PAKISTAN: Thoughts on blasphemous law

[01] In 2006, Pakistan introduced special laws dealing with blasphemy. These are enshrined in Part XV of the Pakistan Penal Code. [02] Section 295 B states as follows:

Defiling, etc., of Holy Qur'an: Whoever wilfully defiles, damages or desecrates a copy of the Holy Qur'an or of an extract therefrom or uses it in any derogatory manner or for any unlawful purpose shall be punishable with imprisonment for life. The use of the word "willingly" seems to suggest that the act was not the result of force or coercion. The sentence of life imprisonment appears to be mandatory.

[03] Section 295 C states as follows:

Use of derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of the Holy Prophet: Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.

This is very broad in scope, and the wording seems somewhat vague. Also, there doesn't appear to be any consideration of criminal intention. Further, the only options for punishment are death or life imprisonment, with or without a fine. [04] Section 295C was used to prosecute an illiterate Christian woman from Punjab named Asia Bibi. A Pakistani jurist neatly summarises that story as follows:

In June 2009 in the District Nankana in Punjab, Pakistan, Asia Bibi, a mother of five and farm hand, was asked to fetch water. She complied, but some of her fellow Muslim workers refused to drink the water as she - being a Christian - was considered "unclean." Apparently arguments ensued resulting in some coworkers complaining to a cleric that Bibi made derogatory comments about Prophet Muhammad. A mob came to her house, beating her and members of her family before she was rescued by the police. However, the police initiated an investigation about her remarks resulting in her arrest and prosecution under Section 295 C of the Pakistan Penal Code. She spent more than a year in jail. In November 2010, she was sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence is yet to be carried out, and Bibi is filing an appeal.

[05] The same jurist mentions one judicial interpretation of the provision:

In October 1990, the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) ruled that "the penalty for contempt of the Holy Prophet ... is death and nothing else" and directed the Government of Pakistan to effect the necessary legal changes.

He then discusses how this and other blasphemy laws have been implemented:

While several individuals have been sentenced to death for blasphemy, no one has yet been executed for the crime. A significant number, however, have been murdered after the accusation or during imprisonment after the conviction. On August 1, 2009 forty houses and a Church were set ablaze by a mob in the town of Gojra, Punjab. Nine Christians were burnt alive. The attacks were triggered by reports of desecration of the Qur'an. The local police had already registered a case under section 295 of the Pakistan Penal Code against three Christians for blasphemy. Hence a conviction or even an accusation under a blasphemy law provision is often a death sentence in itself.

[06] The latest case, involving a 10 year old Rimsha Masih, is also the first where the accused has been granted bail in a blasphemy case. According to one report:

A Christian girl accused of burning pages of the Quran became yesterday the first person in Pakistan to be granted bail in a blasphemy case. Judge Muhammad Azam Khan ordered that Rimsha Masih could be released once her lawyers submitted a guarantee that the family would deposit surety bonds to the value of one million rupees.

In a bizarre twist, Masih's main accuser has now been arrested for doctoring evidence.

Police last week arrested Khalid Jadoon, the imam of the local mosque who accused Rimsha of burning pages of the Quran. Two of Mr Jadoon's followers, Mohammad Zubair and Khurram Shehzad, accused him of framing the child by stashing pages of Quran in her bag to show that she had burnt them. Police alleged that Mr Jadoon had done so because he wanted to drive Christians out of the neighbourhood and the imam could yet face blasphemy charges.

[07] Laws inspired allegedly by the word of the Divine have become an excuse for sectarian mob violence. The BBC reports on what Rimsha's family suffered in the time leading upto her arrest.

Rimsha's parents, who are not being named for their own safety, told the BBC's Orla Guerin that their daughter was a shy 11-year-old who was illiterate - like the rest of the family - and had always been slow. They said she was sitting quietly at home in their poor neighbourhood on the outskirts of Islamabad when a crowd gathered outside, claiming she had burnt pages from an Islamic textbook. Her mother described trying to hold off the mob. "A woman hit me," she said, "and slapped my face. People started running into the house to catch my daughter. I was scared they might kill us. We were all crying. My daughter was very upset." The family said Rimsha survived by locking herself in the bathroom. Her 14-year-old sister, who was locked in the house with her, was also traumatised by the events. "A lot of people had gathered," Rimsha's sister said, "and they were saying: 'We will cut off the hands of the people who burned the Koran.' Rimsha wouldn't come out of the bathroom. Later the police came and took her away." The entire family was at risk, according to Rimsha's father - a slight man with a hunted look, who used to earn his living as a house painter. He told our correspondent that their Muslim neighbours had threatened to set them alight. "They were saying: 'We are going to burn you inside the house,'" he said. "'We are not going to spare you or your kids. Then we will burn the homes of the other Christians.' "Even after we left the area they were saying: 'Bring the girl and the family to us. We want to kill them.'"

And why would Rimsha's family keep a noorani qaida in the house?

"We don't have [Muslim] books in our home," Rimsha's father said. "We don't use them and none of us could read them."

[08] Perhaps the arrest of Rimsha's accuser is slowly but surely enabling fair-minded Pakistanis to rethink their attitude toward the blasphemy laws. At least that is the case if the following Pakistani voices are anything to go by.

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COMMENT: Back to square 1 ...

When I first started this blog, I named it madhab al-irfy. That name offended a fair few people, and led to accusations that I was seeking to start my own school of sacred thought and/or law.

The purpose of the blog was in fact to put on cyberpaper my infantile spiritual reflections. I didn't want to cloud my views on religion and religiosity on the other blog, Planet Irf (though I'm not sure I succeeded in this regard).

