Harry's Place

work with other faith groups in wider society to uphold the freedom of religion and not unwittingly assist those who seek to undermine it.

The only aspects of British Islamic culture that these groups are demonstrating against are specifically the ones that conflict with this country’s traditional ethos of tolerance and fairplay.

Freedom of religion may well mean for bigots like Inayat the right to perpetuate religiously-sanctioned apartheid, but the vast majority of Britons do not share this view.

a self-described ‘Muslim’ group

Weasel words. I look forward to hearing Inayat’s personal exegesis of (33:40) before explaining why a group’s founder, who incidentally never claimed to be a ‘prophet’, could not be a ‘messenger’.

This is a welcome step forward for Inayat.

No, David. ‘They shouldn’t stand in its way’ is not a commitment to religious pluralism and he makes it quite clear how he feels about the Qadianis further down by hiding behind that old chestnut ‘consensus of scholars’.

You know that vast majority of moderate, pluralist, tolerant muslims you keep telling us about? Well, they just banned a co-religionist sect from building a place of worship. They are jubilant about it.

Now about them folk in Switzerland who just voted to ban minarets but not mosques…

You know that vast majority of moderate, pluralist, tolerant muslims you keep telling us about? Well, they just banned a co-religionist sect from building a place of worship.

A small group of Muslims in Walsall constitute the vast majority of Muslims?

Who knew?

Inayat Bunglawala has also taken up cudgels in defence of the persecuted Ahmadi community in an outspoken CiF post

Perhaps you could help us old cynics by quoting the relevant passage(s)?

You should include a summary for those who won’t take the time to figure out the issue.

Clearly the Muslims quoted saying things like “It is a victory for the people, there are enough places of worship in the area. There was not a single person who supported it” are lying.

They opposed the mosque because they think of Ahmadiyya as heretics.

800 complaints.

That’s an amazing number of unashamed bigots.

There is no doubt that if they felt powerful enough to oppose Christianity or Judaism with equal fervor they would. Oh wait, in the case of Judaism, they do oppose it, though differently.

By grim coincidence, I have just finished reading a judgment where an Ahmadi woman has just been granted asylum in the UK because she would not be safe in Pakistan from those who who had subjected her there to horrific sexual abuse and domestic violence, as she would receive no protection from the authorities there. From the Judgment:
In the Pakistan OGN issued on 4th February 2009 concerning Ahmadis under the heading sufficiency of protection it is stated that the police reportedly still provide little protection for Ahmadis and in some cases are intimidated against investigating violence or other action against them. Ahmadi community representatives have also reportedly stated that they cannot look to the police or the courts for protection in Rabwah and that the police are seen by the community as actively protecting the mullahs and their followers. Perpetrators of anti-Ahmadi violence have very seldom been prosecuted, leading to an atmosphere of impunity.

OT, but important: A Lebanese Shia on pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia has been convicted of witchcraft and sentenced to be executed this Thursday. See http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/family-pleads-for-return-of-father-sentenced-to-death-for-witchcraft-1835051.html

Hat tip to Iraqi Mojo who linked to about story with post on Dec. 6th, “Stupid Saudis sentence to death a Lebanese Shia for “witchcraft” at http://www.iraqimojo.blogspot.com

Q. When is it not antisemitic to spray a synagogue with swastikas and attack Orthodox Jews?

A. When it’s the Gur Hasidim on the attack, apparently!
http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2006/04/hasidim_rumble_.html

Actually, Bunglewala has really stuck his neck out here! If there is one thing that unites South Asian Muslims – Sunni and Shia, Salafi and Sufi – it is the belief that the Ahmadiyyah are not Muslim. Don’t be surprised if a few fatwas start flying his way!

Who on earth are the contributors of Harry’s Place to lecture anyone about tolerance. Its just extraordinary and perverse.

Fuck off Johng.

“Who on earth are the contributors of Harry’s Place”

They are the last of a dying breed, decent leftists who can still tell the difference between pure ideological hatred and genuine concern for the oppressed and who also have the guts to speak out about it.

