Harry's Place

An excellent post that should be read by all those clowns who assume that to protest against the true intent or the presence of anything other than the benign intent of Islam, ‘Religion of Peace’ should be branded racist, bigoted, islamophobic or whaterver.

Nothing hurts like the truth; there are none so remotely blind as those who will not see.

You shouldn’t forget the role Gulf oil producers have played in spreading both nationalist and religious radicalism throughout the Muslim world – particularly the Middle East – and the West, as early as the 1930’s.

Great Article – These Islamist front organisations in the UK need to be exposed.

As well being very keen on wife beating and sex with minors (references can be supplied) He had this to say about sex slaves:

“Even today, the government must distribute the women war captives among Muslim soldiers and the soldiers should “use” them. This rule will apply to women regardless of whether they belong to the People of the Book, or any other religion”

Vol 1 Pg 340 Tafirul Quran

Oh dear.

And the government think the MCB can help them deal with extremism!!!!

Is it the implication that Islam was a good neighbor religion before this man wrote his books? What exactly did he change about Islam?

The dude wrote 120 books. You can only be that prolific if you are really just writing the same book 120 times…

Think of England:

As your name suggests, you obviously don’t really know much about the great history of Islam. I think you’ll find that Islam was no more nor less a “good neighbor religion” than Christianity has been.

Surely the true founder of Islamism was the pedophile prophet?

“I think you’ll find that Islam was no more nor less a “good neighbor religion” than Christianity has been.”
Ha ha.

Lev: A couple of points. I know a bit more abut Islam than “my name” suggests. Not much mind you, but enough to form judgments. And, I’m not sure what you think my name means, but it hasn’t much to do with English history. I was being a little facetious in my comment above. The article seems to imply that Islam was just minding its own business when this guy came around and spoiled everything. I don’t believe that is the case.

Think of England:

Don’t quite know what you mean by you don’t believe that “Islam was just minding its own business when this guy came around…” Islam is not a person or monster that “minds it business”. It is a world religion, believed in and interpreted by billions of people around the world in billions of different, personal ways. It is no more or less monolithic than Christianity. If you’re referring to Islamic empires, or nations, which have invaded their neighbors, then fine — but they can’t possibly be worse than Christian (i.e. European) countries which enslaved and subjugated most of the globe for the last few centuries, until a couple of World Wars and Holocausts brought them to their senses — and to the EU. Have some historical perspective mate!

Lev: Oy!!

Is that a British “oy” or a Yiddish “oy”? See senses (1) and (2): http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=oy

Lev: Is it synecdoche or metonymy, when I said “Islam was just minding its own business.”? I always get them confused. Yes, we all, I’m sure, know that Islam is religion, not a person (unless it’s Youssef Islam or someone similarly named) or a monster (but there are those…). It’s not believed in by “billions” as there are approximately 1.2 billion Muslims, not billions. I am not enough of an Islamic expert to be able to compare the diversity of Muslims’ beliefs with Christians. Apart from the Sunni/Shia division, Islam, qua religion, does seem rather monolithic, at least from this outsider’s POV.

As for why Islamic countries or empires, can’t be worse than Christian (i.e, European) countries, I’m not sure why not? Logically? Factually? But how could one measure two large, temporally and geographically diverse phenomena.

Even though Faulkner reminded us that the past isn’t dead and not even past, I’m less worried these days about Christian imperialism than I am about Islam, be it a political/religous system or its practitioners.

My point, original point, was that Islam has always been aggressive and jihadist; it began as a violent, world-conquering political system and so it has remained; so I wondered what specifically Mr. Mawdudi added? What was new about his writings? Would Islam be any different if he hadn’t existed? If you sort of peak beneath my words’ literal meaning, you’d realize I was saying, “nothing.”

I guess I was using ” billions” as a metonymy.

The fact that you think Islam is monolithic betrays a total ignorance of the realities of the Muslim world. The average neighbors in Cairo, Istanbul or Beirut (these are places I’ve spent time in) don’t think alike — I can only imagine how diverse beliefs are in Jakarta, Urumqi or Mogadishu. Treating something called “Islam” as a monolithic belief system — or actually like some kind of character trait, which is how you seem to see it — is not racist as much as it is lazy thinking.