So what on earth is madhab al-irfy? What is my view on how orthodoxy is defined? And why should anyone give a shite?

My views on orthodoxy haven't really changed since the early 1990's. At the time, these weren't terribly fashionable views. Here are some of them in a nutshell, each followed by a random image:

1. No need to reinvent the wheel. If you want to follow the sacred law of Islam in your life, you have four (4) schools of law to choose from. All are equally valid. Just pick one and off you go.

2. You can't just pick and choose between schools of law. Though at times, you can pick an easier option when the option within your chosen school is just too tough. But picking and choosing for the sake of it takes away your sense of discipline.

3. Islam has an outer and inner tradition. Some call the inner tradition tasawwuf, others call it ihsan, others zuhd and others (my favourite!) irfan. Then there is that word 'sufism' that makes me ill.

4. The inner science is best (or rather, necessarily) learned from a qualified teacher. No Byron Bay sufism for me, thanks.

5. All sacred sciences of Islam are transmitted from teacher to student. Teachers were once students of teachers who were once students of teachers who were ... and on and on, all the way back to the people of the salaf, the first three generations.



6. There are two legitimate ways among Sunnis to express one's beliefs. These are known as Ashari and Maturidi. Hardly any difference between the two.

7. I like the Tabligh Jamaat, but I wish they'd phone ahead.

8. I like the Barelwi chaps but I wish they weren't so fractious.

9. I love both of them, but I wish they'd keep their disputes geographically limited to the Indian sub-Continent.

10. I unconditionally love my Shia brethren, even if I find some of their views on history uncomfortable.

11. Anyone who claims all salafis/wahhabis are terrorists is a moron who should return to the Planet G%7eHFRFft. Believe me, things aren't nice on that planet. (As in, yes, I once promoted the same rubbish.)

12. People who claim to be religious scholars but refuse to show their qualifications when asked are more likely than not complete fraudsters. Any qualified scholars who continue to support them are parties to the fraud. May God help them.

13. Scholars and imams who defend violence against women and/or children are evil.

Gee, what else? Would anyone like to add some more?

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COMMENT: TreasoNamaz in Tennessee

Five times a day Muslims are supposed to perform a special kind of worship. In Arabic, it's called salaat. But to millions of Muslims in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, Albania, Bosnia etc, it's known as namaz.

It is performed in accordance with certain regulations concerning washing and physical postures. All of these are governed by a sacred law known as sharia.

And if a number of lawmakers in the poor state of Tennessee have their way, it will become an act of treason.

The Tennessean website reports on 23/02:

A proposed Tennessee law would make following the Islamic code known as Shariah law a felony, punishable by 15 years in jail.

Wow. That's more than what you might get for bashing your Christian wife. So who is behind this unusual piece of legislation?

State Sen. Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro, and state Rep. Judd Matheny, R-Tullahoma, introduced the same bill in the Senate and House last week. It calls Shariah law a danger to homeland security and gives the attorney general authority to investigate complaints and decide who's practicing it.

It exempts peaceful practice of Islam but labels any adherence to Shariah law — which includes religious practices such as feet washing and prayers — as treasonous. It claims Shariah adherents want to replace the Constitution with their religious law.

Believe it or not, similar bills have been moved in other US State legislatures. But the Tennessee one goes much further. It provides for criminal sanctions against anyone found to be involved in the practice of sharia.

And who drafted this bill?

The Tennessee bill goes further by proposing criminal penalties for following Shariah ... the bill was model legislation, given to him by the Tennessee Eagle Forum, a conservative advocacy group.

Bobbie Patray, state president of the Eagle Forum, confirmed that the law had been drafted by David Yerushalmi, a Chandler, Ariz.-based attorney. Yerushalmi runs the Society of Americans for National Existence, a nonprofit that says following Shariah is treasonous.

And so we see a bunch of alleged Christians attacking the liturgy of another monotheistic faith. The language is largely the same. The only difference is that the targets aren't Jews this time round.

And sadly some Jews are involved.

Words © 2011 Irfan Yusuf

Throw this treacherous sandnigger in jail for 15 years!!

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COMMENT: Senator Mitch Fifield on sharia

This car was convicted of adultery.

The Sunday Telegraph cited Liberal Victorian senator Mitch Fifield as follows:

Australians revel in diversity and embrace different cultures but they expect people who come to Australia to sign up to mainstream values. You have to muck in with the rest of the community and not develop a sort of separate society.

Indeed. I recall Captain Arthur Phillip adopting the values of indigenous spirituality and learning to speak local languages.

We need to heed the lessons of the UK where you have whole suburbs which are basically separate entities to the rest of the community.

A bit like Chinatown in Sydney. A huge tourist attraction.

There are some interpretations of Islam which aren't healthy and aren't compatible with Australian values, such as sharia law.

The values of sharia are totally alien to Australian values? Let's consider them for a short while. I'll quote myself on this one.

Costello says most migrants become Australian citizens because they want to embrace the things this country stands for. He lists six core Australian values, including economic opportunity, security, democracy and personal freedom.

In 2002, a visiting Indonesian academic lawyer delivered a series of lectures under the auspices of the Centre for Independent Studies. Professor Mohammad Fajrul Falaakh is a vice-dean of the Gadjah Mada University, among the top 100 universities in the world. Falaakh is also a senior figure in the Council of Theologians, or Nahdatul Ulama, the world's largest Islamic organisation.

In the annual CIS Acton Lecture, on the topic of sharia and pluralism in Indonesia, Falaakh listed five basic values of sharia, agreed on by sharia scholars from all schools of Islamic law. If one compares the five principles of sharia to the six values espoused by Costello, one finds they are virtually identical.