They are not like you or the other malignant neo-socialists that infect this planet like a virus, you and your ilk have latched onto these Islamist maniacs in the vain hope that yours and their, different but similar, strains of poison can overwhelm the Western Democracies and lead to the establishment of some kind of paradoxical Neo-Socialist/Islamist nightmare.

You neo-socialists are wrong, you on the malignant left have been wrong for almost a century, you think this partnership with these maniacs of Islam will bring down your nemesis the “evil west”, it’s your last chance, your last great hope for a world expunged of the free.

A world shared between the ideologically pure and the theologically certain.

You think once the “Evil West” is destroyed you can simply end the coalition of the bigoted and convert the Islamists to communists, a few show trials and peoples courts and the maniacs of Islam will see the error of their ways and convert to neo-socialism, the Islamists think they are going to do the same to you, a few public beheadings and all the neo-socialists will see the error of their ways and convert to Islam.

Simple, isn’t it, “my enemies enemy is my friend” until of course “my enemies enemy” becomes my new enemy and the carnage starts all over again.

johng. Don’t you people ever tire of being wrong? Don’t you ever just look in the mirror and say “man we are so fucking stupid it is embarrassing”?

No, I suppose you don’t, do you.

For the neo-socialists of the far Left or their new Islamist mates “to lecture anyone about tolerance” now that really is “extraordinary and perverse”.

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I’m a guy from Vietnam. I just wonder if you want to exchange link with my blog?
Plz contact to me soon!

Not change link at tu van luat.
Change link at my blog PR2: top mtv asia

I think there are two issues here.

One is the rejection of Ahmadiyyia as Muslims, much discussed above.

The other is the Town Planning issues about the building and the application in Walsall.

I believe I once googled that the UK has more mosques per capita of Muslims than France who have a higher number of Muslims.

Who turns down the building of a place of worship in our politically correct World? Do YOU want a death threat like the opponent of the Super Mosque in East London for the Olympics received.

The Swiss have determined that Minarets are an uneccessary construction for Muslims to worship in a Mosque and they destroy the nature and character of Switzerland.

Its the large number of Mosques in inner cities that local residents seem to object to when it goes hand-in-hand with changing the nature of their locales which leads to votes for the BNP.

Places of worship do not need to be ostentatious or outside the character of its locale. I see its possibly a problem here of a different sect who want their own Mosque. Well, that ain’t OUR problem!

A sect is a religion with just a few followers. Or should that be a religion is a sect with a lot of followers? I’m confused…

I’m not sure that Bungle has seen the light. Writing on CiF and on iEngage, he says different things to different audiences. He is learning well from Tariq Ramadan that a ‘double discourse’ is useful. And what is he really saying here?:

Rather than demonstrating against Ahmadi plans to build a place of worship, British Muslims could do better by learning from the organisational skills of the Ahmadi community and the commitment and dedication shown by their members towards financially supporting the growth of their community.

Not that British Muslims could do better by learning to tolerate others. They should learn that the Ahmadis have better organisational skills and financing than ‘British Muslims’. Note the barely concealed envy. The Ahmadis nearly got their way and may do so next time. Envy is, of course, one of Bungle’s defining characteristics.

Meanwhile work starts on the Brick Lane minaret – the cost of which is borne by planning gain monies from Bishops Square: http://www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/content/towerhamlets/advertiser/news/story.aspx?brand=ELAOnline&category=news&tBrand=northlondon24&tCategory=newsela&itemid=WeED04%20Dec%202009%2021%3A32%3A09%3A223

Perhaps this is the occasion for me to tell an anecdote.

There is a street leading down from my home which has three Sri Lankan, I thought, groceries. I always go to the smallest one.

When I was there two days ago the guy at the cash desk grilled me about my life history. He wanted to know everything. I asked him a few questions and he told me he was an Indian Muslim. He couldn’t believe I was not married and insisted so much, that, in the end, I had to say, ‘Io amo gli uomini.” Does this mean you want to slit my throat? I asked.

Oh! Good heavens, no! he replied and insisted that the Jihad and Al kaeda types were NOT! NOT! NOT Muslims. He was speaking for a community and so does my Moroccan barber and so do other Muslims who live in my area. Anti-semiticism is absolutely a unthinkable to them, it means nothing. You are you and I am I. So much for people who say there are no moderate Muslims, because, for ideological reasons the don’t want to believe this.

