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Showing posts with label Abdal Hakim Murad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Abdal Hakim Murad. Show all posts

Friday, 10 July 2020

Travelling Home by Abdal Hakim Murad : Muslims and National Populism



2:00  Martin Heidegger on tradition
3:00  Where is home for Muslims?
4:00   Jacques Nierynck
https://www.amazon.co.uk/si%C3%A8ge-Bruxelles-Jacques-Neirynck/dp/2220038181
10:00  A M Waters of For Britain
11:00  Niall Ferguson
14:00  Ersatz
15:00


16:00  Why is Western Man so infamously unprincipled? Is it genetic or cultural caused by the failure of Christianity?
17:00  Churches for atheists
https://www.theweek.co.uk/93733/what-are-atheist-churches
18:00  Free riders
19:00  Douglas Murray, Christian Atheist
20:00  Murray's "unconfessed envy" of Muslims
21:00  Geert Wilders

23:00  Travelling Home is a must-read for the Post-Christian Islamophobe and nationalist.

24:00  Milo, femonationalism, homonationlism, BNP
25:00  Demographics is destiny.
27:00  "sexually dangerous"
28:00  Rabbi Sacks
29:00  "Persistence of faith"
30:00  "the homogenising demands of the coercive liberal state"
31:00  "Fundamental British values"
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/guidance-on-promoting-british-values-in-schools-published
32:00  No parking.
33:00  Adam and Eve
34:00  Reverse psychology
35:00  Dionysus v Apollo

Saturday, 21 December 2019

Abdal Hakim Murad on Evola and the European Far Right



9:00  Julius Evola
13:00  Evola's legacy and the European Far Right, "the confiscation of identity", "genuine unease", "bland consumer void", "lazy, low and lustful" ...

Thursday, 15 August 2019

Are Jews and Muslims doing what they are supposed to be doing for the gentile non-Muslim?

Prophets are givers of unwanted advice to nations, empires and entire civilisations and are sometimes imprisoned and executed for their efforts. Shall I aspire to be an prophetess or am I already one? If my success as a prophetess is uncertain, let there be no mistake that this is what I intend.

My message is simple: it is not too late to repent, even after 2000 years of idolatry.

The fact that God has not yet zapped the West after 2000 years of idolatry is evidence of His patience, but it is not inexhaustible.

It should have been obviously long ago that worshipping an executed revolutionary as the co-equal of God is ipso facto idolatry, and idolatry has been specifically and explicitly forbidden by the Abrahamic God Christians claim to worship in His Commandments.

That Christians claim to worship the Abrahamic God while blatantly practising the idolatry He has forbidden is one of the infamous exhibitions of doublethink and pious hypocrisy.

If Jews are indeed light of the nations and Muslims indeed those who enjoin good and forbid evil, they would have issued their joint statement denouncing the idolatry of Christianity as soon as it became possible to do so without being burned at the stake.

Since the danger of this happening has receded through the centuries, the time for doing this is now ripe. There is therefore now no excuse for the cowardice of Jews and Muslims.

I have in mind Rabbi Sacks and Tim Winter AKA Abdal Hakim Murad holding a press conference to this effect.

It only has to be pointed out that Christianity is less in conformity with the Noahide laws because of its idolatry than Islam (which more than satisfies its minimum moral standards because it does not fall foul of the Commandment against idolatry). When this is finally made clear and understood, the way to the right path will become clear.

Friday, 23 March 2018

I attended the worst talk ever because I did not read the small print and thought Hamza Yusuf and Abdal Hakim Murad would be the speakers




The small print I did not read:

Description
YOUNG SCHOLAR SEMINAR SERIES -9-
"The Political Philosophy of Shaykh Hamza Yusuf and Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad: Dissent, Race, and Gender"
By Walaa Quisay (University of Oxford )
Date: Thursday 22 March 2018
Time: 7 pm
Venue: 10 Maple Street, London, W1T 5HA

FREE ADMISSION but registiration required via eventbrite!

