Islam, Gay Rights and The Death Penalty, A Muslim View
Posted: February 10, 2012 Filed under: articles by Paul Williams, Christianity, Islam, Militant Secularism, The Bible, The News 5 Comments »
The offending leaflet with content censored by the media
Today’s Guardian newspaper reports:
Three men have been jailed after becoming the first to be convicted of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation for handing out a leaflet calling for gay people to be executed.
Ihjaz Ali, Kabir Ahmed and Razwan Javed gave out the pamphlet, entitled The Death Penalty? which showed an image of a mannequin hanging from a noose and quoted Islamic texts that said capital punishment was the only way to rid society of homosexuality.
So what is one to make of this news? I have conflicting emotions. On the one hand I dislike any attempt to stir up hatred against any section of the community. Islam is a religion par excellence of community cohesion and social tranquility. But Islam does not recognize the concept of ‘gay people’ as if they were a separate race of humans to the rest of us. Shariah is concerned with our behaviour, our public actions, not with what it done in private away from the public gaze. However, any public manifestation of fornication, homosexuality or adultery, if observed by four reliable witnesses, can in certain circumstances, merit very harsh punishments including the death penalty. According to the Quran, God may choose to forgive all aberrations except for the association of other ‘deities’, other powers and other agents, with Him.
By advocating these harsh punishments Islam is in agreement with Christianity and Judaism, at least as originally conceived. God’s law given to Moses on Mount Sinai required the death penalty for those who committed such acts:
‘If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them’ (Leviticus 20:13 KJV)
Jesus, according to the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament, absolutely agreed with this requirement:
‘Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.’(Matthew 23:1-3 NIV)
A similar attitude to the Law is found later in the same chapter:
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” (Matthew 23:23-24 NIV)
This is not to say that I agree with the crude way these leaflets were written. Perhaps it was inevitably going to rouse the gay lobby and the law to suppress these views. And the three Muslims have been sent to prison and have had their freedom of speech crushed. I think the sentence handed down by the court was unfair. I have no doubt that the churches, if they say anything at all, will mutter platitudes about the Almighty loving ‘gay people‘, as if this quasi ‘classification’ of humans presented a different set of moral issues than ‘adulterous people’ or ‘fornicating people’.
Gay Marriage and Islam: A Muslim Response
Posted: February 4, 2012 Filed under: articles by Paul Williams, Christianity, Islam, Militant Secularism, The Bible, The News 7 Comments »
- The Bishop of London, Rt Revd & Rt Hon Richard Chartres
Today’s London Times proclaims:
Bishop of London backs gay marriage rebellion among clergy
“The Bishop of London has welcomed a rebellion by nearly a quarter of his clergy calling for churches to be permitted to register for civil partnerships.”
This is reported fully today in The Times but that article is behind a paywall.
The Mail Online has a free version:
“Nearly 100 clergy have joined a rebellion over a Church of England ban on civil partnership ceremonies.”
“The clergy have signed a letter demanding that the General Synod, the Church’s parliament, allow priests to hold ceremonies for same-sex couples in their churches.”
So how does Islam view the prospect of ‘Gay marriage’?
I think some preliminary remarks are in order:
People who complain that Muslims refuse to fit in with what are called “civilised values” are unaware of just what is being demanded of Muslims. These values are part of the air we breath whether our politics are of the left or right, conservative or liberal. They are the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the age.
I think they can be summarised in four ways:
Firstly, man is now the measure of all things and nothing is to be judged in relation to an absolute or to a transcendent reality.
Secondly, man is both judge and criterion of judgement. There is no higher court of appeal or source of pardon.
Thirdly, whatever happens occurs within earthly time, for human existence stretches only from birth to death. Mans earthly life is therefore unconditionally important; to live is the supreme value, at death the game is over and lost.
Finally, there is the conviction that man is basically good; the evil which surrounds him is never his fault. It can only be blamed on institutions, on society, the economic system or defective education.
These beliefs, so readily taken for granted, cannot be reconciled with Islam (or traditional Christianity). What we do in this life echoes in eternity and we will be held to account for all our actions and thoughts by a God who is both completely just and the most merciful of all those who show mercy. Mankind is called to submit to Gods will, not to do our own will. As Jesus is reported to have said to his Lord, ‘May thy will be done, not mine’. This spiritual disposition is vanishing fast from Britain’s Christian churches, which have made some astonishing compromises with the spirit of the age. But Muslims see religion as a citadel resistant to decadence and changing tides of opinion, not as one strand in the pattern of modern life – the western way of life – but as an alternative to it. Those who have gone astray are invited to return and that is that. For Muslims there is one fixed mark, set down in the midst of times flow and that is the Faith as it came from God through the Prophet.
So back to our question: ‘How does Islam view the prospect of ‘Gay marriage?’
Muslims, and the dwindling band of traditional Christians, find this campaign to legitimise so-called ‘gay marriage’ astonishing (and abhorrent) for two reasons:
The very idea that men and women can alter God’s clearly expressed will seems like presumption and blasphemy. The Christian churches, it seems, are trying desperately to keep up with the times and are in dereliction of their duty to be faithful to the revelation they received.
Secondly, God has expressly given us his commands in the Torah, the Gospel and the Quran. They cannot be changed. We, as Muslims, stand should to shoulder with those few remaining traditionalist clergy who resist these compromises with modernism and secularism.
Traditionally Christianity has taught unambiguously that a priest or a Bishop is somebody who ought to live by the Bible and accept that the Bible’s teaching is quite clear in this matter – that heterosexual marriage is the right and only context for sexual relationships. And Muslims of course agree.
To the surprise of many, we have the ironic situation where Islam is not a threat to traditional British values, which historically are based on Christian values, but their ally. Islam complements and reinforces them. I could duplicate many times over the same point: whether it be the sanctity of life, opposition to abortion on demand, the rejection of euthanasia and assisted suicide, or the respect and courtesy due to women, Muslims find a natural affinity with the few remaining traditional Christians in our churches, and hence with the best of British values and culture which were formed by the Bible and the teachings of Jesus.
