Muslim Cleric's remarks....

and ammonium nitrate is a fertiliser. Like horse ****, except cheaper.

I think the Sheikh was speaking to the inner circle and never intended for his comments to become public.

Religion deals with God in this life and the next. In this life it also deals with politics and many things are said in smoke filled rooms that wouldn't be broadcast either to the faithful or to the infidel.

Maybe they wouldn't but they definitely should. Then we'd know the sort of person we were voting for, or listening to.

Which animals are they? Can you please name some?

As far as I know, among the "lower" orders, although the male is usually ready and willing at any time, if the female is not ready or not willing, end of story, he will try elsewhere or hang around until she changes her mind. But he does not rape her - that is left to the "superior" species, man.

Of course, I could be wrong and would welcome anecdotal or factual advice to the contrary.

Not dumb, hinge. Perhaps a little more simplistic or bound by faith.

But unlike atheists, or cynics, who believe in nothing and no one; and christians who only pay lip service to their clerics; many of the Muslim people who respect and honour him as their spiritual leader would probably never dream that he would fake anything.

It is obvious that many of his congregation do not agree with his opinion regarding women, thus he is in danger of losing their obedience - he had to do something drastic to get them back in line. And he evidently has been a sick man for some time. This "collapse" was just very convenient.

I saw it on the news this morning. He was standing in the foyer of his home, talking to someone when the collapse took place - and just by chance there was a television camera focussed on him through the open door. How about that!

What exactly is the point you're trying to make?

A very strong and sensible (IMO) view from Amnesty International's first Muslim woman secretary general.

Amnesty chief says Sheikh doesn't deserve to lead Muslims

Amnesty International's first female Muslim secretary-general, Irene Khan, says a Sydney Islamic cleric does not deserve the privilege of leadership after a comment comparing unveiled women to "uncovered meat".

Ms Khan says Sheikh Taj el-Din Al Hilaly's views are not representative of the majority of Muslim people and it is up to Muslim communities to take action.

She told ABC TV's Lateline program says it is time for the debate to move on.

"I think people like him should not be given the privilege of being considered as leaders," she said.

"Because the question on part of the Muslim community - and there is a question on the part of the larger community - as to how much space do you give to views that reflect only a very narrow part of the community?"

She says Muslim communities should take their own action.

"I think a lot of the responsibility lies with the Muslim communities themselves and they need to rise to that responsibility here and take action," she said.

"At the same time the Government should not target or demonise the Muslim community itself because of what one individual is saying and there is a sense among the Muslims that this man does not represent them any more than [former One Nation MP] Pauline Hanson represented Australian views."


http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200611/s1778263.htm

I think the point Lezzles was making is that calling rapists animals is denigrating to animals.

So you both agree, Lezzles just had an issue with terminology, notwithstanding Deb's interesting discourse on rape in the non-human animal kingdom - which enlightened me.

Resume transmission.

Lol!!!


Now you will mystify anyone reading the thread.


I decided not to contribute to a probably totally derailing discussion.

I may just move into arbitration.


Alan Jones was back on telly today (bagging the Stern Report).

Any news on the Mufti?

Supposedly it was a minor stroke. His supporters are trying to organise a rally at the Lakemba mosque this Saturday.

I've just finished reading Richard Dawkins "The God Delusion". He gives both barrels to religion of all sorts but especially the three Abrahmic faiths. Good.

Thanks FreeDuck.....

My concern is that people like Halali effect the lives of hundreds of ordinary Muslims, like me, who are living and working in countires like Australia and want to make it their permanent home! Unfortunately, Halsli's comments will effect what non-Muslim Australians think about us!

Having a couple of thousand people rally in support of him tends to trigger a few thoughts too!

The pope says dumb things too. As do local christian clerics.

I think our real concern isn't islam as such, it's more the perceived devoutness of it's followers.

Let's face it, we're a secular society for the most part. Even those who fill in a religion on the census mostly pay lip service to adhering strictly to that religion. We just got comfortable keeping the christians in their evangelical churches on weekends and only having to put up with occasional door knock by Mormon or J. Witness. Largely we ignore. But islam seems to very much worn on your sleeve (or over your face) and that is confronting for the non-religious.

