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Muhajiroun versus Luton white trash

2009-03-17T23:24:08Z

I've never cared much for the MuhajiGoons, but seeing this display of "patriotism" by a wannabe lynch mob of Britain's "finest" made me a bit more sympathetic. They did not seem to be saying anything, just holding up their banners, while the mob (albeit a fairly small one, which made me wonder who organised it) seemed to be baying for blood and required the police to restrain them. Also, someone has something to say about the Muslim protestors' mothers (about 6:05). Charming.

No sad goodbye

2009-03-17T21:16:41Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7936048.stm

The BBC laments how the old nightclubs and belly-dancing joints of Cairo have either closed down or are shadows of their old selves. The problem is that Cairo then was part of a quasi-colony - nominally a sovereign state but under British domination, including military occupation - and besides the dancing was the prostitution and the diseases that resulted from it. It's really understandable that people don't want their country used as a seedy playground for foreign soldiers. Places which have been "cleaned up" can be more boring than they were before, but usually the neighbours' lives get a bit easier and quieter, and the women and children can go out after 4pm. Cairo is actually still a very interesting city (although, as I've said before, I don't recommend day trips), and you can spend days exploring the old city and admiring (some of) the architecture, and then head for the Red Sea coast if you want some shame-free booze.

Cambridge Muslim College

2009-03-17T14:06:03Z

Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad heads up a new college in Cambridge:

http://www.cambridgemuslimcollege.org

The Cambridge Muslim College supports the development of training and Islamic scholarship to help meet the many challenges facing Britain today. The college is dedicated to maintaining academic excellence and pushing the boundaries of Islamic learning in the West.

http://www.cambridgemuslimcollege.org

Descending vs seeing

2009-03-17T10:13:38Z

Question: we say that the idea of “real descending unlike our descending” is self-contradictory because descending cannot other than be bodies bound by space and directions. However the wahabi says: “The meaning of Seeing is to interpret information one receives upon lights hitting one’s eyes. Will you now negate that Allah sees? You say descending [...]

Egypt: A Quick & Dirty Guide

2009-03-14T18:08:00Z

I've explained the main sites to see in Egypt a couple of times. Now that someone asked me about it again, I decided to commit it to writing.

Disclaimer

I should start by saying this is not a substitute for proper planning or a proper visitor's guide. I mainly go to Egypt to visit family, and stay with family. My site seeing is (relatively) limited and my home town is Alexandria, not the capital, Cairo.

What Egypt Is Not

Egypt is not Europe or North America. It's a poor country. Some places are dirty and disgusting. If you're not careful, you're likely to get sick and ripped off. The people are poor. They will see a dollar sign on your head. Some people will try to rip you off. You need to know how to negotiate well.

In general, Egyptians are friendly and hospitable. I've told you the worst. It really shouldn't be that bad, insha' Allah.

Egypt is not Sinai. Yes, Sinai is a part of Egypt, but so many Jordanians claim to have visited Egypt while going no further than Sinai. Claiming that you've visited Egypt after seeing Sinai is like me claiming I've seen Turkey because I've been to Jordan. (Jordan used to be a part of the Ottoman Empire.)

What to See

Egyptian history can be divided into three main time periods: Pharaonic, Greco-Roman, and Islamic.

Pharaonic

The Pyramids & Sphinx. Location: Giza, close to Cairo.
The Egyptian Museum. Location: Cairo.
Saqqara. Location: close to Cairo.

Greco-Roman

The Greco-Roman Museum in Alexandria. Check to make sure it's open.
The underground catacombs of Kom El-Shouqafa, also in Alexandria.

Islamic

Muhammad Ali's citadel. Location: Cairo.
Al-Azhar Mosque & University, the oldest university in the world. Location: Cairo.
Al-Hussein Mosque. Location: Cairo.
Khan Al-Khalili market. Location: Cairo.
Abu Al-Abbas Mosque. Location: Alexandria.
The Gates of Ancient Cairo. Location: Cairo.
The Citadel of Qaitbay. Location: Alexandria.
Al-Rifa'i Mosque. Location: Cairo.

There are also innumerable scholars and saints buried in Egypt, such as Imam Shafi'i, Zakariyya Al-Ansari, Al-Shaarani, and many prominent Shadhilis.

If you're a big modern history nut, you might want to also see El Alamein, where Germany and the Allies lost thousands of soldiers in battle during WWII.

Natural Beauty

The best time to visit Egypt is in late April or early May, when the weather is nice and the tourists are few. In the summer, Egypt can be rather hot. In Alexandria, the humidity is high and you'll feel the sweat roll off your body even at night time during the peak of the summer. If you're by the seaside, then you'll be fine.

If one of your goals is to enjoy Egypt's remarkable fresh fruit, such as mangoes and guava, then you need to go in late summer or early fall.

