The Leftfield Mullah

Eid Ul Fitr

2005-11-04T03:55:00.000+02:00

Sorry for going AWOL , hope this poem makes up for it:

Fitr
So we are poured by the slipped sight of moon
Billion craned to the red singed sky
Dropping from 30,000 feet of Sawym head
Hitting the asphalt, nose to mat
Line by lane by line by lane,
Those of us who stuck dry our stomachs
And those of us who hid them
And all this because one man's tear
Pulled out a voice from the mountains
Wracking the artifice and shaking out "READ"

So, move on from scoff at dawn, Date at dusk
Take some of the mechanism of the Month
The jolting guide rail of the sun
The ease with which you collapsed your head
The heave with which you raised your hands
And apply.

By Ali Naqvi

Copyright LeftFieldMullah 2005

In Response To 7/7

2005-07-12T13:26:00.000+02:00

What The Ground Said.

Last week the bombers came to the places I lived. This week the police came to the places that live. In the solid yellow stare of a July sun blue and white tape sealed off roads and black helmets watched my every move. Noses wrinkled at the car I was driving as if the exhaust was pumping out skunk air.

I was lying in bed, shuddering from a chest infection, when the red band broke across the screen telling me about the bombs in London. Names that were part of my daily routine, stairs I had shuffled up to get to lectures that were always too early, the wheel rattle of old red and blue carriages and the suffocating heat of too many people pressed too close together. The level crossing I had dragged my bag across to get to the bank now had bits of roof and bits of people across it. I always sat on the top deck , where the Plexiglas at the front curved up and had the top support struts ripped off. My seat wasn’t there.

There were always the guilty moments, the heart skip when the tube failed to rumbled on time. When it smacked the sides of the tunnel and sparked. When it ground down some coke can under its wheels. I would stand in the first carriage of the Piccadilly line train waiting to jump off quickly at Russell Square next to the exit but there was always the thought that if “they” wanted to – this would be a readymade mausoleum. So we stared blankly into the walls while letting the peripheral scan those around us. On that day someone got under the vision, and left a rucksack set for 8.50am.

Today, they came in their white vans, jumped out the back and laid down the law over a block square of street. It was stealthy. Bleary eyes met with the high-vis jackets in the dawn and people shuffling out of the front door looking at what was going on. They were searching for “them”. Like the guilty moments on the tube, the possibility of this had flitted into our minds every time we walked out of the door.

It was like the possibility of the strip search and the missed flight. The possibility of the wrong name and the wrong face being met with sweaty interviews in closed of rooms while you failed to exist outside the room.

Such is our life now. Wrongness permeated with other wrongness. There is no real innocence except maybe for those who live under the age of reason and those who live beyond it. Those of us who live in the shelters of the west, surrounded by the concrete and civility of our societies can no longer ignore the meat grinder that spins outside our havens. Those of us who would like to carry on as if the currents of life only feature our own needs can no longer live with that luxury as the images of headless children reach out to drag us in to the nonstop whirl of it all.

There are men and some women who made it so. There are men and some women that suspended souls somewhere and denied the whispers of conscience that were built into them. They do this in boardrooms and caves, in mosques, in air conditioned hotel rooms or the backs of Teutonic chariots.

Thus I draw moral equivalence. That taking a life is taking a life. Suspending a life, curtailing the right to live, holding up the right to be as a crime and preventing all of us to be able to strive for safety are morally corrupt. A GPS guided bomb that drops on the sleeping child has the same affect as the rucksack on the backseat. That those who make the policy, those of our race who sit over death toll figures and collateral damage estimates are complicit in setting up the teeth of the Grinder. That there can be no prayer with the smell of blood in the nostrils, there can be no humanity with the thoughts of obliteration of others foremost on your mind. That injustice cannot be cured with more injustice.

When Kane killed Able the ground betrayed him. When asked the ground will tell its tales. From Srebinica to the wall behind Rami Al Durra, from the splattered front of the BMA to the hulks of metal in Madrid the ground will speak. It will not say Muslim killed Jew because of this or that, it will not say that Arab was massacred here by Christian. It will say man killed man and I know not why.