The most absurd argument that comes up repeatedly is (a) they believe in the Koran (b) the Koran says such and such (c) therefore they are extremists. Galloway keeps absurdly trying that trick with the Torah.

My grocer told me that believing in the Koran does not make you a Muslim. There are 4 books you are obliged to take into account: The Torah, another book (I couldn’t understand), The New Testament and last the Koran, so, if Jesus wasn’t an integral part of your religion, you were not a Muslim.

Yeze, brief but to the point as usual.

Anaximander’s other sandal. Glad to see you back, I missed you!

Felix (Italy) – “So much for people who say there are no moderate Muslims, because, for ideological reasons the don’t want to believe this.”

Well I don’t believe there are no moderate Muslims, but the quality of the evidence here is weak – he wants your custom, what else is he going to say?

But the usual argument is that the better a Muslim you are, the worse you are. There are moderates in the Muslim community but they are the ones that don’t believe. Piety and intolerance go together. That is a different argument.

As for Inayat Bungawala, I expect he is preaching what the Guardian audience wants to hear – and what will get him Government funds. He will say something else to the Saudis. As long as they pay in cash. I wonder if his words are full of loopholes. But ask him to write for HP and see if he does.

John G being a concerned South Asian scholar should be concerned about the plight of the Ahmadiyya Muslims as he is desperately concerned with minority rights and all……

Mosque destruction has form as “Prophet” Muhammad had an “imposter” Prophets mosque destroyed. Islam has the principle of killing your opposition, apostates and heretics and thats why Israr Ahmed a Pakistani Mullah and part of the rightist Islamic establishment which John G is blind about is here advocating killing Ahmediyya Muslims, which is being carried out regularly in targeted killings in Pakistan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRywfRwrTWA

This leading scholar http://www.peacetv.tv/sp-israr_ahmed.php advocates killing Ahmedis as apostates and renegades. He’s a leading Islamic scholar on “Peace TV” and linked with Jamaatis.

I’m sure he can be linked with many in this campaign against this Mosque if the research is done.

Fack uff, JuhnG.

There are 4 books you are obliged to take into account: The Torah, another book (I couldn’t understand), The New Testament and last the Koran, so, if Jesus wasn’t an integral part of your religion, you were not a Muslim.

I Muslim reading the Torah and the New Testament?

This is NOT how Arabs practice Islam. At all. Not in the slightest.

I suspect they would consider such a practice heresy.

But good on the Sri Lankans for having invented ecumenical Islam.

God damn typo. I’m reposting this with a typo fixed.

There are 4 books you are obliged to take into account: The Torah, another book (I couldn’t understand), The New Testament and last the Koran, so, if Jesus wasn’t an integral part of your religion, you were not a Muslim.

A Muslim reading the Torah and the New Testament?

This is NOT how Arabs practice Islam. At all. Not in the slightest.

I suspect they would consider such a practice heresy.

But good on the Sri Lankans for having invented ecumenical Islam.

Felix:

“My grocer told me ”

… exactly what he reckoned you wanted to hear. Bear that in mind next time he does it. Just smile, nod, and don’t get involved.

I have a suspicion that Monty is right.

What is more likely, a new version of Islam that ignores Mohammad’s temper tantrum claiming that God hates Jews and Christians – when Mohammad realized that the stories he made up don’t match the ones he had hearsay of in the Torah and New Testament, or is it more likely that your grocer exaggerated the common lip service, also attribute to Mohammad, that Islam is a perfection of Judaism and Christianity.

It’s not as if he doesn’t have any motivation for wanting to distance himself from “the Jihad and Al kaeda”.

There’s nothing wrong with him putting you at ease, but I have never heard of a Muslim reading the Torah or New Testament, and I have seen them fly into rage if you mention, even my accident, any portion of those which contradict what Mohammad said. For instance mentioning that Jesus was a Jew.

You see, Felix? There are no moderate Muslims. And even though you met a living, breathing one, he must have been lying so that doesn’t count. Monty, Josh and SMFS said so.