... sharia is not the name of a draconian system of legal punishments. It is not a synonym for amputations and beheadings. Rather, sharia is a legal tradition, a set of legal principles based on certain values. And those values are identical to those expressed in the Old and New Testaments.

Further, legal scholars in the East and West agree that the traditions of sharia, English common law (from which our legal systems are derived) and European civil law have borrowed from, and influenced, each other.

Some commentators present sharia as a system of medieval criminal punishments. But for Australian Muslims, sharia represents little more than ethics (honesty, enterprise) and liturgy (how to perform prayers, weddings, funerals).

Fifield is showing the same ignorance of sharia as Peter Costello did back in 2006.

Words © 2011 Irfan Yusuf



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OPINION: Sixth column in Crescent Times - Half-Baked Taliban Wisdom?

One of my favourite sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) goes something like this: “Wisdom is the lost property of the believer. Wherever
you find it, grab it”.

Yet for some reason, I don’t seem to find much wisdom at religious gatherings in Sydney. I don’t know what it is about Sydney Muslims – we seem to do things differently, in a more culturally fractured, more divisive fashion. I’m not averse to religious gatherings as such. In the past 12 months, I’ve been to a fair few events. But they’ve all been in Canberra, Brisbane or Melbourne.

And when you’ve represented so many religious institutions as a solicitor, you get to know enough about the religious establishment that watching these people talk piety compromises your faith.

There is one Sydney gathering I don’t mind attending. Perhaps it’s because I’ve never acted for him or his organisation! Dr Mohsin Labban is an elderly chap in Sydney who has been hosting Friday night gatherings for as long as I can remember. He once taught econometrics at the University of New South Wales. He’s now in his late 70’s or early 80’s (I’ve heard different ages from his regular attendees), and despite having two strokes Labban is still zealously spreading what he sees as a more nuanced and less “extreme” (whatever that means) form of Islam.

Around 150 men and women from all walks of life, all ages, all ethnic backgrounds and all religions attend these gatherings, held at a community centre in the outer-western suburbs Sydney. Perth readers might find the idea of a city having “outer-western suburbs” rather odd. Like I said before - we insist on doing things differently in Sydney.

Dr Labban speaks at a soft, measured, almost leisurely pace. If you’re looking for a firebrand sheik to compromise your eardrums, you’d better not waste your time with Dr Labban. I have no idea what Dr Labban’s religious qualifications are. And quite frankly, I don’t particularly care. I’ve never known him to claim he’s a religious scholar. It’s admirable that an elderly gentleman would spend his precious time sharing his knowledge with people. I’m not aware of Dr Labban entering into any controversies about moon sighting or the other silly stuff that so many imams and religious elders seem to harp on about.

So last Friday I joined an old friend to attend Dr Labban’s talk. We were running late, and arrived at the venue only to be told proceedings would commence in 20 minutes. Muslim standard time! When Dr Labban finally sat on stage, he started talking about the Taliban. I was about to switch off my brain when he said something quite profound.

He said that after the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the civil war that followed, the small rag-tag Taliban army emerged with super-dooper weapons and just took over the place. He also told us that the word “Taliban” meant “students”. He kept stressing this fact. A part of me wanted to scream out: “Dehhh! Of course that’s what Taliban means”.

I wrote it down anyway when the penny dropped. Students are people who should be studying. The Taliban were students from religious colleges in Pakistan. Here they were, trying to play politics and establish order in a civil war zone. They didn’t seem to notice that they were also manipulated by forces outside Afghanistan. They didn’t seem to care either.

Students of religion, establishing religious law before their religious studies have been completed? You can imagine what kind of strange and demented understanding of religion they must have had. Dr Labban claimed that no other religious group in 14 centuries of Islamic history came up with a justification for stopping women from pursuing even basic school education.

And to think that those enforcing such ignorant rules were themselves students. Perhaps they weren’t listening too carefully in class. Or perhaps their education didn’t involve too much wisdom. Now they, or people like them, are repeating the same madness in a gorgeous part of Pakistan called the Swat Valley.

When half-learned scholars implement half-baked sharia schemes, they make a mockery of religious law. The result is profound injustice and chaos. Makes sense? See you next month!

First published in the Crescent Times on 6 April 2009.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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HUMOUR: A joyous rant from Daniel Pipes' website ...

There's nothing quite like being hated by hate-mongers.

The following note was sent to the blog of Daniel "Barack Obama wore a sarong in Indonesia and so is lying about his Islamic heritage" Pipes about me. I'm not sure if it's worth reading, though it should give you all a few good laughs. And if you think it reads funny here, you should see how it reads in the full glory of the actual website!

If you're wondering how bad she thinks I am, imagine what she must think of the nasty stealth Islamist being interviewed here.

(Thanks to SJH and LB.)

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf

Submitted by Tess McNamara Australia, Resistance is Not Futile!!!! (Australia), Dec 23, 2008 at 00:26

Caveat Emptor- May the Buyer Beware!!! Spotlight on Irfan Yusuf......and fellow Islamic Taqqiyeh

Self promoting Stealth Jihadists under the guise of so called Multiculturalism and pseudo/-mock journalism....This post is one of a planned number, which is going to focus on the stealth Jihadists amongst us. I intend to expose such smooth slick snakeoil merchants.

Radical Islamist Lawyer Irfan Yusuf has well and truly got busted, for deliberately and maliciously inventing a distorted view of reality of what a certain world expert on Islam, Dr Daniel Pipes ,had stated in 2008, when he was in Australia ,reportedly. Mr Irfan Yusuf was caught out, shamefully, as indeed, he has been, time and time again, deliberately defaming individual and world famous experts on Islam such as Scholars of Dr Pipes fame and accumin, in a malicious, deceptive and deliberate misrepresention of reality and truth.