Change to The Blog - Comments

2005-06-25T02:51:00.000+02:00

Dear Peoples,

You all keep leaving anonymous postings on the comments board, whichis great but I want to actually have discussions with people so I switched the setting so you have to register.

I hope this doesn't put you off actually commenting, all comments are welcome and i would love to develop the threads with you - but I would like it to be proactvie so the thread isn't just a one off - so please register to add you comment so you can read my reply in your mail box and we can keep chatting

US: we must prosecute Sadam - just don't mention the Chems we sold him

2005-06-24T22:24:00.000+02:00

Hows this for sad irony. The US don't want information coming out that would embarass several "freindly" countries and the part they played in makin Saddam the monster he was and is, so they are witholding evidenvce from the court they themselves set up!

Now there's modernism and there pseudo-intellectual modernism

2005-06-20T22:24:00.000+02:00

Dear Iranian Progressives,

Your good people, I know, you want to build a better Iran and all that.

All good things on their own. I just want to say one thing:

A Handshake? For goodness sake! You think that doing the opposite of what the status quo is rebeliion. Give me a break!

Let me put it this way. I was born and brought up in the west. Lived here all my life.

I never would let any individual shake my mother or sisters hand. Thats a red line for every muslim who lives here.

At what point are you going to stop making idiots of yourselves and actually start talking issues

This is for all those people who think that Muslims AREN'T being discriminated against

2005-06-10T22:31:00.000+02:00

When I tell my freinds that I am being descriminated against because I am Muslim - I rarely get believed.

I was applying for jobs in 2002 and this guys experiences are exactly the same as mine. I hope this opens people up a little to the possibility that maybe people weren't as liberal tehy thought....

The Nature Of The Insurgency In Iraq

2005-05-28T14:17:00.000+02:00

This is a report by Anthony Cordesman who is one of the leading thinkers on International Affairs in the US

Imperial Discourses - a lesson in context creation

2005-05-25T12:04:00.000+02:00

Tipu Sultan was one of the more interesting leaders of pre-colonial inda. A man who fought bitterly to preserve his kingdom in the face of the expanding East India comapy and his lazy nieghbours.

This article does a good job of exploring the parallel nature of ccreating a discourse to justify the ultimate subjegation of a people.

Palestinian Authority Sees Flashy Trains And Looses Sight Of The Big Picture

2005-05-25T12:00:00.000+02:00

Interesting story this.

It seems the RAND corp, universally famous for putting the count into bodycount for their contributions to the history of the world, especially the Cold War , have given the Palestinian Authority a vision of the future of Palestine.

Lots of lovely trains, shiny airports, development and jobs it seems.

I believe its a case of showing you the Lexus and cutting down the Olive tree. I'd love to be proved wrong

Who remmembers Srebrinica

2005-04-18T00:16:00.000+02:00

A moment that we should all remmember

Rachel Corrie - the truth behind the defamation that went on

2005-04-08T14:00:00.000+02:00

Dear Peoples,

Rachel Corrie was demonized by a lot fo the press when the news story broke.

Alan Rikman and a few others got together and wrote a play inspired by her diaries.

Go see it if you have a chance, and read the story

Women Leading Prayer - Solve These Issues First

2005-03-31T23:12:00.000+02:00

I've kind of had enough of this female leads prayer debate and debacle.

Personally, I wish my hand wringing progressive mates would get a grip and realise the extent of brutalisation that our women are facing. Solve issues like this first.

The Occupation Always Goes One Better Than Sadam - Malnutrition for Kids up to 8%

2005-03-31T12:25:00.000+02:00

The promise of the coalition forces to do things better than Iraq in proved by the UN. Where as Sadam could only manage 4% malnutrition the coalition porvove that it takes a truly progressive commitment to bombing the heck out of a country and destablising the infrastructure to achieve growth.

Its the onward promise of the Occupation to give the Iraqi people more. More tanks , more bombing ,more rape, more pillage, more insecurity and even more dependency on foreign agencies to survive.