Abstract: In the 1990’s, a network of western-born students had culminated their studies in the ‘traditional centres’ of knowledge in the Muslim world. They came back with the intent of transmitting the ‘traditional’ knowledge they attained to the wider Muslim community. From amongst them, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf and Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad were increasingly becoming notable religious authorities. To their community of followers and students, they represented a connection to an authentic religious tradition marginalised by modernist voices. Their religious discourse was both highly intellectual and deeply spiritual; at a time when there was a seeming decline in both intellect and spirituality. Unlike the various religious actors that espoused activist tendencies, politics was not at the forefront of their discourse. Still it was not absent. Embedded within the shuyukh’s social critique were guiding political principles. This paper discusses the shuyukh’s political philosophy through three broad themes: activism and dissent against the state in principle - in Muslim majority and minority contexts, race and identity politics, and gender roles and feminism. The paper will highlight how the critique of ‘modernity’ is interlinked and reaffirms notions of authority and stability in the political philosophy of Shaykh Hamza Yusuf and Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad.

Walaa Quisay is a 4th year DPhil student at the University of Oxford in the Faculty of Oriental Studies. She works on the sociology and anthropology of religion. Her thesis looks at the neo-traditionalist critique of modernity and political philosophy. Her case studies are Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad, and Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah. She completed her Masters at the University of Exeter where submitted her thesis on ‘The epistemologies of progressive Muslims’. Her BA was at SOAS; there she conducted research on the relationship of Sufi Tariqas to the state in Egypt. She will be a Visiting Research Fellow at Sehir University in 2019.


Actually, I did read it, but thought it meant Hamza Yusuf and Abdal Hakim Murad would be there, plus some probably lefty Muslim woman I had never heard of.


Sunday, 21 September 2014

What is the point of having an Archbishop of Canterbury who is not even Christian?

Archbishop of Canterbury admits doubts about existence of God
Justin Welby tells BBC radio interviewer there are moments when he doubts – but he is certain about the existence of Jesus

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/18/archbishop-canterbury-doubt-god-existence-welby

SHOCK HORROR: the Archbishop of Canterbury admits to being a Cultural Christian. He is certain Jesus existed, unlike some of the more fanatical and militant atheists who, not content with denying the existence of God, also deny the existence of His prophets.




What are we to make of Welby's doubts? If he cannot quite convince himself of this minor molehill of God's existence, how can he attempt the mountain that is the divinity of Christ?

From the way he is wittering on one can be forgiven for thinking that his thoughts about Christ are no more than thinking that Jesus is just one of history's good guys rather than God's Anointed Son Made Flesh born of the Virgin Mary.

Does this matter?

Yes, because it means even the Archbishop of Canterbury is so theologically ignorant and does know that he is supposed to believe that Christ is God - an absurd belief, I agree - or to lie about it if he doesn't.

Therein lies the ultimate deception and lie of Christianity: the requirement to believe this absurd idea or to pretend to believe in this absurd idea.

It matters if you believe that the problems of the West has its origins in the failure of its official religion - Christianity. It was of course the trinitarian nature of Christianity that made it antisemitic.

Let us examine for a moment the word "antisemite". Both Jews and Arabs are a Semitic people. Christians did not just hate Jews, they also hated Muslims, and this goes all the way back to the Inquisition.  Why did Christians hate Semitic peoples? Because both denied the divinity of Christ. When Christians took their religion seriously they would deal very firmly indeed with the adherents of the other two Abrahamic faiths and conduct Inquisitions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_the_Trinity_Act_1813

According to a lecture reported on his website to have been given by Abdal Hakim Murad (Timothy Winter) "it was against the law to be a Muslim in Britain until 1812, with the passage through parliament of the Trinitarian Act (Islam does not have a Trinitarian doctrine); however as the Blasphemy Act applied only to those educated in or having made profession of the Christian religion, the amending Act would in theory have applied to converts only to Islam and even then would not have allowed them to refuse to accept the Christian religion.

In the Middle Ages, Christians burnt heretics at the stake and in Salem they even had witch-hunts, not to mention Crusades and Inquisitions. Now, however, because the Archbishop of Canterbury no longer even knows he has to uphold the lie that he believes in the Trinity even when he does not, Christians have completely forgotten what they were like when they took their religion seriously.

