REFORM ISLAM 101.

The Islamic Enemy At Work.

2006-11-15T19:12:00.000+11:00

14 November, 2006
PAKISTAN
Christians to come under Sharia law in North-West Frontier Province
The NWFP’s provincial assembly for a second time adopts the Hasba bill which would place everyone under the watchful eye of the Sharia. The central government has objections and Christians are against it. It will lead to anarchy and religious minorities and women will be its first victims.
Islamabad (AsiaNews) – The government of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), a Pakistani province that borders on Afghanistan, is trying once more to impose a Taliban-like law on its citizens, but is facing opposition from the central government and the country’s religious minorities.
Federal Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani said today he would examine the proposed Hasba (Hisba) bill and if it failed to meet constitutional standards it would be sent to the Supreme Court.
Pakistan’s Christians are warning for their part that such a law runs the risk of “talebanising” the province, something that is a threat to the local population.
The NWFP Assembly, led by a Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (a coalition of six Islamist parties), tried in July 2005 to adopt a first draft of the bill. Under the new legislation the office of
Muhtasib would be established; he would be the guardian of private morals and people’s adherence to Islamic principles and respect for Sharia law. But in September Pakistan’s Supreme Court ruled that the bill was “unconstitutional and discriminatory”.
Yesterday, the NWFP Assembly tabled an amended version of the bill whose changes, according to the local government, take into accounts the court’s objections.
Many however continue to fear that the risk for discrimination and abuses is still very high.
Minister Durrani noted that the ‘Hasba Act’ had nothing to do with religion but was “aimed at providing benefits to workers of the alliance before the [2008] general elections by spending Rs 8 billion on the structure needed to enforce it.”
For Shahbaz Bhatti, chairman of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, the Hasba bill is like “a sword hanging over religious minorities and women since they will be prime target of extremists.”
In a press release, Mr Bhatti added that the “"Hasba Bill is unconstitutional, a religious marshal law, and a parallel legal system that will spread anarchy and chaos in society and will deprive the general public of their rights and liberty. The provincial government will be able to use this bill to victimise its political opponents”.
In his view, “the Hasba bill is a conspiracy against the integrity of the country and the solidarity [of its people]. It hampers the efforts to promote interfaith harmony, a democratic culture and an enlightened and moderate image of the country.”

A Big Reason There Is No Peace.

2006-11-13T20:02:00.000+11:00

Note: Muslims are not the only people who steal. However, the level of theft by muslims and their friends, in Palestine is so overwhelming that iy actually undermines any serious moves to peace. The current situation is so profitable to so amny people, why change it?

Read and think of the people who lose out in this crime...

Gaza Stripped
Whatever happened to Arafat's billions?
By Joseph Braude

HUSTLE & PLO Arafat makes a withdrawal from the West Bank November 11 marks two years since the death of PLO chief Yasir Arafat—but don't count on most Palestinians to mourn his memory.

On a good day in Gaza City, only 40 percent of the last night's sewage gets dumped into public beaches along the Mediterranean coast, where gaunt Palestinian kids build sand castles out of thick brown sludge. One and a half million Gazans, mostly children, live overwhelmingly in poverty amid a gutted infrastructure and a dysfunctional democracy. Meanwhile, the First Lady of Palestine, Yasir Arafat's widow Suha, has been living large in Paris, among other places, at the palatial Hotel Le Bristol. She and her baby daughter left Gaza for France in 2000, during the second intifada and Israel's reoccupation of Palestinian lands—and reportedly occupied an entire floor of the five-star hotel, at approximately $16,000 per night.

"Our economy has been deteriorating ever since Arafat came on the scene in '94," says Ramallah-based Bir Zeit University professor Mudar Kassis. "People had been waiting for something to happen that would improve the daily life of the Palestinians. Instead, the suffering has mounted, and the highest GNP per capita in our history still dates back to 1991."

Israeli and American intelligence officials say Suha Arafat's Paris hotel bill would be little more than chump change for the glitzy heiress, whose late husband might just have been the most flagrant embezzler of public funds since Louis XVI. During Arafat's rule, the United States, World Bank, European Union, and Arab governments poured $7 billion into the Palestinian Authority to try and help forge a viable Arab-Israeli peace. As much as half that sum is reported to have gone AWOL, with only a small fraction recovered to date. And Suha has proved to be only one of several big-time beneficiaries.

SUITE LIFE Hotel Le Bristol, where Suha stays when visiting Paris"There was never a complete public reckoning of corruption during the Arafat years," says Kassis, who teaches philosophy at Bir Zeit and heads the university's institute of law. "Now the Palestinians have lost so many assets ... that compared to the loss of life and land, it seems negligible." Kassis nonetheless calls for heeding the lessons of Palestine's first autonomous decade, lest history repeat itself. Which it already has: The flagrant corruption that marked the U.S.-led nation-building project in Iraq was underscored last year when a U.S.-appointed Iraqi defense minister and his procurement chief allegedly stole hundreds of millions in public funds.

Two years after Arafat's funeral, an international scavenger hunt continues for the revolutionary leader's far-flung riches. A motley assortment of investigators ranging from Israel's security establishment to the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which now rules in Ramallah, maintain an ongoing interest in every lost stash. "The only man who knows the whole story is dead," says a senior Israeli military intelligence official who agreed to answer questions on condition of anonymity. "But the deeper you go into it, the more it stinks."

Arafat's money trail leads far beyond the smelly sands of Gaza Beach, to a rainbow coalition of shady figures—Jewish, Christian, and Muslim—and as far west as New York's Greenwich Village, where the militant chieftain once secretly bought a stake in Bowlmor Lanes, a trendy bowling alley. You might say the closest the world ever came, in fact, to harmony and peace between all three monotheistic faiths was in the sleazy international campaign to siphon off Palestinian grant aid. It may be too early still to tell the full Where's Waldo–like tale of where the cash went. But several all-stars of Arafat's money laundering network have come to light—and the legacy of their greed still has grave repercussions across the Middle East.

Arafat's lifetime of grubbing for cash on behalf of the Palestinians dates back to his young adulthood in Cairo, where he was born shortly before the American stock market crash of 1929. Few had heard of the Palestinian cause back then, and there were no blue-and-white pushke boxes accepting pocket change for it. But longtime PLO stalwart Nabil Shaath remembers watching, as a 13-year-old, the young revolutionary hit up his father for a cash donation. Shaath told Atlantic Monthly correspondent David Samuels he immediately recognized the future president of Palestine. Arafat's sister Inam, moreover, recalls the cash-flush teen's leadership style during the same period: "He formed [the neighborhood kids] into groups and made them march and drill," she told Arafat's biographer. "He carried a stick to beat those who did not obey his commands. He also liked making camps in the garden of our house."

These two remembrances pretty much say it all about Arafat's lifelong financial strategy and management approach: He leveraged his relationship with authority figures to bankroll his movement, then took that leverage and beat Palestinians over the head with it.

YOUNG GUN Arafat in Lebanon, circa 1983He would not, however, go the way of other third-world dictators and settle into luxury living. "He controlled the money," recalls Eran Lerman, a retired Israeli military intelligence colonel who now heads the American Jewish Committee's Jerusalem office, "but he hardly ever used it for his own purposes. Most of it was a political tool—to ensure that no single faction of the Palestinians dominated." Follow the guerrilla leader's 50-year career through civil war in Jordan, civil war in Lebanon, R&R in Tunis, and total war in Palestine, and most eyewitness accounts of the PLO chief at bedtime indicate he went to sleep on a creaky cot.

The same may not be said of his close aides and confidantes, many of whom enjoyed opulent lifestyles as a reward for their loyalty to Arafat. "He was a connoisseur of power," writes David Samuels, "who used the money that he stole to buy influence, to provoke or defuse conspiracies, to pay gunmen, and to collect hangers-on the way other men collect stamps or butterflies."

Over a year after Arafat's death—when the Islamist terror group Hamas swept the Palestinian Authority elections on an anti-corruption platform—some of these "butterflies" tried to fly the coop, with wads of cash tucked under their clothes. According to the pro-Palestinian London daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Hamas intercepted a former PA finance ministry chief, Ali al-Ramlawi, attempting to smuggle millions of dollars in greenbacks into Jordan. More than 30 other PLO seniors were subsequently caught fleeing town and jailed, according to Hamas sources. Their confiscated moneybags, says the senior Israeli intelligence official, proved an early boon to the nascent Hamas-controlled treasury.

But these local cronies were just small potatoes. Incessant infighting among Palestinian elites, so common in patriarchal societies, meant that Arafat would often prefer to pick outsiders—even sworn enemies of the Palestinian people—to handle his most sensitive, high-stakes finance jobs. Consider Arafat's long-time Lebanese Christian aide and confidante, Pierre Rizk. Given the 1982 massacre of several thousand Palestinian refugees by Maronite Christians in south Lebanon, it might seem odd to picture Arafat relying for help on a Maronite militia leader. But in fact Rizk, the former intelligence chief for the Christian "Phalangist" paramilitary during the infamous Sabra and Chatila massacres, served Arafat for a decade and a half as a confidante and bag man—allegedly pocketing millions.

CHAIRMAN OF THE HOARD Yasir with his wife, Suha, less than two weeks before his deathAs Arafat lay dying at Percy Hospital in Paris, Rizk reportedly negotiated with the PLO on behalf of Arafat's widow Suha for a $20 million cash payment and an ongoing monthly allowance. He helped Suha shrewdly leverage her power of attorney and next-of-kin access to the ailing leader's hospital bedside. The rumor has also been widely reported that Rizk and Suha became lovers.

"It wouldn't surprise me," says fellow Maronite Ziad Abdel Nour, who heads the U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon. "Pierre Rizk has zero principles whatsoever. He will cheat, lie, kill—whatever needs to be done."

"Where does this guy live?" I ask.

"Are you kidding? A guy like that doesn't live anywhere."

Suha, for her part, has relocated to Tunis, where she enjoys the protection of head of state Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. "She stays out of politics," says Muhammad Abdullah Amireh, a family friend and confidante based in Nablus, reached by phone. "Her whole life is focused on her daughter Zahwa," Amireh said, "who now attends a top preparatory school in Tunis with the elites of the country." She had sparked controversy in 2002 for asserting that if she had a son, there would be "no greater honor" than his martyrdom for the Palestinian cause. But the outspoken first lady has not returned to the Palestinian territories since her departure in 2000.

Amireh added that the Arafat widow periodically returns to Paris to see family and friends and go shopping. European press reports assert that she manifests a preference for haute couture designer Louis Féraud and upscale shoemaker Christian Louboutin. Via Amireh, Mrs. Arafat declined an interview, citing her hectic schedule.

The Arafats' monied inner circle, which welcomed Lebanese Maronite Christian Pierre Rizk, also found room for some Israelis and Jews. Together with Arafat senior advisor Muhammad Rashid—by birth an Iraqi Kurd—the Palestinian leader tapped two ex-Israeli security officials to open doors for PLO money in elite Swiss banks, beginning around 1997. What has become known in the Hebrew press as the "Ginnosar Affair"—named after one of Arafat's Israeli business partners, ex-spook Yossi Ginnosar—sent shock waves through the Jewish state and Zionist diaspora. It wasn't just the enormity of the sums these erstwhile enemies were embezzling together while the peace process tanked—though $340 million is a lot of hummus—the alleged involvement of some senior members of the American Jewish peace camp in Arafat's corruption also cast a shadow on their efforts to help broker peace.

Take Stephen P. Cohen, a prominent Jewish freelance diplomat who spent much of the '90s jet setting between Israel and Arab capitals, often backed by Slimfast diet tycoon S. Daniel Abraham. A seasoned Israeli investigative journalist accused him in 2002 of having profited from business dealings with Ginnosar and Arafat. No evidence was offered to suggest that Cohen had behaved unlawfully—nor does he appear to have been as deeply involved with Arafat as Israel's Ginnosar, let alone PLO bagman Mohammed Rashid. Cohen's nuanced response to the accusation, however, seemed to raise more questions than it answered. "Cooperative business was not my primary focus," he explained, "but it was perfectly consistent with my attempts to bridge the societies." According to retired military intelligence colonel Lerman, the scandal only further detracted from Cohen's standing in Israeli political circles amid the demise of the peace process: "As the Oslo process collapsed," he observes, "many of the people who were Jewish go-betweens—Cohen, Abraham, and others—have lost their luster here."

BOWLING FOR PALESTINE The Arafat–Bowlmor connection. Meanwhile in New York City, the shiny black bowling balls of Bowlmor Lanes in Greenwich Village bare rumbling witness to the long, strong arm of Arafat. Flush with cash during the bloody Palestinian intifada of 2000–2004, Arafat's Kurdish finance chief, Mohammed Rashid, deputized Palestinian American Zeid Masri to pour $1.3 million of Palestinian Authority largesse into the bowling alley's parent company, Strike Holdings LLC. A McLean, Virginia–based private equity fund controlled by Masri, SilverHaze Partners LLC, fronted the transaction.

After a US–mandated Standard & Poor's audit of the PA's investment arm exposed the wacky dealings in 2004, Strike CEO Thomas Shannon took immediate steps to return the funds. "The information was never disclosed to us previously," he told a reporter. "[H]ad we known the source of these funds, which represent approximately two percent of our company's equity, we would never have accepted them." How many strikes at Bowlmor Lanes inadvertently fed into Arafat's coffers, the world may never know. Tragically, it's a safe bet that none of the proceeds reached Palestinian 13-year-olds on the sludgy shores of Gaza Beach.

Comment: What comment could possibly do justice to this terrible and true story?

Reactions To Jack Straw.

2006-11-10T20:26:00.000+11:00

Note: The senior British politician Jack Straw called on Muslims to modernise their behaviour and presentation. there was great uproar from the pre modern muslim element in Britain. But the press supported him. They had some interesting comments.

Read and think O'Muslims...

The last Straw
America Alone, although written with Mark Steyn’s inimitable verbal energy and wit, makes for grim reading. We do not know which is more minatory, the explosion of radical Islam or the West’s supine response to its depredations. It is cheering to report, then, that Europe may finally be rousing itself from its multicultural torpor. Consider the situation in England. England has been as accommodating to Muslim sensitivities as any country, but there are signs that this may be changing. A few weeks ago, the former foreign secretary Jack Straw, Member of Parliament for Blackburn, said that he would prefer that women not come to his surgery wearing a veil. The veil was a “visible statement of separation and difference,” and he felt “uncomfortable” talking to someone whose face he could not see.

Well, there was the usual eruption of mutli-culti indignation in the “Muslim community.” But what was a refreshing change was the response in the media. “Mr. Straw is to be commended for brushing aside the politically correct nostrums that have inhibited such discussion among senior politicians,” wrote one editorialist, while Patience Wheatcroft, writing in The Daily Telegraph, weighed in with a rousing essay under the headline “Multiculturalism hasn’t worked: let’s rediscover Britishness”:

The tyranny of political correctness has for years suppressed the qualms that many Britons have had about what was happening to their country. Radical imams were allowed to preach hatred while being funded with state benefits, but few dared to question such madness, let alone act against it. The doctrine of multiculturalism dictated that all beliefs should be allowed to flourish, and to challenge that view was as politically incorrect as … suggesting that two married parents usually provide the best start in life for a child.
Gradually, however, people are gaining the courage to defy the diktats of political correctness and to question the assumptions of what should be acceptable in Britain today.

Jack Straw’s comments were a galvanizing event, but the concern seems to go far beyond that episode. The Financial Times, for example, reports that there are plans afoot to “rebalance” the official funding of Muslim groups, favoring “those that publicly oppose extremism and endorse ‘shared values.’” The burden of the FT’s piece was to say that any such effort “could trigger legal challenges,” but the heartening thing is that such initiatives are underway in the first place.

Even the Church of England, a notably invertebrate entity of late, has shown some signs of abandoning its accustomed recumbancy. “The Church of England has launched an astonishing attack on the Government’s drive to turn Britain into a multi-faith society,” we read in The Sunday Telegraph last month. “In a wide-ranging condemnation of policy, it says that the attempt to make minority ‘faith’ communities more integrated has backfired, leaving society ‘more separated than ever before.’”

The criticisms are made in a confidential Church document … that challenges the “widespread description” of Britain as a multi-faith society and even calls for the term “multi-faith” to be reconsidered… . It claims that divisions between communities have been deepened by the Government’s “schizophrenic” approach to tackling multiculturalism. While trying to encourage interfaith relations, it has actually given “privileged attention” to the Islamic faith and Muslim communities… . One bishop said it was the first time the Church had launched such a defence of the country’s Christian heritage.
It is too early to say whether such evidences of life are too late—whether, that is to say, the processes Mark Steyn anatomizes in America Alone have rendered any such objections moot. Still, it’s been a long time since a mainstream British institution stood up for Britishness, let alone the Church of England defending England’s “Christian heritage.”

Comment: Clearly reformed Islam will need the local muslims to cast off all the nonsense about clothes and hair and masks and 'respect' and 'modesty' and all the rubbish from the desert that they have brought with them. Modern society has plenty of respect and modesty. Islamic sex hysteria pretending to be 'respect' and 'modesty' is of no use in Australia.

Government programs in Australia must channel money to the reformers and actively work against the efforts of the muslim anti modernists. This struggle is not a University debate; it is a fight for the inclusion into Australia of those muslims who want to be Australians and a fight to exclude the enemies of Australia from this country.

All muslims need to remember that no country has to allow sedition in its land; nor does freedom in Australia mean freedom to attack Australia. The sooner the Jack Straw view of muslim development is picked up by the muslims,both in Britain and in Australia, the better off the muslims will be.

Real Religion At Work.

2006-11-08T20:05:00.000+11:00

Note: Muslim readers should pay close attention to this article: it shows what real religion actually is. Readers will note the absence of any calls for revenge; the absence of 'honor' killings of girls; the absence of guns and the strong presence of modern educational facilities open to all. This is real religion at work...muslims will not see this sort of thing in muslim circles.

Read and ask yourself why muslims never have these kinds of organisations...

7 November, 2006
PHILIPPINES
Mindanao: Notre Dame Oblates mark 50 years “serving Christians and Muslims”
by Santosh Digal

The congregation was set up by two missionaries of Mary Immaculate with the aim of supporting education in the archipelago, torn apart by years of separatist struggle. With time, peace and interfaith dialogue became the foremost mission of these sisters.

Cotabato (AsiaNews) – Despite myriad troubles experienced over the years, the Oblates of Notre Dame “are happy to serve both Muslims and Christians in Mindanao”, where they are “joyfully celebrating” their Golden Jubilee. Mindanao is an archipelago in the southern Philippines that has been torn apart by clashes between the army and Islamic separatists for more than 50 years.

During festivities marking the anniversary, under way in Cotabato, Sr Rose Susan Montejo, Mother General of the congregation, said: “These 50 long years have been trying at times but very fruitful. We can say that during the tormented times of Mindanao, we managed to perform our work, serving the poor and promoting peace.”

One of the most significant works undertaken by the sisters involves the formation of basic ecclesial communities, which “seek to attend to the needs of farmers, fisher folk, ‘lumados’ (indigenous peoples) and other marginalized groups”.

The sisters are also in the forefront of peace-building projects reaching out to local Muslims and Christians, as well as youth education and local health services. “Although we are not many, our efforts go ahead,” said Fr Montejo.

The congregation was founded in the early fifties by two Oblates of Mary Immaculate. These priests were sent to the southern Philippines, where they started literacy projects for local youth, setting up a chain of schools called Notre Dame.

One of the priests, Fr George Dion, contacted two retired teachers working as spiritual counsellors in the area and suggested the establishment of an institute of lay consecrated people to help educate Mindanao’s youth: the two accepted to help him and the new institution was set up with the blessing of the then-bishop of Cotabato, Mgr Gerard Mongeau.

Dion, who would later become bishop of Jolo, is considered to be the founder, while Mgr Mongeau, later archbishop, is the canonical founder. On 10 November 1956, the first woman arrived: Sr Estrella Adre. This event marked the official birth of the institute.

At the time, the institute had mostly lay people who took temporary vows but shortly afterward, many consecrated themselves to religious life, taking perennial vows.

The early work of the Oblate sisters was focused on parish catechism, but they soon threw themselves into social services too, like education and local administration programmes, the formation of diocesan catechists and ministry among the indigenous peoples and women of Mindanao.

Sr Montejo said: “With the advent of liberation theology in the 1970s, we launched a foundation aimed at supporting initiatives of inter-religious dialogue and peace between Christians and Muslims. With time, this became our main mission.”

From the archipelago, the sisters branched out elsewhere in the Philippines and later to Papua New Guinea and the United States. Even throughout the long and bitter war, the sisters remained on the frontline, alongside the missionaries of Mary Immaculate, seeking to help the needy, both Christians and Muslims.

Today, the Congregation counts 168 sisters: gathered in Cotabato, the sisters are “recalling the past and planning for the future. We are happy that we have helped many young worthy women to become sisters to help those in need.”

Comment: The good work done by these religious sisters should be financially supported by the Australian government. Our foreign aid should try and get assistance to the most basic level possible. These sisters are working at that level.

No Coercion In Religion?

2006-11-07T10:29:00.000+11:00

Muslim propagandists make a big show about the Koran saying that there shal be no coercion in religion. Observably, the real muslims in the mosques do not believe this. Imams and mullahs do not preach this. Muslims who leave Islam do so at the threat of their lives. The innate violence of Islam is very real and easily uncovered.

Read a current example here...

MALAYSIA
Church besieged after false rumours about Muslim baptisms
by Joseph Masilamany

A protest by hundreds of Muslims ended without any harm done. The Muslims were convinced that a group of Muslims was being baptized. The police and Religious Affairs Department have announced they will investigate the matter.

Kuala Lumpur (AsiaNews) – A Muslim protest outside the Catholic Church of Our Lady of Lourdes in Ipoh, 220km north of Kuala Lumpur, luckily ended without any harm done. The protest was prompted by false rumours about a baptism ceremony of a group of Muslims.

Yesterday, as a first Holy Communion service for 110 Catholic children was under way, 300 Muslims mounted a protest outside the church, instigated by SMS messages claiming that a group of Muslims was to be baptized there.

Despite the tense situation outside the church compound, the congregation of about 1,000 parishioners continued with the service, having been advised not to leave the church until the protesters had left.

Perak State police chief, Datuk Abdul Aziz Bulat, who was at the scene, advised protesters not to believe rumours, especially those transmitted through SMS. “Contrary to what the SMS claimed, no such thing took place at the church and I have directed my men to investigate and trace the source of this malicious text message and its sender,” he told a media conference.

The protesters dispersed after about two hours, during which Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) troops arrived in four trucks and a water cannon truck and formed a barricade between the protesters and the church. Aziz said the crowd comprised members of a political party and some curious onlookers. The police chief also said officers from the Perak State Religious Affairs Department were at the scene to assist and explain to the crowd that the SMS was sent by provocateurs.

Policemen were anyhow stationed in the vicinity to ensure there would be no more such protests.

The National News Agency, Bernama, quoted the Perak Religious Affairs Department director, Datuk Jamry Sury, as saying that he would have the case investigated and take action against the culprits who spread the rumour.

Meanwhile, the Archbishop Emeritus of Kuala Lumpur, Anthony Soter Fernandez, told AsiaNews: “It is not the nature of the Catholic Church to indiscriminately baptize any person. Any adult seeking baptism has to first undergo a long period of examination and faith education.”

Mgr Fernandez, who now lectures at the General Seminary in Penang, said the onus was on any adult who wished to know more about the Catholic faith to sort out all impediments before seeking such instruction. He reiterated that the Catholic Church in Malaysia had never conducted clandestine baptisms of Muslims.

Comment: The innate violence of Islam is common knowledge to all Australians who look at Islam with open eyes. This doesn't mean that all muslims are violent; obviously they are not. You can have peaceful muslims, but not peaceful Islam.

The current hysteria that lurks just under the surface with muslims is apostacy. Muslims wanting to leave Islam take their lives in their hands by doing so. Thus any story which plays to this worry will bring immediate reactions from overwrought muslims who will resort to violence without any difficulty.

The mad crowd in Malaysia is just another example of a religious group whose world is starting to collapse. Islam is innately violent in a world where ordinary people are becoming ever more opposed to violence. Islam is dying and its fanatical adherents will get violent to slow the process. Their violence, of course, just hastens their decline. Islam, like Soviet Communism, will collapse because of its internal contradictions, not because of some external conquest.

Mullahs As Parasites.

2006-11-06T15:46:00.000+11:00

Note: This posting is very critical of the mullahs who run Iran. Reading this article one can understand why Iran is so poor despite the vast oil and gas reserves of that nation.

Read and learn...

The present Shiite Iran is home to over 300,000 Mullahs. The most descriptive term for Mullah is parasite. A Mullah begins his career as a parasite, lives as a parasite and dies as a parasite, simply because he contributes absolutely nothing to the necessities of life, yet gobbles disproportionately more of whatever resources he can grab.

As a true parasite, a Mullah’s very survival depends on others. It is critical for a Mullah to procure and maintain docile obedient host. A flock of gullible ignorant fanatics make excellent host and the Mullahs’ main task is to keep the sheep in their pen by hook or crook. They scare the flock by horror stories of hell and entice them by the promise of unimaginable glorious paradise if and only if they behave and keep on supplying them with milk, wool and meat.

So, the infighting is all about survival. One bunch is having it all while another is sidelined. We must understand that there has never been one united house of the Mullahs. Mullahs are like packs of wolves. Each pack hunts and eats its prey. Packs of wolves fight one another for valued prey, particularly in the face of scarcity.

The coffer of the Islamic Republic of Iran is flush with the extortion-high oil revenues. A reasonable question is: why don’t the Mullahs simply share the wealth and attend to the business of fighting the external enemy? When it comes to money, enough is never enough. “There is enough to meet everyone’s need, but not enough to meet everyone’s greed,” observed Gandhi. And greed is in the very bones of the Mullahs, since it is the only way that parasite know how to live.

The present Mullahcracy is in the form of a pyramid. The Mullahs in the game at the top have skimmed and continue to skim inordinate amounts of the national income. Mullah Akbar Rafsanjani, a past president of the Islamic Republic, and his family, for instance, have reportedly stolen enough to give the Wal-Mart’s Waltons a run for their money. And there are hundreds of lesser Mullahs, like Rafsanjani, who are pocketing huge sums.

The ruling Mullahs—the in-boys—are master practitioners of the trickle down economics. Except that by the time they are through with pocketing some of the national income and paying off their supporters, there is little left for the out-boys—the sidelined Mullahs.

The in-boys Mullahs must pay for the loyalty of the military, the police, and the thugs to keep them in power. Furthermore, in contrast to their mastery of machination, treachery, and cruelty, they are inept at managing the affairs of the state

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a unique creature—it is best described as Theocratic Aristocracy. The “divinely-ordained” rulers maintain themselves in power by an elaborate system of patronage. Lucrative positions, contracts and valued privileges are distributed by patronage. The result is that the ruling Mullahs enjoy a significant number of supporters in all strata of society—the civil service, the military, the powerful Revolutionary Guards, and the hooligans and thugs who are ready to unleash their vicious attacks on anyone or group that dares to challenge the in-charge men of Allah.

Another seeming anomaly is that proportionately there are more Mullahs in prison in Iran than any other class of the society, including university students who have always been political “troublemakers.” The reason is that these are the out-boys Mullahs—the parasites that are deprived of the dole—their very means of livelihood. Their mosques are often shut down, their flocks are harassed by the system’s agents and their sources of income are dried. And as we said, it is the nature of the beast, for parasite can only live from the products of others.

The out-boys Mullahs hate the in-boys Mullahs not only for looting Iran’s oil money, but also for badly impoverishing the masses who had traditionally fed and pampered them. The per capita income in present Iran is about two-thirds of what it was before the catastrophic Islamic take over of 1979. The flock of ignorant fanatic fools, the Mullahs traditional source of sustenance, can barely feed itself and has very little to spare for the leeching Mullahs.

Another point that needs clarification is the myth widely circulated by the mainstream media and the ivory tower pundits: the claim that there is a major division among Shiites regarding the relationship of the mosque and the state. Let this myth be dispelled once and for all.

There is absolutely no such a division among the Shiites. The perceived difference is in fact a strategic one. One camp, led by the late ayatollah Khomeini, believes that it is admissible for the Mullahs to rule the state directly, as is the case in the present Iran. The other camp believes that the Mullahs should only supervise the civilian government. In other words, one group wants to be the king, while the other wants to be the king-maker. The difference is academic. As a matter of fact the latter camp led by the grand ayatollah Al-Sistani of Iraq can have its cake and eat it too, so to speak. It can have all the say and power it desires by proxy and, at the same time, absolve itself of any responsibility for governmental wrongdoing or failure.

In conclusion, there is nothing new in Islamdom. Feuding, infighting and killing are longstanding practices of the religion of peace. If and when the non-Islamic world solves its myriad problems ranging from dealing with a pompous lunatic playboy with nuclear weapons to that of endemic hunger, disease and environmental degradation, it can embrace Islam to avoid the boredom of peace. “Peace is boring, war is exciting,” is an old saying. And Islam has never been boring.

Comment: There are Shia muslims and mullahs in Australia. They appear to cause no trouble in our society even if many of the mullahs are terrible in Iran. Certainly all the troublemaking imams in Australia are of the Sunni Muslim faction.

Perhaps the Australian government should stop Sunni muslims coming to Australia but allow Shia to come. Would this help keep the peace in this country?

Muslim Boys, Sex and Jihad.

2006-11-05T14:42:00.000+11:00

Note: Sex is a matter of great concern to boys.This is a universal truth and includes muslim boys.This posting gives the sensible reader an indication, from the inside, of the dynamics of this sex question and the motivation of some muslim boys involved with the violence of Jihad...the Jihad of murder, not the 'spiritual'Jihad of islamist propaganda.

read and learn...

Hot for martyrdom

Michael Coren
National Post

Friday, November 03, 2006

Dr. Tawfik Hamid doesn't tell people where he lives. Not the street, not the city, not even the country. It's safer that way. It's only the letters of testimony from some of the highest intelligence officers in the Western world that enable him to move freely. This medical doctor, author and activist once was a member of Egypt's Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (Arabic for "the Islamic Group"), a banned terrorist organization. He was trained under Ayman al-Zawahiri, the bearded jihadi who appears in Bin Laden's videos, telling the world that Islamic violence will stop only once we all become Muslims.

He's a disarmingly gentle and courteous man. But he's determined to tell a complacent North America what he knows about fundamentalist Muslim imperialism.

"Yes, 'imperialism,' " he tells me. "The deliberate and determined expansion of militant Islam and its attempt to triumph not only in the Islamic world but in Europe and North America. Pure ideology. Muslim terrorists kill and slaughter not because of what they experience but because of what they believe."

Hamid drank in the message of Jihadism while at medical school in Cairo, and devoted himself to the cause. His group began meeting in a small room. Then a larger one. Then a Mosque reserved for followers of al-Zawahiri. By the time Hamid left the movement, its members were intimidating other students who were unsympathetic.

He is now 45 years old, and has had many years to reflect on why he was willing to die and kill for his religion. "The first thing you have to understand is that it has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with poverty or lack of education," he says. "I was from a middle-class family and my parents were not religious. Hardly anyone in the movement at university came from a background that was different from mine.

"I've heard this poverty nonsense time and time again from Western apologists for Islam, most of them not Muslim by the way. There are millions of passive supporters of terror who may be poor and needy but most of those who do the killing are wealthy, privileged, educated and free. If it were about poverty, ask yourself why it is middle-class Muslims -- and never poor Christians -- who become suicide bombers in Palestine."

His analysis is fascinating. Muslim fundamentalists believe, he insists, that Saudi Arabia's petroleum-based wealth is a divine gift, and that Saudi influence is sanctioned by Allah. Thus the extreme brand of Sunni Islam that spread from the Kingdom to the rest of the Islamic world is regarded not merely as one interpretation of the religion but the only genuine interpretation. The expansion of violent and regressive Islam, he continues, began in the late 1970s, and can be traced precisely to the growing financial clout of Saudi Arabia.

"We're not talking about a fringe cult here," he tells me. "Salafist [fundamentalist] Islam is the dominant version of the religion and is taught in almost every Islamic university in the world. It is puritanical, extreme and does, yes, mean that women can be beaten, apostates killed and Jews called pigs and monkeys."

He leans back, takes a deep breath and moves to another area, one that he says is far too seldom discussed: "North Americans are too squeamish about discussing the obvious sexual dynamic behind suicide bombings. If they understood contemporary Islamic society, they would understand the sheer sexual tension of Sunni Muslim men. Look at the figures for suicide bombings and see how few are from the Shiite world. Terrorism and violence yes, but not suicide. The overwhelming majority are from Sunnis. Now within the Shiite world there are what is known as temporary marriages, lasting anywhere from an hour to 95 years. It enables men to release their sexual frustrations.

"Islam condemns extra-marital sex as well as masturbation, which is also taught in the Christian tradition. But Islam also tells of unlimited sexual ecstasy in paradise with beautiful virgins for the martyr who gives his life for the faith. Don't for a moment underestimate this blinding passion or its influence on those who accept fundamentalism."

A pause. "I know. I was one who accepted it."

This partial explanation is shocking more for its banality than its horror. Mass murder provoked partly by simple lust. But it cannot be denied that letters written by suicide bombers frequently dwell on waiting virgins and sexual gratification.

"The sexual aspect is, of course, just one part of this. But I can tell you what it is not about. Not about Israel, not about Iraq, not about Afghanistan. They are mere excuses. Algerian Muslim fundamentalists murdered 150,000 other Algerian Muslims, sometimes slitting the throats of children in front of their parents. Are you seriously telling me that this was because of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians or American foreign policy?"

He's exasperated now, visibly angry at what he sees as a willful Western foolishness. "Stop asking what you have done wrong. Stop it! They're slaughtering you like sheep and you still look within. You criticize your history, your institutions, your churches. Why can't you realize that it has nothing to do with what you have done but with what they want."

Then he leaves -- for where, he cannot say. A voice that is silenced in its homeland and too often ignored by those who prefer convenient revision to disturbing truth. The tragedy is that Tawfik Hamid is almost used to it.

- Michael Coren is an author and broadcaster. www.michaelcoren.com

© National Post 2006

Comment: Western nations have basically solved the sex question: it is your own business. Muslim countries have not yet solved this question and thus vast efforts are put into suppressing the problems associated with unresolved sexual tension.

The muslim Paradise is all about boys and men cavorting with virgins..72 apparently..thus they have the option of dying as muslim 'martyrs' and having an eternal erection to be satisfied eternally by virgins. This is not a spiritual paradise...it is a teenage boy's masturbation fantasy.

This fantasy is believed by every muslim boy. Promoting jihad is not that difficult when you have this to offer to sexually frustrated boys immersed in muslim 'theology'.

Australian public policy is better served by the public discounting of this silly and dangerous notion of Paradise, especially if it is best attained by muslim boys via the process of murdering others. Australian officials must stop thinking that the problem is just one of policing. It is also a battle of ideas...we have not even begun to counter these dangerous ideas.

Isn't it time we started?

The Problem Of Sayyid Qutb's Jihad.

2006-11-04T11:00:00.000+11:00

Note: Sayyid Qutb is an important figure in current Islamic violence circles. He was executed by President Nasser of Egypt in 1966. Qutb provides the intellectual justification (based on the Koran)for the present day assault by Islamist terrorists on the West, Christianity, the Jews and liberal muslims. Readers will not have read his ideas in relation to the thought of Pope Benedict. It makes interesting reading.

Benedict XVI and the redemption of jihad
Posted on Oct 30, 2006.

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Chicago

Can jihad be redeemed? That is, can the religious sense of purpose that fuels Islamic extremism be leavened with a commitment to reason and peace, without thereby losing its sense of self? That’s the $64,000 question facing Islam, and it is for the most part one that only Muslims themselves can answer.

One could make the case, however, that if anyone in the West can help, it’s Pope Benedict XVI, despite Regensburg and all the heartache that followed – because Benedict is the lone figure of global standing in the West who speaks from within the same thought world that Muslims sympathetic to the strong religious identity of the jihadists themselves inhabit.

A detour into the recent history of Islamic thought helps make the point.

Egyptian poet and essayist Sayyid Qutb, hanged by Nasser in 1966, is known as the father of modern Islamic radicalism. Ironically, Qutb’s vision of jihad as an unrelenting conflict with the enemies of Islam was forged in part in the improbable locales of Washington, D.C., Greeley, Colorado, and Palo Alto, California, where he studied from 1948 to 1950 as part of an exchange program sponsored by the Egyptian Ministry of Education.

Qutb attended Wilson Teachers’ College, the Colorado State College of Education (today the University of Northern Colorado), and Stanford. Based on that experience, Qutb penned his famous tract The America I Have Seen, which has gone through innumerable printings and today can be found in cheap paperback editions in virtually every corner of the Islamic world. It still exercises a profound impact in shaping Muslim perceptions of American culture.

The work amounted to a ferocious attack upon what Qutb called “the American man,” depicted as obsessed with technology but virtually a barbarian in the realm of spirituality and human values. American society, for Qutb, was “rotten and ill” to its very core.

He wrote:

This great America: What is it worth in the scale of human values? And what does it add to the moral account of humanity? And, by the journey’s end, what will its contribution be? I fear that a balance may not exist between America’s material greatness and the quality of its people. And I fear that the wheel of life will have turned and the book of life will have closed and America will have added nothing, or next to nothing, to the account of morals that distinguishes man from object, and indeed, mankind from animals.

Qutb was not blind to the superficial attractions of America, which draw immigrants from every corner of the globe:

Imagination and dreams glimmer in this world of illusion and wonder. The hearts of men fall upon it from every valley, men from every race and color, every walk of life, and every sect and creed … America is the land of inexhaustible material resources, strength, and manpower. It is the land of huge factories, unequalled in all of civilization. … American genius in management and organization evokes wonder and admiration. America’s bounty and prosperity evoke the dreams of the Promised Land.

Yet Qutb saw that promise as false, because America’s technical virtuosity is not matched by a similar greatness of spirit:

It is the case of a people who have reached the peak of growth and elevation in the world of science and productivity, while remaining abysmally primitive in the world of the senses, feeling and behavior. A people that has not exceeded the most primordial levels of existence, and indeed, remains far below them in certain areas of feeling and behavior.

The American man’s obsession with technical power, Qutb wrote, has “narrowed his horizons, shrank his soul, limited his feelings, and decreased his place at the global feast, which is so full of patterns and colors.”

A particular zone of disgust for Qutb was what he saw as the sexual licentiousness of American culture (and this, bear in mind, was the early 1950s). He wrote that a society in which “immoral teachings and poisonous intentions are rampant” and sex is considered “outside the sphere of morality” is one in which “the humanity of man can hardly find a place to develop.” Qutb said that “providing full opportunities for the development and perfection of human characteristics requires strong safeguards for the peace and stability of the family.”

As Lebanese journalist Fawaz Gerges has noted, Qutb is no De Tocqueville. He barely scratches the surface of American culture, completely missing its underlying religiosity and failing to understand how core spiritual values such as liberty and equality form part of the bedrock of American psychology.

