If anyone is interested, ABC Radio National’s Australia Talks is currently running a panel discussion on the appointment of a new mufti. Podcasts will be available for download from the site later tonight. The blurb reads:
Australia has a new mufti – is this the turning point for the country’s Muslim community? Our panel will look at the challenges ahead for Sheikh Fehmi in a job that has come under constant pressure in the hands of his controversial predecessor Sheikh Hilali. Will the appointment cement the deteriorating relations between Muslims and the wider community or was it only a move to depose Sheikh Hilali?
Update: The audio can be downloaded from here [mp3].
5 comments ↓
I listened to it today. I’m not sure why Muslims need to accept every offer to speak, this was an example of 1 hour of public radio with lots of words but not much to say. There were two Muslim views, one was a Taj defender and the other was not.
They couldn’t agree even on what a Mufti was, which was embarrassing, after that it became excruciating, I had to turn it off, and suck on a lemon instead.
Imagine two Catholics debating what the pope is, and both getting it wrong.
The diversity in the Muslim Community both in Australia and internationally is serving as a thorn in it’s foot.
You have Bosnians who are Muslim and you have Somalians who are also Muslim. Although its true and very romantic saying everyone can be Muslim bla bla bla, in reality the result isn’t all too romantic. Look at the Muslims today, there isn’t much that we agree on.
If Muslims were one race, one culture, one language, things would be much better off in terms of unity.
As the saying goes, take two Jews and you’ll get three opinions. I think thats more descriptive of us Muslims.
This apparent disunity though is also one of the greatest points about Islam: that there is no clerical class dictating to us what we can believe and every Muslim is individually responsible for his or her own faith. The downside, of course, is that for people who want to interact with Islam, it’s much easier to treat it as an ‘organised religion’ because it’s practically impossible to address each group individually. Therefore, they need ‘leaders’ and so the idea of a mufti makes a lot of sense to them.
You get a free interest based loan fatwa inside the mp3. Hurry limited to only Australian muslims.
Yes, that was interesting. He said it was because Muslims also need to share in the Australian Dream of home ownership.
Leave a Comment