Poor old Copernicus and Galileo who dared suggest that the earth went round the sun rather than the other way round!

Poor William Tyndale - executed for translating the Bible into English! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tyndale

As for Christians who wanted to think God was a unitary whole rather than consisting of three elements, well, God help them. http://www.ccg.org/english/s/p268.html

The only advantage Christians naturally had was the frequent wars they would have against each other. They fought each other so much and so often Europeans became the most militaristic race on earth and the cause of the First and Second World Wars.  If and when there is a Third World War it will again be caused by Europeans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion

Eventually, after WW2, they got tired of fighting each other and settled themselves down to a lifestyle choice of wine, women and song as well as sex and drugs and rock and roll. Having utterly thrown out the baby of social conservatism with the bathwater of Trinitarianism, they are now a degenerate lot quaking in their boots fearing an imminent Muslim takeover.

And what would be the harm of Islam taking over? It would at least be a source of social conservatism, which respects marriage through forbidding extramarital sex.

What are the benefits of forbidding extramarital sex?

It would make men want to marry (in order to have sex and legitimate offspring) and also make women have legitimate children again.

It would end this dysgenic culture of tolerating sluts and bastardy leading to paedophilia, degeneracy and the decline in educational and moral standards, making the West poorer, stupider, weaker and more prone to the collective dementia that might precipitate yet another World War.

Social conservatism requires moral and intellectual respectability, and we cannot expect this to be forthcoming from the anti-immigration parties of the West who are racist, antisemitic, Islamophobic, xenophobic whose members are made up largely of uneducated and illegitimate plebeians.

Neither the Catholic nor the Anglican Church are fit for the purposes of maintaining the morals of the nation because the moral values propagated by the Bible are currently being subverted by its Commie Pinko Homo Lesbo Feminazi clergy who look upon the Church as a source of status and income even as they busily subvert its moral teachings.

Islam at least has the very practical idea of enacting Koranic principles as legislation which all must follow because it is the law of the land.

Which of the following do you think has the lowest entry threshold?

a) Becoming a Jew and living as one
b) Claiming to believe in Christ's divinity even when you do not because this is what is required to be a Christian and therefore one of the gang
c) Acknowledging that there is no God but God and Muhammad is His Messenger

The problems of the West are the problems of Christianity.

If neither Christianity nor Liberalism is fit for purpose - or if they have both become one because Christian clergy are no more and no less than creatures of the PC Liberal state - then another better ideology must be found to impose and maintain social conservatism. A theocracy comes to mind.

A theocracy is a society that abides by the laws of its God, but not all theocracies are the same because different deities require different practices and different laws.

If you had to choose between an Aztec theocracy and an Islamic theocracy the choice, if you wish to avoid becoming either a victim or practitioner of human sacrifice, is obvious.

Which would you rather do?

a) Live your life as a Jew
b) Pretend to believe in the absurdity that Christ is divine

For all sorts of pragmatic reasons one might not wish to be a Jew, eg antisemitism, the demands of being an observant Jew, and prefer the corrupting bargain that a Christian makes, ie eternal life, the forgiveness of sins in return just for pretending to believe that Christ is God. In other words, this would suit the hypocrite.

What about Islam? It has lower entry requirements with less rigorous dietary requirements and laws and does not require you to believe in an absurdity.

If Islam is "Judaism Lite" then Secular Koranism is "Islam Lite".

Secular Koranism will also have the effect of making Jews better Jews and Christians better Christians through creating a legal environment which supports marriage and denounces rather than condones sluts.

Which gives you a better sense of being close to God?

a) The spirituality that is your reward when you know you have obeyed His laws
b) Believing falsely that you are in His presence

If we want to obey God's laws either for our own good or for the good of society, then we would have to enact them as legislation.

Those who find this idea objectionable are cordially invited to choose the verse in the Koran they find most objectionable.