Yet for anyone familiar with the cultural criticism penned over the years by Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, there is nevertheless something strikingly familiar in Qutb’s critique – albeit not so much of America, as the West in general. What both men share is a conviction that the West’s scientific and technological achievements are not always matched by its spiritual and moral wisdom.

As early as his 1965 work The Sacramental Foundation of Christian Existence, Ratzinger warned against:

“… the reduction of man to homo faber, who does not interact with things in themselves, but only regards them as functions of his labor. With this … man’s ability to have a view for the eternal is destroyed. He is incarcerated in his world of labor, and his only hope is that future generations will be able to have more convenient conditions of labor than him, if he has sufficiently struggled to have such conditions created. A truly paltry consolation for an existence that has become miserably tight!”

In his 1990 book In the Beginning, on the doctrine of creation, Ratzinger wrote of contemporary Western society:

“The good and the moral no longer count, it seems, but only what one can do. The measure of a human being is what he can do, and not what he is, not what is good or bad. What he can do, he may do. … He does not free himself, but places himself in opposition to the truth. And that means that he is destroying himself and the world. … [The question] “What can we do?” will be false and pernicious while we refrain from asking, ‘Who are we?’ The question of being and the question of our hopes are inseparable.”

Ratzinger has even linked this critique to the question of birth control, arguing that it amounts to a mechanical solution to an ethical and cultural problem. In the 1996 book Salt of the Earth, he said: “One of our great perils [is] that we want to master the human condition with technology, that we have forgotten that there are primordial human problems that are not susceptible of technological solutions, but that demand a certain life-style and certain life decisions.”

I adduce these quotes, of course, not to suggest that Benedict is a Christian version of Qutb. Benedict is infinitely more balanced and subtle; among other things, Benedict is far more favorable in his analysis of American culture. As Cardinal Avery Dulles recently pointed out, at times Benedict sounds almost like De Tocqueville in his positive assessment of church/state relations in this country.

Yet Benedict XVI would nevertheless find in Qutb a version –in extreme and distorted form – of the same critique of the West that the pope in many ways shares.

In the end, this is the most compelling reason why Benedict’s repeated insistence that he wants a “frank and sincere” dialogue with Islam is more than lip service. Fundamentally, the clash of cultures that Benedict sees in the world today is not between Islam and the West, but between belief and unbelief – between a culture that grounds itself in God and religious belief, and a culture that lives etsi Deus non daretur, “as if God does not exist.”

In that struggle, Benedict has long said, Muslims are natural allies.

Yet Benedict is also well aware that at present, Islamic radicalism is having almost the opposite effect – discrediting religious commitment in any form by associating it with violence and fanaticism. Hence when Benedict presses Muslims to reject terrorism and to embrace religious liberty, he does so not as a xenophobe or a crusader, not as a “theo-con,” but as someone who perceives himself as a friend of Islam, pressing it to realize the best version of itself.

That, no doubt, is part of the argument he will try to make during his upcoming trip to Turkey.

If they could set aside their prejudices, at least some of the spiritual sons and daughters of Sayyid Qutb might well recognize a potential ally in Joseph Ratzinger – and therein lays perhaps the last, best hope for Muslim/Catholic dialogue under Benedict XVI.

Comment: Readers will be aware that this site has constantly advocated that there should be a government financed intellectual struggle in Australia between the violent islamists and the path of non violence. This is not yet happening. The path of Jihad is actually the ideology of muslim imperialism and violent war. This is often proclaimed to be a purely 'spiritual' struggle. These claims are false and lies...part of a policy of taqqiyya.

The government in Australia is doing good work through ASIO in dealing with these jihadist muslims. However, the 'mind war' has not yet started. Money and personnel resources have to be brought to bear in Australia to form an alliance in our society to defeat the IDEAS of the Jihadists. It is not enough to simply arrest the malefactors. It is their IDEAS which cause the problems.

Action along these lines is long overdue.

The Poison Of Sharia.

2006-11-03T11:27:00.000+11:00

Note: This posting concerns the creping paralysis of Sharia law in Indonesia. This will ensure the continued poverty of the local muslims.

Knowledgeable people are now aware that Islam = Poverty. The islamic agency which ensures this poverty is Sharia.

Read and learn...

2 November, 2006
INDONESIA
Jakarta worried about local Sharia-inspired laws

After months of silence, the Indonesian Justice and Human Rights Ministry announced a review of ordinances that are accused by many of going against principles enshrined in the Constitution. In June, the Home Affairs Minister had said it was up to local governors to deal with the matter.

Jakarta (AsiaNews) – After a long silence, the Indonesian Justice and Human Rights Ministry yesterday promised to review local government bylaws accused of discriminating against minority groups and going against principles enshrined in the Constitution.

Minister Hamid Awaluddin said he would coordinate with the Home Affairs Ministry, which had repeatedly promised to scrutinize the constitutionality of regional laws, but then in June put the onus to do so on individual local governors.

Since 2004, when regional autonomy came into force, 22 regencies and municipalities adopted Sharia-inspired laws: some criminalize conduct that is banned by Islamic law like adultery, prostitution, gambling, alcoholism and further, they restrict women’s freedom.

Minority groups, Muslim academics and the MPs of several political parties have long been calling on Jakarta to cancel such ordinances, warning against the “creeping” Islamization of Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world.

An anti-prostitution bylaw enacted by Tangerang regency in 2005 sparked strong protests after a woman was accused of being a prostitute just because she was walking on the street alone at night. Regions such as South Sulawesi and Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam have adopted bylaws requiring state officials to be able to read Arabic.

Months ago, Widodo Adisucipto, Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs, said that more than 85% of local ordinances were full of contradictions and many were blocking overseas investments.

Hamid said the Justice Ministry would set a human rights standard that must be respected by regional ordinances. The review would be carried out by officials at provincial legal and human rights offices. But the last word on the repeal of “incriminated” bylaws would lie with the Home Affairs Ministry, which has not yet made any statements about the matter.

Comment: Sharia law, more than other aspects of the Koran, is the cause of the endless poverty that one finds in muslim countries. Despite great natural resources and often very many technologically well educated people, muslim countries run with Sharia law requirements are universally poor. It is sharia which negates the advantages of natural resources and the education of its middle class.

There is no escaping this burden of Sharia, both personally and nationally, unless the person or nation abandons Islam. Increasingly, in the future, this option will be taken up. There will be no other way to break the poverty cycle that grips the world's 900 million muslims.

Reform Islam Making Progress.

2006-11-01T19:51:00.000+11:00

Note: Reform Islam is making serious progress. This posting from Germany is a sign of how 'the end is nigh' for the silly old fashioned and reactionary 'Islam of the Desert' in Western society. The lady member of Parliament is from the German Greens. If the Greens have abandoned the reactionary muslim position, it is sunk.

Read on and be encouraged...

Police Protection for German Parliamentarian

A German parliamentarian of Turkish origin has called for Muslim women to throw off their headscarves and embrace Western values. After receiving death threats for the remarks, she is under police protection. Politicians are defending her right to free speech.

A Turkish-German parliamentarian has received death threats for her critique of the head scarf.
With the increased focus on immigrants in Germany, it sometimes seems like integration success stories don't exist. They do. And Ekin Deligöz is one of the country's finest. A Turkish-born German citizen, she now serves in the seat of German democracy, the Bundestag. But, cultural emissaries like Deligöz don't only build bridges, they also sometimes expose the vast differences that make their existence so crucial.

That, in fact, is why Deligöz is now kept company by a police detail. The Green party member has received death threats for calling on Muslim women to take off their headscarves and to embrace German society and values two weeks ago. "You live here, so take your headscarf off," Deligöz was quoted by the Bild am Sonntag newspaper as saying.

In addition to the threats, she has also been the victim of a negative media campaign in Turkey with tabloid stories comparing her to the Nazis. In a letter of complaint written to the Turkish Ambassador by the head of the Green Party Renate Künast, she indicated that Deligöz had been "insulted in writing, by telephone, and also in person ... overwhelmingly by Turkish men."

Deligöz sees the headscarf as a symbol of female oppression and patriarchy. If it were just a fashion accessory, she says, "then I wouldn't now be under police protection."

A number of Muslim organizations in Germany have accepted an invitation from Künast and the Greens to discuss the threats and to talk about "behaving with respect toward each other."

Meanwhile, a number of German politicians are vociferously denouncing the threats and defending Deligöz's right to freedom of speech. "It is absolutely legitimate that a woman who is Muslim herself ... makes this appeal, said German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble. In an interview with the German radio station RBB, he continued, "What we lawmakers must decisively support is that someone can voice these opinions and that one doesn't need police protection to do so."

Norbert Lammert, president of the Bundestag and a close ally of Chancellor Merkel, called the threats "a severe attack on the core values of our constitution."

Deligöz is pleased at the support the German government has provided. "Most threats were supposed to intimidate me," she said, "but in a democratic society it should be possible to also express a critical opinion."

Comment: These views of the Green member of the German Parliament should be echoed here in Australia. The recent Hilali crisis will ensure that they are.

Has Islam Expired?

2006-10-31T19:44:00.000+11:00

Note: This posting posits an interesting concept...the death of Islam.

Read and think...

Islam Has Expired
Friday, 13 October 2006
Islam has expired, according to Muhammad himself.

“How long your faith shall endure?” Muhammad was asked.

“En salahat ummati fa laha yom. Va en fasadat fa laha nesfe yom. Val yomo ende rabbeka alfe sanaton men ma taedoon”—if my Ummeh becomes righteous, it shall last one day, if corrupted, it shall last half a day. “And a day of your lord is equivalent of a thousand years of your accounting,” he replied.

This account is as recorded by a contemporary chronicler of Muhammad. So, even if his Ummeh had lived up to his standards of righteousness, one thousand years have come and gone. Yet a greatly fractured system of belief called Islam is still around as judged by over a billion who call themselves Muslims.

Muhammad’s allusion to “righteousness” and “corruption” deserves a close look. All things on earth are subject to a limited life span: be they bacteria, trees, mountains, humans or ideas—including religions. Renewal seems to be a core principle of the planet earth and its inhabitants. And in order for renewal to take place, the old by necessity, must give way.
The moment a new entity is formed, an array of forces work to end it. Death, in effect, is pre-birth. Without death, everything freezes in place. Death often provides the raw material for the new birth. The death and decay of a tree, for instance, supplies the needed nutrients for the seed to grow: the Newtonian physics’ obsolescence provided the foundation for Einstein’s relativity theory.

Death and renewal are also fundamental to religion. It is for this reason that many religions promised renewal in the person of another savior or the return of the same person. The Jews, for instance, expect the Messiah; the Christians long for the second coming; and some Muslims pray for the appearance of the Mahdi, while other Muslims supplicate God for “Rejateh Hossain,”—the return of Hossain.

What Expires Religions?

The death of a biological entity is caused by trauma, viruses or bacteria. Viruses and bacteria are major killers of humans and present great challenges to medicine. They can be deadly and have the uncanny ability to mutate. Yet, they are there for their mission of ending life.

Poorly understood and little appreciated are psychosocial viruses—PSVs. As is the case with their biological kin, psychosocial viruses also work to corrupt any idea, mental functions or belief and help supplant them with new ones. Various forms of mental disorders are the result of interaction between the PSVs and the person’s pre-disposition for the condition. Not all mutations caused by PSVs are pathological. Many serve to advance the human enterprise. Without the contributions of the beneficial PSVs humanity would still be stunted in its development at the level of day one.

In the case of Islam, a special group of PSVs set out to work the minute Muhammad launched his faith and mutation rapidly followed. First, there was the Islam of Mecca or the Islam of Meekness. For thirteen years, Muhammad’s teachings, as recorded in the early Suras of the Quran, were about many good things. Very few people became attracted to what he preached. In fact, the people scorned the man, harassed him and eventually made him flee his hometown of Mecca for Medina. Then a major mutation took place: the Islam of Medina or the Islam of Tyranny arrived on the scene. The Quran Suras of Medina are replete with exhortations of intolerance, exclusivity, and sanctioning of violence against non-Muslims. This mutation deeply appealed to the temperament of the Arab savages and they flocked to Muhammad’s faith.

The PSV of the time of Muhammad continued to mutate as it reached other peoples and other lands. Each peoples’ own ideas and beliefs—their cognitive immune system—responded differently to the invader. Some completely resisted the assault and defeated it. Others were overwhelmed and forced into submission. Yet some of the vanquished, over time, managed to repel the invader while others incorporated it to various extents into their own system of belief. In due course, the mutation among the vanquished people has become so divergent that some of the variants can hardly be recognized as the progeny of the original.

Islam of today is composed of a dozen major sects and hundreds of sub-sects and schools. Just two examples should demonstrate the fact that Muhammad’s Islam has expired and decomposed.

One branch of Sunni Islam, the Wahhabi for instance, has interbred with the Pashtun culture of Afghanistan and Pakistan and the result has been the Taliban version of Islam: a most reactionary, repressive and savage “religion.”

On the Shiite side, for example, there is a sect of the Ghulat Alavi that holds only to one of the five pillars of Islam: the Shehadah, an Islamic credo that says, “I testify that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.” This sect does not subscribe to the remaining four pillars of praying five times a day, fasting one month a year, pilgrimaging Mecca at least once in a lifetime, and paying the religious tax of zakat. The Alavi women are allowed participation in all religious events and are not required to don the hijab—a stark contrast to the Taliban who deny even rudimentary education to women and forbid them from leaving home without the accompaniment of a male relative.

The Ghulat Alavis deify the Imam Ali and the other Imams. They particularly revere the Imam Ali and worship him as a co-rank of God. They profess, “Ali khoda neest, valee as khoda joda neest”—Ali is not God, but he is not apart from God. This very same sect places Imam Ali above the Prophet Muhammad.

In conclusion, Muhammad’s dating of his faith notwithstanding, the facts conclusively show that Islam has expired. Over time, its component parts have undergone drastic mutations to the extent that the only thing that all Muslims have in common is the name of Islam and the Quran.

Comment: Clearly the contemporary situation of Islam has changed dramatically in the past ten years. Teh impact of islamic extremism on the West and the impact of Western modernity on muslims has resulted in Islam being a front page story almost weekly. This is not a bad thing.

Islamic reformers, who are very numerous, welcome this development because they see progress coming from the heat and light generated in these days. Islamic reactionaries are terified by modernity because they see their version of Islam failing dismally and being discarded. They are not intelligent enough to envisage any form of Islam except the one they currently have. No wonder they are panic stricken.

One thing is for certain...unless Islam reforms itself and develops a modus vivendi with Western modernity, it will certainly die.

Two Very Serious Catholic And Muslim Essays.

2006-10-31T09:07:00.000+11:00

Note: This posting is very long and consists of two very serious essays on Theology and the relations between Christianity and Islam. It is recommended for readers who are able to handle ideas at this level.

The Church and Islam: A Sprig of Dialogue Has Sprouted in Regensburg
After the storm, the Muslim world is also producing signs of discussion “according to reason.” An erudite question-and-answer between the Catholic Martinetti and Muslim theologian Aref Ali Nayed. And cardinal Bertone writes...

by Sandro Magister

ROMA, October 30, 2006 – The Regensburg effect shows new developments every day. After the storm that followed the “lectio” by Benedict XVI on September 12, the Muslim world is producing more and more measured, reasoned replies to the pope’s arguments.

The “open letter” to the pope from 38 Muslim leaders and scholars – prominently featured by this website – is so far the most striking sign of this new attention on the part of the Muslim world.

But both before and after this letter, there have been other significant contributions.

The first in-depth analysis of Benedict VXI’s lecture in Regensburg on the part of a Muslim theologian was published on this website on October 4. The author, Aref Ali Nayed, born in Libya, is currently the managing director of a technology company headquartered in the United Arab Emirates. He studied hermeneutics and the philosophy of science in the United States and Canada, has taken courses at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, and has given lectures at the Pontifical Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies. He is a consultant for the Interfaith Program of the University of Cambridge. He is a devout Sunni Muslim, and describes himself as a “theologian of the Asharite school, Maliki in jurisprudential tendency, and Shadhili-Rifai in spiritual leanings.”

But the commentary by Aref Ali Nayed, which was later published in its complete form on an English Islamic website, didn’t end there.

Some of the passages of Aref Ali Nayed’s exposition received a reply from an Italian Catholic scholar who is an expert in medieval philosophy and theology, Alessandro Martinetti, from Ghemme in the province of Novara. Martinetti insisted in particular upon the relationship between God and reason, and on the radical difference in this relationship as seen by Islam and by Catholic doctrine.

Martinetti’s note – which was previewed for Italian readers in the blog “Settimo Cielo [Seventh Heaven]” – is presented in its entirety further down on this page.

Aref Ali Nayed, in turn, replied to Martinetti’s theses. And this extensive reply is also presented in its entirety on this page, in its original English version. Aref Ali Nayed’s counter-thesis is that it is wrong to oppose a “God-as-pure will” in Islam against a “God-as-Logos” in Christianity. In his view, the theology of Thomas Aquinas himself on the relationship between God and reason “is very close to Ibn Hazm and Asha’rite Muslim theologians.”

But before the erudite dispute between Martinetti and Aref Ali Nayed, in their comments on Benedict XVI’s lecture in Regensburg, another text is presented on this page, one that is quasi-unpublished, written by the Vatican secretary of state, cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

It is quasi-unpublished because it was by cardinal Bertone for the next issue, not yet printed, of the Catholic magazine “30 Days,” directed by Giulio Andreotti, who was the head of the Italian government and its foreign minister a number of times, and is very close to Vatican diplomatic circles.

Bertone’s text written for “30 Days” will serve as the introduction to this same magazine’s reprinting of Benedict XVI’s lecture in Regensburg.

The complete text by Bertone is available now on the website of “30 Days.” What is included below is the last part of it.

There are passages in this that deserve attention.

The cardinal secretary of state announces a reinforcement of the activities of the apostolic nunciatures in Muslim countries, and a more systematic use of the Arabic language by the Vatican.

It expresses hope for increased “dialogue with the thinking [Muslim] élites, with the confidence of reaching the masses after this, of changing mentalities and educating consciences.”

As for the terrain of possible agreement between Christianity and Islam, Bertone identifies this in the “promotion of the dignity of every person” and in “education toward the understanding and protection of human rights.” But this does not mean that the Church would renounce “proposing and proclaiming the Gospel, and among Muslims as well, in the ways and forms most respectful toward the freedom of the act of faith.”

So here follow, in order:

– the text by cardinal Bertone,
– the reply from Alessandro Martinetti to Aref Ali Nayed’s commentary on the lecture by Benedict XVI in Regensburg,
– the counter-reply from Aref Ali Nayed to Martinetti’s observations.

1. Dialoguing with the thinking élites in order to reach the masses

by Tarcisio Bertone

[...] Christianity is certainly not limited to the West, nor is it identified with it, but it is only by reestablishing a dynamic and creative relationship with its own Christian history that democracy and Western civilization will be able to recover their impulse and momentum, or the moral energy necessary to confront a strongly competitive international scene.

There must be a rooting out of the anti-Islamic rancor that lurks in many hearts, in spite of the fact that this endangers the lives of many Christians.

Moreover, the strong condemnation of the forms of mockery toward religion – and here I refer, in part, to the episode of the irreverent satirical cartoons that inflamed Muslim crowds at the beginning of this year – is an indispensable precondition for condemning the exploitation of this mockery.

But the deep issue is not even that of respect for religious symbols. This issue is simple, and radical: the human dignity of the Muslim believer must be safeguarded. In a debate related to these topics, a young Muslim born in Italy simply asserted: “For us, the Prophet is not God, but we love him very much.” There must at least be respect for this profound sentiment!

In the face of Muslim believers, but also in the face of terrorists, the criterion that should dictate behavior is not usefulness or harm, but human dignity.

The crucial prelude for the relationship between the Church and Islam is, therefore, the promotion of the dignity of every person and education toward the understanding and protection of human rights.

In the second place, and in connection with this precondition, we must not cease to propose and proclaim the Gospel, and among Muslims as well, in the ways and forms most respectful toward the freedom of the act of faith.

To reach these objectives, the Holy See is considering how to get the maximum leverage out of its apostolic nunciatures in Muslim-majority countries, in order to increase the understanding – and also, if possible, the sharing – of the Holy See’s positions.

I am thinking also of an eventual strengthening of relations with the Arab League, which is headquartered in Egypt, while keeping in mind the competencies of this international body.

The Holy See is also considering the establishment of cultural relations between Catholic universities and universities in Arab countries, and among men and women of culture. Dialogue is possible among them, and I would even say it is productive. I recall a few international conferences on interdisciplinary topics that we held at the Pontifical Lateran University, for example on human rights, justice, and the economy.

We must continue along this road and intensify our dialogue with the thinking élites, with the confidence of reaching the masses after this, of changing mentalities and educating consciences.

And precisely in order to facilitate this dialogue, the Holy See has begun, and will continue, a more systematic use of the Arabic language in its system of communications.

All this will always take into account that the safeguarding of that icon – poor and constantly threatened, but supremely loved by God – that is the human person, who is loved for his own sake, as Vatican Council II says, is the greatest witness that the biblical religious traditions can offer to the world.

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2. Unbridled will or Logos? The God of Islam and the Christian God

by Alessandro Martinetti

The commentary by Aref Ali Nayed on Benedict XVI’s “lectio” in Regensburg is stimulating some reflection, in particular on the relationship between God and reason.

Nayed writes:

“Reason as a gift from God can never be above God. That is the whole point of Ibn Hazm; a point that was paraphrased in such a mutilated way by Benedict XVI’s learned sources. Ibn Hazm, like the Asharite theologians with whom he often contended, did insist upon God’s absolute freedom to act. However, Ibn Hazm did recognize, like most other Muslim theologians that God freely chooses, in His compassion towards His creatures, to self-consistently act reasonably so that we can use our reason to align ourselves with His guidance and directive.

“Ibn Hazm, like most other Muslim theologians, did hold that God is not externally-bound by anything, including reason. However, at no point does Ibn Hazm claim that God does not freely self-commit Himself and honors such commitments Such divine free-self-committing is Qur’anically propounded 'kataba rabukum ala nafsihi al-Rahma' (Your Lord has committed Himself to compassion). Reason need not be above God, and externally normative to Him. It can be a grace of God that is normative because of God’s own free commitment to acting consistently with it.

“A person who believes the last proposition need not be an irrational or un-reasonable human-being, with an irrational or whimsical God! The contrast between Christianity and Islam on this basis is not only unfair, but also quite questionable.

“Granted that the Pontiff is striving to convince a secular university that theology has a place in that reason-based setting. However, this should not go so far as to make God subject to an externally-binding reason. Most major Christian theologians, even the reason-loving [Thomas] Aquinas never put reason above God."

In Nayed’s view, then, saint Thomas “never put reason above God.” But not placing reason above God is not the same thing as asserting, as Nayed does, that “God is not externally bound by anything, including reason,” and that reason “can be a grace of God that is normative because of God’s own free commitment to acting consistently with it.”

Saint Thomas would never have subscribed to these assertions; on the contrary, he vigorously opposed them. And together with him, the Catholic magisterium does not agree with them, but disputes them. It thus rejects the depiction of a God who “freely chooses, in his compassion towards his creatures, to act reasonably in consistency with himself so that we can use our reason to align ourselves with His guidance and directives.”

If asserting that reason is not normative for God, and that God is consistent with himself only out of a supremely free decision and is not externally bound to reason; if this is the same as asserting – as it seems to me that Nayed does – that God could exist and act in disdain of reason if only he wished to do so by an act of supreme and limitless freedom, then it is opportune to clarify that Thomas, and with him the Catholic magisterium, rejects this conviction, glimpsing in this an irrational voluntarism incompatible with right reason and with the Catholic faith, as the pope himself remarks in his “lectio” in Regensburg:

“In all honesty, one must observe that in the late Middle Ages we find trends in theology which would sunder this synthesis between the Greek spirit and the Christian spirit. In contrast with the so-called intellectualism of Augustine and Thomas, there arose with Duns Scotus a voluntarism which ultimately led to the claim that we can only know God’s 'voluntas ordinata.' Beyond this is the realm of God’s freedom, in virtue of which he could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done. This gives rise to positions which clearly approach those of Ibn Hazn and might even lead to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness. God’s transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainable and hidden behind his actual decisions.”

Here Ratzinger is not speaking as an engaged theologian – as many have maintained – in illustrating reckless and audacious theological positions that may be as authoritative as one pleases, but are nevertheless personal; it is, rather, pope Benedict XVI, who judiciously does nothing but restate the consolidated positions of Catholic doctrine, which are enunciated in terms identical to those of John Paul II in the encyclical “Fides et Ratio” in 1998. This text proclaims the universal value of certain rationally knowable and applicable principles, including the principle of non-contradiction: this is a principle that is universal – transcendental, as the philosophers would say – precisely because not even God can violate it:

“Although times change and knowledge increases, it is possible to discern a core of philosophical insight within the history of thought as a whole. Consider, for example, the principles of non-contradiction, finality and causality, as well as the concept of the person as a free and intelligent subject, with the capacity to know God, truth and goodness. Consider as well certain fundamental moral norms which are shared by all. These are among the indications that, beyond different schools of thought, there exists a body of knowledge which may be judged a kind of spiritual heritage of humanity. It is as if we had come upon an implicit philosophy, as a result of which all feel that they possess these principles, albeit in a general and unreflective way. Precisely because it is shared in some measure by all, this knowledge should serve as a kind of reference-point for the different philosophical schools. Once reason successfully intuits and formulates the first universal principles of being and correctly draws from them conclusions which are coherent both logically and ethically, then it may be called right reason or, as the ancients called it, orthós logos, recta ratio” (“Fides et Ratio”, 4).

No less clear and eloquent is this passage from the dogmatic constitution on the Catholic faith from Vatican Council I, “Dei Filius” (IV, DS 3017), cited with clear approval in “Fides et Ratio” in paragraph 53:

“Even if faith is superior to reason there can never be a true divergence between faith and reason, since the same God who reveals the mysteries and bestows the gift of faith has also placed in the human spirit the light of reason. This God could not deny himself, nor could the truth ever contradict the truth”.

The magisterium therefore teaches that God cannot exercise his own freedom in a contradictory way; that is, totally disconnected from the principles of reason: he does not submit himself to these by an arbitrary decree, but because he himself is the non-contradictory foundation of everything that exists. A God who could violate the principle of non-contradiction – such as being, when and if he wishes, indifferently both love and its lack, a merciful creator and a sadistic and brutal butcher, who issues a commandment and can then punish and damn at his discretion those obey his command – this God would be an incomprehensible sphinx, fickle and potentially an enemy of man. He would be a dangerous, omnipotent autocrat who, as the pope stressed in Regensburg, “is not bound even by his own word,” because “nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry.”

The God proclaimed by the Catholic Church is, on the other hand – and can be no other way – always and exclusively good, the giver of life and love; redeemer and savior, and never a persecutor; creator, and not a destroyer. He does not take pleasure from suffering or sin, but he can do nothing but place his creatures in the situation in which they can achieve their highest good. He is faithful and consistent – and cannot help but be so – in spite of the infidelity and inconsistency of human beings in the wearisome journey of individual existence and of history. He can not be like this, because “God cannot contravene himself, nor can truth contradict truth.” God cannot be infinite love and also, contradictorily, a limited love that is fickle, intermittent, and opportunistic.

I am not overlooking the fact that much theology, including some found in Catholic circles, is afraid of a God who could not ignore the principle of non-contradiction, positing that a God who could not get around this principle would not be omnipotent, and could not exercise his own love in a supremely free manner. But it is clear what the risks are if the magisterium would adopt the image of a God supremely free to act against reason. It is time to overcome the dead and sterile opposition between a God-Logos who by adhering to the principle of non-contradiction closes himself up in an unassailable rationalistic detachment impermeable to love, and a God-Love, who can at will violate rational principles simply to reinforce his own nature of free love in an absolute and omnipotent manner.

As Benedict XVI teaches in Regensburg, “Not to act with 'logos' is contrary to God’s nature. [...] God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as 'logos' and, as 'logos,' has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. Certainly, love 'transcends' knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone (cf. Eph 3:19); nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who is 'logos.' Consequently, Christian worship is 'spiritual' worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason (cf. Rom 12:1).” In short: God is love – Deus caritas est! – precisely in that he is Logos, and he is Logos precisely in that he is love.

Such is the God of the Catholic Church. So it does not seem to me that the Church can agree with Nayed when he asserts that “the contrast between Christianity and Islam on this basis is not only unfair, but also quite questionable.”

If the image of God in Islam as conveyed by Nayed is correct – and I do not intend to address this question, nor to hazard myself in dangerous exercises of Qur’anic exegesis – if, that is “God freely chooses, in his compassion towards his creatures, to act reasonably in consistency with himself,” and if “reason need not be above God, and externally normative to Him. It can be a grace of God that is normative because of God’s own free commitment to acting consistently with it,” then it must be distinctly emphasized that this image of God clashes with the one proclaimed as genuine by the Catholic Church, as the pope theologian clearly explained in Regensburg.

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3. Our God and Your God is One

by Aref Ali Nayed

In response to my commentary on the Lecture of Benedict XVI, Alessandro Martinetti wrote a series of comments under the title: “Will or Logos? The God of Islam and the God of Christianity [Arbitrio o Logos? Il Dio dell’islam e quello cristiano]”. The following notes and extensive quotations constitute a response to some of the important points made by Martinetti.

In developing my notes, and in the hope of achieving mutual understanding, I shall invoke only such sources and arguments that would be deemed authoritative or normative by the Catholic Martinetti. I will strive to show that Martinetti’s own Catholic tradition supports, rather than opposes, a position similar to that of Ibn Hazm and other Muslim theologians as briefly outlined in my commentary.

Starting from the Qur’anic injunction to discuss matters with the people of the Book in the best possible way, and with the Prophetic injunction to speak to people in modes suitable for their ways of reasoning, I shall not appeal, in these notes, to the Qur’an, the Sunnah, or the Islamic tradition, but to Martinetti’s own Christian and philosophic tradition. In my notes I shall strive towards the Qur’anically sought after “common discourse” (kalimatun sawa): common recognition of the One True God.

My guide in these notes is the following Qur’anic aya (29:46):

“Do not argue with the People of the Book but in the best of ways, except with those who have been unjust, and say: ‘we believe in what has been revealed to us, and what has been revealed to you, our God and your God is One, and we are devoted to Him’.”

Of course, my own Asha’rite position is rooted in God’s revelation in the Qur’an and the Sunnah as understood and expounded by the Sunni scholars of the Asha’rite school.

Martinetti’s main strategy is that of undermining my claim that it is unfair and questionable to contrast a purported rational God of Christianity with a purported irrational and whimsical God of Islam.

Martinetti, as is suggested by the title of his comments, counter-claims that the “God of Christianity” contrasts with the “God of Islam”. The God of Christianity is supposedly a “God of logos”, and the God of Islam is supposedly a “God of will”. The aim of my notes is to collapse this false distinction, using Martinetti’s own traditional sources, and to show that his contrast between two different Gods, a rational and a whimsical one, reaffirms yet another polarity in the dubious ‘contrast tables’ discredited in my commentary.

Martinetti basically uses passages in which I tried to briefly make sense of Ibn Hazm’s position, in order to prove that I am putting forth an irrational whimsical God, which he then contrasts with his rational God.

Martinetti is also keen to undermine my claim that the Catholic tradition itself, and especially Thomas Aquinas, does not support the elevation of Reason above God.

He counter-claims that God can not but respect and act according to the rules of Reason, including the “principle of non-contradiction”. Martinetti believes that Aquinas, the Catholic tradition (he especially cites “Fides et Ratio”), and Benedict XVI, all share that counter-claim.

My strategy in these notes consists in two moves:

– strive to show Martinetti that Catholic normative doctrines and documents clearly state that the God of the Muslims and that of the Christians is the very same God, and that his false contrast between “our God” and “your God” is not only unfair, but constitutes a rejection of authoritative (for him) Catholic teachings in this regard;

– strive to show Martinetti that Thomas Aquinas, based on Biblical grounds, does not elevate Reason above God, and that he, to the contrary, holds views that are very close to Ibn Hazm and Asha’rite Muslim theologians. “Fides et Ratio” can also be shown to be in a continuous line with a more accurate reading of Aquinas and close to Asha’rite teachings on Faith and Reason.

It is hoped that my notes will make clear to Martinetti that there is no need to appeal to a normative transcendental Reason, above God, for Muslims to be rational, or for our God to be considered rational. It is hoped that Martinetti will ultimately see that our God is One!

Move I: Catholic normative teachings regarding the worship of the One God in Islam and Christianity

Martinetti, by taking “Fides et Ratio” as authoritative, signals that he is a devout Catholic who should equally uphold, as Pope John Paul II always did, and as Pope Benedict XVI still does, the teachings of the Second Vatican Council (underlining added for emphasis):

“Nostra Aetate”:

“The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting”. (1)

The reaffirmations and clarifications of “Nostra Aetate” by Pope John Paul II:

“Christians and Muslims, we have many things in common, as believers and as human beings. We live in the same world, marked by many signs of hope, but also by multiple signs of anguish. For us, Abraham is a very model of faith in God, of submission to his will and of confidence in his goodness. We believe in the same God, the one God, the living God, the God who created the world and brings his creatures to their perfection”. (2)

“As I have often said in other meetings with Muslims, your God and ours is one and the same, and we are brothers and sisters in the faith of Abraham. Thus it is natural that we have much to discuss concerning true holiness in obedience and worship to God.” (3)

“On other occasions I have spoken of the religious patrimony of Islam and of its spiritual values. The Catholic Church realizes that the element of worship given to the one, living, subsistent, merciful and almighty Creator of heaven and earth is common to Islam and herself, and that it is a great link uniting all Christians and Muslims. With great satisfaction she also notes, among other elements of Islam which are held in common, the honour attributed to Jesus Christ and his Virgin Mother”. (4)

The recent reaffirmations of “Nostra Aetate” by Pope Benedict XVI:

“The position of the Pope concerning Islam is unequivocally that expressed by the conciliar document ‘Nostra Aetate’”. (5)

Martinetti’s contrast between the God of Christianity and the God of Islam is in direct violation of the teachings of the last and most authoritative Vatican Council. Given his obvious devotion to Catholic doctrine, Martinetti must reconsider his position.

The Qur’an teaches Muslims to invite the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) to come to a common discourse and to affirm the worship of the One True God. Vatican II teaches Catholics to come to such a common discourse. It is sad to see a Catholic wanting to lapse to pre-Vatican II positions that were not conducive to mutual respect or co-living.

Move II: Thomas Aquinas is not on the side of Martinetti!

Martinetti, without any documentation, claims that Aquinas would never concur with a position similar to the one I attributed to Ibn Hazm. While, I am no Thomist, I dare bring the attention of Martinetti to the following facts.

1. Aquinas affirms, just as most Muslim theologians do, that it is Revelation that is the ultimate and real teacher about God and His ways. Reason must strive to understand, but it is Revelation that saves:

“It was necessary for man's salvation that there should be a knowledge revealed by God besides philosophical science built up by human reason. Firstly, indeed, because man is directed to God, as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason: ‘The eye hath not seen, O God, besides Thee, what things Thou hast prepared for them that wait for Thee’ (Isaiah 66:4). But the end must first be known by men who are to direct their thoughts and actions to the end. Hence it was necessary for the salvation of man that certain truths which exceed human reason should be made known to him by divine revelation. Even as regards those truths about God which human reason could have discovered, it was necessary that man should be taught by a divine revelation; because the truth about God such as reason could discover, would only be known by a few, and that after a long time, and with the admixture of many errors. Whereas man's whole salvation, which is in God, depends upon the knowledge of this truth. Therefore, in order that the salvation of men might be brought about more fitly and more surely, it was necessary that they should be taught divine truths by divine revelation. It was therefore necessary that besides philosophical science built up by reason, there should be a sacred science learned through revelation”. (6)

2. Aquinas affirms, just as most Muslim theologians do, that God is omnipotent and that His Power and Will are utterly efficacious:

“God is bound to nobody but Himself. Hence, when it is said that God can only do what He ought, nothing else is meant by this than that God can do nothing but what is befitting to Himself, and just”.

“Although this order of things be restricted to what now exists, the divine power and wisdom are not thus restricted. Whence, although no other order would be suitable and good to the things which now are, yet God can do other things and impose upon them another order”.

3. Aquinas points out the common mistake of subjecting divine acts to natural necessity:

“In this matter certain persons erred in two ways. Some laid it down that God acts from natural necessity in such way that as from the action of nature nothing else can happen beyond what actually takes place – as, for instance, from the seed of man, a man must come, and from that of an olive, an olive; so from the divine operation there could not result other things, nor another order of things, than that which now is. But we showed above that God does not act from natural necessity, but that His will is the cause of all things; nor is that will naturally and from any necessity determined to those things. Whence in no way at all is the present course of events produced by God from any necessity, so that other things could not happen. Others, however, said that the divine power is restricted to this present course of events through the order of the divine wisdom and justice without which God does nothing. But since the power of God, which is His essence, is nothing else but His wisdom, it can indeed be fittingly said that there is nothing in the divine power which is not in the order of the divine wisdom; for the divine wisdom includes the whole potency of the divine power. Yet the order placed in creation by divine wisdom, in which order the notion of His justice consists, as said above, is not so adequate to the divine wisdom that the divine wisdom should be restricted to this present order of things. Now it is clear that the whole idea of order which a wise man puts into things made by him is taken from their end. So, when the end is proportionate to the things made for that end, the wisdom of the maker is restricted to some definite order. But the divine goodness is an end exceeding beyond all proportion things created. Whence the divine wisdom is not so restricted to any particular order that no other course of events could happen. Wherefore we must simply say that God can do other things than those He has done”.

4. Aquinas explains why this mistake is often made:

“In ourselves, in whom power and essence are distinct from will and intellect, and again intellect from wisdom, and will from justice, there can be something in the power which is not in the just will nor in the wise intellect. But in God, power and essence, will and intellect, wisdom and justice, are one and the same. Whence, there can be nothing in the divine power which cannot also be in His just will or in His wise intellect”.

5. Aquinas does teach that objects that are impossible by their very definition can not be done, but that we should still not say that God can not do them:

“Whence, whatsoever has or can have the nature of being is numbered among the absolutely possible things, in respect of which God is called omnipotent. Now nothing is opposed to the idea of being except non-being. Therefore, that which implies being and non-being at the same time is repugnant to the idea of an absolutely possible thing, within the scope of the divine omnipotence. For such cannot come under the divine omnipotence, not because of any defect in the power of God, but because it has not the nature of a feasible or possible thing. Therefore, everything that does not imply a contradiction in terms, is numbered amongst those possible things, in respect of which God is called omnipotent: whereas whatever implies contradiction does not come within the scope of divine omnipotence, because it cannot have the aspect of possibility. Hence it is better to say that such things cannot be done, than that God cannot do them. Nor is this contrary to the word of the angel, saying: ‘No word shall be impossible with God’. For whatever implies a contradiction cannot be a word, because no intellect can possibly conceive such a thing”. (7)

It is noteworthy that Muslim Asha’rite theologians, including Asha’ri himself, upheld a very similar doctrine to that outlined by Aquinas in this regard. The way to avoid what is often called the “paradox of omnipotence” is to hold that things like “unmovable stones”, “squared circles” and “Euclidean triangles with angles adding up to more that 180 degrees” simply can not be. Thus, the question of whether or not an omnipotent God can make them should not even arise. God does not make such things not because of an externally imposed normative “law of non-contradiction” to which he must abide, but simply because such things, by definition, can not be. They do not have what it takes to be not because of a logical contradiction, but because of an ontological failure to be.

