The Curious Rehabilitation of Inayat Bunglawala
This is a cross-post by Shiraz Maher from the Focus on Islamism blog
Inayat Bunglawala – more commonly known as Bungles – is a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB).
He’s been a busy boy recently.
The MCB has taken a beating over the last two years after its sectarian and Islamist politics were exposed, prompting Bungles to desperately repackage himself as a moderate and liberal. Unfortunately, his Potemkin villages have fooled some – including those foolish Catherine’s who really should know better.
Yes, Inayat wrote an encouraging piece on the Guardian’s Comment is Free (CiF) about Geert Wilders and, more recently, about gay rights too – but so what?
‘Credit where credit is due’ cry Inayat’s new supporters. This is a fallacy. Inayat is due nothing.
On the same day that he wrote about gay rights for the Guardian’s left leaning CiF readership, Inayat was busy penning another piece for the Islamist website IslamOnline. His choice of topic for that audience? ‘British Jews’ Influence on UK Policy’. Old habits die hard.
The article leaves no room for doubt – Inayat is a man who has not confronted the demons of his reactionary Islamist beliefs. He tells us:
The "Islamist" label has been used in recent years as a smear to denigrate and marginalize all politically engaged and active Muslims while promoting those who are docile enough not to criticize Western warmongering and support for Israel’s barbaric treatment of the Palestinians.
I fail to see how Inayat can distance himself from a problem he fails to even recognise.
His deliberate misrepresentation of the term ‘Islamist’ is typical of those who adhere to that ideology. Far from being a ‘smear’ it is a term that protects and distinguishes ordinary Muslims who believe in Islam as a faith from being associated with those who have turned it into an aggressive and expansionist political ideology.
Of course, many Islamists – including Inayat – simply betray those in whose interests they claim to act: ordinary Muslims, by passing off their own highly contentious theology as undisputed fact.
Similarly, unlike those who are genuinely trying to lead Muslims away from Islamism, Inayat remains unwilling to address problems with the Islamist ideology. Without doing that, it is impossible to see just how he can claim to have changed. His IslamOnline piece he reiterates the same old jaundiced view about the motivating factors behind Islamist terrorism:
From the trial of the three British Muslims recently convicted of involvement in the airliner bomb plot, and from video messages left by other violent extremists who have gone on to commit terrorist atrocities, what has undoubtedly been a key motivating factor is the injustices they have witnessed and experienced, the results of western foreign policies abroad, including Israel.
It is foolish to deny that many people were deeply unhappy about, for example, the war in Iraq. There was a vocal and vociferous anti-war campaign that marched through the streets of London to protest against it.
But if foreign policy incites terrorism, how many non-Muslims were moved to launch terrorist conspiracies in the aftermath of the allied invasion of Iraq? Where are the suicide videos from Mr and Mrs Smith saying the British people deserve ‘punishment’?
Lots of people, of all faiths and none, go to the West Bank and Gaza to protest against Israel, but it was two Islamists – Omar Sharif and Asif Hanif -who decided to go one step further and become suicide bombers.
Indeed, all the terrorists whose actions Inayat tries to explain away have all been Muslim. Those in the airline plot also claimed to act in the name of Islam.
This is the reality that Inayat denies. He does not accept that political movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood or Jamaat e-Islami have developed a highly politicised and regressive form of Islam. I am yet to see him oppose their desire to create theocracies in the ‘Muslim world’ by denouncing either of those groups or their activities.
He is unwilling to accept that Islamists provide the intellectual succour that terrorists need. That much was apparent when Inayat penned another piece for IslamOnline this week – where he stupidly accuses me of McCarthyism – and, even more stupidly, reaffirms his support for the worst Islamist ideologue today: Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
This Qatar based cleric wants Muslim apostates murdered, homosexuals executed, supports suicide bombings and female genital mutilation, and justifies the slaughter of Israeli children ‘because they will grow up to join the IDF’. Describing Qaradawi as ‘an asset’ Inayat tells us:
Sheikh Al-Qaradawi is an Islamic scholar who commands huge respect among millions of Muslims worldwide. As a regular past visitor to the UK, he would consistently urge British Muslims to shun all forms of extremism and to focus their energies on ensuring that their children excelled in education.
Here is the man Inayat regards as an ‘asset’ revelling in Hitler’s attempt to exterminate Jews, and praying for it to happen again ‘at the hands of the believers’:
Inayat has not changed. He had years to make these pronouncements, to alter his position and shift his stance. He never did. In truth, Inayat and his band of brothers over at the MCB lost. They were hammered by Hazel Blears when she was Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. Before her, Ruth Kelly was equally forthright in her treatment of the group. Between them, they set about reaching over the heads of the MCB and directly empowered genuinely progressive grassroots initiatives. To win favour again, Inayat has to portray himself as a liberal.
That much is clear to almost every observer who follows British Islamism.