Let me state clearly, this criticism of Irfan Yusuf is on an academic level , an analysis of certain individuals whom seek to Defame, Libel and to tear down famous and world wide acknowledged Western Academics who are well educated, knowledgeable, on Islam, and whom are in no uncertain terms, World Scholars and recognised experts in Islam , such as the highly recognised and well respected Harvard University former Professor, and Harvard Graduate, Dr Daniel Pipes, whom is the most accomplished, world expert on Islam, and others such as Robert Spencer and Bat Y'eor...

My duty as a An Australian Patriot, well educated woman ,both a self educated and university educated , semi-specialist on Islam and Women also, will be to bring to focus attention to the many past actions claims and deliberate Taqqiyeh, ( which means Islamic, Theologically and Doctrinally sanctioned, by Muhammad himself of the right to lie in Islam- especially to seek to convert others to Islam or to fool the enemy, or to sign so called Islamic "agreements" never intentionally going to keep them) , by the "Fifth Columnists "so to speak, the ones who advocate Sharia laws in Australia. These are dangerous individuals, who are agents of Islam among st us.

These dangerous "Taqqiyeh" spreading "experts" or "spokes-persons" on Islam like Irfan Yusuf ,sadly, have been naively employed ,contracted, or otherwise pursued to give their opinions, by many newspapers and media .

It is later shown, just what a deliberate liar and fraud this Radical Islamist spokesman really is, alas to the shame of the politically correct and left wing ideologues who push their own agendas by hiring such misrepresenter's of reality.

Irfan Yusuf in particular. This Islamist is clearly a malicious windbag of lies, and fraudulent mis-represents the words of others persons whom have clearly a better handle on the truth with superior intellect, superior, sound, academic qualification.

One of the golden rules so to speak of competant journalism and Journalistic ethics, is that if you cant recall what someone says accurately, it does not mean you just make it up as you go along. Perhaps Mr irfan Yusuf might need to purchase and use this in order to record the individual person he wishes to quote, or the persons work, on the digital voice recorder and playing it slowly back.

Perhaps he missed that skill at university....

Islamist representatives, like Mr Irfan Yusuf , and others of his ilk, work for and advise many Military, Educational, Government Agency and also horrifyingly possibly government intelligence agencies or persons.

One needs to ask, in fact when they are caught out lying and misrepresenting why then are they given any credibility, why are they continuing to gain publication, why are they given lucrative contracts for their opinions, and why are they included for example on any so called Government and Non Government agency committees.

It seems apparent to me, that editors do not understand Islam, and take people such as Irfan Yusuf on face value, because they know no better.

This is disturbing as it degenerates the level of truth and reliability of journllism in Australia and elsewhere.

It would seem Mr Yusuf has a extremist agenda after all. In times a war, truth is the first casualty of war, especially where Irfan Yusuf is concerned. He appears to not be affected by previous shame of being caught out lying and spreading the Islamist agenda, and use of Islamist Taqqiyeh, so the poor recipients of skillful lies and deliberate mis direction and Taqqiyeh by skillful Islamist like Yusuf, continue to be humiliated unnecessarily, their names and reputations besmirched by such poor journalism standards that Yusuf demonstrates and frankly I think he needs to be removed from all Government and Non Government work whatsover. He should not be employed in any capacity even as a freeelance jouralist. Word to the wise for anyone thinking of publishing Yusufs work in future-never accept that what they say is true, unless you check the validity and truth of it first.

Remember what the Bible says, Be wary of Wolves dressed in sheep's clothing....Yusuf is just one of the "Wolf"'s we are warned about.

Beware- Islamists work stealth Jihad amongst us in the West, to lie, to fool, to confuse, to break down any perceived barriers to their winning total power over non believers. This is the duty of all Islamists.

This is what Islam really does teach.They seek to impose upon us their Islamist Bronze age, brutalistic repressive inequality of Sharia, and force their racist and de humanising ritualistic backward repressive misogynistic Sharia laws by Stealth Jihad.

It is fools and "useful idiots" in the west whom assist them to fool the public.

Before God and humanity, I believe that It is my responsibility as one whom understands the laws of Sharia and of Islam, to expose the said Islamist, to expose them for their deliberate and vile deconstructive misleading destructive lies . It is my intention to educate whoever I can in the Western advanced civilisation to what is Islam teaches and practises on an academic level.

The world must awake now. Islam has defiled countless many churches, synagogues and millions of non islamic innocents and other non islamic people have died in the 1400 year eternal war against infidels carried out by Islam.

Resistance is not a bad thing, from Resistance of "The People", came the French Revolution and Montesquieu Doctrine of the Separation of Powers. This brought about a recognition of Humanities Rights.

This is basically what led to the Declaration of The Rights of Man.

We will not Submit.

There is a definite right, and there is a definite wrong, and Islam, and the spread of Islam and creeping of stealth Jihad among st us is definitely wrong for all humanity.

The Power of "The People", is what brought about end to the use of Black Slavery in the West , sadly, this is continued by Muslims everywhere in Islamic lands, unstopped by any United Nations Human Rights mouthpieces....

It was the Power of The people, and later, the Westminster System of Government, the most successful system of Governments in the world, were under this system

Islam declared war a long time ago on all non believers 1400 years ago.

1400 years of expansionist racist hateful violent genocidal ideology of Islam and its converts and followers spread this hateful cult, and enslaved millions doing it.

Islam is NOT peace, it has been spread "by the sword "through Asia, northern Asia, and ruled by genocidal murderous terror in India, and into some parts of Europe.

