Monday, June 26, 2006
Islamists denounce âevilâ World Cup but cannot ignore it
By Habib Trabelsi
Some Islamists using the Internet describe the World Cup as a plot to corrupt and distract Muslim youth, yet many rejoiced in the defeat of Shia majority Iran
Long before the first football was kicked at the World Cup earlier this month in Germany, hardline Islamists were busily denouncing the massive competition as a corrupt show of Western influence.
But as the daily matches have gone on, Islamists using the Internet have shown they are not immune to World Cup fever, with some rejoicing in the defeat of Shia majority Iran and others lambasting the Saudi Arabian team for falling out of the finals. In advance of the tournament of 32 countries, which has now also seen Iran and Tunisia knocked out of the final rounds, one Islamist warned his fellow Muslims against âthis plot aiming to corrupt Muslim youth and distract them from jihad.â
Another called it a âcultural invasion worse than military war because it seizes the heart and soul of the Muslim.â
A Kuwaiti sheikh named Hamad al-Aali wrote in the âfatwasâ page of his website: âIt is illicit to watch these matches on corrupt television channels while our nation is decimated night and day by foreign armies.â
Armed with such religious edicts, some Islamists called for a boycott of the âProstitution Cup,â in reference to reports that several thousand sex workers were arriving in Germany for the event. âWhile our brothers in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan are being massacred in cold blood by the Crusaders and Jews, our young people will have their eyes riveted on depraved television sets which emit the opium of football to the extent of overdose,â wrote one Islamist who signed his name as Abu Haitham.
He named â12 vicesâ linked to the World Cup, particularly âidolatry of infidel playersâ and the âdistraction of Muslims from jihad.â
Militants close to the Al Qaeda militant network even posted a video of their own âWorld Cupâ on the Internet Friday.
The presentation showed scenes of the September 11, 2001 attacks against United States as well as footage of killing and torture in the Palestinian territories; the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
âAt a time when pro-Zionist Arab media are busy broadcasting the World Cup to divert Muslims away from their religion and from jihad... we offer you the three other cups which those media are trying to hide from our nation,â read an introduction to the footage.
Yet the flood of warnings has failed to sway all eyes from the matches, judging by the high volume of comments posted by Islamists in online World cup forums.
âI am an extremist, but I find no problem in watching the matches. Your calls to boycott the World Cup are doomed to fail,â wrote one man who signed his name Saad al-Wissi.
Even some who may have initially backed the idea of a boycott have been able to find ways to exult in triumph over the âcrusaders,â ârafidha (a pejorative term for Shiites)â and âapostates.â âPraise Allah! Omar, the Sunni, has crushed the radhifa,â wrote an Islamist who signed his name as Abu Hamza, the day after Shia-majority Iran lost to Mexico, 1-3.
He was alluding to the fact that two of Mexicoâs goals were scored by Omar Bravo, who despite his first name, is not of Arab origin.
And John Pantsil, a Ghanaian defender who plays his club football for Israeli side Hapoel Tel Aviv, was roundly insulted for having waved an Israeli flag as he celebrated his teamâs 2-0 win over the Czech Republic. But it was the Saudi team â the only Arab team besides Tunisia in the World Cup finals â which bore the brunt of the harshest criticism following its 0-4 loss to Ukraine last week.
âBillions of dollars spent on the âGreen Falconsâ have amounted to nothing. These colossal sums should have been devoted to the many Saudis who slave away day and night for a few riyals in the worldâs largest oil-producing country,â wrote Khaled al-Hani. âOur national team is a public disgrace,â wrote an Islamist named Bassel, proposing that no further mention be made of the teamâs avian mascot âbecause the falcon is a synonym for pride and joy.â
Saudi was bumped out of the tournament after Fridayâs loss to Spain. AFP
06-26-2006, 06:26 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-26-2006, 07:21 AM by dhu.)
speaking of world cup...
<img src='http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/6711/genimageaspx2bk.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/6/27/nation/14660015&sec=nation
<b>Incentives for marrying and converting orang asli</b>
KELANTAN will offer RM10,000 to each Muslim preacher who marries an orang asli woman and naturally converts her as part of renewed efforts to propagate Islam among the 3,000-odd community in the state.
State Religious Affairs committee chairman Hassan Mahamood (PAS â Tawang) said the same incentive was applicable if the preacher was a Muslim woman who took an orang asli husband.
Asked if the preacher may court the orang asli as a second or third wife, Hassan said it depended on the individual.
The latest figures show that in the<b> past five years, 2,904 of some 3,000 orang asli who reside in Gua Musang and Jeli districts, embraced Islam on their own free will.</b>
Hassan said the state government was unhappy with the conversion rate of the orang asli, who traditionally did not subscribe to any main religion.
Besides the monetary incentive, the preachers would also receive free accommodation, a four-wheel-drive vehicle and a fixed monthly allowance of RM1,000.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->After Londonistan
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/magazine...d&ex=1151380800<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Can Islam be democratic? </b>
Pioneer.com
Balbir K Punj
<b>Islam supercedes nationality</b>," says media mogul Rupert Murdoch.<b> "You have to be careful about Muslims who have a very strong, in many ways a fine but very strong religion, which supercedes any sense of nationalism wherever they go,"</b> he told Channel Nine. Mr Murdoch was present at a function in Sydney that described him as the most influential Australian of all times.
It was indeed a bold remark from the media baron, considering the fact that mainstream media is sickeningly "secular". Is this an indicator of things to come? The Western media showed guts, even if misplaced, by republishing the cartoons of Prophet Mohammed in various newspapers across Europe, Israel, Australia and New Zealand. According to confidential sources, Prophet Mohammed's cartoons were republished across newspapers to preempt a reaction from the Islamic world.
