Several years ago, as I was touring Istanbul, I took to performing my daily prayers at the Blue Mosque. During several visits I noticed an expensive dark blue Mercedes saloon, parked ostentatiously in the gardens of the masjid, and guarded by a machine gun armed solider. When I asked him who the car belonged to he replied, “Allahhu akbar”, raised his hands to his ears, and pointed to the imam coming down the steps. Clearly there were both threats and blandishments in ascending the minbar at Turkey’s most famous mosque.

In the old city, our hotel sat adjacent to a madrassa where young children were taught Qur’an and Tajweed by a group of very kindly old sheikhs. After Fajr, one of the boys would take turns to lead the Salat and afterwards he would recite a long chapter of the Qur’an until the sun came up.The other boys would fall asleep at the back; the Sheikhs always pretended not to notice. Unlike the Blue Mosque, the madrassa, an engine room for Islam, was sinking into genteel poverty and survived on public charity alone. It was the target of periodic police harassment, as were the scholars who tutored for free.

In the West, Turkey is seen as the secular blueprint for modernizing the Muslim world. But rather than secularizing Islam, the Turkish state has appropriated it and desecrated religious worship by replacing it with an elaborate theatre of the absurd. This has required the creation of a compliant priestly class from amongst the Muslims, atop of which sits the Mufti. Many European democracies are now considering the institution of a chief mufti alongside other measures to regulate Islam.

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Tim Blair offers us a free kick at psychologists (for which I thank him); those people who earn a living by examining the psychological entrails of other people and offer entirely useless suggestions (e.g. perhaps all your problems are caused by some sort of suppressed sexual weirdness, or perhaps you would be happier if your father bought you a red tricycle, or if you hadn’t named your pet ferret “Theodora”).

Psychology Today reports:

It is the combination of polygyny and the promise of a large harem of virgins in heaven that motivates many young Muslim men to commit suicide bombings.

and

What distinguishes Islam from other major religions is that it tolerates polygyny. By allowing some men to monopolize all women and altogether excluding many men from reproductive opportunities, polygyny creates shortages of available women. If 50 percent of men have two wives each, then the other 50 percent don’t get any wives at all.

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The sectarian strife in Iraq is a manifestation of the contest between Sunni Islam and the Shia that has its origins in the decades after the death of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

Here is Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad on the issue:

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My attention was drawn to the speech by Congress party presidential hopeful, Pratabha Patil who said:

Women have always been respected in the Indian culture. The purdah system was introduced to protect them from the Muslim invaders. However, times have changed. India is now independent and hence, the systems should also change.

This is simply untrue. One can understand Patil’s desire to harden her electoral numbers, no politician has ever failed by vilifying Muslims, and it taps into the Hindu nationalist agenda that the BJP and the RSS have been peddling for some time. It has also gained a mainstream audience through its most eloquent exponent, VS Naipaul.

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When my younger brother was a resident doctor at the Hammersmith, he used to arrive on Edgeware road on a Sunday evening, (after a weekend on being on duty) and order a dozen or so pieces of deep fried chicken from the HFC (Halal Fried Chicken). He would then sit in his car, windows up and listen to Radio 4 whilst he scoffed it down. On one such occasion, a scantily dressed woman tapped on the window to ask him if he would like a good time. He replied that he was already having one, but nonetheless thanked her for her concern.

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Here at Austrolabe we are always keen to extend our understanding of different cultures and to celebrate the diversity of the human family. In the spirit of free inquiry we present a short film by three English cultural anthropologists who adorn their totems with primitive tribal decorations and immerse themselves in an aboriginal culture rarely glimpsed by the outside world. Continue reading →

As Muslim communities have rapidly grown in the West there has been a proliferation of Islamic schools. These are schools where the state curriculum is taught to Muslim students in an “Islamic” environment accompanied by parallel Islamic education.

We have examined the issues involved in previous posts; here, here and here

The question that we ask our readers is:

Are Muslim pupils better served in Islamic schools or rather should they seek education in other independent or government schools?

In 2006, 12 young British Muslims with a history of criminality were sent on Ummrah to Makkah during Ramadan by the Birmingham city council. Their journey was recorded by BBC radio 4.

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