Islam has been ,as instructed, by the doctrines of the Koran, to stay at a never ending war, against all non believers, until there are no non believers, in the world, and their Tribal Mekkan God which was was called Allah, is the only one.

This is the epitome of evil. This is why we must say NO to Taqqiyeh, No to expanisionist Fascist ideologies of hate like Islam gaining control in our civilised Western lands.

Times have changed from the Gates of Vienna, This time it is with seductive manipulation and lies that the Islamist operate within our civilised societies to undermine, and to advance, their Stealth Jihad ism.

One of the ways that Islamists attempt to do this, is to defame and scorn, and put to ridicule, experts of Western Universities whom are aware alert and awake to the dangerous Stealth Jihad.

Remember, Islam is a totalistic doctrine of control over every aspect of life. It is a Geo- Political, Arabist Supremecist, Totalitarian and racist, Unequal treatment of Non Muslims, couched in a theolcratic style to fool people into being slaves of Islam. It is Islamo-fascist nature of this ideology of hate, and Islam, is in total opposition to Democracy and its guarenteed freedoms.

Resistance is not a dirty word, it is resistance by the will of the people which stopped the misuse of power by religions which sought to control and enforce their beliefs upon the society.

Resistance stopped the requirements of tithing to the church whether or not you liked it or not.

Resistance established human rights, something not respected on any level in Islamic countries under Sharia Laws. Resistance curbed the power of the Churches to put people to death for religion.

That's what Sharia Laws do- it can put you to death for opposing its totalitarian ideology.

I call upon all well educated, every day individuals in the west to resist the spread of Stealth Jihad, with education and empowering of women and to teach the people who do not understand Islam,

It is all of us, all of our responsibility to educate everyone we can as to the dangers of Islam .

I will try to rationally explain , on a serious academic level, what Sharia Laws entail.

As a woman it is my duty, to my daughters and my potential descendants, to educate non- Islamic on what the serious, devastating, potential forcible removal of our rights and potential threats to our very lives way of life, our rights and equalities are by Islam.

It is my duty, and yours, to educate westerners of the creeping Sharia Laws, of Islam, and of the sickness and destructiveness that is Political Correctness, and the creeping "Dawa "or proselytising of Islam.

I am here to expose and to educate the world, especially the west, about the slick agents of propaganda and mis information under guise of so called "Moderates" of the followers of Islam, are not here to integrate or assimilate, they are here to take over and force dhimmitude upon us all.

People such as Irfan Yusuf practise such exposed lies and deceit whilst holding positions of trust or power and influence within any communities. this man is a Lawyer. How can anyone feel protected and safe from him when he lies and is caught over and over again?.

The Governments and various government and non government agencies need to stand still and begin to use their clinical intellectual skills, of objective research, and uncover the vast array of liars and Taqqiyeh experts in the west, agents of stealth Jihad, whom are there to fool the governments and to fool armies military, intelligence agencies.

They are not there to help our Governments, they are here to destroy our Governments with the Stealth Jihad.

The Islamist like Yusuf, use their slick propaganda and access to the media.to fool the people into a comatose state of denial of reality, so that they refuse to acknowledge or see the truth that Islam really is. We all know what it is, it is time to spread the word.

It is time to use peaceful means, non violent means, legal means, to expose the reality of what the Islamist among st us are truly doing- working to destroy the Western World and our Advanced Civilisations.

Why are their words deliberate deceit. Why do they lie? because the answer is fairly clear.

To ensure that the Governments of the West continues to believe their lies, to throw a smoke screen of demands from the "Islamist Civilisation" from within our nations to give them special privileges not shared by non Islamist.

The relevance to this post is how so called multiculturalists advocates, and gullible powerless naive stupid Western Governments are blindly believing propaganda and deception by highly trained so called well educated and influential islamists and stealth Jihadists in the west, they are not to be believed it would seem.

Many of the so called darlings of the multiculturalists ideologues are found out to deliberately lie, to attack well known academics and specialists on Islam, for the sole purpose to discredit their advanced academic qualifications. What people like Yusuf fear is the truth being exposed of their activities, their associations, their connections, and their true agendas.

Irfan Yusuf is not someone with any credibility left. Fool me once, your fault, fool me twice, my fault.

This man has over and over been proved to be a liar and a fraud, and has been forced to apologize to people such as world noted academic and scholar Dr Daniel Pipes.

Yusuf, your are an embarrassment to me as an Australian that someone like you has the gall to try to discredit Dr Pipes, a man of such advanced education on Islam , you cannot and will never be able to discredit him because Dr Daniel Pipes knows all about Islam an is exposing it every day.

To Dr Daniel Pipes, people like Yusuf are like flotsam and jetsom in the ocean, he has absolutely no credibility to me and should never be listened to again..

___________________

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened for relevance, substance, and tone, and in some cases edited, before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome, but comments are rejected if scurrilous, off-topic, vulgar, ad hominem, or otherwise viewed as inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the Guidelines for Comments.

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MEDIA/COMMENT: On beards, robes and Salafis ...

I was recently doing some research on visits to Australia by Indonesian radical imam Abu Bakar Basyir when I came across an article by Sally Neighbour published on the ABC website. The article, from November 2006, dealth with Abu Bakar Basyir's ties with Sheik Mohammad Omran from Melbourne.

Neighbour makes this curious observation about the Salafi strains of Islam ...

But the two men and their followers shared a common world view. They were adherents of the Salafi school of Islam, which holds that the faith must be practised just as it was in the days of the Prophet Mohammed in the seventh century, hence their long robes and untrimmed beards.

Neighbour seems to suggest that Salafis represent a single school of Islam which is characterised by an insistence that Islam must be practised exactly as it was during the time of the Prophet Muhammad. One result of this is that men wear long robes and grow beards.