Many classical Muslim theologians who argued against the sensibility of the Christian doctrine of trinity used logic very similar to that of Aquinas, but added that the notion of the trinity itself “implies being and non-being at the same time [and] is repugnant to the idea of an absolutely possible thing, within the scope of the divine omnipotence”. “For whatever implies a contradiction cannot be a word, because no intellect can possibly conceive such a thing”. For many classical Muslim theologians, the idea of a “Man-God” was taken to be of the same category as the idea of a “squared circle”. Such ideas, as the phenomenologist Meinong rightly points out, can “subsist” and be referred to, talked about, and even believed in, but can not possibly “exist”.

Of course, despite the authority of Aquinas on things reasonable and logical, Aquinas himself, and the Catholic Church, throughout its history had to preserve a space for ultra-logics that do not fit neatly into the categories of human logics. That is the only way to preserve the authoritative (for them) teachings of Paul and other Christian sages on a “Wisdom of God” that transcends the “Wisdom of the World”. The appeal to such “extra-rationality” is very clear in the authoritative teachings of the Catholic Church. “Fides et Ratio” itself has many passages defending precisely such a position not on the basis of “Reason” but on the basis of “Revelation”.

6. “Fides et Ratio”, just as most Muslim theologians do, reaffirms the normativity of Revelation over Reason:

“Restating almost to the letter the teaching of the First Vatican Council's constitution ‘Dei Filius’, and taking into account the principles set out by the Council of Trent, the Second Vatican Council's constitution ‘Dei Verbum’ pursued the age-old journey of understanding faith, reflecting on Revelation in the light of the teaching of Scripture and of the entire Patristic tradition. At the First Vatican Council, the Fathers had stressed the supernatural character of God's Revelation. On the basis of mistaken and very widespread assertions, the rationalist critique of the time attacked faith and denied the possibility of any knowledge which was not the fruit of reason's natural capacities. This obliged the Council to reaffirm emphatically that there exists a knowledge which is peculiar to faith, surpassing the knowledge proper to human reason, which nevertheless by its nature can discover the Creator. This knowledge expresses a truth based upon the very fact of God who reveals himself, a truth which is most certain, since God neither deceives nor wishes to deceive”. (8)

7. “Fides et Ratio” reaffirms that divine Will can overcome human “habitual patterns of thought”, and that it is not bound by human logic and systems:

“This is why the Christian's relationship to philosophy requires thorough-going discernment. In the New Testament, especially in the Letters of Saint Paul, one thing emerges with great clarity: the opposition between ‘the wisdom of this world’ and the wisdom of God revealed in Jesus Christ. The depth of revealed wisdom disrupts the cycle of our habitual patterns of thought, which are in no way able to express that wisdom in its fullness.

“The beginning of the First Letter to the Corinthians poses the dilemma in a radical way. The crucified Son of God is the historic event upon which every attempt of the mind to construct an adequate explanation of the meaning of existence upon merely human argumentation comes to grief. The true key-point, which challenges every philosophy, is Jesus Christ's death on the Cross. It is here that every attempt to reduce the Father's saving plan to purely human logic is doomed to failure. ‘Where is the one who is wise? Where is the learned? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?’ (1 Corinthians 1:20), the Apostle asks emphatically. The wisdom of the wise is no longer enough for what God wants to accomplish; what is required is a decisive step towards welcoming something radically new: ‘God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise...; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not to reduce to nothing things that are’ (1 Corinthians 1:27-28). Human wisdom refuses to see in its own weakness the possibility of its strength; yet Saint Paul is quick to affirm: ‘When I am weak, then I am strong’ (2 Corinthians 12:10). Man cannot grasp how death could be the source of life and love; yet to reveal the mystery of his saving plan God has chosen precisely that which reason considers ‘foolishness’ and a ‘scandal’.

“The wisdom of the Cross, therefore, breaks free of all cultural limitations which seek to contain it and insists upon an openness to the universality of the truth which it bears. What a challenge this is to our reason, and how great the gain for reason if it yields to this wisdom! Of itself, philosophy is able to recognize the human being's ceaselessly self-transcendent orientation towards the truth; and, with the assistance of faith, it is capable of accepting the ‘foolishness’ of the Cross as the authentic critique of those who delude themselves that they possess the truth, when in fact they run it aground on the shoals of a system of their own devising”. (9)

Of course, based on what we take to be God’s own and final Qur’anic revelation of the truth regarding Jesus (peace be upon him), we Muslims accept God’s judgment that it is not “befitting” to God to have a son or become human. Thus most Muslim theologians deny the doctrines of the incarnation and crucifixion not only on the basis of the philosophical logic concerning impossible objects (as briefly outlined above), but on the basis of divine revelation (or revealed divine logic) that Muslims solemnly hold authentic and true.

Despite the fact that a Muslim, based on the ultimate revelatory authority he or she accepts, must reject the contents of the particular example claimed by “Fides et Ratio” to be a willful rupture of the rules of human reason, the example itself does establish that Catholicism, like Islam, does elevate the freedom and will of God over any limits on them by any external human or transcendental “Reason”. Does that make Catholic teaching irrational, or the Catholic God an irrational God?

One person’s extra-rationality is often another person’s irrationality! It all depends on one’s ultimate criterion. For us Muslims that ultimate criterion (al-furqan) on the doctrine of God, is the Qur’an and the Sunnah. It is pointless, however, for Christians and Muslims to exchange accusations of irrationality based on their contrasting communal experiences of what they take to be extra-rational ruptures of the divine into history. Such a mutually-destructive polemical exchange will only satisfy atheistic secularists who think that religiosity as such is fundamentally irrational. Muslim and Christians must cooperate in staking a place for the extra-rational in a world increasingly dominated by a godless secularist outlook. As pointed out in the beginning of my commentary, Benedict XVI’s just call for an expansion of the notion of Reason so as to accommodate revelatory insights is something that both Christians and Muslims can positively respond to.

Furthermore, having different authoritative revelatory criteria for the doctrine of God does not necessarily mean that we have different Gods. Here it is useful to invoke the important distinction, made by the logician Frege, between “sense” and “reference”. In talking of God, He is our common “reference”, and we are all referring to the very same God. However, in talking of God, we, of course, have different “senses” or ways of understanding and referring to Him (senses and ways that are deeply rooted in our different revelatory traditions and communal experiences).

Perhaps this distinction can help Martinetti see that its is possible for a Muslim and a Christian to worship and talk about the same God, while at the same time solemnly upholding different, and even opposing, senses of Him.

In some areas, as in the upholding of the sovereign Will of God, it is possible for Muslim and Christian theological senses to come very close to each other, in addition to sharing the same reference. In other areas, as in Trinitarian versus Unitarian doctrines, Christian and Muslim theological senses are in clear opposition. Despite such opposition, we must not fall into the temptation of scoffing at, or dismissing, each other. We must, together, keep our hearts and minds focused on Him who is our common reference, and continue to engage each other in a pray-full, reasoned, and peaceful dialectical discussion.

Part of the task of inter-religious dialogue is to invoke the unity of reference in order to make room for the exploration of the diversity of senses. Such exploration can enhance our understandings of the different, and even oppositional senses, we have of the divine. Our own different senses of the divine become clearer as we engage each other in sincere and devout discussion regarding the One God. This is why I am so grateful for Martinetti’s comments. I sincerely hope our discussion will continue.

8. The biblical basis for the affirmation of the sovereignty of the will of God

The above teachings of the Catholic Church regarding the will of God are not at all surprising. The Bible, in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, is full of repeated affirmations of the total sovereignty of the will of God. The following passage of Paul (Romans 9:14-26) suffices as an illustration:

“What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? May it never be! For he said to Moses: ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion’. So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I caused you to be raised up, that I might show in you my power, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth’. So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires. You will say then to me, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?’ But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it: ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Or hasn't the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor? What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath made for destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory, us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles? As he says also in Hosea: ‘I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, who was not beloved. It will be that in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' there they will be called children of the living God’.”

It is a simple fact that the God of the Bible, just as the God of the Qur’an, cannot be made to fit within the bounds and designs of the human logics of the philosophers (not even within the great logic of Aristotle so revered in both of our traditions by Aquinas and al-Ghazali). It is important to remember the famous words of Pascal in his “Pensées”:

“The God of Christians is not a God who is simply the author of mathematical truths, or of the order of the elements; that is the view of heathens and Epicureans... But the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Christians, is a God of love and of comfort, a God who fills the soul and heart of those whom He possesses, a God who makes them conscious of their inward wretchedness, and His infinite mercy, who unites Himself to their inmost soul, who fills it with humility and joy, with confidence and love, who renders them incapable of any other end than Himself”. (10)

In one’s apologetic efforts to make room for theology and religion amidst their contemporary secular “cultured despisers”, one must remember the important stark difference so rightly pointed out by Pascal: “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. Not of the philosophers and intellectuals. Certitude, certitude, feeling, joy, peace!”

If being rational and having a rational God means adopting the God of the philosophers, be it called “Reason” or “Logos”, most Muslim theologians would simply opt to pass! That is why Asha’rite theologians, while always upholding the importance of devout reasoning that is guided by revelation, never accepted the Hellenistic philosophical worship of “Logos” or the “Active Intellect”.

Islam’s devout insistence on the sovereignty of the living God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Ishmael, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (peace be upon them all) must not be cheaply turned against it, with unfair accusations of whimsical irrationality! If properly appreciated such devout Muslim insistence can be a real aid to Christian affirmations of the divine in the face of the atheistically secular.

Let us help each other by overcoming our false “contrast tables”, and by praying for peace and guidance from the One beloved God of all.

God truly knows best!

Just Islam...?

2006-10-30T11:02:00.001+11:00

Note: This site received this email today.

dear mike,
islam is just islam - not the australian islam and not the jihadist islam. perhaps you should've known by this now.the key to peace in the world is justice.no justice- no peace. if colonialism goes on struggle goes on.

Comment:The truth in this email is the statement that 'the key to peace in the world is justice'.The un-named sender is talking the simple minded position that all jihadist muslims must take (they have no other option)...Islam is equal to justice and therefore resistance to it is unjust. Islam is resisted because it is seen as backward and unjust. The Western resisters against Islam can and do make a strong case for their views...backwardness and injustice are not hard to find in the muslim world.Of course,all societies can be branded with this 'hot iron', but the backwardness and injustice in Islam is being kept alive by 'just Islam' interpretations of the Koran and other major documents.

Parallel to this idea is a completely unintelligent understanding of religion. The Koran did not come down to Earth by the magical intervention of any angel. Studies of early Korans show clearly the lines of early development. All Scriptures are written by adherents following the life of some charismatic Teacher. The Koran is no exception.

The un-named sender appears to not apply normal human intelligence to any aspect of Islam. It is all magic to him/her. He/she seems to deny that there is or has been any development in Islam. This is obviously false. Development is the norm wherever people are gathered. This development of Islam is still ongoing. Difficulties in Islam are caused by reactionary believers in magic like the un-named sender.

Muslims in Australia will need to develop an Islam which is consistent with current Australian norms. The present crisis with imam Hilali, and now the 3 Australian converts to Islam being held by police in Yemen, clearly show sensible people that the 'just Islam' school of Islam is not able to function in Australia.

'Just Islam' leads to Hilali and converts helping the security police with their investigations. The resulting low standing of Islam must be a cause of concern for sensible muslims in Australia.

The un-named sender should realise that Islam and its documents will be subjected in the coming years to the same intellectual analysis and historical investigations of language, form and ideas that have been given to the Jewish and Christian Scriptures over the past 200 years. Appeals to 'just Islam' will be dismissed with contempt by the world scholars of Islam.

Of course, if the 'just Islam' school of Islam cannot deal with the onrush of world scholarship, they will be swept away in the coming generations. The young in every faith community do not want their community to be backward and an object of laughing contempt and scorn. The 'just Islam' school is leading the local muslims down that track. It is hard enough being a muslim in Australia today without the added burden of projecting Islam as some form of magic which is unchanged in any way since 632AD and 11AH. Nobody outside the 'magic circle' of the 'just Islam' crew believes that there has not been any developments in Islam. No independent scholar believes that the Koran was dictated to an illiterate Muhammad by any angel. The Koran was slowly written and compiled in the century after the death of Muhammad. It was put together by the 'Ummah for it own benefit in the first muslim century, it can be re-interpreted by the current 'Ummah in the current day for the interest of current muslims.

Modernity is a hard taskmaster. If the local muslims do not develop an Australian (modern)version of Islam, the local muslim community will, religiously, die slowly under the impact of modern life. Increasing numbers of local muslims will abandon Islam rather be trapped in some backward 'magic show' which is laughed at by the broader Australian and Western community. The un-named sender should not imagine that all muslims in Australia are of the jihadist/Wahhabi/Salafist persuasion as he/she is. The great majority of Australian muslims want to live in Australia in 2006AD, not in Mecca in 632AD.

Muhammad From Islamic Sources.

2006-10-28T15:38:00.000+10:00

Note: This review of the new book 'The Truth About Muhammad' is well worth reading. Readers are urged to pass it on to their friends. It may help them form an accurate view of Muhammad, the inventor of Islam. The book is drawn exclusively from Islamic sources.

Read and really learn...

October 27, 2006
A review of Spencer's The Truth About Muhammad by Bruce Thornton
Bruce Thornton is a professor of Classics at Cal State Fresno and co-author with Victor Davis Hanson of Bonfire of the Humanities: Rescuing the Classics in an Impoverished Age and author of Greek Ways: How the Greeks Created Western Civilization (Encounter Books). His most recent book is Searching for Joaquin: Myth, Murieta, and History in California (Encounter Books). This review appears at California Republic.

Ambrose Bierce once quipped that war was God’s way of teaching Americans geography. He could have said “teaching us history,” for the enemy is emboldened by our ignorance not just of where he lives but of how he lives, his beliefs and values, and to understand these traditions we must understand their history. Unfortunately, in the current war against Islamic jihad we persist in ignoring the documented history of Islam and its beliefs, accepting instead the spin and propaganda of various propagandists, apologists, and Western useful idiots.
This imperative to know the enemy’s beliefs is particularly important for understanding the jihadists, for Islam is a fiercely traditional faith, one brooking no deviation from the revelation granted to Muhammad and codified in the Koran, Hadith, and the sira or biography of the Prophet. As Robert Spencer shows in his invaluable resource The Truth about Muhammad, in these sources Muhammad is presented as “an excellent model of conduct,” as the Koran puts it, his words and deeds forming the pattern for all pious Muslims to follow. “Muslims,” according to Muqtedar Khan of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, “as a part of religious observance, not only obey, but also seek to emulate and imitate their Prophet in every aspect of life.” The facts of Muhammad’s life, then, are paramount for understanding the beliefs that warrant and validate jihadist terror.

Presenting those facts clearly and fairly is precisely what Spencer accomplishes in his new book. Spencer has been for years a bastion of plain-speaking truth. Through books like Islam Unveiled, Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West, and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (And the Crusades), and as director of Jihad Watch, Spencer has courageously presented the simple facts of Islamic history and thought that too many Americans, including some in the current administration, ignore or distort. Spencer’s new book continues this important service of arming us with the facts we need in order to understand an enemy who wants nothing from us other than our conversion, death, or subjection.

Basing his description of Muhammad on the same Islamic sources revered by believers themselves, Spencer paints a portrait of the Prophet unrecognizable to any who have been deceived by the idealizations of apologists like Farida Khanam, whom Spencer quotes as claiming that Muhammad’s “heart was filled with intense love for all humankind irrespective of caste, creed or color,” or the British religious writer Karen Armstrong, who claims that “Muhammad eventually abjured violence and pursued a daring, inspired policy of non-violence that was worthy of Ghandi.” Such fantastic delusions cannot stand up to the relentless quotations and facts Spencer gathers from Islamic sources, all of which show us a Mohammad justifying and practicing violence in the service of the faith he invented.

As Spencer traces Muhammad’s life, we see the behaviors practiced by today’s jihadists, who continually site the Prophet as their justifying model. The arrogant intolerance of any other religion finds its source in Muhammad’s assertion to Muslims, “Ye are the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, and believing in Allah.” The rationalization of violence by invoking the hostility of unbelievers is also warranted by Muhammad: because of the rejection of him by his tribesmen the Quraysh, Allah “gave permission to His apostle to fight and to protect himself against those who wronged them [Muslims] and treated them badly.” Hence the various offenses fabricated by today’s jihadists to justify their aggression against the West. But Muhammad justifies not just defensive warfare but also violence in the service of the faith: “’Fight them [unbelievers] so that there be no more seduction,’ i.e., until no believer is seduced from his religion. ‘And the religion is God’s,’ i.e. until God alone is worshiped.” We see here the jihadist’s hatred of the West and globalization, whose political freedoms and hedonistic prosperity “seduce” believers from the faith.
As Spencer concludes, “The Qur’an . . . commands much more than defensive warfare: Muslims must fight until ‘the religion is God’s’––that is, until Allah alone is worshipped. Later Islamic law, based on statements of Muhammad, would offer non-Muslims three options: conversion to Islam, subjugation as inferiors under Islamic law, or warfare.” So much for the protestations of tolerance and co-existence constantly peddled by jihad’s Western publicists.

Every aspect of Islamic practice and belief finds its basis in Muhammad’s words and deeds. When Muhammad’s lieutenant Abdullah attacked a Quraysh caravan during a month when fighting was prohibited, Muhammad’s initial displeasure was changed by a “revelation” [i.e. from the angel Gabriel, who dictated the Koran to Mohammad] saying “persecution [i.e. of Muslims] is worse than killing,” and Abdullah was forgiven. “This was a momentous incident,” Spencer concludes, “for it would set a pattern: good became identified with anything that redounded to the benefit of Muslims, and evil with anything that harmed them, without reference to any larger moral standard. Moral absolutes were swept aside in favor of the overarching principle of expediency.”

As Spencer progresses through the Prophet’s life, the evidence for Muhammad’s model as the source of modern jihadist practice becomes overwhelming. The penchant for beheading enemies displayed by jihadists is validated by Muhammad’s decapitation of his enemy Abu Jahl after the battle of Badr against the Quraysh. A “revelation” after the battle codified this practice and linked it to the terrorizing of the enemy that would help Muslims prevail: “’I [Allah] will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them.’ This because they contended against Allah and His Messenger: If any contend against Allah and His Messenger, Allah is strict in punishment.” Given that “contend against” can be defined as any activity that “seduces” believers or stands in the way of Muslim interests, the divine justification for the violence and terror perpetrated by jihadists from Indonesia to Africa, Israel to England is obvious.

So too with the practice of making tactical treaties and truces only to break them later. “If thou fearest treachery from any group, throw back (their covenant) to them, (so as to be) on equal terms: for Allah lovest not the treacherous,” a statement also revealing of the double-standard many Muslims take for granted when dealing with non-believers. Armed with this loophole, Muhammad moved against the Banu Qaynuqa, a Jewish tribe who had resisted Islam but with whom Muhammad had a truce. As Muhammad famously said, “War is deceit.” This precedent of deceit is obviously pertinent today, particularly for Palestinian Arab dealings with Israel. We have seen agreement after agreement signed by Arafat and others, only to be violated when circumstances seem to favor force.

The mistreatment of women, polygamy, child-marriage, stoning of adulterers, cutting off the hands of thieves, mutilation of enemy corpses, the sentence of death for apostasy, the subjection of dhimmi or Christians and Jews, even the killing of writers who displease the faithful––remember the sentence of death against Indian novelist Salman Rushdie, still in force––all have their precedents in the things Muhammad said and did. And as Spencer documents in his conclusion, this invocation of Muhammad is continually made by the jihadist terrorists themselves, who accurately link their violence to incidents and sayings from the life of Muhammad. To pretend that these devout Muslims are ignorant of their own religion’s traditions or are “hijacking” them is willful blindness.

Perhaps the most important precedent established by Muhammad, however, and one at the root of modern jihadist violence, is the demonization of Christians and Jews. Centuries before the existence of Israel, the actions and words of Muhammad legitimized the hatred of Jews. As Spencer shows, this disdain and resentment reflected the powerful barrier the Jews of western Arabia presented to Muhammad’s new faith and ambitions, not to mention the extent of Muhammad’s borrowings from Jewish scripture and traditions. But the continuing refusal of the Jews to accept that Muhammad was the “seal of the prophets” eventually led to his war against these potent rivals, including the Qurayzah of Medina, 600-700 of whom were beheaded. This hatred was justified by calling the Jews along with the Christians “renegades” who had turned against God and the true faith of their ancestors. Thus throughout the Koran one finds codified an intolerance and hatred of Jews still infecting the Islamic world today. The notion of apologists that Islam offers tolerant accommodation to Jews and Christians is belied by verses in the Koran such as, “Oh ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors,” and in Ibn Ishaq's biography by comments about the Jews such as, “You brothers of monkeys, has God disgraced you and brought His vengeance upon you?”

Given all this evidence, as Spencer writes, “It is nothing short of staggering that the myth of Islamic tolerance could have gained such currency in the teeth of Muhammad’s open contempt and hatred for Jews and Christians, incitements of violence against them, and calls that they be converted or subjugated.” And this historical evidence is ratified by contemporary events that show modern Muslims following to the letter the example of Muhammad, from continuing persecution of Jews and Christians in Muslim lands, to the riots and calls for violence that attended (and validated) the Pope’s quotation of a Byzantine emperor’s observation that violence in the service religion is Islam’s sole innovation.

Spencer concludes with some common-sense suggestions, most importantly demanding that so-called “moderates” condemn jihad and teach against religious intolerance in their schools and mosques. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen, given the power of Muhammad’s example of enmity against unbelievers, and given the arrogant intolerance and unwillingness to compromise that typify too many Muslims. The anxiety about appearing “racist” and the sentimental idealization of the “other” dominating American society make it even more unlikely that any politician will challenge Muslims about the facts of Mohammad’s words and deeds that jihadists today use to justify their actions. Unless we heed people like Robert Spencer, it seems that only another graphic example of jihadist violence within our borders has a chance of teaching us the history of the enemy.

Comment: Readers should note how the mainstream media will ignore this book. Why do they do this? Are they afraid of muslims? No. The book is ignored because it destroys the fantasy delusions of Islam held by very many people who make up the 'chattering classes' of the West. Journalists are principal members of these
'chattering classes'.

Islam Outside Australia.

2006-10-28T10:03:00.000+10:00

Note: Readers should remember that the Islam world outside Australia includes very many acts of violence and intimidation. Some may proclaim that these acts are 'un-islamic',but they still take place and no Islamic leaders anywhere in the world denounce them or take any action to stop them.

Just how 'un-islamic' are these acts of violence and intimidation?

Read and learn...

28 October 2006

Attacks on Pakistani Christians increasing.

The Archbishop of Lahore has spoken out against Pakistan's draconian blasphemy laws, which he says are devastating the lives of Christians there. Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha said these laws are making it difficult for Christians to live in Pakistan.

According to "Persecuted and Forgotten?", a major report published by the charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Pakistan's non-Muslims have suffered worse persecution in the last 18 months than at any other time in the last 60 years.

Archbishop Saldanha says that the blasphemy law allows people to make accusations with too little evidence, which is putting religious minorities at risk.

"There is no kind of proper trial at all. Just [an] accusation is enough. Before we know it the mob will come and attack and do their destruction and only later on they'll ask questions. So many people are lying in jail without any trial. It's very difficult to get them out afterwards," said the archbishop on BBC Radio 4's Today programme last Tuesday.

Pakistan's constitution allows everyone to practise their religion, but under the country's blasphemy laws "defiling, damaging or desecrating" the Qur'an is punishable with life imprisonment, and insulting the Prophet Muhammad carries the death sentence.

According to the Justice and Peace Commission of Pakistan's Catholic Church, 700 people have been charged under the legislation since it was tightened in 1986 and more than 20 have died subsequently, some in custody.

The ACN report cites the story of Yusif Said, a 46-year-old Christian trader in Pakistan accused of blasphemy by a man he beat at a game of cards. The man called on imams to assemble Muslims to punish the whole Christian community; a crowd burnt down two churches and their adjoining schools in Mr Said's home town, Sangla Hill in eastern Pakistan, and ransacked homes. When Mr Said turned himself into the police for the sake of his wife and children, officers handcuffed and tortured him. He was charged with desecrating the Qur'an, found guilty and imprisoned for almost four months before the ruling was overturned. Mr Said told ACN: "I know that a lot of my problems would disappear immediately if I changed my faith. But I would rather be beaten and put to death than change my faith. I kept thinking that if Christ suffered, why can't we?"

Fr Robert McCulloch, 60, an Australian Columban missionary in Hyderabad, told The Tablet that laws had created a culture of intimidation. " There's a policy of religious domination. A group of [Muslim] fundamentalists came to the door of a missionary nun, trying to put a copy of the Qur'an into her hands and cause it to fall to the ground. [If they had succeeded] it would have been taken as an insult to the Qur'an. Fundamentalists have their witnesses gathered, then demonstrations [calling for her arrest] would begin. Legal justice is one thing; mob justice is another. It all adds to the enormous insecurity Christians have to live with."

According to "Persecuted and Forgotten?" Christians are "probably the most persecuted religious group in the world" with as many as 170,000 believers killed each year for religious reasons.

Comment: The Australian government should take action to be more forthright in its defence of persecuted Christians in the world. As Christianity is a cultural and spiritual part of Western Civilization all attacks on it are a long term danger to Australia.

Serious consideration (by serious people, obviously)should be given to thsi matter.

Sheik Hilali Explains Islam.

2006-10-26T18:56:00.000+10:00

Note: This site does not condone the foolish analogies uttered by the imam hilali in his sermon. Men in his position must be extra careful in how they formulate their words.

The attacks on him are deserved by him. He has apologised; this apology should be accepted (by whom is another matter) and he should be left alone to learn the necessary lessons of this event.

Read on...

Thursday Oct 26 18:49 AEST
Sheik apologises for 'meat' comments

Australia's senior Muslim cleric Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali has apologised for any offence caused by his comments that immodestly dressed women provoke sexual attacks.

The Australian newspaper reported that, in a sermon delivered last month, Sheik Alhilali likened scantily clad women to uncovered meat eaten by animals.

"I unreservedly apologise to any woman who is offended by my comments," he said in a statement.

"I had only intended to protect women's honour, something lost in The Australian presentation of my talk."

Sheik Alhilali has been widely condemned by Muslim and non Muslim groups for the Ramadan sermon he gave in Arabic to 500 worshippers in Sydney.

According to The Australian's translation, he said: "If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat," he said.

"The uncovered meat is the problem.

"If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab (Islamic headscarf which covers the hair neck and shoulders), no problem would have occurred."

But the mufti of Australia and New Zealand would not back away from his comments and said he was shocked by the way his sermon was interpreted.

"The Australian front page article reported selected comments from a talk presented one month ago," the sheik said.

"The title was 'Why men were mentioned before women for the crime of theft and woman (sic) before men for the sin of fornication'.

"I would like to unequivocally confirm that the presentation related to religious teachings on modesty and not to go to extremes in enticements, this does not condone rape, I condemn rape and reiterate that this is a capital crime.

"Women in our Australian society have the freedom and right to dress as they choose (while) the duty of man is to avert his glance or walk away.

"If a man falls from grace and commits fornication then if this was consensual, they would be both guilty, but if it was forced, then the man has committed a capital crime.

"Whether a man endorses or not, a particular form of dress, any form of harassment of women is unacceptable."

A spokesman for Sheik Alhilali said the backlash and criticism had badly affected him and he had been depressed and confined to bed all day, breathing with the assistance of an oxygen tank.

His comments had provoked a storm of protest from political, religious and community leaders.

Prime Minister John Howard said the comments were appalling and reprehensible.

"They are quite out of touch with contemporary values in Australia." Mr Howard said.

Mr Howard said the sheik's remarks clearly related to a "particularly appalling" rape trial in Sydney.

Asked if the sheik should resign, Mr Howard replied: "It's not for me to say what position he should hold in the Islamic faith.

"But it is for me as prime minister to say I totally reject the notion that the way in which women dress and deport themselves can in any way be used as a semblance of justification for rape."

The Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV) had called for the sheik to resign, saying comments that likened women to meat were an unfounded justification for rape.

ICV committee member Sherene Hassan said she was outraged by the comments.

"Those comments are extremely offensive, and there is no basis for what he said in Islamic teachings," Ms Hassan told AAP.

"They are a paternal distortion of Islamic teachings.

"The ICV is issuing a statement calling for his resignation.

"There is no justification for rape."

Ms Hassan said she wears a hijab because of her "devotion to God".

"It's a form of identification. Men do not enter the equations. I don't do it to hide from men."

The Islamic Council of NSW also condemned the sheik's remarks.

The council said the remarks were "un-Islamic, un-Australian and unacceptable".

A spokesman for the council, Mr Ali Roude, said he was "astonished" at Sheik Alhilali's comments, saying he "had failed both himself and the Muslim community".

"While we respect the rights of any Australian citizen to freedom of speech, there is a further responsibility upon our civic leaders, be they religious, political or bureaucratic, to offer appropriate guidance to the people under their care," Mr Roude said.

"The comments widely reported today do no such thing."

Sheik Alhilali had seriously misrepresented the teachings of Islam in his comments, Mr Roude said, which were offensive to both sexes.

The comments also showed a deep misunderstanding of rape and personal violence, which Mr Roude described as a "crimes of power".

"As a father, brother and son myself, I take offence at the portrayal of both men and women in the alleged published comments," Mr Roude said.

"Islam requires all people, men and women alike, to dress with modesty.

"This is not to reduce the risk of sexual assault and rape, but rather to show respect for the God who created us all as equals and to show respect for ourselves as people who rise above the world of mere things and animals to stand as conscious beings in the presence of that same loving God - Allah Ta'ala."

Mr Roude said he had known Sheik Alhilali for many years and was deeply disappointed he had made the remarks, which were in no way shared or endorsed by the council.

"Any comments or actions which might lead any person, especially any Muslim, to despise or to objectify any other person are clearly contrary to the will of God," Mr Roude said.

"The comments reported today must be heard, read and understood in that context."

Leaders of the Sydney mosque where Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali preaches have not ruled out taking action over the cleric's comments that immodestly-dressed women are inviting rape.

But the Lebanese Muslim Association (LMA), which runs the Lakemba Mosque in the city's south-west, said it would give Sheik Alhilali the benefit of the doubt until it had reviewed his address.

LMA president Tom Zreika said he was "flabbergasted" on reading the cleric's comments.

"In order to afford him natural justice principles, we said he's got the benefit of the doubt until we have reviewed the comments on the tape as well as on the translated transcripts," he told reporters outside Lakemba Mosque.

"We would like to assure the wider public, which we are part of, that those comments were hurtful, misguided and were taken out of context."

Comment: The words uttered by Sheik Hilali, the imam of the Lakemba mosque, were ill chosen, but the content of his sermon was very orthodox Islam. Islam is very strict in matters of unregulated sex. Australia, generally, is not. This lays the groundwork for the ocassional culture clash. Such clashes are not the end of the world.

Of course, when the strictness preached leads to violence against another person, that is another matter. The connection between words and action is well known. This connection needs to be constantly taken into account by men in imam Hilali's position.

Hopefully, the very big negative reaction to his remarks will most likely lead to more careful choice of words in the future. This is a good outcome.

'The Truth About Muhammad'...A Book Review.

2006-10-25T17:05:00.000+10:00

Note: This posting is a book review on the new polemic book contra-Muhammad. Ity appears to be full of 'blood and thunder' criticism of the cynosure of Islam. The contents of this book were drawn from Muslim sources. It seems a good read.

In this startling new book, New York Times bestselling author Robert Spencer, provides a warts-and-all portrait of the Prophet of Islam and draws out what his life implies for reforming Islam and repulsing Islamic terrorists. Spencer relies solely on primary sources considered reliable by Muslims and evaluates modern biographies to show how Muhammad has been changed for Western audiences, lulling them into consoling but false conclusions.

Muhammad: a frank look at his influential (and violent) life and teachings.

In 'The Truth about Muhammad', New York Times bestselling author and Islam expert Robert Spencer offers an honest and telling portrait of the founder of Islam-perhaps the first such portrait in half a century-unbounded by fear and political correctness, unflinching, and willing to face the hard facts about Muhammad's life that continue to affect our world today.

From Muhammad's first "revelation" from Allah (which filled him with terror that he was demon possessed) to his deathbed (from which he called down curses upon Jews and Christians), it's all here-told with extensive documentation from the sources that Muslims themselves consider most reliable about Muhammad.

Spencer details Muhammad's development from a preacher of hellfire and damnation into a political and military leader who expanded his rule by force of arms, promising his warriors luridly physical delights in Paradise if they were killed in his cause. He explains how the Qur'an's teaching on warfare against unbelievers developed-with constant war to establish the hegemony of Islamic law as the last stage.

Spencer also gives the truth about Muhammad's convenient "revelations" justifying his own licentiousness; his joy in the brutal murders of his enemies; and above all, his clear marching orders to his followers to convert non-Muslims to Islam-or force them to live as inferiors under Islamic rule.

In The Truth about Muhammad, you'll learn

- The truth about Muhammad's multiple marriages (including one to a nine-year-old) - How Muhammad set legal standards that make it virtually impossible to prove rape in Islamic countries - How Muhammad's example justifies jihad and terrorism - The real "Satanic verses" incident (not the Salman Rushdie version) that remains a scandal to Muslims - How Muhammad's faulty knowledge of Judaism and Christianity has influenced Islamic theology--and colored Muslim relations with Jews and Christians to this day.

Recognizing the true nature of Islam, Spencer argues, is essential for judging the prospects for largescale Islamic reform, the effective prosecution of the War on Terror, the democracy project in Afghanistan and Iraq, and immigration and border control to protect the United States from terrorism.

All of which makes it crucial for every citizen (and policymaker) who loves freedom to read and ponder The Truth about Muhammad.

Comment: It will be interesting to see if this book is reviewed by Australian newspapers and media. Most likely they will be too afraid. Poor fella my country.

Sex And The Frightened Muslim.

2006-10-23T20:35:00.000+10:00

Note: This post concerns sex. Muslims are generally frightened of sex. Their societies are absurdly puritanical. The young in muslim societies live in a widespread situation of almost unbearable tension. This is all madness. The modern world, via TV and the Internet, is breaking down the backward Arabian views od sex that oppress the muslims everywhere.

Read and learn...

Sex and Taboos in the Islamic World
By Amira El Ahl and Daniel Steinvorth

Sex is a taboo in conservative Islamic countries. Young, unmarried couples are forced to seek out secret erotic oases. Books and play that are devoted to the all too human topic of sex incur the wrath of conservative religious officials and are promptly banned.

Thomas Grabka
A meeting point for couples at the port of Rabat: "The more repressive a society is, the more desperately does it seek an outlet."

Rabat, Morocco. Every evening Amal the octopus vendor looks on as sin returns to his beach. It arrives in the form of handholding couples who hide behind the tall, castle-like quay walls in the city's harbor district to steal a few clandestine kisses. Some perform balancing acts on slippery rocks and seaweed to secure a spot close to the Atlantic Ocean and cuddle in the dim evening light. The air tastes of salt and hashish. On some mornings, when Amal finds used condoms on the beach, he wishes that these depraved, shameless sinners -- who aren't even married, he says -- would roast in hell.

Cairo, Egypt. A hidden little dead-end street in Samalik, a posh residential neighborhood, with a view of the Nile. Those who live here can stand on their balconies at night and see things that no one is meant to see. The cars begin arriving well before sunset, some evenings bringing as many as a hundred amorous couples. Almost all the girls wear headscarves, but that doesn't prevent them from wearing skin-tight, short-sleeved tops. The boys are like boys everywhere, nonchalantly placing their arms around their girlfriends' shoulders and even more nonchalantly sliding their hands into their blouses.

The locals call this place "Shari al-Hubb," or "Street of Love." The gossips say that children have been conceived here and couples have been spotted engaging in oral sex.

Beirut, Lebanon. As techno music blares from the loudspeakers in the dim light, patrons shout their drink orders across the bar. Boys in tight jeans and unbuttoned, white shirts, their hair perfectly styled, jostle their way onto the dance floor. The men shake their hips, clap their hands and embrace -- but without touching all too obviously. After all, those who go too far could end up being thrown out of "Acid," Beirut's most popular gay disco. Officially, "Acid" is nothing more than a nightclub in an out-of-the-way industrial neighborhood.

As liberal as Lebanon is, flaunting one's homosexuality is verboten. Gays are tolerated, but only as long as they remain under the radar and conceal their activities from public scrutiny.

For many in the Arab world, discretion is the only option when it comes to experiencing lust and passion. There are secret spots everywhere, and they are often the only place to go for those forced to live with the contradictions of the modern Islamic world. In countries whose governments are increasingly touting strict morals and chastity, prohibitions have been unsuccessful at suppressing everyday sexuality. Religious censors are desperately trying to put a stop to what they view as declining morals in their countries, but there is little they can do to stop satellite TV, the Internet and text messaging.

A counterforce to Western excesses?

Do the stealthy violations of taboos and moral precepts foreshadow a sexual revolution in the Arab world? Or is the pressure being applied by the moralists creating a new prudishness, a counterforce to the perceived excesses of the West.

For now, everything seems possible, including the idea that a man can end up spending a night in jail for being caught with a condom in his shirt pocket. Ali al-Gundi, an Egyptian journalist, was driving his girlfriend home when he was stopped at a police checkpoint. He didn't have his driver's license with him, but it was 4 a.m. and he was in the company of an attractive woman. For the police, this was reason enough to handcuff Gundi and his girlfriend and take them to the police station. "On the way there, they threatened to beat us," says the 30-year-old. At the station, they took away his mobile phone and wallet and found an unused condom in his shirt pocket.

"They were already convinced that my girlfriend was a whore," says Gundi. The couple ended up behind bars, even after telling the police that they planned to get married in a few months. Only after the woman notified her father the next day were the two released from jail. For Gundi, one thing is certain: "If the officer who stopped us hadn't been so sexually frustrated, he would have let us go."

The sexual frustration of many young Arabs has countless causes, most of them economic. Jobs are scarce and low-paying, and most young men are unable to afford and furnish their own apartments -- a prerequisite to being able to marry in most Arab countries. At the same time, premarital sex is an absolute taboo in Islam. As a result, cities across the Arab world -- Algiers, Alexandria, Sana'a and Damascus -- are filled with "boy-men" between 18 and 35 who are forced to live with their parents for the foreseeable future.