Here's what you have to experience while there:

The Mediterranean Sea. Best seen in Alexandria. Catch a boat ride from the Montazah, King Farouq's former palace. While you're by the corniche, make sure to ride in a horse-drawn carriage. If you have time, go fishing. You can also check out Mersa Matruh, towards the Libyan border, where you can find some secluded beaches.
The Red Sea. It offers great fishing and snorkeling. That's what I hear, anyway. I've never been there on the Egyptian side. (I've only been to the Red Sea via Aqaba, Jordan.)
The Nile, of course. Catch a boat ride in Cairo. If you're adventurous, you may want to catch an extended ride down south into Upper Egypt. Tread with caution.

Food

I really go to Egypt to connect with my inner stomach. I love (most) Egyptian food. I don't have an eating problem: I eat, I get sick, I take medicine; no problem! Don't drink the tap water or anything that's made with tap water (e.g. juice) unless it's been boiled; e.g. tea or coffee.

Here are things you must eat or drink:

Mangoes. zOMG, Egyptian mangoes are awesome. I don't know if they're very good earlier than August, though.
Guava. These ripen even later than mangoes.
Pastirma: fried with eggs or alone, in sandwiches.
In general, most Egyptian meat and dairy is very good. Try water buffalo (gamoosa) steak.
Egyptians do poultry very well. Treat yourself to some duck and stuffed pigeons.
Rabbits in mulukhiyah. If you can't get it with rabbits, eat mulukhiyah (e.g. with chicken) anyways.
Fresh juice, at the stands. Make sure they make it with bottled water. You should also drink some of the ultra-refreshing sugarcane juice. If you get it in a bag and take it to your hotel, it will go brown if you don't drink it very soon afterwards. If you drink from their cups, you risk getting sick. (One of my worst illnesses to date was after I drank sugarcane juice from an improperly-washed glass in Amman; I had a high fever for one solid week.) Take your own portable mug and have them fill it for you. Hey, they already know you're a foreigner and are ripping you off anyways, so you might as well be sanitary about it.
Gateau. Egyptian gateau rocks. You want to make sure the shop you go into is air-conditioned. If it isn't, they're probably not using fresh dairy cream.
Other good Egyptian sweest include: baklawa and kunafa. Make sure to get it from a high quality place that uses real dairy butter and crunchy, freshly roasted nuts.
Although typically a poor man's food, kushari is delicious and satisfying nonetheless.
Seafood. You can buy zillions of types of fresh fish and shellfish and have them cooked for you on the spot in the better restaurants.
If you're not used to Middle-Eastern coffee, you might find Turkish coffee a nice treat. Make sure not to try to drink the sludge at the bottom.
Safe bets in all Middle Eastern countries include: grilled kabobs and kufta, shawerma, felafel, and hummus. The last two are good for vegetarians and those on a budget.

(Note how I've written more about food than any other topic.)

Check the comments section of this post for updates.

"Over 30 and Unmarried - Breaking a Stalemate"

2009-03-14T14:17:58Z

Check out this brave, touching and thoughtful essay by a friend of mine on the challenges facing unmarried Muslim women over 30.

This and a host of related issues need to be widely discussed in the community.

(reposted due to bad link)

Provincial Tory attacks free speech

2009-03-14T11:55:07Z

In case anyone was really thinking that the Tories had become the party of civil liberties in the UK (rather than the party which started the ball rolling on bringing in laws restricting the right to protest and which abolished the right to silence without it leading to the presumption of guilt), the idiotic demonstration by a couple of dozen MuhajiGoons earlier this week in Luton has led to an amendment to the religious hatred law being tabled by some guy called David Davies, Tory MP for Monmouthshire, to outlaw abusive demonstrations against serving soldiers.

This is at least the second time that the antics of al-Muhajiroun have led to a campaign to ban whatever they are doing - the law banning people from "glorifying" terrorism was in direct response to their post-9/11 press conferences in which they crowed about the "magnificent" attacks on the World Trade Centre. Their strength then was barely more than it is now, and yet laws are framed which affect all of us just to stop a few dozen loud-mouths whose ravings are amplified by a press which, while feigning hostility to them, actually loves the money they bring in.

I do not believe that these protests are equivalent to inciting hatred for people based on religion or race, anyway. Racial and religious hatred is what communal riots and mass murder, rape and general destruction is based on; a few strong words aimed at soldiers on parade in a public place is not in the same league at all. In any case, if our soldiers had really been involved in an atrocity - if something like Abu Ghraib had been British soldiers' responsibility rather than Americans' - then public anger, particularly from any community connected in some way to the victims, would be quite understandable. If the soldiers had been returning from Sierra Leone or Bosnia, suffice to say that there would have been no protest, but how many regiments were taken on a parade through a town centre after coming back from either of those places, when a heroes' welcome might have been more appropriate?

It is depressing that we see reactive legislation, or attempts at it, in response to vexatious antics by loud-mouths such as Anjem Choudhary and his gang, who should have been denied the oxygen of publicity years ago rather than being dignified with bills in parliament in response. I notice that there have been few prosecutions for inciting hatred based on religion, despite the flood of Muslim-bashing headlines from the Daily Express, which a lot of Muslims, including myself, find more worrying than the rantings of delinquent BNP activists. Why do people cry "ban it" every time an annoying public demonstration is reported on the news? Why does freedom of speech mean so little to us? This could never happen in the USA, where the First Amendment would make it not worth discussing unless real harm could happen as a direct result.