“My point, original point, was that Islam has always been aggressive and jihadist; it began as a violent, world-conquering political system and so it has remained”

This is total bollocks. Islam never expelled a single Jewish (or for that matter Christian) community. Sure they were dhimmis, but there were no mass expulsions or pogroms for at least 500 years under the Ottoman Empire. Not one. Compare that with the nice, civilized, “Christian”
city of Salzburg, Austria — which expelled the Jews no less than 17 times in the last 500 years — and you’ll see why your comments about “aggressive jihadist” Islam are such bullshit. Christians lived unmolested in Baghdad since the time of Christ — and it’s only the civil war caused by the retarded American invasion which finally forced them out.

Remember, it was the Christians that launched 9 to 12 crusades against the Muslims — not the other way around. I ain’t defending ‘em I’m just trying to show that you no better!

Actually, I am defending ‘em.

Oy, and this is in the Oy, vey iz mir kind of oy. Your blinders regarding Islam are truly amazing! Where do you buy them? Could use them for the next eclipse. Sadly, my life is way too short to go over each and every point of ignorance and in any case I’m sure that if I say X you’ll just say, yes, X, but Y was worse, or X but it wasn’t so bad, etc.

There were many pogroms during the middle ages in the Islamic world (i.e., attacks on Jews; many quite vicious). I believe Maimonides wrote about them, wasn’t that the reason he fled from Spain? There were horrific attacks on Jews in Baghdad in the 1920s, in Hebron in 1929; and many many before them. Anti-Jewish attacks go back to Mohammed and of course, the Koran, which basically directs such attacks.

Lev, you live in an alternate universe. I hope you remain happy in it. And, frankly, that you lived in Cairo or Beirut means absolutely nothing when discussing history. Oh yes, speaking of Cairo, where did all those Jews go?

And, talking about Salzburg, anyone know how Haifa are doing tonight.

Lev, have you not realised that for people like “Think of England” historical accuracy has never got in the way of blinkered opinion?

This is how it works for those of his ilk.

Islam emerged fully formed, has not changed in hundreds of years and receives its “authentic” expression in the writings of loonies.

Indeed, it makes creationistesque styles of thinking appear almost liberal.

Oy, and this is in the Oy, vey iz mir kind of oy. Your blinders regarding Islam are truly amazing! Where do you buy them? Could use them for the next eclipse. Sadly, my life is way too short to go over each and every point of ignorance and in any case I’m sure that if I say X you’ll just say, yes, X, but Y was worse, or X but it wasn’t so bad, etc.

There were many pogroms during the middle ages in the Islamic world (i.e., attacks on Jews; many quite vicious). I believe Maimonides wrote about them, wasn’t that the reason he fled from Spain? There were horrific attacks on Jews in Baghdad in the 1920s, in Hebron in 1929; and many many before them. Anti-Jewish attacks go back to Mohammed and of course, the Koran, which basically directs such attacks.

Lev, you live in an alternate universe. I hope you remain happy in it. And, frankly, that you lived in Cairo or Beirut means absolutely nothing when discussing history. Oh yes, speaking of Cairo, where did all those Jews go?

As for the Crusades, not to defend them (I am not a student of European history), but exactly how did the Muslims take over Jerusalem? Through good deeds? And what happened to the Jews who lived there?

Ha ha,
“Where did all the Jews go”. I love the fact that the oh so knowledgable cannot tell any difference between Islam, Arab Nationalism, Pan-Arab Nationalism, etc. nor the historical context in which such acts of expulsion/ethnic cleansing took place.

If its Arab it must be “Islam”!

Normally, one would be embarassed to show the extent of one’s stupidity, but, for someone who “thinks of England”, I am not that surprised.

Well,this one has gone of the point quicker than most articles here. There was abranch of Jamat that was opposed to the independence of Bangladesh and which was involved in the murders of nationalists in 1971. Some of its leaders are still wanted as war criminals and are involved in IFE and the leadership of Tower Hamlets Labour Party.

The last is one of the reasons why the selection of all councillors for next years elections in that borough has been taken out of the hands of the local party and is now being done by the London Labour Party.