But back to the subject to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Will he have have a role in a Khavian Britain governed under the rules of Secular Koranism?  The position will not be abolished, fear not, but will be purely ceremonial, like Black Rod. Someone will need to crown the next British monarch, after all. Other than that I cannot see any role at all for an Archbishop of Canterbury who accepted the abomination of gay marriage without demur. If Charles wants someone else  -perhaps Muslim - to preside over his coronation, I would certainly see to it that he has his wish, if a Muslim can be found to don the robes of an Archbishop of Canterbury and perform the ceremony with dignity and decorum as the world watches. I must say I find the idea of Tim Winter AKA Abdal Hakim Murad performing this ceremony a rather delicious one.

Thursday, 12 April 2012

The form of Anglican Islam will be reassuringly Christian


http://islaminchina.wordpress.com/2008/02/27/islam-in-china-pictures-the-great-mosque-of-guangzhou/

I will tell you my idea of Anglican Islam. It is basically everything in the Book of Common Prayer that does not contradict the Koran. People would still go to church, sing hymns, celebrate Xmas, but what they will no longer do is affirm or refer to the doctrine of the Trinity or practice the ritual of pretending to drink Christ's blood and eat his flesh. Bells will continue to be rung in churches all over England. The Nicene creed will no longer be recited. Sermons will be proper sermons based the exhortations and prohibitions of God using current affairs and news stories to drive the point home.

SIN - especially Slut Single Mums - WILL BE CONDEMNED, NOT TOLERATED.

Any reference to the Trinity and the divinity of Christ in hymns and carols will be removed and replaced with other suitable words.

Priests will continue to wear their cassocks, vicars their dog collars, but the Lefties, feminists, Commies and the openly gay will be slung out.

Now tell me what is wrong with this idea?

Abdal Hakim Murad will be my Ayatollah of Cambridge.  I will let him appoint the Ayatollahs of York and Canterbury, I think.


Proposed Ayatollah of Cambridge


If he is really really really good he might be able to take up residence in Hampton Court, if I have anything to do with anything, and live a Cardinal Wolsey sort of life, without the unhappy ending, because he deserves it and is worth it.   

Wednesday, 19 January 2011

The problem with the teaching of history in the UK according to Abdal Hakim Murad

0744
Thought for the Day with Abdal Hakim Murad - Muslim Chaplain at the University of Cambridge - for whom I have a spot that is soft, yielding (and I like to think welcoming) ...

He would be my Archbishop of Canterbury if I were Tudor Monarch Henrietta VIII.  Abdal Hakim Murad complains about the disjointed teaching of history through which we derive our disjointed morality and our woeful lack of noble national traditions.  The standard fare of Hitler and Stalin is not enough, he says.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9366000/9366168.stm

http://www.platitudes.org.uk/platblog/index.php


http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/thought/

If I were absolute monarch Henrietta VIII, I would create a new religion of Indifferent Agnosticism AKA Anglican Islam.

I would also break off diplomatic relations with the US.

Would I take a number of husbands or civilly partner women (or a combination of both) and then cut off their heads?

Watch this space.

Wednesday, 10 November 2010

Actively inviting the Argies to invade the Falklands

0734
Five senior military figures have written to the Times asking the Prime Minister to reverse the decision to scrap Britain's Harrier jets. One of the signatories, Lord West of Spithead, outlines his arguments for keeping the jets. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9174000/9174206.stm

What a deliciously manly voice the Sea Lord has.  It is comforting indeed to know that there are such men as Lord West left in this country while I choose the best possible men to run the military dictatorship I have in mind.  That Colonel Richard Williams sounds like he's made of the right stuff too.

If only men like him were in charge of the ship of state, instead of the mewling contemptible cowards who toe the party line. 

It is something in their voice that indicates masculine virtue.  Abdal Hakim Murad also has a voice that is both manly and mellifluous.

I'll bet the Argies are preparing to take back the Malvinas now. Prepare therefore for national humiliation, coming to your country soon. 

I wonder if others share the ability to predict the political views of a man just by the spinelessness of his accent and timbre.  Perhaps that is why I so hate Cameron's voice.  He has the voice of an overly earnest conman. 

