Representatives of the Indian Muslim community write to the pope.
Martin Amis and the politics of paranoia
Pankaj Mishra replies to Martin Amis’s article in last week’s Observer:
“Martin Amis’s essay on Islam and Islamism goes on for more than 10,000 words without describing an individual experience of Muslim societies deeper than Christopher Hitchens’s acquisition of an Osama T-shirt in Peshawar and the Amis family’s failure to enter, after closing time, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
“‘The impulse towards rational inquiry,’ Amis asserts, ‘is by now very weak in the rank and file of the Muslim male.’ There are countless other startling claims (according to Amis, the army was on the Islamist side in the Algerian civil war) in his essay, whose pseudo-scholarship and fanatical conviction of moral superiority make it resemble nothing more than one of bin Laden’s desperately literary screeds.
“Such a bold and hectic display of prejudice and ignorance invites the dinner-party frivolity of Amis’s genitals-centric analysis (constipation and sexual frustration) of radical Islam. But what forces us to take it seriously is not only that its author is one of our leading novelists, but also that his cliches about non-western peoples (they are all very irrational out there) and strident belief in ‘Western’ rationality are now commonplace in elite liberal-left as well as conservative circles in the government and media.”
Pope gets it wrong on Islam
Juan Cole writes: “what is most troubling of all is that the Pope gets several things about Islam wrong, just as a matter of fact. He notes that the text he discusses, a polemic against Islam by a Byzantine emperor, cites Qur’an 2:256: ‘There is no compulsion in religion.’ Benedict maintains that this is an early verse, when Muhammad was without power.
“His allegation is incorrect. Surah 2 is a Medinan surah revealed when Muhammad was already established as the leader of the city of Yathrib (later known as Medina or “the city” of the Prophet). The pope imagines that a young Muhammad in Mecca before 622 (lacking power) permitted freedom of conscience, but later in life ordered that his religion be spread by the sword. But since Surah 2 is in fact from the Medina period when Muhammad was in power, that theory does not hold water.
“In fact, the Qur’an at no point urges that religious faith be imposed on anyone by force.”
Sun backs pope
“It is absurd that the Pope cannot quote dispassionately from an ancient text about the Prophet Mohammed without the entire Muslim world flying off the handle. Especially when one considers that Islam, just like Christianity, DOES have a violent past. Only those paranoid extremists who see Islamophobia everywhere can really believe that the venerable holy man intended to stir up trouble.”
Editorial in the Sun, 16 September 2006
NYT comes down against pope
“There is more than enough religious anger in the world. So it is particularly disturbing that Pope Benedict XVI has insulted Muslims, quoting a 14th-century description of Islam as ‘evil and inhuman’….The Vatican issued a statement saying that Benedict meant no offense and in fact desired dialogue. But this is not the first time the pope has fomented discord between Christians and Muslims.
“In 2004 when he was still the Vatican’s top theologian, he spoke out against Turkey’s joining the European Union, because Turkey, as a Muslim country was ‘in permanent contrast to Europe’. A doctrinal conservative, his greatest fear appears to be the loss of a uniform Catholic identity, not exactly the best jumping-off point for tolerance or interfaith dialogue.
“The world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly. He needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology, demonstrating that words can also heal.”
Editorial in New York Times, 16 September 2006
Needless to say, Robert Spencer denounces this reasoned criticism as a characteristic example of the “dhimmi” NYT appeasing the Muslim hordes.
‘Our failure to confront radical Islam is there for all to see’
“At long last, the debate on Islamism as politics, not Islam as religion, is out in the open. Two weeks ago, Jack Straw might have felt he was taking a risk when publishing his now notorious article on the Muslim veil. However, he was pushing at an open door. From across the political spectrum there is now common consent that the old multicultural emperor, before whom generation of politicians have made obeisance, is now a pitiful, naked sight.”
Daily Telegraph, 17 October 2006
Melanie Phillips, perhaps? No, the appalling Denis MacShane – the man who chaired the All-Party Parliamentary Committee on Anti-Semitism that issued the ludicrous report claiming that Islamists in Britain are in an alliance with the BNP.
In 2003 MacShane delivered a speech in which he said: “It is time for the elected and community leaders of the British Muslims to make a choice – the British way, based on political dialogue and non-violent protests, or the way of the terrorists, against which the whole democratic world is uniting.” In response, his constituency party passed a resolution stating: “Denis MacShane is inciting racial and religious hatred, by publicly implying in the press that the Muslim community elected members and leaders are in favour of terrorism and being anti-British.”