Millions of pounds of public money including most of the PVE funding has been diverted to IFE funded groups. The situation is developing dialy and I will be back tomorrow with more news.

“I believe Maimonides wrote about them, wasn’t that the reason he fled from Spain?”

Really man go back to shul. Maimonides left Spain — first to Majorca and the to Greece and Zion — not because of Muslim aggression but because of the Andalusian Expulsion perpetrated by those good Christians from Castille.

Ever heard of the Holocaust, buddy? That wasn’t perpetrated by Muslims.

And 1929 Hebron pogrom is way after the end of Ottoman “Muslim” rule of the Levant. In fact…the “Christian” British Empire allowed that pogrom to occur! Going by the historical record, it would never have occurred under the Ottoman Turks. Because it never did. So you can thank your British Christian “oy” mates for that. You have not rebutted my argument at all. You hate Muslims. But they are positively pacifist compare to your Christian buddies.

Frankly, by my count, more Jews were killed in 1943-44 by “Christians” in Eastern Europe than in the entire history of the Jews living for 1300 years in the heart of the Ummah. Historical perspective please! Or do i have to spell that out in Cockney/Yiddish?!

This is total bollocks. Islam never expelled a single Jewish (or for that matter Christian) community. Sure they were dhimmis, but there were no mass expulsions or pogroms for at least 500 years under the Ottoman Empire. Not one.

I agree fully with your point that Islam is not a monolith, but the above statement with regards to the Ottoman Empire not expelling dhimmis is not true.

See the history of Jaffa-Yaffo under the Ottomans or the history of Salonika and consider the plight of the Armenians. See this NY Times article from 1917 for starters: http://tinyurl.com/mej4uz

Exactly as I said, I say X and you say X wasn’t so bad; anyway, there’s Y.

Lev, you need to read up on things again. Maimonides didn’t flee Christian Cordoba or Christianity at all. Up to about the 1100s, i.e, from 770 to 1000, when the Umayyads ruled, they were relatively tolerant and apart from the occasional pogrom and their dhimmi status, Jews were OK, at least comparatively. However, all that ended in 1148 when the Almohades, who were like our modern day Taliban, invaded. They destroyed much of the physical Umayyad presence as they could and were quite vicious toward Jews. It was from them that Maimonides fled to North Africa and eventually to Egypt.

Lbnaz:

You’re completely right. However, I’d argue that the genocide of the Armenians in Anatolia (+ Syria) was no more an “Islamic” phenomenon than the genocide of the Jews in Europe (+ Tunisia) was a “Christian” phenomenon. The massacres of Armenians were carried out by extreme Turkish nationalists — ditto for the Holocaust, carried ut by German nationalists.

Which backs-up to my argument that just as you cannot blame all self-described Christians for the persecution and destruction of the Jews in 20th century Europe, so you can’t blame all self-described Muslims for Terrorism and Jihad nowadays. It’s lazy thinking to do so. Mine is a simple argument really: hold individuals responsible; not religions or nations.

Bungler is on record as being a big fan of Mawdudi. Speaks volumes, I think

Wikipedia won’t save you, Think of England. Maimonides himself writes that he was fleeing the Inquisition. Think again, haver sheli…

,i>Ever heard of the Holocaust, buddy? That wasn’t perpetrated by Muslims.

No, just supported and contributed to by Muslims.

Raziq’s blogging on Mawdudi misses the point by five light years. Mawdudi was only being true to Islamic teachings, to fiq, to Hadith and Qur’anic authority – to the life and teachings of the founding prophet of Islam – Mohammed himself. What did Mawdudi say about infidels, Jews and women, jihad itself that Mo didn’t? Oh I forgot I’m not allowed to point out the obvious, it makes me a bigot. Sigh.

Lev, I was not taking issue with your argument that all self-described Muslims can not be responsible for the actions of an Islamic state or empire. I was taking issue with your earlier mistaken claim that for 500 years under the Ottomans there were no mass expulsions or pogroms, which in light of your comment @ 8:31, I assume you’re now retracting.

And incidentally bringing up the Holocaust, the Inquisition etc does not change the facts about Islam and its core teachings, and the life of Mohammed. It’s called a red herring. It does help to explain though why so many in the West, of European heritage, are keen to give support to Islamists when it comes to the war against the Jews – a shared heritage of Jew-hatred and authoritarianism.

