Malay Muslims in Malaysia are an illogical, paranoid, irrational and bigoted lot.
From the thugs that fire-bombed churches, to educated students at college campuses, to supposedly learned fellows at Islamic institutions on up to those in high government positions.
They are an illogical and irrational lot because history, context and accuracy in translation from from one language to another do not matter.
They are a paranoid lot because when indigenous Christians use the term “Allah” in their publications and worship they see secret attempts and a hidden agenda by Christians at proselytization of Muslims, a challenge to the sanctity of Islam and a de-Islamisation of the make-up of the country.
They are a bigoted lot because they want exclusive rights to the term “Allah”. The fact that language which is a medium of communication and is accessible to all, means nothing to them.
No, in Malaysia, the Malay Muslims MUST have exclusive right to “Allah”! Don’t the rest of you dare use it too!
News stories:
Malaysia Defends ‘Allah’ Ban As Ninth Church is Attacked
Allah debate: Church set on fire in Malaysia
Malaysia Court Nixes Gov’t Ban on Christian ‘Allah’ Usage
Church officials reject minister’s call to drop ‘Allah’ usage
Tags: "Allah" ban
KUALA LUMPUR — Human rights group Amnesty International on Friday urged Malaysia not to cane a Muslim model for drinking beer and to abolish the “cruel and degrading punishment”.
Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, 32, was sentenced to a caning and a fine of 5,000 ringgit (1,400 dollars) last month after she pleaded guilty to drinking alcohol at a hotel nightclub in the eastern state of Pahang last year.
She is expected to be caned six times next week and appealed Thursday for her punishment to be carried out in public to deter other Muslims.
But Amnesty said Malaysian authorities should “immediately revoke the sentence to cane her and abolish the practice of caning altogether.”
“Caning is a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and is prohibited under international human rights law,” it said in a statement.
Kartika, a mother of two, who lives in neighbouring Singapore, will be the first woman in the multicultural country to be caned under Islamic law, with the punishment set to be meted out in a female prison.
Malaysia, which has large Chinese and Indian minorities, has a dual-track legal system and sharia courts can try Muslims for religious offences.
Amnesty also said that caning was used as a supplementary punishment for at least 40 crimes in Malaysia.
At least 34,923 migrants mainly from Southeast East Asian countries have so far been caned between 2002 and 2008 for immigration offences, it said, citing prison department records.
Via AFP Aug 21, 2009
If Malaysia is really serious about upholding Sharia laws on Muslims, the enforcers of the law, should first begin by looking at those in government.
What is a little drinking in public compared to the corruption and the plundering of the country’s wealth by those in power?
Does anyone believe the public flogging of this woman is going to change the behaviour of the other Muslims?
Those who believe that are clearly deluded.
Is the Koran the testimony of the Anti-Christ? Joseph Adam Pearson, the author of The Koran: The testimony of the Antichrist seems to think so.
The Koran, the book of Islam, is not only the testimony of a false prophet, it is the testimony of Antichrist. Yet, so many hearing that testimony today are willing to believe it, to take it to heart, to stand on it, and even to die for it — as if it were written by the Spirit of Truth.
Have you ever read the Koran? It is a book that has influenced almost as many people as the Bible. It is a book that has contributed to the shaping of world history. And it is a book that will greatly influence the events of these last days. If you haven’t, I recommend that you read it, but only after having first read the Bible. Why? Though you may be able to spot the absurdities in the Koran you will not be able to see through the subtle elements of its powerful deception unless you first come to know and understand real scripture. Sure, it may take a while before you finish both, but don’t you think you owe it to your own soul to at least look for the truth?
Read the whole book in PDF here.
Saudi court sentences 75-year-old woman to lashes
By MAGGIE MICHAEL,CAIRO (AP) – The sentencing of a 75-year-old widow to 40 lashes and four months in prison for mingling with two young men who were reportedly bringing her bread has sparked new criticism of Saudi Arabia’s ultraconservative religious police and judiciary.
Khamisa Sawadi, who is Syrian but was married to a Saudi, was convicted and sentenced last week for meeting with men who were not her immediate relatives. The two men, including one who was Sawadi’s late husband’s nephew, were also found guilty and sentenced to prison terms and lashes.
The woman’s lawyer, Abdel Rahman al-Lahem, told The Associated Press on Monday that he plans to appeal the verdict, which also demands that Sawadi be deported after serving her prison term. He declined to provide more details and said his client, who is not serving her sentence yet, was not speaking with the media.
Saudi Arabia’s strict interpretation of Islam prohibits men and women who are not immediate relatives from mingling and women from driving. The playing of music, dancing and many movies also are a concern for hard-liners who believe they violate religious and moral values.