The Western intelligentsia is increasingly becoming aware of the danger that West (along with rest of the world) faces from Islam. Niall Fergusson and Mark Steyn anticipate civil war (like French riots last October) taking place in European cities as Muslim demography burgeons and European population senesces. European demography will be ill-prepared to meet an Islamic challenge in, say, 2020.
Mr Murdoch's comments found one instant critic. Australian Federation of Islamic Council's president Rahim Ghauri said that religion and nationality go hand in hand. "I am a Muslim, my religion is there, and nobody is there to stop me from praying five times a day and giving to charity," he said, adding, "At the same time I must be faithful and loyal to my country." He doubted Mr Murdoch's knowledge of Islam, except what he has got through his media's report. He has said that there should be no place for fundamentalism.
Mr Murdoch is no doubt Right-winger although he identifies himself as a libertarian. Once a supporter of Australian Labour Party, he switched preference to right-centrist Liberal Party of Australia in 1975. He was a friend of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. His papers supported President George Bush both in the 2000 and 2004 US elections. He is certainly no holy cow himself, and known for his partisan views in politics.
However, just as jihad is not merely an aberration but has its roots in Islamic theology, Mr Murdoch's suspicion that "Islam supercedes nationality" is not a new invention. People as diverse as Viceroy of India Lord Mayo, poet Rabindranath Tagore, freedom activist Lala Lajpat Rai, social reformer BR Ambedkar have often suspected the same. Pan-Islamist poet Allama Iqbal wrote, "Chino Arab Hamara, Hindostan hamara, Muslim hain hum, watan hain sara jahan hamara." These suspicions have a definite historical background, which had subsided from public view in the latter part of the 20th century when Islam had to scramble to fit itself in an altered world order. With that world order waning, Islam is threatening to stage its come back.
<b>"Are the Indian Musalmans bound by their religion to rebel against the Queen?" was a question that troubled Lord Mayo, the Viceroy of India. The British had discovered that ring leaders of the 1857 uprising were Muslims, and were still grappling with the Wahabi movement (1820s-1870s) that sought to re-impose an Islamic state in India. Its result was the book, The Indian Musalmans (1871) by William Hunter. In the subsequent year, Lord Mayo was stabbed to death by one Sher Mohammed while he was inspecting the Cellular Jail in the Andamans. Sher Ali, although his Wahabi affiliation could never be proved, had exclaimed that he had killed Lord Mayo for the sake of 'Muslims of India'</b>.
Lala Lajpat Rai (1865-1928), the icon of nationalism who believed in Hindu-Muslim unity, was greatly agonised after <b>1924 Kohat riots (NWFP) where the small Hindu community was savaged</b>. His sense of alarm grew after a reading of the Islamic religious texts, from which the Arya Samaj leader had steered cleared. In a letter to CR Das, Rai wrote, "There is one point more which has been troubling me very much of late and one which I want you to think carefully and that is the question of Hindu-Mohammedan unity. I have devoted most of my time during the last six months to study of Muslim history and Muslim law and I am inclined to think, it is neither possible nor practicable. Assuming and admitting the sincerity of the Mohammedan leaders in Non-cooperation movement, I think their religion provides an effective bar to anything of the kind... I do honestly and sincerely believe in the necessity of or desirability of Hindu-Muslim unity.<b> I am also prepared to trust the Muslim leaders, but what about the injunctions of the Quran and Hadis? The leaders cannot override them." (Quoted in BR Ambedkar's Pakistan or Partition of India)</b>
An assertive Islam is about to reorganise the world order as we know it. The Hamas, which one thought was Palestine-specific network, released a video recently as tribute to one of its leaders, Yasser Ghalban, who died in an internal battle between warring factions in Gaza. "We will rule the nations, by Allah's will, the US will be conquered, Israel will be conquered, Rome and Britain will be conquered..." pronounces a reclining Ghalban in the video, promising to "crush the Jews and expel them from our country Palestine". He further adds, "Just as the Jews ran from Gaza, the Americans will run from Iraq and Afghanistan... and the Indians will run from Kashmir."
Seen in this light, Mr Murdoch's assertion seems logical. Fundamentalist Muslims want to overrun all nations; turn them into Dar-ul-Islam. Veteran West Asia expert <b>Bernard Lewis says of Islam: "It is a political identity and allegiance, transcending all others. Always in the ideal, and for a while even in reality, the world of Islam was one polity ruled by one sovereign, the caliph..." (Islam and the West).</b>
The Muslim militia that took control of Mogadishu (Somalia) on June 6 last, have closed down the makeshift cinemas showing world cup soccer, forcibly cut young men's hair if they were more than an inch long, and banned the New Year celebration on penalty of death. Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, the radical cleric named to lead Muslim militia, wants an Islamic state ruled by Shariah.
Islam, it was felt after the abolition of Caliphate in 1924, subsumed into nationalism and ideologies like Communism. However, most Muslim countries remained impervious to democracy. Are we heading towards 'Islam versus rest' scenario?
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Thursday 29 June 2006
Imamâs hateful talk hurts Hindus
By RON BANERJEE (Toronto Sun)
Multicultural Canada is about to welcome British imam Sheik Riyadh ul Haq as a visitor so he can speak at a Toronto conference of Muslim youth this weekend. This Islamic cleric has made headlines for comments vilifying Jews and Hindus, among others, calling Hindus in particular the "chief idolators."