There is one exception, and it's even sanctioned by the Islamic faith: the "temporary marriage" or "pleasure marriage" -- not a bond for life but one designed for intimate sins. Such agreements, presided over by imams, are not regulated by the state. They can be concluded for only a few hours or they can be open-ended. But particularly romantic they are not.

Separating the sexes

Another frustrating development for young Islamic men is the growing separation of the sexes. More and more women are wearing modest clothing. Some choose to wear headscarves or cover their entire bodies, and some even wear black gloves to cover the last remaining bit of exposed skin on their bodies.

A porn site on the Internet: 56 percent of young men in the Mahgreb region admit to watching porn on a regular basis.
Nowadays a woman walking along a Cairo street without a veil stands a good chance of being stared at as if she were from another planet. Journalist Gundi is convinced that "oppression brings out perversion in people." The men want their women to be covered and veiled because they are afraid of women -- "afraid of the feelings women provoke."

Most Egyptian women now wear a headscarf, but for varying reasons. Ula Shahba, 27, sees the trend toward covering one's head as an expression of a new female self-confidence, not as a symbol of oppression. For the past two years, Shahba has worn the headscarf voluntarily -- out of conviction, as she emphasizes, insisting that no one forces her to do so. But, she adds, the decision wasn't easy. "I love my hair," she says, "but it shouldn't be visible to everyone." Shahba doesn't believe that the headscarf is a sign of religious devoutness. "It's more of a trend," she says.

A Moroccan study published in early 2006 in L'Economiste, a Moroccan business publication, shows how paradoxical young Arabs' attitudes toward religion and sexuality can be. According to the study, young Muslims in the Maghreb region are increasingly ignoring the clearly defined rules of their religion. Premarital sex is not unusual, and 56 percent of young men admit to watching porn on a regular basis. But the respondents also said that it was just as important to them to pray, observe the one-month Ramadan fast and marry a fellow Muslim. When seen in this light, young Muslims' approach to Islam seems as hedonistic as it is variable, almost arbitrary.

Betraying the message of Muhammad

Muslim novelist "Nedjma" ("Star"), the author of "The Almond," a successful erotic novel, describes Moroccan society as divided and bigoted. Despite progressive family and marriage laws, she says, the country is still controlled by patriarchal traditions in which men continue to sleep around and treat women as subordinates. It is a society in which prudishness and sexual obsession, ignorance and desire, "sperm and prayer" coexist. "The more repressive a society is, the more desperately it seeks an outlet," says Nedjma, who conceals her real name because she has already been vilified on the Internet as a "whore" and an "insult to Islam."

Men like Samir, 36, a bald waiter who wears a formal, black and white uniform to work, could be straight out of Nedjma's novel. Samir grins at the prospect of catching a glimpse of unveiled girls in his café in Rabat. But in the same breath, he admits that he would never spend a significant amount of time in the same room with a woman he doesn't know. "No man and no woman can be together without being accompanied by the devil," he believes, adding that he is quoting the Prophet Muhammad.

But most sources paint a completely different picture of the religious leader, describing him as a hedonist and womanizer who loved and worshipped women. Indeed, he married 12 women, including a businesswoman 15 years his senior, to whom he remained faithful until her death. Author Nedjma says that Muslim men today are "betraying the message of Muhammad," whom she describes as a delicate, gallant man. She doubts that the prophet was afraid of female sexuality, as many of the men in her social circle are today.

Even conservative theologians emphasize the compatibility of pleasure and faith -- but only after marriage. They can even evoke the Prophet Mohammed, who said: "In this world, I loved women, pleasant scents and prayer."

This presents an odd contradiction to the puritanical present, which represents a fundamental departure from Islam's more open-minded past and has instead made way for a humorless and rigorous Islamism.

Journalist Ali al-Gundi believes that Muslim men have a troubled relationship with their own sexuality. "Most men only want to marry a virgin," he says. "What for? Isn't it much nicer to be with a partner who has experience?" Gundi talks about his girlfriends who have done everything but actually have sex, so as not to damage their hymens. That would mean social death.

Egyptian filmmaker Ahmed Khalid devoted his first short film, "The Fifth Pound," to the topic of taboo. The film tells the story of a young couple who use a bus ride to be together and exchange more than just a few innocent, tender words. Every Friday morning, when everyone else is at the mosque for prayers, they meet on the third-to-the-last bench on the bus, a spot where none of the other passengers can see what they are doing. As they sit there, shoulder-to-shoulder, staring straight ahead, they stroke each other's bodies. Their only fear is that the bus driver will see what they are doing through the rear view mirror. He watches the couple, fully aware of what they are doing, all the while indulging in his own fantasies.

In his imagination, the driver sits down next to the girl, carefully removes her headscarf and unbuttons her blouse. She closes her eyes and presses her fingers into the armrest. The headscarf slowly slides off the seat. Both reach climax, the girl in the bus driver's fantasy and the boy through his girlfriend's hand. In the end, the couple pays the driver four pounds for the tickets and a fifth for his silence.

Of course, Khalid was unable to find a distributor for his scandalous, 14-minute short film, and even Cairo's liberal cultural centers refused to run "The Fifth Pound" without it being censored first. Even though, or perhaps precisely because the film does not depict any actual sexual activity, it excites the viewer's fantasy -- an especially odious offense in the eyes of religious censors.

Comment: One of the worst things about Islam is its puritanism. This is not an attitude which finds favour in contemporary Australia. Public policy should never flinch in opposing any and every example of psychotic muslim fear about sex. They cry endlessly for censorship. They must be rejected every time.

Fear of Hell is the psychological terror that underlies all the repressed hysteria of the poor oppressed muslims. Public policy can do nothing about this idea. Theology is not a competence of any government. However, good public policy must always be on the side of freedom not repression. Always and everywhere say NO! to censorship and any form of sex policing.

'No Compulsion In Religion' Says Koran.

2006-10-22T09:34:00.000+10:00

Note: Readers will, by now, be aware of the famous quote from the Koran (Sura 2:234)that proclaims, nobly, 'there is no compulsion in religion'.This is the theory; the practise is different. The theory is entirely a matter for muslims; the practise is a concern for the rest of the world. It also concerns those muslims who wish to leave Islam for whatever reason is good enough for them.

Read on and see the reality in action...

Egypt: Christian convert from Islam jailed
Conversion from Islam to Christianity is an insult to Islam, according to the Egyptian authorities.

A Muslim sheikh jailed in Egypt for 18 months has declared from his prison cell that he is under arrest for “insulting Islam” by becoming a Christian.
Egypt’s secret police transferred Bahaa el-Din Ahmed Hussein el-Akkad, 57, to the Wadi el-Natroun Prison last month. He was told he would remain there indefinitely unless he agreed to work as a government informer against other converts to Christianity.

According to the prisoner’s Cairo attorney, Athanasius William, his client remains incarcerated in this desert prison “only because he has chosen a different belief, to be a Christian.”

El-Akkad was imprisoned without charges for more than a year after officials of the State Security Investigation (SSI) arrested him in Cairo on April 6, 2005.

Although subjected to repeated interrogations, the former Muslim was never told the specific accusations against him. But several of his cellmates spread rumors that he was converting and baptizing people into Christianity, sparking verbal abuse and at least one severe beating from a fellow prisoner.

When the courts finally ordered El-Akkad’s release from provisional detention 10 weeks ago, SSI authorities deliberately ignored the ruling. Instead, they held him in their Gaber Ibn Hayyan office in Giza and then transferred him to the Wadi el-Natroun Prison, located 60 miles north of Cairo along the highway to Alexandria.

William told Compass it was strictly illegal for the SSI to have re-arrested El-Akkad and jailed him indefinitely “without the orders of a legally authorized official,” as required under Article 280 of the Egyptian penalty laws.

Disillusioned with Islam

In a series of handwritten notes smuggled out of prison in recent months and obtained by Compass, El-Akkad declared that he had “chosen the Christian faith” after years of research on Islam.

For more than 20 years, the former sheikh was a member of the fundamentalist Islamic group Tabligh and Da’wa, which actively proselytized non-Muslims but strictly opposed violence. He also led a mosque community in Al-Haram, in the Giza area adjacent to Cairo. In 1994 he had published, Islam: the Religion, a 500-page book reviewing the traditional beliefs of the Islamic faith.

But he became disillusioned, and five years ago the sheikh said he began to pray that he could somehow know God personally. It was not until January 2005 that he talked for the first time with someone who explained the tenets of the Christian faith to him. He began intensive study of Christian Scripture, and within weeks he became a follower of Jesus.

“This is a proof to all Muslims,” El-Akkad wrote, “that the person who studies the two religions from an objective and serious perspective will choose the Christian approach.”...

Although Egypt’s Christian citizens are free to embrace Islam and obtain legal Muslim identities, Muslim citizens are not allowed to change their religious identity. Those who become Christians are subjected to severe harassment by the SSI, which often arrests converts for either insulting Islam or “threatening national security.”

Comment: It would be usful for Western countries to help muslims who want to leave Islam. Given that violence (often including murder) always accompanies any leaving of Islam, Western countries, including Australia, should grant visas to those muslims who leave Islam.

An Example Of Civilized Religious Behaviour.

2006-10-21T09:51:00.000+10:00

Note: For many years the Vatican has issued an annual letter to the Muslims around the world, on the occasion of the end of Ramadan. There is no Muslim equivalent document issued to Christians.

Read on...

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 20, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Here is the message published today by Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, on the occasion of the end of Ramadan.

The message is entitled: "Christians and Muslims: In Confident Dialogue Aimed at Solving Together the Challenges of Our World."

* * *

Dear Muslim friends,

1. I am happy to address this message to you for the first time as president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and to extend the council's warmest greetings as you celebrate the conclusion of the fast of Ramadan.

I wish you peace, tranquility and joy in your hearts, your homes and your countries. These good wishes echo those which His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI expressed personally at the beginning of Ramadan to the diplomats accredited to the Holy See from countries with Muslim majorities, to those from other countries that are members and observers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, and to representatives of Muslim communities in Italy.

2. It is good to be able to share this significant moment with you in the context of our ongoing dialogue. The particular circumstances that we have recently experienced together demonstrate clearly that, however arduous the path of authentic dialogue may be at times, it is more necessary than ever.

3. The month of Ramadan which you have just completed has also undoubtedly been a time of prayer and reflection on the difficult situations of today's world. While contemplating and thanking God for all that is good, it is impossible not to take note of the serious problems which affect our times: injustice, poverty, tensions and conflicts between countries as well as within them.

Violence and terrorism are particularly painful scourges. So many human lives destroyed, so many women widowed, so many children who have lost a parent, so many children orphaned … So many wounded, physically and spiritually … So much, which has taken years of sacrifice and toil to build, destroyed in a few minutes!

4. As Christian and Muslim believers, are we not the first to be called to offer our specific contribution to resolve this serious situation and these complex problems? Without doubt, the credibility of religions and also the credibility of our religious leaders and all believers is at stake. If we do not play our part as believers, many will question the usefulness of religion and the integrity of all men and women who bow down before God.

Our two religions give great importance to love, compassion and solidarity. In this context, I wish to share with you the message of the first encyclical letter of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, "Deus Caritas Est" (God is Love), which echoes the most characteristic "definition" of God in Christian sacred Scriptures, "God is love" (1 John 4:8).

Genuine love for God is inseparable from love for others: "Anyone who says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, is a liar, since a man who does not love the brother he can see cannot love God, whom he has not seen" (1 John 4:20). In recalling this point, the encyclical underlines the importance of fraternal charity in the Church's mission: Love, to be credible, must be effective.

It must come to the aid of everyone, beginning with the most needy. True love must be of service to all the needs of daily life; it must also seek just and peaceful solutions to the serious problems which afflict our world.

5. Believers who are engaged in helping people in need or seeking solutions to these problems, do so above all through their love for God, "for the face of God." Psalm 27 says: "I seek your face, O Lord, hide not your face from me" (8b-9a).

The month of fasting which you have just completed has not only brought you to give more attention to prayer, it has also rendered you more sensitive to the needs of others, above all to the hungry, fostering an even greater generosity toward those in distress.

6. Everyday worries together with the more serious problems faced by the world call for our attention and our action. Let us ask God in prayer to help us confront them with courage and determination. In those places where we can work together, let us not labor separately.

The world has need, and so do we, of Christians and Muslims who respect and value each other and bear witness to their mutual love and cooperation to the glory of God and the good of all humanity.

7. With sentiments of sincere friendship I greet you and entrust to you my thoughts for your consideration. I beseech Almighty God that they will contribute to the promotion everywhere of the relations of greater understanding and cooperation that have arisen between Christians and Muslims, and thus offer a significant contribution to the reestablishment and strengthening of peace both within nations and between peoples, in accordance with the profound desires of all believers and all men and women of good will.

Paul Cardinal Poupard
President

Archbishop Pier Luigi Celata
Secretary

Comment: This letter should be published by all the arabic language press and in all the islamic publications in Australia. It is public policy in Australia to promote peace and harmony; these types of letters materially advance such public policies by exposing Australian Muslims to ideas and attitudes which reject the violence, revenge and hostility which is so enthusiastically promoted by the imams in Australia.

Modern Islamic Leaders Step Forward.

2006-10-18T19:26:00.000+10:00

Note: The 38 signatories of this Letter to Pope Benedict have clearly shown themselves to be truely modern people and the sort of real leaders that Islam needs. Not a threat to be heard, not a gun in sight. It is easy for these 38 scholars to argue that 'Islam is a religion of Peace'. Their actions are based on their lives.

Read and be encourages...

ROMA, October 18, 2006 – One month after his lecture at the University of Regensburg, Benedict XVI received an “open letter” signed by 38 Muslim personalities from various countries and of different outlooks, which discusses point by point the views on Islam expressed by the pope in that lecture.

The letter came to pope Joseph Ratzinger through the Vatican nunciature in Amman, to which it was delivered by one of the signatories, prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal, special advisor to the king of Jordan, Abdullah II.

The complete text of the letter, in English, has been available since Sunday, October 15, on the website of “Islamica Magazine,” a periodical published in the Unites States that holds the copyright to this document.

The letter is followed by the names and roles of the 38 main signatories, who may be joined by others.

The authors of the letter welcome and appreciate without reservation the clarifications made by Benedict XVI after the wave of protests that issued from the Muslim world a few days after the lecture in Regensburg, and in particular the speech that the pope addressed to ambassadors from Muslim countries on September 25, and also the reference made by cardinal secretary of state Tarcisio Bertone, in a note issued on September 16, to the conciliar document “Nostra Aetate.”

And not only that. They condemn with very strong words the assassination that took place in Somalia, in Muslim Mogadishu, of sister Leonella Sgorbati, thereby linking this to the protests that were at their peak at the time:

“We must state that the murder on September 17th of an innocent Catholic nun in Somalia – and any other similar acts of wanton individual violence – 'in reaction to' the lecture at the University of Regensburg, is completely un-Islamic, and we totally condemn such acts.”

The authors of the letter appreciate Benedict XVI’s desire for dialogue and take very seriously his theses. “Applaud” pope's “efforts to oppose the dominance of positivism and materialism in human life,” while contest him on other points, adding their reasons for their opposition.

In this sense, the letter signed by the 38 – together with the preceding essay by Aref Ali Nayed, previewed by www.chiesa on October 4 – goes towards what the pope meant to accomplish with his audacious lecture in Regensburg: to encourage, within the Muslim world as well, public reflection that would separate faith from violence and link it to reason instead. Because, in the pope’s view, it is precisely the “reasonableness” of the faith that is the natural terrain of encounter between Christianity and the various other religions and cultures.

A first point on which the letter from the 38 Muslims “reasons” with Benedict XVI concerns sura 2:256 of the Qur’an: “There is no compulsion in religion.” The authors of the letter assert that Mohammed formulated this commandment, not when he found himself “powerless and under threat” – which the pope maintains as “probable” in his lecture – but when he was in a position of strength, in Medina. And that he intended by this to appeal to Muslims, whenever they conquered a territory, “not to force another’s heart to believe.”

A second point on which the letter dwells concerns the transcendence of God. That Muslim doctrine holds that God is “absolutely transcendent,” as the pope asserts, is in the judgment of the 38 signatories “a simplification which can be misleading.” The eleventh-century Muslim author to whom the pope refers - Ibn Hazm - is in their view “a worthy but very marginal figure, who belonged to the Zahiri school of jurisprudence which is followed by no one in the Islamic world today.” It is not true – they write – that “the will of God is not bound to any of our categories,” that the God of Islam is a “capricious” God, and far less so that he could delight in bloodshed. God has many names in Islam, and his “clemency and mercy” have the greatest prominence: they are present in the sacred formula that the Muslims recite every day.

The third point is the use of reason. The authors of the letter write that Islamic thought has always wanted to avoid two extremes: the first is that of raising up analytic reason as the arbiter of truth, and the other is that of denying the capacity of the human intellect to address the ultimate questions. There is – they write – a harmony between the questions of human reason and the truths of Qur’anic revelation, “without sacrificing one for the other.”

The fourth point is holy war. The 38 signatories of the letter recall that the word “jihad” properly means “struggle in the way of God,” which is not necessarily war. Even Christ used violence when he chased the merchants from the temple. They sum up in this way Islam’s three “authoritative and traditional” rules on war:

– civilians are not approved targets;
– religious creed alone cannot make a person the object of an attack;
– Muslims can and must live peacefully beside their neighbors, although the legitimacy of self-defense and the maintenance of sovereignty remain valid principles.

So if some Muslims – they write – have ignored such well-established teaching on the limits of war, preferring to this “utopian dreams where the end justifies the means, they have done so of their own accord and without the sanction of God, His Prophet, or the learned tradition.”

The fourth point taken into consideration is forced conversion. As a political reality – write the authors of the letter – Islam certainly did spread in part by military conquest, “but the greater part of its expansion came as a result of preaching and missionary activity.” The commandment of the Qur’an, “no compulsion in religion,” must always hold true: the fact that some Muslims disobey this is “the exception that confirms the rule.” “We emphatically agree that forcing others to believe – if such a thing be truly possible at all – is not pleasing to God.”

The fourth point: the “new” – and moreover “evil and inhuman” – things that Mohammed is imagined to have brought, according to Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus as cited by Benedict XVI in the lecture in Regensburg. The 38 authors of the letter object that, according to Islamic doctrine, even before Mohammed “all the true prophets preached the same truth to different peoples at different times: the laws may be different, but the truth is unchanging.”

The sixth point discussed: the “experts.” The authors of the letter refuse to acknowledge as reliable experts on Islam the scholars cited by Benedict XVI in the Regensburg lecture: Theodore Khoury and Roger Arnaldez. In order for a true religious and intercultural dialogue to be established – as the pope appealed in Cologne in August of 2005 – they issue a call to “listen to the actual voices of those we are dialoguing with, and not merely those of our own persuasion.”

The seventh and last point: relations between Christianity and Islam. The authors of the letter point out that the tremendous following of the two religions – more than 55 percent of the world population – makes it such that the relationship between them is a decisive factor for peace. In Benedict XVI, they recognize an exceptionally influential role “in the direction of mutual understanding.” They cite with appreciation the words dedicated to Islam in the declaration “Nostra Aetate” of Vatican Council II. They cite with appreciation the words dedicated to Islam in the address delivered by John Paul II in Morocco in 1999, in the stadium of Casablanca filled with young Muslims. And they express their hope “to continue to build peaceful and friendly relationships based upon mutual respect, justice, and what is common in essence in our shared Abrahamic tradition, particularly ‘the two greatest commandments’ in Mark 12:29-31: ‘The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these’.”

* * *

And here follows the alphabetic list of the 38 signatories, with their respective roles. It should be noted that they belong to many nations and to different currents of Islam – the Iranian ayatollah Muhammad Ali Taskhiri, for example, is a Shiite:

1. Abd Allah bin Mahfuz bin Bayyah, King Abd Al-Aziz University, Saudi Arabia; former vice-president and minister, Mauritania

2. Muhammad Said Ramadan Al-Buti, dean of Department of Religion, University of Damascus, Syria

3. Mustafa Cagrici, grand mufti of Istanbul, Turkey

4. Mustafa Ceric, grand mufti and head of ulema of Bosnia and Herzegovina

5. Ravil Gainutdin, grand mufti of Russia

6. Nedzad Grabus, grand mufti of Slovenia

7. Ali Mashhour bin Muhammad bin Salim bin Hafeez, imam of the Tarim Mosque and head of Fatwa Council, Tarim, Yemen

8. Umar bin Muhammad bin Salim bin Hafeez, dean of Dar Al-Mustafa, Tarim, Yemen

9. Farouq Hamadah, Mohammad V University, Morocco

10. Hamza Yusuf Hanson, founder and director of Zaytuna Institute, California, USA

11. Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun, grad mufti of Syria

12. Izz Al-Din Ibrahim, advisor for cultural affairs, prime ministry, United Arab Emirates

13. Omar Jah, secretary of the Muslim Scholars Council, Gambia

14. Ali Zain Al-Abideen Al-Jifri, founder and director of Taba Institute, United Arab Emirates

15. Ali Jumuah, grand mufti of Egypt

16. Abla Mohammed Kahlawi, dean of Islamic and Arabic Studies, Al-Azhar University, Egypt

17. Mohammad Hashim Kamali, dean of the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, Malaysia

18. Nuh Ha Mim Keller, Aal Al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, Jordan; Shaykh in the Shadhili Order, USA

19. Ahmad Al-Khalili, grand mufti of Oman

20. Ahmad Kubaisi, founder of the Ulema Organization, Iraq

21. Muhammad bin Muhammad Al-Mansouri, marja' of Zeidi Muslims, Yemen

22. Abu Bakr Ahmad Al-Milibari, secretary-general of the Ahl Al-Sunna Association, India

23. Abd Al-Kabir Al-Alawi Al-Mudghari, director-general of the Bayt Mal Al-Qods Al-Sharif Agency, former minister of religious affairs, Morocco

24. Ahmad Hasyim Muzadi, chairman of the Nahdat Al-Ulema, Indonesia

25. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, professor of Islamic studies, George Washington University, Washington DC, USA

26. Sevki Omerbasic, grand mufti of Croatia

27. Mohammad Abd Al-Ghaffar Al-Sharif, secretary-general of the ministry of religious affairs, Kuwait

28. Muhammad Alwani Al-Sharif, head of the European Academy of Islamic Culture and Sciences, Brussels, Belgium

29. Iqbal Sullam, vice general-secretary, Nahdat Al-Ulema, Indonesia

30. Tariq Sweidan, director-general of the Risalah Satellite Channel, Saudi Arabia

31. Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal, prince, chairman of the Aal Al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, Jordan

32. Muhammad Ali Taskhiri, ayatollah, secretary-general of the World Assembly for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thoughts, Iran

33. Naim Trnava, grand mufti of Kosovo

34. Abd Al-Aziz Uthman Al-Tweijri, director-general of the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Morocco

35. Muhammad Taqi Uthmani, vice president, Dar Al-Ulum, Karachi, Pakistan

36. Muhammad Al-Sadiq Muhammad Yusuf, grand mufti of Uzbekistan

37. Abd Al-Hakim Murad Winter, University of Cambridge, Divinity School, director of the Muslim Academic Trust, UK

38. Muamer Zukorli, mufti of Sanjak, Bosnia

* * *

It is worthwhile to recall that even the most authoritative leader of Shiite Islam, the Iraqi grand ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, has expressed toward Benedict XVI the respect and attention that can also be found in the letter of the 38. And he did this much sooner. In the most violent days of the anti-papal protest that exploded in the Muslim world, representatives of Al-Sistani visited on two occasions the secretary of the Vatican nunciature in Baghdad, monsignor Thomas Hlim Sbib, to express his friendship toward Benedict XVI and his desire for a meeting with him in Rome.

Comment: This is a most happy event for all people of good will. This site is confident that this Letter is a first step which will be the beginning of new 'atmospherics' between Christians and Muslims. Much praise is due to Pope Benedict and his 38 Islamic colleagues for their courage and wisdom in making these necessary steps toward world peace.

Most Excellent And Hopeful Sign.

2006-10-17T21:47:00.000+10:00

Note: This letter from 38 leading islamic scholars is a most excellent and hopeful sign. This site is a complete supporter of letters and articles and discussions. These are better than suicide bombers and rejectionist politics.

Read on ...

Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI
PRESS RELEASE

Open Letter to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI by 38 Leading Muslim Scholars and Leaders.

In an unprecedented move, an open letter signed by 38 leading Muslim religious scholars and leaders around the world was sent to Pope Benedict XVI on Oct. 12, 2006. The letter, which is the outcome of a joint effort, was signed by top religious authorities such as Shaykh Ali Jumu‘ah (the Grand Mufti of Egypt), Shakyh Abdullah bin Bayyah (former Vice President of Mauritania, and leading religious scholar), and Shaykh Sa‘id Ramadan Al-Buti (from Syria), in addition to the Grand Muftis of Russia, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, Slovenia, Istanbul, Uzbekistan, and Oman, as well as leading figures from the Shi‘a community such as Ayatollah Muhammad Ali Taskhiri of Iran. The letter was also signed by HRH Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal of Jordan and by Muslim scholars in the West such as Shaykh Hamza Yusuf from California, Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr of George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and Professor Tim Winter of the University of Cambridge.

All the eight schools of thought and jurisprudence in Islam are represented by the signatories, including a woman scholar. In this respect the letter is unique in the history of interfaith relations.

The letter was sent, in a spirit of goodwill, to respond to some of the remarks made by the Pope during his lecture at the University of Regensburg on Sept. 12, 2006. The letter tackles the main substantive issues raised in his treatment of a debate between the medieval Emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an “educated Persian”, including reason and faith; forced conversion; “jihad” vs. “holy war”; and the relationship between Christianity and Islam. They engage the Pope on an intellectual level concerning these crucial topics—which go well beyond the controversial quotation of the emperor—pointing out what they see as mistakes and oversimplifications in the Pope’s own remarks about Islamic belief and practice.

The Muslim signatories appreciate the Pope's personal expression of sorrow at the Muslim reaction and his assurance that the words of the Byzantine emperor he quoted did not reflect his personal opinion. By following the Quranic precept of debating “in the fairest way”, they hope to reach out so as to increase mutual understanding, reestablish trust, calm the situation for the sake of peace, and preserve Muslim dignity.

Christianity and Islam make up more than half of humankind in an increasingly interconnected world, the letter states, and it is imperative that both sides share responsibility for peace and move the debate towards a frank and sincere dialogue of hearts and minds which furthers mutual understanding and respect between the two religious traditions. Indeed, the scholars point out, both religions teach what Christianity calls “the two greatest commandments”. The commandment that “the Lord our God is one Lord” and that we shall love Him with all we are is enshrined in the first testimony of faith in Islam, “There is no god but God.” The second commandment “to love thy neighbor as thyself” is also found in the words of the Prophet, “None of you believes until he desires for his neighbor (in another version, his brother) what he desires for himself.” The signatories also point out the positive contacts the Vatican has had with the Islamic world in the past, with a hope that they will continue and even grow in the future. [end]

The official and full English version of the text along with the complete list of signatories is available now on the Islamica Magazine website. (www.IslamicaMagazine.com).

Comment: The official English version should be widely disseminated by all persons of good will.

Increased Pressure On British Muslims to Reform.

2006-10-16T16:01:00.000+10:00

Note: This posting is from the London Telegraph. The pressure is mounting in Britain for a 'root and branch' reform (aka modernisation)of Islam and the way of life of muslims, in Britain. Long overdue.

Read on...

Tories accuse Muslims of 'creating apartheid by shutting themselves off'
By Patrick Hennessy and Melissa Kite
(Filed: 15/10/2006)

The Conservatives today accuse Muslim leaders of encouraging "voluntary apartheid" in Britain by shutting themselves away in closed societies and demanding protection from criticism.

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, says that Britain risks social and religious divisions so profound that society's very foundations, such as the freedom of speech, will become "corroded" and that the perfect conditions for home-grown terrorism will be created.

His stark intervention, in an article for The Sunday Telegraph, represents a toughening of the Tory stance on the dangers of Islamic radicalism and follows calls from some leading ministers for Muslim women to remove their veils. It is also a departure from the "caring Conservatism" message laid out by David Cameron.

Mr Davis says he supports the stance on veils adopted by Jack Straw, the Commons Leader, but believes the wider issue is one of the "very unity of our nation".

"What Jack touched on was the fundamental issue of whether, in Britain, we are developing a divided society. Whether we are creating a series of closed societies within our open society. Whether we are inadvertently encouraging a kind of voluntary apartheid.

"At the starkest level, we may be creating conditions in the recesses of our society that foster home-grown terrorism."

Mr Davis's comments follow a series of events that highlight the reluctance among some Muslims to integrate fully into British society. Aishah Azmi, a 24-year-old teaching assistant, is taking legal action because her school in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, asked her to remove her veil in front of children. Madani High School, an Islamic school in Leicester, is ordering its non-Muslim girls to wear headscarves.

An ICM poll this weekend showed 57 per cent of voters want Muslims to do more to fit in and 53 per cent agree with Mr Straw that the full veil creates a barrier between Muslim women and other people.

Mr Davis's comments – strongly challenged by leading Muslim groups – also come against a backdrop of rising numbers of Islamophobic attacks.

He said: "There is a growing feeling that the Muslim community is excessively sensitive to criticism, unwilling to engage in substantive debate. Much worse, is the feeling of some Muslim leaders that as a community they should be protected from criticism, argument, parody, satire and all the other challenges in a society that has free speech as its highest value. It is straightforward. I respect your religion, you respect mine and we all respect our laws. No special treatment."

Mr Davis won support from David Blunkett, Labour's former home secretary, who said: "We should not go out of our way to avoid saying things that we want to say because we might actually cause a rumpus."

Comment: This application of pressure is the only way forward for the British muslims. They generally don't like this (naturally, it is uncomfortable to be constantly under pressure). However, Islam is a 'quietist' belief and if the pressure is stopped, the efforts at reform will also stop. Islam is not naturally predisposed to reforming itself (understandable); pressure is unavoidable.

All this is for the benefit of those muslims who will eventually end up living in Britain. It is for their benefit that the reform pressure must work. Without reform there will be no serious integration. There is no progress without integration.

All these observations apply exactly to Australia.

Some French Views On Muslim Migrants.

2006-10-15T11:54:00.000+10:00

Note: This posting does not use the word 'muslim' but the survey is about them. It is important to have up to date information on social attitudes. This is helpful in helping to find a way through the current difficulties regarding muslims in Western countries. I think that much wisdom is found in treating muslims as individual persons and not as an undifferentiated mass.

Read on...

FRANCE: POLL SNAPSHOT OF ATTITUDES TO IMMIGRANTS

Paris, 13 Oct. (AKI) - Some 73 percent of French people agree with "granting a stay permit to illegal immigrants whose children are attending French schools or who have a work contract" according to a poll published Friday. The research, carried out by the LH2 institute for Radio Monte Carlo and the give-away newspaper "20 Minutes", shows however that only 12 percent of those interviewed want stay permits granted to all illegal immigrants. Ten per cent categorically reject giving any illegal migrants stay permits, while five percent were undecided.

Regarding the measures used to limit illegal immigration in France, 78 percent of those polled endorsed the idea of helping the countries of origin of the immigrants, while 64 percent support the idea of family reunions.

Regarding the annual quota system - that is the maximum number of immigrants allowed to enter the country, 55 percent backed the idea, 47 percent believed 'selective immigration' was a feasbile solution while 17 percent favoured giving stay permits to all illegal immigrants.

In questions on the phenomenon of racism 63 percent of the people questioned said they were "not at all racist" while 29 percent "reluctantly" refused to describe themselves as racists. Six percent of the interviewees said they were "mainly racist" while a mere one percent refused to reply.

The poll was carried out between 6-7 October on a 1000-strong sample, representative of the French adult population.

Comment: Australia should be giving a lead, quietly, on the integration of muslims into a western country. We are achieving this integration, mostly successfully, in Australia. I suggest that the way forward...best for both the muslims and Australia as a whole...is to treat each muslim as an individual person. Currently, government policy tends to deal with Institutional Islam. This is a mistake as it leads to the domination of the individual muslim by the strong and powerful muslims who control the muslim institutions.

Australia is a nation where the individual is rather well equipped to avoid excessive domination by institutions. This is not so strongly the case in muslim lands and communities. When muslims come to Australia they may not be especially aware that they are living in a society where they, as individuals, can thrive without having to defer ceaselessly to Islamic institutions. Government policies should be such as to promote this Australian idea of freedom and defend the muslim individuals who seek to make use of the normal liberties available in Australia.

Al - Azhar Against The Face Veil...Niqab.

2006-10-14T10:38:00.000+10:00

Note: The niqab is a political uniform. It is the uniform of the Wahhabi fascist version of Islam. This is the version which is using Saudi money and personnel in Australia to take over the local sunni muslim organisations and life.

Read on and see what the leading religious university in the Islamic world says on the niqab...

EGYPT: NIQAB NOT A RELIGIOUS SYMBOL, MINISTER SAYS

Cairo, 13 Oct. (AKI) - The niqab, a Muslim headdress that leaves only the eyes exposed, is not a religious object, Egypt's religion minister said Friday, entering the debate started by British ex-minister Jack Straw, who said he asked Muslim women visiting him to show their faces to facilitate dialogue. "Nor is the niqab a duty deriving from the Sharia" added Mohammad Hamdi Zaqzouq. "I know I will be criticised for my words but I think some Muslims are committing a fundamental error, focusing on external and superficial aspects, without exploring more relevant themes, and hence providing a distorted image of Islam" he said.

Straw last month triggered debate by inviting Muslim women in Britain to leave at home their veils, saying he would like to see their faces, "understand the expression of his constituents".

"I don't think he made an offensive request, especially as the Sharia requires that women cover their heads but not that they hide behind a mantle which makes them irrecognisable" Zaqzouq said.

Even if there was no explicit reference Zaqzouq's comments come one day after protests at Cairo University, following the decision by the president Abdel Hay Ebeid to ban female students from wearing the full veil in the dormitories of the institute, for security reasons.

Even the top theological authority of Al-Azhar University, the highest seat of Sunni learning, Sheikh Sayed Al Tantawi, has spoken out and accepted the decision explaining that as long as the univeristy obliges the female students to take off the niqab and not the headscarf they are not infringing the tenets of Islam.

In his speech, Zaqzouq explained the bill that his ministry had presented to the government, and which forbids demonstrations in mosques because they violate the sanctity of the place of worship. "The mosques are not a place for politics and it is unacceptable that imams discuss these issues in their preaching" he added.

Comment: As the niqab is a fascist political uniform it should be banned in Australia. Its wearers should be arrested and prosecuted. Its promoters should not be given visas to enter Australia.

The Australian state authorities must take action to protect the muslims living in Australia. We must help them defeat the Wahhabi fascist version of Islam which is being pushed onto them by threats of violence and intimidation by Wahhabi agents from Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Is anyone awake in Canberra?

May his Memory Be Eternal.

2006-10-13T20:24:00.000+10:00

Iraq: Islamic jihadist kidnappers behead priest in Mosul
Will the Islamophobia never end?

"Iraq: Kidnappers Behead Priest in Mosul," from Compass Direct:

October 12 (Compass Direct News) – Iraqi kidnappers who abducted a Syrian Orthodox priest three days ago left his beheaded corpse in an outlying suburb of the northern city of Mosul last night. Father Boulos Iskander, 59, was snatched off a Mosul street on Monday afternoon (October 9) while searching for car parts at local mechanic shops.
The Muslim kidnappers telephoned the priest’s oldest son soon afterwards, demanding $350,000 ransom from the family. After negotiations in several more calls, the kidnappers gradually reduced their demands to $40,000 but added another stipulation: that the priest’s church must publicly repudiate Pope Benedict XVI’s remarks about Islam in his lecture in Germany last month. The family managed to raise and pay the ransom, and the St. Ephram parish of the Syrian Orthodox Church placed 30 large signboards on walls around the city, distancing itself from the pontiff’s comments. But then the telephone calls stopped. Fr. Iskander’s dismembered body was discovered last night (October 11) at about 7 p.m. in the remote Tahrir City district, two kilometers (1.2 miles) from the center of Mosul. His arms and legs had been severed and arranged around his head, which rested on his chest. His remains were brought to a local hospital, which then notified his church.

News of the priest’s murder reached Damascus as Patriarch Zakka Iwaz was meeting with bishops of the Holy Synod of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch. The Bishop of Mosul Saliba Chamoun returned immediately from Damascus to Mosul in time to conduct the funeral service this afternoon. He announced during the service that he had been commissioned by Patriarch Iwaz to bestow on the martyred priest an honorary title of “archimandrite,” a cleric just below the rank of bishop. A Syrian Orthodox clergyman present at Fr. Iskander’s funeral service today told Compass that at least 500 members of the Mosul Christian community attended, many of them weeping profusely. “Many more wanted to come to the funeral,” he said, “but they were afraid. We are in very bad circumstances now.” Fr. Iskander is survived by his wife, Azhar, sons Fadi and Yohanna, a married daughter, Fadiyeh, and a daughter, Mariam, 13.

May his memory be eternal.

Preaching Put Into Practise.

2006-10-11T12:48:00.000+10:00

Note: It would be a very big shock for any muslim family for one of their children to leave Islam. I can understand that. Nevertheless, violence is inadmissable, no matter how big the shock. I do not expect that the family should accept this, but killing is not an option.

Sadly, the father has been raised as a muslim to think that killing in these circumstances is the right and proper thing to do. His attempted murder was not 'un-islamic'

Islam preaches this. Islam is not a religion of peace.

Read on...

Honor killing in Australia
A teenage girl wanted to convert to Christianity. She survived. Her mother was killed. By her father.

But remember, folks, it's the anti-jihadists who are the hatemongers. "Muslim religion blamed for fatal stabbing," by Greg Stolz in The Courier-Mail.

A RELIGIOUS feud between a Muslim father and his teenage daughter may have sparked a bloody domestic dispute on Queensland's Gold Coast which left the man's wife dead and him fighting for life in hospital.
Police are investigating suggestions the violence erupted after the 17-year-old girl told her father she wanted to opt out of the Islamic faith and convert to Christianity. The girl's mother is believed to have stepped in to protect her daughter, only to be fatally stabbed with a kitchen knife.

Neighbours reported hearing "blood-curdling" screams before the hysterical girl ran half-naked from their Southport home unit covered in scratches.

Police later found the body of the girl's mother, 41, inside the blood-smeared unit. Her husband was taken to the Gold Coast Hospital with a stab wound to the chest. He was last night in a critical condition under police guard.

Neighbour Caitlin Dalton was taking out the rubbish about 7pm on Monday when she heard "loud, huge, terrifying screams" coming from the unit complex.

"She (the teenager) was yelling, 'Help me, help me, they're trying to kill me'," Ms Dalton said. "Everybody heard the screams but we couldn't work out which unit they were coming from. Then this girl emerged in the stairwell hysterical and crying. Her clothes had been ripped off, she was just in her underwear and she had quite severe scratches down her arm and across her back."

Ms Dalton said that as residents tried to comfort the sobbing girl, she told how she had wanted to "convert from the Islam religion and obviously her father didn't handle it very well".

"She said her parents were really strict," Ms Dalton said.

