death of her husband in 1994, hopes international pressure will help her get them back as soon as possible.

Qandah was ordered to surrender custody of her 12-year-old son, Fadi Husam Rasmi Jabrin, and her 13-year-old daughter, Rawan Husam Rasmi Jabrin, to her Muslim brother, whom the children have met only once, after a local court infomed her that her husband had converted to Islam prior to his death in 1994.

Following publication of her story in Christian Solidarity Worldwide's Response magazine as well as in other international media, Qandah received a summons from the Jordanian Intelligence Service (JIS) on the evening of May 20th to appear before them the morning after.

On Tuesday morning, she was interviewed by an officer in the JIS office in Irbid. The officer told her that due to the international attention her case had received, he had been appointed to look into her situation and to try to help her. He asked her to explain her situation in full. She then gave her story in detail and explained her requests to the officer, which were as follows :

1. To gain custody of her children ;

2. To be able to raise them as Christians (as according to the children's wishes) ;

3. To be able to receive the monthly widow's pension from the Jordanian army that she is entitled to, because she has no other income.

The officer promised her that he would do what he could to arrange these three things for her.

Siham Qandah and those closely involved with her case have viewed this as a very positive development. Qandah has felt sufficiently secure to come out of hiding and return to her home in Husn.

However, to date she has not received any of the three requests, so the children are not yet legally in her custody.

Further details, including a photo of the family, can be found at http://www.csw.org.uk/Latestnews.asp?item=277.

Back to the Table of Contents

Jordanian Christian widow loses custody of her children

Case Hinged on Husband's Alleged Conversion to Islam

by Barbara G. Baker

Compass (04.04.2002)/HRWF International Secretariat (08.04..2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - An Arab Christian mother widowed seven years ago has been ordered by Jordan's highest court of appeals to surrender custody of her two minor children to be raised as Muslims.

Siham Suleiman Moussa Qandah's final appeal to the Court of Cassation was rejected on February 28. Her 13-year-old daughter Rawan and 12-year-old son Fadi could be taken at any time from their home in Husn, 50 miles north of Amman.

Written notification of the ruling arrived four days ago at the court where the case originated, empowering local authorities to immediately transfer Rawan and Fadi to the guardianship of a Muslim sheikh (mosque prayer leader) who is Qandah's blood relative. The two have only seen their Muslim uncle once, years ago, and have never met his wife and children.

The "compelling evidence" presented by a local Muslim court to the Irbid Civil Court of First Instance which first heard the case was a document dated three years before Qandah's husband died, declaring that he had secretly converted to Islam. Under Islamic law, if a father converts to Islam, his minor children automatically become Muslims.

Dated July 29, 1991, the document was signed by two Muslim witnesses. But except for a simple scrawled "X," it does not carry the signature of Qandah's husband, Hussam Rasmi Issa Jibreen. Qandah told Compass that Jibreen never once indicated to her or any of their relatives that he had made such a decision, and that he even returned from army duty abroad to attend the baptism of his second child.

"His funeral was in the church, and he was buried in Husn's Christian graveyard," she said. "How is it possible that he was deceiving us for three years?" A soldier in the Jordanian army, Jibreen died in November 1994, just weeks before he was due to return from serving in the U.N. Peacekeeping Forces in Kosovo.

The Irbid court acknowledged in its ruling that "no one was aware of his conversion to Islam" in Husn, and that he was given a Christian burial and death certificate by St. George's Orthodox Church.

But when his widow went some weeks later to apply through Jordanian's civil courts for legal transfer of her husband's army benefits for herself and the children, the local sharia court stopped the process, stating that Jibreen was a Muslim, not a Christian. His conversion also made his children Muslims, the Islamic court declared, so his children could only receive his inheritance through a court-designated Muslim guardian.

Shocked, Qandah turned to her family for advice. The youngest in an Arab Christian family of seven brothers and three sisters, Qandah attends the Husn Baptist Church where two of her brothers are also members. But they have one brother who became a Muslim as a teenager, in order to meet the legal requirements to marry a certain Muslim girl.