Together they can more than deal with flibby flabby LibDem scum like Nick Harvey MP.  No LibDem should be left in charge of this country's defences if we know what's good for us, which we don't of course.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23892136-decision-to-axe-harriers-bonkers.do

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1321201/Defence-cuts-latest-Two-carriers-jet-fighters-iconic-Harrier-axed.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_lords/newsid_9125000/9125677.stm

Still don't quite get why Harriers are so essential though.  Would be grateful for an explanation if anyone knows.  

Thursday, 17 June 2010

Join the BNP and meet the Queen?

Floyd Codlin has rather naughtily suggested to me on Facebook yesterday:

"given that Mr Griffin has invited himself to the Queens Garden party, can we take it that you'll be "this is proof we're not racist" arm candy on the great day.."

I must confess that this has played rather on my imagination.  I am persuaded that it would be rather good PR for the Party and I think I could sacrifice just one Thursday to visit Buckingham Palace, for the good of the Party.  If truth be told, I now find myself practising very low curtsies and rehearsing what to say when I am asked: "And what do you do?"

Will Prince Charles be there?  We could have a good old discussion about Islam and its environmental friendliness and sustainability.  If Henry VIII had been Muslim, he would not have had any problem divorcing Catherine of Aragon when she failed to give him a son.  Indeed, he could have just kept her and married Jane Seymour too.  In fact, if Charles had been Muslim, he would not have had to wait that long to marry Camilla.

I may even suggest to the Chairman that it may be an idea to now promise to disestablish the Church of England in our next manifesto.  It is high time the Church of England - so hostile to the BNP - to be subjected to a spot of disestablishmentarianism and a religion more fit for purpose established in its place.  I propose calling it The Mosque of Racially-Inclusive British Nationalism (or perhaps just The Mosque of Britain), but with the clergy wearing the same kind of vestments as before and the same hymns sung, so as not to alarm the populace unduly.  Excised will be any reference to the Trinity and banned forever the barbaric practice of pretending to drink Christ's blood and eat Christ's flesh.

Finally, instead of the Archbishop of Canterbury we can have an Ayatollah of Cambridge - I have in mind that thrillingly bearded Islamic scholar with his deep mellifluous tones and his sensationally sensible views.

What do people think?

Monday, 7 June 2010

Hitler's contribution to the establishment of the state of Israel should be acknowledged

If it hadn't been for Hitler Zionism would still be dead in the water. Why do Zionists never acknowledge Hitler's contribution to the establishment of the State of Israel? The laws against Holocaust Denial are there to prevent the denial of Hitler's massive contribution of 5 to 7 million Jews.

When they celebrate the birth of their nation, does it occur to them to celebrate Hitler's birthday too? (It is 20 April 1889 if anyone's interested.)

This was what made Western Christian guilt kick in after they acknowledged centuries of being nasty to the Jews. Anti-Semitism was and remains endemic in the West. (It should be pointed out that the Semitic races include Arabs too. Hatred of Jews and Muslims remains sustained and visceral in 21st century Culturally Christian Europe.)

Now, is there something about Trinitarian Christianity that makes Christians particularly intolerant of any forensic analysis of its doctrine?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_the_United_Kingdom

There used to be laws that made it very inadvisable to deny the Trinity if you want to hang on to your job or your life.

Why would people wish to deny the Trinity? Because it is reasonable to do so, I would have thought. It is such a dishonest and irrational doctrine that many ignorant white people who call themselves Christians are not even aware that they are supposed to believe in it. This is because of the "bums on pews" policy of desperation that lets anyone in, promoted by an Anglican Church who represent a religion that is no longer fit for purpose.

All the Abrahamic faiths are meant to promote family values. Anglican Christian doctrine does not quite manage this, does it?

Many Christians are made to recite the creed without comprehension. You can be sure it exists because it is only the non-European Christians who know what it's all about. They at least know what the deal is: believe that Christ is the Divine Son of God and you will be saved from hell, whatever your sins.

Still not quite getting it?

Let me simplify it then:

"It is not enough to believe in God. You have to believe that Christ is also Divine Son of God. Sorry, but this the non-negotiable essence of Christianity. That is why the Jews, Muslims and Unitarians are gonna roast in hell. The Inquisition was to save these people from themselves."