Coming soon to a World Bank near you, fresh from the Iraq Achievers club - Paul Wolfowitz - I'm sure he'll achieve similar results at there.

I'm feeling retrospectively accurate - somethings I said in '03

2005-03-24T18:47:00.000+02:00

I'm feeling like revisiting the Naqba that is Iraq. I used to post a lot on www.slate.com, as DirectHex, especially I was stuck in the US and the land of my fathers was being bombed to bits.
So I wrote a couple of things - especially on the nature of post war Iraq. Those guys kept putting it up on the Editors choice - which suprised me becuase of how viruntley anti-status quo I was.

So when you follow the link find DirectHex on the page.

Zos Infidels and zere democracy .....

--------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mar 27 2003 11:26PM

{read the article for context please) …Going on from that. You have to remember that the same thing probably will happen now.

The underlying dynamic is the total and abject paranoia about Iran. It is no coincidence that the largest Shia opposition group SICRI, is based in Iran and is led by an Ayatollah ( ayt. Bakir Al Hakim) . These guys have been actively frozen out of the post-war picture because of their close ties to Iran.

Why do they have close ties to Iran - mainly because of the sheer number of Iraqi refugees that live in Iran - refugees created by the rebellion of the first US led Gulf War.

It also goes unreported that SICRI have been fighting a low level insurgency against Saddam and the Baath ever since. Its most notable success is allegedly the attempted assassination of Uday Hussien - Saddam's son - which left him crippled and possibly pushed him out of the line of succession. Outside the kurds these guys not only have the numbers of fighters (about 10,0000) but also ground level support.

It is markedly interesting that Al Hakim announced this week that getting rid of Saddam was good but there would be no truck with any occupation.

Failure to engage SICRI is due to Saudi and Israeli terror of Iran. Which is a big mistake I think.

SICRI may be based in Iran but is definitely no show hound for the Iranians. Iraqi Shia's are different from Iranian Shia's. Iraqi's are Arab and Iranians are not. The great fear of a fundamentalist republic like Iran arising in Iraq is silly.

There are signs that maybe the Bush Two crowd are working out that it may not be a good idea to hack of the Shia this time. I notice the repeated assurances by US Military that An-Najaf , Kufa and Kerbala - the centres of Shii religious life and theology- are places to avoid battle.

Its certain that to rebuild Iraq, the Shia majority will need to be on board, and that means that SCIRI will have to be on board too

_________________________________________

Date: Apr 14 2003 3:48PM

The First thing to point out is that Shi'ism is very different in character from the Sunni Schools of Islam. Formed in the decades after the Death of Mohammed - the prophet of Islam - over the rights of succession, Shii'ism has its own crystallised form of theology which veers sharply in several important factors from main stream Sunnism.

One of the biggest differences is the concept of religious authority. Shi'sm has a clergy - something not officially present in mainstream sunnism where leaders emerge. Shii'sm ranks and trains Mushtahids (religious lawyers) much like the Inns Of Court in London.

Ayat. Khomeini's big contribution to all this was to change the clergy from a passive non-interventionist doctrine, to a politically active and politically aware group.

Before Shi'ism had been happy to practice Taqiya( quiescence ) in the matters of state - this meant that rulers were given relatively little trouble as long as the basic rights of Shi'ism were respected.

Khomieni, and Ali Shariati, used the fulcrum event in Shia theology - the martyrdom of Imam Hussien- to argue for active and revolutionary Shi'ism. The logic being that one could not be a muslim cleric without addressing the need to be politically active against forces opposed to Islam.

This is because the Shia believe that Ishtihad ( interpretation of Islamic law) is still possible by the clergy , whereas Sunnism beleives that the door of Ishtihad were closed in the 13th century

Add to this the fact that the Shia Clerics are extremely well organised with structured levels of authority akin to the levels in the judicial structure of any Western state ie. A supreme court judges ruling outweighs a district court.

Therefore it is no surprise that when the organized and brutal force of the ba'ath was broken, the only other organized Iraqi force is able to step in - the Clerics. As the article quoted also makes the important point that most clerics if not all in Iraq were suppressed or persecuted at some stage. Giving them the unique currency of being anti-saddam and anti-american.