But of course Islam is a challenge to the forces of atheist materialism that reduce the individual to a mere consumer of goods; it is a challenge to those hedonist philosophies that deny God and worship the man-made idols of short-term pleasure and greed.
In conclusion, we must ask why have the churches at the beginning of the 21st century abandoned the teaching of the Torah, Jesus of Nazareth, the Catholic Church, and the Protestant Reformers?
Perhaps a consideration of the larger social context will suggest a possible solution.
Muslim philosopher Shabbir Akhtar in his excellent book The Quran and the Secular Mind (2008) comments provocatively (p.7):
‘We must note that there are now few authentically religious Jews and Christians in the West even among the clergy and the rabbinate. All intellectually sophisticated Jews and Christians are secularised and, in their attitudes towards domestic issues, as opposed to foreign policy, are typically humane capitalists whose religious beliefs serve as a decorative veneer on their underlying secularised religious humanism. All charges are variations on the stock Muslim accusation, rooted in the Qur’an, that Jews and Christians have achieved a cosy accommodation with the world – or with modern secularism, in our day – at the cost of being unfaithful to their dogmatic traditions. Modern versions of Christianity and Judaism appear to be carefully disguised variants of secular humanism. Predictably, therefore, many Jews and Christians, unlike virtually all Muslims, live conscientiously and comfortably within the arrangements of the liberal secular humanist state. Islam is now unique in its existential decision, though not intellectual capacity, to confront rather than accommodate the secularist world-view. It is a faith whose adherents are sounding a lone note of courageous defiance in the battle against secularism while other trumpets are blowing retreat.
One year on: Arab Spring – The 4 Burning Questions
Posted: January 29, 2012 Filed under: Islam, The News, Videos Leave a comment »Right Wing Israelis Rally Against Africans
Posted: December 14, 2011 Filed under: articles by Sami Zaatari, The News, Zionism 2 Comments »So if I understand this correctly, if one is African, they can’t be accepted into Israel according to these right wing Zionists, but what if they are Jewish? Well to these Zionists, it doesn’t seem matter, if you are African, then you don’t belong in Israel solely based on your African heritage.
Neoconservative Islamophobes Hate Freedom and Democracy
Posted: December 7, 2011 Filed under: articles by Sami Zaatari, Islamophobia, The News, Zionism 16 Comments »Recent election results from Egypt’s free and fair elections have led to an overwhelmingly Islamist victory in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist movement. The election results for Islamist parties in Egypt follows the similar election path of countries such as Tunis, and Morocco. The people have essentially spoken, they have cast their ballots, and they have made their choice loud and clear. It must be repeated and emphasized, the elections that have taken place in Egypt, Tunis, and Morocco have all been fair and free. The people have democratically voted for Islamist oriented parties.
The victory of the Islamists in the free and fair elections has not pleased many, specifically right wing Islamophobic (neo)conservatives, who have come out in full voice lambasting the results. One example of this is the right wing conservative political think tank, ‘The Centre for Security Policy’. In a recent article by Frank J. Gaffney, the institute’s president, he writes that what has happened in Egypt has been a ‘fiasco’. He goes on to write:
These Islamists appear to have garnered 60% of the seats in the next parliament and the opportunity to shape the country’s new constitution in line with their ambitions to impose the totalitarian doctrine of shariah nationwide. That will be bad news for the people of Egypt, for Israel and for us. (http://centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p18875.xml)
So according to this neoconservative, what has happened in Egypt is bad news for everybody, including the people of Egypt. One is left scratching their head at this claim; perhaps Mr. Gaffney forgot that the people of Egypt have elected these people into power knowing full well about the parties Islamist policies? When Mr. Gaffney writes about how the Islamist parties will shape a constitution in line with their Islamist views (or as he calls it, totalitarian doctrine of shariah, Islamophobic right wingers always like using big doomsday words, it’s been a core principle of neoconservatives to always try to strike fear into the people) and wants to ignore the fact that the people who voted these groups into power specifically voted for these Islamist parties so that they would precisely make a form of government that would have a major religious role and framework within it! It seems Mr. Gaffney refuses to accept the democratic will of the people, he claims that the people of Egypt are in trouble, yet the people of Egypt have openly voted for these Islamist parties, the people have spoken loud and clear, but Mr. Gaffney in typical neoconservative fashion refuses to respect the will of the people.
Interestingly enough Israel get’s a mention, who cares about Israel? This is not about Israel; this is about Egypt, the people of Egypt, their country, their votes, and their quest for a future Egypt shaped by what they want. But you see this is the world of the Islamophobic neoconservative, everything must revolve around Israel, all the other surrounding countries of Israel must be subservient in the interest of Israel, even if that leads to the people being kept down, if it is good for Israel then nothing else matters, so be it as the saying goes.
Mr. Gaffney is not the only right-winger fuming at the free and fair democratic results from Egypt. A who’s who of Islamophobes, from Robert Spencer to Daniel Pipes have all come out voicing their opposition to what we have seen in Egypt, it seems that these men seem to hate democracy all of a sudden!
Islamophobia and Cultural Imperialism
Posted: December 6, 2011 Filed under: articles by Sami Zaatari, Islamophobia, The News 6 Comments »
The Arab Spring and the Islamophobic Double Standards….Democracy Doesn’t Apply for Muslims!
Posted: November 20, 2011 Filed under: articles by Sami Zaatari, Islamophobia, The News 1 Comment »Some time ago I wrote an article exposing the Islamophobic hypocrisy and double standards concerning the Arab Spring, that article can be found on the following link:
http://thedebateinitiative.com/2011/10/07/the-arab-spring-islam-and-the-islamophobe-hypocrisy/
So a website called antisharia.com decided to respond to my article with the following article:
To even call antisharia’s article a response to me would be a compliment to them as they didn’t respond to anything I actually said and simply attacked a straw man, not only did they attack a straw man, they have forsaken their own political philosophy!