Larry Moonsong:

Let me ask you: What’s the first ancient book to recognize Jerusalem as the city of the Second Temple? The Koran. What’s the first ancient book to recognize the Jewish right to Zion? The Koran.

Don’t buy in to the lazy, literalist, idiotic rhetoric of the Islamists.

And please, don’t lecture us infidels about bigotry, antisemitism and intolerance. Such things constitute the very essence of european thought — what we Jews have been putting up with for ages. Do you think we will just forget this evil & bigoted history of Western European thought because of a few Islamist terrorist attacks? We don’t.

Lbnaz: “which in light of your comment @ 8:31, I assume you’re now retracting.”

Yes. I am retracting those comments.

Let me ask you: What’s the first ancient book to recognize Jerusalem as the city of the Second Temple? The Koran. What’s the first ancient book to recognize the Jewish right to Zion? The Koran.

I have been pointing-out to Muslim bloggers for years that their denial of The Jewish Nation’s rights to Israel is an act of apostacy since its recorded in The Koran. Similarly, the Jewish claim to Jerusalem trumps the Islamic claims by a mrgin of 13 tricks to none.

When they argue back with “The Chosen People” as an attempt of denigrating Jews for some implied arrogance I point out that Allah ‘chose them’.

Why are so many Muslims happy with their apostacy?

Some Islamic scholars have pointed-out, from the perspective of Allah being real, that the failures of Arab nations to conquer Israel is due to them going against the will of Allah. ie Allah on the side of Jews and not Muslims.

Of course, they don’t like that.

great post

And to answer the rhetorical question that thinks it cant be given a credible reply;

What did Mawdud change about Islam?

Everything though the conceit was and is that nothing at all has chnged.

He turned Islam from a traditional Abrahamic religion, replete with its political and territorial conquests, advancements and retrenchment, into a modernist totalitarian Poltical ideology with a modernist vanguardist program of action.

The principle radical transformation of Mawdud was to transform the concept of Jahiliyya, a Quranic term referring to the pre-Islamic era of ignorance, with all the resonnance of ‘Roman times’ or ‘olden days’ into a state of modern dystopia, related to the Durkheimian ‘anomie’ or the marxist ‘alienation’.

Thus Jahiliyya became a sickness of modernity a malaise of humanity, that could only be cured by a world revolution of Political Islam.

A simple analogy is to see Mawdud as Political Islam’s Marx, Qutb is its Lennin and the Ayatollah Khomeini it’s Stalin.

So radical and transformatory has the concept of Jahiliyya been that it has left the confines of ideologically overt revolutionary islamism to become a comonplace of the thought and vocabulary of modern political Islam.

Indeed so widespread has this concept become that a term that once meant little more than the ‘time of the Dinosaurs’ has now become a repository of all that is wrong in the modern world a ‘bad’ unislamic ‘anything’ that must be fixed by a good Islamic ‘everything’.

Jahiliyaa has become for the politically active Muslim who may well not consider themselves, or be considered by others, a catch all term for all that is wrong with an unislamic life.

However anyone who considers that the ‘cure’ for Jahilliyaa is to be moreIislamic, to reconfigure personal, social and political life to better reflect an Islamic understanding of society has supped from one of the tributaries of Mawdud

sorry the above should read;

‘….who may well not consider themselves, or be considered by others, [AN ISLAMIST, IT IS A ..] ‘

Lev, your reply to me is a red herring. Much of it made no sense, esp this:

“And please, don’t lecture us infidels about bigotry, antisemitism and intolerance. Such things constitute the very essence of european thought — what we Jews have been putting up with for ages”

duh. What do you think I MEANT when I wrote this above:
It does help to explain [referring to the Holocaust and Inquisition] though why so many in the West, of European heritage, are keen to give support to Islamists when it comes to the war against the Jews – a shared heritage of Jew-hatred and authoritarianism.

Talk about straw man silliness by Lev.

