It’s another example of some sex-obsessed cleric making a religious edict based on his own personal preoccupations and, hey presto!, it’s religious law! That’s sharia for you.

CAIRO: An Islamic cleric residing in Europe said that women should not be close to bananas or cucumbers, in order to avoid any “sexual thoughts.”

The unnamed sheikh, who was featured in an article on el-Senousa news, was quoted saying that if women wish to eat these food items, a third party, preferably a male related to them such as their a father or husband, should cut the items into small pieces and serve.

He said that these fruits and vegetables “resemble the male penis” and hence could arouse women or “make them think of sex.”

He also added carrots and zucchini to the list of forbidden foods for women.

The sheikh was asked how to “control” women when they are out shopping for groceries and if holding these items at the market would be bad for them. The cleric answered saying this matter is between them and God.

Answering another question about what to do if women in the family like these foods, the sheikh advised the interviewer to take the food and cut it for them in a hidden place so they cannot see it.

Which reminds me of the “Thingy shaped turnip” sketch from Blackadder:

Update:
The website, Bikyamasr, which broke this story has followed it up with an update:

CAIRO: The “cucumber” controversy continues as the opinions of a sheikh residing in Europe on how women should avoid certain foods due to their sexual resemblance has sparked massive outcries of frustration and anger.

An Islamic scholar and chairman at Egypt’s Religious Endowments Ministry said this sheikh could not be more “far from the truth.”

Sheikh Gaber Taye’ Youssef knows a lot about preaching and the process in which scholars are selected to be assigned to a job abroad. He expressed serious doubts that the sheikh sourced is even qualified for his position.

“Nonesense and wrong, such talk is empty of any logic or sense and has no roots or relations with Islam or its belief system,” said Youssef when Bikyamasr.com interviewed him over the phone early on Saturday.

What a banal statement. The world already knows that the ‘cucumber fatwa’ is “nonsense and wrong and empty of logic”. The “unnamed sheikh” remains unnamed but his fatwa exists and was not a hoax and is still out there in the public domain. Nothing has changed to prevent similar edicts to be pronounced by any given fuckwit who cares to call himself a “scholar”. Like this one, for example. There are plenty more where that came from and come they will.

After serious deliberation and consultation, officials from the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) have come up with more than 50 phrases using the word “fuck” and 17 involving “butt”.

The list includes several apparently innocuous words and phrases, including “flatulence”, “deposit” and “fondle”. Others would likely only make sense to frustrated teenagers.

Among the more printable terms are “strap-on”, “beat your meat”, “crotch rot”, “love pistol”, “pocket pool” and “quickie”.

By and large the reaction has been ridicule and all of it directed at the PTA. Not least from Pakistanis themselves:

Shoaib Taimur in Karachi (@shobz) tweeted, “Thanks to PTA I can now curse like a Sailor. Thank u for helping me ‘improve’ my vocabulary and giving me a reason to laugh.”
Shakir Husain, also from Karachi (@shakirhusain) wrote, “the #ptabannedlist has ruined my evening plans.”
The choice and spelling of certain words and phrases is also the source of much humor. “Budweiser” made the list, as did “Gonorrehea” [sic].
Pakistan bans ‘monkey crotch’, ‘Jesus Christ’ and obscene words in text messages
But the agency’s decision to implement a ban in the first place has some Pakistanis worried.
Fahad Rehman, a 30-year old event planner in Lahore who often uses text messages to advertise his events, sees it as an attempt by “out-of-touch” officials to placate the more conservative sections of Pakistan’s highly-polarized society, by dictating what is and is not appropriate.
“The word ‘sexy’ is on the list? It’s ridiculous!” says Rehman. “There is, unfortunately, a large number of people who think like this. But this is a complete waste of time. It just diverts attention away from the real problems in Pakistan.”

Beyond the well deserved ridicule, some of the criticism has been thoughtful such as this comment by Umair Tariq:

Rather than putting emphasis on character building and progressiveness, the government threw us into confusion that ultimately led us to religious intolerance and extremism. We have given up regard for the privacy of an individual and we have forsaken the golden rule of religious tolerance on which Islam was founded.

According to these people, the liberty currently enjoyed by the minorities of our country is “enough” – the same liberty where Christians are raped and forcibly converted to Islam, where innocent Hindus are killed and where Ahmadis are unnecessarily targeted. I wonder how these people will react if the West suddenly replaces the liberty currently offered to Muslims and introduces this concept of “enough” liberty to them. How would they feel then?

I truly wonder at the hypocrisy of our nation.

Here are the complete lists of the banned words:
English Offensive Words (pdf)
Urdu Offensive Words (pdf)

What is the point of banning an organisation when it will only reappear with the same personnel under a different name?

So far they’ve come up with:

• Al-Muhajiroun
• Al Ghurabaa
• Islam4UK
• Call to Submission
• Islamic Path
• London School of Sharia
• The Saved Sect or Saviour Sect

Help out Andy Choudary and the girls. What should be the name of their next incarnation?

The Yasmin Fostok Fanclub

The only difference is Abu Waleed isn’t doing parody. His stuff is for real!

Miller opens the letter with some boilerplate text about being firmly opposed to “the infiltration of activist groups by the forces of the state, corporations and the private security industry”:

Spinwatch has – from the very beginning in 2004 – been involved in investigating the infiltration of activist groups by the forces of the state, corporations and the private security industry.  One of the earliest cases we examined was the infiltration of London Greenpeace, with which you have reportedly been associated. Since then we have done extended work on the infiltration of the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (The Threat Response Spy Files) and most recently on the 2010/11 case of police spy Mark Kennedy. We have done this work in close collaboration with the activists who have been infiltrated, destabilized and betrayed. Spinwatch stands in solidarity with the infiltrated.

[...]