Surfers Paradise CIB's Detective Inspector John Hartwell would not comment on whether religion was behind the deadly domestic dispute, saying police were unsure of the motive.

That's because they refuse to learn anything about Islamic mores and attitudes toward conversion.

Comment: This matter is now sub judice so comment has to be sparse. This sort of event is very rare in Australia because the great majority of muslims in Australia are integrating well into the country. Undoubtedly the father knew the muslim injunction to kill apostates...the whole tradition of Islam supports this injunction. This is one of the parts of Islam that an Australian Islam will drop.

The Only Possible Future For Islam.

2006-10-10T17:21:00.000+10:00

Note: Seperation of religion and politics is the absolute sine qua non of modernity. The failure of islam and muslims everywhere is a fundamental reason for muslim poverty and backwardness...

Read about this interesting event in Iran...

9 October, 2006
IRAN
Ayatollah arrested in Iran for preaching separation between religion and politics

He is accused of misunderstanding Islam. To arrest him police clashes with supporters who had surrounded his home.

Tehran (AsiaNews) – An Iranian cleric, Mohammed Kazemeini Boroujerdi, has been arrested for supporting a return to a traditional interpretation of Islam which separates religion from politics. In order to carry out the arrest warrant, police had to use tear gas against the cleric’s supporters outside his house in Tehran.

Mr Boroujerdi, who has preached his brand of Islam for years in a mosque in a poor neighbourhood in the south of Tehran, has hundreds of supporters who regard him as someone with divine powers capable of solving their spiritual and material problems.

Iranian officials have accused him of claiming to be a representative of a Shia saint, known as the hidden Imam. Believed to have disappeared 874 AD, the hidden imam or Mahdi is said to reappear to fill the earth with justice and fairness when it has reached its limit in violence and oppression.

Boroujerdi has denied the accusation and said he only defended what he terms the true Islam.

It appears that his arrest is due to the fact that the authorities have become increasingly alarmed by his growing appeal among some sections of people even though he is thought not to be known outside a small circle of dedicated followers.

Comment: In Australia we ahve the seperation of religion and politics. That is one of the reasons we do not resemble Lebanon despite having many different groups in our country, as does Lebanon.

Muslims in Australia are happy to have this system, but their poisonous imams are a problem on this and every other matter. Proper public policy in Australia requires that we take action to keep out of Australia all opponents of the policy of the seperation of religion and politics. This applies very strongly to fanatical islamists.

Islamic Outsiders At Work.

2006-10-09T10:15:00.000+10:00

Note: This little story is an example of what happens to a peaceful muslim community when islamic outsiders (Wahhabis and variations on that scum)get to work seriously.

Read this and ask yourself whether this is the road for Australian muslims.

October 8, 2006
The Windsor disturbances
Compared to the furore over Jack Straw’s remarks about the niqab, or blackout veil, relatively little has been written about the disturbances that have been going on in Windsor for several nights. They should not have been downplayed. They are important and highly alarming.

They have been referred to in passing as attacks by white youths on a Muslim-run dairy which provoked reprisal attacks by Muslim youths. Reading various stories about these incidents, including here, here, here and others that are not available on line, a rather different account takes shape. Clearly, these stories still leave a lot of things unknown, but as far as I can piece things together what happened was this.

Three years ago, Sardar Hussein opened the Medina Dairy on the site of an old Express dairy. This became a source of tension. Locals claimed that the business expanded so much that the noise made by the lorries serving the dairy was unbearable. The locals also claimed that dairy staff had intimidated people walking past the firm and barred entry to the road which runs between its two premises, a shortcut to the local primary school, a claim that the owner denied.

Tensions rose much further, however, when he applied for planning permission to build a mosque and Islamic complex on the site. Those opposing the conversion claim the 500 Muslims who live in Windsor, out of a population of more than 30,000, are not enough to warrant a mosque. The planning application was rejected by Windsor and Maidenhead council this year because the area was meant for industrial use. The owner appealed and a decision is expected shortly.

However, despite the refusal of planning permission it seems the dairy was being used for prayers, and locals say it has already attracted a hard-core element of fundamentalists. Staff at the dairy, on the other hand, say that before last week’s disturbances they have faced verbal abuse, their cars have been damaged and stones, bricks and bottles have been thrown at the buildings.

The incident that started the chain of events last week appears to have been when 15 year-old Sean Hayes and a friend were beaten up by worshippers outside the mosque. His mother, Karen Hayes and her 18 year-old daughter Emily went to confront the mob but were themselves set upon by a gang of 20 shaven-headed worshippers dressed in white robes and armed with baseball bats, iron bars and pitchforks.

That night, some 30 white youths smashed windows at the dairy, and during disturbances over the next few days a petrol bomb was thrown at it by a youth on a scooter. Meanwhile, according to local residents, gangs of youths took to the streets chanting: ‘We are getting our mosque.’ Some men have been arrested, but the police were reported as saying that it was unlikely that the mob would be brought to justice, even though knives and iron bars had been found and were connected to staff at the dairy. According to a senior police officer, communal distrust was being exploited by extreme elements within the Muslim community and by neo-fascists.

Meanwhile the Sun reported on Saturday that Muslims wrecked a house in a village near Windsor to stop four soldiers moving in after returning from duty in Afghanistan. The house had bricks thrown through its windows and was daubed with abusive messages. The four young Household Cavalry officers who had planned to rent it were also the target of phone threats from Muslims and were forced to look elsewhere to live.

Windsor offers a foretaste of an extremely alarming scenario. Muslims behave aggressively, either physically or by refusing to accept decisions that go against them. No-one does anything. Tensions rise, Islamic extremist reinforcements arrive and then the neo-fascists start mixing it to foment much greater violence and disorder. Muslims and non-Muslims come under attack. The media then decide that white racists are to blame and look nowhere else. The real cause of the problem is concealed, and the problem replicates itself elsewhere with exactly the same response.

The wider silence is the worst of it.

Comment: This kind of event is exactly the situation for Australia to avoid. To do so we need a national bi-partisan policy to prevent it. There is no indication that either side of politics has the courage to deal with out of control fascists. All sides of politics are struck frozen whenever anyone uses the word 'religion'. The muslim fscists have figured this out and use religion as a cover for their political agenda.

Most politicians in Australia seem to fall for this trick.

The best sdingle step forward is to ban from Asutralia all Wahhabi muslims and similar type scum. Stop giving them visas and block their financial power in Australia. Deport those here and give controlling orders to Australian citizens who have betrayed our country to join them.

This is all about politics (fighting fascism) and nothing about religion. Until readers get this fact clearly organised in their minds they will stay confused about the whole matter of muslims and islam. The Wahhabis operate within the confusion of Western minds.

Dear reader...get your mind around the real facts, not the islamist facts.

Islamizing Modernity.

2006-10-08T08:52:00.000+10:00

Note: This posting from the Weekly Standard concerns a genuine snake in the grass, Tariq Ramadan. He is the leading operative of the 'intelligent Jihad movement'. Their program is to 'islamize' Western modernity by the usual techniques of smooth lies, confected 'anger', demands for 'reciprocity', suppression of criticism and general passive aggression against the Christian West in order to advance the full scale backwardness of Islam.

He is well connected to the various islamic terrorist groups around the world.

Read on and be warned...

The State Dept. Was Right
To deny Tariq Ramadan a visa.
by Olivier Guitta
10/16/2006, Volume 012, Issue 05

ON SEPTEMBER 20, the State Department denied a visa to Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan on the grounds that he had contributed around 600 euros to a French charity classified as a terrorist organization since 2003 because of its relationship with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. This latest exclusion follows on the revocation of Ramadan's visa to live and work in the United States while teaching at Notre Dame in 2004, a step taken at the express request of the Department of Homeland Security. While the American Civil Liberties Union and the leftist literary group PEN, among others, present Ramadan as a moderate and accuse U.S. authorities of intolerance, the background and views of Tariq Ramadan suggest the government's move was entirely justified.

For starters, Ramadan is the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, the highly influential Islamist organization born in Egypt in 1928. It was the Brotherhood that invented the now-familiar Islamist modus operandi of covert organization, assassination, and extremist theology. Its goal was to overthrow the Egyptian regime, install a fundamentalist Muslim government, and impose sharia (Islamic law) as the new constitution. Tariq's father, Said Ramadan, was a major figure in this organization, expelled from Egypt by Gamal Abdul Nasser for Islamist activity.

Said Ramadan took refuge first in Saudi Arabia, where he was a founder of the World Islamic League, one of the largest Saudi charities and global missionary groups. He then moved to Geneva, where in 1961 he created the Islamic Center, a combination mosque, think tank, and community center. The philosophy of the Muslim Brotherhood influenced a generation of wealthy Muslim kids, including Osama bin Laden. Interestingly, Said Ramadan also had U.S. connections: He had a close relationship with Malcolm X and was personal mentor to Dawud Salahuddin, a black convert to Islam who murdered an Iranian dissident, Ali Akbar Tabatabai, in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1980. After fleeing the United States, Salahuddin spent a few days in Geneva visiting Said Ramadan before taking refuge in Iran. Profiled in the New Yorker in 2002, Salahuddin confirmed that Ramadan remained his adviser and spiritual guide until Ramadan's death in 1995.

Said Ramadan was one of the most important Islamist thinkers of the 20th century. He is probably the author of "The Project," a 14-page document dated 1982 found by the Swiss secret service in 2001. "The Project" is a roadmap for installing Islamic regimes in the West by propaganda, preaching, and if necessary war. (It can be read here.)

Tariq Ramadan was born in 1962 in Switzerland. After toying with a career as a professional soccer player, he settled into the family business as an Islamic scholar. He became a teacher of philosophy and theology in Swiss universities. Most European secret service agencies are convinced that, at the end of the 1980s, the Muslim Brotherhood chose Tariq Rama dan to be their European representative. In 1991, he went to Cairo to study with Islamist professors. Upon his return to Switzerland, he founded the Movement of Swiss Muslims. His objective was to reach Muslim youth by Islamizing modernity rather than modernizing Islam.

Charming and smooth, Ramadan holds out Islam as the solution to all the problems of Muslim youth--in keeping with the slogan of the Muslim Brotherhood, "Islam is the solution." The first indication of his fundamentalism came in 1993, when he lobbied to outlaw a play called Mahomet, being produced in Geneva, which represented the prophet in a light that did not fit with Ramadan's views. In 1995, Alaa el-Din Nazmi, an Egyptian Secret Service agent assigned to watch the Ramadan family, was murdered in Geneva. No one has been arrested for the crime.

Ramadan is also a pragmatist. When he realized that his Swiss venture was leading nowhere, he turned to France. There he won the support of one of the main Muslim organizations linked to the Brotherhood, the UOIF (Union des Organisations Islamiques de France), along with the main Muslim youth organization, the UJM (Union des Jeunes Musulmans). His notion of Islam as the solution was favorably received by many French Muslim youths and partly explains the radicalization of this community. But his popularity really took off when he threw in his lot with the antiglobalization crowd. Rama dan is an opportunist, and saw the appeal of this growing movement. Thanks to this alliance, he quickly became a media star in France.

By 2004 Ramadan was de facto spokesman of the French Muslim community, spending most of his time in Lyon, France's second-largest city, instructing the young Muslim population. His charisma and gift for public speaking made him a hit in the French suburbs, where high-rise public housing projects have become Islamic ghettos. Ramadan cultivated a "moderate" reputation by taking part in interfaith seminars and sitting on a commission on "Islam and Secularism." Indeed, some view him as a brilliant intellectual preaching a modern and tolerant Islam. The European Union has made him an adviser on religious issues.

But not all who know him are buying. One of Ramadan's interfaith partners, Fr. Christian Delorme, had this to say in 2001:

I am today convinced--and it took me time to understand it--that Tariq Ramadan's thinking and actions are dangerous. I believe he is not at all a man of dialogue. He knows how to charm his audience, but in reality, he wants a total separation between Muslims and other communities. I am convinced that Tariq Ramadan deeply hates the West.
For all his interfaith zeal, an examination of Ramadan's work fails to turn up any positive discussion of Christianity or Judaism. He calls Arabs "my brothers and sisters" while addressing all others as "madam," "sir," or without any honorific. When Ramadan faced off with Nicolas Sarkozy, the French interior minister and presidential hopeful, in 2004 on French TV, he repeatedly called the minister "Sarkozy" instead of the usual "Mr. Sarkozy" or, as the French say, monsieur le ministre. During this debate, Sarkozy pressed Ramadan to condemn the stoning of adulterers, a form of capital punishment endorsed by his brother, Hani Ramadan, head of the Islamic Center in Geneva. Tariq declined to go beyond his previous call for a moratorium on corporal punishment and the death penalty while Islamic scholars study the matter.

More to the point, Ramadan has multiple links to terrorism. In 1995, in the midst of terrorist attacks in Paris orchestrated by the Algerian Islamist group GIA, Jean-Louis Debré, French interior minister, denied Ramadan entry to France because of his links to the group. According to Roland Jacquard, who runs a terrorism watchdog website, Ramadan is not directly involved in terrorist activities, but many of his supporters are. For example, Ramadan greatly influenced Djamel Beghal, a French citizen arrested for plotting to bomb the U.S. embassy in Paris and sentenced to 10 years in jail in March 2005. Sylvain Besson of the Swiss daily Le Temps quotes court papers showing that Beghal "was a speechwriter for Tariq Ramadan." Ramadan denies ever meeting Beghal, although Beghal was living in Leicester in 1998 while Ramadan was studying there.

And Ramadan often speaks equivocally. Commenting on the September 11 attacks ten days after they occurred, he explained that one couldn't say for sure that bin Laden was behind them. He then asked, "Who profits from the crime?" noting that no Arab or Muslim cause was the better for it. This is an argument used by Islamist conspiratorialists who accuse Israel of perpetrating 9/11. In an interview with the French newsmagazine Le Point, Ramadan used the neutral term "interventions" when speaking of the major terrorist attacks in New York, Bali, and Madrid. And when asked recently by an Italian magazine whether car bombings against U.S. forces in Iraq were justified, he was quoted as saying: "Iraq was colonized by the Americans. Resistance against the army is just."

Ramadan's views about Israel are unsurprising: He strongly favors the elimination of the Jewish state. As one French DST (equivalent to the FBI) agent told the magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, Ramadan's long-term goal is to bring about the legal extinction of the state of Israel through a major Muslim lobbying campaign, first in Europe, then in the United States.

For her 2004 book Brother Tariq, Caroline Fourest, a French expert on Islamic fundamentalism, studied Ramadan's 15 books, 1,500 pages of interviews, and--most important--his 100 or so tapes, which sell tens of thousands of copies each year. Her conclusion: "Ramadan is a war leader." When an interviewer from the weekly L'Express asked Fourest how she could be so sure that Ramadan was indeed the "political heir of his grandfather," Hassan al-Banna, here's how she replied:

Because I've studied his statements and his writing. I was struck by the extent to which the discourse of Tariq Ramadan is often just a repetition of the discourse that Banna had at the beginning of the 20th century in Egypt. He never criticizes his grandfather. On the contrary, he presents him as a model to be followed, a person beyond reproach, nonviolent and unjustly criticized because of the "Zionist lobby"! This sends chills down one's spine when one knows the extent to which Banna was a fanatic, that he gave birth to a movement out of which the worst Jihadis (like Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number 2 man of al Qaeda) have emerged, and that he wanted to establish a theocracy in every country having a single Muslim. Tariq Ramadan claims that he is not a Muslim Brother. Like all the Muslim Brothers . . . since it's a fraternity which is three-quarters secret. . . . A Muslim Brother is above all someone who adopts the methods and the thought of Banna. Ramadan is the man who has done the most to disseminate this method and this thought.
In response to her book, Ramadan calls Fourest an agent of Israel but doesn't refute her findings. Predictably, as soon as her book was published, an Islamist website threatened Fourest and posted her address and the pass code to get into her building.

Fourest is not the only one who has seen through Ramadan's game. Prominent moderate Muslims also accuse Ramadan of double talk. For instance, the head of the largest French antiracism association, SOS Racisme, Malek Boutih (an Arab Muslim), told Ramadan after talking with him at length: "Mr. Ramadan, you are a fascist."

But while the French have come to see Ramadan as one more Islamist, the British have honored him with a fellowship at Oxford University and, more important, a seat on the Blair government's committee tackling extremism. As one stunned European diplomat told Radio France Internationale, "It's like putting a diabetic in the middle of a pastry shop."

But Ramadan has learned from his mistakes and is taking ever greater pains to conceal his true identity. In fact, his writings over the past year have been almost above reproach: He has even gone so far as to criticize some of the excesses in the Muslim world after the pope's recent remarks about Islam.

Ramadan's stint in England has refurbished his credibility and given him a new start. This is handy, from his point of view, as the United Kingdom is the ideal launching pad from which to reach the main objective: For the Muslim Brotherhood, the big prize has always been the United States.

Olivier Guitta is a foreign affairs and counterterrorism consultant in Washington.

Comment: People like Tariq Ramamdan are a real danger to the West. European born and educated he is a firmly committed jihadist. Unlike the idiot jehadists he has the program to win by deception, not bombs. He is influential among western 'useful idiots' (to use Vladimir Lenin's brilliant expression)who think that Islam has something to offer the West; indeed is superior to the West.

This site has constantly called for Australian public resources to be applied to fighting people like Tariq Ramadan and his poisonous ideas. Currently, all we see is money and effort going to security related matters. This is very important, but the non violent struggle against Islamism and Jihad is also crucially important.

Is anyone awake in Canberra?

Christian Studies of Islam.

2006-10-07T09:37:00.000+10:00

Note: this posting is a short interview with the American Jesuit Cardinal, Avery Dulles. His remarks on Islam and the problems of discussions with Islamic scholars are most interesting.

Read on..

Christianity's original experts on Islam were neither impartial scholars nor specialists in inter-faith dialogue, but rough-and-tumble medieval apologists - that is to say, writers from the 7th through the 14th centuries whose aim, in no uncertain terms, was to show why Christianity is right and Islam is wrong.

This grab-bag of colorful ecclesiastical characters includes John Damascene, Theodore Abu Qurrah (a Melchite bishop in the 9th century who wrote treatises against the Muslims in Arabic), Peter the Venerable, Raymond Martini, Raymond Lull, Ricoldus de Monte Croce, Dionysius the Carthusian, Cardinal Juan Torquemada, Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, and even the Florentine reformer Savonarola (of "bonfire of the vanities" fame).

At first blush, their work might seem an unpromising vein to tap as Pope Benedict XVI tries to pick up the pieces following his controversial Sept. 12 comments on Islam. Yet whatever their limitations, the medieval apologists represent the first sustained Christian attempt to grapple with the challenges posed by Islam, based on knowledge of Arabic and the Koran, which was a project largely forgotten by the dawn of the modern period.

Cardinal Avery Dulles, a Jesuit widely considered one of America's premier Catholic theologians, believes a study of this history - both its strengths and its weaknesses - can offer useful insights for Muslim/Christian relations today.

On Oct. 2, I sat down with Dulles, still going strong at 88, in his office at Fordham University in the Bronx.

Back in 1971, Dulles published a unique survey titled A History of Apologetics (revised in 2005). It reviews medieval Christian writing on Islam, which often doesn't make for very edifying reading. Most apologists were fairly crude in their critique, deriding the way Islam had "spread by the sword" and even lampooning Mohammed's multiple wives or his earthy description of the afterlife. The title of one essay by Torquemada says it all: "Against the Principal Errors of the Miscreant Mohammed."

Yet in the same breath, this apologetic tradition can also exude a surprising sophistication.

Nicholas of Cusa, for example, produced "Sifting the Koran" in the 15th century, which argues that the Koran may profitably be used as an introduction to the gospel, and praises the human and religious virtues of Muslims. Peter the Venerable wrote in the 12th century that in addressing Muslims, Christians should proceed "not as our people often do, by arms, but by words; not by force, but by reason; not in hatred, but in love."

Dulles expressed the central error of the apologetic effort this way: "Western theologians were viewing the Muslim faith through Western eyes, and failing to meet it as a living religion."

* * *

What can we learn from the medieval apologists?
For one thing, they made a serious effort to understand the literature of Islam, usually in the original language. They were pretty frank in their criticism, but at the same time they tried to be fair as they understood it, and to base what they wrote on actual Islamic texts. … There was some very interesting work done, from John of Damascene through Peter the Venerable and later, which hasn't really been repeated. Much of this was hostile, due to the situation in ancient Turkey and later in Spain. Yet it's also worth recalling that for centuries, Christians lived quite freely under Muslim rule, practiced their faith, held high office, and were close to the sovereigns. They had a civil, if not warm, relationship with Muslims in the Near East.

One big question is whether problems with pluralism in Islamic nations are due to historical, cultural and political factors, or something intrinsic to Islam. You seem to be saying that a rough sort of religious freedom was once the norm -- can that be done again?
I think it would be possible to do it again. I certainly hope so, because it's important that it be done again. We have to do everything we can to encourage that. We also have to remember our own history.

What do you mean?
Christianity was pretty violent itself in the early Middle Ages, into the late Middle Ages. It really wasn't until the experience of the Wars of Religion that we began to appreciate that it's not wise to try to use the sword to spread one's own religion, in part because others will also use their swords to advance their religion. This history is part of what brought religion into disrepute in the Enlightenment. In some ways, we're still paying a price for this history of hostility -- between the Orthodox and Western Christians, Protestants and Catholics, and between Christians and both Jews and Muslims. John Paul II did everything he could to atone for that history, and to separate himself from it.

In your book, you said one failure of the medieval apologists was that they didn't approach Islam as a living religion. What did you mean?
Their writing was largely based on books they had read, rather than actual contact with Muslims. This was especially true in the later period, when you had people in France and England who were writing about Islam but who really didn't have any contact at all with Muslim communities. So for them Islam was largely an abstraction, without much complexity.

Some would say that this tendency to approach Islam almost exclusively from its texts, not as a living religion, is true of Benedict XVI as well. Is that fair?
Probably, yes. Of course, it's often not very easy to have dialogue with some Muslims. They generally consider dialogue a sign of weakness, to admit that they might have something to learn. They will confront you with the teaching of Islam, but they won't engage in what we would consider dialogue. Often they won't even show up at meetings.

Isn't there a related problem, in that some of the Muslims who do show up at dialogue meetings aren't representative of mainstream Islam?
Yes, that can be a problem. I remember back in 1968, there was a Christian/Muslim meeting at Woodstock that I attended. [Note: From 1966 to 1973, Dulles served as a consultor to the Papal Secretariat for Dialogue with Non-Believers]. One of the Muslims had obviously read a lot of Kant, and the whole thing struck me as a little phony. He had studied in the West, and clearly didn't represent the Muslim tradition in a normative way. That happens fairly often in these sessions. It's going to take time for real dialogue to develop -- there's an internal process that has to happen.

To return to Pope Benedict, would it be helpful if he put himself in contact more thoroughly with Islam as a living religion, meeting with representative Muslim leaders?
Certainly, it would be helpful, and it's definitely worth trying. I'm sure he would love to do that. I believe the thinking around the Vatican these days is that the dialogue with Islam should start with things like ecology, poverty, these sorts of common human problems, before we get to more sensitive theological questions. This is part of Benedict's emphasis on reason. His approach seems to be, let's go as far as reason can take us before we get to these other issues.

Aside from the controversy over the remarks on Islam, what did you make of the Regensburg lecture?
I thought it was a very impressive address. The pope went amazingly far in laying out the principles of tolerance. It seems to me that he's read a lot of de Tocqueville, that he likes the American system on these matters and is trying to apply it to Europe. The idea is that there's a generic Christianity which is part of the culture. It's not enforced by the government, but it has social influence because it's the dominant popular religion, while still allowing for diversity. One finds this sort of generic Biblical religion in the founding documents of the United States. All this made the old European struggles to have either a Protestant or a Catholic government unnecessary, because it doesn't make so much difference who the ruler is. There is no automatic "transfer" from the state to the society of an official creed, but the basic Jewish and Christian values of Biblical religion form the bedrock of the culture. I think the Holy Father likes this model, which was expressed in the decree on religious freedom at the Second Vatican Council.

Comment: Alert readers will realise from this posting that the muslim scholars are not at all interested, as a group, in studying Christianity. On the other hand, all over the Christian world there is a rush for studying Islam. If victory goes to the prepared mind, things don't look good for Islam.

In the wider world the actual content of Islam is of no concern to Christians. All that is required is peace and quiet.

Islam is unable to provide any form of cultural and economic improvement to the lives of muslims. This is an observable fact in every islamic country. This failure will, over time and in a communications united world, undermine Islam fatally.

The failure of Islam is what drives the muslims to flee and seek the prosperous Christian West. The problems inherent in this situation are acute. Cardinal Dulles should have spoken about the need that muslims have to abandon the failed ideology of Islam. Conversion to Christianity must become a major program in Western countries to help stabilise these vast masses of impoverished muslims fleeing the destitution caused by Islam and Sharia.

Muslim Rioting In Europe.

2006-10-06T13:04:00.000+10:00

Note: This posting is from Melanie Philips, a British author on matters muslim.

Readers in Australia will be unaware of these events because our 'free' press ignores any evidence of muslim violence in Western countries. It undermines their fragile ideological support for the myth of 'Islam as a religion of peace'.

Read on...

October 6, 2006
The European jihad
You would barely know it in Britain, but France is currently under violent siege from the jihad — and buckling under the onslaught. The Daily Telegraph yesterday broke the almost total media silence in Britain about the horrifying violence going on across the English channel with this story about the fighting in the suburbs between Muslim youths and the police:

Radical Muslims in France’s housing estates are waging an undeclared ‘intifada’ against the police, with violent clashes injuring an average of 14 officers each day. As the interior ministry said that nearly 2,500 officers had been wounded this year, a police union declared that its members were ‘in a state of civil war’ with Muslims in the most depressed ‘banlieue’ estates which are heavily populated by unemployed youths of north African origin. It said the situation was so grave that it had asked the government to provide police with armoured cars to protect officers in the estates, which are becoming no-go zones…

Michel Thoomis, the secretary general of the hardline Action Police trade union, has written to Mr Sarkozy warning of an ‘intifada’ on the estates and demanding that officers be given armoured cars in the most dangerous areas. He said yesterday: ‘We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists. This is not a question of urban violence any more, it is an intifada, with stones and Molotov cocktails.’

It seems that other police officers, and other parts of French society, are even now still in a state of denial over what they are facing, insisting this is some kind of class war rather than what it really is, a religious war. They said the same thing about last year’s riots, ignoring clear signs of religious activism and incitement— along with the fact that the French government in desperation drafted Muslim Brotherhood imams into the banlieues to quell the disorder, thus giving the lie to the claim that these were merely ’secular’ disturbances, all about poverty and unemployment and other such sub-Marxist claptap. They were anything but; they were actually all about French Muslims declaring their turf to be no-go areas for the French state.

The Brussels Journal crisply gets to the point:

Most observers in the mainstream media (MSM) provide an occidentocentric analysis of the facts. They depict the ‘youths’ as outsiders who want to be brought into Western society and have the same rights as the natives of Old Europe. The MSM believe that the ‘youths’ are being treated unjustly because they are not a functioning part of Western society. They claim that, in spite of positive discrimination, subsidies, public services, schools, and all the provisions that have been made for immigrants over the years, access has been denied them.
This is the Marxist rhetoric of the West that has been predominant in the media and the chattering classes since the 1960s. But it does not fit the facts of the situation in Europe today… Unlike their fathers, who came to France from Muslim countries, accepting that, whilst remaining Muslims themselves, they had come to live in a non-Muslim country, the rioters see France as their country. They were born here. This land is their land. And since they are Muslims, this land, or at least a part of it, is Muslim as well. The society they live in is a homogeneous Islamic one. For them that is society, there is no other. Consequently there is also no question of their “leaving” that society to become part of another society, the putative Western one. “Society” is the society they live in and from which they view and interpret what goes on around them. To understand their language we must understand how they see us, where we fit in in their society. Multiculturalism does not exist: it is always a matter of several cultures living side by side in defined territories, and the laws of one culture not applying in the territories of the others…

Those media that tell us that the rioting “youths” want to be a part of our society and feel left out of it, are misrepresenting the facts. As the insurgents see it, they are not a part of our society and they want us to keep out of theirs. The violence in France is in no way comparable with that of the blacks in the U.S. in the 1960s. The Paris correspondent of The New York Times who writes that this a ‘variant of the same problem’ is either lying or does not know what he is talking about. The violence in France is of the type one finds when one group wants to assert its authority and drive the others out of its territory.

Meanwhile a French philosophy professor, Robert Redeker, has been in hiding for his life for more than three weeks after being denounced on al Jazeera by Ken Livingstone’s friend Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, following which he received death threats. His crime was to write an article in Le Figaro – which has since removed it from its website – denouncing Islam as a religion of inherent violence, unlike Christianity or Judaism, and comparing Islamism to Soviet communism. The Brussels Journal (again) reports:

In the article, which was published in the conservative daily Le Figaro of September 19th, Robert Redeker accused Islam of ‘exalting violence.’ Mr Redeker has not attended classes at his school near Toulouse since the article was published. Pierre Rousselin, the editor in chief of Le Figaro, apologized on Al-jazeera for the publication of the article. A number of Islamic countries, including Egypt, banned Le Figaro following the publication of Redeker’s piece. Mr Rousselin said the publication of the op-ed was a mistake. He said the article did not express the paper’s opinion. The article is no longer available on the Figaro website.

Mr Redeker has written a letter to his friend, the philosopher André Glucksmann, describing his ordeal [French text here]: ‘I am now in a catastrophic personal situation. Several death threats have been sent to me, and I have been sentenced to death by organizations of the al-Qaeda movement. […] On the websites condemning me to death there is a map showing how to get to my house to kill me, they have my photo, the places where I work, the telephone numbers, and the death fatwa. […] There is no safe place for me, I have to beg, two evenings here, two evenings there. […] I am under the constant protection of the police. I must cancel all scheduled conferences. And the authorities urge me to keep moving. […] All costs are at my own expense, including those of rents a month or two ahead, the costs of moving twice, legal expenses, etc. It’s quite sad. I exercised my constitutional rights, and I am punished for it, even in the territory of the Republic. This affair is also an attack against national sovereignty – foreign rules, decided by criminally minded fanatics, punish me for having exercised a constitutional right, and I am subjected, even in France, to great injury.’

The Journal has also been reporting violence in Brussels, with three days of ‘Ramadan rioting’ and prison officers having to receive police protection on their way to work because of attacks following the death of a Muslim prison inmate for which other Muslims blame the prison authorities. And now the violence is spiralling out into the political sphere:

Belgian artists warn that a victory of the “islamophobic” Vlaams Belang [Flemish Interest] party in the local elections on October 8th may lead to violence. In an interview in the Dutch-language weekly Knack Magazine this week painter Luc Tuymans says: ‘In the worst case you will get organised resistance, perhaps even rather violent reactions. I suspect many shop keepers will have their windows smashed. People do not seem to be aware, but a vote for the Vlaams Belang may have serious consequences. They should realize this before they take a final decision in the voting booth.’…

Last week, self-declared ‘anti-fascist’ activists vandalised a car with Belgian licence plates in Amsterdam. They mistook the vehicle for the car of Vlaams Belang politician Filip Dewinter. The car, however, belonged to a French businesswoman based in Brussels. VB politicians are often the victims of acts of vandalism, including arson attempts. Yesterday the party announced that it has established a fund to reimburse local candidates whose properties gets damaged.

Just across the channel, therefore, there is mayhem: a religious war, escalating violence and gross intimidation, supine or ineffectual public authorities locked into a state of denial, and a growing climate of political violence and anarchy. Yet apart from a small number of articles, the British media has barely registered these terrifying and most ominous events. It has been preoccupied with yet more evidence of its own deep confusion as it progressively allows itself to be cowed by Islamic extremism. I shall post on those particular matters later today.

Comment: The analysis offered by Ms. Philips is accurate. Where you get a sufficient number of muslims gathered together, you will, inevitably, get an attempt by muslim fanantics, to set up little 'islamic republics'. Weak and stupid Western politicians who do not know anything about Islam contribute to these problems by their policies.

The lesson for Australia is to keep the whole muslim population below 1% as a point of public policy. Muslim areas should be kept filled with public housing for non muslims. Ghettos must be ruthlessly prevented from forming.

They haven't done this in Europe and are now paying the very heavy price. There is no need for Australia to make the same mistake.

Another Aspect Of Real Islam In Action.

2006-10-05T08:45:00.000+10:00

Note: This posting is to remind readers that despite all the islamic bleating about 'no compulsion in religion' and 'tolerance', real islam in real islamic countries is far from these Koranic injunctions...

4 October, 2006
IRAN
Two Iranian Christians arrested in Mashad. One is the daughter of a murdered Christian clergyman

One of the two is a convert from Islam. There has been no news about them for days. Iranians are increasingly looking favourably to Christianity, tired to hear hateful and war-like preaching.

Mashad (AsiaNews/ANS) – An Iranian woman and her husband, a Christian convert from Islam, were arrested by Iran’s secret police in Mashad (north-eastern part of the country). Their relatives have reported that they have had no news about them for several days now.

Fereshteh Dibaj, 28, is the daughter of an Evangelical minister, also a convert from Islam, assassinated in 1994. Her husband Amir Montazemi, 35, converted to Christianity at the age of 20. According to the “Pray for Iran” website, at “about 7:00 am local time on Tuesday September 26, 2006, several men from the Iranian secret police raided their apartment and confiscated their computers, Christian literature, and other items they thought may be of interest to them.”

Before being taken away, Amir had a chance to quickly phone his mother to ask her to come and take their six-year-old daughter, Christine (see photo). By the time she arrived, Amir and Fereshteh had already been forced into the police car and two agents were still searching the flat. They hold the grandmother that the couple was being taken to a certain police station, which later turned out not to be the case. Instead they were taken to a secret police station belonging to the Revolutionary Guards.

The search for the missing couple proved fruitless. On September 28, the authorities informed Amir's parents that husband and wife were to appear before a revolutionary court, but failed to provide more precise information.

Fereshteh and Amir lead a house church in Mashad, one of the holiest cities of Iranian Islam and a popular Muslim pilgrimage destination.

The pastor of their church, Rev Hussein Soodmand, was hanged in December 1990 as a convert from Islam who refused to recant.

When Fereshteh was six years old, her father Mehdi Dibaj was arrested and charged with apostasy. He was sentenced to death but spent more than nine years in prison until international pressure secured his release from prison. A few months later, he was abducted and killed.

Fereshteh’s brother, Issa Dibaj, who lives and works in Great Britain, has called on people to spread this news abroad about has happened to them to make sure that the rest of the world “knows about this and cares.”

Issa has come to terms with his father’s death and forgiven his executioners. He is very hopeful about Christianity in his country. “The average Iranian is fascinated by this message of love,” he said. “They look at their own religion and see nothing but fighting and hatred. Then they see Christians who love each other, who are so joyful; they see the difference immediately and they want to know how to become like that. The government doesn’t like this.”

Comment: Australia can help in these situations. We should add to the list of refugee situations acceptable to our laws, people who seek to flee from religious persecution. This would help many persons who want to give up islam without getting killed.

Surely this is a reasonable life aim.

Is anyone awake in Canberra?

A New Islamic Truth.

2006-10-04T13:41:00.000+10:00

Note: Dr. Ali is taking his life into his hands saying these truths about Mohammad and the Koran. It will be interesting to see how long it takes before a fatwa is issued against him.

Read on...

Prophet not perfect, says Islamic scholar
Richard Kerbaj
October 04, 2006

Muslim minds 'closed': Ameer Ali, doctor of economics at Murdoch University in Perth, says the Koran must not be read literally but reinterpreted for today.

A LEADING adviser on Islam, Ameer Ali, has attacked Muslims who "blindly" follow their faith and fail to question the veracity of the Koran, saying that even Mohammed had "flaws".
The chairman of John Howard's Muslim advisory board yesterday warned that Islamists would continue to breed jihadis unless the Koran was "reinterpreted" for today's society.

He also said mosques were increasingly being used by imams to deliver sermons that were not open to discussion.

Dr Ali said the majority of Muslim clerics had for centuries imposed a "literalist" teaching of Islam, telling their followers that deviating from the written message would ultimately lead to their admission into hell.

"The times are changing and with the change of times, you also have to reinterpret the Koran," he told The Australian.

"Because if you believe that it's a book for all the times and all the nations, then that book must be yielding new meanings.

"There are verses about slavery, and the Koran says you must be kind to the slaves. So are the Muslims saying we must have slavery to be kind?

"The jihadists are interpreting the Koran literally and that's the problem ... Popular Muslims, because of their lack of knowledge about religion, are vulnerable to these sort of teachings."

Dr Ali, who is writing an academic paper entitled "Closing of the Muslim Mind", said even Mohammed was not the "perfect model" as most Muslims believed. Asked if the prophet had character flaws, he said: "Of course - you must look at him as a human being also."

His call for moderation comes 11 days into Ramadan, the holy month that requires Muslims to fast, give to charity and become more spiritually accountable.

His comments came as a French philosophy teacher was forced into hiding after describing the Mohammed as a ruthless warlord and mass murderer. Robert Redeker has been under police protection, moving between secret addresses, since threats against him appeared on Islamist websites last week. His home address was published with calls to murder.

Dr Ali criticised community members for playing victim when Muslims reacted violently against criticism, as after the publication of the Danish cartoons and the recent comments by the Pope.

He said it was time for Muslims to "confront this challenge head-on and look critically at their behaviour and mode of response to alleged blasphemy".

Dr Ali called for Hezbollah to be removed from the Government's terror organisations list two months ago, saying they were freedom fighters defending their country against Israeli invasion.

The former president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils said there were sections of the Koran that were relevant to "everybody at every time".

But he said people needed to read into the scripture and not merely accept it as the final word.

Dr Ali - who heads the Muslim Community Reference Group set up last year following the London bombings to improve communication channels between the federal Government and Australia's 300,000 Muslims - labelled the idea of going to hell for questioning the Koran a "load of rubbish".

"Because we cannot decide who's going to go to hell and who's going to go to heaven - that's left to the creator," he said.

Dr Ali criticised Muslims who react violently towards any depictions of Mohammed while aspiring to emulate his ways.

"True, Islam prohibits any drawing or a statue to be carved out representing the figure of the prophet. Still, it has not prevented the Muslims from imitating the physical features of Mohammed," he said.

Dr Ali said it was "ridiculous" that some Muslims believed God would judge them on the "length of (their) beard". He said Muslims would be judged on their "character, their knowledge, their contribution to society".

He said young Muslim Australians were slowly becoming more inquisitive about their faith. "Therefore they are going to ask questions when they grow up and that's a healthy trend," he said.

Comment: This site expects Dr. Ali will recant these views.

One Hundred Things That Fuel Muslim Extremism.

2006-10-03T14:32:00.000+10:00

Note: Like you, this site is heartily sick of the endless whining of 'religious' muslims about things that upset them...as if anyone in the West REALLY could care a fig for this nonsense.

The post below, modelled on Luther's 95 Theses (google it) is a light hearted account of this endless muslim whining.

Read it and have a laugh...

