When does diversity become uniformity?

In the case of London Metropolitan University, when Muslims are involved. The university is considering banning alcohol to accommodate the sensitivities of Muslim students – all in the name of “diversity”. Real diversity would allow those who want drink alcohol to do so and those who don’t, not to. What is being considered here is totalitarianism. Before anyone else says it: teetotalitarianism.

A university is considering ending the sale of alcohol on campus due to concerns from Muslim students.

London Metropolitan University could take action because a ‘high percentage’ of its students thought drinking was ‘immoral’, according to its vice chancellor.

Professor Malcolm Gillies raised the prospect of an alcohol-free campus after gauging the changing values from the influx of new students.

He said it would be unwise to ‘cling’ to a ‘nostalgic’ view where the vast majority wanted alcohol to be available and instead take account of diverging views.

He told MailOnline: ‘I was raising the issue of changing values in student populations and the question of how a responsible university responds.

‘London Metropolitan University is a highly diverse university ethnically and in religious terms. ‘

‘Our students come from all over the world and they come with changing balance of values.

 

Rowan Williams on how to assert yourself

Wear a veil!

In preparation for his new job as Master of Magdalene College Cambridge, Rowan Williams continues to hone his prodigious talent for saying daft things by declaring that wearing a veil helps Muslim women assert themselves. As everyone knows, Muslim men delight in having assertive wives; that’s why they force them to wear a veil.

From here:

THE OUTGOING Archbishop of Canterbury has shown he will not leave quietly after he reopened the debate over the veil by insisting that the controversial garment can help Muslim women “assert themselves”.

Dr Rowan Williams has questioned the view that women hide behind their veils and warned against “what we sometimes think of wrongly as stereotypes”.

 

Wife Beating for Dummies

A book written by a “towering figure of Islamic revival and reawakening” for married Muslim men. It seems that the book has been selling like hotcakes in Toronto and has sold out at Islamic Gifts and Souvenirs. Get your copy now from ebay (free shipping) before it’s snapped up by other wife-beating enthusiasts.

I wouldn’t normally want to advertise a book like this, but it is clear that Hazrat Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi is a moderate Muslim, since he advises husbands to “refrain from beating [their wives] excessively” and only with a “hand or stick” rather than a metal pipe. And only following a little ear yanking foreplay.

From here:

TORONTO – A local bookstore has “sold out” of a controversial marriage guide that advises Muslim men on how to beat their wives.

The 160-page book, published by Idara Impex in New Delhi, India, is written by Hazrat Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, who’s described in the book’s foreword as a “prolific writer on almost every topic of Islamic learning.”

The store’s manager, who didn’t give his name, said the book had been sold out for some time, and the store’s owner, whom the manager identified as Shamim Ahmad, refused to comment for the story.

It wasn’t clear whether the shop has ordered more copies of the book, but it’s available at online Islamic bookstores and even through eBay.

In the book’s opening pages, it is written that “it might be necessary to restrain her with strength or even to threaten her.”

Later, its author advises that “the husband should treat the wife with kindness and love, even if she tends to be stupid and slow sometimes.”

Page 45 contains the rights of the husband, which include his wife’s inability to leave “his house without his permission,” and that his wife must “fulfil his desires” and “not allow herself to be untidy … but should beautify herself for him … ”

In terms of physical punishment, the book advises that a husband may scold her, “beat by hand or stick,” withhold money from her or “pull (her) by the ears,” but should “refrain from beating her excessively.”

Question: Where does a Catholic convert to Islam find work?

Answer: in an Anglican University; Huron University College in London, Ontario in this case.

Dr. Ingrid Mattson is a convert to Islam from Catholicism; she is head of the Islamic Society of North America, an organisation that was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood with suspected ties to Wahhabism and the financing of Hamas terrorists.

Dr. Mattson works hard to present a face of moderate Islam to North America – she even has a dog. How well would she fit into an Islamist state such as Iran or Saudi Arabia, one wonders? Probably not as well as into an Anglican University College.

From here:

On July 1, Dr. Ingrid Mattson will join Huron University College in London, Ont., as the inaugural London and Windsor Community Chair in Islamic studies at its faculty of theology.

The first woman and the first convert to Islam to lead the Islamic Society of North America, Dr. Mattson was formerly director of the Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Conn. She served as advisor to the administration of two U.S. presidents: George Bush and then Barack Obama.

[…..]