Yet, what is most disappointing is that those who should know better have not only embraced Inayat in recent weeks, but have engaged in the most shameful and short-sighted public courting of him possible. And to what end?
Anyone seriously suggesting that Inayat has changed offends only their own intelligence.
So, where does this leave his recent and welcome pronouncements on issues like gay rights or free speech? Should credit be given where credit is due?
After all, I suppose Mussolini made the trains run on time.
Comments
| 20 November 2009, 5:09 pm |
I think a Hat Tip is due to Melanie Phillips who wrote about this two days before Shiraz http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/5550861/still-extreme.thtml
| 20 November 2009, 5:24 pm |
“Inayat has not changed. He had years to make these pronouncements, to alter his position and shift his stance. He never did. In truth, Inayat and his band of brothers over at the MCB lost.”
The timing issue is a crucial point that has thus far been missed. Surely it is no coincidence that Bunglawala changed his tune only after he and the MCB received a hammering to their credibility and standing. He had years to say all of these things, and was invited to do so on many occassions in the past – but at that time he was still in the government’s favour and didnt need to please any liberals. Now that he sees his chance to be let back in, he has decided to tell us that gay Muslims should also have rights, as if we need HIM to tell us that! How absurd!
| 20 November 2009, 5:34 pm |
I think he should write an article, or essay, about how he changed from being a man who disseminated racist anti-semitic literature as a young man, who praised and lauded Osama Bin Laden before 9/11, even though he had been involved in the mass murder of hundreds of Africans in Nairobi and Dar-e-Salaam. This is too much of a journey to have made without enunciating how a man can change so much. Otherwise, what is the difference between Bunglawala and Nick Griffin? They both propounded stupid, repulsive, bigoted ideas in the past, and all of a sudden, miraculously become moderates. Write your mea culpa, Inayat, or I amongst many are not going to believe you.
| 20 November 2009, 5:40 pm |
I think Bungle has a point on the term ‘Islamist’, it’s a silly weak kneed, cop-out word.
We should rather refer to those from the MCB and those of a similar Koranic-literalist ilk, as thinly concealed Islamofascists.
Here’s a Christopher Hitchens Slate piece – Defending the term ‘Islamofascism’ – here’s why.
| 20 November 2009, 5:41 pm |
Seems to be an Islamist trait, saying one thing to one audience and something quite different to another.
So if even a bystander like me can see this, why on earth cannot our politicians who fete this odious man and his friends?
| 20 November 2009, 5:41 pm |
Seems to be an Islamist trait, saying one thing to one audience and something quite different to another.
So if even a bystander like me can see this, why on earth cannot our politicians who fete this odious man and his friends?
| 20 November 2009, 5:47 pm |
Billy, that is absolutely right. Though I doubt we will see the ‘mea culpa’ you refer to.
| 20 November 2009, 5:56 pm |
Seems to be an Islamist trait, saying one thing to one audience and something quite different to another.
Well, its a trait of many people of various faiths. However, Bungle does seem to be partial to having a stab at the odd glass of Tequila Sunrise (geddit?)
| 20 November 2009, 6:01 pm |
So if even a bystander like me can see this, why on earth cannot our politicians who fete this odious man and his friends?
Opportunism and cowardice?
| 20 November 2009, 6:04 pm |
the trial of the three British Muslims recently convicted of involvement in the airliner bomb plot, and from video messages left by other violent extremists who have gone on to commit terrorist atrocities, what has undoubtedly been a key motivating factor is the injustices they have witnessed and experienced, the results of western foreign policies abroad, including Israel.
This is old shtick of Islamofascists and their usually Left leaning authoritarian apologists -conflating proximate cause with root cause.
The Moose Test
If a certain make and model of car rolls over when it negotiates a fairly tight shikane, a series of bends which other cars negotiate quite successfully with only a tyre squeal, the proximate cause is the corner, the root cause is the dodgy design.
Koranic literalist Islam is to this, the dodgy design, it pointedly fails the Moose test of modernity.
| 20 November 2009, 6:14 pm |
The BBC may be fooled by Inayat and the likes of Tariq Ramadan, but I doubt many here will. I will not trust any Muslim who is not prepared to condemn unequivocally Jihad and Sharia as cruel, intolerant, divisive and discriminatory, and who is prepared to show some contrition for Islam’s history of blood and tears. I know of no such Muslim – apostates do not count. I am not holding my breath.
| 20 November 2009, 6:15 pm |
One should never forget that Bunglawala very likely, not to say most certainly, is a man who doesn’t shy away from posting death threats against “zionist pigs” from his very working place at Reuters:
- http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/20760
- http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3256534,00.html
- http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000733.html
| 20 November 2009, 6:28 pm |
Under the above ID. I have questioned Bungles posts on CIF a large number of times. When faced with the facts from another Muslim. Bungle has tried to promote the view that I am just somebody pretending to be a Muslim.
Instead of debating the finer points of how good I should remember he is in a fight a subject he brought up in which to try and intimidate me.