Mr Davies's voting record is interesting - very strongly against ID cards, generally against Labour anti-terrorist laws, and in favour of an investigation into the causes of the Iraq war; his position, as expressed in the BBC news report, is that any protest should be directed at Parliament and not at the soldiers themselves. I wonder if he sees the irony in voting in favour of civil-libertarian causes but proposing a law telling us how we should talk about soldiers in their presence? This is exactly the kind of law used by dictatorships and pseudo-democracies like Turkey to ban criticism of the military. There would be some justification if abusive or violent demonstrations at such events were a known problem (and even then, police action to keep them away would be a better idea), but this is one incident involving a small number of people, and a law banning such demonstrations is a disproportionate response.

"Over 30 and Unmarried - Breaking a Stalemate"

2009-03-14T06:23:57Z

Check out this touching and thoughtful essay by a friend of mine on the challenges facing unmarried Muslim women over 30.

This and a host of related issues need to be widely discussed in the community.

New Arrivals mid-March 2009

2009-03-14T06:01:19Z

Islamic Liberation Theology: Resisting the Empire | Hamid Dabashi
Islam: The Key Concepts | Kecia Ali and Oliver Leaman
Muslim Ethics: Emerging Vistas (paperback edition) | Amyn Sajoo
Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion | Carrette and King

Restock
Qur'an: An Introduction | Saeed
A Spirit of Tolerance: The Inspiring Life of Tierno Bokar

Times Online: “Madonna syndrome: I should have ditched feminism for love, children and baking”

2009-03-13T18:27:47Z

Madonna syndrome: I should have ditched feminism for love, children and baking

A playwright who embraced the feminism espoused by her mother and flaunted by Madonna now feels betrayed

by Zoe Lewis

Link - Timesonline.co.uk

I never thought I would be saying this, but being a free woman isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Is that the rustle of taffeta I hear as the suffragettes turn in their graves? Possibly. My mother was a hippy who kept a pile of (dusty) books by Germaine Greer and Erica Jong by her bed (like every good feminist, she didn’t see why she should do all the cleaning). She imbued me with the great values of choice, equality and sexual liberation. I fought with my older brother and won; at university I beat the rugby lads at drinking games. I was not to be messed with.

Now, nearly 37, those same values leave me feeling cold. I want love and children but they are nowhere to be seen. I feel like a UN inspector sent in to Iraq only to find that there never were any weapons of mass destruction. I was led to believe that women could “have it all” and, more to the point, that we wanted it all. To that end I have spent 20 years ruthlessly pursuing my dreams - to be a successful playwright. I have sacrificed all my womanly duties and laid it all at the altar of a career. And was it worth it? The answer has to be a resounding no.

Ten years ago The Times ran a piece about my play Paradise Syndrome. It was based on my girlfriends in the music business. All we did was party, work and drink. The play sold out and I thought: “This is it! I’m going to have it all: success, power and men are going to adore me for it.” In reality it was the beginning of years of hard slog, rejection letters and living on the breadline. A decade on, I have written the follow-up play Touched for the Very First Time in which Lesley, played by Sadie Frost, is an ordinary 14-year-old from Manchester who falls in love with Madonna in 1984 after hearing the song Like a Virgin. She religiously follows her icon through the years, as Madonna sells her the ultimate dream: “You can do anything - be anything - go girl.” Lesley discovers, along with Madonna, that trying to “have it all” is a huge gamble. I wrote the play because so many of my girlfriends were inspired by this bullish woman who allowed us to be strong and sexy. I still love her and always will, but she has encouraged us to chase a fantasy and it’s a huge disappointment.

I may be an extreme case. My views may not represent those of other women of my generation. Perhaps I am just a spoilt middle-class girl who had a career and who has now changed her mind? I don’t think so. This month the General Household Survey found that the number of unmarried women under 50 has more than doubled over the past 30 years. And by the age of 30, one in five of these “freemales”, who have chosen independence over husband and family, has gone through a broken cohabitation.

I argue that women’s libbers of the Sixties and Seventies put careerism at the forefront, trampling the traditional role of women underneath their Doc Martens. I wish a more balanced view of womanhood had been available to me. I wish that being a housewife or a mother wasn’t such a toxic idea to middle-class liberals of yesteryear.

Increasing numbers of my feminist friends are giving up their careers for love and children and baking. I wish I’d had kids ten years ago, when time was on my side, but the problem is not so much time as mentality. I made a conscious decision not to have serious relationships because I thought I had all the time in the world. Many of my friends did the same. It’s about understanding what is important in life, and from what I see and feel, loving relationships and children bring more happiness than work ever can.

