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.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Muhammad From Islamic Sources.
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'.
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.
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.
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.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Sheik Hilali Explains Islam.
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 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.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
'The Truth About Muhammad'...A Book Review.
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.
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.
Monday, October 23, 2006
Sex And The Frightened Muslim.
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.
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.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
'No Compulsion In Religion' Says Koran.
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.
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.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
An Example Of Civilized Religious Behaviour.
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Modern Islamic Leaders Step Forward.
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Most Excellent And Hopeful Sign.
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.
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.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Increased Pressure On British Muslims to Reform.
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.
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.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Some French Views On Muslim Migrants.
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.
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.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Al - Azhar Against The Face Veil...Niqab.
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?
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?
Friday, October 13, 2006
May his Memory Be Eternal.
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Preaching Put Into Practise.
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
The Only Possible Future For Islam.
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.
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.
Monday, October 09, 2006
Islamic Outsiders At Work.
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.
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.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Islamizing Modernity.
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?
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?
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