One Hundred Things that Fuel Muslim Extremism
by Hugh Fitzgerald (Oct. 2006)

“The American presence in Iraq fuels Muslim extremism.”

--- a conclusion concluded from, the National Intelligence Estimate by many concluders in solemn conclusory conclave assembled.

Ninety-Five Other Things That Also Fuel Muslim Extremism:

Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses.”
The British government’s protection of Salman Rushdie.
The American coup against Mossadegh in 1953, cited by some Iranians as the direct cause of the takeover of Iran by the Ayatollah Khomeini more than 25 years later..
The remarks of Pim Fortuyn about Muslim attitudes toward liberal Dutch mores.
The movie by Theo van Gogh about the subjection of women in Islam.
The election of Ayaan Hirsi Ali to the Dutch Parliament.
The passing-by mosques by Hindus as Friday Prayers end.
The failure of Americans in Iraq to sufficiently subdue the Sunni insurgents..
The failure of Americans in Iraq to sufficiently subdue the Shi’a militias.
The failure of Americans in Iraq to sufficiently subdue the Kurdish desire for independence .
The failure of Americans in Iraq to give Baghdad an instant makeover so that it resembles the most prosperous and advanced American city.
The failure of Americans to solve every economic problem in Iraq, to make Sunnis and Shi’a friends, to get the oilfields pumping at full capacity, and to make donations even beyond the many tens of billions spent directly on reconstruction in Iraq.
The failure of the Americans, in obtaining debt relief from all Infidel creditors for Iraq (but not from any of the Muslim Arab states), to persuade those same Infidel countries to supply another $50-$100 billion.
The refusal of the French state to permit the wearing of the hijab.
The insistence, by the French state, that Voltaire, Montaigne, Proust, and other anti-Islamic writers, be assigned texts in the schools.
The selling of alcohol by Christians in Basra.
The existence of Christians in Basra.
The continued functioning of Christian churches in Baghdad.
The Copts in Egypt who complain when Muslims attack their churches and other institutions, or kidnap and forcibly convert Coptic girls to Islam.
The Filipinos who try to hold private religious services in Saudi Arabia, land on which no non-Muslims should be present in any case.
The American airmen who were assigned to bases in Saudi Arabia and who showed insufficient obeisance to their Saudi masters, all daggers and dishdashas, with their sneers of cold command.
The obvious superiority of Western economies.
The obvious superiority of Western education.
The obvious superiority of Western medical care.
The obvious superiority of Western artistic achievement.
The obvious superiority of Western (fill in here whatever you like).
The failure of Muslims living in the countries of Western Europe to have a standard of living equal or superior to that of non-Muslims.
The continued refusal of non-Muslims in the West to institute a formalized long-term system of Jizyah, by which Muslims can be supported, as they now must make do only with the benefits provided by Infidel taxpayers on a year-to-year basis.
The financial support given by the Americans to the Mubarak regime in Egypt which enrages the Muslim Brotherhood..
The financial support given by the Americans to successive Jordanian kings and kinglets which enrages the Muslim Brotherhood.
The diplomatic and other support given by the Americans to the corrupt Al-Saud family of “Saudi” Arabia, which enrages Al-Qaeda and its local supporters..
The threats by some in the United States to withdraw support from the Mubarak Friends-and-Family Plan, which whips up anti-American sentiment among Egyptian Muslims.
The threats by some in the United States to withdraw support from Pakistan if it does not collaborate less meretriciously in the soi-disant “war on terror” which whips up anti-American sentiment among Pakistani Muslims.
The temporary withdrawal of Infidel support for the “Palestinians” who deserve to receive Infidel aid of every kind, and permanently.
The discussion, by some in the West, of ways to diminish, in order to prevent further global warming, the use of oil – which are seen as damaging Arab and Muslim interests, and must therefore be regarded as a deliberate attack on Islam.
The reference by Pope Benedict to a 14th century Byzantine emperor’s remarks in the course of a scholarly address at Regensburg.
The refusal of Pope Benedict to continue to apologize, and his apparent refusal to completely humiliate himself, before Muslims demanding such humiliation.
The Israeli “occupation” of Sinai, Gaza, and the West Bank after the Six-Day War..
The Israeli “occupation” of Gaza, and the West Bank after the Camp David Accords..
The Israeli “occupation” of the West Bank after the full withdrawal from Gaza..
The Israeli “occupation” of the sacred Arab and Muslim soil on which the only Jewish state was created in 1948..
The presence of Jews in the Middle East.
The presence of Jews, uncowed, anywhere in the world.
The presence of a strong self-assured community of Christians in Lebanon.
The presence of Copts in Egypt who sometimes act as if they, too, too, have a right to regard Egypt as their land..
The refusal of Italian authorities to prosecute, before her death, Oriana Fallaci.
The refusal of Italian authorities to ban Dante in schools because of the mention of Muhammad in The Inferno.
The refusal of Italian authorities to remove or cover over frescoes in Bologna that depict Muhammad in an unflattering manner.
The refusal of the government of Denmark to punish a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, for daring to exercise the right of free speech.
The refusal of Hindus to abandon any claim to ancient sites, where Hindu temples once stood until destroyed by Muslim invaders.
The refusal of some Hindus to forget the history of India.
The refusal of some European governments to permit Muslim mosques of any size to be built wherever, whenever, and with whatever towering minarets and electronic amplifying equipment, as Muslims believe is their sacred right.
The attempts by some Western police to enter mosques where they have found, in the past, false passports and other documents, weapons including guns and explosives, sometimes hidden in false ceilings.
The attempt to permit Europeans to continue, even outside Denmark, to exercise the so-called right of free speech, as has happened with Charlie-Hébdo and other French newspapers.
The refusal of the University of Geneva to renew the contract of Tariq Ramadan.
The public displays of piggy-banks, and of allusions, in English pub names, such as The Saracen’s Head, which may offend Muslims.
The plans by some national authorities in Holland, and state authorities in Germany, in discussing the need for, or even instituting, more stringent qualifications for nationalization.
The single mention by President Bush of the word “islamofascism” – a word which must never again be repeated by him, and which he never again repeated.
The behavior of American soldiers who have on several occasions returned deadly fire coming at them from mosques in Iraq.
The behavior of the British police in not notifying Muslim authorities, well in advance, of any planned raids on any suspected Muslim terrorists in Great Britain, a grave offense which has now apparently, in order to win Muslim hearts and Muslim minds, been rectified.
The belief that some in the West continue to hold, that Jews do have a historic as well as religious connection to the part of Dar al-Islam they call Israel..
The outrageous way in which Infidels refer to the Prophet Muhammad as if he is not universally regarded as the Perfect Man, uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil.
The mention by Infidels of aspects of Muhammad’s life – such as the Khaybar Oasis attack, the Banu Qurayza decapitation, the murder of Asma bint Marwan, the marriage to nine-year-old Aisha, which are not true, or if true, are not things which Infidels have any right either to discuss, or even to know about.
The belief of some Infidels that those who give up on Islam, who are apostates and therefore traitors to Islam, could after their act of treason conceivably continue to know anything about Islam, given that Allah clearly takes away from such people all their previous knowledge of Islam at the very moment when they decide to apostasize.
The outrageous belief by some Infidels that nonetheless they may have reason to listen to the testimony of ex-Muslims as to the real contents of Islam.
The outrageous and insulting mention, by Infidels, of such words as “taqiyya” and “kitman.”
The outrageous mention, by Infidels, of the word “dhimmi” about which they can not possibly have any accurate conception, and which they have no right to discuss in the first place unless they are Muslims.
The outrageous attempt to suggest that people are not born Muslims.
The outrageous attempt to suggest that the spread of Islam was ever undertaken through violence, when everyone knows it was a case of sudden mass conversion.
The refusal of this or that Infidel religious leader, political figure, writer, artist, comedian, or simply you, or simply I, to exhibit the proper attitude toward Islam, Islam, Islam.
The wherewithal provided by OPEC revenues that enable the Saudis, especially, to fund mosques and madrasas worldwide and thereby naturally increase the numbers of “extremists” in the Lands of the Infidels..
The wherewithal of OPEC revenues that pay for an army of Western hirelings, including former diplomats (mostly English and American), former intelligence agents, former and present journalists, especially those covering the Middle East, public relations experts, businessmen eager for contracts in the Gulf, and many other fixers and middlemen. This helps delay the day of new energy policies that could conceivably diminish the OPEC oil revenues that fund the Jihad, and also prevents the unwary from regarding Saudi Arabia as anything other than a “staunch ally.”
The willingness of journalists to overlook obvious links between the practice of Jihad, and the doctrine of Jihad, encouraged by journalists who still do not feel the obligation to learn about Islam. This encourages Muslims to make demands, whether for changes in political and legal institutions in the West, or to insist that outspoken Infidels – the Pope, Theo van Gogh, Jyllens-Posten – to stop speaking or writing about Islam. Any such refusal to comply with Muslim demands engenders – “fuels” – Muslim “extremism.”
The refusal of the Buddhists in southern Thailand to stop being Buddhists.
The refusal of the Christians in the southern Philippines to submit to the demands to hand over lands to the Muslims of As Sayyaf.
The refusal of Christians in Sulawesi to stop holding church services.
The refusal of the Israeli government to stop trying to protect ancient archeological sites in Jerusalem, severely damaged by the Muslim construction on and deep within the Temple Mount.
The refusal of Hindus in India to concede to Muslim demands for the full application of Shari’a to the Muslim community.
The refusal of Orthodox priests in monasteries in Bosnia and Kosovo to abandon the monasteries to Muslims, clamoring to destroy them.
The outrageous insistence by the world’s Armenians, and by many others, that Turkey stop denying the mass murder of Armenians by Muslim Turks between 1915 and 1920.
The outrageous demands by many Infidel lands that outside forces be brought in to protect the non-Arab Muslims from the Arab Muslims in Darfur, despite the express opposition of both the government of the Sudan, and the opposition of the Arab League.
The outrageous demands by some Infidels that Muslims should be permitted to open mosques only on the basis of reciprocity – that is, on the basis of similar permission being granted to non-Muslims in Muslim lands.
The outrageous refusal of some Infidel countries to prevent transmissions of Al Manar and other satellite channels run by terrorist groups.
The refusal of many Western countries – Great Britain, Germany, Canada -- to yield to demands of local Muslims that they be made subject only to the Shari’a and not the man-made laws of the Infidels.
The refusal by Australia to cease contributing troops to help their American allies in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The continued existence of Jews.
The continued existence of Christians.
The continued existence of Hindus.
The continued existence of Sikhs.
The continued existence of Buddhists.
The continued existence of followers of Confucius.
The continued existence of agnostics.
The continued existence of atheists.
Everything.
Nothing.

Some, especially in Lutheran lands, may be satisfied with these 95 theses. Others may prefer to round out the polemical embonpoint by adding another five items to the list. Still others may wish to keep adding to the list from the rich profusion of items offered by each day’s Jihad news, items in keeping with the nature,, and quite unnecessary nurture of, the belief-system of Islam. It took very little time to compose this list. It would not take much longer to add another hundred, two hundred, three hundred items to the list of things that “fuel Muslim extremism.”

Comment: No comment necessary...I don't want to get a death threat!

Islam Is Not All Doom And Gloom.

2006-10-02T14:19:00.000+10:00

Note: In the spirit of Ramadan this site offers a nice story from Arabia...

Volunteers Hand Out Iftar at Traffic Lights
Samir Al-Saadi, Arab News

JEDDAH, 2 October 2006 — Some Jeddah residents stand next to traffic lights at sunset to distribute Iftar to motorists who have not managed to reach home in time.

Instead of putting your foot on the pedal, consider stopping at a traffic light to get your free breakfast. In general, the plastic bags given out contain three dates, water, a dairy product (laban) and a pastry product.

The people handing out the Iftar are not a part of any charity organizations but individuals looking for extra “thawab” (reward from Allah).

“Everybody is looking to go the extra mile for additional thawab in Ramadan. Iftar Sayeem (providing breakfast to those who fast) has great rewards in this holy month,” said a long-time city resident.

In Islam the more your charity work is secret, the greater your reward from Allah. That is why Muslims prefer not to publicize their good deeds. For that very reason, the volunteers did not give us their full names.

Abdullah, one such volunteer spotted at one intersection, said, “I enjoy it because it is Ramadan and there is a great pleasure in giving at this time of year.”

He added, “I do it purely to get a reward from Allah, may Allah accept our deeds.”

Abdullah explained that he does not belong to any charity organization but family members chip in and that he and his family do the distributing in turn.

Mohammed said, “This is a project my fellow students in Qur’anic memorization circles and I have prepared as a pre-Iftar highly rewarding religious activity. There are more positives to this that might help during the chaotic Iftar hour.”

Arab News observed that most cars slowed down as they come to a complete stop in order to pick up their Iftar. “There is another positive side to it,” Abdullah said. “When people pick up Iftar bags from us, they slow down and drive more safely.”

If, by some chance, you are delayed until Iftar and the sunset prayer call sounds, stop at the nearest traffic light.

Comment: Regular readers of this site should keep in mind that the actual practise of Islam by many actual and real muslims can be very kind and thoughtful. This small story is just to remind all people that the bin Ladens and the Zawahiris of Islam are not the totality of Islam or its adherents.

Keep this in mind.

The Cultural Struggle With Islam.

2006-10-01T09:22:00.000+10:00

Note: The cultural struggle with Islam (where they sometimes use violence)is ongoing in Europe. Due to the weak cultural understanding of so many European officials the Islamic cultural push in Europe continues apace. This is not in the interest of Europe as a Western, free and Christian area.

Read on and apply to Australia...

30 September, 2006
ISLAM - VATICAN
Violent Islam, cowardly Europe: from the cartoons to Regensburg
by Samir Khalil Samir, sj

A cultural attack by Islam against the West is under way, to which Europe is responding with fear and backtracking. In Regensburg, the pope showed the way ahead: no to the violence of Islam; renew European culture.

Beirut (AsiaNews) – A year ago, on 30 September 2005, in Denmark, 12 satirical cartoons about Muhammad were published, sparking a controversy that inflamed the Muslim world. Recently, we have witnessed a remake, a sort of “Cartoons no.2”, with the reaction of the Muslim world to the speech of the pope in Regensburg. These facts, like the threats against an opera of Mozart in Berlin, or against a French teacher, reveal two very worrying phenomena: the easy use of violence in Islam, together with its inability to dialogue; the West, especially Europe, as a big coward that is losing its identity.

Regensburg: “Cartoons no.2” affair

The starting point of the cartoons was a desire to counter the self-censorship that often prevails in the western world where Islam is concerned.

A Danish cartoonist was asked to design Muhammad on the cover of a children’s book. The man received threats and consequently refused. So the head of the newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, launched a competition, inviting 12 cartoonists to make satirical illustrations of Muhammad.

A threat to freedom became a challenge. Everything was, however, confined to a newspaper. What was unacceptable was the response, certainly not spontaneous, from Muslims at international level. The proof that the rallies were organized lies in the reality that they broke out two or three months after the publication of the cartoons, after some imams visited Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other countries to draw some reactions.

The “Cartoons no.2” affair came about with the address of Benedict XVI in Regensburg. Here too, everything smacked of being organized. At least 99% of those who protested have not even read the speech as yet. Yesterday I took part in a broadcast on Iranian television with two imams, a Palestinian Sunni and an Iranian Shiite. They all told me they had read the speech in Arabic two days after it was given. But this was not true: the translation into Arabic was prepared only eight days later, by a friend who put it on his private site. When I tried to explain the meaning of the entire text, they kept quoting the famous phrase of Manuel II Paleologus, like a script. Even the pope has been used to hit out at the west. Usually, Muslims hesitate to attack the pope, even if the Catholic Church is always perceived alongside the West. Even in that broadcast on Iranian television, Benedict XVI, Bush, Blair, Merkel, Israel, Zionists and so on, were thrown together, accused of “conspiring against Islam”.

European culture and wine

The tendency to see a “conspiracy” is present among cultured Muslims.

A few days ago, in Berlin, an opera of Mozart, Idomeneo was cancelled: it featured the decapitated head of Muhammad (together with those of Jesus, Buddha and Neptune) and the director of the theatre feared Islamic vendetta.

Islamic pressure on our culture is becoming increasingly pervasive.

In France, a teacher Robert Redeker, who criticized Islam at school, was threatened with death. Two years ago, some people wanted to destroy the tomb of Dante Alighieri because he put Muhammad in hell; a year ago, some wanted to destroy the fresco of St Petronius in Bologna because Muhammad was depicted as condemned in the universal judgment.

Two years ago, in Geneva, the theatrical work of Voltaire, Zadiq, was banned because it talked about Muhammad. But then: Dante, St Petronius, Voltaire, Mozart, the cartoons, the pope... all European culture is censored by Europeans out of a false respect for Islam or for a quiet life!

There is no realization that our culture and uniqueness are at stake.

Let me give another example. Every year, it becomes known that a Muslim delegation refused to participate in a reception given by some European authorities or others, because apart from non alcoholic drinks, wine and spirits were served, and these are banned by rigorous Islam. In Paris, some months back, an Iranian delegation withdrew because France refused to do away with wine. Three years ago, in Germany, an Iranian delegation led by Rafsanjani, was invited to a banquet offered by the foreign affairs minister. As soon as they arrived, when they saw that wine and spirits were being served, they withdrew to a small room. After discussing together, they asked that all alcoholic drinks be removed. One minister refused and they left. However, the foreign affairs minister, not to create further problems, had the wine and spirits removed from the reception. Such things, related to food and drink, happen on a regular basis.

Similarly, there are swimming pools where specific times are reserved for women, to please some fanatical Muslim. In hospitals, there are demands that Muslim women should not be touched by male doctors. And particular food that is permissible (halâl) for Muslims is starting to be demanded everywhere: in hospitals, schools and so on.

Intolerant Islam.

On Islam’s part, there is insupportable intolerance. Is wine being served? Don’t drink it! Are they attacking Muhammad? Respond by writing something, a statement… why respond with violence?

The case of Regensburg is evident. One phrase out of a speech containing hundreds was picked, a phrase that was not even an expressed thought of the pope, and yet they tried to say the pope quoted it because it reflects his way of thinking. Which is untrue. And even if it was true, it would have been enough to respond with research, with an article, or a statement. But to create a global movement means this episode is being used for another purpose. It’s really manipulation.

Islam’s no.1 problem today is that of violence. Yesterday on television, the Iranian imam said Zarqawi and Bin Laden were only “terrorists”, they did not represent Islam because “no one follows them”. But this is another falsehood. A survey conducted by al-Jazeera on “what do you think about Bin Laden?” revealed that 50% of those interviewed backed Ban Laden, while the other half rejected him.

The problem of violence of Islam cannot be put off. It also affects peace on the planet. Today, many wars in the west and in Asia are caused precisely by Muslims who want autonomy, a state for themselves. It is enough to cite Bosnia, Thailand, the Philippines, Kosovo, Kashmir, Nigeria... to say nothing of Pakistan and Bangladesh. Wherever there is a Muslim minority concentrated in an area where it becomes the majority, a separatist war is quick to break out. It should be noted that violence is practiced mostly against their fellow members of the faith, Muslims. Just look at violence in Iraq, or in Pakistan, where Sunnis and Shiites attack each other to the point of striking mosques, their most sacred places. In Algeria, in the name of the Koran and the Prophet, nearly 100,000 people were killed in recent years...

But when violence is committed in the name of God, this is a blasphemy, an offence against God. And this is what the pope was talking about. A text attributed to Muhammad says: “Take the sentiments, the customs of God” (takhallaqû bi-akhlâq Allâh) [the same expression we use to translate St Paul: “Have the same sentiments of Jesus Christ…”]. There is the need, then, for Islam to rethink its relationship with violence, to take on the “sentiments” of God. Therefore the pope insisted: “Violence is contrary to the nature of God”.

Cowardly West

Another aspect that should be mentioned is the cowardice of the west: Mozart, Voltaire, Dante, the matter of wines and spirits, reveal we are faced with a cultural attack of the Muslim world against the West, which sometimes succeeds, and other times does not. But meanwhile, the west is backtracking. By dint of doing so, precedents are created, to the point of creating a mentality and norms. I am not defending conflict among civilizations here, but there does need to be disagreement on values, especially to defend human rights, which come before any culture.

Years ago, there was a global campaign against infibulation and stoning of women in Africa. Tarik Ramadan, in his time, had expressed himself about this, about stoning and corporal punishment in Islam, saying: “Give us a moratorium, give us time to evolve.” But the question is: how many more women must be stoned so that you can evolve?”

Faced with Muslim demands, the West chooses to renounce affirmation of human rights, in the name of culture, patience, doing good, multiculturalism... in reality, the awareness of European identity and its value is being lost. Even a minimum amount of pride is missing. In general, among French, Italians, Germans, doubt is spreading about the European identity, there is reticence, shame.

And yet, we Africans and Asians recognize in you Europeans a common legacy, that the pope himself has often highlighted, talking about Hellenism, Christianity, Enlightenment... there is the need to become conscious once again of the European identity, which has Christianity as a bonding agent at the base, without rejecting anything of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, but purifying everything (Christianity included). And people should be proud of this identity.

Europe brought absolutely unique values to the world: the human person, equality, human rights, freedom, democracy, ecology, a non-violent rapport with nature (also under the influence of India)... these are acquisitions that came in useful for Gandhi too, and other world cultures.

The speech of the pope in Regensburg was also a proposal to revive European awareness and to open it up to universal dialogue. Highlighting the two pillars – religion without violence and the integration of faith and reason – Benedict XVI has launched a proper agenda for the world of the third millennium: reflecting all together about violence and non-violence, especially about their ties with religions and ideologies; reflecting together about the revision of our sacred texts, to give them an interpretation worthy of God and of Man; reflecting together about projects for a more equitable and human society; about freedom, its merits and its limits, about secularization and a healthy secularism; about cultures and multiculturalism, etc. These are some of the themes suggested by the pope in his speech at Regensburg for sincere and authentic dialogue.

Comment: Many muslims are of the view that Islam should replace what we have in Australia. Our lives should be replaced with, in their view, Sharia law and the full range of islamic life; just as they have in Pakistan and Yemen and similar places. As Australia is a free country, these muslims (those who are citizens, not the guests)are entitled to advocate this. The non muslim Australians are not required to agree.

Multiculturalism in Australia means that we open our door to those who want to come here and join our nation state. It does not mean that muslims can set up in Australia some 'Little Islamic Republic' and the rest of the Australians must agree to this. Many muslims think that multiculturalism means that they can have their own muslim life and areas.

Generally, attempts in Australia to close public facilities to operate special times, and entrance restricted for muslims, are rejected. This is right and proper. Electors should vote against any public official who proposes special services, using public facilities, for muslims or any other group.

It would serve the long term interests of Australians and sensible Australian muslims for there to be a Constitutional amendment which prohibited special considerations for any group based on the group's ideology or world view, however based. Sharia Law provisions should be expressly declared illegal in Australia.

Such a move would remove permanently any hope for muslim seperatists in Australia. This would strengthen the community power of the muslim majority who do not want any part of this seperatist 'islamist agenda'.

Is anyone awake in Canberra?

Thoughts On The Muslim Mindset.

2006-09-30T12:23:00.000+10:00

Note: This posting examines some aspects of the observable general muslim mindset. One of the great benefits of the internet is that we Westerners can now examine, on a daily basis, the information that Muslims in muslim countries tell each other. From this we can deduce a 'mindset'. It presents problems, as it stands. Read on and think...

A Look at the Muslims’ Mindset

Diffusing the present dangerous confrontation between Islam and the West demands rational impartial and cool heads to untangle facts from myth, understand the Muslims’ mindset, and redress any grievances on either side.

The Muslims’ perennial complaint is that the imperialist West—all colonial powers of the past, as well as the United States of America—have victimized them for decades and even centuries and continue to do so in every conceivable way. The litany of the alleged wrongdoings by the West is encyclopedic. To begin with, the West has shown utter contempt for the legitimate rights of the Muslim nation by arbitrarily dividing much of the Islamic land into fractured entities, plundering its resources, and topping these crimes by installing in its midst its illegitimate stepchild of Israel—a huge thorn in their side, so they complain. “A grain of truth is needed to make a mountain of lies believable,” is an old saw. In fairness to Muslims, there is some substance to their claims against the West. For now, let us focus on the general mindset of Muslims which bears heavily on the hostility toward the West—a serious hostility that may bring about the dreaded Armageddon.

* Patriarchy and authoritarianism. The Muslim’s mind is imprinted with authoritarianism which starts with the supreme authority, Allah, through his one and only prophet, Muhammad, his Caliphs or Imams, and the high-ranking religious divines all the way down to the village clergy. This authoritarian mentality encompasses all aspects of life for the Muslim. The king and his dominion as the viceroy of God, the Amir and his despotic ways, the Khan and his unchallenged rule over the tribe, the village headsman and his extensive power, and finally the father and his iron grip at home over the women and children. All these authority figures are male.

The authoritarian type poses numerous problems and presents many ramifications—ramifications much too important and complex to be comprehensively treated here. For now, it is important to understand that a person with the authoritarian personality is an extremist. He can be docility itself under certain circumstances and a maniacal murdering brute under others. He is the type who would just as happily kill or die, when he is directed to do so. He would, for instance, gladly strap on an explosive vest, in obedience to a superior’s order, and detonate it in a crowd of innocent civilians without the slightest hesitation.

* Blind obedience. A dangerous feature of the authoritarian personality is the relative lack of independent thinking. This deficiency makes the person highly amenable to manipulation. Islam, by its rigidly authoritarian make up, robs a Muslim of independent thinking to the extent that the believer blindly adopts it as his infallible system of belief. Hence, the religion of Islam is guilty of conditioning masses of people as easily manipulate-able instruments in the hands of authority figures.

Studies have shown that the authoritarian personality type can be found among all people, including Americans. The important difference is in the degree and prevalence of the condition. Islam breeds vast numbers of extremists, while in America, for instance, the prevalence is significantly lower and less severe.

* Focus on goal. To Muslims, the goal is everything. As religious fascism, Islam condones any and all means to achieve its goals. The ultimate objective of Islam is the rule of the entire world under the Islamic Ummeh—never mind that these life-in-hand soldiers of Allah disagree with one another regarding the Ummeh itself and who is going to reign over it. That’s a “family dispute” that they will resolve by their usual favorite method—brute force. Each Islamic sect believes that it has the Prophet and Allah on its side and it will prevail over the other. For now they have to work diligently to achieve the intermediary goal of defeating all non-believers. There are countless instances that substantiate Muslims’ “End justifies the means” guiding principle. This policy dates back to Muhammad himself. Muhammad repeatedly made peace covenants with his adversaries, only to violate them as soon as he was in advantageous position to do so. Betrayal, deception and outright lies are fully condoned in furthering the work of Islam. In the present-day world, the work of Islam is defined by a deeply-entrenched and influential clergy who issue fatwa—rulings—that become directives and laws to the faithful.

Khomeini, the founder of the Iranian Islamic state, for one, made extensive use of the fatwa. Widely-known in the west is Khomeini’s fatwa condemning Selman Rushdie to death for his book. A less known fatwa of Khomeini during the last Iran-Iraq war led to the slaughter of thousands of Iranian children. Children, nearly all under 15 years of age, were given plastic keys to paradise as they were commanded by the fatwa of the imam to rush forward to clear minefields for the tanks to follow. The Islamic murderers, in obedience to the fatwa of a bloodthirsty man of Allah, had no problem in deceiving the clueless lads with made in China plastic keys to paradise.

Such is the existentialistic threat of Islam. It is a rigid stone-age authoritarian system with a stranglehold over many of the nearly one and half billion people under its command.

* Fatalism. One of the greatest subtle, yet important differences between the Muslim’s mindset and that of the people in the West is the extent to which Muslims are fatalistic. There is hardly a statement that a Muslim makes without being conditional—conditional on the will of Allah. “I shall see you tomorrow, Allah willing,” “You will make it home, Allah willing,” “Things will work out, Allah willing,” and on and on and on. To the Muslim, Allah is on the job—on every job. Allah, with his invisible mighty hand literally does and runs everything. “Allah’s hand is above all other hands,” adorns every imaginable space in Islamic lands—a telling point about the Muslim’s fatalism and submission to the omnipotent omnipresent hand. If something happens, it is Allah’s will. If it doesn’t, it is Allah’s will. The rank and file Muslim has little will of his own. It absolves him of any and all responsibility. This mentality is in stark contrast with the “take charge” and “can do” mentality characteristic of Americans and others.

* Psychological uniqueness. People as a group or as individuals are different and none is perfectly healthy psychologically. We all have a lose wheel or two as we travel the bumpy road of life. Yet, most people manage to stay on course most of the time, with perhaps a stop or two at a repair shop of a mental health professional.

Most psychological disorders are exaggerations, deficits or surfeits of the generally accepted norm—whatever the norm may be. When caution, for instance, is practiced past suspicion, then we have paranoia; when reasonable fear is exercised beyond any justification, then there is phobia. The degree and severity of a condition frequently determine the presence or absence of psychopathology.

Muslims share a common Islamic psychological milieu, they are on Islamic “diet,” whether they live in Islamic lands or in societies predominantly non-Islamic. The psychological condition of any Muslim group or individual is directly dependent on the kind and amount of Islamic diet they consume. The Islamic diet has numerous ingredients—some of which are wholesome, some are dangerously toxic, and some are between the two extremes.

Over the years, the Islamic leaders have found it expedient to feed the masses mainly the toxic ingredients to further their own interests. Individuals and groups, for instance, have used the immense energizing power of hatred to rally the faithful; the cohesive force of polarization to create in-group solidarity; and, the great utility value of blaming others for their real and perceived misfortunes. Jews have been their favorite and handy scapegoats from day one. To this day, as true fascist, like the Nazis, Muslims blame just about everything on the Jews.

Providing a comprehensive inventory of the psychological profile of the Muslims is beyond the scope of this article. Yet, there is no question that the psychological make up of a Muslim, depending on the extent of his Muslim-ness, is different from that of non-Muslims. This difference, often irreconcilable as things stand presently is at the core of the clash of Islam with the West.

* Conclusion. Admittedly, the non-Islamic culture is no panacea. It has, however, one outstanding feature the Islamic lacks—it allows for liberty with all its attendants— good, bad, or indifferent. Those who have experienced liberty, no inducement is likely to make them give it up—particularly not the fictional promises of the Islamists that have failed in the past and are doomed to fail even more miserably in the future.

The best, yet difficult resolution of the conflict is to do what hundreds of thousands of Muslims have already done. They have abandoned the slaveholder Islam: they broke loose from the yoke of the exploitive clergy, renounced Islamofacism, purged the discriminatory and bizarre teachings in the Quran and the Hadith, and left the suffocating tent of dogmatic Islam for the life-giving expanse of liberty.

Within the emancipating and accommodating haven of liberty, those who wish to remain Muslim can retain and practice the good teachings of Islam but renounce intolerance, hatred and violence. It takes great effort and courage to ascend from the degrading pit of slavery to the mount of emancipation. Yet, it is both possible and exhilarating to do it, since many have done so successfully and happily. As more and more people leave the shackles of religious slavery, more and more will follow and the long-suffering Muslims, victimized by Islam itself for far too long, will be a free people in charge of their own life and destiny. It is a painful process of growing up, of asserting one’s coming of age, and marching lockstep with the free members of the human race.

Slavery of the mind is as evil as the slavery of the body. Islamofacism enslaves them both.

Comment: This article mmakes a fine case for not allowing Muslim schools in Australia. The internal problems of Islamic world views are such that muslims in Australia are better off having their children educated in the State education system.

Muslims in Australia need to be raised to live in 21st century Australia...not Arabia, or in the 7th century. It is cruel to teach attitudes to children when these attitudes are going to cause trouble for the muslim children when they are adults living in a very (although passively) anti-muslim society like Australia. The muslim schools teach these negative attitudes about the mainstream of Australia.

It is not public policy to promote anti Australian attitudes in any school in Australia. Muslim children would be better off learning how to be normal Australians via the ordinary educational venues in the country.

The Pentagon Reads The Koran.

2006-09-29T15:10:00.000+10:00

Note: This site admits that there are numerous possible readings of all the passages in the Koran. Everyone is entitled (it's called freedom of religious belief)to make up his/her own mind on these matters of serious concern.

This also applies to the Pentagon. The reading they give seems, to them, to correspond to the reality of the suicide bombings performed by many muslims. Other readings of the same Koranic suras lead other muslims to do other things...

...one man's meat, is another man's poison.

Read this very interesting posting.

September 28, 2006
Suicide bombers follow Quran, concludes Pentagon briefing
After retailing nonsense since 9/11 about how all this jihad terrorism has nothing to do with Islam, someone in the Pentagon actually took a look at the Qur'an itself, and -- lo and behold! -- discovered what I have been trying to tell people for years now: that the jihadists have a broad justification within the Qur'an and Islamic theology and law, and that fact has to be confronted by both Muslims and non-Muslims if anything effective is ever going to be done about it. "Suicide bombers follow Quran, concludes Pentagon briefing: Tasked with pinpointing motivation, analysts find terrorists 'rational actors' following 'holy book,'" from WND, with thanks to all who sent this in:

With suicide bombings spreading from Iraq to Afghanistan, the Pentagon has tasked intelligence analysts to pinpoint what's driving Muslim after Muslim to do the unthinkable.
Their preliminary finding is politically explosive: it's their "holy book" the Quran after all, according to intelligence briefings obtained by WND.

In public, the U.S. government has made an effort to avoid linking the terrorist threat to Islam and the Quran while dismissing suicide terrorists as crazed heretics who pervert Islamic teachings.

"The terrorists distort the idea of jihad into a call for violence and murder," the White House maintains in its recently released "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism" report.

But internal Pentagon briefings show intelligence analysts have reached a wholly different conclusion after studying Islamic scripture and the backgrounds of suicide terrorists. They've found that most Muslim suicide bombers are in fact students of the Quran who are motivated by its violent commands – making them, as strange as it sounds to the West, "rational actors" on the Islamic stage.

In Islam, it is not how one lives one's life that guarantees spiritual salvation, but how one dies, according to the briefings. There are great advantages to becoming a martyr. Dying while fighting the infidels in the cause of Allah reserves a special place and honor in Paradise. And it earns special favor with Allah.

"Suicide in defense of Islam is permitted, and the Islamic suicide bomber is, in the main, a rational actor," concludes a recent Pentagon briefing paper titled, "Motivations of Muslim Suicide Bombers."

Suicide for Allah a 'win-win'

"His actions provide a win-win scenario for himself, his family, his faith and his God," the document explains. "The bomber secures salvation and the pleasures of Paradise. He earns a degree of financial security and a place for his family in Paradise. He defends his faith and takes his place in a long line of martyrs to be memorialized as a valorous fighter.

"And finally, because of the manner of his death, he is assured that he will find favor with Allah," the briefing adds. "Against these considerations, the selfless sacrifice by the individual Muslim to destroy Islam's enemies becomes a suitable, feasible and acceptable course of action."

The briefing – produced by a little-known Pentagon intelligence unit called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA – cites a number of passages from the Quran dealing with jihad, or "holy" warfare, martyrdom and Paradise, where "beautiful mansions" and "maidens" await martyr heroes. In preparation for attacks, suicide terrorists typically recite passages from six surahs, or chapters, of the Quran: Baqura (Surah 2), Al Imran (3), Anfal (8), Tawba (9), Rahman (55) and Asr (103).

Particularly 9:111, which guarantees Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah.

Comment: The struggle in the West is against the ideology of Jihadist Islam. It can help confused readers to look back in history; the struggle in the Second World War was not against Germans, it was against Nazi ideology; in the Cold War the struggle was not against the Russians, it was against the ideology of Communism.

Today, the struggle is not against muslims, it is against the ideology of Jihadist Islam.

The source of the Jihadist Islamic ideology is the Koran, as the Jihadist Islamists interpret it. This interpretation may be wrong (who knows? There is no central teaching authority in Islam.)but it is the one that is actually being made by the Jihadist Muslims. This is the force against which the West is struggling.

As in every war, the innocent are always casualties.

The report from the Pentagon will strengthen the resolve of the Americans to fight the Jihadist Islamists. Australian muslims need to urgently develop an Australian Islam which rejects entirely Jihadist Islam.

There is no alternative.

Lunatic Islamic Anti-Semitism.

2006-09-28T17:16:00.000+10:00

Note: In the West it is now considered a sign of mental instability to be an anti-semite. This mental problem afflicts the muslim world in a most terrible way.

If it wasn't so serious, this discussion of 'Tom and Jerry' would be hilarious...

September 27, 2006

Iranian TV: Disney's 'Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest' is a Pawn of the Zionist Lobby to Gain Cultural Control

The following are excerpts from an Iranian TV report on Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean," which asserts that the film is a "Zionist" conspiracy to exert cultural influence by the Disney Company. The report aired on the Iranian news channel (IRINN) on July 27, 2006.

TO VIEW THIS CLIP, VISIT: http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1278.

Similar assertions, about the "Tom and Jerry Show," were made by Iranian professor Hasan Bolkhari, [1] during a film seminar; his comments were aired February 16, 2006 by Iranian Channel 4. Bolkhari, who is a member of the Film Council of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), is also cultural advisor to the Iranian Education Ministry, [2] and active on behalf of interfaith issues. [3]

TO VIEW THIS CLIP, VISIT: http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1049 .

The following are excerpts from both reports:

IRINN, July 27, 2006

Anchor: "Zionist ideology uses all means to impose its cultural control. Cinema, as an attractive and popular form of art, has always interested the Zionist circles."

Reporter: "The hot news of cinema circles worldwide is: The Pirates of the Caribbean attack the silver screen. The example of Pirates of the Caribbean - Hollywood's latest effort to gain control - is all the more striking if we bear in mind the name of its producer: the Walt Disney company. Disney and its productions have been associated, more than anything, with the Zionist lobby in Hollywood. In 1995, when the pro-Zionist Jews were 2.5% of America's population, they made up 7.7% of Disney's board of directors. This clearly influences the content of this large company's productions, as well as its policies and guidelines. The Aladdin animated film series is one example of Disney creations that present Arabs in a negative light.

"In 2004, Disney supported the Bush administration's expansionist policies, and refrained from screening the film Fahrenheit 9/11, which harshly criticized Bush's policy in attacking Iraq. This film, which won the Palme d'Or award at the Cannes film festival, became the bestselling documentary in the history of the film industry. Disney's move brought it nothing but disgrace.

"In any event, Zionism is not restricted to the capitalistic weapons companies, such as Lockheed and the banks that support it. Cinema is considered another, subtle, weapon in the hands of those who support this corrupt ideology. In Hollywood, Disney is the manufacturer of this weapon, and Pirates of the Caribbean is its newest ammunition.

"Hamid-Reza Modaghegh, IRINN, Tehran."

Iranian Channel 4, February 16, 2006

Hasan Bolkhari: "There is a cartoon that children like. They like it very much, and so do adults - Tom and Jerry."

[...]

"Some say that this creation by Walt Disney [sic] will be remembered forever. The Jewish Walt Disney Company gained international fame with this cartoon. It is still shown throughout the world. This cartoon maintains its status because of the cute antics of the cat and mouse - especially the mouse.