Natasha Hidvegi, 37, has left her job as a surgeon to look after her son. “I found it impossible to be a good surgeon and a good mother. Though it was a horrendous decision, I don’t regret it.”

I thought that men would love independent, strong women, but (in general) they don’t appear to. Men are programmed to like their women soft and feminine. It’s not their fault - it’s in the genes. Holly Kendrick, 34, who holds a high-status job in the theatre, agrees: “Men tend to be freaked out if you work as hard as them.” This is why many of my girlfriends are still alone. The truth, though, is not that men haven’t accepted women’s modernity - the alpha woman who never questions her entitlement to the same jobs, fun and sexual gratification as them - but that women haven’t either. I feel a great pressure from other women of my generation, who have partners and kids, to join their club. In their eyes I am not the trailblazer but the failure. My friend Rita Arnold, 36, works in marketing. “It’s not men who judge me for being a careerist. It’s other women. The claws come out.”

This leaves me sick to the stomach. We are letting each other down but there is a worse betrayal than that. I am a failure in my own eyes. Somewhere inside lurks a woman I cannot control and she is in the kitchen with a baby on her hip and dough in her hand, staring me down. She is saying: “This is happiness, this is what it’s all about.” It’s an instinct that makes me a woman, an instinct that I can’t ignore even if I wanted to.

Felicity Wren, 36, is an actress who has yet to find Mr Right. “I feel the pressure, but only from myself, about how I do not have a conventional life. Most people don’t care.”

Had I this understanding of my psyche ten years ago I would have demoted my writing (and hedonism) and pursued a relationship with vigour. There were plenty of men and even a marriage offer, but I wouldn’t give up my dreams.

I talked to the girls who were the subject of my play Paradise Syndrome in 1999. Sas Taylor, 38, single and childless, runs her own PR company: “In my twenties I felt I was invincible,” she says. “Now I wish I had done it all differently. I seem to scare men off because I am so capable. I have business success but it doesn’t make you happy.” Nicki P, 35 and single, works in the music industry and adds: “It was all a game back then. Now I am panicking. No one told me that having fun is not as fun as I thought.”

As I write this I feel sad, as if the feminist principles that my mother brought me up on are being trashed. Am I betraying womanhood? No, I am revealing a shameful truth. Women are often the worst enemies of feminism because of our genetic make-up. We have only a finite time to be mothers and when that clock starts ticking we abandon our strength and jump into bed with whoever is left, forgetting talk of deadlines and PowerPoint presentations in favour of Mamas & Papas buggies and ovulation diaries. Not all women want children but I challenge any woman to say she doesn’t want loving relationships. I wish I’d had the advice that I am giving to my 21-year-old sister: if you find a great guy, don’t be afraid to settle down and have kids because there isn’t anything to miss out on that you can’t do later (apart from having kids).

In the future I hope that there can be a better understanding of women by women. The past 25 years have been confusing and I feel that I’ve been caught in the crossfire. As women we should accept each other rather than just appreciating “success”. I have always felt a huge pressure to be successful to show men that I am their equal. What a waste of time. Wife and mother should be given parity with the careerist role in the minds of feminists.

My mother had children early and has brilliantly juggled a career as a filmmaker and parent. She was part of the generation that overlapped, that had feminist values but had children early. She hasn’t had the job opportunities of my generation, she had to make sacrifices and take lesser jobs to be at parents’ evenings. Choice and careers are vital, of course, but they shouldn’t be pursued relentlessly. I love being a writer and still have my dream but now I am facing facts. The thing that has made me feel best in life was being in love with my ex-boyfriend and the thing that makes me feel the most centred is being in the country with kids and dogs, and yes, maybe in the kitchen.

Touched for the Very First Time opened this week at Trafalgar Studios, London; www.touchedtheplay.com

Blonde ambition

1984 Madonna released a video of Like a Virgin, which inspired a generation of teenage girls.

1985 She married Hollywood actor Sean Penn. They divorced four years later.

1986 Madonna released Papa Don’t Preach, about a young, unmarried, pregnant girl choosing to keep her baby.

1989 She released Like a Prayer, which scandalised Roman Catholics when the singer challenged taboos with race issues in her video in which a black man is wrongly accused of rape.

1990 Madonna embarked on her controversial Blonde Ambition World Tour, during which, in her performance of Like a Virgin, male dancers caressed her body and she simulated masturbation.

1992 An album called Erotica was released and she published Sex, a book in which she again flaunted her sexual freedom.

1998 Madonna had a child, Lourdes Maria, after a “fling” relationship with a personal trainer. She stood up for single motherdom.

2000 She married Guy Ritchie in a “fairytale wedding” and moved to England, bought a country pile and started writing children’s books and expounding the virtues of the kabbalah.

2008 Madonna divorces Ritchie and her “perfect family life” with Lourdes Maria, son Rocco and adopted son David Banda ends.