Although Huron University College is an Anglican university, it welcomes members of all faiths, noted Dr. Mattson, adding that Muslim students have found the church-based school “a very hospitable place to learn.” Being in the midst of an active practicing faith community is “something that they pretty much feel comfortable with,” she confirmed.

A new hate crime: hijab pulling

From here:

Kingston, Ont., police are asking for the public’s help after a woman allegedly pulled on another woman’s hijab, which police are calling a hate crime assault.

Police said a woman was finishing her grocery shopping at a store around 5 p.m. ET on Jan. 28 when another customer came from behind her and pulled on her hijab.

This opens exciting new vistas for innovative hate crimes: sporran pulling; turban tugging; fez fondling; dislodging busbies with snowballs.

The possibilities are endless.

What we’ve all been waiting for: a Muslim-friendly Bible

If a Muslim gave me a Christian-friendly Koran, I would congratulate him on doubting his faith and hand him a New Testament. Why anyone thinks that this would earn anything but contempt from Muslims is beyond me:

now there is a major controversy developing as the latest altered Bibles are being created by organizations that most would think of as being more conservative and reasonable. At the forefront of the controversy are the Wycliffe Bible Translators, the Summer Institute of Linguistics and Frontiers, all of which are producing Bible translations that remove or modify terms which they have deemed offensive to Muslims.

That’s right: Muslim-friendly Bibles.

Included in the controversial development is the removal of any references to God as “Father,” to Jesus as the “Son” or “the Son of God.” One example of such a change can be seen in an Arabic version of the Gospel of Matthew produced and promoted by Frontiers and SIL. It changes Matthew 28:19 from this:

“baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit”

to this:

“cleanse them by water in the name of Allah, his Messiah and his Holy Spirit.”

 

Diocese of New Westminster: Christians have much to learn from the Koran

Lest anyone should start with the wrong idea: it’s not that we have much to learn about Mohammed’s paedophilia or the finer points of exactly which part of the anatomy must be amputated for various and sundry crimes. No, apparently, we Christians are simply too loving and the Koran can teach us how to balance our love with “justice”. No, no, not the stoning adulteresses type of justice, the “tolerating economic systems which keep whole nations in poverty” justice, about which the Koran has much to enlighten us, apparently. When it isn’t waxing eloquent on the joys of removing the heads of infidels.

From here (page 11):

My impression (from, admittedly, a reading of this book alone) is that the Qur’an has much of value to say about justice and how we should build, and live in, what the author calls a community of the middle way. It has less to say about the Christian virtue of love.

This discrepancy may permit us to correct our own faith. It often seems that many Christians will go the extra mile and more in loving response to an individual in distress while at the same time tolerating economic systems which keep whole nations in poverty. The message of the Qur’an might help us attain a better balance between love and justice. In all events, we have much to learn and even perhaps much to make use of.

Turkish imam thinks Santa is dishonest because he comes down chimneys

From here:

The imam of the Turkish town of Kuzan has issued a warning to Muslims about Santa Claus, who he called a dishonest person, Italy’s Corriere della Sera wrote.

Imam Suleiman Eniceri said it was suspicious that Santa Claus brings presents into a house by climbing down a chimney or through windows. “If he was an honest person he would come through the door as we do,” the imam said. The imam cited a passage in the Koran that calls on the faithful to enter houses through doors.

At least the imam still believes in Santa, although he obviously didn’t receive what he was hoping for this Christmas. Maybe the rocket launcher got stuck in the chimney.

Giving birth in a burqa

From here:

A Muslim man who punched a nurse for trying to remove his wife’s burqa during childbirth has been jailed in France.

Nassim Mimoune, 24, had already been expelled from the delivery room for branding the midwife a ‘rapist’ as she carried out an intimate examination of his wife.

Then through a window he spotted the nurse taking off his wife’s burqa as she prepared to give birth.

He smashed open the locked door and hit the woman in the face, demanding she replace the full Islamic face veil.

It takes a peculiar logic – Islamic logic, I suppose – to insist that a woman’s face be covered while her nether regions are being aired.

Muslim kindergartener shielded from music

From here:

MONTREAL — A kindergarten student in Saint-Michel will be allowed to wear a noise-reducing headset in class, because her parents’ say their religious beliefs don’t allow the five-year-old girl to listen to music.

Though music is an integral part of the kindergarten program, the principal of Bienville School decided to grant the accommodation request made by a Muslim family and allow their daughter to block out music at school.

The school is considering offering an alternative course, designed specifically for Muslims, that avoids the pernicious influence of music altogether: Beheading For Beginners.