Neighbour is regarded as a senior reporter on national security issues. I hate to say this, but the statement quoted above is comparable to something you might read in a British tabloid or watch on FoxNews.

There are numerous Muslim groups who see the Islam practised during the Prophet Muhammad's time as an ideal and a goal to aspire to. This need not take the form of literalism, either in textual interpretation or application of the Islamic sacred law (also known as sharia). Having such an ideal could hardly be described as indicative of a person following the Salafi strains of Islam.

In recent times, there has been a debate in Muslim circles about moonsighting to determine the commencement of the month of Ramadan. One Sydney chap and various groups affiliated with him have argued that the moon should be sighted with the naked eye, just as happened 14 centuries ago. Yet even the staunchest critics of this chap (such as myself) could dare describe him as a Salafi.

Further, the wearing of long robes and men growing beards is also not exactly representative of Salafi strains of Islam. Anyone who has attended Sufi gatherings of teachers such as Sheik Nuh Ha Mim Keller or Sheik Na'eem Abdul Wali would know what I mean. Here are men wearing robes and sporting beards, yet are known to have published written works strongly critical of Salafi strains of Islam on a variety of issues.

Given the widespread ignorance of various strains of Islam (or indeed of the basics of Islam) in the broader community, it is often difficult for reporters to write in a manner that reflects the nuances of various theological groups and schools of thought. I hope senior reporters like Ms Neighbour are able to avoid such inaccuracies in their future reporting.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

REFLECTION/INDONESIA: Supplication without hijab ...

My mother never taught us (my siblings and I) much about the Prophet Muhammad when we were young. We learned that he was sent to teach people how to behave properly with each other. We also learned that he was a very humble man. But we rarely heard of his actual words.

Except for one thing he said. The Messenger of God is reported to have said:

Beware the supplication (du'a) of the wronged or oppressed person, because their prayers pierce through the various hijabs (veils or curtains) that separate God from God's creation.

Or something like that.

The basic message I got from this is that an excellent way of guaranteeing you have a miserable life is to kick someone when they are down or to take advantage of someone when they are in a state of weakness and vulnerability. And that you shouldn't cause harm to the weak and oppressed. Because God always looks after those who have no one on this planet to look after them.

With that in mind, I'd like to propose a theory. Many people ask why Muslims are in such a bad state. I have a simple explanation. And it revolves around this saying of the Messenger of God.

Basically we as a set of communities, societies and nationsare oppressing a group from among us. They are generally a vulnerable group. Many are weak. Quite a few are dependent on others, whether emotionally and/or financially and/or in other ways.

The wierd thing is that they actually make up a majority from among us.

Yes, I've heard all the rhetoric about how Islam liberated women, about how the Prophet stopped the practice of female infanticide etc. And I believe it all. But what are we doing to our women?

Why are Muslim societies among the most oppressive, mysogynistic and sexist societies on earth? And why is it that we only ever seem to judge religiosity of a community by the extent to which it regulates its women? Why is sharia only sharia in the way it legislates about women?

I urge my Muslim readers not to become defensive. There is no doubt that women in non-Muslim societies also suffer immensely. I know that rates of domestic violence in New South Wales (the most populous state in Australia) have risen by at least 50% in the past 7 years.

But how can we sit back when one of the few genuinely democratic and progressive Muslim societies, and the largest Muslim country on earth, tolerates the kinds of allegedly religious activity that is described in the January 20 edition of the New York Times Magazine?

Here are some excerpts ...

When a girl is taken — usually by her mother — to a free circumcision event held each spring in Bandung, Indonesia, she is handed over to a small group of women who, swiftly and yet with apparent affection, cut off a small piece of her genitals. Sponsored by the Assalaam Foundation, an Islamic educational and social-services organization, circumcisions take place in a prayer center or an emptied-out elementary-school classroom where desks are pushed together and covered with sheets and a pillow to serve as makeshift beds. The procedure takes several minutes. There is little blood involved. Afterward, the girl’s genital area is swabbed with the antiseptic Betadine. She is then helped back into her underwear and returned to a waiting area, where she’s given a small, celebratory gift — some fruit or a donated piece of clothing — and offered a cup of milk for refreshment. She has now joined a quiet majority in Indonesia, where, according to a 2003 study by the Population Council, an international research group, 96 percent of families surveyed reported that their daughters had undergone some form of circumcision by the time they reached 14.

Ninety six percent! How do my Indonesian brothers sleep at night, knowing that their wives and sisters and mothers and daughters go through this?

So what benefits do our sisters get from this procedure?

According to Lukman Hakim, the foundation’s chairman of social services, there are three “benefits” to circumcising girls.

“One, it will stabilize her libido,” he said through an interpreter. “Two, it will make a woman look more beautiful in the eyes of her husband. And three, it will balance her psychology.”

Is he for real? Where did he get this stuff from? How does this add to a woman's beauty? Why does the libido of a Muslim woman (or indeed any woman) need to be surgically stabilised?

Did the Prophet Muhammad have his daughters stabilised? Did Uthman make sure that Ruqaiyya and Umm Kulthum went through this procedure before marrying them? Did Ali insist Fatima go through this procedure? Did any of the wives of the Prophet, the Mothers of the Believers, go through this procedure? Or any other women in Madina?

In Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim population, a debate over whether to ban female circumcision is in its early stages. The Ministry of Health has issued a decree forbidding medical personnel to practice it, but the decree which has yet to be backed by legislation does not affect traditional circumcisers and birth attendants, who are thought to do most female circumcisions. Many agree that a full ban is unlikely without strong support from the country’s religious leaders.

