In case yesterday’s post on apostasy seemed a little theoretical and remote, here’s more, via Mick Hartley:
The daughter of a British imam is under police protection after she received death threats from her family for converting to Christianity. The woman, aged 32, whose father is a Muslim imam in Lancashire, has moved house 45 times to escape detection by her family since she became a Christian 15 years ago… Hannah, who uses a pseudonym to hide her identity… has been in hiding since her home was attacked by a group of men armed with knives, axes and hammers, in 1994. The latest threat was a text message from one of her brothers, warning that he could not be responsible for his actions if she did not return to Islam.
Ah, smell the piety. Antony Barnett’s Dispatches documentary on apostasy in the UK can be viewed online in two parts.
Sounds like my family, not the barbaric religion of course, just the threats of violence and unwanted home invasions.
Posted by: Brendan | December 07, 2007 at 01:36
How dare you talk about us that way? I'm coming over right now to beat your ass for that
Posted by: Brendan's Dad | December 07, 2007 at 06:54
I guess the punch line, so to speak, is “he could not be responsible for his actions.” It has a strange inevitability.
Posted by: David | December 07, 2007 at 08:19
Children aren't responsible for their actions.
IMHO The whole jihadi mentality is very neotic.
Posted by: AntiCitizenOne | December 07, 2007 at 13:11
AC1,
Yes, there’s an arrested, infantile quality that’s pretty hard to miss and is, it seems, widespread. The current and former Secretaries General of the Muslim Council of Britain have made similar noises on a number of occasions, as have spokesmen for the MAB, IHRC and MPAC. In fact, almost every Islamic organisation I know of has shown a remarkable inability to take responsibility for the consequences of their own ideology.
Last year, the ridiculous Muhammad Abdul Bari claimed that “negative attitudes” towards Muslims would result in Britain being faced with “two million Muslim terrorists — 700,000 of them in London.” And, by obvious implication, this would entirely be the fault of non-Muslims, especially those who dared to view Islam with circumspection. It isn’t clear how Dr Bari reconciled this barely veiled threat with his assertion, made seconds earlier, that there are only “a few bad apples in the Muslim community.” And Dr Bari seems strangely unaware that his own comments and beliefs, and the comments and beliefs of others like him, are very much part of what causes those “negative attitudes.”
http://davidthompson.typepad.com/davidthompson/2007/06/image_problem.html
Posted by: David | December 07, 2007 at 14:25
There is nothing to reconcile in Dr. Bari's two statements, there are only a few bad apple's in the Muslim community, the handful who wouldn't heed the call to jihad. It's all a matter of perspective.
Posted by: nobody important | December 07, 2007 at 15:35
There’s a good chance that’s how Bari sees the situation, or something along those lines. If you follow the link above, you’ll see that he, like his predecessor and many of his associates, is an admirer of Syed Abul A’ala Mawdudi, a totalitarian fantasist whose views make for… interesting reading. Like his predecessor, Bari is a dissembling Islamist who should be laughed out of every room he enters. That he was appointed head of the MCB tells us much of what we need to know about that supposedly “moderate” organisation.
Posted by: David | December 07, 2007 at 19:09