OnIslam interviews Yusuf al-Qaradawi

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Qaradawi at Tahrir Square rally

Under government pressures, Egypt’s state television has scrapped plans for hosting prominent Muslim scholar Yusuf Al-Qaradawi following his Friday prayers sermon from Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

“Some government officials considered the Friday sermon too strong,” Qaradawi, the president of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), told OnIslam.net in exclusive statements. “They would not bear a second powerful speech.”

Qaradawi delivered the weekly sermon on Friday, February 18 from Tahrir Square, where nearly five million Egyptians gathered to celebrate the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. The sermon was broadcast by the state television, Qaradawi’s first appearance on the Egyptian TV in decades.

During the sermon, the prominent scholar called on Egyptians, both Muslims and Christians, to be proud of their country after ousting Mubarak, who had ruled Egypt for 30 years. He also praised the armed forces’ position on protecting the revolution, calling on them to open Rafah border with Gaza strip.

After the sermon, Qaradawi, an Egyptian, was invited to appear on the Egyptian television on Sunday on the prime-time program “Egypt Today”. But shortly, the prominent scholar received a phone call from the program’s anchor apologizing for not shooting the program.

“I don’t know who was exactly behind banning Sheikh Qaradawi from appearing on the state television,” a source close to the prominent scholar said. A source in “Egypt Today” program cited “procedural reasons” for banning Qaradawi’s appearance.

Qaradawi dismissed accusations that his weekly sermon aimed at establishing a religious state in Egypt. “On the contrary, my speech supported establishing a civil state with a religious background,” he has told Al-Ahram newspaper. “I am totally against theocracy. We are not a state for mullahs.”

Some critics compared the return of Qaradawi, who has been living in Qatar, to Egypt as Ayatollah Ruhollah Ghomeini to Iran from France after the 1979 revolution. “I only came to celebrate the revolution,” said Qaradawi.

Qaradawi dismissed claims that he was still a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. “I’ve totally defected from the Muslim Brotherhood and have rejected many calls to be appointed as the group’s general guide,” he said. “I hope to serve as a guide for the whole nation and not for a certain group.”

The prominent scholar denied reports that his “guards” had prevented Google executive and activist Wael Ghonim from taking the podium in Tahrir Square. “I have no guards, I only brought my sons with me,” Qaradawi said. “I rejected many requests by scholars to send guards to protect me. Allah is my guard.”

Media reports claimed that Ghonim, who emerged as a leading youth figure in the Egyptian revolution, had been prevented by Qaradawi’s guards from speaking to the celebrators. Qaradawi said he neither organize the celebration nor prevent anyone from going on stage.

“I was surrounded by youth who cordoned me to protect me from the huge crowds,” he said. “I would have been glad if I met this young man [Ghonim] who initiated the 25 January revolution. I have praised him in a TV program when he was released from the prison. So how can I prevent him? I was only a guest in the celebrations.”

OnIslam, 22 February 2011

Meanwhile, over at Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer is outraged that Qaradawi has called on the Libyan armed forces to turn their guns on Gaddafi rather than the Libyan people.

Update:  Spencer has a piece on Qaradawi at Human Events (“Egypt’s Islamic supremacist is man of the hour”). The depth of Spencer’s knowledge of Qaradawi can be gauged by the reference to “his website IslamOnline.com (which publishes many of his fatwas)”. It has apparently escaped the attention of this self-styled expert on all things Islamic that last year a strike and sit-in took place at the IslamOnline offices in Cairo. Qaradawi intervened on the side of the strikers and as a result the Qatari government removed him from his position as chairman of the Al-Balagh Cultural Society which owns the website. The IslamOnline strikers subsequently launched the OnIslam website (“From the creators of IslamOnline”) which is where the above interview with Qaradawi was published. Qaradawi now has no links with IslamOnline.

Dutch senator’s call for ban on sharia law is enthusiastically welcomed by Wilders

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Roel KuiperChristian Union Senator Roel Kuiper wants to amend the Dutch constitution to include a ban on Sharia, Islamic law. Senator Kuiper made his statement in an interview with newspaper Trouw.

The Christian Union politician wants to ban Islamic law because it is “not rooted in principles which form part of Dutch culture. Our rights, the way we treat each other, our norms of good and evil have all been molded by Christianity.”

Mr Kuiper argues that Islamic law is still grounded in retaliation, while the laws of a democratic constitutional state are geared toward forgiveness, correction and reconciliation. “Our laws are not based on ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’. Our legal system applies the law, but knows reconciliation must follow.” Senator Kuiper also wants to regulate the flow of money from Arab countries to Dutch mosques. The Christian Union politician says these measures are necessary “to take the Islam debate in the Netherlands a step forward”.

Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders has enthusiastically welcomed Senator Kuiper’s proposal. “Sharia is based on the Qur’an. So this means an end to head scarves, halal food, the Qur’an etc.”