A special police unit called the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice enforces these laws, patrolling public places to make sure women are covered and not wearing make up, sexes don’t mix, shops close five times a day for Muslim prayers and men go to the mosque to worship.
But criticism of the religious police and judiciary has been growing in Saudi, where many say they exploit their broad mandate to interfere in people’s lives.
Last month, the Saudi king dismissed the chief of the religious police and a cleric who condoned killing of TV network owners that broadcast “immoral content” – as part of a shake-up signaling an effort to weaken the kingdom’s hard-line Sunni Muslim establishment.
In Sawadi’s case, the elderly woman met the two 24-year-old men last April after she asked them to bring her five loaves of bread, the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan reported.
The men – identified by Al-Watan as the nephew, Fahd al-Anzi, and his friend and business partner Hadiyan bin Zein – went to Sawadi’s home in the city of al-Chamil, located north of the Saudi capital, Riyadh. After delivering the bread, the two men were arrested by a one of the religious police, Al-Watan reported.
The court said it based its March 3 ruling on “citizen information” and testimony from al-Anzi’s father, who accused Sawadi of corruption.
“Because she said she doesn’t have a husband and because she is not a Saudi, conviction of the defendants of illegal mingling has been confirmed,” the court verdict read.
Sawadi had told the court that she considered al-Anzi is her son, because she breast-fed him when he was a baby. But the court denied her claim, saying she didn’t provide evidence. In Islamic tradition, breast-feeding establishes a degree of maternal relation, even if a woman nurses a child who is not biologically hers.
Sawadi commonly asked her neighbors for help after her husband died, said Saudi journalist Bandar al-Ammar, who reported the story for Al-Watan. In a recent article, he wrote that he felt the need to report the case “so everybody knows to what degree we have reached.”
Others have also spoken out against the case against Sawadi, accusing the religious police of going too far.
“How can a verdict be issued based on suspicion?” Saudi doctor and columnist Laila Ahmed al-Ahdab wrote in Al-Watan on Monday. “A group of people are misusing religion to serve their own interests.”
What is so unseemly, so wrong about helping out an old woman that the woman deserves to be punished with forty lashes just because the young men who helped her were not her immediate relatives?
This is clearly a self-righteous hypocrisy on the part of the religious police and judiciary. It seems to these people keeping their religion’s legalistic requirements is more important that helping out an old woman who is hungry and needs bread to feed herself.
Misusing religion for their own interests? I think it is more than that. More than just self-righteousness. The religious police see themselves as enforcing God’s laws, and therefore do not see themselves as serving their own interests. How can you fight that?
Tags: Islamic Laws
It’s amazing how deluded some Muslims are. For them, incest or homosexuality does not exist in Muslim countries. I include President Mahmood Ahmadinejad of Iran in that crowd of deluded Muslims. He claimed that there are no homosexuals in Iran.
Well, duh! Of course there are no homosexuals in Iran! When caught committing homosexual acts, they are executed! And with that threat hanging over their heads, is it any wonder that no one will claim that he or she is a homosexual?
Did you read about the guy, who runs the TV station that is supposed to promote understanding and tolerance of Islam, who decapitated his wife because she threatened to file for divorce? Why are such killlings acceptable in Islam? What is so “honorable” about killing your daughters, your wives, or any female relative just so your family name is not “stained”?
Barbaric is the only word that comes to mind.
Tags: Islamic culture
Arabic Christian statellite TV stations are having an impact on Arabic-speaking Muslims all over the world, especially in the Middle East.
SAUDI ARABIA: Father Burns Christian Daughter to Death
A Saudi man cut the tongue of his daughter and burned her to death for converting to Christianity, according to a report by the United Arab Emirates based Gulf News. The victim frequently wrote on various website blogs about her conversion from Islam. It is believed that she turned to Christianity after being exposed to its teachings on the internet and through Christian media.
Writing under the nickname of “Rania” just a couple of days before her murder, the girl wrote that her family members grew suspicious after she had a religious discussion with them and her brother found some of her Christian articles and a cross sign on her computer screen. Her father is a member of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, a powerful police unit commissioned to ensure the good moral behaviour of the citizens of Saudi Arabia.
“Many viewers in Saudi Arabia watch our Christian TV programs,” said Arab Vision’s international director. “We know this because a number of them contact us, and like ‘Rania’ want to know more about how they can follow Jesus Christ. It is very humbling to see how much they are willing to risk and sacrifice for the Lord.”
