Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Major survey challenges Western perceptions of Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Who Speaks for IslamWASHINGTON — A huge survey of the world’s Muslims released Tuesday challenges Western notions that equate Islam with radicalism and violence.

The survey, conducted by the Gallup polling agency over six years and three continents, seeks to dispel the belief held by some in the West that Islam itself is the driving force of radicalism. It shows that the overwhelming majority of Muslims condemned the attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001 and other subsequent terrorist attacks, the authors of the study said in Washington.

“Samuel Harris said in the Washington Times (in 2004): ‘It is time we admitted that we are not at war with terrorism. We are at war with Islam’,” Dalia Mogadeh, co-author of the book “Who Speaks for Islam” which grew out of the study, told a news conference here. “The argument Mr Harris makes is that religion in the primary driver” of radicalism and violence, she said. “Religion is an important part of life for the overwhelming majority of Muslims, and if it were indeed the driver for radicalisation, this would be a serious issue.”

But the study, which Gallup says surveyed a sample equivalent to 90 percent of the world’s Muslims, showed that widespread religiosity “does not translate into widespread support for terrorism,” said Mogahed, director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies. About 93 percent of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims are moderates and only seven percent are politically radical, according to the poll, based on more than 50,000 interviews.

In majority Muslim countries, overwhelming majorities said religion was a very important part of their lives – 99 percent in Indonesia, 98 percent in Egypt, 95 percent in Pakistan. But only seven percent of the billion Muslims surveyed condoned the attacks on the United States in 2001, the poll showed.

Moderate Muslims interviewed for the poll condemned the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington because innocent lives were lost and civilians killed. “Some actually cited religious justifications for why they were against 9/11, going as far as to quote from the Koran – for example, the verse that says taking one innocent life is like killing all humanity,” she said. Meanwhile, radical Muslims gave political, not religious, reasons for condoning the attacks, the poll showed.

AFP, 26 February 2008

Headscarf row flares again in Danish parliament

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Asmaa Abdol-HamidCOPENHAGEN — Tension about the possibility of a Muslim politician addressing the Danish parliament in a headscarf has flared again, but Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen tried to calm the debate on Tuesday.

“It’s up to parliament to decide dress codes, and if some people were to get up on the podium wearing a [Muslim] headscarf, I would not leave the room,” Rasmussen told reporters. “In my opinion, people’s ideas and points of view are more important than what they wear,” he said, adding however that “it would be beneficial for Danish society if the public sphere were exempt of some religious displays.”

Rasmussen’s comments came after his liberal-conservative government’s ally, the extreme-right Danish People’s Party (DPP), rekindled a row over whether women wearing the Muslim headscarf, or hijab, should be allowed to address parliament. DPP spokesman Soeren Espersen said last week that Asmaa Abdol-Hamid, a Dane of Palestinian origin, should not be permitted to address parliament while wearing a hijab.

She failed in her bid to become the first headscarf-wearing Muslim in Europe to be voted into parliament in last year’s general election, but there is a possibility that she could stand in temporarily for a parliamentarian from the small far-left Unity List Party.

Daily Times, 26 February 2008

See also Islam in Europe, 24 February 2008

Update:  The Copenhagen Post reports that Asmaa Abdol-Hamid has decided to take a one-year break from party politics. She is quoted as expressing her “disappointment in the left wing” over its response to Islamophobia, stating: “while there’s all this hubbub out there over Muslims, with one over-the-top suggestion after the other, the Red-Green Alliance has been disturbingly silent.”

Secularists have nothing to fear from women wearing headscarves

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Secularism, a cherished principle with as many believers as non-believers, does not – should not – preclude the assertion of religious identity. It is a robust enough idea to hold the ring, as a secular state has done in the deeply religious US and India. Secularism can accommodate religious identity, as Turkey is showing by modifying Ataturk’s authoritarian secularism. What remains to be seen across western Europe is whether secularism is hijacked by a racist far right to become a rallying cry, or whether it can find its own way to adapt and modify its traditions to new identities.”

Madeleine Bunting in the Guardian, 25 February 2008

‘Islam is mandated to kill, steal and destroy America’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Biblical Family Advocates

Pastor Phil Magnan, president of Biblical Family Advocates, has been reading World Net Daily. He warns:

“We must seriously consider the fact that Islam is no ordinary religion as it is obligated to overthrow the countries they begin to reside in. We have seen this in Europe, especially in the UK where entire cities have been taken over by radical Islamists. We are fools if we do not see the handwriting on the wall. We should consider deporting all Muslims before it’s too late. Why should we allow our national destruction in the name of political correctness?”

Mangan adds: “Jesus Christ spoke of those who would try to enter into heaven another way, rather than through Christ. He even said that these are the people who steal, kill and destroy. This has been the agenda of Islam ever since they destroyed Christian churches in Northern Africa over 1300 years ago…. it is Biblically and constitutionally incumbent for our government to protect us from those who plan evil against the families of our nation.”

Christian News Wire, 25 February 2008

UN reports bias against Muslims in UK

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The United Nations says Britain’s war on terror has left Muslims feeling alienated in a nation that is no longer predominantly Christian.