Consequently, we think that you need to make a public statement confirming or denying the specific allegations so far made public.  In addition, if any of the allegations are true, you need to give an account of what you now think of your previous activities.  We repeat: In our view your current activities and your alleged past activities are not compatible.  If you now disavow any previous activities, you should also publically apologise to the activists who you allegedly betrayed.

But as you know, Bob Lambert has already confirmed that he was a member of the Special Branch when he was both ‘spy team leader’ and was himself involved as police spy when he personally inflitrated various left-wing groups including London Greenpeace. Have these salient facts passed over Miller’s head? Here, for Miller’s edification, is Lambert admitting as much on the pages of the Guardian:

Nor would I want to deny that the Met’s special branch undercover policing existed, or that it played a key role in countering political violence over a long period. Some of the bravest police officers I ever had the privilege to work with were undercover. Their work helped mount successful criminal prosecutions against groups and individuals engaged in a range of violent and threatening activities. And it is worth noting that the serious threats of violence many covert police officers face do not end with their operational deployments.

The undercover aspect of special branch work has been well reported byPeter Taylor in his groundbreaking BBC documentaries. What strikes me is the extent to which they record a shift away from counter-subversion in the 1970s and towards countering political violence and intimidation.

And yet, in spite of SpinWatch’s so-called credentials of opposition to police infiltration tactics, Miller is unusually keen to accept Lambert’s “apology” prima facie:

As part of my cover story so as to gain the necessary credibility to become involved in serious crime, I first built a reputation as a committed member of London Greenpeace, a peaceful campaigning group.

I apologise unreservedly for the deception I therefore practiced on law abiding members of London Greenpeace.

I also apologise unreservedly for forming false friendships with law abiding ctizens and in particular forming a long term relationship with [Name of person removed] who had every reason to think I was a committed animal rights activist and a genuine London Greenpeace campaigner.

I am grateful to Spinwatch for giving me an opportunity to apologise and also to begin a process on conflict resolution in this difficult and sensitive arena.

This will not be easy for any of us but as a result of the recent work I have undertaken with Spinwatch in defence of Muslim organisations, I am confident we can make progress.

So, there you go, SpinWatch seems to be perfectly willing to relax its principles on opposing police spying and Lobby groups in the case of Lambert. But why?

You only have to look at the East London Mosque website to find the answer. It’s an advertisement for an evening at East London Mosque for a 3-way book launch by these people. No prizes for guessing who the protagonists are:

Prof. David Miller
Professor of Sociology in the School of Applied Social Sciences, University of Strathclyde. He has written widely on propaganda, spin and lobbying and is a director of Spinwatch. His recent publications include: A Century of Spin: How Public Relations Became the Cutting Edge of Corporate Power (Pluto Press, 2008), Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy: Corporate PR and the Assault on Democracy (Pluto Press, 2007), and recently coauthored Cold War on British Muslims (Spinwatch).

Dr Robert Lambert
An academic with a police career in counter-terrorism (1977-2007), who in the aftermath of 9/11 established the Muslim Contact Unit to work emphatically and in partnership with London Muslims.
He is co-director of the European Muslim Research Centre at the Exeter University and lecturer at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St. Andrews.

Rizwaan Sabir
A doctoral researcher at the University of Strathclyde, researching Islam in British and Scottish government policy with a special focus on counter-terrorism. In May 2008 he was detained for seven days as a suspected member of al-Qaida for being in possession of primary research literature. He was released without charge. In September 2011, the Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire Police paid
£20,000 in compensation to Sabir for his wrongful arrest and detention under the Terrorism Act 2000.

Now that Bob Lambert has been exposed as a police spy, will his name be entered into the SpinWatch database?  Also, it would be pertinent for David Miller to address the question on whether he will be entering his own name and that of SpinWatch into the SpinWatch database now that it is inextricably linked to validating and aiding the work of Bob Lambert.

If SpinWatch really did what it says on the SpinWatch tin, and if David Miller is prepared to eat his own dogfood, he would be doing exactly that.

[Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is coincidental. No Islamic extremists were hurt during the making of this film]

KABUL – President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, who for years pushed for reconciliation with the Taliban, now says attempts to negotiate with the insurgent movement are futile and efforts at dialogue should focus instead on neighboring Pakistan.

Karzai explained in a videotaped speech released by his office yesterday that he changed his views about trying to talk to the Taliban after a suicide bomber, claiming to be a peace emissary sent by the insurgents, killed a former Afghan president, Burhanuddin Rabbani, at his home on Sept. 20. Rabbani was leading Karzai’s effort to broker peace with the Taliban.

“Their messengers are coming and killing. . . . So with whom should we make peace?” Karzai said Friday to a gathering of the nation’s top religious leaders that was videotaped.

“I cannot find Mullah Mohammad Omar,’’ Karzai said, referring to the Taliban’s one-eyed leader. “Where is he? I cannot find the Taliban council. Where is it?”

“I don’t have any other answer except to say that the other side for this negotiation is Pakistan,” Karzai said.

The last point is noteworthy.

Most of the Taliban leadership is thought to be living in Pakistan and its governing council – known as the Quetta Shura – is based in the Pakistani city of Quetta. In addition, the Pakistan-based Haqqani network maintains safe-havens in the country’s tribal areas along the Afghan border, particularly in North Waziristan, and has deep ties to the Pakistani secret service, the ISI.

It’s obvious that President Karzai’s about-turn comes after the news that the “Turban bomber” who killed Afghanistan former president, Burhanuddin Rabbani last month, was from Pakistan.

