News0 min ago
The Radicalisation Of British Muslims
This letter, from Dr Taj Hargay, Director of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford, was published in last night’s London Evening Standard.
//BRITISH Muslims are being exposed to a poisonous theology from three major sources. The mullahs preach a primitive dichotomy between Muslims and unbelievers that extends to virtually every area of life. That message gets fed down to worshippers in mosques across the UK, then to impressionable minds in the madrasahs, the Muslim supplementary schools. This warped Wahhabi/Deobandi Islam is nothing but a blatant religio-cultural distortion derived not from the Koran but from manufactured religious sources like the alleged hadith sayings (compiled some 300 years after Mohammed's death), the sharia - a concoction of medieval clerical opinion - and the fatwahs - dubious religious rulings. With no balancing alternative that you must be an effective stakeholder and become fully integrated into society, this conditioning furnishes the perfect gateway theology for misguided Muslims to become alienated and radicalised. The Government is making a big mistake in focusing on diversionary measures such as the "Snoopers' Charter" rather than attacking toxic theology and religious indoctrination. Why does it continue to pour taxpayers' money into organisations that endorse the dissemination of divisive propaganda?
Academic specialists on Islam have the intellectual capacity to challenge the clergy's binary division of the world - but many are fearful of being branded as heretics by the orthodox establishment. Sadly, much of British Islam is merely a giant echo chamber of Saudi ideology. For Islam in the UK to move forward, it needs a complete root and branch reform so that it becomes naturalised to this country while remaining faithful to authentic Koranic principles of cosmopolitan pluralism and peaceful co-existence.//
This is what is happening in Britain today. We ignore it at our peril.
//BRITISH Muslims are being exposed to a poisonous theology from three major sources. The mullahs preach a primitive dichotomy between Muslims and unbelievers that extends to virtually every area of life. That message gets fed down to worshippers in mosques across the UK, then to impressionable minds in the madrasahs, the Muslim supplementary schools. This warped Wahhabi/Deobandi Islam is nothing but a blatant religio-cultural distortion derived not from the Koran but from manufactured religious sources like the alleged hadith sayings (compiled some 300 years after Mohammed's death), the sharia - a concoction of medieval clerical opinion - and the fatwahs - dubious religious rulings. With no balancing alternative that you must be an effective stakeholder and become fully integrated into society, this conditioning furnishes the perfect gateway theology for misguided Muslims to become alienated and radicalised. The Government is making a big mistake in focusing on diversionary measures such as the "Snoopers' Charter" rather than attacking toxic theology and religious indoctrination. Why does it continue to pour taxpayers' money into organisations that endorse the dissemination of divisive propaganda?
Academic specialists on Islam have the intellectual capacity to challenge the clergy's binary division of the world - but many are fearful of being branded as heretics by the orthodox establishment. Sadly, much of British Islam is merely a giant echo chamber of Saudi ideology. For Islam in the UK to move forward, it needs a complete root and branch reform so that it becomes naturalised to this country while remaining faithful to authentic Koranic principles of cosmopolitan pluralism and peaceful co-existence.//
This is what is happening in Britain today. We ignore it at our peril.
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jno
/// there was no Muslim terrorism in the United Kingdom until Blair went illegally into Iraq. And I think we need to admit and to acknowledge that fact… not just to blame it on Islamic fundamentalism." ///
Oh so what you are actually saying is that those Muslims who were born and educated in this country don't necessarily have to be called 'Islamic fundamentalists', to maim and kill their fellow countrymen, just because their Prime Minister at that time took us into a country that most of them had never seen.
/// there was no Muslim terrorism in the United Kingdom until Blair went illegally into Iraq. And I think we need to admit and to acknowledge that fact… not just to blame it on Islamic fundamentalism." ///
Oh so what you are actually saying is that those Muslims who were born and educated in this country don't necessarily have to be called 'Islamic fundamentalists', to maim and kill their fellow countrymen, just because their Prime Minister at that time took us into a country that most of them had never seen.
jno, //I mean, there was no Muslim terrorism in the United Kingdom until Blair went illegally into Iraq. And I think we need to admit and to acknowledge that fact… not just to blame it on Islamic fundamentalism."//
As SP has already said, this is a global issue – and it should be remembered that Tony Blair’s war did not provoke the destruction of the Twin Towers with the loss of 3000 lives.