The Inquisition was what happened when too many Jews and Muslims started denying the Trinity. Only something like the Inquisition could shut them up good and proper.

The Koran explicitly denies the trinity because it is irrational and amoral. To say God is One in Three is still polytheism and idolatry. Well, it is, isn't it?

Does it sound a bit like a liberal democracy invading other countries to save them for themselves? For their own good? Like Iraq and Afghanistan? You betcha!

Christian guilt thus saw it is as politic to rob the land of Peter Arab to pay Paul Zionist as well as to conduct the occasional pogrom.

Why do the words "Christian" and "hypocrisy" go hand in hand?

We hate and fear the people we have wronged.

Does a religion that makes you declare a lie to be truth have an effect on your intellect and your morals and indeed your very civilisation?

It can be seen that the period of Roman decline can be linked to Constantine's conversion of his empire to the religion of women and slaves.

Is it not about time we disestablished the Church of England, and put something more fit for purpose in its place?

I don't suppose this country is quite ready for a Mosque of Britain, but it would probably be as well to start talking about it, to prepare the ground, rather as Cameron today is now gingerly preparing us for changes in our lifestyle expectations and what diminished expectations we ought to have have of the state for the next few decades ....

I can already think of a lecturer in divinity who would make an excellent Ayatollah of Cambridge.

Tuesday, 19 May 2009

The Aphorisms of Abdal and the Contentions of Tim Winter

Those who have enjoyed Tim Winter's AKA Abdal Hakim Murad's essay may enjoy discussing his Contentions, found at

http://masud.co.uk/contentions/

I have myself added a few of my own and they are awaiting moderation at the time of posting.

His Thoughts for the Day may be accessed at

http://www.platitudes.org.uk/platblog/index.php

whose treatment of his pearls of wisdom could fairly be described as irreverent and critical.

Tim Winter for Mufti of Britain!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mufti

Tim Winter's Teenage Journey to Islam (excerpts)

http://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/ahm/Quicunque-Vult-or-A-teenage-journey-to-Islam.htm

"Faced with England’s desertion of its own identity, may one ask whether an English move to Islam is a farewell to one’s heritage – or its unlooked-for revival."

" ‘God does not need a sacrifice in order to forgive anyone. The split-second of turning from Christianity to Islam is the realisation of the truth of the parable of the Prodigal Son.’ In the parables, God is loving enough to forgive directly. That was the whole glory of the Judaism which Jesus upheld."

"Much of the Bible comprised stories whose purpose seemed ambiguous or even absent, punctuated by occasional flashes of pure light; the Koran was giving me the light alone."

"Religious searching always seems driven by a consciousness of sin and alienation. Which forgiveness is higher, I was obliged to ask: the forgiveness of one crucified, who has no power in his hands, or the forgiveness shown by the Blessed Prophet at the Conquest of Mecca, at the highest moment of his political life, when his ancient enemies were in his hands and he forgave them? This, I discovered, is the virtue of al-‘afw ma‘a al-qudra: to forgive when in a position to punish. It is the virtue of Nelson Mandela, perhaps the greatest of modern moral icons, who forgave his tormentors despite being in power. To this, I also learnt, there is to be a coda at the end of time. Who is the more merciful: the Pantocrator-Jesus of the Book of Revelation, who wrathfully judges and consigns people to hell, or the Muhammad of the Hadiths, whose entire work at the Judgement will be to intercede for sinners, thus showing Islam as, finally, the religion of God’s forgiveness and mercy? As I came to see it in my teenage years, the Cross is not a symbol of forgiveness at all: on the orthodox view, it denotes the repayment of a debt, as the infinity of Original Sin is atoned for by the infinite sacrifice of God’s own temporary death. What humanity urgently needs, as we contemplate our long record of disobedience, is a model of true forgiveness by a God who does not calculate, who gives bi-ghayri hisâb (‘without reckoning’, in the Koran’s idiom), who imposes no mean-spirited ‘economy of salvation’ worthy only of accountants and bookkeepers. The letter killeth – the spirit giveth life. "