The US Gov. has always failed to understand Shi'ism, its structure and its theology repeatedly - evident in Iran , Lebanon and Iraq over time. Its unique ability to organize and to be a revolutionary force within its own polity and maintain credibility with its own population has shocked and mystified CIA analysts and middle east "experts" alike. In Iran the CIA spent time looking for leaders amongst the westernized elite - only to be taken aback by the rise of the Clerics.

Ironically, because Shi'ism is able to interpret and deal with changing situations via jurisprudence - it maybe the most likely school of Islamic thought able to come up with a decent alternative to Wahabi fundamentalism and the failure of secularism across the middle east

Ohh Where did all the progressives go

2005-03-23T18:14:00.000+02:00

Any news on the fate of MuslimWakeup.com

I haven't been able to access for a while , although I visited briefly, it is a good site. Hope you guys are doing ok.

Sometimes My Modern Brothers drive me up the wall

2005-03-20T15:11:00.000+02:00

Some nice points mike. There is no Martin Luther King within the "Progressive" school of islam and there won't be.

The reason is that MLK came from a strong baptist tradition of Pastors who were vocally against the opression forced upon them but wedded to the core spiritual beliefs that guided them.

Thier justification for emancipation was the belief that God created all equally and Jesus was the saviour to all ( thier viewpoint not mine). There wasn't clinically anything wrong with Christianity just its application by those around them.

You won't get that with Islam because too many of our intellectuals are busy condemning Islam and saying there is something wrong with the religion itself. You yourself go on about the "dirty little secret" - which is a depressing thing to read to be honest and I could respond with a barrage of White people's writings on Monotheisn in the Arabian peninsular before the advent of Islam - but I can't be bothered to be honest.

You identify the problem yourself. The Progressive school seems to lack the atomic level commitment to core Islamic principles that the Fundis seem to do blind. I'm not saying it isn't there and Progrsseive muslims are not prepared to be tough and follow through on that belief - Dr Wadud is a good example as are many others out there - but it just doesn't seem apparent.

Yep, the cave dwelling monkeys with beards outside need to get out more and learn to read but the real damage is that the "learned" people sit on their backsides

Let me ask you this? Someone like Pym Furtyn , Pat Buchanan , heck even Bernard "I hate muslims" Lewis comes up to you to start a fight. He takes every single aspect of Islam as starts taking it apart. He calls you religion the vestige of a bunch drunk towel heads who happened upon the great civilisations of Byzantium and Selucid Iran and raped them of everything.

What about people like Patricia Crone, and Gerald Hawting (my Islamic History Professor) who says there never was a Mohammed? What about Ignacius Goldzhier who says that the Quran was made up about 300 years after "Mohammed".

What do you do? Start appologising or put him down with your faith and knowledge?

That's the divide. I'm not going to let some half arsed "professor" of some western univerisity event think he's going to have an easy time of dissing my religion.

We bear witness to Madinatul Ilm, and Rehmatul lil Alemeen. We were given perfection - we may have corrupted it - but we were given it. From the dawn of creation itself -and if Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton et al can't hack it - let 'em burn.

Poems In Progress - Choices

2005-03-20T01:23:00.000+02:00

I was in the dream state

Caught between tides

Told that I wasn’t to wait

Told to pick sides

They called me to revolution

Said that all I need do was sign

Called it evolution

Told me it was benign

And so shall be blessed those on the right

Blessed are those on the right

Somewhere between passport control

Somewhere between strip and search

Between each duck and roll

And each armoured lurch

I stepped back and away

Left the curios and the mystics

Towers falling spike me when I pray

And knives, and headless kicks

Woe to those on those on the left

Cursed shall be those on the left

In Memoriam Rachel Corrie

2005-03-17T23:07:00.000+02:00

Today is the anniversary of Rachel Corries death. Rachel was one of those brave souls who's love of humanity and her determination led her to Rafah to campaing for the Palestinian people.