For example they write:
At first reading his arguments are convincing but there is a detail he has not considered. The Majority is Not Always Right…So if the majority of Muslims in a Muslim country are in favor of an anti-human rights, discriminatory legal system called Sharia that does mean it is correct and it is proper to oppose the will of the majority because their desire is wrong,bad
RESPONSE
This argument is a straw man, but before I show why I would like to highlight how this author continues the hypocrisy, for example the author explicitly says THAT IT IS PROPER TO OPPOSE THE WILL OF THE MAJORITY, I didn’t say this, antisharia said this. Isn’t this very interesting? Muslims are always being preached to about democracy, and democracy is the will of the majority, in a democracy you have a vote, and the way the vote is won is by whoever gets the majority! But now those who always tell Muslims about democracy are willing to go AGAINST democracy when it works against them! And this is meant to be a rebuttal? In my original article I stated that we are dealing with CULTURAL IMPERIALISTS, and this just proves it, these people are WILLING to go against THEIR OWN POLITICIAL PHILOSOPHY when the results are not as they wish, basically you either conform to what they want or you get the boot.
Now as for the straw man, I never argued the majority are right, that was never my argument, my argument was very simple and it was to simply expose the double standards and hence I will summarize it in points to make it easy to understand:
1- Western Islamophobes say Muslims need to respect the laws, culture, and traditions of the host country they live in
2- Western Islamophobes say it is wrong for Muslims to oppose and disrespect the laws, culture, and traditions of the host country they live in
3- Western Islamophobes say that Muslims should not try to change or impose their ways on the host country they live in
4- Western Islamophobes say that Muslims should leave the host country they live in if they can’t accept these things
So now ladies and gents I have simply TAKEN THE ABOVE METHODOLOGY AND STANDARD AND APPLIED IT TO THE ISLAMOPHOBES! That’s all I did in my last article, I simply showed that Islamophobes are not willing to practice what they preach, because they do the exact same thing to Muslim countries for which they complain when it comes to their own countries!
So to repeat, my article has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MAJORITY BEING RIGHT, BUT HAS ALL TO DO WITH EXPOSING ISLAMOPHOBIC DOUBLE STANDARDS.
So not only has antisharia.com failed to deal with my main point, they have also forsaken and abandoned their own political philosophy of democracy, and when you have to forsake your own creed to simply try to refute someone then you know your in big trouble. The very fact that they have to forsake their own ideology simply reaffirms my main point, that Islamophobes are filled with inconsistencies and double standards, they say one thing and do another, so the irony is that in trying to respond to me, antisharia.com simply did a wonderful illustration of what my original article was talking about! I said it before and I will say it again, we are dealing with cultural imperialists, once you understand this, then the whole Islamophobic picture becomes much more clear.
No Islam= No Conflict?
Posted: November 6, 2011 Filed under: articles by Sami Zaatari, Islamophobia, The News 10 Comments »Christian apologist and critic of Islam, David Wood, has recently posted a video on his AnsweringMuslims blog, the blog post can be viewed on the following link:
http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2011/11/islams-impact-on-world-affairs.html
The video in question is titled as ‘World is Peaceful without Islam’, and Wood has titled the blog article as ‘Islam’s Impact on World Affairs’. Now obviously as Wood has posted the video with the following blog title, it means he supports the contents of the video. Now in the video itself there is a man talking, he seems to be in an interview, and he lists a whole series of conflicts around the world, particularly in countries neighbored by the Muslim world, and so obviously the point that’s trying to be made is that wherever Islam seems to be, there’s a conflict happening and without it there would be peace.
Now before we actually analyze these conflicts we too can play the same game. For example, we too could make the argument that a world without Christianity would be a very peaceful place, after all one only has to study Christian history and see the vile brutality and violence that was committed under it’s reign, now off course que the drum roll and excuses from apologists such as Wood, which only sums up their inconsistency and how weak their methodology actually is. As the saying goes, you can’t have your cake and eat it.
Now to the actual video itself, I can’t obviously give a detailed analysis of each conflict mentioned, but I shall only highlight a few, after all if we simply reveal the weak analysis behind these conflicts, and how wrong they are, what’s the point in listening to each argument the person is making when it’s quite clear they have no clue as to what their talking about.
The Conflict in East Timor
It is almost laughable that the East Timor conflict is brought up, now off course to the politically ignorant (which most Islamophobes happen to be) anything that involves a country that happens to be Muslim must therefore equal a conflict related to Islam, it never occurred in the minds of some that one can be a Muslim and go to war for the sake of something other than Islam, i.e. not every Muslim who goes to war is doing it for Islam, off course such a basic concept is alien to the minds of Islamophobes.
If one had bothered to do a little homework, then one would learn that the leaders of Indonesia who had decided to invade East Timor were fueled by nationalistic reasons rather than religious, the conflict was not about Muslims VS None Muslims, in fact this argument becomes even more laughable when one comes to learn that Indonesia is ruled by secularism! Oh yes, how very religious isn’t it?
Secondly, what’s more laughable was that East Timor WAS ALREADY IN CONFLICT BEFORE ANY INDONESIAN INVASION, they were in engaged in their own civil war, so to argue that if Islam didn’t exist then there would be no violence in that area is almost mind numbing and shows the major depth of ignorance were dealing with here.
Thirdly (and this is the icing on the cake), the Indonesians HAD THE FULL SUPPORT OF AMERICA TO ENGAGE IN IT’S INVASION OF EAST TIMOR, America had a fear that East Timor would turn into a communist state and so they had no problems at all with Indonesia’s invasion of the land, oh yes ladies and gents, this is such a grand religious conflict isn’t it? And just incase some are wondering, the Americans didn’t merely give the Indonesians moral and political support, they actually provided the Indonesians with weapons! Virtually most of the weaponry used by the Indonesians against East Timor was American supplied weaponry!
Here is an article that goes in depth about how America supported the Indonesian invasion of East Timor:
http://www.mega.nu/ampp/nunestimor.html
All of this just serves to show how little David Wood and his friends know about the world of political affairs, will David Wood follow his own methodology now and say that a world without America would be a peaceful place too as America was directly complicit in the war on East Timor? Something tells me no, something tells me I’m going to hear more excuses, but Wood can make all the excuses he wants, facts are facts, America was a major player in the conflict AGAINST East Timor and on the side of Indonesia, all the excuses in the world will not erase that.