Brownie if even 10% of Muslims in the middle read the Torah and the New Testament then the florid Jew hatred and Christian hatred in countries like Egypt, Jordan, Syria or even Lebanon would be impossible.

Josh and others, irredeemable anti-Muslim bigots. You must be agents of the BNP. Conspiracy theorists. Your views are diametrically opposed to those of HP which is heroically tolerant of you.

“… exactly what he reckoned you wanted to hear. Bear that in mind next time he does it. Just smile, nod, and don’t get involved.”

I have no intention whatever of behaving in this way with Muslims in Verona who are now my friends. They have already brought Arabic meals to my flat, refusing payment. They believe in respecting older people and helping them. One Muslim helped me to carry my shopping up the hill, refused payment, was particular about leaving the shopping on the front stairs of the building, so I wouldn’t have to take a stranger into my flat, and then gave me his mobile number and told me to phone him if I needed any help with anything. The owners of the bar where I met him told me he was as good as gold.

Who are you to assume that people don’t mean what they say? You don’t know them. When I run into people like you, I neither smile nor nod but steer clear absolutely. I went back to the greengrocer’s this morning and we are on the best of terms. All the immigrants who have shops in this street smile and greet me.

I know I’m not allowed to say, on this site, there’s
no such thing as Islamophobia.

But can I say this. Anazamanders’ Other Sandal
perfectly presents the position I hold.
Also that of many of my friends.
As a matter of fact Winston Churchill & Clement Attlee,
had the same, primary, concerns for the poorer
classes.
Way back then national unity included compassion.
Today the only compassion shown nationally is frelates to
spurious TV extravagantathons.

Hello.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the main problem mainstream islam has with the Ahamidis that the latter believe Big M wasn’t the final prophet?

If that’s the case, then don’t the Ahmadis represent the very last hope for the total reformation of islam and the avoidance of the giant shitstorm?

The negation of the principle of abrogation isn’t going to happen. It’s hard-wired into the Qbook. The bombin’, rapin’ and riotin’ isn’t gonna stop until a new islamic prophet – maybe this hidden imam chap – suddenly appears and tells his people that Mustafa bin Abdulla ibn Mutalib wasn’t born a cunt. He just ended up as one.

Come on muslims. Come on murids. We don’t really want to destroy you. Just be nice – like your hero once was. Or don’t. Almost past caring.

Peace y’all. Or victory.

x

So much for tolerance and diversity in this multicultural country. Not in Walsall it seems!

Apparently tommorrow’s execution of a Lebanese Shia in Saudi Arabia on charges of “witchcraft” do not count for much at Harry’s Place. (See my comment of 9 Dec., 12:12 AM)

CookieCutter @ 9 December 2009, 7:50 am

“Who turns down the building of a place of worship in our politically correct World? Do YOU want a death threat like the opponent of the Super Mosque in East London for the Olympics received.”

It happens all the time, for everyday Town Planning reasons such as inability to provide sound insulation to neighbouring homes, inadequate access to the site, or overdevelopment of the site.

Some of these reasons applied to the Mosque development previoulsy not given permission on the site of the Mythical “supermosque”.

The last time I read a Muslim say that Jesus is very important etc. etc., he was a Lebanese who had quit Hezbollah and written a book against the organization – the TV interviewer who seemed sympathetic to him was asking him if it was true that he had converted to Christianity…

The man’s answer convinced me that he had converted, but in order to prevent the supreme disaster caused by admitting heresy in Lebanon (which can involve being killed, your property taken, your marriage annulled and probably your wife punished or killed ), he lied and said he wasn’t. I remember a man in Egypt who wrote a book calling for reform in Muslim education – the Muslim brotherhood declared him an apostate and he fled the country to prevent this sort of response.

Perhaps the “Jesus is a very important prophet” stance is the stance of the crypto-Christian and your grocer has been confused by knowing crypto-Christians.

David All: your report about the execution in Saudi is appalling. It does not seem to have been widely reported, still less any demos outside the Saudi Embassy.

Or should that be a religion is a sect with a lot of followers?

Not a sect. A cult.