"It is not surprising, then, that the first explicit appreciation of the Prophet in the English language was by a Puritan who saw the Ottoman system as more open to diversity, and also to religious sincerity, than the England of his day, with its established church and insistence on religious conformity. This was Henry Stubbe (1632-1676), whose book An Account of the Rise and Progress of Mahometanism, with the Life of Mahomet, and a Vindication of him and his Religion from the Calumnies of the Christians could hardly be published during his lifetime, but indicated a subterranean philo-Islamism that is deeper than images of an islamophobic Britain will admit. Several Muslims have pointed to some of these possible precursors for British Islam in Unitarianism and allied forms of Dissent."

"Surveys indicated that a growing number of clergy held ‘heretical’ views on the Triune God ... Some responded with despair, and ended in Buddhism, ‘alternative spiritualities,’ or agnosticism."

" ... in 1999 the Daily Express published a series of articles predicting the leading trends which would be visible in the new millennium. One of these thinkers, the best-selling biographer of Jesus, A.N. Wilson, wrote as follows:
Islam is a moral and intellectual acknowledgement of the lordship of God without the encumbrance of Christian mythological baggage. That is why Christianity will decline in the next millennium, and the religious hunger of the human heart will be answered by the Crescent, not the Cross."


"Even in Catholicism, which often has a better sense of the dignity and beauty of ritual, there has been a crisis since the forced abandonment of the Tridentine Latin Mass at the Second Vatican Council in 1965; as Pope Benedict has acknowledged: ‘One shudders at the lacklustre face of the post-conciliar liturgy as it has become; or one is simply bored with its hankering after banality and its lack of artistic standards.’ Whatever political disasters may have overtaken some Muslim lands, the core doctrines and practices are miraculously intact. In a mosque, one experiences not a hankering after banality, but a ritual inherited from a great age of faith, a Rock of Ages, into which one can submerge and be annihilated as one seeks for God."

"Geoffrey Lampe, professor of divinity, had just published a detailed and iconoclastic account of the doctrine of the Trinity, God as Spirit. This was a systematic manifesto aiming to rescue Christian belief and worship from baffling doctrines which, he felt, were hastening the secularisation of England."

"Years ago, as I turned away from the machine age to consider alternative voices, I expected to find the heirs to the monotheist scriptures as the most serious prophetic dissidents of our time. By no means is that always the case, as there are many churchmen who are willing to lower the price of their goods in the hope of selling them to a trivial and lazy world."

"French priest Louis Massignon (1883-1962): ‘Inwardly, you are a Muslim. Outwardly, if you continue to wear your priest’s cassock you will serve Islam more successfully’."

"Humanity is now being programmed from an early age by an insistent materialistic culture, driven ultimately by the greed of large corporations, and to join Islam has become a more radical, absolute step than ever before. Yet human nature has not changed, and those religious needs which were so central to the lives of our species for ninety-nine percent of our history have certainly only been suppressed, not removed. Monotheism is the most coherent form of the religious life; and Islam is its purest expression."

Wednesday, 15 April 2009

Tim Winter for Mufti!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article1909809.ece

reports that British Muslims do not have a mufti and should have one. This was from a report in 2007, and it really is quite remiss of the Muslims not to have sorted that one out yet.

My preferred candidate is Tim Winter, whose voice I find guilt-inducingly thrilling.

The first time I heard his voice on Thought of the Day, I was lying in bed, but he woke me up good and proper, with his deep mellifluous tones speaking his exciting Islamic thoughts.

It looks as if it is now time to start a Tim Winter for Mufti campaign, when I already have so much on my plate, such as my flagging campaign to become Jury Team London MEP candidate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mufti

To hear Tim Winter's thrilling voice and inspirationally Islamic thoughts, visit

http://www.platitudes.org.uk/platblog/index.php

and search for him under Shaikh Abdal Hakim Murad. There is the proper version and the satirical version, both of which are excellently wise and excellently funny.

A campaigning chant comes to mind:

Tim Winter for Mufti! Tim Winter for Mufti!