Perhaps our Islamic religious leaders in Australia can explain to their Indonesian peers why this practice is abhorrent and disgraceful. Perhaps our imams can remind Indonesian imams that not all vestiges of Indonesia's indigenous pre-Islamic customs are worth holding onto.

I love Indonesia, its people and its many cultures. Insh'Allah (God-willing) I hope to visit this beautiful country again. Indonesians impressed me as enlightened, progressive people who genuinely treasure their culture and their democracy. Indonesia is a shining light among the darkness of police states and dictatorships governing most Muslim-majority countries.

We must hope, pray and encourage our Indonesian brothers and sisters to discard these kinds of practises that have no medical or spiritual benefit. And we must root out this evil practice from other societies, Muslim and non-Muslim.

How can we exprect to progress when our women-folk are secretly, in their heart of hearts, supplicating to God against us?

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

BLOG: Muslims Against Sharia – Satire or neo-Con crap-artistry?

Imagine a conservative political group that espoused an end to capitalism. Imagine a Catholic group that called for an end to the papacy.

I guess it’s a bit like imagining the condition of someone with undetected bipolar disorder or a sufferer who hasn’t taken their mood stabilisers as prescribed.

Believe it or not, there is a group of Muslims who are totally against Islam. In fact, they want to water Islam down so much that it becomes virtually unrecognisable.

A new ‘group’ calling itself “Muslims Against Sharia” has emerged on the web. Whether it actually exists beyond cyberspace remains to be seen. Whether it is a serious group or an attempt by someone (such as the Satirical Muslim) to lampoon neo-Con Muslims is hard to tell.

Certainly some of its manifested beliefs are enough to make me laugh. Read this and try not to snigger …

Twenty-first century Muslims have two options: we
can continue the barbaric policies of the seventh century perpetuated by Hassan
al-Banna, Abdullah Azzam, Yassir Arafat, Ruhollah Khomeini, Osama bin Laden,
Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, Hizballah, Hamas, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, etc., leading to
a global war between Dar al-Islam (Islamic World) and Dar al-Harb (non-Islamic
World), or we can reform Islam to keep our rich cultural heritage and to cleanse
our religion from the reviled relics of the past.

What the f*ck??!! I never knew Yassir Arafat espoused any kind of Islam. Fatah is a strictly secular nationalist organisation that incorporates all shades of Palestinian opinion, and includes Christians among its prominent leaders.

Some of the more fruitloopish folk at The Australian and Quadrant will appreciate the following piece of historical revisionism …

While the Inquisition was a repulsive practice by
Christian Fundamentalists, the Crusades were not unprovoked acts of aggression,
but rather attempts to recapture formerly Christian lands controlled by
Muslims.

Yep, Palestine was all former Christian land. Pope Urban III wasn’t interested in war or bloodshed. It wasn’t the blood of Jews, Orthodox Christians and Muslims that was knee-high when the Crusaders entered Jerusalem.

Then there is this beauty …

Sharia Law must be abolished, because it is
incompatible with norms of modern society.

What sharia are they referring to? How do they define sharia? Is it a complex and sophisticated legal tradition? Or do they presume it is a system of non-anaesthetic amputations?

And should the Common Law remove from itself aspects of sharia law which it has adopted? For instance, should alternative dispute resolution mechanisms (such as mediation) be abolished as being incompatible with modern society’s norms? Should litigants in commercial disputes be forced to hire lawyers and file proceedings in court without any form of commercial arbitration?

The more I read of this website, the more I think it is the work of comics pulling our collective legs. Either that, or these guys represent a bunch of American litigation lawyers desperately in need of work!

© Irfan Yusuf 2007


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LETTER: Open Letter to Mr Afroz Ali

18 April 2006

Mr Afroz Ali
Al-Ghazzali Centre for Islamic Sciences & Human Development
PO Box L-14
MT LEWIS NSW 2200

Via e-mail

Dear Afroz,

Assalamu alaykum.

I refer to the telephone discussion we had during Ramadhan last year, which resulted in the posting on one of my Madhab Al-Irfy blog (URL: http://madhabirfy.blogspot.com/2005/11/qualified-and-unqualified-lunar-tics.html) dated 5 November 2005.

During our telephone conversation, you advised me that you would be prepared to show me all the credentials, qualifications and degrees you claimed to have after Ramadhan.

It is now late April 2006. Over 6 months have elapsed since that conversation and you have not made any arrangements to provide me with an opportunity to view your qualifications.

I have been raising this issue with you since, at the latest, April 2005. In that time, you have continually insisted that you have certain qualifications and credentials. However, you have not made any pro-active attempt to show them.

Further, when I have raised the issue with you on various forums, you claim that I would have no ability to understand or appreciate documents evidencing your credentials due to linguistic and other factors.

Indeed, at least 3 other persons have raised the matter with you and have sought details of your qualifications and/or requested an opportunity to inspect them. You have also avoided or refused their requests.

Indeed, you have also made personal attacks on myself and others seeking clarification of these issues, and you have accused us of having sinister motives.

You have become a public person, appearing in media and soon to be appearing on TV in New Zealand (or so I am advised by at least one Muslim from across the Tasman). Your refusal to provide evidence of your alleged qualifications does not reflect well on Muslims as a whole, and in the event that your claims are even partially exaggerated or bogus then any resulting embarrassment will be felt not only by your students but also by Muslims on both sides of the Tasman.

I have therefore decided to write to you publicly and advise that I will be referring this matter to the NSW and Victorian Boards of Imams and have them investigate your alleged credentials. Since you are not convinced of my abilities to verify your alleged qualifications, perhaps you will feel more confident putting the matter to those who are qualified.