Lev you buy into lazy idiotic rhetoric that is nothing but apologetics for Islam. Blabbering on about Jersualem and the Qur’anic recognition of it doesn’t change the facts about Mohammed and his Jew-hatred and his mass murder of Jewry and his sending Jews into exile and slavery, and a lot more. You are either clueless in this regard Lev or just like the feel of sand in your ears, or both.

Denial is not a river in Egypt.

“I have been pointing-out to Muslim bloggers for years that their denial of The Jewish Nation’s rights to Israel is an act of apostacy since its recorded in The Koran.”

Yes, it is an act of apostasy according to a strict reading of the Koran. But most “readings” are merely a disgusting twisting of the original meaning of an author’s true meaning. Look at all the bastards who accuse Shakespeare of being Marlowe, or a woman, or gay or the Free Masons. Reading seems to spawn idiocy. Maybe Mikita Brottman is right…

“I have been pointing-out to Muslim bloggers for years that their denial of The Jewish Nation’s rights to Israel is an act of apostacy since its recorded in The Koran.”

Yes, it is an act of apostasy according to a strict reading of the Koran. But most “readings” are merely a disgusting twisting of the original meaning of an author’s true meaning. Look at all the bastards who accuse Shakespeare of being Marlowe, or a woman, or gay or the Free Masons. Reading seems to spawn idiocy. Maybe Mikita Brottman is right…

Moonsong:

I love red herring — actually the pinker they are the better.

My point is that your anti-Muslim bigotry only goes so far — actually not very far at all: what do you know about the “core teachings, and the life of Mohammed”? Definitely, not much. Or else you would have never put it in that stupidly unfair, and even destructive, way. As Mohammed says, “there are those who want, and those who do.” I guess you fall in the first category.

Moonsong:

I love red herring — actually the pinker they are the better.

My point is that your anti-Muslim bigotry only goes so far — actually not very far at all: what do you know about the “core teachings, and the life of Mohammed”? Definitely, not much. Or else you would have never put it in that stupidly unfair, and even destructive, way. As Mohammed says, “there are those who want, and those who do.” I guess you fall in the first category.

Moonsong:

I love red herring — actually the pinker they are the better.

My point is that your anti-Muslim bigotry only goes so far — actually not very far at all: what do you know about the “core teachings, and the life of Mohammed”? Definitely, not much. Or else you would have never put it in that stupidly unfair, and even destructive, way. As Mohammed says, “there are those who want, and those who do.” I guess you fall in the first category.

Moonsong:

I love red herring — actually the pinker they are the better.

My point is that your anti-Muslim bigotry only goes so far — actually not very far at all: what do you know about the “core teachings, and the life of Mohammed”? Definitely, not much. Or else you would have never put it in that stupidly unfair, and even destructive, way. As Mohammed says, “there are those who want, and those who do.” I guess you fall in the first category.

“It is a world religion, believed in and interpreted by billions of people around the world in billions of different, personal ways. It is no more or less monolithic than Christianity.”

The “interpretation” is, I believe, more community-based than personal. And the number of communities is many, with each Imam applying the necessary spin according to local requirements. As far as the practicalities of engagement goes – whatever the purpose, it easier to deal with one Pope than several thousands.

People like this really need true muslim scholars to tell them publically that what they practice isn’t actually islam. Even if they’re too ignorant to listen, it’s likely that others will hear and take notice.

Good post Raziq.
For insights into even earlier roots of Jihadism than Mawdudi, Charles Allen’s ‘God’s Terrorists’ is a good read.

There is no reason to deny, that the indo christian culture historically didn’t treat the jewish people well.
We don’t hide our history. White mans burden, doesn’t come out of the blue.
The main problems with (some) muslims are that they deny their own history, especially the ‘black’ parts.

I agree, Israelinurse, this is a good post. Thanks, Raziq. I confess had barely heard of Mawdudi and had no idea he had been so important in the rise of Islamic Extremism.

Lev
25 August 2009, 9:25 pm

Moonsong:

I love red herring — actually the pinker they are the better.

My point is that your anti-Muslim bigotry only goes so far — actually not very far at all: what do you know about the “core teachings, and the life of Mohammed”?

———

That’s rich! Your ignorance and wishful thinking is glaringly obvious Lev.