Hence the epiphany:

An Afghan government statement issued earlier in the past week said Pakistan had failed to take steps to eliminate terrorist sanctuaries. It added that if Pakistan’s intelligence service is using the Taliban against Afghanistan, then the Afghan government needs to have negotiations with Pakistan, “not the Taliban.”

the state of "yiddishkeit" yesterday

anyway, it appears to be (you can download it from here) from one of the increasingly odd sub-groups of the breslover sect of hasidim, who you may have seen in the recent tv documentary partying at their annual jamboree at the sect founder’s tomb in the town of uman in the ukraine. they are regarded as somewhat odd even by other hasidim (in a kind of sufi high-on-G!D hippy kind of way) but they are rather obsessed with the kabbalistic aspects of correct sexual activity, the piece itself being extremely revealing of the attitudes that filter through in much of the discourse from the haredi world, particularly the hasidic bits, so i thought i’d share it, with some translation and commentary:

1. a “leshem yichud” is a kabbalistic formula meant to be recited before an action in order to concentrate the proper intention and mindfulness.
2. the “sita aher”, normally called the “sitra ahra”, is a kabbalistic term for, not to put too fine a point on it, the “dark side of the Force”.
3. “klipot” is a term referring to the “shells” that enclose the “sparks of holiness that were trapped in the lower worlds (including ours) during the cosmic catastrophe of the creation of evil in lurianic kabbalah.
4. “pogem enayim” means “defiler of one’s eyes” – a transgression of a Torah commandment; according to most interpretations, gazing at immodestly dressed women will constitute this transgression – haredi interpretations of “immodestly dressed” covers pretty much anything that doesn’t cover hair, elbows, knees, neckline or reveals the curves of the (female, of course) body.
5. a “lav doraysa” is a negative prohibition (thou shalt not) directly commanded in the Torah.
6. “lo sasuro achary levavchem vachari anachem” is a hasidishe transliteration of the hebrew phrase which refers to the commandment which is found in the third paragraph of the “shema”, numbers 15:37-41, to not “stray after your hearts”, in other words, follow impulses which might lead to idolatrous behavour.
7. “heshumer mkal dvar ra” is, again, a hasidishe transliteration of the hebrew phrase which refers to the commandment which is found deuteronomy 23:10, to “guard the camp when you go out against your enemies”, usually understood as “watch your back”, but easily reinterpreted to signify the protection of one’s home from evil influences; you will note the implicit attitude to the outside world.
8. a “deraysa” is a Torah commandment. to be “over a deraysa” (again, hasidishe transliteration, inconsistently done) one means to transgress the Torah commandment.
9. “poskim” are halakhic decisors, some of the important ones of whom are mentioned here; of course, it is by no means clear that the *way* in which these guys mean it is the same as the way in which these poskim mean it, certainly their decisions do refer explicitly to watching a film, but rather to other situations. however, if you want to take it that way, this is where you’d get the precedent from. of course, you can see “immodest” women (as these guys think of it) anywhere you like these days, you don’t need to be watching a film.
10. ” to be over on “Vehyisem Kedoshim” and “Kidoshim Tihyo”” means to transgress the Torah commandments to imitate G!D by being “holy” – leviticus 11:45 / 19:1-2 – which is taken by these guys to refer to refraining from illicit sexual acts, although ramban – nachmanides – has a big argument with rashi on this precise point, so clearly this isn’t as clear as it is made out to be.
11. “reshaim” – evil people; presumably this means the baddies.
12. “pogem habris” means “defiler of the covenant”, which is generally understood to be the misuse of the bit of you that the brit affects – in breslover thought i believe this is generally understood to be a euphemism for [male] masturbation, in any case they don’t half go on about it.
13. “see keri while i am asleep” – i.e. have sexual dreams.
14. “shmoneh esreis” – this refers to the “amidah”, the “18 benedictions” or standing prayer, which is of supreme importance in jewish prayer and is said three times daily; they’re worried that your mind will drift off during it.
15. “hiruray znus with my tefillin on” – a hasidishe transliteration of the hebrew phrase which can be translated as “thoughts of whoredom”, in other words, the contemplation of illicit sexual acts while wearing phylacteries during morning prayers, which they suppose will be much more likely; the preservation of proper mindfulness while wearing tefillin is of great importance.
16. “kfirot” – denial of the truth of Torah.
17. “tzadikim” – sages.
18. “holy Shemot” – the various Divine Names, the contemplation and manipulation of which are the practical structures on which many kabbalistic techniques are founded.
19. “azilut, briah, yitzirah and asiyah” – the kabbalistic names of the “four worlds”.
20. “nefesh, ruch, neshamah” – one schema describing the structure of the human soul.
21. “avodas haShem” – the service of G!D, which should of course be one’s primary consideration. the thought that watching a film might actually assist in this, or teach moral lessons, does not, of course, occur.
22. “moshiach” – the messiah.
23. “kedusha” – holiness.
24. “emunah” – belief / trust.
25. “chitzinim” – literally, “externalities”, which, kabbalistically speaking are elements of Creation that “act as a spiritual barrier” between humans and G!D, which are there effectively play “devil’s advocate” and be overcome in order to choose the way of Torah and commandments and closeness to G!D of our own free will.
26. “do teshuvah” – repent.
27. “find my zivug” – to locate and marry one’s destined wife.
28. “if i am married then i am willing to have my children considered semi mamzarim since i will not be able to control my thoughts.” – this, in my view is the most serious, as the prohibitions and disabilities associated with mamzerut (the offspring of Torah-prohibited intercourse such as an incestuous or adulterous liaison) are incredibly unpleasant, restrictive and persistent. this is pretty much tantamount to saying that they wouldn’t be able to get married (quite a penalty in the haredi world) because of your sins. to call this “overstated” barely covers it; there is no such halakhic status of being a “semi-mamzer”; the avoidance of potential mamzerut being a fundamental concern. raising it as a real possibility is, in my view, an outrageous piece of scaremongering based on the falsification of halakhah; it’s basically making up a new category of prohibition which can’t possibly be justified in intent, let alone determined in practice or policed; if having “impure thoughts” makes your kids “semi-mamzerim”, then nobody could possibly consider themselves free of these.

all in all, this would have been funny and mordant as a piece of swiftian satire – as a serious piece of moral exhortation, it is arrant nonsense and appallingly manipulative. if i find out who has been leaving this stuff lying around, i will have words.