Sheikh Maulana Nazim is awarded highest royal title by Sultan of Malaysia

2009-03-12T11:21:09Z

In celebration of the Silver Jubilee of the Sultan of Perak Darul Ridwan Malaysia, Sultan Aslan is presenting a medal to Haji Baha’uddin Adil Efendi. Baha’uddin Efendi is receiving the medal on behalf of his father, Sheikh Maulana Nazim el Hakkani el Kibrisi. This medal is only given to members of the Sultan’s family, meaning that Sheikh Maulana is a member of the royal family.

There is no higher honor, except for the medal that the Sultan himself wears.

Mawlid 1430 @ Osmanli Naksibendi Dergah

2009-03-12T02:17:19Z

Pictures:

Sohbet

Zikr

Unwrapping and speaking about the Holy Hair of the Prophet (صلي الله عليه و سلم)

Showing Respect to the Holy Hair of the Prophet (صلي الله عليه و سلم)

Handing out Candies and having Tea

Good news for programmers: There are jobs out there. They're just in, umm, Guantanamo Bay.

2009-03-12T01:05:37Z

I've had dealings with so many recruiters over the years that I'm on a lot of headhunters' mass mailing lists, so I regularly get job ads quasi-spammed to me, most of which don't fit me or my skill set or interests at all. This one, though, takes the cake in terms of being a bad fit.

General Dynamics - Immediate Needs for Developers in Cuba!

General Dynamics Information Technology is a top-tier IT integrator that provides information technology, systems engineering and professional services to customers in the defense, intelligence, homeland security, federal civil and commercial sectors. With 16,000 professionals worldwide, the company has the customer knowledge, domain expertise and proven performance to manage large-scale, mission-critical IT programs.

General Dynamics Information Technology is currently seeking to fill immediate needs in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. for the following positions:

Senior Web Developers

Web Developers

.Net Developers

Must have and active security clearance or be eligible to obtain a security clearance to qualify for the positions.

What are they building that needs to be created on-site? Perhaps it's a CRM system for tracking detainee information that they're rushing to set up before letting people go. (I wonder if even detainees' data need to be housed outside off US soil for legal reasons.)

Not an opportunity I'd be interested in, to put it mildly. And then there's the possible nuisance of the client on such an engagement one day drastically changing my accommodations on base after the wrong blog post...

Purim mubarak

2009-03-11T21:53:22Z

I'm pretty forgetful about wishing other people well on their holidays--and Judaism has so many of 'em--so allow me to atone a bit with a hearty Purim mubarak to Jewish readers. [Eid mubarak, or "blessed festival", is how Muslims greet each other on the Islamic holidays.]

Purim has always fascinated me. In its pageantry and boisterousness, it reminds me of the cathartic communal holidays of medieval European religious life.

As a Muslim, one aspect in particular has inevitably always caught my attention. Obviously, alcohol isn't its point and drunkenness is discouraged in Judaism (to wit, what happened to poor Shem when Noah knocked one too many back*), but there aren't many religious holidays where celebrants are religiously mandated to get tipsy (if not tanked).

A more un-Islamic holiday is hard to envision, sharia-wise. In fact, I suspect that many conservative Muslim traditionalists (no, it’s not a redundant locution--there are other kinds, too…) would argue it to be haram to even wish a Jew a happy Purim, considering it an encouragement of an activity that sharia seeks to eliminate from society.

But it’s not un-Islamic for the reasons many would assume.

It's well known that Islam and Judaism have strikingly similar sacred rituals and taboos--i.e., that they share affinities in terms of daily practice--but their underlying philosophical commonality is often completely overlooked. The idea that Christianity and Judaism share an inner core of spirituality absent from Islam is rather debatable, as is well illustrated IMO by how some dismissive Christian thinkers can be of ritual, overlooking how ritual is often a manifestation (not to mention reinforcement) of faith and belief. To Jews and Muslims their daily rituals and conscious sacrifices are anything but the "vain repetitions" that some Christians condescendingly assume them to be.

*According to Jewish tradition, I hasten to add. Islamic tradition, in contrast, holds this and other similarly unflattering anecdotes about prophet found in the Hebrew Bible to be myths. Prophets are considered sinless in Islamic tradition, which raises interesting hermeneutical questions when dealing with of the Tanakh’s more juicy passages.

Muhajiroun disrupt Luton army parade

2009-03-11T10:21:18Z

A small group of young men from al-Muhajiroun (or Muhajigoons, the Voice, the Ears and Eyes of the Morons) yesterday caused a commotion at a parade in Luton by soldiers returning from Iraq. The banners read "Butchers of Basra" and "Anglian soldiers, go to Hell" (the soldiers were from the Royal Anglian Regiment". The BBC described the protest as an "anti-war protest", but it was plain from the men's appearance and the nature of their banners (they are always shouting "go to hell") which group they are from. For the record, these boys do not take part in real anti-war demonstrations. They called RESPECT "kafir hypocrites", accused Stop Political Terror of being "very close to becoming" hypocrites, and have been known to turn up at real Muslim demonstrations and shout their own slogans rather than actually participating in the demo.