As SP has already said, this is a global issue – and it should be remembered that Tony Blair’s war did not provoke the destruction of the Twin Towers with the loss of 3000 lives.
no, Saudi dissidents attacked the USA; that may have been international but it wasn't global. It became global when people like Blair joined in. People who voted for Blair to do so might like to consider their own responsibility - but they will always find it easier to blame everything on wicked imams.
"This man is promoting a form of Islam that is more liberal than found pretty much anywhere in the world - and he's rather disturbingly using current tensions to plead for the government support in establishing it."
To be honest, Jake, I don't see what's disturbing about this. You drew a parallel with the CofE earlier, and the relative softening of Christianity in Britain has made it by and large pretty benign, or at least not actively harmful.
Such a development in British Islam would be anything but 'disturbing' to my mind.
I do accept your point about government involvement though.
To be honest, Jake, I don't see what's disturbing about this. You drew a parallel with the CofE earlier, and the relative softening of Christianity in Britain has made it by and large pretty benign, or at least not actively harmful.
Such a development in British Islam would be anything but 'disturbing' to my mind.
I do accept your point about government involvement though.
Jake
"It's not as blatent and distatefully exploitative as the EDL's hijacking the Lee Rigsby killing but it comes from the same opportunist place."
But if you go by this logic, then any kind of response to the Rigby murder other than "How horrible!" is exploitative and opportunistic.
I agree with your assessment of the EDL's reaction - but that doesn't mean any kind of reaction to it is innately wrong. Personally, I think waging an intellectual campaign against the kind of theology he's talking about could very well be a force for good. It's far, far superior to bottling police and attacking mosques.
"It's not as blatent and distatefully exploitative as the EDL's hijacking the Lee Rigsby killing but it comes from the same opportunist place."
But if you go by this logic, then any kind of response to the Rigby murder other than "How horrible!" is exploitative and opportunistic.
I agree with your assessment of the EDL's reaction - but that doesn't mean any kind of reaction to it is innately wrong. Personally, I think waging an intellectual campaign against the kind of theology he's talking about could very well be a force for good. It's far, far superior to bottling police and attacking mosques.
Well what is he proposing to do then, seems he has been "exposing" this for some time with little or no impact. So whats new?
"But who appointed these quangocrats to pronounce on matters of religious doctrine? What right do they have to lecture a devout woman about her cherished beliefs? ...And why can't they accept that Ms Chaplin's deeply religious convictions, which she chooses to express by wearing the crucifix, also inspire her compassionate work in the NHS?"
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"But who appointed these quangocrats to pronounce on matters of religious doctrine? What right do they have to lecture a devout woman about her cherished beliefs? ...And why can't they accept that Ms Chaplin's deeply religious convictions, which she chooses to express by wearing the crucifix, also inspire her compassionate work in the NHS?"
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you neither agreed nor disagreed, you dodged the question. He says no Muslim terrorism here before the Iraq war so it shouldn't just be blamed on fundamentalism; your response was to say "it's a global issue".
So do you agree with what he said or not?
Next question: could you provide evidence for your claim that I am "seeking justification" for wickedness? I thought I was just quoting the same man as you.
So do you agree with what he said or not?
Next question: could you provide evidence for your claim that I am "seeking justification" for wickedness? I thought I was just quoting the same man as you.
This will now become a circular he said she said where are your sources discussion.
Naomi I can tried to engage you in conversation regarding what you see as the next step in addressing the issues raised in this letter, you seem unable or unwilling to elaborate.
Closing down mosques has been suggested, but wouldn't this tend to play into the hands of the hate preachers? Make them a special cause as they did with that hook handed chap that preached in the street after the finsbury mosque was closed to him.
I dont know what the answer to better integration and cohesion is but doubt that more legislation and more govt control will help. How practically do people think we as a country should proceed?
Naomi I can tried to engage you in conversation regarding what you see as the next step in addressing the issues raised in this letter, you seem unable or unwilling to elaborate.
Closing down mosques has been suggested, but wouldn't this tend to play into the hands of the hate preachers? Make them a special cause as they did with that hook handed chap that preached in the street after the finsbury mosque was closed to him.
I dont know what the answer to better integration and cohesion is but doubt that more legislation and more govt control will help. How practically do people think we as a country should proceed?
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