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: Interfaith
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...
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....
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’...
Why Muslims don’t join the Christian Right
The new intolerance: will we regret pushing Christians out of public life?: A Challenge to the Left Cristina Odone’s headline article in this week’s New Statesman describes how a liberal consensus has taken hold...
Christmas, converts and that fatwa
Just before last Christmas, the Egyptian Muslim scholar (currently Grand Mufti of Egypt), Ali Gomaa (or Ali Jumu’ah) replied to a question from someone whose mother had left Islam, as to whether he and...
Christian persecution campaigners lose Sunday work case
Christians have no right to refuse to work on Sundays, rules judge - Telegraph This is the latest appeal in the case of Celestine Mba, a former carer for children with learning disabilities in...
Bishops are not mere middle management
I’ve been pretty astounded at the tone of the response to the Church of England’s General Synod’s decision to reject the appointment of female bishops on Wednesday. The motion had been supported by the...
George Carey only defends Old England
Recently there were two court cases which further established the secularism of the British state, despite its nominal Christian character: one involved an atheist councillor in Bideford, Devon, who resigned from a council after...
Religious and charity “muggers”
Anyone who’s lived in London for a while knows about “charity muggers” - people who approach you in the street to get you to sign up to make direct debit donations to their charity....
Niqab experiments: don’t do it!
Someone asked on DeenPort earlier today for advice to give to a female Christian friend who wants to do an experiment by wearing niqaab, the face-covering worn by some Muslim women, for a day....
Taj Hargey defends Christians by attacking Muslims
What has Britain come to when it takes a Muslim like me to defend Christianity? | Mail Online This article appeared in today’s Daily Mail, and is meant to be in defence of Shirley...
Who’s protesting the Pope?
Earlier today I read an opinion piece in the Guardian by Martin Kimani, “an associate fellow at the Conflict, Security and Development Group at King’s College London” currently writing a book about the role...
The descendants of Nazis who became Jews
The Guardian today had this feature on descendants of Nazis, including a shirt-tail relative of Adolf Hitler, who became Jews, and in one case a rabbi, supposedly to cleanse themselves of the sins of...
Round-up: drinks on the Tube, Blair uniting religions, Mary Whitehouse, high fuel costs
As you can see, I have not blogged much this week, mainly out of being tired after getting up in the morning to do various driving jobs. However, it’s Sunday and I’m well and...
Silver Bling Thing
Ministry of Truth » Silver Bling Thing Until I read the above blog article, I was planning to write an entry about how I supported Lydia Playfoot’s campaign to be able to wear a...
Abdul-Hakim Murad: the churches and Bosnia
Abdal-Hakim Murad - The Churches and the Bosnian war This is something br. Mas’ud Khan posted to his website a couple of weeks ago, which I only just got round to looking at for...
The Guardian: Faith and the hostility it inspires
The Guardian today has a long article, entitled simply Faith, about religion and the heated debates it has recently provoked in the UK. Discussed are the usual matters of faith schooling, creationism and the...
Reflections on “Undercover Mosque”
Having seen Channel 4’s documentary Undercover Mosque, which was shown earlier this evening (see earlier entry), I am now more reassured regarding the material quoted from the preachers they showed; however, the programme-makers repeatedly...
City Circle: Islam and liberalism
Last night, as previously mentioned, City Circle held a debate between Alice Kneen of Magdalen College, Cambridge, proposing the motion that Islam was incompatible with liberalism, and Dr Richard Stone of the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia, opposing. I got there about 15 minutes late, which was probably more than halfway through Ms Kneen’s speech. She was predictably naming all the things about Islam which in her view made Islam incompatible with liberalism (the execution of apostates, etc.).