Author Archives: Faisal

IFE’s bathetic response to the Unity Platform

The Islamic Forum Europe and the East London Mosque have issued a riposte to the ant-fascist statement by the Unity Platform Against Racism and Fascism group. [UPARF] – “In defending the people of Tower Hamlets and especially the ordinary Muslims we do not have to defend IFE. EDL is attacking the Muslims of this borough and we [...]
Posted in Anti Fascism | 7 Comments

Zakir Naik is Banned from the UK

The Spittoon’s sources tell us that the Home Office has issued an exclusion order on Zakir “Every Muslim should be a terrorist” Naik. This decision pulls the chain conclusively on the controversial PeaceTV tele-evangelist’s lecture tour in the UK. The itinerary included Sheffield Arena, London’s Wembley Arena and Birmingham’s LG Arena. We discussed the nature of Naik’s hate incitement here. [...]
Posted in Freedom of Expression | 55 Comments

The Trouble With Prince Charles

Christopher Hitchens on the pseudo-intellectual anti-science quackery of HRH Prince Charles: A hereditary head of state, as Thomas Paine so crisply phrased it, is as absurd a proposition as a hereditary physician or a hereditary astronomer. To this innate absurdity, Prince Charles manages to bring fatuities that are entirely his own. And, as he paged his way [...]
Posted in Obscurantism | 3 Comments

The Cost of Free Speech

Inayat Bunglawala used his latest foray on CiF to call for “consistency” of liberal values so that the clerics of the Islamic far-right, Bilal Philips and Zakir Naik, may be allowed into the country. We already have a sufficient number of laws on the statute books to deal with incitement to hatred and violence, and the fact is [...]
Posted in Freedom of Expression, Islamism | 27 Comments

Hate: Money Or Ideology?

At the start of the clip, Ayaan Hirsi-Ali asks “What is it that motivates a man like Faisal Shahzad. A man who was living the American dream. Who found a visa to come to this country…” Then the person interviewing Hirsi-Ali makes an assertion: “Well I say if he still had a job he wouldn’t have done it. [...]
Posted in Islamism | 21 Comments

The Taliban and its Pakistan puppet masters

The Times has published an article on a new study published by the LSE which uncovers support by the Pakistani government and by Pakistan’s intelligence servcice, the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), for the Taliban. The ISI in particular is said to be represented on the Taliban’s war council, the Quetta shura. And up to seven of [...]
Posted in International Affairs, Islamism | 3 Comments

The EDL Uncovered

You don’t have to look far into the English Defence League to find its nasty underbelly. And once you find it, it’s not an edifying sight. This is English racism at its most visceral and cowardly and this particular manifestation of it is specifically directed at Southasians, but Southasian muslims in particular. We in Britain haven’t [...]
Posted in Anti Muslim bigotry, Racism | 1 Comment

Pro-Shariah Nonsense from The New Statesman

Good Lord. Now the New Statesman comes out with a position piece advocating shariah law. As is sadly so often the case, the nuances in the lecture Rowan Williams delivered at the Royal Courts of Justice in February 2008 failed to have any impact on those whose closed minds alit on the word “sharia” and decided [...]
Posted in Moral relativism, Sharia | 25 Comments

If a tree falls in the forest, does Pakistan have any liberals?

Declan Walsh provides superb background on the social and religious inequities, marginalisation and oppression historically suffered by Pakistan’s Ahmadi community. He presses home a point that I made here. On the complete silence that followed the massacre of more than 100 Ahmadi worshippers in 2 mosques in Lahore, in contrast to the “tsunami of outrage” of [...]
Posted in Freedom of Religion, Human Rights | 7 Comments

The Reactionary Public

To an outsider, Pakistan’s perceptions of its own political history appears to be mired in a culture of ‘whataboutery’, denial and deflection. So it is encouraging to read the occasional piece by Pakistani political commentator Nadeem Paracha because he does not patronise his readers with yet another analysis of Pakistan’s sectarian unrest by putting the blame on Zionists [...]
Posted in Islamism, Sectarianism | 1 Comment