“Just when you thought news from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan could not shock us any more, here is a report about a man caught in a private moment with a donkey. The poor donkey is then declared to be an adulteress (Kari) by a village council who have the animal shot dead for the act of illicit sex. The donkey’s lover is reported to have gone into hiding.”

He is referring to this true story:

SUKKUR: Incredible though it may sound, a donkey was declared ‘Kari’ and shot dead here in a remote area on Monday. The Jirga imposed 110,000 rupees fine on the alleged ‘Karo’.

The reports said that in Village Ghahi Khan Jatoi, a villager Ghazi Khan alias Malang shot dead his donkey on being ‘Kari’ with Sikandar Ali alias Deedo. He attempted to kill Sikander too but the alleged Karo managed to escape and surrendered himself to an influential person of the area.

Sources said the influential person summoned both the parties and imposed 110,000 rupees fine on the Karo. They said Sikander and his family were forced to pay Rs 50,000 on the spot and the remaining amount in two installments.

The sources added that the alleged Karo pleaded innocence at the Jirga, but the Jirga members paid no attention to it. Sikander’s family said he paid Rs 50,000 to save his life otherwise he would have been killed.

The Grand Muff Diver

The next entry into our rogue gallery is the one mockingly called “Goldie” by the late Abu Uwais Ahmed Abdullah Ali (May Allah have mercy upon him) Abu Usamah Khalifah Ath-Thahabi. Abu Usamah is a fast talking, intelligent and very talented individual (especially for manipulating women) that never lived up to his potential because of his love for the opposite sex and the ensuing scandals that caused a lot of brothers to distrust and in some cases to even hate him. His impulsive nature also caused him to bounce around a lot (New Jersey, England, Florida, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Peoria, England again). However along the way, he would marry a lot, and there are at least two women that have written in and confirmed to have had fully sexual relationships with him that were not his wife. He used his fame within salafi circles and position as Imam to swoon women.

His time here in Philly should have been a great match as an Imam was needed over at Germantown Masjid at the time and Abu Usamah seemed to be the perfect man for the job when he came in 1999. The Salafi Dawah was flourishing, Germantown Masjid had recently been taken over by the Salafis and all that was needed was a public face. Abu Usamah was the man for the job. However, it turned out to be a disaster when a brother in the community found out that Abu Usamah was exchanging sexually explicit emails with his wife and calling her when he wasn’t home. That was the tip of the iceberg as more stories came. He was also accused of regularly receiving and giving oral sex in the Islamic library (the Imam’s office) from some of the women in the community. One witness in Philly who wrote me said that he regularly performed oral sex on her as well as also exchanged explicit emails and had phone sex. This has been corroborated by others here in Philly. The old administration at the Germantown Masjid knows all of this information, but largely kept it quiet. They silently fired him “under a cloud of accusations and suspicion” but failed to warn other communities of the evil way that this man used his position of power over vulnerable women. In just two years he was forced to leave or be completely humiliated. Abu Usamah can not openly show his face in Philly to this day. And further, if he were to come to the US, he would have to take a que from Khalid Yasin and do it quietly, then run back to the UK for cover before anyone can find him and make a big deal about it.

Abu Usamah is a true narcissist as he once openly bragged to a group of brothers that he managed to hook up a marriage while he was leading a group of Hajjis. For those that are unaware, it is not permissible to get married during Hajj. No problem. He didn’t actually get married during the Hajj. He simply saw one of the women and noticed that she was “eyeing” him, so he inquired if she was single and “handled his business” after the Hajj. This incident demonstrates just what kind of man we are dealing with here. In constant pursuit of women and extreme selfishness. Many brothers who hung out with him noticed that being “Imam” or “daee” seemed to simply be a 9-5 job to him (which he was very good at). Many of us noticed that he just didn’t seem to live by his knowledge. He only lived by it inside the masjid and giving the classes. One brother even calls him “the entertainer” because that is how he seems to see himself. He comes and gives the class or khutbah, gets a rise out of the crowd, leaves and gets a pay check. In spite of railing against going to the movies and listening to music in his lectures, khutbahs and classes, he was known to personally engage in both. He was also known for breaking promises and to quote a variety of classical Islamic figures and use scholarly facts to back up his actions (or use them to obfuscate and hide his evil).

Another trait is that he is very calloused. He once remarked that he needed to “downsize” his family so he got rid of a couple of wives. One of his wives was crying every day and it was bothering him, so he sent her back to New Jersey so that he did not have to look at her cry anymore. So much for the ruling of the woman remaining in the man’s home! He had no regard for his wife at all. He needed to “downsize” and that was that.

As “imam”, he was also responsible for advising troubled women and would use this position to get close to them going as far as they were willing to go. Sometimes he would string women along with the promise of marriage only to get what he was after and flee. One witness reported in an email:

Well, I know now that he works on different levels according to the women. Also, that its not just about sex with him, some people he thrives on the conversation, the way they make him feel,etc..sex also but it is included amongst other things. This is how I was so thrown off.

He came to see me, he fed me a fantasy, to say the least. Years later, I still remember his visit like yesterday. He even met my parents, talked to my friends. By the end of the trip, I started sensing something, funny. He started to say stuff like, If I do decide to marry you, when at first, it was wallahi! (and the only thing preventing it was he needed to get a fatawa on my situation) he kept saying I gotta talk to some Sheikh. I know now, that, that would not have been that hard. Among the confusion of was he intending to marrry me or not, that is one thing that verified it for me. He used that as the only reason for not being able to marry me when we first started talking, so he knew that he had no intention on doing so, because he can talk to scholars easily, but he knew I didnt know about that. He was acting funny, some way he just left, he called, and told my mom that he made it, and after that, I heard nothing from him. Excuse my french, but he came, he f***** me and left. I also remember how he took me to get the morning after pill, and he made sure I took both doses. That also let me know where he was going.