The Gulf News report explains that “Saudi religious scholars have frequently warned against the dangers of Christian internet websites and satellite TV channels which attract Muslim youngsters to change their religion. They decreed that watching these channels or browsing these websites which call for conversion to Christianity by various means is against the teachings of Islam.”
Sources close to the victim have said that the father is being investigated for “honour killing” rather than “murder”, because it is deemed that he had to “wash the shame of dishonour” on his family brought about by the unbecoming behaviour of the daughter.
A fine example of barbarity from the practitioners of Islam. In the words of Ali Sina:
Accept nothing short of the total eradication of Islam. This disease must be wiped out. There can’t be a moderate Islam just as there is no such thing as healthy disease or sensible insanity. Islam is extreme. To fight Islamic extremism you have to fight Islam. There is no middle ground. Either you eradicate Islam or Islam will eradicate you. The choice is yours.
Tags: Barbarity in Islam
Danes need look no further than their own newspapers to find the reason for the car bombing that severely damaged their embassy in Pakistan on Monday, according to Rohan Gunaranta, an international terrorism expert from Pakistan.
‘There is still a lot of dissatisfaction here about the cartoons, as well as the fact that the Danish government still has not condemned them or the people that were responsible for them. As long as that hasn’t happened, Denmark will be under the constant threat of militant muslims,’ Gunaranta said.
Fauzia Mufti Abbas, Pakistan’s ambassador to Denmark, agreed that the Mohammed cartoons, first published in Jyllands-Posten newspaper in October 2005, had incited Muslim anger and were possibly the motivation for the attack, which killed eight and wounded as many as 30.
‘It isn’t just the people of Pakistan that feel they have been harassed by what your newspaper has begun,’ she said. ‘I’d like to know if your newspaper is satisfied with what it has done and what it has unleashed?’
Abbas said, however, that it would be necessary to await the outcome of the enquiry before drawing any conclusions about who was responsible or their motives.
The matter of the cartoons, she said, was something Danes needed to reflect on.
‘Danes know that they have insulted people around the world by printing and reprinting the Mohammed cartoons, which were done in poor taste.’
More here.
Poor Pakistanis with their fragile sensibilities!
Yes, blame others for their own propensity for violence!
Tags: Muslim violence
Ibn Warraq, Robert Spencer, and co are liars. It is that simple. I took Robert spencer on, as you generously linked in your post, and squelched his lies. He misquotes intentionally in order to justify his vicious lies against Muslims and continue selling books. His moto: “Screw the Truth! As long as it sells, I’ll continue lying!”
The above is just one example of how Muslims try to dismiss Ibn Warraq, Robert Spencer, Ali Sina and others like them who dare criticize the teachings of the Qu’ran.
Muslims call them liars, dismiss their work as of no academic value, and constantly repeat the mantra of “intentionally misquoting” the passages from the Qu’ran. They think that by leveling such charges on Robert Spencer and others like him, nobody would then read their writings.
Robert Spencer’s book, The Truth about Muhammad, was on the New York Times best seller list for several weeks. Karen Armstrong, well-known apologist for Islam, wrote a scathing review and revealed herself to be not that much of a scholar of Islam when compared to Robert Spencer. Robert Spencer easily shot down her objections to his book.
What Muslims like the commenter quoted above, and bloggers like Mawardi and Ibn Anwar, do not get is that non-Muslims do not want to read white-washed books about their prophet. Karen Armstrong’s hagiography of Muhammad is not worth a penny of my money.
Ali Sina said that he would remove his site, publicly claim that Islam is the true religion, and even pay $50, 000 to anyone who can disprove his charges against Muhammad logically. I guess no one, thus far, has been able to disprove his charges, but not for lack of trying!
Maybe Mawardi and Ibn Anwar should try debating Ali Sina! Oh wait, Ali Sina only wants to debate reputable scholars and not just Muslims “moved by their faith and zealotry”! I guess Marwardi and Ibn Anwar won’t qualify!
As to the commenter above, Abul Layth, his so called squelching of Robert Spencer’s lies is not that much of a response and squelching. Read and see for yourself!
And oh that gratuitous insert by Abul Layth about the sins of the Catholic priests, unlike the honor killings practised by some Muslims, there is no basis for assumption for their evil deeds from the Bible!
What exactly is “Islamophobia”? I have been called an “Islamophobe” because I objected to living in an Islamic state and be forced to be a dhimmi in my own homeland.
The charge of “Islamophobia” is frequently leveled against anyone who criticizes Islam. Hugh Fitzgerald, Jihad Watch Board Vice President , asked his critics which among his criticisms of Islam are considered “Islamophobia”.