As one might expect, there were not that many Muslims shown in the BBC's footage turning out to welcome the soldiers back. It's your right not to care for them, of course, but you could do it the same way all the other Muslims in Luton did, which is simply not to turn up at the parade. After the shootings of soldiers in Northern Ireland last week (by the "Real IRA", a splinter group from the Provisional IRA which rejects the peace process and which carried out the Omagh bombing in 1998), a demonstration like this was particularly inappropriate.

Thug pupils ruining teachers' careers

2009-03-10T23:52:55Z

BBC Radio's File on 4 put out this programme last week about how teachers' careers are being ruined by false accusations, particularly of assault, often coming from pupils with a history of violence themselves. The audio is no longer available, but you can read a transcript here (PDF) and a synopsis here. They hear from three teachers, two men and one woman, who ended up losing their jobs after having to break up violent situations at school but were accused by those involved of attacking them. None of the three teachers in this programme were convicted of anything, but all had their careers ruined, as any investigation remains on their record.

There are two separate issues arising out of this. The first is raised in the programme itself, namely that the disciplinary panels do not work fairly; in both cases, they took the word of the head-teacher as gospel and simply ignored what the accused teacher said. In one case, the head-teacher, who was a key witness, led the investigation. School governors are elected "lay people", usually parents (not necessarily parents of pupils currently at the school); basically "upstanding citizens" who want to add a string to their bow. These aren't the first people you'd expect professionalism from. I've heard of one incident in the mid-1990s when a panel of governors declined to appoint a head teacher out of a group of interviewees, including the well-respected current deputy head, because they were all so good that they could not pick an outstanding candidate. I am sure that not all governors are that stupid, but are they the best people to decide whether to end someone's career?

The second is that a teacher's career can be ended with one incident of assault, even when the "victim" is a thug with a history of attacking teachers and other pupils. Not that long ago - until 1987, in fact, the use of the cane and slipper for disciplinary purposes was quite legal, so anyone who wanted to prove assault against a teacher had to prove that it was not justified. I am not saying I want it brought back, let alone that teachers should get away with slapping and even punching pupils for trivial reasons or knocking them round rooms, as they did at my school, but teachers these days, particularly in secondary schools, have to deal with pupils who don't respect anyone, let alone authority; in some cases, they only respect strength. If governors are not wise to this, then dealing with accusations of this sort should be dealt with by people who are. Let's face it, if a kid decides to assault someone, and has to be restrained, or fought, the possibility exists of someone getting injured. He (or she) knew that before sticking the fist or boot in.

I am sure some people will say that we should bring the cane back, but it won't work on this type; they probably will not submit to it anyway. What I do think is that we should not expect teachers to act like saints when we all know they are not - as is the case with most people, in fact - and we also know that some of the pupils they have to deal with are the exact opposite. There needs to be some leeway and a presumption of innocence, particularly when the accuser is of known bad character. It should be less easy for bullies and other violent criminals to destroy the careers of hard-working professionals with malicious accusations.

Balancing identity against dogmatism within religious organizations

2009-03-10T16:45:53Z

I have a piece over on Religion Dispatches on the line between reasonable expectations of acceptance of orthodoxy within American religious organizations and religious intolerance.

Op-Ed: The Real Muslims? by Svend White | Religion and Theology | ReligionDispatches

Candace Chellew-Hodge wrote last week in RD about the dogmatism enforced by some of the organizations ranked as top Christian employers. This got me thinking (and chuckling a bit) as I imagined compiling comparable rankings for Muslim American community organizations (especially given the financial woes and cross-cultural hijinks one finds in many such outfits, being early forays into American civic life by a relatively young community).
More importantly, this got me thinking about whether Muslim organizations might be said to similarly highjack the “M-word” (a new TV series?). While I haven’t heard of such heavy-handed measures being employed in Muslim organizations, I think there is certainly an analogous expectation of assent to a minimal standard of doctrinal orthodoxy.

There's more.

IJ gets a mention in the Spectator

2009-03-09T22:16:48Z

I was browsing through the Spectator the other day, and noticed that Melanie Phillips had contributed a piece about a "new axis of Islamists and Evangelicals" against Israel. The subject was nothing other than the row among Evangelicals about Ben White tipping me off about his review of Patrick Sookhdeo's book. I was mentioned as "Indigo Jo", not by my real name, and I'm sure she knows it. You can find the article on her website or (in six parts) at the Spectator's site.

The Christians who objected to White tipping me off were concerned about threats to Christian missionaries and to Sookhdeo himself. Phillips is more concerned about the fact that Ben White and some of his associates have a less indulgent attitude towards Israel than she would like:

A recurring thread of White's writing is his hatred of Israel. He justifies Palestinian terrorism against Israel as legitimate self-defence to bring about the 'decolonisation and liberation from occupation and Zionist apartheid'.

He says he can 'understand' why some people are unpleasant towards Jews because of Israel's 'ideology of racial supremacy and its subsequent crimes committed against the Palestinians' and also 'the widespread bias and subservience to the Israeli cause in the Western media'.