If you can't get worked up about the idea of a God, you sure worry about people who can.

Interesting stuff:

Hilaly tells Muslims not to rally



SHEIK Taj el-Din al-Hilaly has asked his followers to call off Saturday's planned rally which has been organised as a show of support for the besieged cleric.
The sheik has gone on Voice of Islam Radio in Sydney thanking his supporters for their faith but urging them not to attend the unofficial rally at Lakemba.

"He just called for people not to go, not to participate in the rally which doesn't show our way of faith," said Moussab Legha, a cleric at the radio station.

"He said everyone should be cooled down."

Mr Legha said the sheik will be attending Friday prayers at Lakemba Mosque tomorrow and has asked Muslims to show their support by joining him there.

Thousands of Muslims had been marshalled to attend a rally on Saturday by text messages and emails, but Mr Legha said all clerics had tried to stop the unofficial demonstration.

The sheik has been under fire to step down as Australia's senior Muslim cleric following his delivery of a sermon last month which suggested immodestly dressed women invited sexual assault.

Muslim community groups have come together to call for an end to "overblown" public scrutiny of Sheik Taj el-Din al-Hilaly's comments.

They accused the media and politicians of using the scandal surrounding the mufti to vilify Muslims.

A statement signed by 34 Muslim community groups from across Australia said the furore should have ended after Sheik Hilaly's apology this week for referring to women as "uncovered meat" who provoked sexual attacks.

"The Muslim community is always open to frank and robust debate that is free from slander and vilification, but what we have witnessed over the last week is nothing more than hysteria and sensationalism," the statement said.

"We believe that the public scrutiny of this matter should have ended with the sheik's apology.

"Instead it is clear that certain sections of the media and political establishment have used this incident as an opportunity to vilify the Australian Muslim community."

The statement, which was not signed by major groups such as the Lebanese Muslim Association or any of the state or national Islamic councils, compared the continued criticism of the sheik to the mainstream responses that Pope Benedict's recent highly controversial description of aspects of Islam as "evil and inhuman".

"Prime Minister John Howard said that the Pope had 'expressed his regrets and... we should really move on'," the statement said.

"It is unfortunate that the Prime Minister's advice was not heeded in this case. The verbal attacks of Sheik Hilaly have been disproportionate and unjustifiably prolonged."

The statement urged media and politicians to heed the advice of Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty and exercise moderation in covering the sheik's comments.

Mr Keelty last week warned such coverage risked creating a generation of Australians with a bias against Muslims.

"We believe that the Muslim community should be allowed to deal with the ramifications of the incident without interference from people who only wish to promote hostility and incite hatred towards our community," the statement said.

"Finally, we consider this matter to be closed."

Signatories of the statement included the Australian Islamic College, Belmore Islamic Centre, Federation of Australian Muslim Students and Youth, Islamic Friendship Association of Australia and the United Muslim Women Association.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20688924-661,00.html





Another view, from the right:

(wikipedia on Bolt:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Bolt )


Column - Backing a bigot
99 Comments | 0 Trackbacks | Permalink Andrew Bolt Blog
By Andrew Bolt
Friday, November 03, 2006 at 06:39am


Excuses over. The disgraced mufti of Australia set Muslims a test last month and they failed.
That test couldn’t have been easier: make Sheik Taj el-Din al-Hilaly pay for preaching that unveiled women invited rape.

Prove that Muslims can’t be led by a man who says raped women must be “jailed for life”. Prove we have nothing to fear from your faith.

Simple? Yet yesterday 34 Muslim groups signed a petition backing this bigot, while others were planning a big rally for Sydney tomorrow, denouncing not Hilaly but the non-Muslims who criticise him.

The results are in: Islam here—as represented by many of its leaders—is now a threat.

What’s more: our culture of self-hate makes us too weak to properly resist.

(Click on title for full article.)

I know saying such things is hard on the many moderate Muslims I keep insisting are out there. I am sorry for that, but where in God’s name are those people? How much longer must we wait for them to speak?

For more than 20 years they said nothing as their most prominent imam, in their biggest mosque, damned Jews as perverts, called suicide bombers heroes, praised terror groups, vilified non-Muslims and hailed the September 11 terror attacks on the United States as “God’s work against oppressors”.

