Dr Ali Selim - Voice of Irish Muslims?

"If Allah had willed, He could have made all of you humans a single people. But, He decided to let you choose your own path after showing you the Truth, and thus test yourselves. Outdo one another in actions that serve humanity and thus grow your "Self". To Allah is your final Destination, of all of you." Qur'an, 5:48

The hard right of authoritarian Islam and the hard right of anti Muslim bigotry are unnatural bedfellows, yet are as one in their desire to paint Islam as monolithic. These two heads of the same monster are conjoined in a delusion that Islam's 1.6 billion adherents throughout all cultures and societies have no diversity of thought, opinion, or desire. It is a monster that attacks those considered Muslim. It is the same monster that attacks those considered not Muslim enough.

It is for this reason that I do not welcome Dr Ali Selim's recent contribution to the debate on Irish schooling, where he obliquely claims that diversity in Irish society can be enhanced if diversity within Irish Muslim society is eradicated.

He estimates 65,000 Muslims in Ireland, presumably a figure that includes all 49,204 self described Muslims from our 2011 census. Selim uses his self appointed position as their spokesperson to present them as monolithic on many matters. Let us examine some of his claims:

"[Islam] forbids pre- and extramarital sexual relations, whereas RSE perceives sexual relations outside wedlock as part of normal practices."

I am of course shocked to learn that an authoritarian religious apologist frowns on relationship and sexuality education, and uses their faith and self constructed platform to oppose same. That said a favouring of marriage as an environment in which to raise children can hardly be considered the unique preserve of the Muslim faith, and I'm aquiver with anticipation for Selim's paper showing Christians do not share this position. Perhaps he will soon be calling for the introduction of Catholic values to some of Ireland's schools? It is hardly incoherent to favour waiting till marriage yet also wish to equip one's children with an understanding of relationships, human sexuality, self respect and respect for one's partner and it's baffling how Selim can pretend no Irish Muslim holds this view.

On Discussing Islam

Yesterday I sent the following two tweets:

If you're a Muslim who spends time online threatening Ahmadiyya Muslims, know that you aren't giving a favourable impression of Islam.
— Geoff Shorts (@geoffsshorts) September 5, 2013

If you're an Ahmadiyya Muslim who responds to frequent online threats with dignity and composure, know that you represent Islam well. (2/2)
— Geoff Shorts (@geoffsshorts) September 5, 2013

They got 41 retweets and 21 favourites from my Muslim friends and followers, and I found some really interesting new people to follow as a result. That said, I did come in for a bit of flack from my non Muslim followers for these comments, and I felt a blog post was the best format to try to best address the criticisms raised. If I offended you, please take the hour this blog was posted as a symbol of my genuine desire to understand your position and better communicate mine. I'll group the tweets by what I feel was their focus and do my best to summarise the point - I don't think there's much to be gained by adding the authors, but if you'd prefer your tweet credited do let me know and I'll be happy to add it.

Naturally, I welcome comments and discussion below.

Criticism 1: It would be inappropriate to compliment a feminist on maintaining composure and dignity when threatened as this suggests someone who loses composure or displays anger is less of a feminist.
Tweets:

""Feminists who handle threats with grace instead of anger represent feminism well." Sound problematic? Because it does to me. I don't handle threats with grace nor do I think I should be expected to. Nor do I think that my lack of patience with those who threaten me makes either women or feminists look back. [bad?] I'd be v uncomfortable to be told I was a 'credit' to feminism/women because I handled something without anger." 

What can I say? I agree. I don't think less of Caroline Criado-Perez for swearing at people after months of death and rape threats. I just don't feel it's a particularly apt comparison. The Ahmadi Muslims represent a reformist movement within Islam that, for over a century, has embodied their motto of "Love For All Hatred For None". It would be wrong to call them pacifists - many in their community have distinguished themselves in their countries' militaries - but nonretaliation is at the core of their beliefs. When a spiritual leader was stabbed in the neck while at prayer in his mosque, his final instruction before losing consciousness was that the assassin not be harmed. The attacker was jailed, and the Ahmadiyya Muslim community voluntarily paid a stipend to to the wife and children of the would be killer rather than see them destitute.

White (irrelevant), British (irrelevant) And EX-Muslim

I've never really asked for feedback on my guest post policy. I like finding interesting folk with different views to me that are willing to share their perspectives with readers here. It was for this reason that I was happy to host Rayyan's first guest post here. At the time he'd been a Muslim for four months, and he shared a little of his experiences, answered some common questions, and managed to squeeze in some humour. I enjoyed rereading it in preparation for this post.

Rayyan's no longer a Muslim, and I found myself as interested reading how he left the faith as I was reading how he entered it. His positive impression of most Muslims he's met remains, as does his opposition to groups like the EDL, but he has a newfound concern for his safety and additional reading on Islam has changed his mind on the validity of some arguments that initially led him to Islam.

I hope you find his experiences and intellectual curiosity as interesting as I did. If you're interested in learning more about the issues affecting ex Muslims I highly recommend the Council of Ex Muslims of Britain. 