"Some say that the main reason for making this very appealing cartoon was to erase a certain derogatory term that was prevalent in Europe."

[...]

"If you study European history, you will see who was the main power to hoard money and wealth in the 19th century. In most cases, it is the Jews. Perhaps that was one of the reasons which caused Hitler to begin the anti-Semitic trend, and then the extensive propaganda about the crematoria began... Some of this is true. We do not deny all of it.

"Watch Schindler's List. Every Jew was forced to wear a yellow star on his clothing. The Jews were degraded and termed 'dirty mice.' Tom and Jerry was made in order to change the Europeans' perception of mice. One of terms used was 'dirty mice.'

"I'd like to tell you that... It should be noted that mice are very cunning...and dirty."

[...]

"No ethnic group or people operates in such a clandestine manner as the Jews."

[...]

"Read the history of the Jews in Europe. This ultimately led to Hitler's hatred and resentment. As it turns out, Hitler had behind-the-scene connections with the Protocols [of the Elders of Zion]."

"Tom and Jerry was made in order to display the exact opposite image. If you happen to watch this cartoon tomorrow, bear in mind the points I have just raised, and watch it from this perspective. The mouse is very clever and smart. Everything he does is so cute. He kicks the poor cat's ass. Yet this cruelty does not make you despise the mouse. He looks so nice, and he is so clever... This is exactly why some say it was meant to erase this image of mice from the minds of European children, and to show that the mouse is not dirty and has these traits.

"Unfortunately, we have many such cases in Hollywood shows."

Comment: I think it is pertinent to ask whether this sort of material is available in Muslim schools in Australia. One would not need to be a rocket scientist to make a good estimate of the correct answer.

Division Among Muslims Concerning Pope.

2006-09-27T09:23:00.000+10:00

Note: The meeting at Castel Gandolfo between Pope Benedict and the muslim ambassadors to the Holy See is covered in this posting. Reactions to the meeting in many muslim papers was favourable. The Saudis maintained their reactionary and pro violence line.

It remains a mystery to this site why muslims around the world silently accept that their holy places of Mecca and Medina should remain under the control of the Saud family. Everyone in the middle east knows that the Saud family were Jews from Baghdad who infiltrated into Arabia in the 1720s in alliance with the criminal Wahhabi sect. Why do muslims put up with this outrage?

26 September, 2006
ISLAM-VATICAN
Pope with ambassadors: much praise and some “buts” from Muslim world

In general, newspapers underlined the will to dialogue and respect for Islam. But a few still insist on apologies and recall the Crusades.

Beirut (AsiaNews) – Overall, the Muslim media has been positive in its evaluation of yesterday’s meeting between Benedict XVI and the envoys of 20 Muslim majority countries that have diplomatic ties with the Vatican, and with Italian Muslim representatives. Many agencies quoted the Iraqi ambassador Albert Yelda, who said: “It is time to put what happened behind us and build bridges among all the civilizations”, and “the pope emphasized his profound respect to all the Muslims around the world. It was what we expected, it was what we had.” Several, like Jordan’s Al Ghad ran headlines saying “Pope affirms respect for Islam”. The Lebanese L’Orient Le Jour also quoted Mohammad Nour Dachan, chairman of the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy, as saying “the pope made a very clear and brilliant speech. Dialogue continues.” The same newspaper cited the Iranian charge d’affaires, Ahmad Fahima, who said he found the meeting “fruitful” and Miroslav Palameta, ambassador of Bosnia-Herzegovina, who described it as “useful”.

The Kuwaiti agency KUNA shared the view of its ambassador, Ibrahim Abdulkreem al-Ibrahim, who was present at Castel Gandolfo yesterday. He said: "The meeting reflected the Pope's good intentions towards Islam” and that he had given a message to spread understanding and harmony among all religions and faiths.

In the Emirates, Gulf News said “controversy closed”, adding that this was the view of many who attended the meeting with Benedict XVI, which unfolded in a “cordial” atmosphere.

Other newspapers, like the Saudi Arab News, covered negative feedback too. The Saudi newspaper noted the opinion of Riyad Nadwi, director of the Oxford Cross Cultural Research Institute, who said: “I think we now need to accept his apology for his blunder but not his explanation i.e. that we misunderstood his comments. If we are to protect ourselves from such future attacks, we must maintain this distinction in our minds. If not, a time will come when an attempt would be made to justify such comments in the spirit of ‘frank dialogue.’ I have seen it before, where the progression is one from a call for ‘sincere dialogue’ to ‘genuine dialogue’ and then a slippage into ‘frank dialogue’ by which time the audiences are prepared to accept criticisms of all sorts including disrespect for the Qur’an and the character of the Prophet.” The article added: “The purpose of dialogue is to establish peace and create tolerance for one another. It The apology of the pope is accepted... and we thank him for it.”

Pakistani newspapers also gave the meeting ample coverage. The most widely read, the Daily Times, ran a headline saying: “Pope says Christians and Muslims should reject violence.”

The Lebanese Daily Star reported the assessment of Egypt’s Muslim Brothers who, through Mohammad Habib, claimed the pope’s speech was “another attempt to avoid the issue of apology”. He said: “When we asked for an apology, we asked for a clear and honest one.” They were also quoted by Al Jazeera that launched a survey to find out what Muslim opinion is. The Daily Star has also asked for people’s views, while many readers of Islamonline, one of the most popular websites in the Muslim world, posted questions about the entire polemic that unfolded after the pope’s speech in Regensburg. Islamonline has a whole dossier entitled “A pope in crisis” and in its summing up of yesterday’s meeting, it highlights the dissatisfaction of Mohamed Selim el-Awwa, Secretary-General of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), which brings together prominent Sunni and Shiite scholars from across the world. El Awwa announced the breaking off of dialogue with the Vatican and said “the meeting did not bring about anything new”. The scholar demanded that the controversial quotes be dropped from the text of the lecture, when it is published as an official Vatican document.

The site also reported the stand of the Muslim Brothers and the decision of the Egyptian Al-Azhar University – the most renowned Sunni cultural institute in the world – to refuse a papal invitation to visit the Vatican and a proposal to invite Benedict XVI to deliver a lecture on Islam, insisting on a “clear-cut apology”.

“Pope Benedict XVI’s folly” was the title of an editorial in Yemer Times that recalled the Crusades, the conquest of the Americas, the Inquisition and the killing by Christians of thousands of Muslims in Spain, Portugal and the Philippines, who had “voluntarily” converted.

Comment: It should be a cause for satisfaction in Canberra to see that many muslim leaders are now coming to see that the only way forward for muslim people is a path of non violence, leading to material progress for the currently impoverished muslims.

Australian policy should be to give material assistance to those forces abroad in the muslim world who are committed to a modern approach to dealing with the many and varied problems that still face muslims world wide.

We can help and we should do so.

Good Idea From Jordan...Also A Good Idea In Australia

2006-09-26T15:12:00.000+10:00

Note: This posting is very encouraging as it shows sensible countries like Jordan taking real action to suppress the evil activities of Sunni muslim imams. There is a good opportunity here for Australia...see Comment below.

September 25, 2006
Jordan works on mosque law
Laws like this, carefully defined and stringently enforced to prevent propagation of the idea of Islamic supremacism and attendant ideas, are needed all over.

AMMAN, Jordan - Jordan's parliament moved Sunday to tighten state control over mosque preachers, amending legislation that aims to prevent the kingdom's mosques from being used to propagate extremist ideas.
Jordanian lawmakers have approved several pieces of legislation in recent weeks that aim to weaken extremists and prevent terror attacks.

The parliament added a provision to a bill to require prior written approval from the government before someone enters the pulpit. The changes came just three weeks after members of the lower house of parliament approved the law.

The latest changes require that the religious affairs minister approve in writing any new mosque preachers and anyone teaching the Quran, the Islamic holy book, in mosques.

King Abdullah II, the ultimate authority in Jordan, is expected to sign the bill into law soon, replacing legislation enacted in 1986.

Islamic opposition legislators argued Sunday that the law curbed religious freedoms and that the government pressed for the changes to appease the United States and Israel by cracking down on Muslim hard-liners.

Comment: Australia is run by Christians, in Parliament and in the Public Service. Therefore it would be improper for these people to sit in judgement on the qualifications needed to preach in an Islamic mosque.

What the officials in Canberra could do is to require that any Sunni imam who wants to come to Australia must have a preaching licence issued by the Jordanian Ministry of Religious Affairs. No licence no visa. What could be simpler?

Australia has good relations with Jordan, so it should not be too onerous to come to some arrangement on this matter with the Government of King Abdullah II.

Is anyone awake in Canberra?

Good Statistics On British Muslims.

2006-09-25T13:24:00.000+10:00

Note: This posting is from the Guardian newspaper. It gives basically good statistics on the integration of British muslims as manifested in their support for the police and the anti-terrorist policies of the government.

Read on...

One in 10 Muslims 'ignore terror'
Nine out of then would contact police. That's good news. It's also good to see that two-thirds note the British Muslim community's failure to root out "extremists" as one factor involved in the continuing threat of jihad terror attacks.

Now what are those nine out of ten doing about the tenth?

Almost one in 10 British Muslims would not inform police if they suspected that someone of the same faith was involved in a terror attack, a poll suggested.
The ICM poll for the News of the World found 9% of the 502 questioned would not tell police if they had such suspicions about a fellow Muslim.

With a Muslim population aged over 16 in Britain of around one million, that would translate to 90,000 "turning a blind eye", the newspaper said.

However, almost nine out of every 10 (86%) would contact police, according to the survey.

Among young Muslims, the figures for keeping quiet were higher with 15% of 16 to 24-year-olds saying they would not tell police and 81% saying they would.

The poll also found that one in 20 Muslims thought attacks like the July 7 bombings were justified. And more than half (56%) said they did not believe a police warning that there are thousands of extremist British Muslims willing to carry out attacks here....

More than eight in 10 (86%) said the Prime Minister should shoulder some of the blame and 72% blamed non-Muslims for racist and "Islamophobic" behaviour.

However, two thirds (66%) said the Muslim community's failure to root out extremists was a factor. Meanwhile, 83% accepted that the terrorists themselves were to blame although one in 10 said they were not.

Comment: This story shows that the call for muslims to integrate and conform is supported by the great majority of muslims. The story is about Britain but readers can confidently assume that the figures for Australia would be very similar.

The opponents of muslim integration are the minority in the muslim community. A proper government would cut this minority off from foreign financial support and ban the entry to Australia of the poisonous Wahhabi imams from Arabia and Egypt who provide the impetus to oppose muslim integration and conformity to Australian norms.

Is anyone awake in Canberra?

Tolerance Is A Two Way Street.

2006-09-24T09:11:00.000+10:00

Note: This posting is from Anne Appelbaum who writes for the Washington Post. She makes a necessary point about muslim 'sensitivity'. Intelligent readers know it is not 'sensitivity' which provokes the usual muslim uproar...it is politics.

The West must stop reacting to this form of aggression from muslim politicians.

Read on...

Enough Apologies

By Anne Applebaum
Tuesday, September 19, 2006; Page A21

Already, angry Palestinian militants have assaulted seven West Bank and Gaza churches, destroying two of them. In Somalia, gunmen shot dead an elderly Italian nun. Radical clerics from Qatar to Qom have called, variously, for a "day of anger" or for worshipers to "hunt down" the pope and his followers. From Turkey to Malaysia, Muslim politicians have condemned the pope and called his apology "insufficient." And all of this because Benedict XVI, speaking at the University of Regensburg, quoted a Byzantine emperor who, more than 600 years ago, called Islam a faith "spread by the sword." We've been here before, of course. Similar protests were sparked last winter by cartoon portrayals of Muhammad in the Danish press. Similar apologies resulted, though Benedict's is more surprising than those of the Danish government. No one, apparently, can remember any pope, not even the media-friendly John Paul II, apologizing for anything in such specific terms: not for the Inquisition, not for the persecution of Galileo and certainly not for a single comment made to an academic audience in an unimportant German city.

But Western reactions to Muslim "days of anger" have followed a familiar pattern, too. Last winter, some Western newspapers defended their Danish colleagues, even going so far as to reprint the cartoons -- but others, including the Vatican, attacked the Danes for giving offense. Some leading Catholics have now defended the pope -- but others, no doubt including some Danes, have complained that his statement should have been better vetted, or never given at all. This isn't surprising: By definition, the West is not monolithic. Left-leaning journalists don't identify with right-leaning colleagues (or right-leaning Catholic colleagues), and vice versa. Not all Christians, let alone all Catholics -- even all German Catholics -- identify with the pope either, and certainly they don't want to defend his every scholarly quotation.

Unfortunately, these subtle distinctions are lost on the fanatics who torch embassies and churches. And they may also be preventing all of us from finding a useful response to the waves of anti-Western anger and violence that periodically engulf parts of the Muslim world. Clearly, a handful of apologies and some random public debate -- should the pope have said X, should the Danish prime minister have done Y -- are ineffective and irrelevant: None of the radical clerics accepts Western apologies, and none of their radical followers reads the Western press. Instead, Western politicians, writers, thinkers and speakers should stop apologizing -- and start uniting.

By this, I don't mean that we all need to rush to defend or to analyze this particular sermon; I leave that to experts on Byzantine theology. But we can all unite in our support for freedom of speech -- surely the pope is allowed to quote from medieval texts -- and of the press. And we can also unite, loudly, in our condemnation of violent, unprovoked attacks on churches, embassies and elderly nuns. By "we" I mean here the White House, the Vatican, the German Greens, the French Foreign Ministry, NATO, Greenpeace, Le Monde and Fox News -- Western institutions of the left, the right and everything in between. True, these principles sound pretty elementary -- "we're pro-free speech and anti-gratuitous violence" -- but in the days since the pope's sermon, I don't feel that I've heard them defended in anything like a unanimous chorus. A lot more time has been spent analyzing what the pontiff meant to say, or should have said, or might have said if he had been given better advice.

All of which is simply beside the point, since nothing the pope has ever said comes even close to matching the vitriol, extremism and hatred that pour out of the mouths of radical imams and fanatical clerics every day, all across Europe and the Muslim world, almost none of which ever provokes any Western response at all. And maybe it's time that it should: When Saudi Arabia publishes textbooks commanding good Wahhabi Muslims to "hate" Christians, Jews and non-Wahhabi Muslims, for example, why shouldn't the Vatican, the Southern Baptists, Britain's chief rabbi and the Council on American-Islamic Relations all condemn them -- simultaneously?

Maybe it's a pipe dream: The day when the White House and Greenpeace can issue a joint statement is surely distant indeed. But if stray comments by Western leaders -- not to mention Western films, books, cartoons, traditions and values -- are going to inspire regular violence, I don't feel that it's asking too much for the West to quit saying sorry and unite, occasionally, in its own defense. The fanatics attacking the pope already limit the right to free speech among their own followers. I don't see why we should allow them to limit our right to free speech, too.

Comment: This year, 2006, has seen two attempts by reactionary muslim politicians to browbeat the West on questions of free speech. They have not been totally successful. However, the very principle of attacking free speech must be opposed relentlessly by Western governments and leading personalities.

The future can only hold the success of the principle of free speech. If muslims have problems with free speech, they must change their view of Islam. All progress in history has been based on free speech...the advocates of progressive change always encountered opposition. Their ability to use free speech enabled them to eventually make the better case for progressive change and thus our societies and cultures moved forward.

The current Islamic hostility to free speech (which did not exist in the early days of Islam) is the reason for the widespread backwardness of all muslim countries. Proponents of progressive change in muslim countries always face jail, or worse, for advocating change. This current aspect of contemporary Islam must be fought against, both by Westerners and by progressive muslims.

An Intelligent Muslim Scholar

2006-09-23T10:22:00.000+10:00

Note: this posting is from Professor Mona Siddiqui, an intelligent muslim scholar who works in Scotland.

Read and learn...

On the path to mutual respect
Faith, Reason and Islam

Mona Siddiqui

Muslims must learn that differing views are at the core of a civil society, according to a leading Islamic scholar, and violent calls for revenge over perceived slights only fuel criticism of their religion

Once again we are seeing images of Muslims rioting, burning effigies and shouting for more deaths. Even the more respectable press is speculating on the precise nature of the link between Islam - more specifically the Qur'an - and violence. And once again "moderate" Islam is being asked to explain the actions of a menacing few. Except that the increasing worry is that it might not be a few and that the images of violence are actually a reflection of the hostility that most Muslims feel towards any criticism of their faith, culture or history.

As a Muslim I remain perplexed. Why are Muslims magnifying every incident to the level of a global conflict? Adulation and veneration of the Prophet may be laudable qualities but is this really what this furore is about? I don't think so. The ease with which marches are mobilised and threats directed are symptoms of a community not only feeling under siege but slightly revelling in their victim status. From Cairo to London, we have seen calls for apologies for a comment that could have been consigned to the annals of papal intellectualism; instead the comment became yet another mark of mutual distrust and suspicion between some Muslims and the Western world. This has damaged no one but it has made Islam appear like a complete idiosyncrasy in the West. Islam is a major world religion which doesn't need this kind of weak defence.

I'm sure that Pope Benedict did not deliberately intend to offend the Prophet in particular. But as someone who was previously the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, he is not naive and must have known that his speech could be contentious and open to all sorts of interpretations. Whether he was ill advised or advised at all, the fact remains that he now symbolises far more than his academic credentials.

This incident is not about defending freedom of speech - that red herring brought out as the ultimate achievement of Western civilisation - it is about recognising that pitting one faith against another to show the superiority of one and the deficiencies of the other is a dangerous and arrogant exercise. By all means, explore genuine theological differences, but not on the assumption that one faith perspective has all the right answers. Both Christianity and Islam have blood on their hands. Both are missionary religions often struggling to accept the essential truth of any other faith. Both come together mostly when they want to condemn certain sexual or fertility practices as an affront to human dignity.

Intellectuals and academics must have the right to posit any arguments they want if they can support them with rigorous evidence. But in this speech one of the connections being made by the Pope was that Islamic views of divine transcendence have left very little room for reason or logos in Islam. This is unlike in Christianity, where reason and revelation have complemented each other for a very long time and provided the fundamental basis for Western society, a society where religious violence and coercion have no place. Eradicating religious violence must be a desirable objective for all of us.

The problem here is that if we continue to judge Islam only by the current images of violence then there will be very little desire to tolerate this faith, never mind see it as a legitimate expression of the Divine. Why some Muslims are so quick to resort to violent acts may be more about political self-interest than any genuine search for justice. There are no easy answers as to why acts of intense violence have become such a defining aspect of the Muslim faith.

Unfortunately, very little seems to have changed since the Rushdie affair. But let's remember that there have always been different intellectual conversations and ideologies within Islam and, even today, it would be completely wrong to think that such debates are no more than peripheral or academic to mainstream Islam. One has only to look at the discussions around sharia law and pluralism to understand that there are many people from all levels of society who are actively engaged in working for a more inclusive and just world.

The real reason why Pope Benedict's lecture touches on so many sensitivities is because the theological analysis carries within it serious political ambitions. For Pope Benedict, Christianity cannot just be Europe's past; it must also be Europe's future. It is the Pope's aspirations to make Christianity once again a living force in the West that underlies so much of his current thinking both in relation to other faiths and in his attempts to unify the Christian Church. As a Pope, he has every right to work towards this goal but Europe is not just the Catholic Church, nor is the Catholic Church just the pontificate.

The Pope cannot ignore the growing diversity within his own faith nor in the other faiths that are also a major part of Europe. True, he is concerned about the challenge of secularism, which sees itself as the repository of reason, but if religion and reason are to come together to face contemporary challenges, can it be any religion or can it only be Christianity?

Muslims must learn that differing viewpoints and multiple voices are the very essence of civil society. Even when the viewpoint touches on something as sacred as the Prophet and his legacy, responses must be dignified and respectful. This would reflect the true essence of Islam; calling for revenge and retribution is doing little more than proving all the critics right.

Professor Mona Siddiqui is Director of the Centre for the Study of Islam at Glasgow University.

Comment: Can anyone in Canberra bring this scholar to Australia to give a series of lectures? How about giving her a visa and stop giving visas to the Wahhabi fascists who come here to poison the local muslim youth.

Is anyone awake in Canberra?

" Show Anger And Hatred"

2006-09-22T14:24:00.000+10:00

Note: Presumably the Islamic Propagation Office in an Islamic Republic would have some idea of what REAL ISLAM is. In Tehran REAL ISLAM involves 'anger' and hatred'. Presumably these qualities were preached by Mohammad of Mecca. If he didn't preach 'anger' and 'hatred', why would an Islamic Propagation Office promote them?

Perhaps the Islamic Republic of Iran has officials who do not know Islam. Is this possible?

Confused enough? Now read on....

21 September, 2006
IRAN - VATICAN
Ahmadinejad proclaims respect for pope but Iran has strange anti-Catholic coalition
by Dariush Mirzai

Foreigners, Armenians and minorities have taken to the streets, but the “students” have not. Tomorrow, however, the Islamic Propagation Office has called a rally in Teheran to “show anger and hatred”.

Teheran (AsiaNews) – Despite Ahmadinejad’s proclamations of “respect” for Benedict XVI, the anti-pope controversy is not yet over in the Islamic republic of Iran. However, there is no popular uprising and the regime so far has not used the fervent ranks of “bassij”, the “students”, as it did in the controversy about the Muhammad cartoons in February. But tomorrow, Friday, a day of prayer, the

Islamic Propagation Office has invited Iranian Muslims to a demonstration in Teheran, to “show the anger and hatred” of the faithful against the “anti-Islamic” statements of the pope.

The tenors of the regime, the Supreme Guide Khamenei and the powerful and very rich Hashemi Rafsanjani, stoked controversy against the pope, accusing him of collusion with Zionist and US circles (Khamenei) or of “irrationality” (Rafsanjani).

Yesterday’s demonstrations were quite strange: authorised if not organised by the authorities, they gathered “strangers” and “minorities”. A group of Armenians and other demonstrators gathered outside Hosseinieh Ershad mosque to protest against the pope’s “anti-Islamic” attitude. In Iran, the Armenians constitute quite an important minority that enjoys historic status of “privileged” inferiority. What’s more, they are Orthodox, but there is also an Armenian Catholic community – a Salesian priest of Armenian rite was recently ordained in Teheran. This demonstration is one of those typical signs of “peace” and obedience that allow Iranian minorities to survive.

Another particular demonstration was that held by foreign Islamic “seminarians” of Qom, including a group of Americans who shouted, apart from the classic “Down with America” and “Down with Israel”, a bizarre “Down with the pope”. Gathered outside Qom’s World Center for Islamic Sciences, they approved a manifesto addressed to “Mr Pope” and accused Christianity of having caused the last two world wars and thus of being without reason and without any right to criticize the use of violence in the name of religion.

Photos of the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah, Nasrallah, have been taken down from the streets of Teheran and right now, the faces of “martyrs” (shahid) from the Iraq war are exposed.

On Friday at 7am, a traditional military parade will take place near the Mausoleum of Khomeini. In this atmosphere, the next attack of propaganda should not target religious minorities but rather “arrogant” states opposed to Iran’s nuclear policy. This was announced by Ahmadinejad’s address in New York yesterday.

Comment: The sheer ignorance of ordinary norms is one of the stand out points in dealing with religious muslims. Their insularity is so pronounced they are unable to discover the simplest things, like proper modes of address and even the most rudimentary knowledge of events outside their own air tight worlds.

The application of this problem in Australia is the existence of muslim schools. They should be incorporated into the state education system. Muslims in Australia need a full education in the Australian and Western norms. Continued life in the hermetically sealed world of Islam does not do Australia any good...nor the muslims, for that matter.

Close the muslim schools and educate the muslims with other Australians. Without this how will they ever properly integrate and conform to life here?

Is anyone awake in Canberra?

Muslims Confused About Pope Benedict's Speech.

2006-09-20T16:25:00.000+10:00

Note: As the usual mainstream muslim violent reaction subsides, the speech by Pope Benedict has brought forth some new reponses from the various parts of the muslim world. Some trot out that old standard nonsense about how the offending person doesn't know enough about Islam...yad yada yada...others demand some sort of 'respect' for Islam, despite the failure of muslims themselves to show any behaviour worthy of respect.

The poor muslims have a long way to go to catch up with the modern world.

19 September, 2006
ISLAM – VATICAN
More calls for dialogue in a Muslim world angered by Pope

The Holy See’s diplomatic offensive seems to be working. Iran’s parliament hopes the Pope won’t fall “in the trap” set by those seeking a clash of civilisations. More and more Islamic media detail the Pope’s full speech, demand greater knowledge of each other’s religion.

Beirut (AsiaNews) – As some pour over Benedict XVI’s entire Regensburg speech instead of focusing on a single sentence about Muhammad taken out of context, others accept what the Pope said on Sunday, namely that what he quoted did not reflect his thought, and others even see that in the end the Holy Father did apologise. Overall, the Holy See’s diplomatic offensive that has had nuncios working overtime trying to explain to the governments of Muslim countries the real meaning of what the Pope said in Regensburg is bearing fruit.

AsiaNews’s sources are saying that the situation in some countries is still tense, but mass protest and incendiary statements appeared to have died down, except for terrorist groups that are still feeding the fire in order to politically exploit the situation.

In Iran, in a statement by President Ahmadinejad read to parliament and published in the semi-official ISNA news agency, Ahmad Mousavi said that it “is expected of the Pope to have a sense of his elevated place and to think about the consequences of his words ” and show “respect” for Islam. Mousavi expressed “hope the Pope does not fall in the trap of those who see their benefits in war between Muslims and Christians”. As for the controversial speech, the Iranian official said that the “remarks made by the Pope [. . .] were made on a poor foundation of knowledge regarding Islam”.

For Saudi online paper Arab News, “[w]hatever views people may have about Pope Benedict’s controversial speech at Regensburg University last week; it underlines the urgent need for greater dialogue between people of different faiths. There is a dangerous chasm of ignorance about other faiths and it affects Muslims, Christians, Jews and practitioners of other religions equally; it is dangerous because it is so easily exploited by bigots and opportunists for their own political ends.”

The paper goes on to say that the “Danish cartoon row should have provided the stimulus to intensify efforts. It did not. Maybe now, in the full fury of the papal row, the message will get through. It has to. In today’s global village, we cannot afford to be ignorant of each other’s faiths. Ignorance breeds fear and fear breeds hate—and hate is scarcely a step away from war and conflict.”

For its part, Turkish daily Hurriyet, which led the protest, now writes that “the reaction of radical Islamists to the pope’s speech justifies claims that Islam is a religion of violence. But if we carefully read the speech by Pope Benedict XVI, we can see that the dialogue between cultures as well as religions will be difficult.”

It adds that it “would also be wrong to demand an apology from the pope. He would say that they were the words of the Byzantine emperor. But that's not the essence of all this. It's important to emphasize the common points in a dialogue between cultures and accepting each other the way we are.”

For Jordan’s Al Ra’i, the Pope’s Angelus, many excerpts of which it reprinted, was a step in the right direction, whilst Syria’ SANA news agency briefly reported protests in some Muslim countries without any comments and without talking about any reactions in Syria itself.

Hasyim Muzadi, chairman of Indonesia’s largest Islamic association Nadhlatul Ulama, said that Muslims must accept Pope Benedict XVI's “apology” for offending Muslims, saying it was “an obligation” according to Islamic teachings.

The Jakarta Post reports that for Hasyim Benedict XVI’s regrets were “enough” and that any further resentment on the part of Muslims would only justify the Pope’s claims. “If the rage continues, perhaps what the pope said is true,” it said.

Taking its cue from Card Julius Darmaatmadja, the Bishops’ Conference of Indonesia said that it hoped “this incident does not damage the religious harmony we have tried to build all this time,” insisting that “the act of forgiving each other will be the basis for better dialogue in our coexistence.”

A singular perspective has been voiced in an editorial article in Asia Times. The paper’s editorialist claims that the Pope has called “for the conversion of the Muslims” and for this reason is dangerous. The jihad against which Benedict has spoken “is the fundamental sacrament of Islam, the Muslim cognate of the Lord's Supper in Christianity, that is, the unique form of sacrifice by which the individual believer communes with the Transcendent. [. . .] To ask Islam to become moderate, to reform, to become a peaceful religion of personal conscience is the precise equivalent of asking Catholics to abolish Mass. For this reason the Islamic world sees in Benedict XVI a danger and with “reason”.

As for Benedict characterising jihad as an insult to Reason, Muslims might have responded by asking the Pope how much rationality is there in a God that sends his son to die on a cross or in a belief that during mass bread and wine can really be turned into the flesh and blood of his dead and risen son.

For the Gulf Today and the Middle East Time, the Pope’s attempt to placate the anger of the Muslim world is a failure as demonstrations and al-Qaeda’s threat to “conquer Rome” make clear.

Today though there have been no demonstrations but in Indonesia the Islamic defence Front is still protesting. The group complained that the Pope expressed regrets but did not apologise. For the group’s spokesman, the Pope must instead apologise directly to Muslims.

Comment: This uproar shows very clearly how useful it would be if the Australian government had a program to get sensible muslim writers into the local muslim papers. Muslims in Australia will not make necessary steps to proper integration unless their minds are exposed to modern muslim writers and ideas. Unless the poison of the imams is countered, we will end up with serious problems; just as Europe now has.

Is anyone awake in Canberra?

Tehran Reaction To Pope Benedict.

2006-09-19T18:21:00.000+10:00

Note: Readers will note that some of the more intelligent muslim leaders (usually Shia)are now 'asking for time to read the Pope's address'. This may take some time as the address will need to be very carefully translated into Arabic and Farsi.

In future I would hope that the Vatican can arrange translations into these important languages before a major speech is given. It shouldn't be too difficult, surely.

Read on...

18 September, 2006
IRAN - VATICAN
Not all Teheran behind ayatollahs in anti-pope criticism
by Darius Mirzai

In the eyes of many Iranians, Benedict XVI enjoys considerable moral prestige for his criticism of the links between religion and violence. But Christians face the threat of increased marginalization.

Teheran (AsiaNews) – In ayatollah land, not everyone agrees that the pope should be rapped. Quite the contrary, some think his criticism of the links between religion and violence vests him with great moral prestige. But the Christian community risks being marginalized more than ever. Yesterday, the Foreign Affairs Minister called the Vatican Nuncio, Mgr Angelo Mottola (described as “Cardinal Angelo Michele” by the official news agency IRNA) to express “profound anxiety and objection to the anti-Islamic statements of Benedict XVI”.

For days, the mullah Ahmad Khatami has repeated clamorous statements against the pope, who “has not even read the Koran”, who “backs the policies of Bush”, and so on. But only 200 people participated in a rally held yesterday by the theological schools of Qom (the birthplace of Khomeini). This could be a sign of weakness or else, perhaps, an impact of the statement by Cardinal Bertone, reported on the front pages of all Iranian newspapers. The press is talking about the “apology” of the pope to Muslims.

Another sign of detachment from anti-pope rhetoric is the stand taken by the ex-president, Mohammed Khatami, who has suspended judgment on the speech of Benedict XVI in Regensburg until he reads it himself. Even the current Iranian president Ahmadinejad has prudently called for “Islamic theological analysis” into the papal address.

In reality, the Shiite clergy in Iran is using the polemic about the pope for its new upsurge in victimization. The Iranian year 1384 (2205 – 2006), which started shortly after the controversy of the Muhammad cartoons, has been dedicated by the authorities in Teheran to the figure of the prophet of Islam. For some months, the Iranian regime has been availing itself of every opportunity to present itself as the victim of “Islamophobia”, partly not to lag behind in the race to lead international Islamism and partly to alienate people from economic problems and domestic politics.

So the pope was criticized for having called into question the link between Islam and the jihad.

But that the concept of “jihad” should be condemned is not an insult for the majority of Iranians. On the streets of Teheran, there are large frescoes extolling the glory of the local “shahid” (so-called martyrs). There is also one of a Palestinian mother who is ready to kill herself, with the slogan: “I love my child, but I love martyrdom more”. But nearly no one believes them: passers-by, somewhat embarrassed or disgusted, pay no attention. After all, in Teheran, after the “divine victory” of the Shiite Nasrallah in Lebanon, there were no manifestations of joy. For the Iranian regime, it is becoming increasingly difficult to use the pope’s words to boost its Islamic politics. Perhaps, in a few days, time, it will serve the purposes of propaganda better to exaggerate the import of the “apologies of the Church towards the Muslims”.

The “Assembly of Experts”, a group of around 80 mullahs who have the power to choose or even to depose the Supreme Guide, yesterday made public a statement of apologetics about the jihad, an expression of the struggle of the oppressed. The assembly condemned the “anti-Islamic statements” of Pope Ratzinger and attributed them to the influence of arrogant political leaders. On a political level, the assembly questioned why the pope forgot the crimes committed by the Zionist regime (Israel) and failed to mention problems in Iraq, Afghanistan, and so on.

For many Iranians, the important thing in the current controversy is what has not been said: the interlocutor of Manuel II Paleologus, in the controversial quote in the papal address, is Inb Hazn, a Persian. The pope’s rejection of the link between religion and violence is used to boost local criticism of the ayatollahs. And no one has forgotten that the German pope went on pilgrimage to Auschwitz, and this is a further criticism of the Iranian leadership that denies the Holocaust. Thus, in several circles, the words of the pope drew deep emotions that revealed the moral prestige enjoyed by the Successor of Peter in the Islamic Republic.

After years of Khomeinism, the Iranian people are largely anti-clerical, but religiosity and patriotism are strong. Ahmad Khatami will not convince anyone of his own sincerity, but the image of Christianity in Iranian society could suffer because of the present controversy.

What will happen to Christians in Iran? The tendency to exile and semi-forced conversion will continue thanks to discriminatory laws and social marginalization. It is likely that some Christian MPs will be forced to voice modern criticisms against the Vatican, the price to pay to be left in peace. Soon, all this controversy will be forgotten except by extremists, by definition closed to dialogue, and alas, by Christian minorities. Yesterday, 200 seminarians of Qom were on the streets, but some Christians were prompted by fear to stay in, and did not go to church.

Comment: There is no need to comment on this article.

Pope Benedict and Suicide Bombs In Sydney.

2006-09-18T17:03:00.000+10:00

Note: This posting is in two parts.The first is the official statement from Pope Benedict on his recent speech in Bavaria. It is not an apology(as none was required) but an expression of regret that so many unintelligent people (who haven't read the speech) could have been so manipulated as to be upset. If they had real lives they could have been getting on with them.

The second part is a newspaper report on the growing web of Wahhabi jihad being taught to our local unintelligent muslim youth. This teaching of terrorist violence is completely within the parameters of orthodox and mainstream Islam.

Read on...

Before this morning's Angelus, the Pope read out a one-paragraph statement in Italian, which the Holy See has issued five languages worth of official translations to.

Here's the one in English:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The Pastoral Visit which I recently made to Bavaria was a deep spiritual experience, bringing together personal memories linked to places well known to me and pastoral initiatives towards an effective proclamation of the Gospel for today. I thank God for the interior joy which he made possible, and I am also grateful to all those who worked hard for the success of this Pastoral Visit. As is the custom, I will speak more of this during next Wednesday’s General Audience. At this time, I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims. These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought. Yesterday, the Cardinal Secretary of State published a statement in this regard in which he explained the true meaning of my words. I hope that this serves to appease hearts and to clarify the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect.

Sydney Islamic clerics 'preaching jihad'
Monday Sep 18 06:32 AEST
Islamic clerics in Sydney and Melbourne are preaching martyrdom and jihad to young followers, terrorism analysts say.

Singapore-based terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna says religious leaders in the two capitals are preaching violence to impressionable followers.

Dr Gunaratna says the teachings are increasing the risk of a terrorist attack, most likely a suicide bombing, in Australia.

"We have seen a number of Australian clerics preaching jihad and martyrdom," Dr Gunaratna told The Australian without naming names.

"The most likely form of attack in Australia is a suicide attack for jihad. You will need to make arrests in time."

Australian terrorism expert Clive Williams, who runs a course at the Australian Defence Force Academy, said young Muslims were being recruited for jihad through "Koran classes".

"They are doing it differently now," Mr Williams told The Australian without identifying any of the recruiters.

"They are advertising for Koran classes and then selecting a few people for (their) inner circle."

Sydney's Sheikh Taj Aldin Alhilali has rejected the claims.

"There is no evidence to substantiate these claims," he told the newspaper.

Melbourne's Sheikh Mohammed Omran said he was unaware any such preaching was going on.

"If it was true, the authorities will take care of it," he said.

Comment: This site thinks that Pope Benedict should not have said anything about the speech. Let it stand. It is never wise to reply to the yowling of the ignorant.

The report on the teaching of jihad (which is the spreading of Islam by violence and coercion, as Mohammad ordered)in Sydney is only to be expected. This stupid government in Canberra insists on allowing the Wahhabi teachers of jihad to be given visas so they can come here and plot murder.

I will make a prediction: the suicide bomber who finally goes off in Sydney will be an Aboriginal boy convert. The jails in NSW are full of confused Aboriginal boys who are wandering into the slavery of Islam. One of them will be poisoned by some filthy Wahhabi imam to commit mass murder. The event will most likely occur in City Road outside the main bus stop for Sydney University. Maximum carnage with packed buses.

The imam will flee Australia before the explosion.

Someone in Canberra should stop these poisonous imams entering the Commonwealth and expel all the Wahhabis who are here.

Internet Reactions To Muslim Violence.

2006-09-17T09:40:00.000+10:00

Note: This posting is a selection of 11 comments from around the world to various internet sites concerning the violent muslim reaction to Pope Benedict's suggestion that violence has no legitimite place in religion.

If readers are persistent they will be able to look beyond the crazed violence of the muslims to see the declaration the 'Islam is a religion of Peace'.

The evidence of your eyes will tell you that Islam is not a religion of peace.

Read on...

1.Reaction Proving Pope's Point

The Pope's message was that religion must be divorced from violence. While Jeudaism and Christianity had a long history in Violence they have long ago been divorced and are today a driving force only of Peace. However Islam has not yet decided on this Path. When someone reacts to comments that they should not be violent with violence they are proving the point. Muslims are now burning churches and threatning the entire world with violence because the Pope explained tha Islam is violent and must stop being violent this is proving the Pope's point. It is said that a silent majorit of Muslims are not for violence and are moderate and only want peace however if this is true than they are a real silent silent majority. Islam the choice is yours it seems the Pope just held up the mirror to you and you must choose what you see. Salam.

2.Palestinians that forced the 2 reporters to convert to Islam

It is hypocritical of Palestinians to act offended when it was Palestinians that forced the 2 kidnapped Fox reporters to convert to Islam.

That they [Radical Palestinian terrorists] are guilty of exactly what the Pope described?

Joel Schaffer , Belleair Bluffs, FL

3.Shaka (09.16.06)Title: Pope got it right

Name: Stingray

City: Rome State:

If other people were as brave as to clearly define Islam, expecially radical Islam that is cropping up everywhere, maybe Islam could be checked from starting attacks on the civilized countries of the world.

Political correctness is to rampant today. Clearly label radical Islam as an evil that all must resist and defeat.

