Category Archives: Exegesis

Islamist Doublespeak Part II: Misrepresenting the Divine Word Itself

By bananabrain | Published: July 20, 2009

we’ve already seen in my last piece how islamists manage to pervert the Quran’s open-minded approach to the other abrahamic religions:

the only true followers of Moses [pbuh], are the Muslims, for it is part of moses religion [and the religion of all other prophets] to accept the latest Messenger and revelation; that is why Muslims are considered to be the followers of all the Prophets.

it also appears that the last piece upset some of our local islamist trolls.

good.

anyway, what i’m going to take a look at now is the assumption i noted in the previous piece, namely that “the jews” possess a “corrupt” verion of the Torah and that, as a result, we have drifted away from the “original religion” of every prophet from adam to abraham – which was, of course, “islam”. there are four components to this idea, namely:

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Also posted in Interfaith, Islamism | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

The hijab, Sarkozy and all that

By Zorro | Published: June 25, 2009

Sarkozy’s call for a ban on the veil has indeed opened up a number of issues and perspectives, even if he may well have had his own motives for doing so!

We have had the normal reaction on the left to condemn him, the reaction from the right in the UK to call for a ban and even claim Muslims support them and this has caused a little stir amongst Islamists.

iEngage for example originally followed the 1st electronic print of the Express article stating that Ghaffar Hussain from the Quilliam Foundation had stated that the Burka/Burqa was a cultural practice and not sanctioned in the Quran, but then went further and mistakenly claimed that he supported a ban. This has subsequently been “corrected”, by both the Express and iEngage.

A number of ancilliary discussions have persisted some of which are quite interesting, hypocritical and opportunistic.

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Also posted in Anti Fascism, Anti Muslim bigotry, Democracy, Ethics, Freedom of Expression, Hermeneutics, Human Rights, Islamism, Politics, Secularism, Sharia | 4 Comments

Why Sharia doesn’t seek the Sharia to be enforced by the State

By Zorro | Published: June 17, 2009

It seems that the Islamists, and some anti-Islamists, are getting into the debate involving the implementation of Sharia with certain assumptions in mind.

1. There is such a thing as The Sharia!

This is simply not true. Muslim scholars do not have a single detailed rule of Sharia that they agree upon. They agree on broad principles which most humans do, but in general they do not agree on a single body of law which they call Sharia. They have loads of different interpretations on most aspects of their religious code – if not all. To give an example let’s take the rulings of alcohol and wine. Is wine or alcohol forbidden? If it is both or either, is there a punishment? If so, what is the punishment? If not then it is up to the authorities to criminalize or not – a process called Tazir. The fact is there is no consensus on such issues.

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Also posted in Ethics, Islamism, Secularism, Sharia | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Islamist Economics and the Capitalist System – Riba!

By Zorro | Published: June 11, 2009

“Islamic” economic ‘thinkers’ and Islamist political activists ranging from the terror crew (Bin Laden et al), to the “moderates” often like to have a rant at the evil Capitalist economic system, and specifically interest based banking.  They often equate the above with the Islamic prohibition on Riba – usually vaguely translated as usury.

Many Islamic theologians/scholars do in fact consider interest an aspect of usury, though many don’t (see here for a full discussion of all of the Islamic scholars who permitted interest and did not see it as Riba). Assuming many did forbid interest as Riba, it does not necessarilly mean that is the complete picture.

Traditionally theologians have developed elaborate means of ensuring that effective financial transactions are not prevented through the blanket application of Islamic rules of Fiqh (human interpretations of Sharia divine law) to situations without recourse to strategies where necessary.

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Also posted in Ethics, Hermeneutics, Islamism, Sharia | 5 Comments

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