Thugs go on rampage in Luton
The story is starting to come out regarding the display of thuggery and bigotry in Luton last Sunday, in which a group of about 200 broke away from a bigger march and headed for...
Author: Matthew Smith
French bigots drive Muslim school to the wall
Why are the authorities refusing to fund France’s oldest Muslim school, now facing bankruptcy? | Education | The Guardian Today’s Guardian Education supplement on how bigots in a north Paris education authority are using...
Dorries and the MPs’ expenses debate
I’m sure nobody reading this, even those in the United States, has not heard of the scandals involving British MPs’ expenses. The scandals involve members of Parliament claiming things on parliamentary expenses (i.e. out...
“White privilege” blog carnival is up
Brooke has finally posted her blog carnival on “White privilege and the Ummah”, with my contribution as well as posts from Safiyya of Shalom 2 Salaam, Safiya of Outlines, Ginny, Fairuza/Sabiwabi, Bin Gregory, Nzingha,...
Off to RMW
Insha Allah, tonight I am appearing at a Radical Middle Way event at LSE in London, which also features Shelina Zahra Janmohammed of Spirit21, the sister behind iMuslim, Mr Moo and Omar from DeenPort;...
British tabloid hypocrisy shocker
The Sun today featured the story of a former British soldier whose image was featured in a British Nazi Party election leaflet, in uniform next to the words, “we’re fed up with being sent...
The Captcha nobody could see
To anyone who has tried to comment in the last three hours or so but couldn't because they hadn't entered the Captcha code which never appeared, I have de-activated the plugin which turned out...
White Privilege part 2: if you don’t like the heat …
In the recent discussion on White privilege and the Muslim community, it has been suggested that white converts to Islam who experience both discrimination and difficulty in integrating to their new community have the...
Why I moved to WordPress
I’ve been using Movable Type to run this blog since 2004, except for the middle part of 2005 during which I used WordPress. I was hugely enthusiastic about WordPress when version 1.5 first came...
IJB is now a WordPress site
For anyone who’s surfed in and hasn’t noticed … IJB is now a WordPress blog (again). I intend to explain more about the move in the next day or so (and it’s taken less...
White privilege and the white convert
Sister Brooke has called for posts on the topic “White Privilege and the Ummah: what does it mean to you, them and us?” for a blog carnival. The subject of racial divisions within the...
British company dumped toxic waste in Africa
This really quite shocking story appeared in the Guardian today: a ship chartered by a British firm, Trafigura, dumped toxic waste in Abidjan, the capital of Ivory Coast, in 2006, making some 100,000 people...
New Humanist on drawbacks of “Preventing Extremism”
Mills and minarets (New Humanist) A highly interesting piece (and not just interesting in the sense that it’s in this magazine and isn’t full of sneering at religious people) in the New Humanist, published...
KFC and the BNP
Harry’s Place » KFC and the BNP Edmund Standing at Harry’s Place on the Islamophobic reaction to the decision by KFC to offer halaal meat at eight of their outlets. The usual suspects have...
Scaremongering over Muslim demographics
Recently, a video has been popping up on various Muslim blogs ([1], [2], [3]), attempting to raise fears among Westerners that Muslim birth rates are vastly outstripping non-Muslim ones, to the point that some...
Muslims, Islam Channel and QF: who represents who?
The Quilliam Foundation recently put out a so-called “alert” about Islam Channel which drew attention to the “undesirable” elements which, they claim, account for “many of its speakers”. Those they name include Azad Ali...
Yasmin Alibi-Brain on Islam, women and justice
Update (6th May): The Independent printed a letter from me in response. See here – it’s the third section down, under “Don’t blame Islam for these injustices”. ما شا الله Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Who’d be...
Contract doctor gave fatal overdose
Guardian: Exhausted relief doctor gave patient fatal dose This is about how a doctor working for an NHS contractor gave a 70-year-old patient a fatal overdose of diamorphine (heroin), apparently due to lacking concentration...
Amad debunks Quilliam hit job
Amad at Muslim Matters has posted a refutation of a "hit job" article issued by the so-called Quilliam Foundation against a number of Muslim figures and organisations including Inayat Bunglawala, Yasir al-Qadhi and the...
Why not slaughter all the pigs?
I'm sure we've all heard by now about the Egyptian government's move to slaughter all of the country's stock of pigs, kept by the Coptic Christian minority, supposedly in response to the outbreak of...