(Think about that) I simply used a swearword in Urdu towards him, which saw him running to the MODs and got me censored by the MODs for around 6 months. So much for not being a muslim.
The thing is Bungle and the MCB do not speak for British Muslims as they are entirely Pakistani based and do not represent Indian Muslims. (oh they say they do, but Indians and Pakistani don’t mix)
| 20 November 2009, 6:41 pm |
Even though everybody can see “Bungle’s” hypocrisy when he writes his CiF columns, I actually enjoy them.
Never has it been so easy to rip an above-the-line contributor’s “arguments”.
Bungle will always shift his views depending on what he thinks he can get away with – hence his changing position on Bin Laden after 9/11. Before 9/11 he couldn’t get enough of him.
Live long and keep exposing the hypocrites.
| 20 November 2009, 6:46 pm |
Alcuin
there is one problem with your argument
I it is as follows if you don’t agree with me that your laws and traditions are evil I will kill you (slight exaggeration) or being a xtian I don’t believe that the beth din should have any say over Jewish disputes
| 20 November 2009, 7:14 pm |
boreham – incoherent and confused. I choose who I trust (as do you, as does everyone), and such a position has no influence on anything outside my own head. People who read this site may agree of not with what I write, but I am not proposing any sanction whatsoever on people I choose not to trust – a million miles from advocating killing anyone.
All cultures have skeletons in their closets, Islam seems to me to be unique in being comprised of those who deny they exist and those who exalt in them. In my opinion, the first step to being civilised is to own up to your own shortcomings. As I said, I am not holding my breath.
| 20 November 2009, 7:26 pm |
A comment on Faisal’s thread at CiF was that Bungle’s attempts at explanation were like the tortoise who tried to wipe away his footprints with his tail… all he did was make a bigger mess.
| 20 November 2009, 7:51 pm |
He had me fooled. I thought he’d seen the progressive light. How he can defend that vile fascist admirer Yusuf al-Qaradawi? Bungle you two faced Berkshire Hunt.
Then again, King Newt embraced him too. And with tax payers money too.
I’m sure all you learned fellows know this already, but Mussolini didn’t make the trains run on time, that was Fascist propaganda! They were very punctual before he came to power.
| 20 November 2009, 8:21 pm |
CookieCutter, I’ve been trying to work out the Tequila Sunrise thing. Explanation por favour…
| 20 November 2009, 8:28 pm |
Then again, King Newt embraced him too. And with tax payers money too.
Yes, but not because he was fooled. It was because he made a conscious choice to embrace Jew-hating scum.
| 20 November 2009, 8:31 pm |
This is what I said on the thread on The Spittoon:
I would be impressed, if Inayat explicitly and in clear terms, without apology or excuse or ‘contextualising’, made it clear that:
- he supports liberal democratic secular societies in the Middle East and South Asia, based on full equality between persons irrespective of gender, ethnicity, or religion, and respect for fundamental human rights in the Universal Declaration;
- opposes without reservation Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat e Islami, as well as the other groups which he used to support openly, or has been prepared to work with in coalitions;
- specifically and explicitly explains why Qaradawi is to be opposed in his support generally for the creation of an Islamic State, and specifically for killing of apostates, suicide bombing directed at civilians, and compelling women by force to wear hijab.
I cannot understand why Inayat would want to write for Islam Online at all, given that it is (a) Qaradawi’s own website; and (b) he merely bolsters the Qaradawi house view in his articles, rather than challenging them to any extent. I fully and happily acknowledge that Inayat has said a number of things that are progressive on CiF pieces, but that is simply preaching to the choir. The important task is not to convince white liberals that he has changed. It is to challenge extremist views among those who follow Ikwaani and Jamaati politics. I don’t think he has really done that: certainly not in his Islam Online articles.
But I am hopeful. Inayat has come a long way since the 1990s – indeed since the beginning of this decade.
As thing stand, Inayat’s colleagues include those who are steeped in extremist politics, including a number of people who have spent the last few years promoting jihadism and terrorist groups. If Inayat wants to put this chapter of his life behind him, now is the time for him to make the leap.
Cut the links with the extremists. Take them on, as we do. Explain fully, and in language that their supporters can understand, why the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami must be opposed, why Qaradawi must be taken on and defeated, why those in the MCB hierarchy who disagree must be voted out, and why this task must be performed by Muslims and non Muslims who love liberty and democracy.
