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Philosophy/religion

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Where are all the reasonable Muslims?

175 replies

BananaChips · 15/05/2014 21:55

So recently there has been the mass kidnapping (and forced conversion) of hundreds of school girls in Nigeria, and now today in the news a woman in Sudan is condemned to death because she refuses to renounce her faith for Islam.

Numerous political figures across the world and some other-religion figures (Archibishop of Canterbury if I recall) have spoken out against the kidnappings, albeit not in terms of religion.

But I'm sincerely curious as to why there seems to have been no one from the Islamic faith who have spoken out against these two recent atrocities. Is it just that the UK news media have not reported it? Is it that no one has spoken against these tragedies? Would we be wrong to say that these actions are putting Islam in a bad light? These actions are being carried out with distinct emphasis on religious grounds.

I am not trying to stir up any anti-religious feelings, I just want to understand why these acts have not been roundly denounced by members of their own faith. (Please point me towards it, if I've missed any in the news...)

OP posts:
CoteDAzur · 20/05/2014 20:15

"Nick Griffin comes from a political party,of sorts, Anjem Choudary constantly speaks about the real Islam and Sharia Law. He appears to represent plenty of folk - all Muslims. "

There are more than a few weirdo extremists in the world who talk about religion as if they are the only ones who know it. They seem to represent "plenty of folk", indeed. So?

Sarah Palin has far too many supporters to count, way more than those who support Choudary. Can we judge all Americans from the stuff Palin says about America? Can we judge all Christians from the stuff she says about God & religion?

I had never heard the name Anjem Choudary before this thread and can guarantee you that the vast majority of Muslims who live outside the UK will not have heard of him, either. 2.8 mn Muslims live in the UK, 1.6 bn Muslims live in the world - It is incredibly narrow-minded and short-sighted to assume that he speaks for Islam or even a significant percentage of Muslims in the UK, let alone the world.

MrsStatham · 21/05/2014 07:35

Where have you been. Anjem Choudary is the self appointed mouthpiece for Islam in this country, he's been on Question Time and is often on TV and radio. Except that was when he was a lawyer, it turns out he's not. He lied about it.

CoteDAzur · 21/05/2014 07:59

Not in the UK. That us what I've been saying. Have you read my post before replying to it?

You see one extremist who says he is about "true Islam" & all Muslims follow him, and you believe him Hmm

MrsStatham · 21/05/2014 08:29

Yes, I do. Because in every interview he's in - not once has a so called moderate Muslim ever taken him on.

When Muslims follow Sharia law instead of UK law we have a problem. I just wish that problem would be recognised.

crescentmoon · 21/05/2014 08:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

cheekygeeky · 21/05/2014 10:01

Mrs statham - I once went to a peace rally where anjem and his motley crew of disgusting provokators arrived and starting speaking to the press. His disgusting comments made the headlines. What the media did not show was the 2 hour showdown between many many moderate Muslims who challenged anjem and his appropriation of Islam. The challenging of him was filmed but never shown. So please don't assume that moderate Muslims in this country are silent. As this thread has shown a) mainstream Muslims should not be forced to rationalise the comments of lunatics just as Catholic are not expected to do so for paedophilic clergymen and b) the voices, rallies, writings, debates, fundraising events done by the majority of Muslims are very unlikely to be publicised.

GoshAnneGorilla · 21/05/2014 10:49

Cheeky is spot on. The media shows what it likes and it likes scary demagogues, however despised they are by the communities they claim to represent.

Also, Sharia law is the name for all the rules of Islam. Praying five times a day, fasting Ramadan, not eating pork - this is all Sharia law. Is this a problem?

When people break the law in the UK, they should be investigated and punished accordingly. There is no Muslim "Get Out of Jail Free" card.

Mrs Statham - please provide examples of UK Muslims breaking the law and getting away with it.

GoshAnneGorilla · 21/05/2014 10:55

As for the Quilliam Foundation, Ziauddin Sardar does an excellent overview of why they are disliked by the Muslim Community here:
To lionise former extremists feeds anti-Muslim prejudice

gu.com/p/xb222

GoshAnneGorilla · 21/05/2014 11:13

Another post, but this is such a good overview of the (expensively funded by the tax payer) failings of the Quilliam Foundation, I had to share it:
www.salaam.co.uk/blogs-new/?p=756

cheekygeeky · 21/05/2014 11:22

Another point regarding sharia law is that I work with a Muslim couple who divorced. They went through the proper legal channels to divorce, but made use of sharia law when deciding the finer financial details of their divorce. This saved them thousands in solicitors fees and was done in an equitable manner with an independent decision maker. I have no issue with Muslims using sharia law alongside or sometimes instead of uk law if appropriate.

