Khalifites at the New Statesman
The Khalifites are, thankfully, a group one does not encounter often as a Muslim these days, but they seem to come in waves when they appear. In the mid-1990s, during the heyday of the...
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
Zia: Let Muslims run their own committee
Ziauddin Sardar, in the current New Statesman, has a worthwhile argument about some recent government idea to "set up a board of Muslim theologians" in order to "steer the more radical elements of the...
The descendants of Nazis who became Jews
The Guardian today had this feature on descendants of Nazis, including a shirt-tail relative of Adolf Hitler, who became Jews, and in one case a rabbi, supposedly to cleanse themselves of the sins of...
But freedom for whom?
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has a confused ramble in today's Independent, lamenting the fact that joining the European Union has decreased in popularity since 2002, when the figure was 70% in favour (by 2006, it was...
A good ruling on the Sikh kara
Last Tuesday a British court upheld the right of a Sikh girl living in south Wales to wear the kara, or Sikh bangle, to school. Her school, Aberdare Girls', bars all religious symbols and...
Who are the real “New Jews”?
Douglas Murray on Islamophobia in Standpoint Standpoint magazine is a recently-launched magazine published by the Social Affairs Unit, and appears to be an attempt at a serious political and cultural magazine for the centre...
Muslim students: joint statement issued
Following last Sunday's report (PDF) by the "Centre for Social Cohesion" (in reality, a right-wing think tank largely geared towards raising suspicion about Muslims) alleging that a large proportion of Muslim students support killing...
Too busy to fix an ongoing crime
Yesterday, with the water off in my part of town because of a burst water main in Wimbledon (which flooded not only the street but also South Wimbledon tube station), I headed up London...
Why I welcome the Mosley privacy ruling
Technorati Tags: max mosley Yesterday Max Mosley, the president of the International Automobile Federation (FIA), which manages Formula 1 racing, won £60,000 from the News of the World which printed a story about his...
Ed stifling debate again
Technorati Tags: ed husain, islam channel Azad Ali at Islamic Forum Europe on yet another example of Ed Husain dictating to the media, and to various Islamic organisations, as to who he will and...
LugRadio Live 2008 reviewed
LugRadio Live 2008 pictures Last Saturday I went to what was billed as the last ever LugRadio performance. LugRadio is (or rather was) a podcast produced by the Wolverhampton Linux Users’ Group, and since...
Channel 4’s “The Qur’an” Reviewed
Last week, Channel 4 broadcast a film by Antony Thomas (of Death of a Princess fame) called The Qur'an (see it here), which attempted to explore "what the Qur'an actually says". Karima Hamdan has...
The nightmare of upgrading Windows Vista
For years until last December, I avoided installing any version of Windows on my personal computers; I had a Mac, which I used for things like word processing, and a Linux-based PC which I...
A state funeral for Thatcher?
It was reported today that the government had decided to honour Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister of the UK from 1979 to 1990, with a state funeral when she dies (she is 82 and...
Why be a citizen?
A Moroccan Muslim woman has been refused citizenship in France for wearing the so-called burka and supposedly living in "total submission to her male relatives". Her initial refusal was in 2005, but she has...
No dogging in Dubai
Last week, a woman and her husband were arrested for having sex on a beach in Dubai; this news made it to the front pages of at least one major British newspaper. The woman...
Rape campaigners oppose anonymous testimony
Further to Tuesday's post about the threat posed by anonymous court testimony, there is a letter in today's paper, in reply to the article I blogged, from two rape campaigners (Cristel Amiss of the...
Kavanagh ducks the questions
Technorati Tags: trevor kavanagh, peter oborne I know I'm a bit late on this, but a couple of the left-wing bloggers have responded to Trevor Kavanagh's idiotic response to the Dispatches documentary broadcast on...
Anonymous testimony: “a perjurer’s charter”
Geoffrey Robertson: There can be no fair trials with this perjurer's charter (from the Guardian today) Geoffrey Robertson QC (a senior British lawyer, with an interest in human rights and anti-censorship issues) on the...
Islamophobia: the acceptable prejudice
Peter Oborne, a contributor (or former contributor?) to the Spectator, has been writing at length recently on Islamophobia, which he says can be expressed acceptably nowadays in ways which would make a pariah of...