The Conflict in Yugoslavia
To even try and simplify the Yugoslav wars as simply being down to Islam and Muslims VS None Muslims is the peak of ignorance when it comes to examining world affairs and conflicts.
For instance if the Yugoslav wars were simply down to Islam and Muslims, then why did this major war involve conflicts between Croats and the Serbs? The Croats are not Muslims; the Croats are mainly Catholics with a minority of Muslims and Protestants. So what happened? Why did the Croat Christians face the Serbian Christians if this was a conflict down to Muslims and Islam? Let us once again throw Wood’s methodology back on him, without Christianity there would be no conflict in Yugoslavia such as between the Croats and Serbs. Now off course that sounds absurd, but when it comes to Muslims, if a person involved in a conflict happens to be a Muslim, then this means that Muslims are the problem and if their removed out of the equation then peace will happen. Sadly for Wood (again) this analysis falls flat on it’s face as Christian Serbs faced Christian Croats and both committed war crimes against the other.
Anyone who bothered to do an honest study of the Yugoslav wars will learn the conflict was mainly down to ethnic conflicts, which is why you had Serbs VS Croats, Serbs VS Bosnians etc.
The Caucus War:
Another conflict listed is the conflict between the Chechens and the Russians; this is where history conveniently evades the minds of both David Wood and the man in the video. The Caucus lands which are now part of Russia (North Caucus lands) such as Chechnya and Dagestan WERE NEVER ORIGINALLY PART OF RUSSIA, these people are not ethnic Russians. The only reason why these Caucus people are now part of Russia in the first place is because Russia invaded these territories in the 19th century, the conflict known as the Caucus wars, Russians invaded these lands and people and then annexed them into Russia. I don’t believe Wood ignored this on purpose; I truly believe HE SIMPLY DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT THIS and never bothered to check this out.
Conclusion
There’s no need to address all the other conflicts mentioned as these three examples are enough to show that the person in the video has no idea on what he’s talking about, and that Wood also needs to do a better and more honest analysis and examination of world affairs.
Women & Islam: The rise and rise of the convert
Posted: November 6, 2011 Filed under: The News, Women in Islam 1 Comment »Three-quarters of Britons who become Muslims are female. Now a major new study has shed light on the difficulties they face in adjusting to their new life.
Record numbers of young, white British women are converting to Islam, yet many are reporting a lack of help as they get used to their new
religion, according to several surveys.
As Muslims celebrate the start of the religious holiday of Eid today and hundreds of thousands from around the world converge on Mecca for the haj, it emerged that of the 5,200 Britons who converted to Islam last year, more than half are white and 75 per cent of them women.
In the past 10 years some 100,000 British people have converted to Islam, of whom some three-quarters are women, according to the latest statistics. This is a significant increase on the 60,000 Britons in the previous decade, according to researchers based at Swansea University.
While the number of UK converts accelerates, many of the British women who adopt Islam say they have a daily struggle to assimilate their new beliefs within a wider culture that both implicitly and explicitly positions them as outsiders, regardless of their Western upbringing.
More than three-quarters told researchers they had experienced high levels of confusion after conversion, due to the conflicting ways Islam was presented to them. While other major religions have established programmes for guiding new believers through the rigours of their faith, Islam still lacks any such network, especially outside the Muslim hubs of major cities.
Many mosques still bar women from worship or provide scant resources for their needs, forcing them to rely on competing cultural and ideological interpretations within books or the internet for religious support.
A recent study of converts in Leicester, for example, found that 93 per cent of mosques in the region recognised they lacked services for new Muslims, yet only 7 per cent said they were making efforts to address the shortfall.
Many of the young women – the average age of conversion is 27 – are also coming to terms with experiences of discrimination for the first time, despite the only visible difference being a headscarf. Yet few find easy sanctuary within the established Muslim population, with the majority forming their closest bonds with fellow converts rather than born Muslims.
Kevin Brice, author of the Swansea study A Minority Within a Minority, said to be the most comprehensive study of British Muslim converts, added: “White Muslim converts are caught between two increasingly distant camps. Their best relationships remain with other converts, because of their shared experiences, while there is very little difference between the quality of their relationship with other Muslims or non-Muslims.
“My research also found converts came in two types: some are converts of convenience, who adopt the religion because of a life situation such as meeting a Muslim man, although the religion has little discernible impact on their day-to-day lives. For others it is a conversion of conviction where they feel a calling and embrace the religion robustly.
“That’s not to say the two are mutually exclusive – sometimes converts start out on their religious path through convenience and become converts of conviction later on.”
Another finding revealed by the Leicester study was that despite Western portraits of Islam casting it as oppressive to women, a quarter of female converts were attracted to the religion precisely because of thestatus it affords them.
Some analysts have argued that dizzying social and cultural upheavals in Britain over the past decades have meant that far from adopting an alien way of life, some female Muslim converts are re-embracing certain aspects of mid-20th-century Britain, such as rigid gender demarcation, rather than feeling expected to juggle career and family.
The first established Muslim communities started in Britain in the 1860s, when Yemani sailors and Somali labourers settled around the ports of London, Cardiff, Liverpool and Hull. Many married local women who converted to Islam, often suffering widespread discrimination as a result.
They also acted as a bridge between the two cultures, encouraging understanding among indigenous dwellers and helping to integrate the Muslim community they had joined. Today, there is growing recognition among community leaders that the latest generation of female converts has an equally vital role to play in fostering dialogue between an increasingly secular British majority and a minority religion, as misunderstood as it is vilified.
Kristiane Backer, 45
Television presenter and author, London
I converted to Islam in 1995 after Imran Khan introduced me to the faith. At the time I was a presenter for MTV. I used to have all the trappings of success, yet I felt an inner emptiness and somewhat dissatisfied in my life.
The entertainment industry is very much about “if you’ve got it, flaunt it”, which is the exact opposite to the more inward-oriented spiritual attitude of my new faith. My value system changed and God became the centre point of my life and what I was striving towards.