Islamist fanatics have used this type of reasoning to justify atrocities against Buddhists and Hindus through the ages. According to American historian William Durant, South Asia from 700 AD onwards suffered the worst genocide in history at the hands of Muslim invaders, with an estimated 80 million people slaughtered over seven centuries. This invasion was marked by the systematic destruction of an estimated 50,000 Hindu temples, as well as the enslavement and conversion of millions to Islam.
Conquerors used Hadith scripture, where Mohammed is quoted as saying that Allah shall protect the conquerors of India, as justification.
Clearly, unscrupulous usage of Koranic verses has been used to justify heinous acts. For example, Hindus use idols (as symbols) in worship; Islamic fanatics denounce this practice as "sinful idolatry" and use it to stir up hate.
Since 1947, the Islamic state of Pakistan has steadily reduced its Buddhist and Hindu minorities from 15% to less than 1% of the population. U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy in 1971 described the genocide of Hindus by Pakistani troops in East Pakistan: An estimated 2.4 million were slaughtered in one year.
Recently, Pakistan-backed Islamist terrorists in the Indian state of Kashmir have driven 400,000 Kashmiri Hindus into exile in refugee camps in other parts of India. This ethnic cleansing is being perpetrated by religious Islamic terrorist groups such as the LeT. These groups base their recruitment on Pakistani religious madrassas, where imams use scripture as a basis to stir anti-Hindu hate.
In Canada, news reports indicate that the 17 terrorist suspects arrested recently were allegedly using images of Hindu gods as target practice. In 1991, three members of the Pakistan-based group al-Fuqra were arrested while crossing from the U.S., allegedly planning to bomb Hindu temples in Toronto.
Hindus have been the community hardest hit by terrorism in Canada to date. Most of the casualties in the Air India terrorist bombing were Hindu. This attack, the worst in Canadaâs history, resulted in part from the indifference of Canadian authorities towards hate-spewing extremists entering the country.
The local Muslim community has asked for government funding to attempt to divert Canadian Muslim youth from the path of terrorism. It seems ironic that at the same time that this request is being made, Haq has been invited to address a youth conference hosted by the Islamic Foundation of Toronto.
As Canadians, we ought to consider whether we should allow Haq, who appears to support the same venomous ideology against Hindus that has historically inspired numerous atrocities, to enter our country. This should be viewed in the context of the record of oppression and genocide against Hindus in South Asia, past terrorist outrages against Hindus in Canada, as well as the current danger to Canadian Hindus.
http://www.judeoscope.ca/breve.php3?id_breve=1817<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And this is the kind of filth that these wretches spew about Canada and other non Muslims while living here in Canada like beggars:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Hateful chatter behind the veil
Key suspects' wives held radical views, Web postings reveal
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...y/National/home<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Especially notice the venomous hate of the Paki bitch "Farooqi". Too bad Canada is filled with liberal morons, if not those convicted in this case should be setenced to life long slavery in the Canadian version of gulag camps in the Canadian North, they can serve as slaves to the unfortunate Native Indians in Nunavut, people like these should be stripped of all their human rights if convicted.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English....420408&pa\
r=0
BANGLADESH: KUWAITI NGO FUNDING MILITANCY, SAYS GOVERNMENT
Dhaka, 30 June
(AKI/DAWN) - Four officials of a Kuwaiti non-governmental organisation, Revival
of Islamic Heritage Society, widely suspected to have channelled funds to
militant organisations, have been asked to leave Bangladesh by 31 July,
according to sources. The sources said intelligence agencies found evidence that
Heritage had channelled over 716,000 dollars to extremist organisations at home
and abroad.
The officials asked to leave the country were Sudanese Sajly Rifat Osman
Mohammad, Abbas Bao, Mohammad Ahmed, and a Yemeni national, Abdur Rahman. Sajly
Rifat is the assistant director-general of the group. The officials of the
Revival of Islamic Heritage Society had been under surveillance since last year.
Four Bangladeshi intelligence agencies â the Defence Forces Intelligence, the
Criminal Investigation Department, the Special Branch and the National Security
Intelligence â conducted an investigation into the clandestine activities of the
group and submitted a report to the prime ministerâs office last month.
The report said that the organisation had failed to give any satisfactory
explanation of how the money was spent.
The intelligence agencies also seized some documents in which they found that
Sajly Rifat Osman had channelled over 143,000 dollars to militants in Sudan
while 573,000 dollars was spent for militant outfits in Bangladesh.
On Thursday, a report on the Bosnian daily Nezavisne vovine, said that
investigators are probing the Bosnian branch of the humanitarian organisation
Revival of Islamic Heritage Society for possible terrorist links and financing
of an Islamic terrorist organisation. The report said that the group channelled
some 17.8 million dollars to its sister organisation in Bosnia between 1
January, 2002 and December 2005, and that the group did not have records on how the money was spent.
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<!--emo&:clapping--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/clap.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='clap.gif' /><!--endemo--> SC refuses to lift the ban on SIMI
Source: IANS.
New Delhi, July 6: The Supreme Court Thursday dismissed as withdrawn a petition filed by the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) seeking a direction to lift a five-year-old ban imposed on it by the central government.
A bench of judges Arijit Pasayat and Lokeshwar Singh Panta observed that since a tribunal was already looking into the matter, it would not like to interfere.
When the bench indicated that it would dismiss the petition, the counsel for the petitioner said he would withdraw the petition and it was dismissed as withdrawn.