She also said:

He had sex with me in his office, but that was just the beginning of that nonsense. I also have to say that, I know I had my role in this situation. I just dread that anyone would go through this, like I did. I was on the brink of a nervous breakdown. I can tell you that I am not the type of women to be beat for a man like that.

Unfortunately, he seems to be keeping this up as a source in the UK reports that as recently as a few months ago, Abu Usamah had sex with a Moroccan woman while visiting Dubai much like other “joyriders” who are known to see prostitutes there as well as in Egypt. With him being in the UK now, the good news is that no one else here in the US will be hurt, however, what of those in the UK?

I ask again. Is this the kind of leadership you want???

“Since we decided to do this conference, it seems to me the energy has gone insane all around the world.”

thus karen berg of the kabbalah centre.

it seems that the “energy” has indeed “gone insane” from the “power of peace” conference: the brothers of centre aficionado lisa tchenguiz have just been arrested in connection with an investigation into the collapsed icelandic bank kaupthing.

obviously, the kabbalah centre will be rushing to claim credit for this turn of events, it having about as much to do with their conference as the other effects they claim.

i think someone has tattooed the wrong letter triad on their bum.

Mohammad Shafi, 45, and his son Mohammad Aslam, 20, were arrested in April last year for removing a poster outside their grocery shop advertising an Islamic event in a nearby village which allegedly contained Koranic verses.

Judge Mohammad Ayub, heading an anti-terrorism court in the central Pakistani town of Muzaffargarh, handed down a life sentence to the pair on Monday, his assistant Faisal Karim told AFP by telephone.

The prosecution alleged organisers of the event, which commemorated the anniversary of the Prophet Mohammad’s birth, said the pair had “pulled the poster down, tore it and trampled it under their feet,” Karim said.

“The judge sentenced them to life imprisonment on charges of blasphemy and ordered them to pay a fine of 200,000 rupees ($2,350) each,” he said.

h/t: AG

Idol of the Conference Worshippers

At the risk of sounding redundant let me say I have an allergic reaction to conferences whether Muslim in character or not. I don’t believe they will or have ever accomplished anything. That’s not to say the vendors at GPU’s bazaar who paid £900 for the privilege of selling a few trinkets and some colorful hijabs didn’t recover their cost and then some. The food vendors too may have turned a handsome profit leaving behind a heap of garbage and some messy restrooms for low paying unionized workers to clean up.

Muslim conferences are the biggest public innovation (bid’a) of our age and I am amazed that the Salafis are so dazzled by them. Conferences call people to a venue that is not a mosque to listen to speakers who become the center of gravity for a few days. In the last 30 years of conferences in North America we’ve managed to produce a class of scholars who hop from one conference to another spouting the same old cliché-riddled incoherent speeches. Don’t get me wrong! There are some gems in this group.

I am not ashamed to say that my personal favorite going back to the early 1990’s has been and still is Shaykh Hamza Yusuf. That’s because he stands apart for never repeating a lecture twice except for those early years when he was determined to lead a ‘smash your television revolution’ armed with Jerry Mander and Robert Bly. That was a long time ago. To this day he remains original and engaging because he respects people who he believes deserve a hearty lecture in return for the money they paid to get in.

Today, organizers of Muslim conferences are looking to spice things up by forging a lineup of celebrity speakers and performers on the lofty ideal of ‘Unity’ when all they’re doing is pandering to an already divided community. Deobandis, Berelwis, Salafis, Wahabis, Sufis, and the Shia may momentarily shed their allegiances to attend a conference but that can hardly be considered ‘Unity.’ As for the vast majority of young people, there is no distinction between Shaykh Hamza and Yasir Al-Qadi or Dr. Umar Faruq ‘Abd-Allah and Yusuf Estes or between Imam Zaid Shakir and Khalid Yasin or between Dr. Tahir ul-Qadri and Dr. Zakir Naik. The distinction is blatant: some speakers have knowledge while others know a few things. Conferences are a costly experiment aimed at dumbing down knowledge for the masses. The consequence is that every idiot armed with a hadith can come off as if he knows something.

In a few months thousands of Canadian and American Muslims will trade in their virgin eggnogs to attend the RIS conference where they will get 8-10 lectures in Arabic, a language spoken by a small fraction of those in attendance. There will be no speeches in Urdu, a language understood by the vast majority of those in attendance. The theme of the conference is not the role of mosques or the sacred message of the Quran, the two themes that have been making headlines all year on account of Faisal Abdur Rauf’s controversial Park 51 project and Rev. Terry Jones Quran burning aspirations. Rather, the theme will be the Ten Commandments and something about developing a roadmap.

But people will come, as they did at the GPU, to cheer and applaud and take some time to scour the landscape for a future spouse. I pray they find what they come looking for.

One of the most damaging allegations was that Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah repeatedly urged America to attack Iran. The Saudi leader was recorded as having “frequently exhorted the US to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons programme”.

The leak said he told the Americans to “cut off the head of the snake” at a meeting in 2008. The leaks also disclose how leaders in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt referred to Iran as “evil” and a power that “is going to take us to war”.

Give us your captions for the photo below.

Let us suppose that Hindutva extremism had somehow become acceptable because it encapsulated the doctrine of “defensive Jud’dha”, made palatable by “socially conscious” liberals who saw within it elements of a response to colonialism and US imperialism. They argued that the doctrine of religious warfare was a theocratic norm accepted and acceptable to all Hindus. Furthermore, any attack and criticism of Hindutva terrorism (let’s call it Hindutvaism for the purposes of this illustration) was simply racist and a fundamental attack of ordinary Hindu individuals. These liberals even came up with a neologism for this kind of criticism; they called it ‘Hinduphobia’. What was more, any liberal pushback of Hindutvaism was deemed ‘Hinduphobic’.

