Not a religion of platitudes
Earlier this week ‘Ed’ Husain, author of a biographical book called The Islamist, a former member of Hizb-ut-Tahreer (from when the group that became al-Muhajiroun was using the name in the UK) and co-founder...
Category: Community
On obscene generalisations
Last week a video circulated of a Canadian-based Somali imam making some ugly generalisations about African-American people, claiming that most of them were products of one-night stands and did not know who their fathers...
We can’t blame ‘Wahhabis’ for everything
In response to Boris Johnson’s article from 2007 on what he regarded as being ‘wrong’ with the Muslim world, and how Islam itself was to blame for it, the Guardian printed an article yesterday...
Don’t call us haters
This past Eid, the recurring problem of spurious moon sighting reports emanating from Saudi Arabia and Muslim institutions overseas declaring ‘Eid’ the following day on the basis of them reared its head yet again....
Muslims, Eid and the sanctimonious vegan
This past Eid, the American-based Vegan advocacy group that calls itself People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) posted a series of tweets suggesting that Muslims should have a “vegan holiday” because “animals...
It’s the communications, dummy
I follow a few Kashmir activists on Twitter and a theme that has been coming up a lot lately is Indian Hindus and secularist Muslims lecturing Indian Muslims (and Muslims in the Indo-Pak diaspora)...
More than one kind of hate
Last Wednesday there was a joint article by Mehdi Hasan and Jonathan Freedland, both well-known journalists and columnist (the latter a Guardian regular), on the “common enemy” Jews and Muslims both have in white...
Two fundraisers: a well and a mosque
This morning a British rapper, Blaine “Cadet” Johnson, from south London was killed in a car accident on the way to a show at Keele university in Staffordshire. He was 28. Some people I...
What is racism, and what isn’t?
Recently I came across the podcast by In the Days of Noor, presented by sister Noor (right), an Islamic studies teacher from New Jersey (she also has a YouTube channel). In a recent episode...
Holocaust Memorial Day and Muslims boycotting hostile events
Today is Holocaust Memorial Day, and according a poll published today which was commissioned by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, 8% of people surveyed (roughly 1 in 20) believe that the Holocaust was exaggerated....
Yes, you do owe them an explanation (Muslims, race, politics and adab)
Sister Noor from the blog Fig & Olive recently did a post about the issue of ‘adab’ or good manners as it relates to activism, and whether people are responsible for their own behaviour...
Muslims and Midnight Mass (and Donald Trump and Santa)
I’ve done two previous blog entries (at least) here about Muslims and Christmas — specifically, about Muslims participating in Christmas, being encouraged to do so (often by other Muslims) in the name of ‘integration’...
On physical abuse at a top Muslim school
Last week someone posted several accounts on Facebook of physical abuse he suffered at a well-known Islamic school in northern England. This was one of a group of schools that trains boys to be...
Show some respect
Yesterday I came across a tweet on Twitter which made some unpleasant generalisations about Muslim women and Islamic knowledge. It claimed that when men study the Shari’ah, it leads to “More ibadah > more...
Does polygamy cause violence?
A few months ago The Economist put out a video on its Facebook page which tried to make the case that polygamy made a society more violent and prone to civil war. I noticed...
Racist da’wah (and “crazy British Muslims”)
Over the weekend a video surfaced of an Asian Muslim street preacher telling his fellow local Muslims (also mostly Asian) that as well-brought-up people who come from respectable families, they should not be talking...
Why is Quilliam pamphleteering about FGM?
Last week Quilliam, the self-styled counter-extremism think-tank set up by former member of Hizb-ut-Tahreer Maajid Nawaz, released a pamphlet on FGM written by one Muna Adil, complete with a foreword by Ayaan Hirsi Ali,...
Times forced to admit: we printed garbage
Last year, the Times carried a story that a young girl of Christian background had not been allowed to eat pork under her Muslim foster carers’ roof, on their front page. They also claimed...
The myth of the “conference of 72 sects”
The other day on Twitter someone retweeted a Qadiani (a member of the so-called Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam) repeating a much-rehearsed claim: that according to a newspaper report at the time, 72 sects of...
Zac Goldsmith, an authority on FGM?
Earlier today, BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour featured a 6-minute segment on FGM, tomorrow apparently being “International Zero Tolerance on FGM Day” and who better to invite on than the co-chairs of the All-Party...