peacefuloptimist · 21/05/2014 15:01

Anjem Choudary constantly speaks about the real Islam and Sharia Law. He appears to represent plenty of folk - all Muslims...Because in every interview he's in - not once has a so called moderate Muslim ever taken him on.

www.theguardian.com/world/video/2011/jan/17/muslim-resistance-struggle-within-video

www.facebook.com/MuslimsAgainstAnjemChoudary

If your going to make such outrageously idiotic comments at least check your facts first. It didn’t take me long to find numerous condemnations of Anjem Choudhry from within the Muslim community. I didn’t even need to put that much effort in as all it takes is just one muslim to condemn him to disprove your hypothesis that he represents ALL muslims and already numerous muslim and non posters here from Crescent, Gosh, Yruapita and Cote have all told you he doesn’t represent them but you see you already know that.

The important bit of your sentence MrsStatham was that he is a self-appointed mouthpiece. The only people he represents are the minority of Radical muslims who support him and are part of his group. Your comment acknowledges that he hasn’t been selected for this role by the muslim community but has appointed himself. So why are you trying to propagate the idea that Anjem CHoudhry speaks for all muslims?

Lets examine in more detail this fallacy that he represents all muslims. I have never ever heard Anjem Chaudhry speak live. I have never even heard of a single event that he has organized that has been hosted in a mosque. He cant speak in mosques because they wont give him a platform. You only ever see him speaking outside mosques or near to mosques. Why? Because they wont let him inside at least not to preach. The only reason why mainstream muslims are exposed to his vile views is because he is given a platform to preach his hate by the British media. Ask most muslims and they will only be able to recognize him because they saw him on TV or in the news. Me and my husband were joking after watching another documentary on British tv where al muhajiroun were interviewed that they must have a special collection of videos and article clippings of all the times they have been in the media.

Furthermore what credentials has Anjem Chaudhry got to talk about Islam. Im going to make a guess that to become a priest/bishop/pope/biblical scholar etc you need to have some sort of formal training in biblical texts maybe early Christian history etc. The same is true for anyone wishing to call themselves a cleric/shaykh/Imam/mufti/scholar etc or any one who claims to hold a position of Islamic knowledge within the community. Anjem Chaudhry does not speak Arabic, he has not memorized the Quran or hadith. He has never attended any Islamic institution of higher education or completed a formal course in Islamic Sciences either in the UK or abroad (not studied Islamic Jurisprudence, theology, history, Arabic language, Hadith sciences, Quran exegesis, prophetic history any field of study which would be essential for someone who calls themselves a cleric). In short he has NO FORMAL EDUCATION in Islam to call himself a scholar, cleric, Imam or whatever. What he is, is an acolyte of self taught preacher Omar Bakri, who has also fudged a lot of information about his own credentials and Islamic education.

(Omar Bakri) Knowing he had no credentials as a scholar in Islam, had been claiming to his UK non-Arabic speaking audience for the last two decades that he was born in Aleppo, Syria, where he enrolled into al-Kuttab Boarding School where he studied the Quran, Hadith, Fiqh, Seerah and other sciences. He also claimed to have accompanied prominent scholars in Syria and studied with them Usul al-Fiqh, AI-I’jaaz, Arabic Language, l’lm aI-Khitaba, l’lm al-Tassawuf, Fiqh and IIm as-Seerah (different branches of Islamic sciences), later to join “the Shari’ah Institute at Damascus University where he studied Fiqh and Shari’ah.”[1] After his return to Lebanon in 2005 he reconstructed his past and completely contradicted himself saying, “I have never seen Syria in my life. As for what they say about me that he studied in Syria and graduated from the faculty of Law, then this is all hearsay.”
At the back of his book, Essential Fiqh, it states, “He studied in many famous and well noted Islamic institutions including the Shari’ah University in Damascus, Al-Azhar University, Umm al-Qura in Makkah and al-Jamia al-Islamia in Madinah.” This lie was exposed by Shaykh Abd al-Rahman al-Dimashqiya who said, “He pretends to be learned and makes frequent claims to that effect”…He took a group of non-Arabs in Britain for a ride…his history is not that ambiguous, because throughout his stay in the Kingdom (of Saudi Arabia) he did not study in any of the universities. He was only an employee of a company called Eastern Electricity, owned by Shamsan and ‘Abd aI-’Aziz al-Suhaybi in Riyadh. He then moved to its branch in Jeddah. He did not approach any university during his stay there.

So despite Anjem Chaudhry’s lack of education (he hasn’t just lied about being a lawyer) and the lack of support that he has within the wider muslim community why do Islamophobes insist on perpetuating the myth that he is somehow representative of the muslim community. The reason is that for Islamophobes he is the ideal poster boy of their hateful image of Islam. Him and his followers are the breathing, walking, talking actualization of all the creeping Sharia fears of the far right. However, the inconvenient truth for you is that his voice IS in the minority. He and his follower’s views ARE challenged by the muslim community. So you have to create this fallacy that he has more influence then he actually does to convince others of all the delusional fantasies about the so called 'islam threat' which are just not true and hope that people are not going to double check your wild claims.