I recognise some new converts feel isolated but, despite there being even fewer resources when I converted than there are now, it isn’t so much an issue I’ve faced. I’ve always felt welcomed and embraced by the Muslims I met and developed a circle of friends and teachers. It helps living in London, because there is so much to engage in as part of the Muslim community. Yet, even in the capital you can be stared at on the Tube for wearing a headscarf. I usually don’t wear one in the West except when praying. I wear the scarf in front of my heart though!
I always try to explain to people that I’ve converted to Islam, not to any culture. Suppression of women, honour killings or forced marriages are all cultural aberrations, not Islamic ones. Islam is also about dignity and respect for yourself and your femininity. Even in the dating game, Muslim men are very respectful. Women are cherished as mothers, too – as a Muslim woman you are not expected to do it all.”
Amy Sall, 28
Retail assistant, Middlesbrough
I’d say I’m still a bit of a party animal – but I’m also a Muslim. I do go out on the town with the girls and I don’t normally wear my headscarf – I know I should do, but I like to do my hair and look nice! I know there are certain clothes I shouldn’t wear either, even things that just show off your arms, but I still do. My husband would like me to be a better Muslim – he thinks drinking is evil – so it does cause rows.
I haven’t worshipped in a mosque since I got married, I find it intimidating. I worry about doing something wrong; people whispering because they see my blonde hair and blue eyes. Middlesbrough is a difficult place to be a Muslim who isn’t Asian – you tend to be treated like an outsider. Once, I was out wearing my headscarf and a local man shouted abuse. It was weird because I’m white and he was white, but all he saw was the scarf, I suppose. It did make me angry. My family were surprisingly fine with me converting, probably because they thought it would rein me in from being a bit wild.
Nicola Penty-Alvarez, 26
Full-time mother, Uxbridge
I was always interested in philosophy and the meaning of life and when I came across Islam it all just clicked. In the space of four or five months I went from going to raves to wearing a headscarf, praying five times a day and generally being quite pious – I did occasionally smoke though.
I felt very welcomed into the Muslim community, but it was a mainly white convert community. My impression of the Asian community in west London was that women felt sidelined and were encouraged to stay at home and look after the men rather than attend mosque. I think this was more a cultural than religious thing, though.
Non-Muslims certainly treat you differently when you’re wearing a headscarf – they’re less friendly and as a smiley person I found that hard. After a year-and-a-half of being a Muslim I stopped. I remember the moment perfectly. I was in a beautiful mosque in Morocco praying beside an old lady and something just came over me. I thought: ‘What the hell am I doing? How have I got into this?’ It just suddenly didn’t feel right. Needless to say my husband, who was a fellow convert, wasn’t impressed. He remained devout and it put a lot of strain on our relationship. We split up, but are on amicable terms now. I’m not really in contact with the Muslim friends I made – we drifted apart.
I don’t regret the experience. There is so much that I learnt spiritually that I’ve kept and I haven’t gone back to my hard partying ways.
Donna Tunkara
Warehouse operative, Middlesbrough
I was a bit of a tearaway growing up – drinking, smoking, running away from home and being disrespectful to my parents. I converted 10 years ago because I met a Muslim man but I’ve probably become more devout than him.
Sometimes, I miss going shopping for clothes to hit the town and then going home and getting ready with my mates, having a laugh. The thing is no one is forcing me not to – it’s my choice.
It did come as a shock to my family, who are Christian. They’ve not rejected me, but they find it difficult to understand. I feel bad because I don’t now attend weddings, funerals or christenings because they’re often at pubs and clubs and I won’t step inside.
There needs to be more resources for women who convert. I know some mosques that won’t allow women in. But in the Koran there is an emphasis on women being educated. I’ve learnt about the religion through my husband’s family and books – if you want support you have to look for it. It’s taken time to regain an identity I’m comfortable with. Because I’m mixed race and a Muslim, people don’t see me as British – but what’s important is that I know who I am.
Responding to Zionist Propaganda, were they on the Land First?
Posted: October 18, 2011 Filed under: The News, Zionism 2 Comments »Media Reports that Anwar Awlaki ‘killed in Yemen’
Posted: October 1, 2011 Filed under: Islam, The News, Violent extremism 2 Comments »Yemen’s defence ministry has reported that Anwar al-Awlaki, a well-known and controversial imam with ties to al-Qaeda, was killed along with four others.
A government statement released to the media on Friday said the dual US-Yemeni citizen was hunted down by Yemeni forces, but did not elaborate on the circumstances of his death. Awlaki was wanted by both the US and Yemen.
He became more and more extreme in his views supporting the attempted airplane bomb plot during Christmas by Umar Farouk.
Why did he leave the clear teaching of Islam behind and advocate the killing of non-combatants?
Well, watch for yourself as he talks about it in his interview with Al Qaeda http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrXYlehAStM
Martyrs’ funeral – Speech by Shaykh Muhammad Al-Yaqoubi
Posted: August 19, 2011 Filed under: Islam, The News, Videos Leave a comment »After the riots, the media sort the heroes from the villains…
Posted: August 12, 2011 Filed under: Islam, The News Leave a comment »and the no.1 media hero is…a Muslim: Tariq Jahan
“I am a Muslim. I believe in divine fate and destiny, and it was his destiny and his fate, and now he’s gone. And may Allah forgive him and bless him,” Jahan said of his 21-year-old son, Haroon, who was deliberately mown down by louts in a car, along with two of his friends.
According to today’s Guardian: ‘Jahan’s faith gives him an explanation, comfort and the strength to come out to face the cameras – probably his first such experience – and say all the right things in his grief. Amazing.’
Robert Spencer’s hate ideology – a conveyor belt to terrorism?
Posted: July 25, 2011 Filed under: Christian extremism, The News, Violent extremism Leave a comment »The notorious anti-Islam hater Robert Spencer was named by the Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik as an intellectual influence on his thinking. The public need to know if Robert Spencer’s ideology is, for some, a conveyor belt to terrorism.