Enter at this point the non-evangelical, secular Left in the shape of Andrew Brown, who joined White's onslaught against Sookhdeo on the Guardian's Comment Is Free website. Brown claimed of Sookhdeo's supporters that they constructed 'a closed mirror-world of hatred to stand against the Islamist one'.

Brown's article, too, seemed to be driven by hostility to anyone who supported Israel. His objection to Sookhdeo was principally that 'in practice the Sookhdeo view of Islam is always coupled with a stance in favour of the greater Israel' -- which enabled Brown to make a witty crack insinuating that the Jews were 'people who are instructed by their religion to be violent, treacherous and imperialist'.

Andrew Brown has another explanation for why Anglican clergy are often not Israel-lovers:

But most of the Anglican ambivalence towards Israel is much simpler and less completely worked out than a conspiracy: it arises from the simple fact that Palestinian Christians are Arabs, and if you go to visit them, as Anglican clergy often do, you will see how Arabs are treated under Israeli occupation. That makes the travellers dislike the Israeli army. No doubt this will be interpreted by Melanie as "blaming the Jews", but occupying armies get blamed for their behaviour whether they are Jewish, Chinese, or even British. It goes with the territory.

I had two qualms with Phillips's references to me. The first is that she called me an "Islamist", a term used so broadly by those who use it that it really does not mean anything anymore. The same goes for "radical Muslim", a term used for me on the Barnabas Fund's prayer request:

Indigo Jo does say on his website that he is a British convert to Islam, original name Matthew Smith, now using the name Yusuf, and that he is pro-madhhab http://www.blogistan.co.uk/blog/about/about-me-and-my-blog.html (Madhhab is the word for a school of sharia, Islamic law, so this means that he is pro-sharia, i.e. a radical Muslim.)

Whether this is ignorance or dishonesty, I'm not sure. What I do know is that most radicals, except for some in Pakistan, are actually anti-madhhab; at least, against them in the way Muslims traditionally follow them. The Shari'ah is the entirety of Islamic law, including the food laws and rituals, not just the political aspects.

The second is the description of Sookhdeo as an "Islam scholar". Sookhdeo's articles on Islam frequently contain brazen distortions of the truth and outright falsehoods, and what makes them more egregious is that they appear in mainstream magazines and newspapers, such as the Spectator and Evening Standard in London, not just obscure Evangelical publications. The Spectator published one entitled Will London Burn Too?, in November 2005 (available here on a sympathetic Evangelical site, or here at the Spectator's site in four tiny parts), which demonstrated his tendency to seize every opportunity to present Islam as a threat, magnifying small incidents out of their propoer proportion (e.g. a bit of trouble between Kurdish and Pakistani youths in Peterborough), and also contained this false accusation:

Migrant Muslim communities in the West are constantly engaged in sacralising new areas - first the inner private spaces of their homes and mosques, and latterly whole neighbourhoods (e.g., Birmingham) by means of marches and processions. So the ultimate end of sacred space theology is autonomy for Muslims of the UK under Islamic law.

Quite apart from the ridiculous description of Birmingham as a "neighbourhood" (it's a city - where were the editors when this was being published?), the claim that marches and processions are used to sacralised the areas marched in is just baseless. Besides political demonstrations, some sections of the Muslim community partake in marches for certain celebrations, most commonly the birthday of the Prophet (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam), which is actually condemned by most of the radicals.

Is this man a total idiot, or a liar? One thing he is not is a scholar. He is nothing more than a hatemonger who uses a few long words. As I said before, his work for Christians abroad does not offend me, and his pro-Israel stance does not offend me a tenth as much as his repeated, malicious slurs against Islam and Muslims. The spectacle of Boris Johnson getting promoted in the Tory party after publishing the utter nonsense this scoundrel writes convinced me that the party had nothing to offer Muslims.

Creator wants to forgive His creatures, by Sheikh Abdul Kerim Kibrisi [Daily Star Newspaper - March 7, 2009]

2009-03-09T11:42:55Z

source: The Daily Star

Creator wants to forgive His creatures

In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful.

Someone asked me, “Who will be present on Judgment Day when the book of a person’s life is read back to him?” The answer is: all of mankind, all children of Adam. A person may be running away, hiding himself while committing sins and showing so many other weaknesses. When he is doing things behind closed doors here and there, he is not thinking that Allah is watching, not realizing what he did wrong, and not asking forgiveness repeatedly until he is forgiven.

Our daily activities will come in front of us and all people in the judgment place, page by page. Everybody is going to know us. We are going to know everyone too. We will remember everyone from the Day of Promises _ a time before the creation of the world when all souls learned who is creature and who is Creator. You will say, “I was there. I was standing in this position. I have seen this person, that one, that one, that one.” We will recognize each other. “Oh, I lost touch with that one for some time; but now we know each other here in the judgment place. Let’s see how this one did in the test of the world.”

