Entries from November 2007 ↓

Over the last few years, I’ve had the opportunity to talk to many Muslims about the political situation and our engagement with the broader society. Although some may disagree, my experience has been that, overwhelmingly, the Muslim community just wants to practice our religion in peace. We want to be free to believe what we want, dress how we like, associate with whom we please, and say what we wish in our mosques and centers. In essence, we — like most other Australians — want to be left alone to pursue our own personal objectives in a manner we see fit.

As I have written previously, it’s my view that the political ideology that best guarantees us those freedoms is libertarianism. It is therefore of particular interest that there is a libertarian party, the Liberty and Democracy Party, running in the coming election — and they have a real chance.

So, to find out how this party views issues of concern to the Muslim community, I put a few questions to John Humphreys, the party’s vice-president and senate candidate for Queensland. We report, you decide; but I know who I’ll be voting for on election day.

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Senate hopeful Pauline Hanson blames Muslims for the “destruction” of “our industry, manufacturing, our farmers, everything that is Aussie and to be proud of ..”

“I’ve seen the destruction of our industry, manufacturing, our farmers, everything that is Aussie and to be proud of … that’s been lost,” she said.

“They’ve just opened up the floodgates to allow people here that have no intention of being Australian or being proud Australians.

“I’ve actually now called for a moratorium on Muslim immigration because I believe it’s not for reasons of religious or any other reason.

“But I think it is a cultural difference to us as Australians and we must protect our own culture.”

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Ummah Pulse write about a spate of auctions in which ancient Qu’ranic manuscripts have fetched amazing prices:

This week Christies Auction house sold a Qur’an dated from 1203 for a record price of £1,140,500. The Qur’an was an exquisite example of Islamic art with intricate calligraphy written in gold with tafseer notes written in the margins in silver.

The Qur’an is signed by Yahya bin Muhammad ibn Umar and is dated 17th Ramadan AH 599 (6th June 1203AD). It is thought to have originated in Mesopotamia.

The expected selling price was predicted to be between £500,000 and £750,000 and so when the Qur’an sold for more than twice the expected price to an anonymous bidder it caused great excitement.

In the same auction a nearly complete 10th century Qur’an written in Kufic script was sold for £916,500 compared to its pre-sale estimate of £600,000. It is thought to originate from North Africa or the Middle East.

One doesn’t need to go to Christies to buy ancient Islamic manuscripts and antiques. You can now buy them on eBay!

Theodore Dalrymple on the “New Atheists“:

Lying not far beneath the surface of all the neo-atheist books is the kind of historiography that many of us adopted in our hormone-disturbed adolescence, furious at the discovery that our parents sometimes told lies and violated their own precepts and rules. It can be summed up in Christopher Hitchens’s drumbeat in God Is Not Great: “Religion spoils everything.”

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Australia may be dealing with its “Muslim question” through the fearless deployment of publicly-funded stand up comedy lessons, Rumi poetry readings, and fashion parades but the Germans take their fight against terror an entirely new level of seriousness.

As the Foreign Policy blog reports:

Created by the interior ministry of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the comic book features an adolescent German hero, Andi. Andi’s frustrated Muslim friend Murat, a German resident of Turkish heritage, can’t find an apprenticeship and blames his difficulties on xenophobia. Murat starts to become brainwashed by Harun, a Muslim youth who takes Murat to meet a radical sheikh who shows them extremist Web sites.

The story has a happy ending after Murat finally comes to his senses when his sister Ayshe—a modern, head-scarf-wearing, Muslim girl who staunchly believes in liberal democracy—is threatened by Harun.

There is even a cameo appearance from the minister responsible for the booklet on the second page. “Already in Andi’s first adventure, extremists try to seduce kids like you with their propaganda,” the interior minister says.

Obviously, it’s not pitched at this sort of internet radical who has been hardened by years of living in his mummy’s basement fighting battles in the blogosphere, but would it work to dissuade adolescents from following radical sheikhs and their extremist web sites? I don’t know but I suspect the cheesy story line wouldn’t win too many adolescent “hearts and minds”.

The “good news”, as they say, from Iraq is that that:

In the last six months, the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police have made great improvements under the guidance of 1st Battalion The Irish Guards.

Extensive footage of the crack Iraqi army training under the guidance of the Western armed forces over the fold.

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The greatest enemy of absurdity is its own voice. It is essential therefore that those with extreme and absurd views be encouraged to speak them as often as possible. Rather than seek to stifle their voice or to remove a platform for their views, one should be provided:

Another prescient example of this is Danny Nalliah, pastor of the fringe church “Catch the Fire Ministries“. Nalliah has previously been alleged to have expressed the desire for God to burn down mosques. For this and other comments Nalliah was taken to VCAT by the Islamic Council of Victoria for inciting religious hatred. The ICV action was a failure both legally and in the wider court of public opinion. It allowed Nalliah to portray himself as the victim of a secretive religion which was furiously trying to avoid scrutiny as it infiltrated the nation. Money, sympathy and support flooded into Catch the Fire Ministries and Nalliah became a celebrity in the Evangelical community. The federal treasurer Peter Costello appeared on stage with Nalliah and embraced him, as did the then deputy Prime Minister John Anderson.

The case was finally settled earlier this year, with a points victory to Nalliah. This has allowed him the confidence to discover his voice once more and to bless us with the profound insights that can come to those whom God speaks to directly.

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