Don’t discount the possibility that this might happen. Let’s see where Inayat’s journey takes him next.
| 20 November 2009, 8:38 pm |
alcan
” the first step to being civilised is to own up to your own shortcomings.”
but what if you don’t see them as shortcomings? you have no need to “own up”. and what is the meaning of civilisation it is just a coherent grouping of humans forming a large society following laws etc
| 20 November 2009, 9:35 pm |
I would add one thing to David T’s comment (and I freely acknowledge that same-faith marriage is not the preserve of Islam):
Bunglawala should oppose the bigotry of many within the Muslim community who deny the right of women to marry outside the Islamic faith. This is a crucial litmus test for me.
| 20 November 2009, 9:42 pm |
CookieCutter, I’ve been trying to work out the Tequila Sunrise thing. Explanation por favour
A bit of rhyming slang that I invented as HP frowns on using the “T” word. I use it sarcastically and insultingly to an individual rather than collectively.
| 20 November 2009, 10:02 pm |
I honestly don’t believe Inayat can change his spots as David T suggests and David T should be admired for his expression of hope which I believe will be dashed.
Inayat does seem to play to his audience and seems to hold competing beliefs. Talking about the inclusiveness in accepting gay people while supporting the spiteful and hateful Qaradawi (who is banned fom Britain).
I think Inayat has a problem with Jews but believes this can make him acceptable and popular in some circles.
I don’t think we should credit him as being the sharpest tool in the toolbox and someone with any political nous. I don’t see him leading anyone and so I don’t see him taking any strong personal lead along a single belief direction. Is he trying to be liked – or not hated and rejected?
| 20 November 2009, 10:18 pm |
Genuine moderate or not Mr Bunglawala’s twisted views on stoning should be more widely known. See here:
Stoning to death for adultery
http://libertyphile2.blogspot.com/2009/07/stoning-to-death-for-adultery.html
| 21 November 2009, 12:09 am |
The Tories have promised to abolish the Hizbos, let hope they get rid of every other enemy grouping that has been taking advantage of our liberl, white guilt self-hatred since way before 9/11.
The only Muslim groups given the right to exist should be those like Quilliam. And keep a sharp eye out for deceptive fuckers like the MAB-backed “Muslims Against Terrorism” or whatever they’re called.
The Israel-test is the best one for seeing is someone is a mock moderate. Ask if they believe in a two state solution. Then ask if one of those states is a Jewish one. Ask if Hamas is justified in killing Israeli citizens. Ask which aspects of Sharia should NOT be allowed in our country. That sort of thing.
| 21 November 2009, 12:52 am |
CookieCutter 10:02:
Seconded.
| 21 November 2009, 1:52 am |
Ed said this on that CiF piece:
“Well, this weekend, a leading affiliate, the Islamic Society of Britain, and a prominent leader of the MCB, Inayat Bunglawala, will, once again, oppose extremism. Rather than welcome this much-needed shift in protecting Britain’s national security, setting the right tone among activist Muslims, Melanie imagines a grand conspiracy lying behind his actions. Even when he is right, he is wrong. Inayat, with all his faults, has risked much among entrenched, dinosaur Muslim “leaders” by publicly supporting gay rights, freedom of speech for Salman Rushdie and Geert Wilders, and challenging conventional narratives on creationism. Holding him to account for comments made in 1993, from which he has since very plainly distanced himself, is neither fair nor humane.”
Is Ed Husain cosying up to Inayat Bunglewala, and if so, for what reason?
| 21 November 2009, 4:15 am |
Did you guys see the Cif thread.
They delete any opposition to Sharia.
It seems they outsourced their moderation to Saudi Arabia…
| 21 November 2009, 4:17 am |
Then again I was deleted here too for saying Inayat is practicing Takkiya,
As if that is not the case?
| 21 November 2009, 4:52 am |
Alex – Now that he sees his chance to be let back in, he has decided to tell us that gay Muslims should also have rights, as if we need HIM to tell us that! How absurd!
Deflection and Takkiya
I hope that he is asked ‘live’ if he thinks that Islam should be ‘adjusted’ to remove any negativity about homosexuals and what should happen to those Islamic judges who have pronounced death sentences for homosexuals?
And is the MCB now going to boycott all ‘visitors’ who have expressed negativities about gays.
| 21 November 2009, 7:39 am |
Inayat Bunglawala made a death threat against american pro-Israel blogger Charles Johnson from Little Green Footballs from his Reuters News computer in 2006. He made a phoney email and said;
“I look forward to the day when you pigs get your throats cut….”
You can read about it here;
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/20760_A_Death_Threat_from_Reuters_%28Bumped%29
| 21 November 2009, 11:41 am |
@ steve bronfman
I would not assume that is a death threat, more an extreme expression of hatred for a group of persons.
Most kids would be languishing away their school years in some sort of custody for the amount of times they say things like “I hope you die”. Admittedly kids generally mean “I hope you go away and don’t come back”.
This is sinister and malicious but is part of an argumentum ad baculum – i.e. “as you have expressed bad things (that I don’t like), very bad things will happen to you (and I will enjoy that)”.
The mention of pigs implies Islamist anti-semitism (Sura 5:60 of the Koran refers to certain Jews being turned to apes and pigs) and there is sheer hatred in the sentence, but it is not a specific death threat.
