Category Archives: Islam

Calgary Imam says his comparing the plight of Canadian Muslims to pre-Holocaust Jews was “misinterpreted”

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Imam Syed Soharwardy is the twerp who filed a complaint to the Alberta human rights commission against Ezra Levant for publishing the notorious Danish cartoons. Two years later he tried to withdraw the complaint, claiming that he had been misunderstood.

Here we go again. He is now protesting that he was misunderstood when he compared the requirement of Muslim women to have unveiled faces during the citizenship ceremony to the persecution of Jews in pre-Holocaust Germany. He has taken pains to clarify his true meaning, but it turns out that he still thinks much the same, although he may have had the timing wrong:

A local Muslim imam who compared the plight of pre-Holocaust Jews to Muslims’ situation in Canada said he only regrets he was misinterpreted.

[….]

“I have regret in the interpretation, on how people understand … what I don’t regret is the truth I believe.” Other Calgary imams and Jewish leaders have criticized Soharwardy for being insensitive for mentioning the Holocaust to discuss Islamophobia. Though he hadn’t told reporters in previous days, Soharwardy said he meant to compare the rising hostility facing Muslims in Canada to the genesis of anti-semitism decades before the Second World War Holocaust. “It could be 50 years before, 100 years before but if the trend continues, we will have a major hard time for Muslims in North America,”

To confirm his less than tenuous grip on reality, Syed implores us not to make Canada like “Afghanistan or Pakistan” where, he seems to have forgotten, it is Christians who are not just persecuted by Muslims, but routinely murdered by them. Does he really believe that being able see each other’s face is a harbinger of a similar persecution of Muslins in Canada?

The Archbishop of Wales effuses over the “common faith journey” of Muslims and Christians

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From here:

The Archbishop of Wales will praise the “open and honest” relationship that exists in Wales between Christians and Muslims in a lecture tomorrow (Tuesday Nov 22) to celebrate National Interfaith week.

Dr Barry Morgan will pay tribute to the Muslim Council of Wales, as well as the First Minister, for their commitment to promoting good relations between people of different faiths.

He will say, “I want to thank the Muslim Council of Wales and Saleem Kidwai, its Secretary General, in particular, for all he has done to foster good interfaith relationships in Wales over the last decade. Because of his commitment to our common Faith journey and because the fostering of good interfaith relationships has been high on the agenda of our own Welsh Government, I also want to thank the First Minister for continuing the sterling work of his predecessor Rhodri Morgan for this. Wales has not seen some of the problems encountered in other parts of the United Kingdom.

Christians should, of course, be on good terms with Muslims: it is very difficult to present Christ to someone with whom one is on bad terms.

Two things that can never be on good terms are Christianity and Islam because Christianity teaches that Jesus is God’s highest revelation of himself to man while Islam teaches he was merely a prophet. Both cannot be correct, so there is no “common Faith journey” in Islam and Christianity.

From an empirical perspective, almost every country that is predominantly Islamic persecutes Christians, often to the point of death and every country that is a part of what used to be known as Christendom tolerates Muslims, often to the point of self-effacement.

Primate Fred Hiltz endorses sympathiser of radical Islam for Huron college appointment

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Huron college has accepted a $2-million endowment for a new Chair in Islamic Studies within the College’s historically Anglican Faculty of Theology. As you can read here, the money is tainted by its jihadist association:

About half the money is to come via fundraising facilitated by the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC), and the other, matching half from the Virginia-based International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). A cofounder of the latter group was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007-2008 trial of Sami al-Arian, an Islamist academic linked to jihadism.

Ingrid Mattson has been installed as the “inaugural Chair of the new Islamic Studies program.” Unfortunately, she comes with a rather less than  impeccable pedigree:

She has been disturbingly equivocal about Wahhabism, the repressive and backward strain of Sunni Islam that is the state creed in Saudi Arabia. In 2001, for instance, she told a CNN chat forum: “This is not a sect. It is the name of a reform movement that began 200 years ago to rid Islamic societies of cultural practices and rigid interpretation that had acquired over the centuries. It really was analogous to the European protestant reformation. Because the Wahhabi scholars became integrated into the Saudi state, there has been some difficulty keeping that particular interpretation of religion from being enforced too broadly on the population as a whole. However, the Saudi scholars who are Wahhabi have denounced terrorism.”

She has stated publicly that the best English-language Koranic commentary for Muslim youth is by Maulana Abul A’la Maududi, an Islamist author who wrote that “Islam wishes to destroy all States and Governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and programme of Islam.”

In commenting on the subject of “injustice,” she lambastes the Taliban and the Israeli government in the same breath, because in both cases, people stood by as the two regimes perpetrated “oppression” – an odious juxtaposition, in my view.

In his enthusiasm for interfaith dialogue garnished with a smattering of recreational jihad, Anglican Primate Fred Hiltz has endorsed  Mattson’s appointment:

 “In establishing the “London and Windsor Community Chair in Islamic Studies”, Huron College is on the cutting edge of interfaith dialogue. With delight I endorse the appointment of Dr. Ingrid Mattson as the first occupant of that chair. She is a highly respected scholar and widely published. She is well known for her leadership in nurturing Muslim-Christian relations. The College and Community will be blessed by Dr. Mattson’s academic qualifications, and her capacity to engage people in dialogue, mutual learning and public witness to the values we hold in common as people of faith.”

