Woo Hah - Busta Rhymes and Arab Culture

American rapper Busta Rhymes has certainly come a long way since his days of rapping about loose women and easy money. He recently spoke out about how America should embody some of the characteristics of Arab culture:

"The one thing that the Arab culture has always exemplified for thousands of years is the significant value of spirituality; all the way down to the spirituality of financial and economic stability. At the end of the day, they grow, groom and condition their children to understand those values. They implement it successfully in their household. It seems really unfair to me, because as a man of Islam myself, I definitely want to make sure that I’m doing my part in being able to re-establish the integrity and the beauty as far as the Arab culture is concerned. It’s contradictory of us to have this impression of a culture that’s not only done so much for this culture, well this country rather. You know the United States don’t really have no culture. We take a little bit from everyone…"

Colin Powell: “ ... What if he is a Muslim?”

Colin Powell asked a simple question that no one in US politics dared to ask, including Obama himself. He deliberately avoided asking it, and instead to state that he was a Christian, because he knew, like most Americans, that it was too risky when it came to Islam: anyone can run for president, Jewish, Mormon or Catholic but not a Muslim - and you shouldn't be linked to them. He also knew that most Americans have little idea about Islam, and that it was probably negative.

So Obama must be relieved that someone else has asked the question. Would anyone take a shot at answering it? Lets wait and see.

Uygher Muslims: prohibited from observing Ramdan

Uygher Muslims in Xinjiang (aka East Turkestan) have long suffered repression from the Chinese government, but for the international media it's Tibet that takes the headlines.

The restrictions on practicing Islamic are aim to remove Islam from the lives of the Uygher people, by force. Some of these restrictions include forbidding anyone under the age of 18 from praying, learning Quran or even going into a mosque.

This Ramadan it has become tougher from Uyghres: government officials, teachers, students are prohibited from fasting - in fact students are forced to eat. Any sign of Ramadan such as changing restaurant opening times is also prohibited. Millions of Uygher are forced to fast secretly.

What's most unfortunate is the silence of the Muslim world about the plight of the Uygher people, I have not yet heard a single criticism from a Muslim leader against the Chinese government.

More in this Aljazeera report:

More Muslims than Christians in Britain?

It's not enough to be fearful of global warning these days when we have media outlets like The Telegraph warning (who exactly?) about the increase of Islam in Britain to the point where they're estimating that in TWELVE YEARS TIME the number of Roman Catholics going to church will fall to 679,000 (failing to state how high the numbers are now) whilst the number of Muslims praying in Mosques on Fridays will have increased to 683,000 (again, as opposed to how many now?).

"The projections show that, if the Churches do not reverse their historical decline, there will be more active Muslims than Christians in Sunday services across Britain before the middle of the century"

This is yet another 'warning' from The Telegraph after the article by the (Asian) Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali who ironically criticised the growing multinationalism in Britain, covered previously here. Interestingly, the article only discusses the decline of (practising) Roman Catholics. This is the perfect article to throw into the on-going argument of the place of Islam in Britain as it suggestively ends with: "The continuing growth of the Muslim population since the 2001 census would have significant implications for society"

Oh? Was that the end of the sentence? Shouldn't the concern be more about why so few Catholics are going to Church and what to do about that? Or even perhaps what that implies for society?

Turban Obama

"A shameful and offensive fear-mongering" is the statement that the official Barak Obama camp proclaimed yesterday on the distribution of a photo of Presidential candidate Barak Obama dressed like a Somali elder in a turban. The photo, taken in 2006 during a visit to Kenya, is speculated to have been released by Hillary Clinton supporters and according to Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe "This is part of a disturbing pattern", alluding to a previous controversy in which a couple of Mrs Clinton's volunteers had been dismissed for forwarding an e-mail falsely stating that Mr Obama is a Muslim. The Clinton camp quickly denied knowing of the photo's existence by saying that it is a “transparent attempt to distract from the serious issues confronting our country”. 

Clinton is currently leading in the polls in Ohio but needs to win the March 4 primaries to slow Obama's  11 straight wins.

Al-Qaradawi debate, again

Some in the British parliament are calling for Sheikh Qaradawi to be banned from coming to England for medical treatement, on the basis that he's inciting hatred against Jews and homosexuals. Of course, the fact that he's a Muslim is the real reason:

Should he be banned from coming here for inciting hatred? There are two elements to this too. What's the objective evidence? And is it applied consistently or only to Muslim preachers?