RNW, 21 February 2011

Marine Le Pen ‘de-demonises’ the Front National – by demonising Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

There’s an interesting article in Newsweek on Front National leader Marine Le Pen and her efforts to “de-demonise” the FN by ditching public expressions of antisemitism and attracting popular support by conducting a campaign against the Muslim community framed in terms of an appeal to the French secularist tradition:

Her masterstroke is in the new vernacular she brings. It is calibrated for a new crowd, a new era intolerant in new ways, three years into an epic economic crisis that has politicians selling protection.

The days of petites phrases about the Holocaust, it would seem, are over. “Nostalgia for [Marshal Philippe] Pétain or French Algeria doesn’t speak to her, or [National Front] people of her generation,” says Sylvain Crépon, a sociologist at Nanterre University who studies the far right. “Anti-Semitism does nothing for them. They don’t see Jews everywhere, or a Jewish conspiracy.”

But it would be a mistake to call Jean-Marie’s daughter “Le Pen lite”. “On a number of subjects, I am a lot stricter than my father,” she says. “On the [Muslim] headscarf, I am stricter than him … He thinks that sort of behavior lets French people grasp the extent of immigration in our country,” she says, talking tactics. But she argues “Islamization” is just a consequence, less visible 20 years ago, of the rampant immigration he always rebuked. “There wasn’t the headscarf, there weren’t ‘cathedral mosques’ going up on every corner,” she says, without betraying her hyperbole. “There weren’t people praying in the street. Our children didn’t have to not eat pork because it bothers some people,” she scoffs.

Couching old rhetoric in terms new to the National Front, analysts say, is clever. Take “secularism”. The silent sister of liberté, égalité, fraternité has been a cardinal value of every political movement but the far right, where fundamentalist Catholics are loath to divorce state from church. Indeed, for some far-right purists, Marine Le Pen’s semantic creativity amounts to party heresy.

“These are people who pretend to believe that when Marine talks about secularism, she’s in line with people who fought Catholicism a century ago,” her father says with a sneer. “But Marine is in favor of secularism against the surge of Islam.”

Secularism makes a handy alibi for the French republic when she criticizes swimming pools that cater to Muslims with women-only hours. That subtle shift in tone is today a popular device of European far-right leaders, like the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders. What makes it a real challenge is that instead of the old knee-jerk diatribes against Arabs or North Africans, “this xenophobic discourse against Islam, against a religion, [is framed] in the name of the defense of liberal values, like women’s rights, gay rights, freedom of religion,” says Crépon. “It’s something that can really work, electorally speaking.”

It’s a strategy that makes the National Front more palatable to moderates. “You have leftists, even very anti-racist leftists, who can relate to Marine Le Pen’s comments because they strike out at a religion,” says Gaël Sliman of BVA, a polling company. “France historically was shaped against religion.”

In December, Le Pen likened Muslims praying in the streets to an occupation. In fact, the worshipers in the streets were overflow from mosques too small for Friday prayers, and political rivals jeered that Le Pen employed the same shtick as her dad. Among the public, though, it was popular: polls showed 39 percent agreed with her, including a majority (54 percent) of Sarkozy’s UMP supporters.

Pigs’ heads found at South African mosque site

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mpumalanga mosque pig's headWorshippers attending morning prayer at a Mpumalanga mosque were startled by the sight of two pigs’ heads buried on the property.

The heads were found buried at the construction site of the Emalahleni Jumma Musjid in Emalahleni, formerly Witbank, on Tuesday morning. The mosque is presently housed in a temporary steel structure in the town centre. Construction of a permanent building is due to begin mid-year.

Farouk Arbee, secretary of the Witbank Muslim Jamaat – which owns the mosque – said the Muslim community were dismayed by the deplorable act by people attempting to desecrate the site.

“Such contempt for an intended place of worship is an act of barbarism which cannot be condoned in a diverse society like ours that is built on mutual respect and understanding. All Muslims in Emalahleni in particular and everywhere else in the country should act with restraint to such a provocation. We are confident that this act of provocation originating from a disgruntled minority will not be condoned by all peace-loving residents of Emalahleni,” said Arbee.

Alongside the swine heads was a board with the words: “People from all over the world need to take a lesson from the Spanish! In Seville local people found a way to stop the construction of another mosque in their town. They buried a pig on the site, and made sure this would be known by the local press. Islamic rules forbid the erecting of a mosque on ‘pig-soiled ground’. The Muslims had to cancel the project. This land was sold to them by government officials. No protests were needed by the local people… and it worked!”

Times Live, 20 February 2011

Airline accused of racial discrimination

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Cathay PacificA Muslim airport worker has accused airline Cathay Pacific of racism after he was refused a job interview – only to be offered one when he applied two days later using a fake white British-sounding name.

Algerian-born Salim Zakhrouf applied to Cathay Pacific for a job as a passenger services officer at Heathrow Airport. Mr Zakhrouf, 38, who has lived in Britain since 1991 and is a UK citizen, was told by email he had not been selected for interview.

But applying 48 hours later as “Ian Woodhouse” with an identical CV and home address, he was invited for an interview by the same personnel officer who had first refused him.