From today’s Guardian:
The American anti-Muslim agitator Robert Spencer was namechecked when Breivik listed his intellectual influences on Dokument.no, along with a pseudonymous Norwegian who calls himself Fjordman and the equally pseudonymous Bat Ye’or, who invented the Eurabia conspiracy. Spencer, along with his sidekick, Pamela Geller, was responsible for the campaign against the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”.
Obviously these people cannot be held responsible for the use to which their ideas were put. No matter how deranged a killer’s ideas, he still needs a deranged personality to put them into action. But anyone tempted to take them seriously should consider what were almost Breivik’s last words on Document.no: “For the last three years I have been working full time on a cultural conservative work which will help to develop and market these political ideas.”
That “cultural conservative work” was the PDF he mailed out as he set off on his murder spree.
Loonwatch.com comments:
When you preach bigotry and fear on a daily basis, don’t be surprised when one of your followers takes the next logical step. But Robert Spencer has a reason to feign surprise and indignation over what his hatred has incited, as the link between his hate-writing and this act of terrorism becomes clear: Richard Silverstein notes that the right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik cited Robert Spencer 46 times in his manifesto. He was clearly quite the fan. This certainly seems to be right-wing anti-Muslim terrorism inspired by the king of Islamophobia himself, Robert Spencer.
CNN exposes notable anti-Islam speaker, Walid Shoebat as a fraud
Posted: July 14, 2011 Filed under: Christian extremism, Islam, The News Leave a comment »‘Ex-terrorist’ rakes in homeland security bucks
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/15/video-terror-training-fraud-part-2/
Rapid City, South Dakota (CNN) — Walid Shoebat had a blunt message for the roughly 300 South Dakota police officers and sheriff’s deputies who gathered to hear him warn about the dangers of Islamic radicalism.
Terrorism and Islam are inseparable, he tells them. All U.S. mosques should be under scrutiny.
“All Islamic organizations in America should be the No. 1 enemy. All of them,” he says.
It’s a message Shoebat is selling based on his own background as a Palestinian-American convert to conservative Christianity. Born in the West Bank, the son of an American mother, he says he was a Palestinian Liberation Organization terrorist in his youth who helped firebomb an Israeli bank in Bethlehem and spent time in an Israeli jail.
That billing helps him land speaking engagements like a May event in Rapid City — a forum put on by the state Office of Homeland Security, which paid Shoebat $5,000 for the appearance. He’s a darling on the church and university lecture circuit, with his speeches, books and video sales bringing in $500,000-plus in 2009, according to tax records.
“Being an ex-terrorist myself is to understand the mindset of a terrorist,” Shoebat told CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.”
But CNN reporters in the United States, Israel and the Palestinian territories found no evidence that would support that biography. Neither Shoebat nor his business partner provided any proof of Shoebat’s involvement in terrorism, despite repeated requests.
Back in his hometown of Beit Sahour, outside Bethlehem, relatives say they can’t understand how Shoebat could turn so roundly on his family and his faith.
“I have never heard anything about Walid being a mujahedeen or a terrorist,” said Daood Shoebat, who says he is Walid Shoebat’s fourth cousin. “He claims this for his own personal reasons.”
CNN’s Jerusalem bureau went to great lengths trying to verify Shoebat’s story. The Tel Aviv headquarters of Bank Leumi had no record of a firebombing at its now-demolished Bethlehem branch. Israeli police had no record of the bombing, and the prison where Shoebat says he was held “for a few weeks” for inciting anti-Israel demonstrations says it has no record of him being incarcerated there either.
Shoebat says he was never charged because he was a U.S. citizen.
“I was born by an American mother,” he said. “The other conspirators in the act ended up in jail. I ended up released.”
He said his own family has vouched for his prison time. But relatives CNN spoke to described him as a “regular kid” who left home at 18, eventually becoming a computer programmer in the United States.
Shoebat, now in his 50s, says he converted to Christianity in 1993 and began spreading the word about the dangers of Islam. He has been interviewed as a terrorism expert on several television programs, including a handful of appearances on CNN and its sister network, HLN, in 2006 and 2007.
Since al Qaeda’s 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, expertise on terrorism has been in high demand. The federal Department of Homeland Security has spent nearly $40 million on counterterrorism training since 2006. The department doesn’t keep track of how much goes to speakers, nor does it advise officials on the speakers hired by states and municipalities.
Shoebat spoke at a 2010 conference in South Dakota and was so well-received that he was invited back for the May event in Rapid City, according to state officials. He warned the police and first responders gathered in the hotel conference rooms that the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah had operatives working in Mexico and that drug cartels were raising money with Islamic groups. He also asserted that federal agents could have prevented the 9/11 attacks by looking for a chafed spot, called “zabibah,” that sometimes forms on the foreheads of devout Muslims.
“You need ex-terrorists who can tell you what life is like and what thinking is like of potential terrorists,” Shoebat said. “But had we looked at the zabibah only, we would have deflected a suicide action of killing 3,000 Americans.”
But Shoebat also told the group there were 17 hijackers when there were 19. And perhaps more surprising from a man who bills himself as a terror expert, Shoebat said the Transportation Security Administration could have stopped them. The TSA wasn’t created until after the 9-11 attacks.
Jim Carpenter, South Dakota’s homeland security director, said Shoebat brought “a point of view that certainly is not mainstream.”
“He brings in commentary about living and being raised as a Muslim and converting over to Christianity — gives them a different aspect of breaking the mold, so to speak,” Carpenter said. But he said Shoebat’s appearance was “a small portion” of the two-and-a-half-day conference.
“It’s not like we’re talking about setting up training and a discipline we would follow, that this is the only way and that’s the particular point of view of a Muslim or somebody of the Islamic faith. That’s not the case,” Carpenter said. “That’s his point of view.”
Carpenter said there is “no fear of threat” from Islamic terrorism in South Dakota, where the last census reports showed the state’s Muslim community made up less than one-half of 1 percent of the population. According to Rapid City’s local newspaper, about two dozen Muslims live in the city.
During Shoebat’s presentation, he criticized Muslim organizations and told audience members to be leery of Muslim doctors, engineers, students and mosques.