1) Muhammad is a role-model for all time. Muhammad married Aisha when she was 6 and had sexual intercourse with her when she was 9. I find appalling that Muslims consider this act of Muhammad to be that of the man who is in every way a role-model, and hence to be emulated. In particular, I am appalled that virtually the first act of the Ayatollah Khomeini, a very orthodox and learned Shi’a theologian, was to lower the marriageable age of girls in Iran to 9 — because, of course, it was Aisha’s age when Muhammad had sexual relations with her.
2) I find appalling that Islam provides a kind of Total Regulation of the Universe, so that its adherents are constantly asking for advice as to whether or not, for example, they can wear their hair in a certain way, grow their beards in a certain way, wish an Infidel a Merry Christmas (absolutely not!).
3) I find appalling the religiously-sanctioned doctrine of taqiyya -– a doctrine that has its sources in the Qur’an itself (3:28 and 16:106).
4) I find appalling many of the acts which Muhammad committed, including his massacre of the Banu Qurayza, his ordering the assassination of many of those he deemed his opponents, even an old man, a woman, or anyone whom, he thought, merely mocked him.
5) I find appalling the hatred expressed throughout the Qur’an, the hadith, and the sira for Infidels — all Infidels.
6) I find nauseating the historic imposition of the jizya on Infidels, the requirement that they wear identifying garb on their clothes and dwellings, that they not be able to build or repair houses of worship without the permission of Muslim authorities, that they must ride donkeys sidesaddle and dismount in the presence of Muslims, that they have no legal recourse against Muslims for they are not equal at law — and a hundred other things, designed to insure their permanent, as the canonical texts say, “humiliation.” A practice from the past, you say? Or a practice that in many ways can still be detected, in the shabby treatment of non-Muslims all over the Muslim world, from the mistreatment of Copts, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Maronites, Armenians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, all the way to the disguised jizyah of the Bumiputra system in Malaysia.
7) I find the mass murder of 60-70 million Hindus over 250 years of Mughal rule, and the destruction of tens of thousands of artifacts and Hindu (and Buddhist) temples, some of the them listed in two volumes edited by Sita Ram Goel and others, appalling.
8) I find the 1300-year history of the persecution of the Zoroastrians, some of it continuing to this day according the great scholar of Zoroastrianism, Mary Boyce, which has led to their reduction to a mere 150,000, something to deplore. There are piquant details in her works, including the deliberate torture and killing of the dogs (which are revered by Zoroastrians), even by small Muslim children who are taught to so behave.
9) I find the record of Muslim intellectual achievement lacking, and I attribute this lack to the failure to encourage free and skeptical inquiry, which is necessary for, among other things, the development of modern science. I find convincing the argument that there was some intellectual activity in non-Muslim lands for a few centuries after the initial conquest, as long as the Christians and Jews (in the Middle East) were still a significant and fructifying influence, and that when they ceased to be, such activity came to an abrupt end.
10) I deplore the prohibition on sculpture or on paintings of living things. I deplore the horrific vandalism and destruction of Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Hindu, and Buddhist sites, from the thousands of temples, right up to today, with the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, pre-Islamic archeological sites vandalized all over Iraq, and in Europe itself, churches and statues in public the object of attack and destruction.
11) I deplore that part of Muslim jurisprudence which renders all treaties between Infidels and Muslims worthless from the viewpoint of the Infidels, though worth a great deal from the viewpoint of the Muslims, for they are only signing a “hudna,” a truce-treaty rather than a true peace-treaty — and because they must go to war against the Infidel, or press their Jihad against the Infidel in other ways, on the model of the Treaty of al-Hudaibiyya, no Infidel state or people can ever trust a treaty with Muslims.
12) I deplore the speech of former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad, so roundly applauded several years ago, in which he called for the “development” not of human potential, not of art and science, but essentially of weapons technology and the harnessing and encouraging of Muslim “brain power” for the sole purpose of defeating the Infidels, as a reading of that entire speech makes absolutely clear. Here — would you like me to read it now for the audience?
13) I deplore the fact that Muslims are taught, and clearly many have taken to heart, the idea that they should offer their loyalty only to fellow Muslims, the umma al-islamiyya, and never to Infidels or to the Infidel nation-state to which they have uttered an oath of allegiance — apparently such an oath must be an act of perjury, because such loyalty is impossible. Am I wrong? Show me exactly what I have misunderstood about Islam.