The petitioner had challenged the ban order on the ground that no reasons were given to proscribe SIMI and the organisation had not been found indulging in any terrorist or antinational activities.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>ISLAMISM IS A VIABLE POLITICAL SYSTEM</b>
By: Kaleem Kawaja
In the last twenty-five years the Muslim world has witnessed a very significant increase in the appeal of Islamism among their people. The overthrow of monarchy and the emergence of the masses-based leadership of the ayatollahs in Iran; the demand for incorporating Sharia as the law of the land; the appeal to incorporate Nizam-e-mustafa in Muslim countries; the vehement opposition to Western military attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan among Muslims all over the world; the global Muslim backing to Iran in its effort to develop nuclear technology, indicates that this trend is proving to be a viable rallying point for mobilizing the Muslim masses.
<b>Muslims the world over do not form a homogenous community. Apart from differences in languages and cultures the class divisions and economic inequalities are wide and sharp. Islam is not an autonomous and independent category but only one of the many factors which shape the attitudes of Muslims wherever they may be.</b>
To understand the reasons for the resurgence of Islam as a political system in recent years one should review the background of the Muslim societies in the preceding decades, which may be surmised as follows.
Substantial economic gain in the middle-eastern countries due to increased oil revenues did not result in reducing socio-economic inequalities in Muslim societies.
The dispossessed and alienated classes in the Muslim societies who are in majority have chosen Islam as a vehicle to express their discontent. They feel that Western liberalism is opposed to the Islamic way of life. The assessment of a vocal majority in the Muslim world has resulted in the condemnation of past ideologies. The failure of socialism, Marxism, liberalism, Western capitalism in military, economic, political and social fields encouraged the search for a different ideological framework for political movements. The people of West Asia are returning to the all embracing ideology of Islam which once permeated all aspects of their lives and struggles.
The credibility of the Muslim champions of Western liberalism who criticize the Islamic ideology has plummeted in the Muslim world. In the absence of other channels mosques have become viable means of expression of the popular resentment of the masses against Western imposition of their culture in Muslim societies.
It is interesting to note that the content of Islamism differs from country to country. In Iran it was the basis for the struggle of the masses against monarchy. In Afghanistan it was first the basis for nationalism against the Soviet occupation and later a basis for restoring law and order. <b>In Pakistan it was first a tool for legitimizing the rule of the army junta and later a movement to restore democracy. </b>In Egypt it is an effort to promote democracy against an authoritarian government. In Saudi Arabia it is a plea for keeping the royal family in power. In Morocco and Tunisia it means the condemnation of modernism. In Turkey the conservative party leaders want to use Islam for partisan politics. In Sudan it is the basis for keeping the country from breaking apart under the strain of tribal rivalries.
The diverse application of Islamism brings up the need to understand the ideology of this movement. Based on the observations of various social scientists the following could be construed as the elements of Islamism.
<b>Islam is a comprehensive way of life and is integral to politics, state, law and society. Muslim societies have failed in recent times because they departed from the understanding of Islam and followed Western secular and materialistic values</b>.Islamic renewal calls for an Islamic political and social revolution that draws its inspiration from Quran and prophet Mohammad who led the first Islamic movement.
To establish Allahâs rule a Western inspired civil law must be replaced by the Islamic law which is the blueprint of a Muslim society. While the Westernization of Muslim societies is decried, modernization is not. Science and education are accepted but they are to be subordinate to Islam in order guard against the infiltration of Western social values. Establishing an Islamic system of government is not simply an alternative but an imperative.
That brings us to the inevitable question of the future of Islamism as a movement in Muslim societies. It is a grim reminder of the historical fact that Muslims are no longer in-charge of their own destiny. It is the realization that efforts to modernize and protect societyâs cohesion requires a serious re-examination of the Islamic heritage as a potential mode of action.
The term <b>Islamism suggests not a program but a style and above all a mindset</b>. The preoccupation of the critics of the Islamic movement with programs and solutions that leave the movement open to accusation of naiveté is misplaced. Even the most benighted rulers whether Muslim or not will usually respond to pragmatic concerns. Whatever one might think of the Islamic government of Iran, the heritage of Ali, Hasan, Husain, the Sharia and the Shia-Sunni theological conflict, it remains true that the rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran are managing a democratic state.
The fact that the rulers of<b> Iran are animated by Islamic convictions does not seem to be leading to the downfall of the regime in a situation where Western powers are openly targeting Iran with a well-planned hostile action from the outside and well orchestrated internal subversion</b>.
The fear of those who see in Islamâs resurgence some great revolt against modernity is mistaken. Whether Muslims respond to the Islamic message on the material level of class and social interest groups, or the ideal level of spirit and mind, nothing suggests that the crisis of identity which inspires the message is near an end. <b>For this reason it is most useful to view the Islamic revival movement not as a narrow and specific programmatic entity with discrete beginning and ending points, but as a broad endeavor which Muslims are pursuing as a necessary aspect of contending with the bad situation of Muslims in the contemporary world.</b>
There is no predictable conclusion to the movement. Whether it will bring joy to its adherents or it is another attempt to regain equal footing with the Western system is hard to say.<b> What we are more likely to see is the emergence of a heterogeneous multiplicity of social character within the world of Islam</b>.
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07-14-2006, 07:04 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-14-2006, 07:08 AM by Bharatvarsh.)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->ENGLAND: The day is coming when British Muslims form a state within a state
By Alasdair Palmer
The Telegraph Group
February 19, 2006
For the past two weeks, Patrick Sookhdeo has been canvassing the opinions of Muslim clerics in Britain on the row over the cartoons featuring images of Mohammed that were first published in Denmark and then reprinted in several other European countries.