She was protesting against the collective punishment of Palestinian by doing the most giving thing possible - putting her body forward to stop an armoured Israeli bulldozer destroying a family's home. The Israeli bulldozer didn't stop and crushed her. No one has been brought to book for that crime.

Its something worth considering and applying to the wider conflicts that we face. I hope I can remmember her every year , and hope you can too.

What was it Tony said about not being there to pillage Iraq?

2005-03-17T17:44:00.000+02:00

I caught this at the end of the Independent wed edition today:

"Iraq could soon become "the biggest corruption scandal in history" if its newly elected government does not implement efficient measures to combat institutionalised bribery and fraud, a report warns. The US-led former coalition provisional authority comes under fire in this year's Transparency International study for mishandling the post-war reconstruction process and encouraging corruption to become rife in the management of Iraqi oil revenues and awarding of construction contracts. "The US has been a poor role model in how to keep corrupt practices at bay," the report says."

Well nice to know that invasion did some uplifting for some people

Changes To The Blog

2005-03-17T16:44:00.000+02:00

Dear Readers,

Yes, I like to think there are many of you out there - then again I talk to myself too.

You might see some strange things happening with the blog soon because of my attempts to modify it in a format that I find interesting.

When I win my battle with blogspot using the mighty sword of Dreamweaver and the axe of Notepad - it might improve

Erm... Are u sure u meant to say that....

2005-03-16T21:38:00.000+02:00

Check this out. In response to a learned bro, who decided to whip out his Hadith book and lay into the idea of a woman leading Friday prayers this person put this in (you can check out the original thread by following the link):

Thanks so much for your post, amismiles. Unlike so many of the conservatives who oppose women leading prayers, you are honest and forthright about your reasons, which we can summarize as follows:

* Women are innately tempting to men--their voices, their movements in prayer, even their walking through mosque doorways, even though they are fully covered (!).

* Women are responsible for men's erections.

* Women don't really belong in the mosque anyway. They should pray in the darkest and most cramped closets in their homes.

* If women do come to the mosque, they must be behind the men, as far back as possible, in fact.

* This treatment honours women. Even though no Muslim man would stand to be treated in this way at the mosque or anywhere else, when Muslim women are objectified in this way and shoved to the back, it shows the utmost respect to them, and they should be grateful.

Obviously, we need more female-led prayers, if only to root out such woman-hating attitudes from our communities.

Posted by raisealittlehell at March 14, 2005 08:07 AM on http://www.muslimwakeup.com/movabletype3/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=2713

Ermm ... oooohkay:

Now I read the original argument and it was long winded but he wheeled out the old line about wimin being responsible for X,Y and Z.

However, the argument against is just as silly.

Erm.. as a muslim shouldn't you be glad that a woman gives you erection and not pictures of Brad Pitt?

Fair point , about the allure of women, I mean if you find a full Burka alluring then dude, you need to see a shrink or invest in some S&M gear.

The objectification of women isn't a Muslim thing. It's a society thing. Men get objectified too. how its all done and hows its carried out it different according to the society.

Lemme ask everyone this - is Angelina Jolie being objectified in Tomb Raider or not. I bet male readers are objectifying away right now.....

Choose sides! The great progressive / Fundi debate

2005-03-16T21:04:00.000+02:00

Ever since having his politcal abilities immortalised in the movie "Dumb, Dumder and Dumberer" we have been driven by the Bushian drivel of "us or them"

Muslims, of course, never to miss any new trends in modern political thought decided to adopt this in internalising the dabte. To be fair this kind of thought pattern has been going on for a couple of centuries. Ever since then people like Jallaludin Afghani decide that it was time to stop herding the goats and read the Goethe (yes appaling I know - but you cant have gold level sarcasm all the time).

Of course Mr Afghani laboured under the delusion that civilisation somehow had become the sole property of heavy set german men with a liking for convuluted philosophising. In itself a great ommision considering that he lived in Iran for alot of his life and was surrounded by one of the most cutured and civilised people I have ever had the pleasure to meet.