14) I deplore the ululations of pleasure over acts of terrorism, the delight shown by delighted and celebrating crowds in Cairo, Ramallah, Khartoum, Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, and of course all over Saudi Arabia, when news of the World Trade Center attacks was known — and I can, if you wish, supply the reports from those capitals which show this to have taken place. I attribute statements of exultation about the “Infidels” deserving it to the fact that Islamic tenets view the world as a war between the Believers and the Infidels.
15) On that score, I deplore that mad division of the world between Dar al-Islam and dar al-Harb, and the requirement that there be uncompromising hostility between the two until the final triumph of the former, and the permanent subjugation and incorporation into it of the latter.
16) I deplore the sexual inequality and mistreatment of women, which I can show has a clear basis in the canonical Islamic texts, and is not simply, pace Ebadi and other quasi-”reformers,” a “cultural” matter.
17) I deplore the fact that Infidels feel, with justice, unsafe in almost every Muslim country, but that Muslims treat the Infidel countries and their inhabitants with disdain, arrogance, and endless demands for them to bend, to change, to what Muslims want — whether it be to remove crucifixes, or change the laws of laicity in France, or to demand that “hate speech” laws be extended in England so as to prevent any serious and sober criticism of Islam.
18) I deplore the emphasis on the collective, and the hatred for the autonomy of the individual. In particular, I believe that someone born into Islam has a perfect right to leave Islam if he or she chooses — and that there should be no punishment, much less the murderous punishment so often inflicted.
19) I find the record of Muslim political despotism to be almost complete — with the exception of those Muslim countries and regimes that have, as Ataturk did, carried out a series of measures to limit and constrain Islam.
20) I deplore the fact that while Muslims claim it is a “universalist” religion, it has been a vehicle for Arab imperialism, causing those conquered and Islamized in some cases to forget, or become indifferent or even hostile to, their own pre-Islamic histories. The requirement that the Qur’an be read in Arabic (one of the first things Ataturk did was commission a Turkish Qur’an and tafsir, or commentary), and the belief by many Muslims that the ideal form of society can be derived from the Sunna of 7th century Arabia, and that their own societies are worth little, is an imperialism that goes to culture and to history, and is the worst and most complete kind.
21) I deplore the attacks on ex-Muslims who often must live in fear. I deplore the attacks on Theo van Gogh and others, and the absence of serious debate about the nature of Islam and of its reform — except as a means to further beguile and distract Infidels who are becoming more wary.
22) I deplore the emptiness of the “Tu Quoque” arguments directed at Christians and Jews, based on a disingenuous quotation of passages — for example, from Leviticus — that are completely ignored and have not been invoked for two thousand years, and I deplore the rewriting of history so that a Muslim professor can tell an American university audience that “the Ku Klux Klan used to crucify (!) African-Americans, everyone standing around during the crucifixion singing Christian hymns (!).”
23) I deplore the phony appeals of the “we all share one Abrahamic faith” and “we are the three monotheisms” when, to my mind, a Christian or a Jew has far less to fear from, and in the end far more that is truly essential in common with, any practicing polytheistic Hindu.
24) I deplore the fact that Islam is based on the idea of world-conquest, not of accommodation, and that its adherents do not believe in Western pluralism except insofar as this can be used as an instrument, temporarily most useful, to protect the position of Islam until its adherents have firmly established themselves.
25) I deplore the view, in Islam, that it is not a saving of an individual soul that is involved when one conducts Da’wa or the Call to Islam, but rather, something that appears to be much more like signing someone up for the Army of Islam. He need not have read all the fine print; he need not know Islamic tenets; he need not even have read or know what is in sira and hadith or much of the Qur’an; he need only recite a single sentence. That does not show a deep concern for the nature of the conversion (sorry, “reversion”).
26) I deplore the sentiment that “Islam is to dominate and not to be dominated.” I deplore the sentiment “War is deception” as uttered by Muhammad. I deplore what has happened over 1350 years in vast swaths of territory formerly filled with Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Buddhists, much of which is now today almost monotonously Islamic. I do not think Islam welcomes any diversity if it means the possibility of full equality for non-Muslims.
27) I deplore the fact that slavery is permitted in Islam, that it is discussed in the Qur’an, and that it was suppressed in 19th century Arabia only through the influence of British naval power in the Gulf; that it was formally done away with in Saudi Arabia only in 1962; that it still exists in Mali, and the Sudan, and even Mauritania; that it may exist in the Arabian interior. Certainly the treatment of the Thai, Filipino, Indian and other female house workers in Arab households amounts to slavery, and it is no accident that there has never been a Muslim William Wilberforce.
I join Hugh Fitzgerald in asking the question, if this is “Islamophobia” why is it an “irrational” (i.e. not based on facts or observable behavior, or a study of history) dislike or even hatred of Islam?