Author Archives: Faisal

An Unlikely Benefactor

By Faisal | Published: July 8, 2010

And now for some good news. Jewish property tycoon, Robert Harush who grew up in Ashkelon in Israel, donated a fortune towards the renovation of large mosque in Montereau in France.

Father of four Robert Harush, 58, grew up in Ashkelon and having completed his military service tried his luck in the real estate business in Europe. His success has won him many hotels and buildings and he is estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of shekels.

Despite his success Harush did not forget his hometown and has returned to Ashkelon and invested in local building ventures. For the past 10 years he has been dividing his time between Israel and France. His four children all speak Hebrew.

The businessman even chose to stay in the southern city during Operation Cast Lead. He remained in Israel also after a Grad rocket landed near his house.

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Posted in Activism | Leave a comment

Nasr Abu Zayd is dead

By Faisal | Published: July 6, 2010

Nasr Abu Zayd, an Egyptian scholar who was declared an apostate for challenging mainstream Muslim views on the Koran, died in Cairo on Monday. He was 66.

“Religion has been used, politicized, not only by groups but also the official institutions in every Arab country,” he told Reuters in 2008. The distinction between “the domain of religion and secular space,” he said, had been eroded.

The New York Times covers his passing:

Dr. Abu Zayd’s liberal, critical approach to Islamic teachings angered some Muslim conservatives in Egypt in the 1990s, when President Hosni Mubarak’s government was combating an uprising by armed Islamic militants. Dr. Abu Zayd criticized the use of religion to exert political power. He argued that the Koran was both a literary and religious text, a view that clashes with the Islamic idea that the holy book is the final revelation of God.

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Posted in Hermeneutics | 3 Comments

Stop the stoning of Sakine Mohammadi Ashtiani

By Faisal | Published: July 4, 2010

From Stop Honour Killings:

Sakine Mohammadi Ashtiani is a forty-three year old mother of two children, 16 & 20 year old respectively. Both Sakine’s children and her lawyer tried everything they could to stop the stoning sentence, as a result of committing adultery. However, her stoning is finalized by the Iran’s court. Sakine is in Tabriz prison awaiting her imminent stoning sentence.

The barbaric act of stoning must stop now!

Do not allow our nightmare become a reality,

Protest against our mother’s stoning!

Read the rest.

Posted in Sharia | 20 Comments

Lahore Attacks: Blame the Foreigners

By Faisal | Published: July 4, 2010

Another barbaric suicide attack in Lahore which shows all the signs of a jihadi mission by the Punjabi Taliban:

The bombing was captured on CCTV and shown on TV. The first bomber was seen running into a basement clutching a bag filled with explosives and ballbearings, pursued by a guard, before a large explosion swept across the room.

As the smoke cleared a presumed second bomber is seen slipping into the building, against the tide of fleeing worshippers, and running up a staircase into the main area, where he also blew himself up.

Images from the site showed debris and body parts scattered across the blood-stained marble courtyard of the shrine.

The motive for this attack can be found in religious dogma, this was no political protest by the “little guy” against the forces of imperialism; quite the opposite. This was an assault fomented by a powerful and wealthy cabal of Wahabi clerics and their royal Saudi patrons enforcing their version of orthodoxy on ordinary believers by an act of terrorism. And it won’t stop here.

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Posted in Terrorism | 3 Comments

British Shia Organisations Attack the MCB for Sectarianism

By Faisal | Published: July 2, 2010

The MCB has earned the wrath of British Shia groups after it gave its unconditional support for Zakir Naik and accused the government of a “Serious Error of Judgement” for banning Naik.

Three British Shia groups, The World Federation of Khoja Shia Ithna Asheri Muslim Communities (KSIMC), The Council of European Jamaats and the Al Khoei Foundations, have issued a joint statement charging the MCB with sectarianism for its total support of the hate-preacher.

“The public proclamations of Dr. Zakir Naik relating to Shi’a and Sufi Muslims should not go unchallenged; his open, and sometimes vile, condemnations of Sufi and Shi’a religious ostentations place him on par with violent and extremist ideologies that sit on the periphery of the dichotomous worldview held by Dr. Zakir Naik which in the view of many runs contrary to the spirit of Islam.”

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Posted in Sectarianism | 7 Comments

On Hitch

By Faisal | Published: July 1, 2010

An update from Christopher Hitchens

I have been advised by my physician that I must undergo a course of chemotherapy on my esophagus. This advice seems persuasive to me. I regret having had to cancel so many engagements at such short notice.