"They think they have won the debate," he says with a sigh. "They believe that the British Government has capitulated to them, because it feared the consequences if it did not.
"The cartoons, you see, have not been published in this country, and the Government has been very critical of those countries in which they were published. To many of the Islamic clerics, that's a clear victory.
"It's confirmation of what they believe to be a familiar pattern: if spokesmen for British Muslims threaten what they call 'adverse consequences' - violence to the rest of us - then the British Government will cave in. I think it is a very dangerous precedent."
Dr Sookhdeo adds that he believes that "in a decade, you will see parts of English cities which are controlled by Muslim clerics and which follow, not the common law, but aspects of Muslim sharia law.
"It is already starting to happen - and unless the Government changes the way it treats the so-called leaders of the Islamic community, it will continue."
For someone with such strong and uncompromising views, Dr Sookhdeo is a surprisingly gentle and easy-going man. He speaks with authority on Islam, as it was his first faith: he was brought up as a Muslim in Guyana, the only English colony in South America, and attended a madrassa there.
"But Islamic instruction was very different in the 1950s, when I was at school," he says. "There was no talk of suicide bombing or indeed of violence of any kind. Islam was very peaceful."
Dr Sookhdeo's family emigrated to England when he was 10. In his early twenties, when he was at university, he converted to Christianity. "I had simply seen it as the white man's religion, the religion of the colonialists and the oppressors - in a very similar way, in fact, to the way that many Muslims see Christianity today.
" Leaving Islam was not easy. According to the literal interpretation of the Koran, the punishment for apostasy is death - and it actually is punished by death in some Middle Eastern states. "It wasn't quite like that here," he says, "although it was traumatic in some ways."
Dr Sookhdeo continued to study Islam, doing a PhD at London University on the religion. He is currently director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity. He also advises the Army on security issues related to Islam.
Several years ago, Dr Sookhdeo insisted that the next wave of radical Islam in Britain would involve suicide bombings in this country. His prediction was depressingly confirmed on 7/7 last year.
So his claim that, in the next decade, the Muslim community in Britain will not be integrated into mainstream British society, but will isolate itself to a much greater extent, carries weight behind it. Dr Sookhdeo has proved his prescience.
"The Government, and Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, are fundamentally deluded about the nature of Islam," he insists. "Tony Blair unintentionally revealed his ignorance when he said, in an effort to conciliate Muslims, that he had 'read through the Koran twice' and that he kept it by his bedside.
"He thought he was saying something which showed how seriously he took Islam. But most Muslims thought it was a joke, if not an insult. Because, of course, every Muslim knows that you cannot read the Koran through from cover to cover and understand it.
The chapters are not written to be read in that way. Indeed, after the first chapter, the chapters of the Koran are ordered according to their length, not according to their content or chronology: the longest chapters are first, the shorter ones are at the end.
"You need to know which passage was revealed at what period and in what time in order to be able to understand it - you cannot simply read it from beginning to end and expect to learn anything at all.
"That is one reason why it takes so long to be able to read and understand the Koran: the meaning of any part of it depends on a knowledge of its context - a context that is not in the Koran itself."
The Prime Minister's ignorance of Islam, Dr Sookhdeo contends, is of a piece with his unsuccessful attempts to conciliate it. And it does indeed seem as if the Government's policy towards radical Islam is based on the hope that if it makes concessions to its leaders, they will reciprocate and relations between fundamentalist Muslims and Tony Blair's Government will then turn into something resembling an ecumenical prayer meeting.
Dr Sookhdeo nods in vigorous agreement with that. "Yes - and it is a very big mistake. Look at what happened in the 1990s. The security services knew about Abu Hamza and the preachers like him. They knew that London was becoming the centre for Islamic terrorists. The police knew. The Government knew. Yet nothing was done.
"The whole approach towards Muslim militants was based on appeasement. 7/7 proved that that approach does not work - yet it is still being followed. For example, there is a book, The Noble Koran: a New Rendering of its Meaning in English, which is openly available in Muslim bookshops.
"It calls for the killing of Jews and Christians, and it sets out a strategy for killing the infidels and for warfare against them. The Government has done nothing whatever to interfere with the sale of that book.
"Why not? Government ministers have promised to punish religious hatred, to criminalise the glorification of terrorism, yet they do nothing about this book, which blatantly does both."
Perhaps the explanation is just that they do not take it seriously. "I fear that is exactly the problem," says Dr Sookhdeo. "The trouble is that Tony Blair and other ministers see Islam through the prism of their own secular outlook.
They simply do not realise how seriously Muslims take their religion. Islamic clerics regard themselves as locked in mortal combat with secularism.
"For example, one of the fundamental notions of a secular society is the moral importance of freedom, of individual choice. But in Islam, choice is not allowable: there cannot be free choice about whether to choose or reject any of the fundamental aspects of the religion, because they are all divinely ordained. God has laid down the law, and man must obey.
'Islamic clerics do not believe in a society in which Islam is one religion among others in a society ruled by basically non-religious laws. They believe it must be the dominant religion - and it is their aim to achieve this.
"That is why they do not believe in integration. In 1980, the Islamic Council of Europe laid out their strategy for the future - and the fundamental rule was never dilute your presence. That is to say, do not integrate.