The law seems pretty unambiguous on the first issue. A few years ago the Board of Deputies of British Jews compiled and presented a dossier to the Met police, who handed it to the CPS. Within two days they concluded the evidence was insufficient to charge him. Say what you want about the police and CPS, but you can hardly accuse them of appeasing British Muslims given Forest Gate, 28/42/90 days and Jean Charles De Menzes. Legally then, al-Qaradawi is not inciting hatred. And that's the measure we value, otherwise we'd be locking up the BNP for general nastiness too, right?

My issue is applying these standards consistently. The same baying mob that was saying "So fucking what?" when British Muslims said they were offended by the Danish cartoons are now falling over themselves to declare they're being offended by this preacher and therefore he shouldn't be allowed in. It's that stinking smell of hypocrisy again.

Extremism in Britain

“It is now less possible for Christianity to be the public faith in Britain.” 

Those are the words of the Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali from his article in the British Telegraph. It is evident by its title that his argument is based around the notion that Islamic extremism is growing because Christianity is decreasing. The article avoids discussing why there is a growing increase of British people who consider themselves to have no religious affiliation at all. Instead, he is criticising the authorities’ public recognition of Britain as a ‘multi faith country’ by claiming that “the British [are] losing confidence in the Christian vision which underlay most of the achievements and values of the culture and, on the other, they [seek] to accommodate the newer arrivals on the basis of a novel philosophy of multiculturalism.”

The use of ‘newer arrivals’ suggests that this issue is about immigration as much as religion, if not more. Whilst he states that more people and newer developments (of Islam) are creating a “no-go” area, he is also paradoxically praising the influx of Christian immigrants – “If it had not been for the black majority churches and the recent arrival of people from central and eastern Europe, the Christian cause in many of our cities would have looked a lost one.” It seems that the current issue of immigration in Britain is swept under the rug as long as the ‘right’ kind of foreigners arrive. The Bishop, the only Asian one in his Church, is an immigrant who came to England from Pakistan. 

I agree that a segregated country will not be a prevailing country and that there are greater issues of isolated communities that need to be dealt with but the otherwise interesting article is tainted by his conclusion that tackling these problems “has to do with the Bible's teaching that we have equal dignity and freedom because we are all made in God's image. It has to do with a prophetic passion for justice and compassion and it has to do with the teaching and example of Jesus Christ regarding humility, service and sacrifice.” By limiting qualities such as dignity and compassion to just the Bible, it excludes the larger population of agnostic Britons who don’t equate 'freedom' and equality with the influence of any religion. Therefore, isn’t he essentially fighting one kind of extremism with another? 

Islamicist

Brian Whitaker writes about the "Islamicist" and a new literary genre for repenting militants/extremists, it brilliant. An excerpt:

Happily, the latest newcomer to this burgeoning literary genre of political/religious recantations is posting his story, chapter by chapter, on the internet - which allows anyone to read it (or, indeed, to give up reading it after only a few pages) at no cost to themselves.

In Chapter One we learn that The Islamicist (his real name has not been disclosed) was born in London, "city of a Thousand Extremists", and that his father was a man and his mother a woman - both from Pakistan.

"Ordinarily," he writes, "a Pakistani man and a Pakistani woman having a baby is not a momentous event. Children are very common in that country. What was special about my parents [was] that they gave birth to me."

Needless to say, The Islamicist felt marked out "to be different" and had an unhappy childhood, misunderstood by his parents. This was largely a result of his faith (he liked singing Christmas carols all year round), his dress sense and his "predeliction for playing with girls".

Brilliant.

Polygamy controversy in Indonesia

Zainal Ma'arif, deputy speaker of the house of representatives in Indonesia, was sacked after he took a second wife. In turn, Ma'arif accused the president of having a second wife and the president filed defamation case against Ma'arif and deputy speaker filed a counter suit ... etc.

Polygamy is legal in Indonesia but under certain circumstances. The raw is interesting because polygamy is a common talking point in most countries. Check out Aljazeera's report on the issue:

Aljazeera inteviews Hamza Yusuf

Quotable - Shia and Sunni ants

Resonates so well with the Sunna-Shia divide we see today in the Middle East:

Once under such a bush he saw the war of the ants. He instantly knew the cause of the war and the nature of the parties.

The red ants, whose bite (he had been told) was slightly poisonous, were Sunnis, the party among Muslims that rejected the claim of the descendants of Ali, and they were attacking the black ants, who were obviously Shiah, since black as well as green was the color warn by people like Ali Hashemi's father who claimed descendant from Ali. He remembers admiring the black ants for the justness of their cause and their individual heroism; but as the battle continued, he began to admire the orderliness and steadiness of the slower-moving red ants. As far as he could tell, neither side won.

The Mantle of the Prophet by Roy Mottahedeh, 1985