Additionally, there is still no convincing evidence provided by Johnson that the email message really did come from Bungles. It came from a Reuters site, but there was no proof that it was typed by IB.
| 21 November 2009, 11:56 am |
I disagree with morgan.
“I look forward to the day when you pigs get your throats cut….zionistpig@hotmail.com”
Is very chilling after Daniel Pearl got his throat cut on film.
That is what [probably] Bunglawala was wishing on Johnson and his readers. After Daniel Pearl’s death (and after all lopping the heads off infidels is in the Koran) this is not just “I hope you die”.
I once read an Islamist tell an Israeli grandmother on an unmoderated forum that he was glad her grandson was killed and that she deserved to see her entire family tortured to death in front of her. I think this is closer to that than to “I hope you die”
| 21 November 2009, 12:32 pm |
Adrian, Josh is right: kids is one thing, an adult who purports to represent a large community is another thing entirely.
| 21 November 2009, 1:39 pm |
OK GB and JS
There is certainly an implication of death coming in that statement, but I still see it as part of Islamist hatred of Jews. That hatred is certainly justified by the Koran and the example of the 700 or so male members of the Jewish Banu Qurayza tribe (every single male of puberty age upwards) being publicly beheaded in a markek square, their bodies dropping into trenches while Mohammed watched. (recounted in the Sira Rasoul Allah of Ibn Ishaq recounted by Ibn Hisham).
However, this notion of the Jews being punished at End Times/The Last Hour is also implicitly tied up with Islamic eschatology, if the evidence of Hadiths is to be believed.
the MB-related Muslim Students Association were persuaded to remove from their website the relevant Hadiths from Imam Muslim, which belong to the only two Hadith anthologies regarded as sahih or “authentic”.
But Imam Muslim describes in Book 41 (Kitab Al-Fitan wa Ashrat As-Sa’ah), numbers 6981 to 6985, several examples of the famous Hadith (also found in Bukhari) relating to the Jews being slaughtered at the Last Hour, before the Resurrection. All of these can be found at this Wayback link:
http://web.archive.org/web/20051231033014/http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/muslim/041.smt.html
This is just one example, number 6985:
Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.
But even though the message does conjure up images of Daniel Pearl, such murderous hatred against Jews has always been integral to many Islamic societies and to Islamic jurists and philosophers.
I recommend you to read Andrew Bostom’s “The Legacy of Islamic Anti-Semitism”. It is a massive, well-researched but ultimately depressing book. I am still working my way through my review copy, and cannot write my review until I finish it. The cover painting:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Legacy-Islamic-Antisemitism-Sacred-History/dp/1591025540
relates to a Moroccan Jewish woman in the 19th century who was decapitated for not accepting her forcible conversion to Islam (the notion of People of the Book paying jizyah tax and being allowed peace was not always true).
But I see – from a personal perspective – that this comment mentioned by Charles Johnson is a reference to the Last Hour and the massacre of the Jews.
Other strange beliefs in Hadiths concerning the ultimate punishment of Jews asserts that at the end of the world, Christ will come back to earth and will kill the pigs (Jews).
This can be found in the other authentic (sahih) anthology, that of Bukhari
http://web.archive.org/web/20041206110035/http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/055.sbt.html
Volume 4, Book 55, number 657:
Narrated Abu Huraira:
Allah’s Apostle said, “By Him in Whose Hands my soul is, surely (Jesus,) the son of Mary will soon descend amongst you and will judge mankind justly (as a Just Ruler); he will break the Cross and kill the pigs and there will be no Jizya (i.e. taxation taken from non Muslims). Money will be in abundance so that nobody will accept it, and a single prostration to Allah (in prayer) will be better than the whole world and whatever is in it.” Abu Huraira added “If you wish, you can recite (this verse of the Holy Book): — ‘And there is none Of the people of the Scriptures (Jews and Christians) But must believe in him (i.e Jesus as an Apostle of Allah and a human being) Before his death. And on the Day of Judgment He will be a witness Against them.” (4.159) (See Fateh Al Bari, Page 302 Vol 7)
A fundamentalist Muslim or Islamist would not (in my opinion) consider such a comment as that presented by Johnson as not being seen in an “End Times” eschatological context.
It could be a veiled death threat, but I think it refers to how Jews will be killed like animals (who ritually have their throats slit) at the Last Hour.
I could be wrong……
(And Johnson still could not prove beyond doubt that Bungles sent that email)
| 21 November 2009, 6:59 pm |
Armaros
Did you guys see the Cif thread.
They delete any opposition to Sharia.
Yep. Sounds right for CiF. They banned me because I opposed George Galloway! Be very careful when you don’t subscribe to the Guardian World View.
Live long and keep exposing the truth.
| 21 November 2009, 9:35 pm |
Sigh, how do I put this.
“The hour will not come” is a very disturbing way to talk about genocide before the second coming because it suggests that genocide is a requirement that God has on the Muslims…
Let me make this clear: it says, in effect “God is waiting for you to kill the Jews, he won’t reward you until you do it.”