The UN is questioning the treatment of Muslims living in Britain, 80 percent of whom feel discriminated against, especially with police having permission to search people without having to show reasonable suspicion. From 2004 to 2006, there has been an 84 percent increase in searches of people with ‘Asian appearance’, compared to an increase of 24 percent for white people. This has left Britons from Asian backgrounds feeling alienated in a country consisting of a large non-white population, considering themselves essentially British and entitled to equal treatment from authority figures.

Also under question is the role and privileges of the Church of England. A 23-page UN report shows two-thirds of the British people admit to no religious affiliation, unlike the UK’s 2001 National Census which claimed nearly 72 percent of the population to be Christian. Based on this report, the UN is calling for the disestablishment of the Church of England, stating it no longer reflected “the religious demography of the country and the rising proportion of other Christian denominations”.

Press TV, 24 February 2008

Bishop of Rochester reasserts ‘no-go’ claim

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nazir Ali 2The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, who received death threats for airing his views on Islamic issues, has vowed that he will continue to speak out.

His claim that Islamic extremism has turned some parts of Britain into “no-go” areas for non-Muslims led to fierce rows between political and religious leaders over the impact of multiculturalism on this country.

Yet, in his first interview since the sinister calls were made to his home, the Bishop of Rochester remains steadfastly defiant. He will not be silenced. “I believe people should not be prevented from speaking out,” he says. “The issue had to be raised. There are times when Christian leaders have to speak out.”

He wishes the Church would be more vocal on issues of multiculturalism and sharia law. He agrees with Dr Williams in supporting the right of Muslims to observe their religious freedom, but is strongly opposed to any idea of Islamic law being recognised within the British legal system.

“People of every faith should be free within the law to follow what their spiritual leaders direct them to, but that’s very different from saying their structures should replace that of the English legal system because there would be huge conflicts.” In particular, he points to polygamy, women’s rights and freedom of belief as areas in sharia law that would undermine equality.

There is a danger that the archbishop’s remarks could become a reality unless Britain quickly regains a sense of its Christian heritage. “Do the British people really want to lose that rooting in the Christian faith that has given them everything they cherish – art, literature, architecture, institutions, the monarchy, their value system, their laws?”

Sunday Telegraph, 24 February 2008

‘3 in 4 US mosques preach anti-West extremism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mapping Sharia

An undercover survey of more than 100 mosques and Islamic schools in America has exposed widespread radicalism, including the alarming finding that 3 in 4 Islamic centers are hotbeds of anti-Western extremism, WND has learned.

The Mapping Sharia in America Project, sponsored by the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, has trained former counterintelligence and counterterrorism agents from the FBI, CIA and U.S. military, who are skilled in Arabic and Urdu, to conduct undercover reconnaissance at some 2,300 mosques and Islamic centers and schools across the country. “So far of 100 mapped, 75 should be on a watchlist,” an official familiar with the project said.

Frank Gaffney, a former Pentagon official who runs the Center for Security Policy, says the results of the survey have not yet been published. But he confirmed that “the vast majority” are inciting insurrection and jihad through sermons by Saudi-trained imams and anti-Western literature, videos and textbooks.

World Net Daily, 23 February 2008

Muslims as the enemies of western civilisation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Alex Klaushofer takes issue with “the ubiquitous rhetoric of the ‘clash of civilisations’ between Islam and the west which, as the UN-sponsored Alliance of Civilisations group notes, is the prevailing political doctrine of our time.” He writes:

“Recently I came up against its most extreme form when an evangelical Christian presented me with a copy of the book Jerusalem Countdown by the Texas-based pastor John Hagee. Although broadly familiar with the tenets of this brand of Christian conservatism and ‘end-time’ theology, nothing prepared me for the contents – page after page of ‘evidence’ demonstrating incontrovertibly that Muslims, as members of a faith group out for the destruction of Christians and Jews, are the enemies of western civilisation.”

Guardian, 23 February 2008

HT speaker reinstated

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The British leader of the Islamist Hizb ut-Tahrir group will speak after all at a controversial debate tackling extremism in London’s East End. It follows pressure to reinstate Dr Abdul Wahid, chairman of the UK wing of Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Tower Hamlets council leader Denise Jones said on Monday that the Cordoba Foundation had agreed to cancel its invitation to Dr Wahid. But by Wednesday, the foundation had changed its mind and reinstated him as a speaker at the debate entitled “Has Political Participation Failed British Muslims?” at the London Muslim Centre in Whitechapel next Tuesday. Cllr Jones, as a result, has ordered that public funding for the event be withdrawn.

But Tory Opposition councillor Tim Archer said it was “not good enough” and has written to the council chief executive. “I acknowledge the council has now withdrawn its public funding for this particular debate,” he said. “But I’m unhappy it is still supporting a foundation that thinks it’s sensible to invite Hizb ut-Tahrir to address our youngsters. It shows a real lack of leadership from the council who seem to want to appease a small minority. Hizb ut-Tahrir is virtually a banned organisation in this country. Gordon Brown has already said he is reviewing its current status.”

He added: “Tower Hamlets would never have anything to do with an event where the BNP was asked to speak. So why is it not distancing itself further from an event where a virtually banned organisation is due to speak? It smacks of political correctness and a real lack of courage to tackle difficult issues. The Cordoba Foundation should be told it will receive no funding if this event goes ahead, not in our name.”

East London Advertiser, 22 February 2008