Brass Crescent appreciation
I'd just like to say a huge thank you and jazakum Allah khair to all those who voted for me in the recent Brass Crescent awards. This blog won in the Best European blog...
Author: Matthew Smith
A matter of dignity
On Thursday, there were reports about a woman who had taken her former employer, a bar in Mayfair, London, to court for supposedly sacking her for refusing to wear their staff uniform, a short...
Turning back the clock on Muslim history
Criticism of the Ottoman Sultans | Global Intifada Jinnzaman has an interesting feature on scholarly criticism of the Ottoman empire, which was not as simplistic as some Muslims portray it, by calling all of...
Why “Rights & Responsibilities” is bunk
Marcel Berlins: Rights and responsibilities bill is all wrong (from the Guardian) Marcel Berlins in today's Guardian on one big flaw in the proposed "charter of rights and responsibilities": Adding responsibilities to rights will...
Who are you calling work-shy?
Now that the boom years are over and thousands of people are losing their jobs, the government announces more restrictions on people claiming unemployment benefits, with accompanying cheerleading in the popular press which print...
Review: Bad Science by Ben Goldacre
Technorati Tags: ben goldacre, bad science Ben Goldacre is a doctor who writes a column called Bad Science in the Guardian every Saturday, and has also got a blog by the same title as...
Who doesn’t deserve a funeral?
Harry’s Place » A Single Step The above post at Harry's Place is by the infamous Shiraz Maher (this is the guy who says he got involved in Islamism after 9/11 and changed his...
Bombay attacks may have been by Mafia
Misha Glenny, a noted author of books on the underworld, suggests that the Bombay-Karachi mafia known as "D-Company" may have been involved in last week's attacks, as they were in earlier bombings. The "kingpin"...
Bombay revisisted
So, it seems a lot of Muslims disagree with me and Umar over the perceived need to condemn the recent terrorist attacks in Bombay. Amad at Muslim matters was one of the first Muslims...
Western Muslims should not condemn Bombay attacks
A list of reasons why American Muslims should not fall over themselves to condemn the terrorist attacks in Bombay (I refuse to use the name Mumbai; although it is correct in two of the three local languages, this blog is in English, not Marathi or Gujarati, and I refuse to honour a Hindu nationalist renaming), and I think much the same applies to other western Muslims.
Ed Stourton: Anti-PC gone mad
Edward Stourton (of BBC Radio 4) in the Catholic Herald, on myths about "political correctness" commonly parroted in the British media, such as the "Winterval" event which supposedly replaced Christmas in Birmingham (the full...
Has Jackson converted? (Do we care?)
The other day a British tabloid, the Sun, reported that Michael Jackson (you know, the guy that had a few hits in the 1970s and early 1980s but is now best known for his...
Why Starbucks is going down, credit crunch or no credit crunch
In the Evening Standard yesterday, we were told that tens of thousands of jobs were likely to be lost in the UK in the very near future, the biggest single number of which were...
Public interest
Moving on from health fascists to real fascists, the news yesterday told us that the entire membership list for the British National Party from 2007, complete with addresses and phone numbers, had been published...
In defence of “the Oik”
BBC NEWS: ‘Nazi’ remark presenter is sacked Long-time readers will know that I do not have a very high opinion of Jon Gaunt, the former BBC London talk show presenter. I posted this after...
Who is a Muslim, and who isn’t?
Recently, I had discussions on two blogs about the legitimacy of takfeer, meaning calling someone a non-Muslim, against people who appear to be Muslims but who have deviant beliefs or opinions about a matter...
The great tuition rip-off
The past few years, I've mostly been working as an agency driver. That was after a very inactive 18 months after leaving university, during which I tried to get office work, and never succeeded...
The obligatory Obama post
I’m sure nobody will be surprised that I’m pleased that Barack Obama has won the election. I’ve got various cousins in the USA (of the two I actually know, one lives in North Carolina...
Somalia: Executing rape victims
Recently a young female was executed for adultery in Kismayo, Somalia. Initially we were told that she was 23, and had gone to the Shabaab militia, who control that part of the country, to...
The hidden dangers of a ban on fascists in unions
Tomorrow, the UK House of Commons is to vote on an amendment to the employment bill, restoring the right of trade unions to refuse to admit, or to expel, British National Party members (more...