What makes a cult?
Recently there has been some discussion on DeenPort on what constitutes a cult, and when a religion becomes a cult. Someone offered the definition that, among Muslims, when one is in a particular group...
Category: Community
The problem of convert disillusionment
Note: I wrote most of this last week, before the sister who posts here as Africana revealed her suspicions about “sock-puppets” (people pretending to be other people as well as themselves) at the ex-Muslim...
Park51 turning into Abbey Mills re-run
I haven’t commented on the Park51 affair yet — the 13-storey mosque and community centre that some group wants to put up in Lower Manhattan — mainly because other Muslims (and others) have said...
On Virginia Ironside, suffering and pillows
This morning, I witnessed an extraordinary exchange on the BBC morning discussion programme, Sunday Morning Live (in the UK, you can watch it on iPlayer here), a somewhat cheaply produced affair in which various...
Retaliation and the story of Khidr
I saw an article today posted at Harry’s Place and also at Foreign Policy Journal, entitled “The Problem of Honor Killings” by one Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, described in his biography as “a student at...
Faith schools are no menace
Last week, Richard Dawkins delivered a polemic on the British digital TV channel, More 4, against the principle of government support for faith schools. (It is available for viewing at 4 On Demand, although...
No moon in Iquique, Chile
Just going through the moon sighting reports on this page (it may still be giving virus warnings when you try to load it; it doesn't affect me as I use Linux) and one negative...
DeenPort in decline
For anyone reading this now: DeenPort is being moved to a new server, which is why you may not be able to access it. I have found it works on some mobile networks, but...
Miss USA, Muslim role models and the state of our blogging community
The last week or so has seen yet another falling-out in the Muslim blogging community after Muslim Matters carried a guest column by a sister who said she couldn't cheer for Rima Fakih, the...
Polygamy, “evolution” and mistreatment of women
The last week or so I’ve seen two articles about Muslim men who don’t respect women, one of them on Achelois’ blog, the other by Mariella Frostrup in last Sunday’s Observer, which Fareena Alam...
Where conspiracy theories meet prejudice
Yesterday I got an old post at Muslim Matters, Muslims Need To Calm Down About Boycotts, tweeted to me while I was out in town, and I resolved to write a blog post about...
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...
Further thoughts on Qadri fatwa
A couple of weeks ago I posted an entry about Dr Tahir ul-Qadri’s fatwa condemning suicide bombings. It seems to have provoked the biggest debate of pretty much any recent post on here since...
Qadri’s fatwa breaks no new ground
The London Evening Standard yesterday had a two-page feature on a forthcoming fatwa by the leader of the Minhaj-ul-Quran group, Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, which unequivocally condemns suicide bombings. The feature is dominated by a...
“Hijab gates” bring out the bigots
Various newspapers have reported that two sculptures to be erected at both ends of Brick Lane in east London, a narrow street which has become a trendy hang-out place and which is supposedly full...
Attempt to link Islamic societies to terrorism
Last Thursday BBC Radio 4 broadcast a Report programme in which they attempted to “investigate” the links between British university Islamic societies (or ISocs) with terrorism, on the basis that Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalib, who...
Muslim women driving, and contrasts on niqab
I didn’t watch the Muslim Driving School programme, which was on BBC2 last Tuesday (at the right time to clash with Defamation, which I reviewed in my last entry), but I finally got round...
Make them Muslim
“But You Have to Tell them” « Ginny’s Thoughts & Things Ginny on one of my pet hates about dealing with (some) born Muslims: those who think any convert can easily “make someone Muslim”,...
Splitters!
Recently some of us have been debating on Facebook whether to take part in a forthcoming coutner-demo to an al-Muhajiroun front group demo, which was to take place on the 31st. The event was...