“Now, we aren’t saying every single mosque is potential terrorist headquarters. But if you look at certain reports by the Hudson report, 80 percent of mosques they found pamphlets and education on jihad. So they’re in the mosque, the mosque in accordance to the Muslim brotherhood is the command post and center.”
The conservative Hudson Institute said it never issued such a report and has no idea why its name was invoked.
Shoebat warned that making special accommodations for Muslim beliefs was a step toward establishing Islamic religious law. And he recounted how he wore a T-shirt that read “Profile me” on a trip to the airport and approached the screeners at the security checkpoint.
“I got tapped down, I got checked, I got all these different things,” he said. “I say it’s wonderful.”
Shoebat and business partner Keith Davies run several foundations and three websites that are all linked. Shoebat said the major group, the Forum for Middle East Understanding, includes his own Walid Shoebat Foundation.
In tax records filed by Davies, the Forum for Middle East Understanding reported 2009 earnings from speaking engagements, videos and book sales of more than $560,000. The documents are thin on specifics, and so is Shoebat.
“Basically, we are in information, and we do speaking and we do also helping Christians that are being persecuted in countries like Pakistan, and we help Christians that are suffering all throughout the Middle East,” he said. Asked how they do that, he said, “None of your business” — adding that disclosing details could endanger people he was trying to help in Islamic countries that have laws against blasphemy.
Shoebat’s name doesn’t appear on any of the paperwork. As for his own salary, he said he makes “probably what a gas station makes or a garage makes.”
“Everybody thinks I’m just raking in the dough, which is absolutely incorrect,” he said. He referred details to Davies, who offered to provide a copy of the group’s tax returns — but didn’t. When asked who served on the foundation’s board of advisers, Davies gave “Anderson Cooper 360″ the name of a former pilot, who didn’t return phone calls. But he could not name the high-ranking military officers he said were on the board.
Federal officials say they don’t know exactly how much money has gone to speakers like Shoebat. But in April, the bipartisan leaders of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee raised concerns about “vitriolic diatribes” being delivered by “self-appointed counterterrorism experts” at similar seminars.
Sen. Susan Collins, the committee’s Republican chairwoman, and Connecticut Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman asked the department to account for how much federal grant money went to state and local counterterrorism programs and what standards guided those grants. The request followed reports by the liberal Political Research Associates and the Washington Monthly that raised similar questions.
The Homeland Security Department told CNN that it has standards — and if training programs don’t meet them, “corrective action will be taken.”
“We have not and will not tolerate training programs — or any DHS-supported program — that rely on racial or ethnic profiling,” the agency said in a written statement.
Acts 17 Apologetics ‘does not reflect a Christian spirit’
Posted: July 14, 2010 Filed under: Christian extremism, The News 1 Comment »Christian pastors say Acts 17 Apologetics has ‘brought shame to the name of Christ‘, and other government leaders in Dearborn (including the Mayor) condemn ‘Christian’ trouble-makers who stirred up trouble against Muslims recently.
Read the official Dearborn City Hall article here (and follow the links therein):
Arrests at Arab Fest a matter of public safety
Exposing David Wood: Of Mosques and Men, Pt. 1
Posted: June 24, 2010 Filed under: Christianity, The News, Videos Leave a comment »New article on loonwatch.com about the Muslim haters:
‘Loonwatch.com is a blogzine run by a motley group of hate-allergic bloggers to monitor and expose the web’s plethora of anti-Muslim loons, wackos, and conspiracy theorists.
While we find the sheer stupidity and outrageousness of the loons to be a source of invaluable comedy, we also recognize the seriousness of the danger they represent as dedicated hatemongers. And so, while our style reflects our bemusement, our content is fact checked and our sources well vetted making sure loonwatch.com is a reliable educational – if entertaining – resource on the rambunctious underworld of Muslim-bashing.’
Posted on 24 June 2010 by Garibaldi:
David Wood is a Christian apologist who attempts to save Muslim souls through his organization Acts 17 Apologetics and www.answeringmuslims.com. In the past Wood and his entourage, including ex-Ahmadi Muslim Nabeel Qureshi have targeted the Dearborn Arab Festival in Michigan for proselytism.
At the 2009 Arab Festival, David Wood made a controversial, and some claim one sided video that received over a million hits on YouTube which showed them getting kicked out of the festival. They claim that they were just engaged in free speech, whereas security at the festival stated that they were insulting and harassing festival goers.
Other Evangelical Christians criticized Wood and his group as being agitators….
Read the rest of this perceptive piece at the excellent www.loonwatch.com
Extremist Christians harass Muslims in Dearborn, are arrested by police
Posted: June 19, 2010 Filed under: The News, Violent extremism 41 Comments »Extremist Christians David Wood and Nabeel Qureshi, who organise hate campaigns against Muslims and Islam were thrown in jail last night after being arrested by Dearborn Police.
“We did make four arrests for disorderly conduct,” Dearborn Police Chief Ron Haddad said today. “They did cause a stir.”
Qureshi, a recent convert to Christianity, caused controversy last year after he and Wood produced a video posted on You Tube that shows them getting into a dispute with people and security at last year’s Arab festival. Local residents and city officials say the video was selectively edited and gave a slanted, negative view of Dearborn.
The group was criticized by the city and residents for aggressively putting video cameras in the faces of people at a festival that draws thousands of families over Father’s Day weekend.
The Free Press reported last year on the growing number of evangelical Christians targeting Dearborn to convert Muslims. Some Christians have criticized Wood and Qureshi for their behavior.
Wood and Qureshi, who repeatedly claim that Islam is violent, said they were being harassed.
But the Rev. Haytham Abi Haydar, a Christian evangelical convert with Arabic Alliance Church in Dearborn, said that Acts 17 Apologetics caused problems at last year’s Arab festival.
“They put cameras in their faces and were very antagonistic, ” Abi Haydar told the Free Press.
Read the full story here 4 arrested at Dearborn festival
Honour the Prophet Muhammad Campaign
Posted: April 30, 2010 Filed under: Atheism, Islam, MDI, The News 1 Comment »Join up!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=122422947769479&ref=ts
This is in response to Draw Muhammad day.
Mother kills two young children, leaves them in the car.