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>"Rather, concentrate Muslim presence in a particular area until you are a majority in that area, so that the institutions of the local community come to reflect Islamic structures. The education system will be Islamic, the shops will serve only halal food, there will be no advertisements showing naked or semi-naked women, and so on."</span><span style='font-family:Impact'>[This is exactly what G.Sub keeps telling us about the formation of mini pakistans in India, notice the similarities] </span>
That plan, says Dr Sookhdeo, is being followed in Britain. "That is why you are seeing areas which are now almost totally Muslim. The next step will be pushing the Government to recognise sharia law for Muslim communities - which will be backed up by the claim that it is "racist" or "Islamophobic" or "violating the rights of Muslims" to deny them sharia law.
"There's already a Sharia Law Council for the UK. The Government has already started making concessions: it has changed the law so that there are sharia-compliant mortgages and sharia pensions.
"Some Muslims are now pressing to be allowed four wives: they say it is part of their religion. They claim that not being allowed four wives is a denial of their religious liberty. There are Muslim men in Britain who marry and divorce three women, then marry a fourth time - and stay married, in sharia law, to all four.
"The more fundamentalist clerics think that it is only a matter of time before they will persuade the Government to concede on the issue of sharia law. Given the Government's record of capitulating, you can see why they believe that."
Dr Sookhdeo's vision of a relentless battle between secular and Islamic Britain seems hard to reconcile with the co-operation that seems to mark the vast majority of the interactions between the two communities.
"Well, it isn't me who says Islam is at war with secularisation," he says. "That's how Islamic clerics describe the situation."
But isn't it true that most Muslims who live in theocratic states want to get out of them as quickly as possible and live in a secular country such as Britain or America? And that most Muslims who come to Britain adopt the values of a liberal, democratic, tolerant society, rather than insisting on the inflexible rules of their religion?
"You have to distinguish between ordinary Muslims and their self-appointed leaders," explains Dr Sookhdeo. "I agree that the best hope for our collective future is that the majority of Muslims who have grown up here have accepted the secular nature of the British state and society, the division between religion and politics, and the importance of allowing people to choose freely how they will live.
"But that is not how most of the clerics talk. And, more significantly, it is not how the 'community leaders' whom the Government has decided represent the Muslim community think either.
"Take, for example, Tariq Ramadan, whom the Government has appointed as an adviser because ministers think he is a 'community leader'. Ramadan sounds, in public, very moderate. But in reality, he has some very extreme views. He attacks liberal Muslims as 'Muslims without Islam'. He is affiliated to the violent and uncompromising Muslim Brotherhood.
"He calls the education in the state schools of the West 'aggression against the Islamic personality of the child'. He has said that 'the Muslim respects the laws of the country only if they do not contradict any Islamic principle'. He has added that 'compromising on principles is a sign of fear and weakness'."
So what's the answer? What should the Government be doing? "First, it should try to engage with the real Muslim majority, not with the self-appointed 'community leaders' who don't actually represent anyone: they have not been elected, and the vast majority of ordinary Muslims have nothing to do with them.
"Second, the Government should say no to faith-based schools, because they are a block to integration. There should be no compromise over education, or over English as the language of education. The policy of political multiculturalism should be reversed.
"The hope was that it would to ensure separate communities would soften at the edges and integrate. But the opposite has in fact happened: Islamic communities have hardened. There is much less integration than there was for the generation that arrived when I did. There will be much less in the future if the present trend continues.
"Finally, the Government should make it absolutely clear: we welcome diversity, we welcome different religions - but all of them have to accept the secular basis of British law and society. That is a non-negotiable condition of being here.
"If the Government does not do all of those things then I fear for the future, because Islamic communities within Britain will form a state within a state. Religion will occupy an ever-larger place in our collective political life. And, speaking as a religious man myself, I fear that outcome."
http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules...hp?storyid=3645<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Saudi textbooks preach intolerance, hate --
Despite post-9/11 policy change, children still taught to wage jihad
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13804825/
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->...In numerous statements, senior Saudi officials have specifically claimed that the kingdom has cleaned up all school textbooks (after 9-11).
"We eliminated what might be perceived as intolerance from old textbooks that were in our system," says Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.
Nina Shea's group â the Center for Religious Freedom â examined textbooks used during the past school year, and found the following teachings, which were verified by NBC News:
* Jews and Christians are "enemies" of Muslims.
* Every religion other than Islam is "false."
* "The hour [of Judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them."
"It's taught that Christians and Jews are the enemy of the Muslim," says Shea. "And that the Muslim must wage jihad in order to spread the faith in battle against the infidel."
What's more, an eighth grade text equates Jews with "apes" and Christian infidels with "swine." A tenth grade text teaches that the life of a Muslim is worth twice that of a non-Muslim.
"This is the ideological foundation for building tomorrows' terrorists," says Shea. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Banned cleric bids to flee Beirut
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Controversial Muslim cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed, who was banned from the UK, has attempted to board a ship evacuating Britons from Lebanon<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Will Islam reform? </b>
link
<i>All Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims; it is for the community leaders to identify jihadi elements amidst them, says François Gautier </i>
The Mumbai bombings have once again thrown up the same questions: Is it possible to have a dialogue with today's Islam? Does it listen to reason? Does plain logic work? Will it ever stop killing innocent people in the name of god?
<b>There is a Central Government that is blatantly pro-Muslim, making sure that more and more Muslims are appointed to top Government posts. It is endeavouring to carve a sizeable chunk of reservation for Muslims, as seen in Andhra Pradesh, and constantly pandering to India's Muslim minority</b>. The bombings also take place in Maharashtra, a State governed by the Congress, where many Muslims live and work, the financial capital whose prosperity benefits all, including Muslims.