Gradually Hindutvaism became the cause célèbre of the trendy left libral intelligentsia in some parts of the Guardian, the New Statesman and the far-left. They dragged in every stripe of apologist from the pro-Hindutva camp to expound on the justfication of extremist strains in Hinduism, including child marriage, extreme homophobia and passive-aggressive vegetarianism. They took pains to explain that the extremist elements in Hindu scripture formed a normative and natural progression to Hindutvaism. Credulous politicians too busy too read their briefing papers, of both the left and the right, came to regard Hindutva as the only expression of Hinduism expressed by those funny brown Hindu voters. An “umbrella organisation” of Hindutva temples and non-elected “community leaders” calling itself the Hindu Council of Britain became the primary body of representation for British Hindus.

Soon the situation became so chronic that even ordinary Hindus began to believe that Hindutvaism was a reasonable and valid interpretation of Hinduism. Very convenient for white left-liberals and pro-Hindutva academics, because it allowed them to nod sagely and point to the growing numbers of violent Vegetarianists as justification for their support of these newly radicalised, anti-democratic, anti-liberal, anti-Western, Western Hindus.

And so gradually formed the symbiotic relationship between the Hindutvas and the white liberal far-left. Soon institutions of the wider civil society formed alliances with vegetarian Hindus without realising that they were actually Hindutva fronts. It didn’t matter because no one could tell the difference anymore – since Hindutvaism had become universally accepted as the normative expression of Hinduism. Extremist Hindutva politics began to seep into every level of the British polity, from local councils to the House of Lords. Amnesty even began to champion Hindutva terrorists who waged war against the West and justified terrorism as an ethical form of liberation politics which they worked into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They called it “defensive Jud’dha”.

A blog run by a group of non-Hindus called “Fickle Politics” sprung up [www.ficklepolitics.com]. It was lauded by the liberal Left and the Guardian. Its owner was an accomplished self-publicist who published article after article, arguing for the engagement with Hindutva politics and its exponents. Their reasoning was mainly this: because ordinary Hindus came from a background of oppression and racism received at the hands of the White Man so the Hindutvas, though violent and misguided, had religious and political ideas built into their supremacist ideology which would raise the social standing of the Brown Man in general and the Hindu in particular.

The resurgence of the Hindutva was attributed to nothing less than the reinstatement of Hinduism to its rightful exalted place in world history, and the Modern world had better put up or shut up. The “noble savage” had finally made his comeback. It didn’t matter in the slightest that historical evidence showed that the Hindutva had killed and oppressed more members of their own kith and kin than the combined forces of Western imperialism ever did.

And so it had become politically correct to support religious extremism. Extremists from every other confessional group stridently demanded their stake in carving up society along religious cleavages.

However, there was still a minority of moderate Hindus who were dubious of this state of affairs. They saw through through the Hindutva delusion because, amongst other things, they had been personally affected by Hindutvaist supremacism. But their protests were shouted down, and they were charged as being effete, urbanised Uncle Toms and stooges of the West by the media, New Statesman and Fickle Politics. On the other hand, extremist Hindus who championed Hindutvaism became lionised and hero-worshipped by the liberal left, its newspapers, blogs and talking heads. Ordinary Hindus became sidelined and demonised because they refused to kowtow to the left-liberal establishment which held Hindutvaism aloft. They refused to subscribe to the narrative that Hindutvaism was a legitimate response to the hegemony of the “evil West”, but to no avail. Hindutavism or fundamentalist Hinduism had devoured its critics and had become the dominant interpretation of the Hindu faith in the West.

This is only an hypothetical scenario; it never took place. For many, the idea that the politics of the Hindutva entering into political institutions of civil society and becoming sanitised by the liberal left would be an unconscionable nightmare. But this is an analogous illustration of a reality which is equally unconscionable.

a falafel for the effendi!

he is also a man of many contradictions. this is the man that gave the principle of “land for peace” the sanction of halakhah (jewish law) – no mean contribution to an eventual settlement – the man who stood up successfully for the rights of the ethiopian jews against the demands of the askhenazi haredi establishment that they convert, who supports the top-level inter-religious dialogue forum known as the alexandria process and a man who has consistently fought for the rights of blue-collar workers with large, traditionalist (but not necessarily that religious) sephardi and mizrahi families, which of course is more or less the majority of shas voters. interestingly enough, the same attributes are also characteristic of most israeli arabs, which has led to the  ironic outcome that quite a few of them end up voting shas for the social and economic programmes it supports. it is ironic, of course, because of r. yosef’s tendency (for all that he was born in baghdad and is a native speaker of arabic) to make astoundingly racist and bigoted comments about arabs, usually in his saturday night religious lectures, but also more or less whenever he gets the opportunity. he is also not a stranger to upsetting nearly anyone else; here are a few of his public statements that have contributed a great deal to peace, harmony and reconciliation…..not.

“It is forbidden to be merciful to [arabs]. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable.”

he later claimed this only referred to arab terrorists, but it hasn’t been forgotten.

“the holocaust was G!D’s retaliation aginst the reincarnated souls of jewish sinners”

this managed to offend all ashkenazim and anyone who didn’t subscribe to the kabbalistic doctrine of the karmic “transmigration of souls”; just call it his glenn hoddle moment.

