MPACUK: Do the Saudis own Eid?
MPACUK (Muslim Public Affairs Council, UK) have three articles in response to the annual repeat of the “moon fitna” at the beginning and end of Ramadan: When Exactly Was Your Eid? Do the Saudis...
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
Travellers undressed by Heathrow X-ray machine
Reuters reports that Heathrow Airport, the biggest airport in the UK, has been doing a 4-month trial of an X-ray machine which produces an “atomically detailed” black-and-white picture of what someone’s like under his...
Gary Younge: Why Should Muslims Integrate?
Gary Younge, in the Guardian today, has an opinion piece on the tendency of the liberal left to criticise religious people, as in America, while overlooking their own fundamentalism in opposition to religion. Towards...
The “outrage machine” strikes again
I was listening to Radio 4’s Feedback programme this afternoon, and there was a feature on the response to a piece on the BBC’s From Our Own Correspondent programme. The piece, Yasser Arafat’s unrelenting...
Who’s asking for special treatment?
Jon Gaunt, BBC London‘s notorious morning talk show presenter, had a feature today about two issues affecting Muslims in the UK. One was about a shopping centre in Birmingham supposedly banning Santa Claus in...
Reaction to Berkshire train crash
Last Saturday a high-speed express train from London to Plymouth hit a car which had been driven, or become stuck, on a level crossing west of Reading (pronounced Redding) in Berkshire. The radio phone-in...
Reflections on the recent US elections
This is the first real opportunity I’ve had to blog about the outcome of the US elections. Everyone I know is gutted, and the best anyone could come up with as a “silver lining”...
Why we shouldn’t support vigilante actions
I’m sure most of you have heard that an obscure Dutch film-maker, Theo Van Gogh, was murdered earlier this week. He was killed by a person of Dutch citizenship and Moroccan ancestry, who is...
Fudged answers on Iran
I’ve just been watching the BBC’s Question Time and watched a British politician fudge an answer on whether the UK would support a US invasion of Iran. Jack Straw was quoted earlier by the...
Israelis punish teenage bomber’s family
The BBC reports that the Israelis have demolished the home of the teenage suicide bomber who blew himself up in a Tel Aviv market yesterday. The report makes it clear that he did not...
IQ & Bush support
Dr Maxtor has posted an amusing report which indicates that there is a correlation between low IQ and support for Bush. Among people of IQs above 140, there is 80% support for Kerry, among...
USAid funding forced sterilisation in India
The Guardian reports today that a sterilisation policy is underway in northern India, in which gun licences are being issued in return for men receiving vasectomies – in the case of a revolver licence,...
Anti-Bush article in The Times
There was an article in yesterday’s Times (a Murdoch-owned London broadsheet) urging Americans to reject “this failed statesman” GW Bush. You can find it here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,482-1334479,00.html (Hat tip: Bushflash who reproduced the article in...
William Dalrymple on Sufism
There is an article by William Dalrymple (of White Mughals fame) in today’s Guardian, entitled Gateway of the heart, about Sufism being under attack in India from so-called Tablighis. While there is no doubt...
New Ecologist out
The new edition of the Ecologist magazine is out – this month the main feature is called “Do You Work for a Psycho?”, a feature on the recent film (and book) The Corporation, a...
Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’oon
From Khalil Abu Asmaa’: The great, noble, and pious Shaykh Muhammad Alawi al-Maliki passed away today in Makkah, Friday, Ramadan 15, 1425 / October 29, 2004… After a night of calling on the Lord,...
Mail to GWB site mistakenly sent to opponents
Shaula Evans at Tzuredzuregusa reports that the George W Bush campaign parody site had been gathering emails which were being mistakenly sent to them instead of to the legitimate campaign site. One of these...
Turner Prize nominees
This afternoon I went to the Tate Britain gallery in London to see the nominees for this year’s Turner Prize. The Turner Prize is supposedly the UK’s most prestigious art award, awarded annually to...
Boy convicted of girl’s murder
The British news agencies are reporting that a man of 18 has been convicted of the murder of a young girl at a Christmas party late last year. The man, and his family, are...
Second part of “The Power of Nightmares”
Yesterday the BBC aired the second part of its drama The Power of Nightmares, in which they followed the history of the Islamist movements and the neo-Conservatives during the period of their collaboration in...