The women are quite hot too ( to keep other readers interested) [No I'm not going to go on about the nature of civilisation and the correlation to hot women].

Ever since then our intellectuals have suffered under the general delusion :

OLD RELIGION BAD \ WESTERN SECULAR MODERNISM GOOD

Today we seem to continue this debate by painting ourselves as progressive and fundementalists.

Fundis - want to go back to a cave in Mecca and grow really really long beards (I'm paraphrasing)

Progressives - want to party like its 1954 , write beat poetry and claim their inner sufi. (see paraphrasing bit)

Personally I think anyone that far into each extreme is a muppet.

We have to work at creating a balance between those to extremes. We must recognise that be a Muslim there are certain fundementals you have to accept as being the tennet of religion. You can't pick and choose because John Templewick-Nosh has invited you to a dinner party and you don't want to appear as one of the ghastly towel heads.

But within those fundamentals of belief there is enough scope for discusion and debate. So lets not rule out other interpretations of what we have in our laws. We need some learned people to start being serious about how we are going to talk about living and being modern.

When we end up colonising space - in which direction are we going to pray? How would a muslim burial take place on IO? What is classed as halal on Andromeda?

How would you come up with answers to that in a cave?

Muslims AWAKE!

2005-03-16T20:59:00.000+02:00

I just signed on to this website.

Quite good, full of the usual archytypes, be warned - it based in the US. British humour may not work.

Enjoy

Sorry About The Away Time - Life intervened

2005-02-25T04:56:00.000+02:00

Well, must apologise for the time spent away. Life kind of got in the way. Lots of travelling round the world, lots of meeting people and just no time to add to the blog. I will rectify this in the future by having zero sleep. Usually works.

Many things have changed since the absence of the mullah.

1) Iraqi elections - well these were interesting in that the major attacks promised by the Occupation forces on polling stations and electors didn't seem to materialise. This even less of a suprise than the fact that Ayatollah-AL-Uzma Sistani's party managed to get a majority. Its quite amusing seeing the Occupation get itself into huge knots with regard to all this.

2) Condescending Rice has become the Secratary of State for the US - and wait for it the europeans fell for the smile. There's more hope of Cruella Devil setting up a carehome for dalmations than this woman having any sort of positive effect on the state of opressed people round the world. We live in hope.

3) Iran, Syria and Hariri = Iran keeps running foul of everybody with regards to its supposed nukes. Here is the scarier truth for the US et al - what if the Iranian go for nuclear power. If an oil producing nation becomes sufficient on power that isn't based on oil thats worrying - as NWA once said "Don't get high on your own supply" -makes solid business sense.

Syria has no idea what the heck is going on. Bashar Al-Asad seems to be playing for time in terms of deeling with the rest of the world. Hairiri's assasination almost certainly wasn't Syria - they aren't that suicidal - but has hurt them. Isreal's wanton incursions into Syrian airspace have meant to show them that there is now military solution - Israel will dominate any conflict.

So let's see how the Doctor from London handles it.

Otherwise the Tsunami put things in perspective. A natural spasm of the earth and so much destruction . Take your conclusions from it - words are pretty inadequate on the subject.

I will return on meditations on my travels.

British Mulsims let it all out - where was my invite ;)

2004-11-30T13:41:00.000+02:00

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

Women And Islam - Dr Ali Shariati plays one from the leftfield

2004-11-28T22:07:00.000+02:00

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

Wrong War , Wrong Country, Wrong Enemy

2004-11-28T21:43:00.000+02:00

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!

A Examination of Feminism And The Perceived Attitudes of Islam and Islamism

2004-11-28T21:31:00.000+02:00

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

So the guys in the army know that Fallujah was meaningless as victory

2004-11-28T20:12:00.000+02:00

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!

Whooodathunk - Ayat. Khomieni plays it out of leftfield (click on here for link)

2004-11-26T01:34:00.000+02:00

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

Bletchley Park reveals something that was never hidden.

2004-11-25T19:12:00.000+02:00

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

Evening People - Welcome - The Rules

2004-11-23T16:18:00.000+02:00

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