This text is not a dispassionate description of a holocaust, it is clearly incitement to hate and commit one.
It is hate-poetry written by God’s last prophet. “The stones and trees call out come kill him” is quoted by imams exhorting that there that the whole universe hates Jews. I’ve always thought the imagery was chosen to be “stones and tree” because you throw stones to kill, you hang from trees to kill. This is poetry to incite genocide and nothing less.
I have to say that your wish to find a way to excuse Mohammad’s hatred by pretending this is a normal religious “eschatological context” disgusts me and makes me lose respect for you.
Perhaps Bungalwalla meant that the beginning of Muslims doing their duty is coming and he will be happy to see the Jews slaughtered in his lifetime… Are people who believe they’re currently living in prophecy have some license for “eschatological” violence?
| 21 November 2009, 9:39 pm |
In summary, hatred incited by bad religion is no less hatred. Violence incited by bad religion is no less violence. A will to genocide incited by bad religion is no less genocidal.
There can not be any allowance given a religion to incite genocidal hatred.
| 21 November 2009, 11:34 pm |
Johnson isn’t Jewish. Wishing death upon someone in a violent way in an email (to register a fake email address and send it is ‘active’ and pre-meditated) is definately a death threat.
| 21 November 2009, 11:48 pm |
Adrian Morgan the threat made is most certainly a death threat. Johnson isn’t Jewish (even if Bingles believes him to be so). If I sent this message to someone, in todays terrorist world, I’d expect to be investigated as threatening someone. It is definately clear who sent it too.
| 22 November 2009, 12:14 am |
I am not denying that the passages I quoted are incitement to all sorts of crap that have – for the thousand years that those Hadiths have existed, been used as justifications for violence and for support of genocide.
What I stated is that the “threat” that was attributed to Bunglawala (and I insist that Reuters did not confirm it was he who sent the email) was not a threat per se.
It was – in light of scriptures that condone murder of Jews at the Last Hour – an expression of approval for this future Holocaust: “I look forward to the day when you pigs get your throats cut.”
If it were a proper death threat, there would be more specific details, such as I look forward to next Thursday when you pigs get your throats cut. or I look forward to the day when you pigs get your throats cut by myself.
I am not belittling the horror of such a statement as it stands, and if you look at Andrew Bostom’s book there are several examples where the scriptural contempt has been used as a justification for murder, oppression and genocidal acts.
For the reason that such texts could be seen as incitements to racial hatred and murder, last summer this “prophecy” was removed from the Hadith collections by the University of Southern California MSA (Muslim Students Association):
http://muslimhadith.blogspot.com/2008/08/usc-msa-starting-to-remove-some-hadiths.html
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2008/08/usc-msa-removes-does-not-repudiate-genocidal-hadith.html
In fact the USC has now renamed its online Hadith collections and Islamic sources as “The Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement.”
http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/search.html
Which is why I had to use the Wayback Machine to retrieve the original link to the USC MSA “Compendium of Muslim Texts”.
All I am stating is that when dealing with reporting of events, accuracy must come first. In this case, Inayat Bunglawala may NOT have sent the message, and it was NOT a specific death threat, but an allusion to a concept of Islamist supremacism.
I am not downgrading the horror of such a concept, and anyone who believes such a thing as a religious prophecy that is going to come true is seriously dangerous and probably bordering on the criminally insane.
But this thread is an article about a real person, Inayat Bunglawala. I was very critical of him in articles and blog-posts going back to 2005 but I have always used source material to back up my criticisms that is already in the public domain.
I am certainly very cautious about Inayat Bunglawala’s apparent shift towards a more “tolerant” position, and part of me suspects that this has been done as a ploy to make the MCB more acceptable in the eyes of the UK government. Since March 2009 Labour has ostracised the MCB after Daud Abdullah of the same body signed a treaty that suggested warfare against any navy that tried to stop weaponry being smuggled to Hamas.
Despite these reservations, Inayat Bunglawala is still a British citizen, and should be protected by all the same legal rights as any other citizen.
One of those rights is that he should not be defamed. Johnson did NOT prove that he sent that message.
When you state that Bunglawala did send an actual death threat, you are potentially libelling the guy.
I can provide a list of things that Bunglawala has said (claiming in a letter to “Private Eye” that Omar Abdel-Rahman was “courageous”, shortly before the blind cleric was arrested for plotting to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993, or claiming in a circulated email from May 2001 that Osama bin Laden was a “freedom fighter”).
But please do not assert that he issued a death threat from his workplace, as if it is proven fact. It is not.
| 22 November 2009, 12:51 am |
“The hour will not come” is a very disturbing way to talk about genocide before the second coming because it suggests that genocide is a requirement that God has on the Muslims…
Certainly unpleasant, but if you believe the particular Hadiths, this seems to be the message.
Let me make this clear: it says, in effect “God is waiting for you to kill the Jews, he won’t reward you until you do it.”