———

James
25 August 2009, 10:45 pm

People like this really need true muslim scholars to tell them publically that what they practice isn’t actually islam. Even if they’re too ignorant to listen, it’s likely that others will hear and take notice.

——-

Yeah that’s what the world needs – ‘real’ muslim scholars to tell the Ummah where it’s been going wrong. I wonder why this hasn’t happened yet?

(bangs head against wall)

Thanks also Israelinurse about “God’s Terrorists”. Will check that out when I get the chance.

Mawdudi is an interesting story, in the way that lunatic racist extremists often have interesting lives.

Just one anecdote. He spent his entire like spitting on the name of America and all that it represented. He cursed and screamed at America and the West in general. He foamed at the mouth like a rabid dog at America and the West. But when he needed specialist heart surgery in his final years to save his life, he scurried to the land of Satan quicker than you could say ‘pathetic hypocrite’ in order to have his life saved. And therein lies so much of the parasitical, hateful, hypocritical and pathetic contradiction and loathsome fury that infected Mawdudi, and continues to infect his followers today.

Another thing. Even though he spent his life cursing the USA, demonising and spitting on it, he sent his daughters to university there to be educated. It is comical, isn’t it? But its real, and these people actually do exist, even today.

It is no more or less monolithic than Christianity.

No, Islam is considerably more monolithic…or if you prefer ‘essential’ than Christianity.

And of course the Christian myth had Christ as a founder and the Islamic myth had a rather more historic Mohamed as a founder. Let’s face it, neither, even in their own terms, are perfect, but by way of effect on their followers as leaders of cults that became religions, the results are predictable. It’s a bit like comparing Hannibal Lecter to Captain Mainwaring….

mettaculture: my question wasn’t cynical. Periods of intense jihad have occurred throughout Islamic history (like the attack of the Almohades on Spain starting in 1148). Why is this guy different? Did he add anything new to the mix? I’m not an Islamic scholar and I don’t hide my biases. But Islamic-inspired attacks on non-Islamic countries is not a new thing. Here’s Christopher Hitchens on Thomas Jefferson:

That this might not be so easy was discovered by Jefferson and John Adams when they went to call on Tripoli’s envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman. They asked him by what right he extorted money and took slaves in this way. As Jefferson later reported to Secretary of State John Jay, and to the Congress:

The ambassador answered us that [the right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.

So, what’s changed with Mr. Mawdudi?

Maimonides left Spain because of persecution from a Moslem dynasty called, I think, Almohades, who proclaimed that the Jews must convert, leave Spain, or die.

Life for Jews under Islam was not all beer and skittles.

Lev – “Islam never expelled a single Jewish (or for that matter Christian) community.”

Apart from the expulsion and murder of the Jews of Medina and the later expulsion of all Jews and Christians from the Arabia peninsular.

“Christians lived unmolested in Baghdad since the time of Christ”

Well not exactly unmolested. It is like saying Blacks lived in the South under Segregation without being molested.

“Remember, it was the Christians that launched 9 to 12 crusades against the Muslims — not the other way around.”

You mean they launched 9 to 12 attempts to liberate land taken by the Muslims? But of course Muslims have a longer history of invading Christian lands than Christians do of Muslims. Are you justifying and excusing the colonisation of Spain? Greece? Turkey?

“There is a common misconception that the roots of radical Islamism stem from grievances in the Middle East i.e. Israel/Palestine.”

An erudite post, for which I thank you.

As re: the first sentence of that post, here given:

“There is a common misconception that the roots of radical Islamism stem from grievances in the Middle East i.e. Israel/Palestine.”

I respectfully see and raise you, thusly:

There is a common misconception, held by arrogant ethnocentric bien peasant Western white people educated far past their intelligence at University, that the entire history of the world is about them, because that’s how stupid and racist and uninterested in history they are.

The silly, tautological expression ‘radical Islamism’ excepted, a good expose.

Of course, we mustn’t forget that the bulk of international funding for the promulgation of mainstream, Koranic literalist Islam – including the building of mosques and the funding of Mullahs – comes from the Arab world; especially Saudi Arabia.