Oriana Fallaci dead, Robert Spencer inconsolable
The woman who wrote that “Muslims have been told to come here and breed like rats” has died. Robert Spencer is heartbroken:
“Many times in her last months, after she did me the honor of calling me her friend, I thought to myself, What can I do for Oriana? Of course, the only answer was to do exactly what I am doing here at this site, and in my books, and in traveling around the country speaking, trying to alert people to the reality and magnitude of the global jihad.
“I invite you, then, on this day of sadness and loss, to pay tribute to Oriana. There is no way we can make up for what we have lost in her. But the best way we can pay tribute to Oriana is by becoming Oriana. Let there be a hundred new Orianas today, a thousand new passionate and articulate and absolutely unbowed defenders of Western culture and civilization, with a fine contempt for all the many weapons of physical and psychological intimidation that the jihadists and their non-Muslim allies and tools in the Western media and government establishments use to try to silence and discredit us.
“Buy her books. Give them to your friends and coworkers. Explain to them why she said … that ‘Europe becomes more and more a province of Islam, a colony of Islam’. Explain to them why that matters for so much that they hold dear. Enlist them also in the anti-jihad resistance.
“And when we prevail, we will be able to memorialize her fittingly, as a light that shone in our darkest days. May her memory be eternal.”
Jihad Watch, 15 September 2005
Chin up, Robert. As readers of our site can confirm, there is is no shortage of racist bigots ready and willing to replace dear departed Oriana.
Islamophobia colours Austrian elections
Islamophobia is coloring the election campaigns of right-leaning parties, vying to court the votes of anti-immigrant voters in the October parliamentary polls. “Far-right candidates play Islamophobia and xenophobia because they do not have real political programs,” Tarafa Baghajati, Deputy Chairman of the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), told IslamOnline.net.
Amid the aggressive campaigns, an explosive charge was planted outside the Austrian Muslim Youth (MJO) building in Vienna on Monday, but it was destroyed in a controlled explosion. A neo-Nazi slogan found on the package read “July 4 1926, Weimar” – an apparent reference to a key meeting that allowed Hitler to increase his control over the Nazi party.
In pamphlets widely circulated in the streets and election booths, the Freedom Party (FPÖ) dismisses Islam as a threat to the Christian identity of Austria. It claims that several parties, which it did not name, were trying to Islamize Europe and render its natives a minority in their own countries.
One of the FPÖ ads replaces the cross atop the famous Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, the oldest church in the country, with an Islamic crescent with the comment: “This is the true hidden desire of Muslims.” Another one shows a group of hijab-clad woman with a comment that Austria must be a social state not a country of immigrants.
Don’t pick on the poor pontiff
“Poor old Pope Benedict XVI (not a description I thought I’d ever use) seems to have inflamed some excitable sections of Muslim opinion around the world with his ruminations to scientists at Regensburg University during his trip to Germany this week.
“He’s not the first elderly academic inadvertently to stir up outrage with what he thought were innocent remarks and, in the modern digital age, he certainly won’t be the last, but on this occasion at least I think he’s innocent of the charges of stirring up hatred against Islam being made against him.
“It is difficult to believe that those making the claims, who include the Muslim Brotherhood, the Pakistan parliament, Sheikh Youssef al-Qardawi (a fine one to feel insulted, given what he says about Jews), the Organisation of Islamic Conferences and a senior religious official in Turkey, can possibly have read the remarks in full or in their proper context.”
The Guardian religious affairs correspondent, Stephen Bates, rallies to the defence of il papa.
Comment is Free, 15 September 2006
So does Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, who blames the fuss on whingeing Muslims and implies that they would be better occupied putting their own house in order.
Carey said: “The Pope is a distinguished scholar and one unlikely to say offensive things. If he quoted something said 600 years ago we should not assume that this represents the Pope’s beliefs about Islam today. But Muslims as well as Christians must learn to enter into dialogue without crying foul. We live in perilous times and we must not only separate religion from violence but also not give religious legitimacy to violence in any shape or form.”
Muslims seek apology over Pope remarks
Pope Benedict’s comments about Islam could hurt religious harmony, government and religious leaders in the world’s most populous Muslim countries, Indonesia and Pakistan, said on Friday. A growing chorus of Muslim leaders have called on the Pope to apologise for the remarks he made in a speech in Germany on Tuesday when he used the terms “jihad” and “holy war”.
Pakistan’s National Assembly, parliament’s lower house, unanimously passed a resolution on Friday condemning the Pope’s comments. “This statement has hurt sentiments of the Muslims,” the resolution said. “This is also against the charter of the United Nations. This house demands the Pope retract his remarks in the interest of harmony among different religions of the world.”
Islamic scholars say the Pontiff’s comments show how little he understands Islam and some have said Islamic countries should threaten to break off relations with the Vatican.
See also Islam Online, 15 September 2006