They said nothing as he gave the run of his mosque to a pro-bin Laden youth group and hired one of its translators as his spokesman.

For years they let this man, their mufti, represent Islam in this country, whose language he never really bothered to learn in nearly 30 years of living here.

But I never lost hope, and so for a few days last week thought . . . at last!

At last we heard Hilaly being damned by Muslims, too—by women’s groups, a Melbourne University academic and even the Islamic Council of Victoria, which had foolishly helped to make this Egyptian the mufti so no government would dare deport him. At last Muslims were disowning this man. He was disinvited from a Brisbane festival. There was talk of stripping him of his title.

The Lebanese Muslim Association, which runs the Lakemba mosque, even debated sacking him as imam, before banning him from preaching for three months.

No, this wasn’t much, but many in the media grabbed it hungrily. We badly want to find Muslims who’ll renounce the values of the hate-preachers, to show that it’s not us against Islam.

Mind you, we shouldn’t have had to be so pathetically grateful. What sane person could want a woman jailed for being raped?

But we should have known already this was a bigger problem than just Hilaly.

Last year Lebanese Sheik Faiz Mohammed also gave a speech in Sydney, in which he said raped women had themselves to blame.

And which of the 500 men who heard Hilaly say the same at his sermon complained? Only when it was reported in the English-speaking press did some concede Hilaly had gone too far.

Yet even then supporters sent him vanloads of flowers, and when he returned to his mosque last Friday he was greeted “like a rock star”, said one paper, by an adoring crowd of 5000.

And that criticism of him? It faded away. Now the Lebanese Muslim Association isn’t so ashamed of him, after all: “We did accept his apology and we want to move on.”

The Muslim Women’s Association, which first admitted to being “shocked” by Hilaly’s sermon, now said he was “very good to all Muslim women”. Said founding president Aziz El Saddik: “Those who say bad things about him, they have very bad manners.” His sermon on rape was for Muslims only. Not our business.

But we can’t afford to believe that any more. They weren’t Muslim women, after all, who were raped by a Lebanese gang in Sydney, which called them “sluts” and “Aussie pigs”.

It wasn’t a Muslim teenager who was pack-raped in Sydney by Pakistani brothers, whose father told the court: “What do (the victims) expect to happen to them? Girls from Pakistan don’t go out at night.”

When Hilaly preaches excuses for such rapes, that concerns us all. Very much.

But it is true that not all those defending Hilaly like what he said. The people who were behind tomorrow’s rally (which may now be cancelled) say, rather, that our criticism of him has degenerated into just Muslim-bashing.

Yesterday’s statement by 34 Muslim groups—most representing Islamic colleges and students, or the Muslims of tomorrow—says the same, even as it confirms something far more scary.

“We believe that the public scrutiny of this matter should have ended with the sheik’s apology,” it says.

“We believe that the Muslim community should be allowed to deal with the ramifications of the incident without interference from people who only wish to promote hostility and incite hatred towards our community. Finally, we consider this matter to be closed.”

Closed? In fact, Hilaly has not retracted a word of what he said. If this matter is “closed” then he has won.

But what is most frightening is not that he’s won, but how. Both this statement and the rally show he’s won because even educated Muslims, born right here, think it’s better to defend a Muslim bigot than to have him criticised by infidels.

It’s the code of the tribe: the worst of us is better than the best of you. It’s a closed community speaking—a paranoid one that sees itself at war even with people whose only worry is that their preacher excuses rapists.

And menace is in the air. What other congregation at prayer needs to be reminded—as Hilaly reminded those at his mosque last week—not to punch people on the way out? Which other rally for a religious leader needs to be warned—as the NSW Police Minister warned this week—that police would not tolerate any violence?

I’m not surprised one of Hilaly’s former advisers, Jamal Rifi, warns that if he hangs on as Lakemba’s imam he may trigger “racial tensions, much bigger than what we had over the Cronulla riots”.

But what are we doing to help Muslims to break from him and leave this cultural ghetto, this encampment, before things get truly ugly?

Not enough. For a start, we make too many excuses for the Hilalys, as if they were mere children, or Australia the real villain.