“Let our enemies and those who hate us die [referring to palestinian authority president abbas] and all these evil people should perish from this world. G!D should strike them with a plague, them and these Palestinians.”

for which he had to make a grovelling apology to mubarak and others.
referring to the black inhabitants of new orleans as “kushim” – and that hurricane katrina was george bush’s punishment for supporting the gaza disengagement, enough said.

on why non-religious israeli soldiers get killed:

“They don’t observe the Sabbath, they don’t observe the Torah, they don’t pray, they don’t put on phylacteries every day. Is it any wonder that they’re killed? It’s no wonder. May the Almighty have mercy on them and bring them back to religion.”

let’s forget for a moment that he expects these people to fight while his own supporters sit about studying Torah on government stipends; pheuuwww.

and the latest delightful remark, of course, is this:

“The sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews. Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat. That is why gentiles were created.”

i mean, really? is this what judaism has survived 3,000 years for? if this is what judaism is about, i’ll eat my own tefillin. what are we to make of this embarrassment? his opinions, especially the most recent, beggar belief. there is no apparent successor to his credibility; aryeh deri was once touted as such, but got jailed for fraud and racketeering (although admittedly there was quite a lot of racism involved in the prosecution as well, you don’t see the askhenazi rabbonim getting investigated although they’re just as bad). eli yishai, the leader of the shas party in the knesset, is widely regarded as a parochial sock puppet who gives little away to yosef in the outspoken bigotry stakes. shmuel eliyahu, another provincial powerbroker, has just caused another outcry with a disgusting call for jews not to rent property to arabs.

my own opinion, frankly, is that he’s senile or, quite possibly, has had some kind of minor stroke; it is not uncommon for such people to vocalise prejudices that they had previously known enough to avoid saying out loud. of course, that’s not really any excuse, he shouldn’t be thinking like that in the first place. all in all, this is a deplorable state of affairs for the religious leadership of the world’s sephardic and mizrahi jews to be in. there was a time when r. yosef provided principled leadership (not just land for peace, he also opposes ladies’ wigs); in fact, there was a time when sephardi and mizrahi rabbis were the intellectual and philosophical élite, the most cultured, the most urbane and the most open-minded. clearly this era is long over; i’m not a great enthusiast for the doctrine of the “decline of the generations“, but i have to admit this is pretty persuasive stuff in its favour, certainly the current leadership provides very little reason for optimism. roll on the next generation; at least we can see some changes happening at grass-roots level with the new rabbis coming through, but it will be a long time before this filters up to the oxygen-poor, brain-dead level of israeli religious politics.

ISRAEL’S attack on a Palestinian aid ship will make it easier for Guardian readers to sound as if they know what they are talking about, it was claimed last night.

Experts warned Tel Aviv that every time it launches a seemingly unprovoked or disproportionate attack it allows at least 10,000 cretins to say something at a dinner party that everyone then agrees with.

Dr Martin Bishop, of the Institute for Studies, said: “Benjamin Netanyahu has to realise that his aggressive stance towards Hamas and Hezbollah is playing into the hands of some of the worst people in the world.

“I simply cannot sit through another dinner party with some speccie fucker spouting off about Israel while all the single, attractive women around the table stare at him like he was Martin Luther King.

“Meanwhile I’m sitting there knowing it’s actually a tad more complicated and that the Israelis are dealing with people who will not rest until it they’ve all been wiped from the face of the Earth and if it was us then we might just get a bit jumpy too, particularly if someone had tried to do it before.

“But if I come out and say that then this vegetarian ponce is going to accuse me of wanting to make a fancy cocktail with the blood of Palestinian babies and there goes any chance I may have of picking off the drunkest woman from the pack.

“If they could just protect their borders against exploding maniacs with a little more tact then that would help me enormously in my quest for a really good blow job.”

But Julian Cook, a grade six Guardian reader from Highbury, said: “There’s a fascinating piece by Jonathan Freedland which sums up my feelings exactly – and he’s Jewish so that means I must be right. At least I think he’s Jewish. He certainly looks like a Jew.”

And Helen Archer, a social worker from Finsbury Park who keeps a photo of Polly Toynbee in her purse, added: “Israel are acting like Nazis – there, I said it.”

a reptilian overlord yesterday

anyway, we’ve had boobquake, gayquake and immorality-inspired flooding so, predictably, our new icelandic friend eyjafjallajökull has been pressed into surface for this purpose, proving variously that:

1. we should never have turned on that large hadron collider

2. iceland is being too tolerant of neo-paganism and europe of gay rights

3. G!D Disapproves of “obamacare”

4. people are having a go at the pope

5. aliens (or satan) are doing space paintings with ufos

6. G!D Disapproves of the british advertising standards authority ruling that the israeli tourist board can’t show the western wall as part of israel, because they’ve never taken the trouble to annex the Temple mount.

and my personal favourite:

7. the iron core engine of the planet is today becoming reenergized by the huge magnetic force field of the incoming twin binary dark star to our solar system (called “nibiru” in ancient sumer, or “nemesis the destroyer”)

personally, my money’s on deepak chopra’s laxatives.

a woman causing an earthquake yesterday by blatantly showing her elbows and knees

well, i expect most of us have probably heard by now that, according to the not-at-all-bonkers iranian regime, that immodestly dressed women cause earthquakes. i expect the haitians are buying their chadors as we speak. in the interests of balance, i thought it might be instructive to see which other religious figures are saying and doing stupidly daft things this week:

1. mobile phones damage your neshama

we are reliably informed that the son of the vishnitzer rebbe, a prominent hasidic sect (that’s vishnitz, not the rebbe himself, he can’t be a sect on his ownsome) doesn’t want yeshiva students to carry mobile phones, because they can damage the neshama which, in jewish mystical thought, is one of the higher and more holy parts of the soul. i should, in fairness, point out that the damage is indirect not direct, as the mobile phone *might* be able to access the internet which *might* lead to someone looking at porn. or the student might start texting girls, or looking at them, or talking to them, or something like that. anyway, i do feel i should mention that vishnitzer women don’t in fact shave their heads under their wigs, so there are untold sensual delights on the horizon once the students leave yeshiva and head for the wedding canopy, so presumably married students can be trusted to carry phones. nonetheless, this is not the only danger out there, as the rabbi went on to say; there is an even more terrifying danger to the haredi world – the haredi newspaper.