It’s quite pathetic, yet so predictable nonetheless, that David T and his ilk would fall for Bungles’ equivocations. They so desperately want to believe that Islamists are really goodthinkful progressive liberals at heart. Sigh.

Here’s the deal. Bungles’ does not think Ahmadiyyas are Muslims. But he’s also well aware that the Ahmadiyya’s alleged heresy is an intra-Islamic conflict, quite lost on non-Muslims, to whom a mosque is a mosque is a mosque is something to do with Muslims only, innit.

So, if Muslims are seen complaining about or campaigning against something apparently Muslim (“a mosque is a mosque is a…”), this suggests that the Muslim community is not entirely orthodox, there could be a streak of liberal secular sentiment.

Whether there is or not is not the point: rather, Bungles’ the Islamist simply can’t stand for that. So he has to downplay it, by deflecting attention to the Ahmadiyyas’ purported organizational skills, or whatever. At all costs, he does not want the idea of protesting against mosques to gain any legitimacy.

In a perfect world, Bungles’ could patiently explain to the likes of David T et al that an Ahmadiyya mosque isn’t really a mosque at all. But he realizes not only that he has to settle for less but also that he can say significantly less and still get away with it.

Bungles’ has your number, and you leftards are loving it.

So Much For Subtlety – “Well I don’t believe there are no moderate Muslims”

Brownie – “You see, Felix? There are no moderate Muslims. And even though you met a living, breathing one, he must have been lying so that doesn’t count. Monty, Josh and SMFS said so.”

I may be getting more extreme but at least I am not resorting to out right lies.

I didn’t say there are no moderate people who are Muslims. I suggested that a person exaggerating the moderateness of Islam is more likely than a new, ecumenical, tolerant Islam seen no where.

Find me one Muslim cleric who recommends that Muslims read the New Testament. Find one!

The fact is that if you know the scriptures of Christianity and Judaism even to a small extent, Mohammad’s own pronouncements about those religions look very silly indeed. His own stories and exhortations to paranoia and would not have been possible if he were not himself illiterate, and that becomes obvious pretty quickly.

If Muslim leaders promoted ecumenicalism, Islam would evaporate. They never have and they never will.

SMFS,

There are moderates in the Muslim community but they are the ones that don’t believe.

What other way is there of interpreting this than that you believe those people self-identifying as Muslim but who are moderate aren’t actually Muslims at all?

“Muslim” is a declaration of faith, not ethnicity. If you say the only moderates in the Muslim community are unbelievers, then you are logically proscribing the possibility someone can at once be Muslim and also moderate. You’ve decided the two are mutually exclusive.

Maybe you didn’t mean this, but it’s a perfectly valid interpretation of what you’ve written. If you’d like to clarify, I’ll happily retract. As things stand currently, I see no reason to do so and to claim I’m guilty of “outright lies” is itself an outright lie given the sentence of yours I quote above.

I may be getting more extreme…

There’s no “may” about it, bub.

Brownie – “What other way is there of interpreting this than that you believe those people self-identifying as Muslim but who are moderate aren’t actually Muslims at all?”

I don’t know, how about in the obvious sense of the simple meaning of the plain English text that is in front of you? Which would start by the simple acknowledgement that I think there are moderate Muslims in the world. It might then go on to notice that what you are quoting now is a report by me of an argument often put on the internet, not necessarily my own opinion. But I am happy to admit that a subtle variant of this is my own opinion so that would not be worth your time. But finally you might like to dump the simplistic Black and White world you live in and think about what I actually said. It is not a choice between people who Believe and people who do not. But a spectrum of grey. People down the Friday Muslim end tend to be moderate. People at the Wahhabi end don’t.

“If you say the only moderates in the Muslim community are unbelievers, then you are logically proscribing the possibility someone can at once be Muslim and also moderate. You’ve decided the two are mutually exclusive.”

No, you have decided to claim I have decided the two are mutually exclusive. I have done no such thing. If is such a little word isn’t it? So easy to pass by its importance in sentences like this one.

“Maybe you didn’t mean this, but it’s a perfectly valid interpretation of what you’ve written. ”

In a pig’s ear it is. As I said, I don’t need to lie.