The same illogical strain seems to have got hold of the Government, whether it is the BJP or the Congress in power. We keep hearing that blasts in Delhi, Varanasi or Mumbai, are the work of ISI or Bangladeshi extremists. But what they don't ask is whether it would be possible for these people to function unless they receive help and sympathy from local Muslims? And the question has to be asked again: Why should Indian Muslims go against their own Government, which has done so much for them since Independence? Why should Indian Muslims target India, a country where they have more freedom, than in Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia?
Every time, the Government comes out with the same litany, "these acts are meant to create communal violence, be peaceful, don't react." Which basically means, "You, Hindus (who are targeted), keep quiet and get killed. Who cares anyway?" And a few months later, another blast claims the lives of a more innocent Hindus. But how long will the Hindus keep quiet? This is the question that the Government must ask itself. Gujarat revealed - regardless of how reprehensible the acts of mass vengeance were - that Hindus keep quiet for a long time, but when they get riled, are made fun of, are despised, their women raped, men killed, and children burnt in trains, then they blow up and blow up badly. Riots don't erupt in a few days; they are the fruits of decades, of generations even, of suppressed anger, of frustration, of a silent majority which sees it more and more marginalised and taken for granted.
Yes, we do occasionally come across wonderful Muslims, open, friendly, who have somehow preserved the knowledge that all religions are same, that Islam in India owes a lot to tolerance of Indians, that Hinduism, yoga, meditation and pranayam are India's gifts to the world and can be practiced by Muslims, Christians and Hindus alike. I have personally met quite a few of them, within the Art of Living family. But they are exceptions and even those educated Muslims, whom you can talk to, will never say the Quran is in need of revision.
So will Islam change? Because the problem is not with Muslims, it is with their text, the Quran. Will Islam, instead of feeling totally paranoiac, thinking that it is under attack everywhere, whether in Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir, or France, realise that it is Islam that is the aggressor all over the world? That Muslims who have settled in France or India, or the UK, have been sincerely accepted by these countries, giving them citizenship and the same rights as any French, Indian or German citizen, and yet there are people amongst them disaffected and alienated enough to blow up innocent people? Are Muslims actually biting the hand that feeds them? Will the mullahs of Islam accept to sit down and update the Quran, a perfectly acceptable scripture for the Middle Age, when mentalities were very different, but hardly appropriate in today's context?
This is what we all are hoping for and most Western leaders secretly crave for, when they go out of their way to praise and favour moderate Muslims of their country. This is what spiritual leaders like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar are attempting, with a certain amount of success, by speaking to Muslim leaders, fostering ties in Muslim countries such as Iraq or Afghanistan, or reforming Kashmiri terrorists through meditation.
Unfortunately, time is running out. Muslims in India and elsewhere in the world do not understand that we are slowly losing our innocence. At the moment, ordinary Muslims still benefit from public and media sympathy, which constantly negate Islamist fundamentalism. The Western media, for instance, had made a hero out of Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who was killed recently. He had organised the gruesome massacre of hundreds of children in Beslan, a villain for Vladimir Putin. The same media has made a monster out of George Bush. But these people are slowly losing that sympathy. Sooner or later, nearly the entire world outside the pale of Islam might end up waging war against jihadist Islam.
There may also come a time when people will become wary of anything Islamic. Anyone looking Muslim in appearance, in an aeroplane, on a train, in a shopping mall, will be looked at with suspicion. Anybody with a Muslim name will have problems entering any country. Those who have Muslim friends will quietly stop seeing them or find some excuses not to meet them. It is already happening. Then, governments will clamp down hard on their Muslim populations; there might be restrictions put on them.
Entire families may have to move out of Muslim enclaves all over the world, to resettle elsewhere. Muslims will slowly lose faith in the righteousness and the power of their own religion. It may take a few decades, a hundred years even, but Islam will surely disappear into the alleys of history if it doesn't change, if it is too fearful of reform.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/jul/24inter.htm
<b>'My country doesn't deserve this'</b>
The Rediff Interview | Criminal lawyer Niteen V Pradhan
<b>Group files complaint against Miss Indonesia</b> <!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->JAKARTA (Reuters) - A militant Islamic group has filed a police report against Indonesia's    Miss Universe candidate accusing her of indecency, a lawyer for the organization said Tuesday.
<b>Nadine Chandrawinata's participation in the contest and display of her body in a swimsuit there "is actually insulting for Indonesian dignity and women,"</b> Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) attorney Sugito told Reuters.
Chandrawinata did not make it to the finals of the Sunday competition in Los Angeles, which was won by Miss Puerto Rico, but she had drawn heavy media coverage in Indonesia, partly because of her mixed Indonesian-German parentage and Eurasian looks
................<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>`No mass conversion of Hindus to Islam'</b>
Special Correspondent
Communal feelings being whipped up by politicians: Asgar Ali Engineer
Asgar Ali Engineer
GULBARGA: There is no basis to the claims of forced mass conversion and its relation to communal tension in the country, Asgar Ali Engineer, director of Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, has said.
He was delivering the keynote address at a workshop on communal harmony organised by Department of Social Work of the Gulbarga University; Walchand College of Social Work, Solapur; and Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, Mumbai at Ambedkar Hall on Gulbarga University main campus.
Dr. Engineer said that historical facts proved that there was no forced mass conversion of Hindus into Islam and that conversion to Islam was not related to communal tension. Communal feelings were being whipped up by politicians, he said.
Islam did not come to India through Muslim invaders, but through trade. It had first come to the Malabar coast through Arab traders.
The spread of the religion had been mainly because of the spiritual influence of the Sufi saints.
It were the teachings and works of these saints that enabled a section of the Hindus to convert to Islam, he said. Religion was a personal affair and no amount of coercion would make anybody convert to any religion.