2. haredim forbidden to read haredi newspapers

yes, you heard right; the ultra-orthodox vishnitzer hasidim have been banned from reading the ultra-orthodox newspaper, hamodia. for those of you who are unfamiliar with it, it’s slightly right of genghis khan and the only pictures allowed, if they’re of human beings at all, are something like this:

dangerous images of debauchery

 anyway, it’s not allowed. as hamodia itself declares:

“ALL Haredi Jews, by virtue of their faithful commitment to lead a wholesome spiritual life, free of the gratuitous violence and nudity so prevalent in today’s media, will neither own a television set, nor have internet access or radio in their homes.”

so, are the vishnitzers worried that pictures of the latest gedolim get-together might cause a ruckus? no, it’s because newspapers might, y’know, actually inform them about, y’know, stuff that, y’know, the rabbis might not actually want them to hear…. like reports of rabbinic corruption, for example, sorry, putting them at risk of falling foul of Torah prohibitions on tale-bearing and slander. i am sure mr justice eady would approve!

3. discriminating against christians will cause civil unrest in the UK

everyone’s favourite evangelist ex-archbishop, george carey, in a letter to the employment appeals tribunal objecting to a nurse rather stupidly being forced to take off her christian jewellery, threatened that:

“The fact that senior clerics of the Church of England and other faiths feel compelled to intervene directly in judicial decisions and cases is illuminative of a future civil unrest.”

yes, you heard right – christianity is under attack, apparently. ruth gledhill disagrees, pointing out that if you want to look for somewhere where christians are actually being persecuted, there are plenty of places, but i think predicting bedlam in bristol and uproar in uttoxeter is probably a bit on the alarmist side.

4. spate of hindu beheadings anticipated

apparently a headless body found at a temple of the hindu goddess kali was ritually decapitated and intended as a sacrifice. as loony religious behaviour goes, this one is hard to beat, but i look forward to john denham putting a well-funded programme to prevent human sacrifice by engaging with bemused community leaders from neasden. or something.

5. deepak chopra takes blame for american earthquake

my favourite right now – apparently, it isn’t immodestly dressed women, but fatuous, over-indulged, stupidly rich new-age gurus that cause earthquakes. followers of deepak chopra on twitter would have seen the following:

“Had a powerful meditation just now – caused an earthquake in Southern California. Was meditating on Shiva mantra & earth began to shake. Sorry about that.”

oh deary, deary, deary me.

“A pope with no moral authority simply cannot function as a pope. Yes, he has ecclesiastical power. But ecclesiastical power without moral authority merely exposes the hollowness of an unaccountable, self-perpetuating clerisy. Does he think we don’t know? Does he understand that any parent of any child will be unable to imagine themselves in the same moral universe as this man?”

and some of them are even sort-of-default-catholics for whom this is the final straw:

“I could hardly be described as a good, or even decent, Catholic, but I’d managed to hang on in there, in the vaguest way imaginable.  Vague because it’s hard to pay lip-service to a faith that you feel hates you; a faith that would rather let you die in childbirth than have an abortion, won’t let you take the contraception necessary to prevent said abortion, hates gay people despite having many homosexual priests; a faith that talks ignorant nonsense about HIV and Aids, that would rather watch people die in Africa than let them use a condom; a faith that is unbelievably slow to say sorry about the fact that some of its members are habitual rapists of children.

I mean, you know, at some point you just give up. Not one of these things is defensible taken individually. Collectively, they are beyond comprehension.”

faith central has a bunch more, thanks to the always-charming ruth gledhill.

and now, of course the pope’s opposite number in the atheist world, the ever-reliable richard dawkins and his fellow diatribalist christopher hitchens (the man who, i was appalled to discover, repeated the “hole in the sheet” legend as fact in his anti-religious tract “G!D Is not great” without doing basic research) have volunteered to “do a pinochet” on big bad benny before his lips touch the tarmac at heathrow.

"science be praised!"

now, i have to admit that part of me admires them for having the stones to try and, frankly, i’d rather not foot the tax bill for his security. however, it is only fair to point out, as indeed does libby purves at the times, that:

“We know that even if the Vatican had never done anything legally dubious or morally wrong, Hitch and Dawk would still hate it.”

although on balance, i think i agree with her that this needs airing and dealing with properly if the church is not to avoid a fatal collapse in its already critically compromised moral authority. aside from the pre-vatican 2 accusations of deicide and more than a thousand years of clerical jew-hatred (oops, i’m not sure we’re done with that), i have, i think, a fairly relaxed attitude to catholicism and a great admiration for my many friends who seek to remain within its communion, even if i always thought the theology was a bit on the prudey-square side and have never, ever seen eye-to-eye with celibacy.

i’m actually not sure if it’s the general or the specific that worries me; i always admired peter tatchell when he tried this kind of stunt, but that’s peter tatchell, he’s a principled sort of bloke. it’s just that i could envisage dawkins and hitchens trying exactly the same thing on, say, an israeli chief rabbi or the sheikh of al-azhar; it’s all the same to them, of course, but if they were to get this to fly, you could see exactly what would happen with every single-issue campaigner/gadfly/wingnut: the same thing that happened with tzipi livni. we are, after all, talking about a mentality that will try any stunt, no matter how stupid, counterproductive and unhelpful, that gets them into the paper.

i suppose south park are right:

Dawkins knew that logic and reason were the way of the future. But it wasn’t until he met his beautiful wife that he learned using logic and reason isn’t enough. You have to be a dick to everyone who doesn’t think like you.