This text is not a dispassionate description of a holocaust, it is clearly incitement to hate and commit one.
Yes – but those end times can only be brought on after certain criteria have been fulfilled. These prophecies also involve the Romans, and the appearance of the “Dajjal”, which will happen BEFORE the Muslims will be religiously obliged to fight the Jews.
It is hate-poetry written by God’s last prophet. “The stones and trees call out come kill him” is quoted by imams exhorting that there that the whole universe hates Jews. I’ve always thought the imagery was chosen to be “stones and tree” because you throw stones to kill, you hang from trees to kill. This is poetry to incite genocide and nothing less.
Yes it is. It is a disgusting and hate-filled text that appears to glorify and condone genocide and in context of other end-time prophecies, this in theory should happen only after certain events should happen.
I think, from the Bukhari Hadith that I quoted, that this orgy of genocide is supposed to happen when Christ returns to Earth after the reign of the Dajjal (the Islamic “Antichrist figure”) and that Christ himself will be supervising the genocide of the Jews.
I have to say that your wish to find a way to excuse Mohammad’s hatred by pretending this is a normal religious “eschatological context” disgusts me and makes me lose respect for you.
Well you appeared to lose respect when you addressed me by my surname only. I cannot change how you subjectively feel about me.
However, there is another glaring error here, and that is that you assume wrongly that I “wish to find a way to excuse Mohammad’s hatred”. I do not. You also claim that I am “pretending” this is in an eschatological context. I am not.
I provided Hadiths as evidence but you apparently are choosing to see what you want to see, and because I do not agree with you, you attempt to demonise me. I can provide many more about the events that supposedly will lead up Islamic Last Hour, but I do not think you really want to know.
Perhaps Bungalwalla meant that the beginning of Muslims doing their duty is coming and he will be happy to see the Jews slaughtered in his lifetime… Are people who believe they’re currently living in prophecy have some license for “eschatological” violence?
I believe that whoever wrote that email (no incontrovertible proof it was Bunglawala) did believe it as this being the approach of End Times. People have always believed in End Times around the corner. Christians around the time of Nero thought he was the Antichrist, and according to Irenaeus (writing in the 2nd century AD) they saw in Nero’s name the number 666.
In islands off New Guinea that were used as supply points during the Second World War, there emerged “Cargo Cults” that promised that miserable existence would end when John Frumm would appear and bestow gifts.
And on your last point – I mentioned in the Yemen thread, as did Abu Faris, the Hojjatieh Society in Iran, who believe that be creating chaos and war, that the Shia 12er’s mysterious 12th Imam can be brought out of his Grand Occultation to rule as the Mahdi.
| 22 November 2009, 12:52 am |
steve bronfman
21 November 2009, 11:48 pm
If I sent this message to someone, in todays terrorist world, I’d expect to be investigated as threatening someone. It is definately clear who sent it too.
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Yes – anyone who sent such an email should have been investigated, and the Reuters London office whence that email originated should have got the police (SO13 as they were then) to investigate exactly who was making such a statement.
Not that it was a death threat, but it was a sign of a rabid anti-Semite, someone already committing a racially motivated hate-crime, and potentially someone who could have had links with, or supported terrorism.
But they did not, and for that reason it is unwise and unjust to castigate Mr Bunglawala and state that he sent the email. It is too late to prove or disprove that point, so we must give him the benefit of that doubt.
| 22 November 2009, 1:35 am |
What I stated is that the “threat” that was attributed to Bunglawala (and I insist that Reuters did not confirm it was he who sent the email) was not a threat per se.
…
Yes – anyone who sent such an email should have been investigated, and the Reuters London office whence that email originated should have got the police (SO13 as they were then) to investigate exactly who was making such a statement.
Not that it was a death threat, but it was a sign of a rabid anti-Semite, someone already committing a racially motivated hate-crime, and potentially someone who could have had links with, or supported terrorism.
Ok, that’s totally fair.
I’m glad to see that you are not, as as most people do, trying to find a way to finesse a position on the incitement to hatred and murder and genocide in Islam. The problem being that most people figure any problem this big should be excused and pretended away.
I would go so far as to say that you can not teach this stuff to children without creating antisocial attitudes and even turning a few of the children into extreme haters and therefore teaching such passages to children should be absolutely banned.
| 22 November 2009, 1:37 am |
Also I had actually wondered why those hadiths weren’t coming up in the search anymore…
I suppose that was a reasonable stand for usc to take.
| 22 November 2009, 1:43 am |
Don’t worry – I am no Karen Armstrong (who like many commentators dared to justify the Banu Qurayza genocide). Acts of genocide are what they are, and citing cultural and moral relativism, or – in Armstrong’s case – political “expediency” (the woman is a monster to suggest this) to justify the unjustifiable is a one-way ticket to moral oblivion.