It was true that more than 90 per cent of Muslims in India were converts and most of them were from the oppressed sections. Nobody from the upper castes had converted to Islam, he said.
Dr. Engineer said that some vested interests in politics had cleverly mixed religion with politics and divided people along communal lines for garnering votes. Those who sought vote in the name of religion should be rejected, he said.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Dr. Engineer said that historical facts proved that there was no forced mass conversion of Hindus into Islam <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This criminal SOB is supposed to be a moderate, he even justifies Tippu Sultan's brutal atrocities on Hindus here:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->SCANDALOUS TELE-SERIAL ON TIPU SULTAN
PRAKASH CHANDRA ASDHIR
"Should a serial on Tipu be telecast?" - this question deserves the attention of every Hindu.
The points made out by a progressive Muslim, Asghar Ali Engineer, in support of the telecast of the serial, 'The Sword of Tipu Sultan", are really very interesting. He bluntly states, "The Sword of Tipu Sultan may be a historical novel, and the story may be somewhat different from actual history. After all, the author is at liberty to portray the characters as he wishes and tell his story in any fashion - to depict the central figure (Tipu) in a positive or romantic or negative light. And in this case, if the writer, Bhagwan Gidwani, has chosen to ignore or underplay some of the more unpleasant aspects of the ruler and the regime, he is well within his rights as a writer of fiction to do so. He cannot be condemned even if he has restricted his research to buttress his view of Tipu."
We would request Shri Engineer that, in this paragraph, he may substitute Satanic Verses for The Sword of Tipu Sultan, "Prophet Muhammad" for "Tipu" and "Salman Rushdie", for "Bhagwan Gidwani", and tell us how does it appeal to his secular mind. History has to be based on facts, howsoever unpalatable they may be. It cannot be converted into fiction because it is then nothing but distortion.
Shri Engineer declares, "No, Tipu was not a religious fanatic. He was a ruler, first and last." Agreed. Similarly, Salman Rushdie is not a religious fanatic. He is a writer, first and last. Then, why was there a ban on Satanic Verses, a fictional novel of Salman Rushdie, in this country?
The other point which Shri Asghar Ali Engineer has made out about Tipu Sultan deserves the attention of all Indians in general and the Government of India in particular. He states, "No, Tipu was not a religious fanatic. He was a ruler, first and last. And whatever he did, he did to consolidate his rule. If he did humiliate and carry out some atrocities against the Nairs in Kerala, he did it to crush the Nair rebellion that had gained strength as the community was bitterly opposed to Tipu establishing his rule in its territory. He did forcibly convert hundreds of Nairs and other Hindus in Kerala to Islam. But he did this to punish them for rebelling against his supremacy - and changing their religion was the most severe punishment he could inflict on the rebels."
Let this historical finding of this Muslim intellectual be accepted and applied in Kashmir where there is a rebellion now. As a severe punishment to the rebel Muslims, they should be converted to Hinduism and those who refuse to embrace Hinduism should be dealt with as Tipu Sultan dealt with the Hindu rebels. Why should India not be equally ruthless in dealing with these people who are challenging the authority of the Government? After all, such an action of the present Government to convert these Muslims to Hinduism, as per Shri Engineer's logic, will not be out of any bigotry or for the simplistic reason that they are Muslims but because they are challenging the territorial integrity of the country and want to overthrow a Government duly established by law. The "same practical politics" which Tipu Sultan applied against the Hindus in the South should now be applied in Kashmir. Shri Engineer should be glad to accept his appointment as General of such a Conversion Brigade for action in Kashmir.
Shri Engineer should know that mere fighting against the British cannot make a person nationalist. Neither can appointment of a few Hindus to some senior posts make a religious bigot a secular and benign ruler. After all, in all times, the rulers always make use of the services of those people who are willing to serve their cause. Such people get no regard, nor can they make the usurpers, invaders and tyrants secular, or benign, or nationalist. Were there no Hindus and Muslims and people of other communities who were serving the cause of British Imperialism in this country? Will it make the British rulers nationalists in this country?
If the present Government wants to establish its secular credentials by allowing the telecast of Tipu Sultan by getting its clearance through the pliable and obliging Marxist Hindu or Muslim historians (of JNU/Aligarh/Islamia variety) for the purpose of record, then it should first of all lift the ban on The Satanic Verses, a fictional novel of Salman Rushdie, and telecast a serial based on this novel. If the Government cannot swallow it, then it should not only ban the serial "The Sword of Tipu Sultan", but also bum the book on which it is based. The Government should also seriously consider applying in Kashmir the methods of "practical politics" of Tipu Sultan as commanded by Mr. Engineer, in order to deal with the rebellion there.
The secularist tribe in this country must realise that no useful purpose will be served by putting secular garbs on these barbaric rulers who were only usurpers. Such actions only revive the centuries-old wounds and embitter the relations between Hindus and Muslims. The whole exercise, it should be realised, runs against the process of National Integration envisaged by the Government and the people of this country. Ghaznavis, Ghuris, Baburs, Aurangzebs, Hyder Alis and Tipu Sultans can only carry the coffin of secularism and nothing more. Let the souls of these tyrants lie in their graves and be raised only on the day of 'Qiamat' (Doomsday) when Allah will put them on trial for their crimes against humanity.
Organiser, March 4, 1990
http://www.voiceofdharma.com/books/tipu/ch05.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There is no moderate Muslim.
When they are alone/single they are fine, as soon as they are in group, one can see worst from same people. They have mob mentalilty.
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