The Most Reverend Fred Hiltz
Archbishop and Primate
The Anglican Church of Canada

h/t to the person who kindly emailed me on this.

Poll reveals that Canadians believe Western and Muslim societies are irreconcilable

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From here:

A majority of Canadians believes conflict between Western nations and the Muslim world is “irreconcilable,” according to a new national survey that revealed a strong strain of pessimism in the country leading up to Sunday’s 10th anniversary commemorations of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S.

The survey of 1,500 Canadians, conducted over three days last week for the Montreal-based Association for Canadian Studies, showed 56% of respondents see Western and Muslim societies locked in an unending ideological struggle, while about 33% — just one-third of the population — held out hope that the conflict will eventually be overcome.

Obviously not many politicians or Anglican clergy were included in the poll.

 

Oakville author attacked for writing “"Islam is a religion of 'peace' and Muslims will kill you to prove it"

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It seems the attackers have proved the author’s point.

From here:

After publishing Wake Up Call with his cousin Gabrielle, Paris Dipersico was beaten by two men in OAKVILLE — Halton police are treating an attack on a first-time author whose self-published book has been branded anti-Muslim as a possible hate crime.

Raised Islamic, Paris Dipersico, 24, reported being dragged from his bicycle Aug. 17, tied up among trees, then beaten briefly unconscious by two Muslim men.

Accused of being gay, they then “called me a Jew in Arabic and said the Jews are paying you to write this against Islam,” the author of Wake Up Call said Thursday.

 

Photo shy Muslims in Toronto

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This person really didn’t want her photo taken.

From here:

What constitutes a physical assault in Toronto these days?

This would appear to be straightforward. If, for example, one individual punches another, surely that’s assault. Especially if the punch in question was witnessed. And photographed.

But as I learned firsthand on Sunday, a fist in the face doesn’t necessarily constitute assault in our increasingly culturally sensitive Toronto.

The details: I was at Yonge-Dundas Square with my nine-year-old son. We ate pizza. We drank bubble tea. And I used my new Canon camera to take photos of this neon shrine.

Suddenly, a woman wearing a hijab ran toward me. She was part of a group that included two women wearing full face-covering burkas. She was screaming: “We are Muslim! You do not take pictures of us!” (Odd. I can’t find the “no photos” rule in the Qur’an.)

I informed the lady I was in a public square in a democracy. I can actually take pictures of whomever I please.

And then: Ka-pow! Her fist collided with my face. Worse, she almost knocked my new camera from my hands.

When I was in Turkey, where Islam is the predominant religion, I photographed a lot of people; only a few of them seemed less than happy about it. None of them tried to slug me.

This particular gentlemen kept wagging his finger at me, but ended up laughing when I took more photos of the wagging:

 

 

 

Explosion in Islamic school

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Luckily, no Korans were blown up, only the teacher. We can only hope that his replacement will be similarly talented.

From here:

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A man reportedly trying to show students how to make explosives was killed by a homemade bomb inside an Islamic boarding school in Indonesia, police said Tuesday.

School officials and students have prevented police from entering the building since Monday’s explosion, local police spokesman Lt. Col. Sukarman Husen said.

This takes me back to my schooldays in Wales: first period, math; second period, English; third period bomb making.

Islam: a threat to Western freedom

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From here:

The presence of Muslims in Canada threatens the country’s freedoms and democracy, and only if immigration from Islamic countries is suspended can the cultural deterioration of the country be stopped, controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders told a packed house Monday night in Toronto.

“Our Western culture is far superior to Islamic culture,” Mr. Wilders said. “And only once we are convinced of this will we be able to defend our civilization.”

There was a protest populated by 10 people who called Wilders a racist – an epithet derived, presumably, from the misunderstanding that being a Muslim is an involuntary racial condition.

I have little doubt that Western culture is superior to Islamic culture and I hope that Canadian Muslims also have little doubt of that. Geert Wilders would probably say of them that they are not real Muslims and he may well be right – that is not such a bad thing. For those Muslims who remain unconvinced, Wilders also may be right: if they prefer an Islamic culture, they should opt to live in one.

Anjem Choudary to speak at Hay-on-Wye festival

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From here:

Anjem Choudary – who praises Osama bin Laden and insists Islam will rule the world – has been invited to talk at a leading philosophy and music festival in Hay-on-Wye.

The former leader of the banned Islam4UK group is famous for planning to protest through the town of Wootton Bassett, where fallen British soldiers are honoured on their return from Afghanistan, and leading a prayer meeting to dead al-Qaeda leader bin Laden in London on Friday……

On its website, the festival says Choudary is “an outspoken advocate of Sharia law” and “a spokesperson for the group Islam4UK before it was banned by the Terrorism Act in 2010”.

Choudary advocates sharia law, a perniciously totalitarian mental and spiritual straightjacket that discourages listening to music and makes philosophy impossible because it disapproves of thinking. So it’s a bit odd that he has been invited to speak at a philosophy and music festival.

The Hay-on-Wye festival used to be a celebration of culture and civilisation: no more, it seems.

Many years ago, I lived in the Wye valley, a very pretty part of South Wales; at the time, the river was polluted with coal dust – a shame, but a more benign pollution than lunatic Islamists.