I didn’t agree with him when he went pro-Iraq war but it was hard not to appreciate the liberal reasons for opposing Saddam, which he articulated in his usual characteristic brilliance. But though the ethics for going to war were credible (secularism, human rights and democracy), the logistics were not and bound to fail. On the other hand, some of my more colourful fellow travellers who were anti-war such as the Islamists (“anti-Muslim crusadery”), the far-left (braindead unilateralism and “anti-imperialism”) and the BNP (just braindead) – were unified by values and reasons for opposing the war that were mostly execrable.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Heeeeeere’s Mahdi!

By Faisal | Published: June 30, 2010

From a televised Peace TV extravaganza:

A man steps up to the mike and reveals himself on live TV as Imam Mahdi, herald to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ the Messiah .

Hilarity and confusion ensues as the smug beardy presenter gleefully explains why the man can’t be the Mahdi – he can’t speak Arabic.

But is that the only doctrinal proof of the personage of the Mahdi? Surely Jesus, who spoke Aramaic in his last worldly appearance, would be “cosmic” enough to know that the best way to communicate to the Southasian Peace TV audience would be in English.

Even Zakir Naik would know to do that.

Posted in Esoterica | 7 Comments

The Two Faces of Maududi

By Faisal | Published: June 28, 2010

Here is a piece of text uncovered (here and here) by Yassir Latif Hamdani which exposes the duality of Jamaat-e-Islam through the words of its founder, Abul Ala Maududi. After years of sabotaging the creation of Pakistan, denouncing Ali Jinnah as a religious lightweight and decrying democracy as satan’s handiwork, Maududi made an astonishing 180 degree flip and embraced Pakistan, Jinnah and democracy. The question is, did he actually do any of this in good faith or was it all a ploy to further the aims of Jamaat-e-Islam and turn Pakistan into an Islamic state?

Here is an English translation of the 10 Urdu quotations of Maulana Maududi, founder of the Jamaat Islami, quoted above:

THE WORDS OF MAULANA MAUDUDI:

1. “The establishment and birth of Pakistan is equivalent to the birth of a beast.”

2. “Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s place is not on the throne of leadership. He deserves to face trial as a traitor.”

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Posted in Islamism | 8 Comments

When Hate speech Trumps Free speech

By Faisal | Published: June 21, 2010

This is a very interesting article by Sadanand Dhume in the WSJ.

Dhume commends Britain’s decision to ban Zakir Naik and criticises India for failing to do the same in regard to his record of hate speech. Dhume identifies two reasons why the Indian Left has failed to apply its own rules on the boundaries between free-speech and that which can be considered hate-speech.

1) The unthinking readiness to deferentially accept hate speech as free speech when the speaker claims the specious title of being a “religious figure”.
2) The inability to criticise proponents of hate speech by Muslim extremists, because they are loathe to be misinterpreted as “Islamophobic” and sympathetic to the far-right Hindutva interests.

What Dhume may not realise is the situation in Indian is very similar to the situation here in Britain. Islamists are treated with all the deference they demand and allowed to hold objectionable views which they are often allowed to propagate publicly with impunity. Any criticism of this practice is shut down by invoking “Islamophobia” as an outrage to “Muslim feelings”.

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Posted in Anti Fascism, Freedom of Expression | 5 Comments

When Multiculturalists Get Bitten By Multiculturalism

By Faisal | Published: June 21, 2010

Eight years ago, Kenan Malik wrote an important and remarkably prescient essay on multiculturalism called Against Multiculturalism:

Proponents of multiculturalism usually put forward two kinds of arguments in its favour. First, they claim that multiculturalism is the only means of ensuring a tolerant and democratic polity in a world in which there are deep-seated conflicts between cultures embodying different values. This argument is often linked to the claim that the attempt to establish universal norms inevitably leads to racism and tyranny. Second, they suggest that human beings have a basic, almost biological, need for cultural attachments. This need can only be satisfied, they argue, by publicly validating and protecting different cultures. Both arguments are, I believe, deeply flawed.

By that definition, Sunny Hundal is a textbook proponent of multiculturalism. A few months ago he wrote a piece on his blog, Pickled Politics, and called it Minorities and power, in liberal democracies. Not only was it is a clear-cut example of Kenan’s definition of multiculturalism, Hundal provides a complete proof-positive validation of Kenan’s thesis with this astonishing disclosure:

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Posted in Moral relativism, Multiculturalism | 19 Comments

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