We need your views on Direct Democracy!

Sunday, 12 April 2009

Find me a Fatwa!

Those of you who know me will know that I have a bee in my bonnet about Direct Democracy.

I am now Jury Team MEP candidate at

http://www.juryteam.org/candidate-profile.php?id=10109

and receiving, I regret to report, not much support at all.

Perhaps I should take myself off to the nearest Easter Fair and sell kisses, or something, in exchange for a vote, costing no more than 25p and standard network charges for an SMS from your phone.

I then wondered whether Islamic scholars have a view on direct democracy and found this Find Me A Fatwa site at http://fatwaislam.com/

It calls itself "The Most Comprehensive Online Islamic Fatwa Guide" yet had nothing whatsoever on direct democracy.

I would like a fatwa from the Islamic scholar Tim Winter AKA Abdal Hakim Murad and wonder where I can go to order one.

Can one ask for one directly, or must one have an intermediary, analogous to going to a solicitor, who will in turn obtain Counsel's Opinion?

Does one have to be a Muslim to order one and will a fatwa fee be payable?

It appears not and is free, from

http://www.askimam.org/index.php

It is truly an excellent idea. Instead of agony aunts, the Muslims have agony uncles who are learned in the Koran. I have asked my question and can't wait to receive my answer, which should arrive in 3 days' time!

There is even a Fatwa Line at

0845 108 7799

which dispenses fatwas on Mondays to Thursdays between 12-1pm.

Saturday, 11 April 2009

Where are the leaders of the white people? asked Sayeeda Warsi

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/28/cameron-conservatives-sayeeda-warsi

She says it's Labour's attitude to ethnic minorities that make her more aware than anything why she's a Tory. "I find their views quite uncomfortable. I was with Alan Johnson on Question Time, who's a lovely man, actually, and he was asking what the 'leaders of the Muslim community' felt and I said the Muslim community do not have leaders. What is this? Are we some kind of freak nation that bows down to our leaders? And he said the African-Caribbean community have their leaders and so and so have their leaders and I thought, I couldn't sit in a cabinet of people who still think like that; that somehow there are these alien groups in our nation, each of them represented by a leader who talked to the government on their behalf . It's almost the kind of approach of 'we know what's best for you brown people.' I find that patronising. On Question Time I said where are the leaders of the white people and they all went: 'er, let's move on'.

Wow. Is there a Sayeeda Warsi Fan Club I can join?

I wonder what she thinks of direct democracy, so we are not subject to the amoral decisions of any of our corrupt self-seeking leaders, just our consciences and our reason.

Perhaps Tim Winter AKA Abdal Hakim Murad can give us a fatwa on whether direct democracy could ever be unIslamic?

I would have thought the Koran's warning against people schismatically dividing themselves into sects and rejoicing in their own doctrines is a conclusive enough endorsement of government by referenda, by God Himself, if you believe in Him.

023.053

YUSUFALI: But people have cut off their affair (of unity), between them, into sects: each party rejoices in that which is with itself.

PICKTHAL: But they (mankind) have broken their religion among them into sects, each group rejoicing in its tenets.

SHAKIR: But they cut off their religion among themselves into sects, each part rejoicing in that which is with them.

045.017
YUSUFALI: And We granted them Clear Signs in affairs (of Religion): it was only after knowledge had been granted to them that they fell into schisms, through insolent envy among themselves. Verily thy Lord will judge between them on the Day of Judgment as to those matters in which they set up differences.


PICKTHAL: And gave them plain commandments. And they differed not until after the knowledge came unto them, through rivalry among themselves. Lo! thy Lord will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection concerning that wherein they used to differ.


SHAKIR: And We gave them clear arguments in the affair, but they did not differ until after knowledge had come to them out of envy among themselves; surely your -Lord will judge between them on the day of resurrection concerning that wherein they differed.

Friendships: places of wisdom or echo chambers?

11:01 AM @teestrypzSOG ​#1 ​Wagwan Marc 11:02 AM @MarcInTbilisi ​​wagwan? 11:02 AM @βρεττς ​​I think if you talk honestly and can receive it...