The Leftfield Mullah

Okay , I am moderately peaved off that I wasn't invited to this - but hey such is life.

It is all reminiscent of my university debates on Islam. But its all interesting so I would encourage you guys to read. The prescence of HT to such a large extent and the Muslim Council of Britain perturbes me in equal measure because of their releative distance from the young people they are trying to promote.

Hizb-but-Tahrir - are a minority group amongst the young and pretty rightfield. Muslim Council of Britain are a bunch of middle-class beard stroking moderate muslims who like to be invited to the parties at No. 10 Downing street and holding conferences where they get to wear suits.

My personal opinion - let's try to actually address the issues within the Muslim community as well as face the challenge from the secualr outside. Both aims are blocked by the two groups mentioned above because they are both equally clueless.

The other thing that disturbs me is the myriad of these little organisations that seemed to have cropped up lead by 9-year old students post 9/11. All of them with grand titles and not much else.

Monthy Python says "The Peoaple Front Judea" - no less

For those of you who don't know Dr Ali Shariati wa a bit of a clever bloke.

Not only was he a cleric's son , educated at the highest level in Qom - he then went on to learn and then teach at the Sorbonne (yep the one in Paris). He also turned out to be one of the main intellectual bastions of the Iranian Revolution.

His aim in life was to unify left leaing thoguht with Islam, specially Shi'i islam, and he belived that the role of women was misunderstood by both mainstream Islam and the West.

Read on folks

Of course we all knew that. We just loved the Bushisms so much we had to have four more years of him.

Look out ..Pretzel incoming !

Wnat to know something even funnier - I got this link from

http://www.freerepublic.com/home.htm

You got to check out this site. It prays for GWBush regularly - bless it!

I came upon this article while googling.

Very Very well written article, although some of the contentions of Islamic jurisprudence are stretching the fabric a bit.

Howerever, it highlights the debate and the details of it in the Islamic and the Feminist communities. There are many challenges facing Islam and the role of women within it. Certain things are hard to justfiy and I would personally find them unislamic - female circumcision being the most prominent. This shows the detpth to which some thinking has been done.

Please feel free to delve into the debate

Now this is interesting. Mainly because the guys writting this are rightwing ex-military.

Shows how the US military has never really been onside with this campaign in Iraq - but why did they vote for Bush? Figure that one out.

Anti-Logic Manouver Initiated Sir!

I almost cracked up when I read this.

Kind of runs rings around the common perception in the west of Ayat. Khomieni.

It helps that Shi'ism allows Ijtihad - interpretation of Islamic law- from living scholars. This means that Transgenderdness and other issues such as AIDS can be dealt with in a breathtakingly straightforward way.

They also get clerics to do sex education for girls in schools. This is because the highest rate of HIV infection is amongst Iranian women marry a man who is a user or is practicising polygamy and has a wife who is a user. By user I mean Hash. There's no birds and bees with these guys. It's the old banana and condom routine much popularised by the Dutch.

Now if we could only get our clerics, from whatever school of thought, to tackle violence against women, drugs, sexual abuse, rape and all those other henious things that ducks for cover under long beards

Well its great that something like this has hit the news, and thus in right there in the public domain, mainstream media. I hate to link to another blog, especially my own, but needs must....

http://wheatfromthechaff.blogspot.com/2004/08/et-in-arcadia-ego.html

Hello there!!

I thought I'd join the bloggin crowd and start putting my two pence worth on the internet. Ofcourse I have no intention of having anyone actually reading it but the best conversations are sometimes had with oneself.

Now, my aim is to add to the debate on Islam, the war on "terror" and all those other things that get us towel heads wound up. Being a darkie dangerously equiped with a degree in Politics from the University of London, specialising in the Middle East - I hope to add my voice to the continuing debate.

There are ground rules to this blog:

1) Xenophobic, racist rants and blatant anti-judaism, anti-islamism and general picking on other peoples beliefs because you can is out.
2) If you're going to quote the Qur'an or any other religious book , please quote the translation, editions and any notes that go with it - just like you have to do with essays . Cut and paste is not an excuse
3) We are going to talk about the middle-east. Please refrain from wheeling out cut past arguments.
4) Don't get personal.
5) Try to keep it civil. I have no truck with raviing.
6) Once you are warned , you will be on notice and if you don't comply your post will be deleted

Any issues drop me a message