Everything is going to come out. Allah says, “Your body parts, they will speak against you. Make sure you don’t use them in the wrong way. Because they will be witness against you.” You are going to deny your sins, and your hand is going to say, “No. He made me to steal this thing with this hand.” Your hand is going to speak against you!

There are other strong witnesses: two angels standing with you, keeping the accounts, not missing anything _ one on the right recording your good deeds, one on the left tracking your sins. When you do something wrong, the left angel asks, “This one just committed a sin. Should I record it in his book?” The angel on the right says, “No. Don’t write it yet. Wait.” In each of the next six hours, the left angel is asking, giving you a chance to repent and ask forgiveness before he is permitted to write.

Today’s people have no shame, and they are not shy. They do everything openly. They say, “I don’t care. I have no fear.” It’s not a matter of being afraid or not. A wrong action should be hidden, not announced. You shouldn’t have done it, but if you did, cover it, be discreet. Turn to Allah, saying, “Oh, my Lord, you are Al-Satar (the Coverer). You cover our mistakes. I am asking you to cover my mistakes. Close my mistakes now until Judgment Day and beyond that. Never open it for me.”

When you ask to be covered, ask forgiveness with sincerity, make strong intention not to go back to wrongdoing, and you are working on it, then you will find that Allah may change your book. He removes the sin. It disappears. In the Judgment Day when they put your book in front of you, only good things will be shown for everyone to see. Allah is saying, “We may change your bad actions into good actions,” changing the wrong things you did, because of your good behavior and your good manner and because you are watching correctly after making mistakes.

Allah is making you forget about your sinful past if you understand that you did wrong, and you turn back and ask forgiveness. You shouldn’t tell others what you did. For both your good deeds and the bad deeds, let Allah and his prophet and his angels be witnesses, no one else. You may do something down the road that is pleasing Allah and he will forgive you; but if you disclose to someone, that person is going to come forward in the Judgment Day saying, “This one did this sin. I am witnessing.” Maybe that one is not going to be forgiven for the things that he did, and because you made him witness to you, you will be punished along with him.

Allah is saying that when your book is full with mistakes, and you do something that pleases him, you may find Allah changing all those wrong actions into a good one. Allah creates reasons and opportunities to forgive his creatures. He may reward you abundantly, wiping out many sins because of one good action. If in all your lifetime, one time you please Allah, that may be enough for you. You will find the inner peace that is for you, which is enough to show you that Allah has already forgiven you. Teaching people this is the job of every prophet in every religion.
–
Sheikh Abdul Kerim al-Kibrisi is a Sunni Muslim and a Naksibendi sheikh. He leads a sufi community in Sidney Center.

–

Raising, Slaughtering, and Cooking Rabbits

2009-03-09T07:35:00Z

I've had mixed experiences with rabbit meat. I once purchased (prêt-à-manger) rabbit meat from a halal butcher in Waterloo, and it was very much like run-of-the-mill chicken breast: white, dry, and with little flavour. I also had a similar experience when someone here in Jordan cooked rabbit for me. (She baked it in the oven.) The result was dry and with very little flavour. The rabbits of my childhood, which my father raised himself, were succulent. Their meat was pink (brown when cooked), they were full of tasty, mildly gamey flavour, and they were tender. Not only that, but they also had minimal fat reserves on them. The rabbits I ate while visiting Egypt, which my mother's fellaheen neighbours hand-raised were also succulent and pink. I thought the issue was simply a matter of how the rabbits were fed.

I spoke to a neighbour here in Amman, who raises his own rabbits, about these issues. He said he has never experienced dry rabbit meat. The problem, according to him, was that either that whoever butchered the rabbit tried cooking or cooling it (in the fridge) immediately after slaughter. He told me to hang the carcass for an hour or so before attempting to cook it. Another issue, apparently, was that rabbits had to be cooked in liquid; their lean flesh does not lend well to dry cooking methods.

If you want to buy uncommon, live animals in Amman, the time and place is early Friday morning downtown. I went there with a friend and his two sons. We picked a couple rabbits, which I named molokhiyya and saniyya, after the dishes I was planning to cook them in. My friend's older son (age 5) wanted to come by and watch me butcher them. Being a sassy little boy, he decided to name the rabbits after my daughters. (The gene for being impish must rest on the Y chromosome.) I butchered them, one after the other, in the bathtub, to control the spread of the blood. I then took them to the kitchen, skinned them, and hung them up from my cupboard handles. After a couple hours, we took them down, rinsed them off, cut them up, and soaked them in a mixture of water and vinegar. After another couple hours, we threw them into a pot and cooked them into a molokhiyya dish. (Unfortunately, one rabbit is too small to feed five people.) The aroma of the cooking rabbits was scrumptuous. They took a little longer to cook than chicken. The meat was pink when raw and light brown after fully cooked.

The net result was very good, being definitely better than chicken, but not quite as good as the rabbits that my father raised or the ones I had eaten in Egypt. However, these Ammani rabbits were not home-raised and fattened before slaughtering, so it's not a fair comparison.