A furious Mr Zakhrouf, who has 17 years’ customer-service experience and works as a Heathrow flight handling agent, refused to attend. Instead he called his union, Unite, which plans to bring a case accusing Cathay Pacific of racial discrimination to an employment tribunal.

Mail on Sunday, 20 February 2011

Taj Hargey forms alliance with right-wing Christian fundamentalist to attack Tablighi Jamaat

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Newham Tablighi mosque

An Islamic group fighting to keep its east London mosque, near to the Olympics site, has been described by opponents as a “supremacist movement” that encourages isolationism from wider British society.

Tablighi Jamaat, a global proselytising movement with tens of thousands of members in the UK, is trying to overturn an enforcement notice on its mosque, called the Riverine Centre, after temporary planning permission expired in 2006.

A planning inquiry at Newham town hall will determine whether the group can continue to use the modest collection of buildings. On Thursday it heard that followers of Tablighi Jamaat were taught to “shun integration with all unbelievers in order to be uncontaminated Muslims and to isolate themselves from wider society”.

According to evidence from Dr Taj Hargey, an imam who runs a progressive Islamic educational centre in Oxford, the “isolationist dynamic” of Tablighi Jamaat has caused the growth of a “separatist Muslim enclave” in the streets around its Dewsbury headquarters.

Hargey was called as a witness by Newham Concern, a local campaign group which has long opposed Tablighi Jamaat and its ambitions to expand its facilities. The group is behind plans to build a much larger facility at the site, dubbed a “megamosque” by the media, although it currently has no planning application in place.

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Evening Standard witch-hunt of Lutfur Rahman is directed against Ken Livingstone

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Last week the London Evening Standard devoted many column inches to attacking Lutfur Rahman, the mayor of Tower Hamlets. Wednesday’s issue had a report headlined “Mayor of poverty-hit council hires adviser in £1,000-a-day deal” – co-authored by Tom Harper, who has form on such issues, having previously witch-hunted Azad Ali for the Mail. It began:

One of the poorest boroughs in London today came under fire for spending £1,000 a day on a personal aide for its mayor.

Tony Winterbottom is an “executive adviser” on regeneration and development to Lutfur Rahman, the mayor of Tower Hamlets who was ousted from the Labour Party over alleged links to Islamic extremists.

Local government secretary Eric Pickles accused Mr Rahman of wasting taxpayer money. He said: “It is astonishing that one of the poorest boroughs in the country sees fit to squander such colossal amounts of public cash in this way.

“Tower Hamlets seems to be living the ultimate champagne socialist lifestyle, leaving taxpayers to pick up the tab. I fail to see the business case for shelling out this money, which should be diverted towards protecting frontline services.”

As is usual with witch-hunting articles in the right-wing press, you have to read to the end of the report to find information that completely contradicts the shock-horror headline and introduction. Tony Winterbottom is quoted as saying:

“I tendered a bid for £1,000 a day. In reality, I get paid £125 an hour but I have not yet put in an invoice. I wanted them to respect me as an individual so I asked them to pay me a proper price but I’m not going to charge them.

“I’m absolutely squeaky clean. This is not a money-making operation. This is about fighting for Lutfur Rahman who’s trying to do good work.”

So it turns out that, far from costing the citizens of Tower Hamlets £1,000 a day, Tony Winterbottom hasn’t charged a penny for his services. The real story here is that a former senior official at the London Development Agency whose expertise commands fees well in excess of that figure has provided his knowledge of regeneration and development to Lutfur Rahman for free, because of his admiration for the work the mayor is doing in the borough.

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French journalist convicted on racism charge

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The controversial French journalist Éric Zemmour has been found guilty of incitement to racial hatred after telling a TV chatshow that drug dealers were mostly “blacks and Arabs”.

The Paris trial sparked a fierce debate over freedom of speech and the extent of France’s racism problem, which is poisoning the republican ideal that all citizens are equal regardless of colour.

Zemmour, a well-known media commentator and columnist for Le Figaro, prides himself on his outspoken defiance of what he deems political correct, woolly liberals.

He appeared on a chatshow last year when the debate turned to the question of the French police’s excessive use of stop and search powers against minorities. He said: “But why are they stopped 17 times? Why? Because most dealers are blacks and Arabs. That’s a fact.”

According to the French model, where everyone is theoretically equal under a state blind to race or religion, it is illegal to count ethnic minorities or race statistics. So there are no figures on the ethnic identity of criminals.

Zemmour was also fined for telling another TV channel that employers “had a right” to turn down black or Arab candidates. Job discrimination over race and ethnicity is thought to be widespread in France.

Zemmour, whose parents were Jewish Berbers who emigrated from Algeria in the 1950s, told the court he was not a “provocateur” but a faithful observer of reality who refused political correctness. He was backed by several centre-right politicians and some on the left.

The state prosecutor accused him of using the “old stereotype that linked immigration to crime”.

Guardian, 19 February 2011

Zemmour is the author of Mélancolie Française, which claims that France is doomed to collapse into civil war between Christians and Muslim “barbarians”.