This Saudi funded Islamic re-blueprinting against the Koranic standard has been going on since the 70s, spreading out from Riyadh, Jeddah and Mecca as a malign plague of the mind. I saw it’s early effects as a teenager in Malaysia.

That should also get much more exposure.

One crucial thing about Mawdudi that needs to be stressed.

For all those who see Islam as intrinsically anti-imperialist, Mawdudi absented himself for the biggest campaign against imperialism in the history of the world – the fight for Indian independence.

Put simply, a Hindu or a Secular India could actually be worse than the Raj. Only when Pakistan was up and running did he head over there, and then with the single objective of making it as Islamic a state as possible.

Those who see anti-imperialism as being to the fore in UK Islamist organisations, need to think very carefully about who, and what, they are actually with.

Mawdudi was a newspaper editor and not a scholar. Interestingly enough Syed Qutb also wasn’t a scholar but a literary critic. And you will find most of the ideologues behind modern political Islamist movements were not Scholars. Hence a lack of ability to understand and interpret Islam.

Mawdudi and his ilk were angry and frustrated men who dream’t of power and political authority. Today his followere in the UK have the same ambitions. Bungles is a self-confessed Mawdudi fan, actually it was Mawdudi’s writings that got him into Islam!

Azad Ali’s Muslim Safety Forum and Islamic Forum Europe are both JI front organisations. MCB is made up of many JI inspired individulas i.e. Bungles and Abdul Bari. The governement needs to stop wasting time and money on these idiots as they are part of the problem and not the solution.

Islam never expelled a single Jewish (or for that matter Christian) community. Sure they were dhimmis, but there were no mass expulsions or pogroms for at least 500 years under the Ottoman Empire. Not one.

Not true. While the overall historical record of the Ottoman Empire is mainly one of compelling Jews to wear special clothes to mark them out, live separately or in ghettos, restrict their rights and force them to pay additional taxes (great!), as in the rest of the Islamic world, there were indeed expulsions, forcible conversions to Islam, pogroms and massacres. For example:

12,000 Jews expelled in 1915 by the Turks from southern then El Kuds region of what is now Israeli territory

Jews of Jaffa hanged by the Turks in 1917 before allied armies arrived

1864-1880 More than 500 Jews murdered in Morocco, often in broad daylight

1897 Synagogues plundered throughout Tripolitania

Sefrou, Morocco: Jewish quarter pillaged by Muslims after a flood in which 54 Jews died

Jerba 1864 Muslim groups pillage Jewish communities, burn & loot synagogues, rape the women

Tunis 1145 Jews forced to convert or leave

1933 Iraq 20 Jews murdered

1941 Iraq Rashid Aii’ss pro Nazi govt: riots in which 175 Jews killed, 1,000 injured, looting of property-900 houses destroyed

1935 Iraq Jews removed from government service, forbidden to travel to then-Palestine

1897 synagogue sacked, subsequently widespread anti-Jewish violence in Algeria

1934 Constantine, Algeria 25 Jews killed during attacks by Muslim groups

Libya 1945 Anti-Jewish riots of 1945–over 100 Jews killed in each of seven towns across the country

Casablanca 1907: 30 Jews killed, 200 women, girls & boys abducted, raped & then ransomed.

Numerous local uninvolved Jews murdered across countries under Islamic rule from 1880 onwards in protest against European Jews seeking to settle in Israel (perhaps you think the Jews were to blame for that?)

Episodes of forcible conversion of Jews to Islam in Meshed, Iran

and many others.

Then of course there were the reactions of states under Islamic rule, and of Muslims to the coming of Jews to then Palestine before the establishment of Israel and thereafter– local massacres, numerous murderous pogroms, confiscations of property, expulsions on a huge scale etc etc. Or perhaps you think the Jews or “the zionists” were to blame for those?

Source: Martin Gilbert, Atlas of Jewish History, Routledge

What you’re doing here is just recycling old Iranian-Islamist and Arab nationalist propaganda about the wonderful treatment of Jews under Islam which claimed to be “merely” anti-zionist but was all too obviously anti-semitic. The aim of this propaganda is to underpin numerous anti-zionist, but de facto anti-semitic myths around Israel including–the Palestinians are being forced to pay for European persecutions of Jews; there was never any need for Jewish self-determination, including the establishment of a Jewish state in its historic homeland; anti-semitism is a European phenomenon–the Jews lived a wonderful life under Islam and alongside their Arab Muslim neighbours, with just one or two minor inconveniences, as you argue here.