Yesterday Suzanne Bassette, national secretary of the Australian Democrats, even said: “I’m willing to stand up with anybody else in this country who happens to agree with Sheik Hilaly’s sentiments . . . Unfortunately, how a woman dresses does affect her level of likeliness to be chosen.”

She said the “real lesson” from this fuss was this “latest opportunity to get angry”. The problem wasn’t the mufti who wants to jail raped women, but his critics.

Bassette wasn’t alone. The Age ran a big cartoon likewise blaming sluttish white girls for putting themselves in danger, and federal Labor’s Peter Garrett, the former singer, said Hilaly’s comments were terrible, but “at the same time, the levels of violence against Australian women is something happening in the bars, in the clubs, in the bedrooms, in the boardrooms”.

Again, we are the truly wicked. Leave Hilaly alone.

How can a culture so sick of itself resist the kind of challenge that Hilaly and his angry supporters represent? How can it inspire young Muslims to side not with him but with us?

I don’t know, when we teach the young we are a country of child-stealing, land-raping, Muslim-murdering, Yank-licking, gas-belching vandals. Until that changes, expect the traffic to flow more into Hilaly’s ghetto than out of it.

Just consider the radical mother of two of the Australian Muslims arrested in Yemen last week on terrorism charges, and accused of ties to al-Qaida—a so-called former “hippy chick” from Mudgee, who found in Islam what she couldn’t in the society that raised her.

As I said: Muslims have failed. But so have we all. We now have urgent work to do, if we want to save ourselves from far more strife than we dare yet imagine or say.


http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/column_backing_a_bigot/

Damn I really do despise Andrew Bolt. A tiny tiny mind with a heart to match.

A spacious soul indeed.

Evidently many Muslims yearn for heros--and these heros don't have to be of the finest quality.

My Iman, right or wrong.

Anyone see Insight on SBS last night talking about the Mufti?

Very interesting I thought almost all the participants handled themselves really well whether they be pro, anti, or somewhere in between. EXCEPT Bronwyn Bishop. She was embarassing. How clueless, bigoted and bereft of vision and honour is our government?

See the transcript at http://news.sbs.com.au/insight/topic.php?id=119#

Jenny Brockie did an amazing job too.

Great quotes include:

SHAKIRA HUSSEIN: I just wanted to tell Bronwyn that if the aim of her statements is to have fewer Muslim girls wearing hijab then she's going about it the wrong way. The only time in my life in Australia that I ever wanted to put one on was after her speech last week. I want to not wear it because I'm annoyed with al-Hilali but then I hear Bronwyn and I want to put it on. Every day I get dressed I have to work out who I'm most angry with.

JOSEPH WAKIM, FORMER MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS COMMISSIONER: I think there's too much hypocrisy. You did mention before the comments made by Peter Hollingworth and yes there was an outrage by the Australian public but, no, there wasn't an outrage by the Australian politicians. It's quite a long time for that person to be removed from that role.

WOMAN: I was just wondering, I might have this wrong but I thought one of the great things about the Islamic religion was that there is no absolute leader, like there's no-one like the pope, that these are simply men who are preaching to a congregation and while I find the comments made abhorrent, in no uncertain terms and there are no excuses for them in any way, surely we're blowing this a little bit out of proportion He is not the supreme leader of Islam. He does not represent all people who follow that religion ...


SHAKIRA HUSSEIN: I think what needs to happen is people need to recognise, Muslims and non Muslims that Muslim women are being done over twice. They being done over because they are the object of the kind of vilification that's been directed at the community as a whole and I'm sorry, Keysar Trad but they are also being done over because too many Muslim men are using racism as an excuse for not dealing with appropriately, because there is a media beat up, then that's an excuse for just going away and saying the poor man, he's being vilified, character assassination, let's just let it all pass.

IRENE KHAN: What I find rather sad is the way in which we are so keen to see what differentiates us rather than what brings us together. There's lot of talk about Australian values and about Muslim values but I think what is common about us is thing that I would call values of human rights and human dignity that needs to come into play here so that there can be more mutual respect and understanding on both sides. Without that, I'm afraid things will get worse. I would like to see leaders like the PM emphasise those global values and try to bring communities together.