4.Title: hamas preachers can say all things about christians, jews

Name: mike

City: State:

but no one can say anything about islam. even if it is true.

hypocritically pathetic.

5. Title: MUSLIM LOGIC-IF YOU CALL ME VIOLENT, I`LL BEHEAD YOU !!

Name: Mitch Iginer

City: Toronto State: Canada

It`s the cartoon scandal all over again.
If anyone accuses Islam of being a violent religion the Muslims rise up and GET VIOLENT.
It would almost be funny if it wasn`t SO backwards and scary.

6.Title: Imams/mullahs never condemned the terrorism done thru islam

Name: Murugan

City: Chennai State: Tamilnadu - India

These mullahs and immams has to behave in the same manner when terrorists are bombing and killing the peoples in the name of ALLAH.

They never condemn the Jihadis or islamic Terrorists attacks around the world. All the terrorists holds Koran in one hand and gun on other hand. They justify their terror acts thru the koran and mohammed's life and teachings. It is time for the world to wake up. September 11th was the wakepup call. See some of the verses preaching violence in koran. Imams and mullahs will never condemn the terrorism and violence committed in the name of islam, because the koran and mohammed's preaching supports it.

Koran 8:12
Remember Thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): "I am with you: give firmness to the believers, I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, Smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger tips of them."

Here Mohammed is giving step by step instruction on how to torture and kill Kafirs

7.Title: Terrorism is the Death Rattle of Islam

Name: rick

City: NY State: NY

A cult based on violence and intolerance can last for some time but eventually it will wither and die. What we see now in the name of the bin Laden types and the mullah minions who call for jihad and death to someone or other is a last gasp of a dying philosophy. Islam has degenerated into a cult of death and hate. No real religion can continue with such a foundation.

The failure of the Arab and Muslim world to cast off medieval chains, break the misogynic culture that enslaves half of their population, continue to brand others as infidels and targetable for death, etc. reinforced with the economic and political failure of their societies has spelled doom for Islam. Without a Reformation, Islam will not exist in 100 years. The very religion that it battled for centuries -Christianity - will replace it because Christianity has evolved and reformed. Islam today stands with the past. The female Muslim populations will be the first to embrace it.

8.Title: Mohammad Resume

Name: Peter

City: State: US

When reading the Life of Mohammad by Karen Armstrong recently I learn that Mohammad himself ordered the killing of 700 civilian Jews in the City of Medina when his men where uncertain what to do. That picture the man. This is the only mass grave that I know of before Hitler. Also I learnt that his income and of his Muslim movement was financed by assaulting caravan and taken over the riches of the city of Mecca. Also that the voice of God he received are related to events of his political contemporary life, so general that can be interpreted as you like. It is all these right?? This must be proved one way or another otherwise this problem will remain for ever. Title: FACTS ABOUT MUHAMMED ??

9.Name: Bill.

City: State: NZ

Born in Mecca 570 ad . Was an epileptic in his youth . He Married 15 wives , one a year after his first wife Khadija ( a rich widow twice married before ) died . 2nd wife Sauda , a widow two months after khadija`s death . 3rd wife Ayisha when she was 7 years of age . 4th wife Hafsa . 5th wife Zainab his adopted sons wife ( to acheive this he proclaimed that allah gave her to him . To save his reputation due to great scandal he wrote Surat 33:50 . 6th wife Juwariyah wife of one of the chiefs whom he attacked , murdered and plundered . 7th Raihana ( Jewess ) ( After slaughtering the Quraiza Jews - she declined islam became his bond slave because she could not escape with her life .)
8th wife Maryam( an egyptian christian slave girl ) 9th wife Safiya A Khaiba Jewess ( the wife of Kinana the Khaiba Chief whom he slaughtered - she was 15 and very beautiful )10th Um Habecba a widow
11th Maimuna of mecca . On 8th. June 632 ad. he died, violently afflicted and tormented by a fever lasting 2weeks

afTitle: Islam needs to apologize

10.Name: d.dor

City: J-town State: Israel

and return all lands and make restitution to all the Jews and Christians it forced into Muslim ranks on pain of death during it`s first century. The Christian Crusades were weak attempts to liberate OUR lands that had been taken from US (Christian and Jews) by Islamic terror and violence. Make no mistake, the tenets of Islam have not changed. Why do you think the news media always calls it a `stampede` when Muslims riot and kill each other? Mindless, senseless, unreasonable, unthinking, emotionally charged masses pulled and pushed by silver tongued devils. The war has begun, make no mistake. The clash of cultures is upon us once again. This time it`s a world conflagration the likes of which Nostradamus could not even imagine.

11.Title: The Pope Has Been Proven 100% Correct

Name: Nannette

City: London State: UK

The Pope says that jihad violence is against God`s nature, and officials feared that in response, Muslims enraged by this insult will commit...jihad violence - which they have done today by burning Churches.

Comment: The fundamental problem faced by muslims in dealing, intellectually, with the West is their inability to discuss their religious views calmly and rationally. They react to questions with outbursts of anger and threats of violence, especially if the question concerns the centrality of anger and violence in Islam.

The fantasy that 'Islam is a religion of Peace' is not believed by most Westerners who see the real Islam on the TV screens regularly. Only the terminally deluded in the West(or haters of Christianity)proclaim their belief in this fantasy.

The only solution for Westerners in the face of this storm of islamic madness is to passively resist as was done in relation to resisting the Communist menace in the 20th century.

Peace Loving Muslims Riot Over Disagreement...Again.

2006-09-16T18:00:00.000+10:00

Note: This posting is a bit of a yawn...more whinging muslims complaining about something they have not read...so what else is new?

Read it and laugh at the hopelessness of being stuck in Islam...pointless, ignorant and going nowhere.

Thousands march against Pope Benedict's speech

Saturday 16 September 2006,

Several thousand Palestinians marched in the Gaza Strip

Several thousand muslims have held demonstrations around the world in protest against comments made by Pope Benedict about Islam.

About 2,000 Palestinians protestors marched in the Gaza Strip on Friday waving the green flags of Hamas and chanting praises to "God and his prophet".

Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya criticised the pope's comments, saying: "These remarks go against the truth and touch the heart of our faith.

"The pope should revise his comments and stop attacking Islam, which is the religion of more than 1.5 billion people."

In Gaza City, four small makeshift bombs exploded at a youth centre run by the city's oldest Christian church, breaking doors and shattering glass but causing no casualties. The Greek Orthodox church itself was undamaged.

In Egypt, about 100 worshippers demonstrated after Friday prayers at the country's prominent al-Azhar mosque in Cairo, chanting: "Oh Crusaders, oh cowards! Down with the pope!"

One worshipper said: "These Christians are all infidels. Benedict himself is an infidel and a blind man. Doesn't he see that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places were waged by Christians?"

Hundreds of Egyptian riot police surrounded the mosque, preventing protesters from spilling over into the streets.

In Pakistan, groups held rallies and chanted anti-pope slogans in the capital, Islamabad, and other major cities including Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar and Multan.

"These Christians are all infidels. Benedict himself is an infidel and a blind man. Doesn't he see that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places were waged by Christians?"

Worshipper at al-Azhar mosque in Cairo, Egypt

Pakistan's foreign ministry summoned the Vatican's ambassador to express regret over the remarks and parliament passed a resolution condemning the comments.

In the US, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which calls itself the largest Islamic civil liberties group in America, said: "The proper response to the pope's inaccurate and divisive remarks is for Muslims and Catholics worldwide to increase dialogue and outreach efforts aimed at building better relations between Christianity and Islam."

Controversial remarks

During a speech on Tuesday at a German university, the pope quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian emperor Manuel Paleologos II and a Persian scholar on the truths of Christianity and Islam.

"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the pope said.

"He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached'."

Benedict did not explicitly agree with the words nor repudiate them, but went on to say that "violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul".

The Vatican said the pope did not intend the remarks to be offensive, but sought to draw attention to the incompatibility of faith and violence.

But Lebanon's most senior Shia Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, told worshippers in his Friday prayers sermon: "We do not accept the apology through Vatican channels ... and ask him [the pope] to offer a personal apology - not through his officials - to Muslims for this false reading."

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the Malaysian prime minister and chairman of the 56-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference, said: "The pope must not take lightly the spread of outrage that has been created. The Vatican must now take full responsibility over the matter and carry out the necessary steps to rectify the mistake."

Analysts' view

But some analysts, such as the Reverend Robert Taft, a specialist in Islamic affairs at Rome's Pontifical Oriental Institute, said it was unlikely that the pope miscalculated how some Muslims would receive his speech.

The Vatican says Pope Benedict
XVI did not mean to offend Muslims

Analysts said the Catholic leader's speech was a sign that he intends to carry on with his strong defence of the values of the Christian West rather than compromise for the sake of building bonds with Islam.

John Voll, director of the Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University in Washington, said the speech suggested deep dismay over the conditions of Christians in the Muslim world.

"This reflects the intention of Pope Benedict to distinguish himself from his predecessor on his approach to interfaith dialogue ... it means more reciprocity," said Voll.

As the chief watchdog on Roman Catholic doctrine for his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, Benedict - the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - had little role in shaping the Vatican's contact with Islam and other faiths.

Some say his deep theological scholarship leaves him ill-equipped to deal with Islam at a time when suspicions and tensions dominate relations between the West and Muslim world.

The Reverend Khalil Samir, a Vatican envoy for interfaith links in Lebanon, said: "They went to the speech expecting to meet Pope Benedict, but instead they met Professor Ratzinger."

Comment: What can be said about yet another attempt by mainstream muslims to get some respect? Their stupidity clearly knows no bounds. The modern world is so far away from these poor people that it is almost unfair to expect any sort of serious behaviour from them.

If the muslims have a case against the remarks of Pope Benedict why can't they make that case in a proper and intellectual manner?

The reason is that Islam itself is pointless as a religion because it cannot bring its adherents forward. The condition of the muslim world, the actual condition of the poor muslims, shows that Islam cannot function in the modern world. Lack of education, lack of freedom and lack of prosperity just re-inforces the real truth about Islam...it is a form of slavery for its adherents.

Do we need this in Australia?

More Information On Real Islamic Beliefs From The Koran.

2006-09-14T16:23:00.000+10:00

Note: This posting concerns the idea of the 'dhimmi'. This is the Islamic view on the situation of non muslims in a muslim state. Not a happy place.

Read and be warned....

Dhimmitude

To understand the role of the dhimmi in Muslim controlled societies, one must first examine the world view of the Muslims envisioned by Islam’s foundation documents, namely the Quran, the Hadith or traditions, and the Sharia or law code. Muslims view the entire world as the possession of Allah and his surrogates on earth, the Muslims. This world domination by Islam is called “khilafah” and it remains the goal of Islam. Jihad or “holy war” is the means by which the infidels are conquered and the goal of khilafah is achieved. All humanity must submit to Islam as the natural order of the universe. The exception, mentioned above, allowed to Christians and Jews, was and remains, as stated, mere sufferance, not an acceptable alternative. Muslims divide humanity into two kinds – believers or Muslims called by the Quran “the best of nations raised up to rule over all others” Surah III, 110, and “kufr” or infidels defined by the Quran as “the vilest of animals” Surah VIII, 55. Christians and Jews, while not pagans, remain infidels, “may Allah destroy them” Surah IX 3.

The world is divided by Muslims into the House of Islam where Muslims prevail and the House of War where infidels prevail. Between the two abodes of mankind perpetual war called jihad reigns as the natural condition or relationship. All Muslims are called to jihad as a moral mandate to subdue the House of War and establish the universal rule of Islam, khilafah. All Muslim society everywhere is contained in the “umma”, the universal brotherhood of Muslims. In the early centuries following Muhammad the umma was led by the “khalif”, the Commander of the Faithful, as the successor of Muhammad, in whom all matters of religion and state were combined. Islam, then as now, sees no distinction between the religion and the state.

Islam has no notion of inalienable natural or human rights such as envisioned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. Moreover, Islam does not acknowledge civil rights, i. e. rights which inure to people by virtue of their membership in a political state. The only rights possessed by Muslims and dhimmi are religious rights recognized in the Quran and codified in the Sharia. In this scheme of things, the despised dhimmi fare badly, for they are excluded from the umma and remain subordinated to it in law as well as in practice. Muslims are even forbidden to befriend dhimmi Surah V, 51. By rough analogy the status of dhimmi may be likened to that of the Negroes in the South during the worst days of Jim Crow. [6]

Seen in the above context and supported by 14 centuries of practice, the Muslims are trapped in a “closed circle” of their own making which denies them the opportunity to regard and deal with infidels in any manner except that which is contemplated by their religion and culture. Because the mandates of the Quran represent the complete, final, eternal, literal and unalterable revelation of their deity, the Muslims are frozen in the Bedouin mentality of the 7th century and unprepared to deal with dhimmi or other infidels according to the universal human rights standards of the present. As stated by the author, Bat Ye’or, in her book, referenced below, entitled THE DECLINE OF EASTERN

CHRISTIANITY UNDER ISLAM:

“Jihad and dhimma, emanations of the Creator’s will, are invested with divine attributes: immutability, perfection, justice, infallibility; considered as perfect systems, they brook no criticism. The subjugation of Christians and Jews in Islam, in accordance with the

divine will, is achieved by the perfection of the dhimma. Any criticism of jihad and dhimma – that is to say of the temporal realm – becomes a sacrilege because of the unity

of the temporal and the spiritual.” p 242

Although the above standards apply generally to the relationships between the umma and the dhimmi in all times and places, the practical application in many Muslim states has yielded to outside influences and political realities. Accordingly the practical applications have been modified resulting in a variety of situations in which Muslim states have deviated from the norm, allowing in some cases more benign treatment of dhimmi. In some states like Baathist Iraq, Baathist Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia and Morocco the governments eschew the overt persecution of Christians, although the Jews were run off decades ago. Other states like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and Sudan apply the full vigor of Quranic discrimination.

The exodus of Christians from the Middle East is varied and complex. In the 19th century the European powers began to intervene increasingly in the affairs of Muslim countries, pressing the rulers to grant relief to the dhimmi from the worst of their burdens. In addition, European Churches moved in to establish schools, printing presses and mutual aid societies to aid the Christians thereby exposing them to new ideas. Those who went abroad to study seldom returned. Awareness of greater economic opportunities and notions of liberty gave Christians in Muslim countries a growing appreciation that conditions elsewhere were better than those which they knew so well. Political turmoil and periodic rampages by Muslims against Christians motivated interest in emigration. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, the emigration of Christians to the Americas began in earnest.

The second massive emigration began after World War II with the influx of Jewish refugees into the British Mandate of Palestine. The concomitant conflict between Palestinians and Jews created instability and inured to the harm of the Christian communities. The Palestinian and other Middle Eastern Christians and their Churches sided largely with the Muslims in opposing Jewish presence in the Middle East. With the restoration of the people of Israel to the land of Israel in the State of Israel the conflicts grew. Rejecting the United Nations’ partition of the Mandate into Jewish and Muslim parts and as a result of the four wars initiated and lost by the Palestinians and their Arab allies against Israel, the condition of the Christians became increasingly bad. The Israelis regard Arab Christians as untrustworthy and the Muslims continue to treat them as despised infidels. Consequently the movement of Christians from the region of the former Mandate to the West accelerates. Elsewhere in the Muslim world where there are no Jews or Israelis the same is happening. The growth and increasing intolerance of militant Islam, the continuing discrimination against them as despised dhimmi, economic opportunity elsewhere and the universal longing of people to be free, prompt Christians to leave the lands of their ancestors and to seek a better life in freedom elsewhere. As their sons go abroad for education, their families in an ever widening circle of kin and friends follow which is emptying out the Christian communities of the Middle East.

Comment: These Islamic ideas, of course, have no place in modern Australia. Teachers of this rubbish should be excluded from the Commonwealth. The spiritually impoverished local muslims have no defence from the Wahhabi fascist 'lecturers' who come to Australia to poison the minds of the local muslims. No Australian public policy is promoted by the admission of these poisonous Wahhabis. BAN THEM.

Is anyone awake in Canberra?

Hopeful Sign In Pakistan.

2006-09-13T21:19:00.000+10:00

Note: This posting is a good and hopeful sign from Pakistan. Many people in the West will be unaware of this event.

Read on and have hope...

12 September, 2006
PAKISTAN
Converts from Islam on pilgrimage to Mariamabad, “Asia’s Lourdes”
by Qaiser Felix

Hundreds of thousands of Christians and Muslims take part in the 57th annual national pilgrimage to the shrine of the Virgin. Here is Mubarak Masih’s story, a convert from Islam, who, rejected by his family, continues to believe despite a difficult life, thanks to Our Lady’s help.

Mariamabad (AsiaNews) – The 57th annual Marian pilgrimage came to an end without any sectarian tensions in an atmosphere “free from any kind of religious discrimination”, with Christians and Muslims thronging together to the great Marian shrine in Mariamabad, one of Asia’s most venerated religious sites.

The pilgrimage, held between September 7 and 10, drew hundreds of thousands of people, including many Muslims.

Known as “Asia’s Lourdes”, Mariamabad is some 80 kilometres from Lahore in north-eastern Pakistan.

Mubarak Masih, 31, converted to Christianity five years ago from Islam. He told AsiaNews that he heard about the pilgrimage from some friends. “My life is difficult because of my conversion, but praying to Our Lady is a source of comfort. She is the one who keeps me going,” he said.

“When my relatives found out that I had converted to Christianity, they attacked me like a pack and broke my right leg. During my recovery and convalescence, I prayed to Mary who helped me feel less pain and heal more quickly.”

“There were times when I felt a sharp pain in my leg and so I offer it [to Mary] and it went away. Now I am doing well, and I feel the Virgin is close to me”.

Muhammad Husain, 28, completed the journey with his friend Niamat Ali, 22, both devout Muslims. They work in a factory in Gujranwala and heard about the event from a Christian workmate. “We respect a lot Mary and came to show it,” they said.

“We have been coming here, every year, since we were kids,” said four other young Muslims. “We repeat the experience because of the atmosphere. There are no religious tensions, no discrimination, just love and faith.”

Indrias Yaqoob is a catechist who accompanied a group of faithful to the shrine. He told AsiaNews that “as early as a week before the pilgrimage, thousands of people had already arrived from every corner of the country, including many Muslim women. People have a special devotion to Mary. They wait long hours just to touch the statue and leave their gifts.”

Safia Bibi, 50, has been coming to the shrine for the past 22 years. Speaking to AsiaNews she said: “I had been married for eight years but had not yet had any children. I came here to ask to be blessed with child and pledged that I would keep coming if my request was granted. Now I have four children and I keep on coming to give thanks. And I’ll do this with my family until I die.”

Comment: These pilgrimages are a good thing. It would be useful for the whole nation for the religious leaders in Australia to develop a pilgrimage site that could be used by both Christians and Muslims.

Real Sharia In Action.

2006-09-12T09:11:00.000+10:00

Note: This site has recently been told by Usama that it doesn't know anything about Sharia...which, presumably, is a wonderful thing for muslims...so here is a small item about Sharia in Action. Presumably, Usama will tell me that the Somalis are not real muslims. We all know that old muslim propaganda trick.

September 11, 2006
Somalia station shut down for love songs
Sharia Alert from AP:

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Islamic militants controlling much of southern Somalia shut down a radio station Sunday for playing love songs and other music, the latest step to impose strict religious rule which has sparked fears of an emerging, Taliban-style regime.
Since sweeping to power over much of southern Somalia, including the capital Mogadishu, in June, the Islamists have banned movie viewing, publicly lashed drug users and broke up a wedding celebration because a band was playing and women and men were socializing together.
The group closed Radio Jowhar because the programs were un-Islamic, Islamic official Sheik Mohamed Mohamoud Abdirahman said. It was the only radio station in Jowhar, some 55 miles from Mogadishu.
"It is useless to air music and love songs for the people," Abdirahman said.
Said Hagaa Ahmed, Radio Jowhar's director, confirmed the station had been closed but declined further comment.
The Islamic militants have brought a semblance of order to Somalia after years of anarchy.
But the United States accuses the Islamic leaders of harboring al-Qaida militants responsible for deadly bombings at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
Jowhar resident Ali Musse said closing the radio station was a violation of freedom.
"This directive is like the Taliban," Musse told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "It is censorship against independent media and freedom of expression."
In other words, Sharia.

Comment: One of the reasons Australian authorities need to promote an Australian version of Islam is to ensure that the 'slave chains' of Sharia are not allowed in Australia.

Readers should stay alert to Sharia. Sharia is the technique by which the poor enslaved muslims are kept in their slavery.

Useful Facts And Figures About The Islamic World Today.

2006-09-10T12:25:00.000+10:00

Note: These facts and figures are most important for persons who want to think clearly about the reality of the Islamic world and not be absorbed in the 'make believe' muslim world, so popular with professional promoters of Islam.

Read and learn

CRISIS OF FAITH IN THE MUSLIM WORLD
PART 1: Statistical evidence
By Spengler

Given the prominence of what Westerners call "Islamic fundamentalism", it seems odd to speak of a crisis of faith in the Islamic world. Several authors, including George Weigel [1] and Phillip Longman [2], support my contention that death of religious faith in Western Europe underlies its demographic decline. In slower motion, Islam faces a crisis of faith that will bring about a demographic catastrophe in the middle of the present century. I have called attention to the disturbing demographics of Islam in the past (The demographics of radical Islam, August 23), and here will offer evidence that the source of its demographic troubles is to be found in a failure of faith.

Striking statistical evidence supports this conclusion, which I
shall present below. A wide range of fertility rates characterizes the Islamic world. Most of the variation in fertility can be explained by a single factor, namely, literacy: as Muslims (and especially Muslim women) learn to read, they drift away from traditional faith. The birthrate drops in consequence.

Radical Islam should be interpreted as a cry of despair in the face of the ineluctable decline of Islamic society. Read carefully, the leading Islamists say precisely this. At the close of the 19th century the Ottoman Empire was the sick man of Europe, and its former territories today comprise the incurables ward of geopolitics. From this vantage point, America's attempt to foist its own form of democracy on the Islamic world seems delusional.

As I have reported before, the demographic position of the Islamic world has set a catastrophe in motion. It is hard enough for rich nations to care for a growing elderly population, but impossible for poor nations to do so. Iran, along with most of the Muslim world, faces a population bust that will raise the proportion of dependent elderly in the population to 28% in 2050, from just 7% today.

If America faces discomfort, and Europe faces crisis, Muslim countries face breakdown. America now has a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of US$40,000 and a diversified economy. Iran has a per capita GDP of just $7,000 and depends on oil exports for the state subsidies that keep its population fed and clothed - and Iran will no longer be able to export oil after 2020, according to some estimates.

America can ameliorate the impact of an aging population by raising productivity (so that fewer workers produce more GDP), attracting more skilled immigrants (and increasing its tax base), and, in the worst of all cases, tightening its belt. American life will not come to an end if more people drive compact cars instead of SUVs, or go camping for vacation instead of to Disney World. But the Islamic world is so poor that any reduction in living standards from present levels will cause social breakdown.

In 2002, the United Nations' Arab Development Report offered a widely-quoted summation of the misery of the present position of the Arab World, noting:

The average growth rate of per capita income during the preceding 20 years in the Arab world was only one-half of 1% per annum, worse than anywhere but sub-Saharan Africa

One in five Arabs lives on less than $2 per day

Fifteen percent of the Arab workforce is unemployed, and this number could double by 2010

Only 1% of the population has a personal computer, and only half of 1% use the Internet

Half of Arab women cannot read.

Negotiating the demographic decline of the 21st century will be treacherous for countries that have proven their capacity to innovate and grow. For the Islamic world, it will be impossible. That is the root cause of Islamic radicalism, and there is nothing that the West can do to change it.

Among the Muslim states, Iran has seen the future most clearly, and drawn terrible conclusions. President Mahmud Ahmadinejad understands that life as Iranians know it is coming to an end, and has proposed drastic measures commensurate with the need.

In a program made public on August 15, Iran's new president proposed a pre-emptive response to the inevitable depopulation of rural Iran. He plans to reduce the number of villages from 66,000 to only 10,000, relocating 30 million Iranians out of a population of 70 million. In relative terms, that would be the biggest population transfer in history, dwarfing Joseph Stalin's collectivization campaign of the late 1920s.

A generation hence, Iran will not have the resources to provide infrastructure for more than 50,000 rural villages inhabited mainly by elderly and infirm peasants. In response, Iran will undertake the biggest exercise in social engineering in recorded history, excepting perhaps Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.

America's fertility rate - the average number of children per woman - has stabilized at just around the replacement level. That is why America's elderly dependency ratio will stabilize around 2030. But the fertility rate of the Muslim world is falling much faster.

In the case of Iran, Algeria and many other Muslim countries, the fertility rate in 2050 is expected to fall below two children per woman. Replacement is 2.1. Even Saudi Arabia, the bastion of Islamic conservatism, will show a fertility rate below the replacement level, according to UN projections. I think the UN estimates err on the high side. Modernization is likely to push fertility down further than the demographers now calculate.

What is killing the fertility rate in the Muslim world? There really is no such thing as a "Muslim" fertility rate, but rather a wide spectrum of fertility rates that express different degrees of modernization. Where traditional conditions prevail, characterized by high rates of illiteracy (and especially female illiteracy) the fertility rate remains at the top of the world's rankings.

But where the modern world encroaches, fertility rates are plummeting to levels comparable to the industrial world. No single measure of modernization captures this transformation, but the literacy rate alone explains most of the difference in fertility rates among Muslim countries. Among the 34 largest Arab countries, just one factor, namely the difference in literacy rates, explains 60% of the difference in the population growth rate in 2005.

The population of Somalia, where only a quarter of adults can read, is growing at an enormous 4% per year. At that rate, the number of Somalis will double in just 18 years. But in Algeria, where 62% of adults can read, the population growth rate is only 1.4% per year. At that rate it would take 50 years for the population to double. Qatar, with a literacy rate close to 80%, has a population growth rate of just 1.2%.

Comment: A major problem for the world is the appaling state of development within the muslim/arab world. The West, for its own benefit, needs to do something useful about this problem. Surely this pandemic of backwardness is a contributory element in the current turmoil engulfing the muslim world.

More On The Crisis In Islam.

2006-09-09T22:13:00.000+10:00

Note: This posting is from the Egyptian Jesuit, Fr. Samir Khalil SJ. He knows what he is talking about. It will be profitable for you to read this...

8 September, 2006
ISLAM
Islam needs renewal from within, not withdrawal into itself, to overcome its crisis
by Samir Khalil Samir sj

The absence of a recognised authority and the ignorance in which Islam’s religious world has fallen are among the main reasons for Islam’s increasingly tragic situation. A re-interpretation of the Koran is needed but no one dares talk about. Here is the fifth and final article in a series about Islam in crisis by Fr Samir Khalil Samir.

Beirut (AsiaNews) – The first point to put into effect towards new approaches in training is the reinterpretation of the Koran. The sacred text of Islam, like all texts, needs to be interpreted, in the search for its overall meaning and striving to contextualize what is read. Until the beginning of the 20th century, there had been great reformers who had pushed in this direction: they were from India, Afghanistan, Syria, Egypt, Turkey, North Africa, etc. Then came the religious deterioration of imam training and this desire for reform, which had lasted for centuries, was extinguished.

Reinterpretation is necessary also because the Koran is full of internal contradictions which have always been evident, due to the varying circumstances of the "revelations". It is for this very reason that Muslim theology developed the science of the "revelation circumstances" (asbāb al-tanzīl) which is by now often forgotten or neglected. To resolve the contradictions, ancient Muslim tradition developed the theory of "the abrogating and the abrogated": i.e., there are verses that abrogate, cancel, override other verses. This theory comes from the Koran itself, where at a certain point God says to His prophet: “Whatever communications We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring one better than it or like it. Do you not know that Allah has power over all things?” (Koran 2, 106).

The problem then becomes: which are the verses that cancel and which are cancelled? And who determines which is one and which is the other? This matter is very ambiguous as there has never been any kind of consensus. Thus the interpretation depends on pre-understanding of the individual. Those who take a violent, political, radical line will say for example that the verse known as "of the sword" (āyat al-sayf) overrides all the preceding verses that speak of tolerance and welcoming. This verse is found in two very similar parts of the Koran (2,193 and 8,39): “And fight with them until there is no sedition (fitnah), and religion should be only for Allah”1.

An even more ambiguous point is that concerning the veiling of women. There are three verses in the Koran which speak about the veil, but they are not clear. The interpretation varies depending on the meaning given to the words. Even the historical information on the way in which the veil was applied varies considerably. In Egypt, for example, from the 1920s onwards, very few women wore headscarves, and those who did, wore them discretely. They were reintroduced in the second half of the 1970s under the influence of the Saudis and their financial support. In other regions, the practice of wearing headscarves has existed for a long time. The interpretation of the Koran is decisive because there are women who suffer verbal or physical offence if they do not veil themselves, or who are simply forced to do so...

Interpretation becomes even more a key question in the important question of apostasy: there is no verse in the Koran that says that the apostate must be killed. Yet the sharia, Islamic law, requires that a convert from Islam be killed.2

There are many intellectuals in the Islamic world who ask that exegesis, interpretation, be applied to the Koran. But often they risk being condemned, excluded, exiled by their community. A typical example is that of Egyptian-national Nasr Hamed Abu Zaid who, having suggested that exegesis be applied to the Koran, was deemed an apostate. Thus, in a short time, he lost his university teaching post, his wife was pressured to divorce from him (but she refused), and to save his life, he was forced to emigrate to Holland. Through God's grace, his wife was eventually able to join him in Europe where they live as exiles.

The fear of being condemned holds many scholars back. Years ago in Tunisia, I participated in a conference on the exegesis of holy texts, along with 6 other Christian theologians and 7 Muslim. The sessions had been decided upon by the Muslim faculty of theology and were to be on the very question of the interpretation of sacred texts. Well, everyone spoke in general about exegesis, but no one dared to apply its principles to the Koranic text. A vertible impasse exists on this question. This depends on the fact that for Muslims, the Koran is a revealed text which descended upon Mohammad, and not a text simply inspired by God. In this latter case, interpretation is possible; in the former case, everything remains at a standstill. Speaking at a seminar on Islam held at Castel Gandolfo (location of the Pope's summer residence, near Rome) in September 2005, Pope Benedict XVI stressed quite correctly that this Islamic conception of the Koran is one of the main difficulties in dialogue with Muslims.

Sharia and human rights

Another problem which stands in the way of the development of Islam is the interpretation of sharia. To be noted: the (bad) interpretation of sharia also depends on the (limited) training of imams.

Sharia is the concretization in daily life of Islam at the juridical level. It has, in this sense, a great influence because it generates binding laws. The sharia too is based on the Koran, on the sayings of Mohammad and on the circumstances of Mohammad's life. The sayings and circumstances are called Sunna. The Koran is the main source for sharia. Another source is analogy, which relies on sayings (the authenticity of which no one wants to investigate). And here lies the problem: there are hundreds of thousands of sayings, which often contradict each other; the authenticity of the sayings are not certain, and yet imams and Koranic scholars strive to apply the experiences and criteria of centuries ago to present day situations.

Many Muslim jurists today are proposing the suspension of the part of the sharia called hudud, which foresees precise punishments: death, hand cutting, stoning, flogging. Traditionalists say that these punishments have a basis in the Koran. But, at least a part of the community, mainly intellectuals, affirm that this style of punishment is contrary to human rights. Thus, various jurists maintain the principle that it is necessary to reinterpret the Koran and sharia from the basis of internationally recognized human rights.

Women's rights

And this brings us to the question of women's rights. Many Islamic apologists maintain that Islam, unlike other religions, gives value to all women's rights. Actually, if taken literally, Islam does not give any equality with men. And this at the juridical level, not only that of customs or mentality.

Here are few examples. A man can repudiate his wife with practically no limitations; a woman cannot repudiate her husband: at the most, she can ask him the favour of repudiating her. Men have total authority over their wives, in accordance to the Koran (4,34: “Men have authority over women, due to the preference that God concedes to the former over to the latter and because they spend their property [for them]”) and a wife is obliged to obey her husband even if he forbids her to go to the mosque (hadith). A husband has the right to have sexual relations with his wife whenever he wants, and she does not have the right to refuse him (Koran 2, 223: Your wives are a tilth (harth) for you, so go into your tilth (harth) when you like). In court, the testimony of a male is worth twice that of a female: it takes 2 women to counterbalance a man’s testimony. Sons inherit twice as much as daughters. There is a radical difference also in matters of prayer and acts of worship: being impure during menstruation or when she gives birth, a woman’s prayer or fasting or any other religious act is not accepted by God. She must strive to "recuperate" the days lost. It was decided, a few years ago in Egypt, that a woman could not be a judge, because a well-known prophetic hadith says "a woman is imperfect in terms of worship and intelligence" (al-mar’ah nāqisah dīnan wa-‘aqlan); as for worship, because she is impure during menstruation and would therefore contaminate the entire assembly, and as for intelligence, being too emotional, she would not be able to judge equitably. (This whole question was the subject of a television programme!) Furthermore, in the case of adultery, current practice is unfortunately to condemn the woman to stoning, while the man is not condemned, even though the Koran condemns both to flogging and never to stoning (24,2: “(As for) the fornicatress and the fornicator, flog each of them, (giving) a hundred stripes, and let not pity for them detain you.”)

This is why some countries are striving to reformulate family law. As already mentioned, new laws have been enacted in Morocco. In Algeria, a country that was once progressive, where women had given an enormous contribution to the fight for independence, no progress has been made. On the contrary, family law reforms tend to restrict the rights and legal equality of women.

Reform in Tunisia dates back to the 1950s thanks to the strength of political leader, Bourghiba, who was backed by an eminent Muslim jurist, Tahar Haddad (1899-1936). Often, Bourghiba established laws and asked muftis to justify them according to tradition. For example, Tunisian legislation recognizes monogamy only. But the Koran speaks explicitly of polygamy, allowing up to four wives plus all the servants that your right hands have (4,3). How then can the prohibition of polygamy be justified? The verse in question goes on to say: " but if you fear that you will not be equitable (ta’dilū), then (marry) only one ". Now, verse 129 of the same chapter explicitly says: "And you have it not in your power to be equitable between wives, even though you may wish (it)". Thus, the Koran authorizes up to four wives, adding however that if a man fears not being fair, he must limit himself to one. And further ahead it states that a man cannot be fair. Bourghiba concluded: "In fact, the Koran wished to guarantee monogamy. But keeping in mind the weakness of Arabs and the customs of the time, it temporarily authorized polygamy, subordinating it to a practically unattainable condition.”

As can be seen, free interpretation can allow for much adaptation. It should be said in all truth that the meaning of the verse on treating wives "fairly", is not in the sense of "equal justice" – as is the interpretation of many Muslims – but in the sense of affection and sexuality: polygamy foresaw equal shares of sexual enjoyment, the same number of nights. Though many deny this, there are many examples from the life of Mohammad himself that support this.

The question of divorce also needs interpretation. According to a saying of Mohammad, "divorce is the most hated of the things permitted by God" (al-talāq abghad al-halāl). But then, in the life of Mohammad and in other sayings, the opposite can be found. What then is the proper Islamic position?

The current tendency among certain Muslim jurists is that of preferring human rights to sharia. The reformist, Libyan scholar, Mohamed Abdelmottaleb al-Houn, for example, says, "If we must choose between human rights and sharia, then we must prefer human rights." But he is giving the reading of the enlightened, or let's say, of the liberal.

Another reformer that I admire very much, a Lebanese named Ridwan As-Sayyed, is very explicit. He says: "Laws must...conform to human rights, seeking in private matters, where there is the possibility of choice, to tend towards sharia. But it is not a principle; it is not a necessary rule."

Others instead relativize sharia, especially for Muslims living in the West. A typical example is what has been said by Tariq Ramadan, a famous Swiss Muslim thinker (grandson of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood), who has many times said: Sharia cannot be applied word for word, due to the fact that we are not in a Muslim country." Ramadan is speaking of Europe, of Egypt... but what country can truly call itself Muslim? Even Saudi Arabia and Iran can be criticized! Actually, Ramadan's reasoning is a small legal trick to justify that sharia not be applied. Some go even further, such as Elham Manea of Yemen, lecturer at the University of Zurich, who simply says that all the contents of the Koran that do not correspond to the mentality and principles of contemporary man must be left out as belonging to the mentality of 7th century Arabia.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, no one is denying the reality of a profound crisis in Islam. It is rendered even more serious by international conflicts, which risk resolving the crisis through a short circuit of holy war. But there are increasing numbers of figures who are pointing to problems within the Muslim community.

The first problem is the lack of a recognized authority. Attempts are made to get around the problem by recognizing the Organization of Islamic States (which has no legal authority); or else, the European association of muftis is relied on, but it too is without authority.

The second problem is the ignorance in which the Islamic religious world has fallen. How can all this be reformed? We have seen various attempts: better training for imams; reopening the door of interpretation; suspension of Koranic law, at least "temporarily": in order to reduce the negative impact on the most fanatical elements of the population; recognition of human rights or at least the attempt to integrate them into Islamic principles...

In concrete terms this means problems pertaining to democratization at the political level; social justice problems at the socio-economic level; family law and women's rights at the basic level. At this point, everyone recognizes that the Islamic system that covered all these fields is out-dated, is no longer managed, nor is it manageable.

Being challenged by other cultures, Islam needs a renewal of its thinking from within, in order to regain strength. Instead, for the very reason that it feels weak, it protects itself by closing in on itself, thinking that it can save itself by going back to a "golden age" of the first caliphs. Muslim history teaches us the opposite: Islam was strongest and able to conquer when, in the 10th century, it opened itself to other cultures, in particular Greek culture, assimilating it and surpassing it. It thus offered the world its contribution in almost all sectors of knowledge, from philosophy to medicine, from technology to astronomy, etc.

To get out of the crisis in which we find ourselves, we all, Arabs and Muslims, must above all accept teaching from those who have surpassed us in the sciences and the arts. Once this entire heritage has been assimilated, we can begin to criticize it and to discern between what can be kept and what is to be rejected. Above all, we must accept the risk of abandoning acquired balances, passing through the rejection of many things, to find a new balance. But we are gripped by fear and this makes us lack courage. At the time of my youth, there were those who would say "workers of the world unite to fight the capitalists." I would say today, "Thinkers of the Arab and Islamic world unite to fight obscurantism and the fear of what is different!"

Endnotes:

1. In Hamza Piccardo's Italian translation, the word fitnah, essential to the Koran, is always translated in an interpretative way. Here, it is rendered once as "persecution" and another time as "politeism" to make more acceptable to Western readers the fact that God orders battle. Fitnah means neither one nor the other!

2. For further details on this point, see my study "Apostasy in the Koran and the inter-Muslim debate" in: Giorgio Paolucci and Camille Eid, I cristiani venuti dall'Islam (“Christians who come from Islam: Stories of converts from Islam”), preface by Samir Khalil Samir (Milan: Piemme Publishing, 2005), p. 9-27.

Comment: Have you ever asked yourself why you have never read articles like this in the mainstream Australian media?

Funny, eh?