MrsStatham · 22/05/2014 09:24

Anyway it's all craziness. Beliefs are not facts, no matter how many ancient books they've been written down in.

Getting rid of religion and it's associated fuckwittery would lead to a happier less divided world.

GoshAnneGorilla · 22/05/2014 11:17

Ah yes, because the human race only ever fights or has disputes over religion.

People never, ever fight over nationalism, resources, ethnicity, political ideology...

If this is your big contribution to the discussion, I don't think you have much call to describe others as fuckwitted.

Elusive · 22/05/2014 13:08

gosh Grin

Hello, i am elusive,

And i am a reasonable muslim.

MrsStatham · 22/05/2014 14:22

If you are trying to prove that God exists please remember that reading the Bible or Holy book of your choice is not valid research and "I feel him in my heart" is not valid data.

Religion, in any form, is not harmless. It causes most wars, the crusades, the inquisition, 9/11, arranged marriages to children, blowing up girls schools, the suppression of women and homosexuals, fatwas, ethnic cleansing, honour rape, human sacrifice, burning witches, suicide bombings, condoning slavery and the systematic rape and abuse of children.

I hope that gives you comfort, when you pray to your God because clearly your God is the right one, all the others are mere pretenders with their own equally fucked up rules and dogma who won't let you into heaven.

Educated, intelligent adults believe in this?

BreakingDad77 · 22/05/2014 14:54

I think your going bit off topic mrsstatham, why not start a new thread on religion and feminism/womens in general are they compatible, will they ever be etc?

CoteDAzur · 22/05/2014 14:55

MrsStatham - I happen to agree with what you say but it is completely irrelevant to this thread.

MrsStatham · 22/05/2014 15:25

Ok, I take your point.

Elusive · 22/05/2014 15:39

Its always the same thing isnt it. We just go round in circles.

Mrs statham Your argument that religion causes war is very weak and is not backed up by historical facts. Your statement about religion...

....causes most wars, the crusades, the inquisition, 9/11, arranged marriages to children, blowing up girls schools, the suppression of women and homosexuals, fatwas, ethnic cleansing, honour rape, human sacrifice, burning witches, suicide bombings, condoning slavery and the systematic rape and abuse of children.

If you wish then i can go through this list and present evidence that it was not religion that caused these 'wars'. I can present links and valid data and research which will dispute your wild claims and accusations that religion was the cause of these 'wars' .

To say that you feel in your heart that religion is the cause of most wars is not valid data nor is it valid research. History says otherwise but we have you on here who would love to re-write history and place all blame on religion most of it on islam

Your lies about anjem choudhury being representative of all muslims have already been ripped to shreds by previous posters too and evidence has been presented for you to see. So far, all i have seen from you is misinformation and no valid argument. I put to you that :

getting rid of xenophobia (haters! Grin ) and associated fuckwittery would lead to a happier, less divided world.

mrs statham - peace to you!

Say, "O ye that reject faith,
I do not worship that which you worship,
nor do you worship the One whom I worship.
And neither I am going to worship that which you have worshipped,
nor will you worship the One whom I worship.
For you is your faith, and for me, my faith."

GoshAnneGorilla · 22/05/2014 15:52

Mrs Statham - I have absolutely no interest in having any theological debate with you whatsoever.

You asserted that Anjem Choudary was influential to Muslims. The Muslims and non-Muslims on this thread then went to some effort to prove to you that this was not the case.

Rather then read people's actual responses to you and accept that you were mistaken, you have now started to insult religious people.

This happens all too often whenever Islam is discussed on Mumsnet. It is very wearing and frankly, rude.

MrsStatham · 22/05/2014 15:56

Define faith?

GoshAnneGorilla · 22/05/2014 16:20

Mrs Statham - Nor I, or any other Muslim on here is your performing monkey. You haven't engaged with us, you have insulted us. I have no interest in defining anything for you.

Feel free to start your own thread as you are now derailing this one.

alemci · 22/05/2014 16:31

selfish human nature, greed, power etc cause the problems outlined by Mrs S. often it is politics. It may be done in the name of religion but it is people twisting it to achieve their own ends.

good men get dragged in.

I would like to see people like Anjem Choudary challenged by moderates. I think he was on panorama once. I understand it is edited.

MrsStatham · 22/05/2014 20:11

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

sashh · 26/05/2014 06:46

OP

Why are you not criticising men?

All those girls were kidnapped by men.

The woman in Sudan is a victim of men and man made laws.

Would that be too close to home?

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