"He was following his heart," recalled his sister. "But when the girl's father rejected his proposal, then it was too late, and he couldn't change back." Like most Muslim nations, Jordan allows its Christian citizens to convert legally to Islam, but Muslims cannot change their religious identity, which is considered an act of apostasy.

Under the common interpretation of Islamic law, anyone who recites the Muslim creed has automatically converted to Islam, even if the words are repeated in jest, and once said they cannot be revoked. So Qandah was advised that under Jordanian law, it was hopeless to contest her husband's "conversion" certificate filed in the Islamic court.

But rather than accept a court-appointed Muslim guardian for her children, Qandah decided to ask her brother who had converted to Islam to become their legal guardian. Long estranged from his family after joining the Muslim community, her brother had taken the name Abdullah al-Muhtadi (the converted one). By then married with several children, he had become a bearded Muslim sheikh (mosque prayer leader).

"He is our blood brother, and we thought this would satisfy the legal requirements for a Muslim guardian," Qandah said. But a few months after her brother agreed to be appointed by the court, in April 1995, she began to regret her decision.

Although Al-Muhtadi received the regular monthly stipends to which Qandah and her children were entitled, he only forwarded the money to her sporadically over the next two years.

Then, he began to object that the children were studying at Husn's Roman Catholic School, where he learned they were registered as Christians and attending Christian religious instruction, rather than the Islamic classes required for Muslim students. Demanding that they be transferred to a local Muslim school and take Muslim instruction, Al-Muhtadi opened a case in May 1998, requesting full custody of the children.

Throughout the three-year civil court battle which followed, Qandah said her Muslim defense lawyer assured her that she was sure to win permanent custody of her children.

Under Jordan's dual judicial system, the jurisdiction of religious courts (sharia for Muslims and ecclesiastical for Christians) is distinct from the civil courts. But inexplicably, the Orthodox Ecclesiastical Court refused to comment on Qandah's predicament, issuing a decision on May 5, 2001, to negate its previous decisions on the case and refer jurisdiction in the matter to the sharia court.

Six weeks later, the Irbid Civil Court of First Instance ruled that custody of Qandah's children be handed over to their Muslim uncle.

Dated on June 21, 2001, the judgment faulted Qandah for enrolling her children in Christian religious classes at school and taking them to church services with her. In so doing, the decision said, she was "trying to change their religion" and "insisting that her children are Christian," whereas by law they are Muslim.

"The defendant's actions are legal enough reason to devolve her custody, for fear that the youngsters may embrace other than the Islamic religion," the ruling stated.

Seven months later, the Irbid Court of Appeals cited Article 155 of Jordan's Personal Status Law as a basis for upholding the lower court's decision, noting a woman guardian was required to be "of age, mature, sane, and reliable." Although it was a mother's legal right to raise her children, the January 22 decision noted, Qandah had proved herself "unfit to be a custodian of her children" by "distancing them from Islamic rituals and doctrine."

"Her registering them in a Christian school and her insistence to teach them Christian education and accompanying them to church is contrary to what trustworthiness and reliability means," the court stated.

In the final judicial appeal heard February 28, the Court of Cassation in Amman ratified the two previous rulings, ordering Qandah to surrender Rawan and Fadi to their Muslim guardian. After reviewing the entire case file last week, one Amman lawyer declared it had been "very badly mishandled" by the defense counsel, who simply repeated his original arguments in the subsequent appeal hearings.

"But the case is finished," he said. Despite some "gaps in the legal process" which could have been addressed earlier, he said, "No legal action is possible now." It has also been confirmed that the names of both children are blacklisted on immigration computers, forbidding them to leave the country.

In the weeks following, Qandah has appealed to Jordan's top judicial experts and religious leaders, both Muslim and Christian, seeking a solution to her dilemma. Her choices, she was told, were two: "Either become a Muslim yourself, or leave the country."

Fighting back weary tears, the 36-year-old mother told Compass she could no more deny her Christian faith than abandon her children. "Both are unthinkable," she said.

Back to the Table of Contents