ChatterBank5 mins 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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// Without looking him up, do you actually know any more about Taj Hargay and the MECO than about jake the peg? //
Why aren't I allowed to look him up? Surely that will help my decision about which ones views to take more note of.
But even without doing that, I'm willing to bet he's a muslim, who knows many more muslims than jake, and has visited many more mosques than jake and studied the koran in greater detail than jake.
I'm sure there are articles from other muslim scholars available that will argue against the Dr's point of view, and these would be worth taking note of, but if it's just between jake and Taj Hargay, I think I'll stick with Taj Hargay.
Why aren't I allowed to look him up? Surely that will help my decision about which ones views to take more note of.
But even without doing that, I'm willing to bet he's a muslim, who knows many more muslims than jake, and has visited many more mosques than jake and studied the koran in greater detail than jake.
I'm sure there are articles from other muslim scholars available that will argue against the Dr's point of view, and these would be worth taking note of, but if it's just between jake and Taj Hargay, I think I'll stick with Taj Hargay.
jno, //You seem to be the one disagreeing with him …. you neither agreed nor disagreed, you dodged the question.//
Make your mind up! First you say I seemed to be disagreeing with him – and then you say I neither agreed nor disagreed!
I don’t dodge questions – you should know that by now. In this instance there wasn’t a question to answer. In reply to your post I said ‘my response applies to him as well as you’, meaning yes, I do agree with him, but I would remind him, as I did you, that it should be remembered that Tony Blair’s war did not provoke the destruction of the Twin Towers with the loss of 3000 lives.
//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.//
If you thought you were just quoting the same man as me perhaps you should read your posts again. You weren’t just quoting the same man as me – you added this bit of your own.
//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.//
Make your mind up! First you say I seemed to be disagreeing with him – and then you say I neither agreed nor disagreed!
I don’t dodge questions – you should know that by now. In this instance there wasn’t a question to answer. In reply to your post I said ‘my response applies to him as well as you’, meaning yes, I do agree with him, but I would remind him, as I did you, that it should be remembered that Tony Blair’s war did not provoke the destruction of the Twin Towers with the loss of 3000 lives.
//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.//
If you thought you were just quoting the same man as me perhaps you should read your posts again. You weren’t just quoting the same man as me – you added this bit of your own.
//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.//
Iggy,// 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.//
I’m neither unwilling nor unable to elaborate. I would abolish faith schools immediately, together with all faith based societies in our universities – and I would have any immigrant who incites murder or terrorism, or preaches hatred, arrested and deported instantly – along with their families. Home grown preachers of hate I would have arrested and imprisoned for a very long time. I would also make a proviso that all immigrants swear an oath of allegiance to this country – and if they refused, or failed to uphold that oath, I would deport them – again, along with their families.
I’m neither unwilling nor unable to elaborate. I would abolish faith schools immediately, together with all faith based societies in our universities – and I would have any immigrant who incites murder or terrorism, or preaches hatred, arrested and deported instantly – along with their families. Home grown preachers of hate I would have arrested and imprisoned for a very long time. I would also make a proviso that all immigrants swear an oath of allegiance to this country – and if they refused, or failed to uphold that oath, I would deport them – again, along with their families.
one hundred percent agree.
[i] I would abolish faith schools immediately, together with all faith based societies in our universities – and I would have any immigrant who incites murder or terrorism, or preaches hatred, arrested and deported instantly – along with their families. Home grown preachers of hate I would have arrested and imprisoned for a very long time. I would also make a proviso that all immigrants swear an oath of allegiance to this country – and if they refused, or failed to uphold that oath, I would deport them – again, along with their families. [i]
[i] I would abolish faith schools immediately, together with all faith based societies in our universities – and I would have any immigrant who incites murder or terrorism, or preaches hatred, arrested and deported instantly – along with their families. Home grown preachers of hate I would have arrested and imprisoned for a very long time. I would also make a proviso that all immigrants swear an oath of allegiance to this country – and if they refused, or failed to uphold that oath, I would deport them – again, along with their families. [i]
IggyB
/// 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. ///
Better them preach in the streets, we then know what they are preaching which we do not know when they are behind closed doors of the Mosques, but perhaps the police instead of just watching with arms folded, could be encouraged to take action simply by making a few arrests?
/// 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. ///
Better them preach in the streets, we then know what they are preaching which we do not know when they are behind closed doors of the Mosques, but perhaps the police instead of just watching with arms folded, could be encouraged to take action simply by making a few arrests?
Octavius, //it doesn't accord with cosmopolitan pluralism very much.//
Got to laugh at that expression - cosmopolitan pluralism - but that aside, why not? It protects everyone, whatever colour or creed, except the hate-filled whose main purpose in life appears to be to bring harm the rest of us. Your idea of a dictatorship is an odd one.
Got to laugh at that expression - cosmopolitan pluralism - but that aside, why not? It protects everyone, whatever colour or creed, except the hate-filled whose main purpose in life appears to be to bring harm the rest of us. Your idea of a dictatorship is an odd one.
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