There are certain truths that many people would rather ignore. Truths must be faced, even if they are unpalatable.
| 22 November 2009, 1:50 am |
Josh Scholar
22 November 2009, 1:37 am
Also I had actually wondered why those hadiths weren’t coming up in the search anymore…
I suppose that was a reasonable stand for usc to take.
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I do not think it is reasonable. Those Hadiths were written, and unless one understands and is aware of them, there is no way of fully understanding why there has been so much anti-Semitic hatred in he Muslim world.
People have tried to suggest that only the arrival of Zionists in Palestine in the 19th century and then the formation of Israel gave Muslims “cause” to be anti-Semitic.
This is the worst fallacy of all, as it presupposes that if Israel just disappeared, that Islamic anti-Semitism would disappear along with it. No. There is a body of anti-Semitic literature and evidence from various schools of jurisprudence to show that such hatred and contempt is integral to some people’s interpretation of Islam.
And it is essential to let people know the truth. Censoring the truth is not – in my opinion – ever “reasonable”.
Do not believe that USC’s collection is the only available online source for these Hadiths.
| 22 November 2009, 2:19 am |
I would go so far as to say that you can not teach this stuff to children without creating antisocial attitudes and even turning a few of the children into extreme haters and therefore teaching such passages to children should be absolutely banned.
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There is the famous video of the 3-year old girl who is answering questions and states that Jews are apes and pigs, and that is quoting from the Koran.
I upset people here by suggesting that there were bad things in certain scriptures (Moses’ call for the mass slaughter of the Midianites) but the Talmudic interpretations of the Torah etc gave “enlightenment” to minimise the damaging potential that such verses could have condoned.
Judaism, Christianity, and almost every other religion, have been open to reinterpretation, revision.
And the scriptures of Islam need to be revised. The only hope that Islam has of having a peaceful future influence upon global society with no traces of contempt for kaffirs, and no potential threat of religiously-inspired violence, is for root-and-branch revision.
In Turkey in 2006, many Hadiths were being listed as obsolete.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/14/AR2006071401381.html?sub=AR
These are – according to the author, Hadith quotes used in Turkey:
“Women are imperfect in intellect and religion.”
“The best of women are those who are like sheep.”
“If a woman doesn’t satisfy her husband’s desires, she should choose herself a place in hell.”
“If a husband’s body is covered with pus and his wife licks it clean, she still wouldn’t have paid her dues.”
“Your prayer will be invalid if a donkey, black dog or a woman passes in front of you.”
Additionally, sexist proverbs that came from the days of the Ottomans were being excised from dictionaries:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article686909.ece
These are a few:
“A woman is the devil version of a man”
“Woman is the plaything of the Devil”
“No good comes of corn sown later than August just as no good comes of a woman who rises later than her husband”
“A man preserves a woman like animal skin preserves cheese”
“Even if a woman’s candlestick were gold, it is the man for whom you should light a candle”
Such revisions and reforms need to be implemented world-wide, but sadly there is no over-arching body that can be seen to represent the authority needed to do this. This could only really happen under a Caliphate.
| 22 November 2009, 5:18 am |
I sometimes think a bit too much attention is paid to Bunglewala as he’s only the MCB spokesman, and I doubt that he has much input into MCB policy. We should also have a good look at the background of the people who actually run the MCB:
http://www.mcb.org.uk/comm_details.php?heading_id=103&com_id=1
And, has anyone noticed that there is now a Muslim Council of Scotland and a Muslim Council of Wales which now have the ear of the Scottish and Welsh Governments! It seems that the MCB is behind them!
| 22 November 2009, 7:54 am |
Yes, Bungle is only a pimple on the chin of the British body politics – the seriously disfiguring warts are for example the ‘historic’ partnership protocol recently signed between the Muslim Council of Wales and the Welsh Assembly Government:
“”in support of social justice, inclusion, fairness and greater community cohesion”.
| 22 November 2009, 8:46 am |
Such revisions and reforms need to be implemented world-wide, but sadly there is no over-arching body that can be seen to represent the authority needed to do this. This could only really happen under a Caliphate.
The other thing that can only happen under a Caliphate is Jihad for the purpose of invasion rather than defense. I don’t think having a Caliphate is worth that risk.
Of course if there was a Caliphate it would be like other Islamist governments – another taliban/Saudi/Iran. Only secular governments are capable or respecting human rights.
| 22 November 2009, 10:59 pm |
“Opportunism and cowardice?”
Hi Gordon,
I guess it is less of opportunism and more of cowardice! :)
| 23 November 2009, 12:57 am |
Your View, November 20th 2009, 4:29 pm
” I suppose Mussolini made the trains run on time.”
No he didn’t. Running trains on time depends on
1) rule of law
2) co-operation
“This Qatar based cleric wants Muslim apostates murdered”
All the Islamic schools of jurisprudence agree that death is the correct punishment for apostates, don’t they?
So how, in terms of Islamic theology, are you going to explain to him and his very numerous followers that he’s wrong?