I write this today because I have found two places willing to display my opinions and thoughts, Geoff’s Shorts blog and CEMB Forum, thanks to both of the site admins. I also intend to help others overcome the fear a lot of religious people have, fear, which held me back from my inevitable apostatising; burning in the hellfire. I did not become a Muslim because I didn’t want to go to hell, I had regular contact with people who were Muslims and I saw how they were grateful for the good things in life and were very friendly people who happened to be Muslims and for me this communication set me on a path of research eventually leading me to Scholars on YouTube and I found it satisfied my need to find the meaning of life. I looked past the lunatics like Anjem Choudary and his crew. Even today I reject the stereotype of Muslims being evil it is total nonsense. There is a popular way of thinking here in the UK, people put Islam and Muslims in one category when it comes to acts of terrorism committed in the name of Islam, Muslims are people and Islam a religion. I based my decisions on real life interaction with Muslims some of whom appear to have somewhat limited knowledge on Islam and then further on my discovery of the faith itself.

iERA's Campaign - Coincidence, Convergence, or Copied?

In the past I've discussed Hamza Tzortzis's plagiarism of William Lane Craig and his poorly executed attempt to pretend that liberal societies facilitate rape. Perhaps it is unfair of me to focus exclusively on the Islamic Education and Research Academy's head of research.

Today instead we look at Abdur Raheem Green, head of the aforementioned iERA, perhaps most famous for his lectures on how one should best beat one's wives. I use the plural as he has two wives at time of print and sees four as the maximum. I'm reliably informed that he is the keen mind behind the 'Don't Shoot the Messenger' campaign which features a trilemma argument. In brief, it states that Mohammed was either lying, deluded or the final prophet of Allah. It then attempts to prove the first two explanations incoherent by saying his actions are neither those of a liar or a madman.

But does this sound familiar?

Those of us who have read C S Lewis's Mere Christianity (published 1952, popular with only a small number of my regular readership, I'll admit) may recall his Lord, Liar, Lunatic argument, also featuring a trilemma. In it he states that Jesus was either lying, deluded, or the risen son of God. It then attempts to prove the first two explanations incoherent by saying his actions are neither those of a liar or a madman.

Do have a read of both arguments and see if you also feel there are similarities.

Guest Post: White, British and now a Muslim

Twitter can be a voyeuristic pursuit and I enjoy reading microupdates from those whose views are different from my own. I don't recall when or why I started following Rayyan, but I've enjoyed the experience. He's mid twenties, a doting father and a hardworking student. He has more on his plate than I do! Despite this he's spent a lot of time wondering about this great mystery called life.

I feel a little guilty having asked him to write a guest post. Knowing his schedule I've likely deprived him of many hours of sleep, but his is an interesting perspective and he was enthusiastic to share his thoughts here. About four months ago he embraced Islam. I've read a translation of the Qur'an and listened to those who I'd describe as professional speakers on Islam, but when following Rayyan I learned that the discussions generated by a recent convert can be amongst the most interesting and insightful.

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In the name of Allah, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful.

May God give you peace and bless you all, I would like to thank our friend Geoff for giving me the opportunity of writing here on his webpage. Today I aim to give a brief introduction as to who I am and God willing move on to three common misconceptions of Islam today.

My name is Rayyan, I’m a 25 year old man, blessed with a five year old daughter who lives with me full time (lone parent), and I lose my house keys at least three times a year. I invested a year self-studying religion and four months ago today declared I believe in one God and I accept Mohammed as God’s slave and final messenger. If I may, I ask you all to have an open mind and try to be free of all media influence such as the news and ask you not to associate culture with Islam e.g. forced marriages, honour killings etc.

Anjem Choudary - face of Islam in Britain?

The wonderful thing about Twitter is that you can get such a wide range of views. The number of people followed by @anjemchaudary is zero.
— Tom Holland (@holland_tom) October 21, 2012

Jim Rohn once said "You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with". This unprovoked assault on English grammar contains a concept with which I agree, and if we apply this maxim to Twitter accounts followed by Anjem Choudary's we are left with the impression he is a nobody.

There is little I can do to analyze zero accounts followed. I can, however, examine those 2,186 folk who choose to follow Anjem. Who are they?

 

woMen4Shariah

My laptop's been running stats on Anjem Choudary since Sunday evening. He has many followers, mostly EDL members, and it's taking some time to run the reports in which I'm interested. One less popular group I spotted in the preliminary results was Women4Shariah. The name caught my eye - Anjem founded Islam4UK and I wondered if there was any connection.

While looking through the ladies who seek the enforcement of Shariah worldwide I noticed something odd. You can see some of the profile pictures above. You'll note that beards abound. The style of dress is, well, masculine. I didn't wish to rush to judge, but I started to suspect that some of these women for Shariah could be men.

So I checked.

I pulled a list of all followers, determined first names, then ran them through a script I wrote to estimate gender. Some accounts I couldn't tell. "Shariah Of Muhammad", "MuslimPrisoners" and "Sharia 4 Indonesia", for instance, are not accounts where the gender is easily discernible. Accounts of these sort I listed as unknown. The results are as follows:

With only 29% female I venture to suggest that they're missing their target market.