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...
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
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...
Stupidity and religion (2)
Nick Cohen has a column in today's Observer, in which he goes from the tendency of American conservative Evangelicals away from the Republicans, featuring one Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals who...
Religion, evolution and stupidity
George Monbiot, in the Guardian last Tuesday, on the link between religious belief and the anti-intellectualisation of US politics: Ignorant politicians are elected by ignorant people. US education, like the US health system, is...
Blogging the Westfield
Over the Summer and early Autumn (i.e. Ramadan), I had a lot of work delivering electrical supplies to shopfitters working in the new Westfield centre, and spent many an hour sitting on the ramps...
When the medium is The Message
It has been reported that The Message, a film about the arrival of Islam which featured Anthony Quinn in the original, is being remade, this time with Muslim actors and set around Makkah and...
What is behind Stephen “Suleyman” Schwartz’s hateful rants?
The other day I wrote an article in response to one in the Sunday Telegraph of 19th October, quoting at length an official in the Church of England from Bradford who claimed that the...
Unity but not much peace at ExCeL
I managed to get to Global Peace and Unity 2008 this year, for the first time since 2006 (and that, like this time, was because I managed to blag a free ticket off another...
ENGAGE goes live; invitation for contributors
For anyone – particularly here in the UK – who’s depressed about losing three great blogs in as many weeks, ENGAGE, a new Muslim organisation dedicated to media monitoring and encouraging political participation, has...
Why I still haven’t replaced my Mac
AppleInsider | Steve Jobs on Apple's cash, NetBooks, Apple TV, and cheap PCs A couple of years ago I wrote this, a reply to a series of articles on OSNews on why the author...
Muslim review of “Jewel of Medina”
BBC NEWS: When Islam meets Bridget Jones This is a review by Shelina Zahra Janmohamed, the author of the Spirit21 blog (you can also find the review there). She concludes that the book is...
Tablighis: engaging in Bradford, isolating in London – or is it just a misunderstanding?
Olympic mosque could create breeding ground for extremists, says senior Anglican – Telegraph This was in yesterday's Telegraph, and it surprised me how many specific falsehoods and irrelevances could be crammed into one article....
Amina Wadud joins Hargey publicity stunt
Three years after the “Historic Jumah” in which a small number of people in New York did an invalid “Friday prayer” at a church in New York, Amina Wadud turns up in Oxford to...