Here’s a comment from a Tunisian Arab Jew describing reasons why Jews of Islamic countries also wanted to leave their countries and have a homeland of their own in Israel.

We should have liked to be Arab Jews. If we abandoned the idea, it is because over the centuries, the Muslim Arabs systematically prevented its realization by their contempt & cruelty (Albert Memmi,1975)

Here’s a comment from a Libyan-born Jew written in 1975 reflecting on his experience before he emigrated to Israel:

the man in the street was intolerant of the mere existence of the Jew in his country (Maurice Roumani Jews & Arabs in Libya)

Yes, there were many periods when the Ottoman Empire was relatively liberal and positive towards Jews–like when it suited them to invite Jewish merchants and trading communities to settle in the lands of its own empire in order better to colonise them. But we don’t hear much about Islamic imperialism.

And the Christian rulers of Europe also sometimes treated Jews well and invited them to settle here or trade there–when it suited, as did Casimir, King of Poland, which became and remains one of the most anti-semitic countries of central Europe.

That’s why zionism developed–as did Sinn Fein (ourselves alone) in Ireland
“Muslims weren’t nearly as anti-semitic as European Christians” doesn’t amount to much of an excuse.

Excellent post Raziq!

I also enjoyed your previous article on Hizb-ut-Tahrir and it’s anti-semetic rhetoric: http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/08/18/hizb-ut-tahrir-%E2%80%9Cwhat-is-required-is-actual-war%E2%80%9D/

Keep them coming

Only when Pakistan was up and running did he head over there, and then with the single objective of making it as Islamic a state as possible.

As Ayub Khan, sometime dictator of Pakistan, wrote in his memoirs about the section of the ulama class who had opposed the creation of Pakistan:

Pakistan was the greatest defeat of the nationalist ulema. But they are a tenacious tribe and power is an irresistible drug. Soon after the establishment of Pakistan this type of ulema reorganised its forces. Now that Pakistan had been established, these people asked, who, indeed, except the ulema, could decide how the new Muslim state should be run. Some of the nationalist ulema decided to stay in India; others hastened to Pakistan to lend a helping hand. If they had not been able to save the Muslims from Pakistan, they must now save Pakistan from the Muslims. Among the migrants was Maulana Abul Aala Maududi… This venerable gentleman was appalled by what saw in Pakistan: an un-Islamic country, an un-Islamic government, and an un-Islamic people. How could any genuine Muslim owe allegiance to such a government? So he set about the task of convincing the people of their inadequacies, their failings, and their general unworthiness. All this was really a facade. The true intention was to re-establish the supremacy of the ulema and to re-assert their right to lead the Community.

Ayub Khan was right about Maududi being identifiable with the ulama even without being a formally trained cleric/scholar; but he was wrong about the reasons for the opposition of the “nationalist ulema”, such as Maududi, to the creation of Pakistan.

The real, fundamental, reason was that India, the subcontinent, was unfinished business for Islamic hegemony. They, Maududi and his ilk, wanted it all, so settling for only a fraction was unacceptable. That “dream” is still alive and kicking today among the ulama, in both Pakistan and India.

An interesting post and a reminder of the other dimensions to the current issues between Islam and modernity.

Many of the comments which follow however show just how far matters have deteriorated; a succession of warmed over ‘facts’ from the past – prize examples of ‘learned and rehearsed’ history tourism.

Mawdudi and his school were initially against the creation of Pakistan because they believed it would distract from the ultimate mission of converting all the Hindus, Sikhs and Christians in India to Islam.

Mawdudi, and his followers then and now, saw India as a land of filth inhabited by sub-human idol-worshippers and considered it their civilising mission to create the circumstances to make the whole of India convert to Islam. He thought the creation of Pakistan would detract from that mission.

Mawdudi’s followers in Britain today have similar feelings about this country, and Europe.

Mawdudi never attended nor received an education from an Islamic Institution. All of his interpretations of Islam are upon the basis of his own wishes/desires.