Posted: January 28, 2010 Filed under: The News Leave a comment »If a Muslim commited such a crime, the media would highlight the killer as being Muslim, and yet again Muslims would be demonized as some barbaric people. The story can be read on the following link:
Hunting for Jesus
Posted: January 19, 2010 Filed under: Christianity, The News 1 Comment »Everyone knows that the majority of American soldiers occupying and invading Afghanistan and Iraq are Christian soldiers. Here is a good insight into some of the Christian soldiers and what they do in the Muslim countries they invade:
You do have to love the irony when you hear Christians opening their mouths about the supposed Muslim threat, when the reality from the ground shows that it is Muslim countries that are being invaded by Christian soldiers, who go into Muslim countries, kill thousands of civillians, and then top it off by preaching about their bankrupt faith that is called Christianity. Off course the bigger irony to this is that many Christians (not all) will not have a problem with this, they will not view such acts as aggression and terrorism, nay, they actually support such things!
So the next time any Christian tries to play victim and talk about supposed Christian’s being oppressed by Muslims, be sure to remind them that their millitaries occupy and invade two Muslim countries, while shipping many other Muslims around secret prisons where they are tortured and humiliated, don’t ever let the Christians try and take the high moral ground, because they never did, nor shall they ever have it.
Killing you with Bible verses
Posted: January 19, 2010 Filed under: The News 1 Comment »It’s recently been found out that a weapons dealership company has been selling weapons to the U.S. millitary etched in Bible codes! Yes, that’s right, many of the weapons being sold off to the U.S millitary which are being used to kill thousands of innocent Muslims are splattered with Bible verse references. The story can be found on the following link:
http://rawstory.com/2010/01/bible-code-arms-christian-radio/
Devout Muslim Cabbie returns $21k
Posted: January 13, 2010 Filed under: The News Leave a comment »Oh those evil Muslims are at it again!
A Bangladeshi taxi driver in New York City has gone out of his way to track down the person who left thousands of dollars in cash in the back of his cab.
Mukul Asadujjaman, a medical student, drove nearly 80kms (50 miles) to an address he found with the money.
He left his phone number when he found no one at home. The money belonged to an Italian grandmother visiting the US.
Mr Asadujjaman was offered a reward, but he turned it down saying that as a devout Muslim he could not accept it.
Felicia Lettieri, of Pompeii, Italy, and six relatives had taken two cabs on Christmas Eve, Newsday newspaper reported.
Mrs Lettieri, 72, left her purse behind, with more than $21,000 of the group’s travelling money, jewellery worth thousands more, and some of their passports.
Her sister, Francesca Lettieri, 79, of Long Island, said the honest driver had saved her family’s vacation.
“We really love what he did,” she said.
‘Be honest’
A gracious Asadujjaman was quoted by the newspaper as saying that he may be broke, but he was also honest.
“My mother is my inspiration. She always said to be honest and work hard.”
Mr Asadujjaman called a friend with a car and drove some 80km to a Long Island address in the purse.
No one was at home, so he left his phone number and a note, the report said.
His phone rang a short time later and he drove back to return the bag.
“They were so, so, so happy,” Mr Asadujjaman told the paper.
Asked if he was tempted to keep the cash, Mr Asadujjaman said the money would have allowed him more time to study, “but my heart said this is not good”.
He also turned down a reward, saying he could not accept it as a devout Muslim, Newsday reported.
“I’m needy, but I’m not greedy,” he said. “It’s better to be honest.”
Mr Asadujjaman is not the first honest American-Bangladeshi cabbie to hit the headlines for noble behaviour.
In 2007, driver Osman Chowdhury returned a lost bag containing diamond rings worth $500,000 to the rightful owner.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8455897.stm
The faithful act commited by this Muslim stem from his Islamic values, hopefully that will be noted as well, as it seems that whenever Muslims do bad things, the religion is always brought into it, but when Muslims in the majority often do very good things, the religous aspect is completely ignored. All in all still a positive headline for once, this story is getting quite popular too, Islamophobes won’t be too happy about that.
Fox News, or Jesus Channel?
Posted: January 5, 2010 Filed under: The News Leave a comment »Fox News is supposed to be a fair and balanced cable news channel, yet you wouldn’t know it after watching this clip, who can trust this channel as being anything other than a right wing Christian fundamentalist channel coated in supposed objective journalism?
Drone Attacks leave over 700 Civillians dead
Posted: January 2, 2010 Filed under: The News Leave a comment »After a year of drone attacks inside Pakistan, the death toll stands at 708, the dead include women, and children as well.
Yet again we see the double standards, hypocrisy, and have to wonder what on earth none-Muslims are talking about when they want to attack Muslims as supposedly being the violent bloody terrorists who are always out there killing innocent civilians. None-Muslims certainly have no high moral ground to preach to Muslims, they never did, nor will they ever, and this latest report simply illustrates that yet again.
The report can be read here:
Don’t hold your breath for the western media establishment to take too much notice of this.
Christian Extremists Pray for Obama’s death
Posted: January 2, 2010 Filed under: The News 1 Comment »Imagine these were Muslims preaching this stuff in America, and imagine they made and turned it into a major campaign with t-shirts and stickers! Everyone would go nuts! Right wing Christian terrorists had two failed assassination attempts on Obama’s life during his presidential campaign, so this isn’t something minor, Christians have actively tried to kill Obama, and their now going to the Bible to openly pray for his death.
The Deaths of the Afghan School Children
Posted: December 30, 2009 Filed under: The News Leave a comment »With the recent attempted airline bombing, westerners have once again tried to take the moral high ground by pointing fingers at the Muslims, and calling Muslims a bunch of violent people, as if to say that westerners are the source we look to for the example of respecting human life and peace.
Yet most of these same westerners probably didn’t even know (or care) that several Afghan school children were recently killed by occupying NATO forces in Afghanistan this Sunday. Indeed the sad reality is that most people could care less when Afghani children die, it doesn’t matter, they were just a few peasant Muslim children living in the third world.
The report can be read on the following link:
And these are the people who later come pointing their fingers at Muslims.