“If you’d like to clarify, I’ll happily retract. As things stand currently, I see no reason to do so and to claim I’m guilty of “outright lies” is itself an outright lie given the sentence of yours I quote above.”

Your problems, whether it is reading comprehension or manners, is not really my problem is it? It is not a valid interpretation of what I said. No simple flat denial of what I actually did say can be. It is an outright and open lie. I clearly said there are moderate Muslims, you stated I denied it. There is no other valid description of your words.

This reminds me of the rejection of Jews for Jesus as Jews, and the recent Sectarian Jewish School who dissallowed a Jewish student on account of his birth mother.

What a hoot!

Josh Scholar 9 December 2009, 6:00 pm

” the “Jesus is a very important prophet” stance is” what any Mulsim would say.

I asked a friend about this in the middle of a meeting. She said “yes, but he didn’t die”, neatly summarising a key difference between Christianity and Islam in five words.

Alan Ji, I wasn’t clear.

Muslims give lip service to Jesus, but they never read the scriptures.

That was my point. You missed what I meant entirely.

It’s all lip service.

Muslims know nothing about Judaism or Christianity, only the bullshit that Mohammad said about them because Mohammad said that the scriptures are lies and that God hate the Christians and Jews for changing his words.

To actually study anything about Christianity or Judaism would be to study these lies and to be a heretic.

No, Muslims know nothing at all about Jesus. And I say that as a non-christian. I “have no dog in this fight”.. But I know an obvious lie when I hear one. How can “Jesus be an important prophet” when Muslims aren’t allowed to read his words?

Besides, as I said before, if Muslims knew the actual content of other religions then they couldn’t believe the paranoid conspiracies that their clerics preach about the contents of other religions… all of which are simply exaggerations of Mohammad’s own paranoia and slander.

Felix

“My grocer told me…”

I know a bit about Islam having been born a Muslim and spending the first part of my life living in Iran. And I am able to do something that you will never be able to do.

Say “Salaam Alaikum” and have a discussion with a Muslim as another ‘Muslim’.

Believe me Muslims, especially devout Muslims, are very slippery when it comes to answering questions about their beliefs.

Perhaps your grocer was sincere. But don’t take that for granted. It is simple good manners to avoid giving offence to someone you’re serving in a shop. A racist shopkeeper would never openly discuss his bigotry to a black customer. He’d probably say how much he liked black people. But his discussions with another racist would be very different.

And a Muslim will often say things to me, another ‘Muslim’ that they wouldn’t say to you.

Stop being so naïve Felix.

I clearly said there are moderate Muslims, you stated I denied it.

Yep, you did say that. Then you said this:

There are moderates in the Muslim community but they are the ones that don’t believe.

You claim this is was simply the presentation of another argument, but you’ve since conceded that your own position is a “subtle variant” of this anyway. How “subtle” you don’t say, but these are all variations on the theme of ‘the only good Muslim is a bad Muslim’, in that the less likely they are to follow the tenets of Islam, the more agreeable they’ll be to you.

It is not a choice between people who Believe and people who do not. But a spectrum of grey. People down the Friday Muslim end tend to be moderate. People at the Wahhabi end don’t.

This means nothing. You’re simply saying that moderates are moderate and extremists are extreme. This is hardly a truisim restricted to adherents of Islam, is it?

SMFS, I said I’d happily retract if you clarified and I will. But I’m not comfortable with, “There are moderates in the Muslim community but they are the ones that don’t believe” or any variation thereof, especially if it’s merely “subtle”. It indicates a belief that nominal Muslims are the moderates but *actual* Muslims are, by definition, incapable of being moderates. As if the moment one starts actually *being* a Muslim as opposed to calling oneself a Muslim, varying degrees of extremism are inevitable.

If you want to distance youself from this, you can do. If you choose not to – which is of course your prerogative – then how different am I supposed to assume your own position is, given you admit your own view is only a subtle variation of this bigotry?

Like I say, I will retract and apologize if you make it clear that your comment “Well I don’t believe there are no moderate Muslims” applies to practising as well as plastic Muslims.