I can only presume the Imams’ boards will request copies of your degrees and ijaza certificates from you. If you show the Imams the same reluctance, I believe they might take the step of contacting all the various persons or institutions with whom you claim to have studied and seek their confirmation. That means, as a bare minimum, contacting the Zaytuna Institute in the United States and the Islamic University of Madeena in Saudi Arabia.

Why am I doing this? You have suggested I am somehow jealous of the achievements of your Centre. Why should I be jealous, Afroz? Allah has blessed me with 3 university degrees, a practising certificate (which I am prepared to show anyone) and sufficient material means. May Allah enable us both to maintain our means.

Further, as I have advised you in the past, I believe your refusal to provide evidence of your alleged qualifications undermines the enormous good that does and will insh’Allah continue to come from your Centre.

In fact, I am taking these steps because I wish to avoid yet another Khalid Yasin-type episode. I don’t want your face to appear on national TV in Australia and/or New Zealand as someone who has charged money for holding courses whilst being not completely truthful about the extent of his qualifications.

Copies of this letter are being sent to the NSW and Victorian Boards of Imams. As this is a public letter, I will also be posting it on various websites, forums, yahoogroups and on my blog.

Ma salameh,
Irfan Yusuf

cc NSW Board of Imams (c/- Islamic Council of NSW)
Victorian Board of Imams (c/- Islamic Council of Victoria)
MuslimMediaWatch yahoogroup
Sydney Muslims yahoogroup
Mevlana Lawyers yahoogroup
Youth Emerged forums (Adelaide)
Aussie Muslims forums
Brisbane Muslims forums

OPINION: Anwar Is Proof That Ramadan Has a Point

Two prominent Muslims recently graced Australian shores.

Tariq Ramadan delivered lectures and moderated workshops in Sydney and Melbourne. He brought a message of Muslims needing to engage in and with the societies in which they live. He also gave us a taste of the inner aspects of faith, the tasawwuf (often misnamed as 'sufism'), that his grandfather (the late Imam Hasan al-Banna) so thoroughly reflected.

Months later, Anwar Ibrahim visited Australia and spoke to packed audiences in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. These included 2 public lectures specifically targeted at Muslim communities.

Anwar delivered a similar message to his Muslim audience – that we need to engage with non-Muslims, that we need to stop pretending we are not part of the communities we live in and benefit from.

Recently Dr Ramadan has made the headlines with his claim that there should be a moratorium on corporal punishment, stoning and the death penalty (collectively known as hudud) in the Islamic world. His comments have been condemned by Muslim writers and scholars, including those claiming to follow the legacy of Dr Ramadan’s grandfather.

I am not qualified to speak on the legal validity of Dr Ramadan’s proposal. I do not hold any formal qualifications in sharia law, nor am I a graduate of an Islamic university. I have rarely set foot in any madressa (except to learn how to read the Qur’an in Arabic). I have no ijaza (permission to teach) from a scholar himself (rarely herself) possessing an ijaza as part of a chain (or sanad) of ijaza going back to the Prophet Muhammad (peace & blessings of God be upon him).

But I do know something about the administration of criminal justice. I also know a little about politics and public relations. And I would humbly submit that unless our scholars handle themselves properly, we might be headed for another public relations disaster.

Sharia is not just about criminal justice, stoning adulterers or chopping hands and heads off. Sharia is a complex and sophisticated legal tradition encompassing a broad range of opinions from things as fundamental as how rules are derived to things more mundane as where to place your hands when praying the salaat or nemaz. Hudud punishments are a small portion of the corpus of sharia.

But the way some of our scholars are reacting, one would think that perhaps all those News Limited columnists are right and that sharia is little more than nasty punishments.

Criminal justice does not just exist in statute books or scholarly dissertations. Between crime and punishment is a whole series of steps. The person must be apprehended and charged. A decision needs to be made on bail. Then there are issues relating to court evidence and procedure. Finally, upon conviction, there must be sentencing guidelines for the judge to follow. Not every theft leads to an automatic amputation.

All this requires specially trained law enforcement agencies. In the case of Anwar, the law enforcement agencies were specially trained to deliver him a black eye and serious injuries that will affect him for life. He was lucky. Had he been Mamdouh Habib (the Australian citizen recently released from detention at Guanatanamo Bay), he may have been shipped to Egypt where the law enforcement would have been less gentle.

And imagine if hudud punishments were applied to Anwar after being wrongly convicted of sodomy. We would not have been listening to him some weeks back. All that we could have seen of him would have been a gravestone with his name engraved onto it.

Also required are qualified and independent judges. I have relatives in Pakistan who are lawyers. They tell me how wonderfully independent judges there are – to the highest bidder. The judge initially hearing Anwar’s case was also totally independent in doing the bidding of the government.

Before pro-Ikhwan writers attack Dr Ramadan over his proposal, they should provide one example of a Muslim country where the rule of law is supreme, where judges are qualified to understand and justly enforce hudud and where police and other law enforcement agencies are relatively corruption-free. Sharia may be (and I believe is) a divinely-inspired legal system. But in the hands of the wrong people, it’s criminal punishments can become part of the devil’s handiwork.

The late Syed Maududi, a chief proponent of the introduction of sharia into Pakistani law, was also strongly opposed to the introduction of hudud until the moral, social and educational conditions were right. No point chopping hands for theft when the entire economy is based on a reverse Robin Hood system – stealing from the poor majority to give to the rich minority.

And what a nightmare it would be if the proponents of sharia turn out to be the ones behind the creation of a system in which sharia lost all credibility in the eyes of the people it was meant to guide and save. Imagine an international Muslim community fillied with millions of Amina Lawals.

Caliph Umar had the right idea. He suspended the punishment for theft during times of severe poverty arising from a famine. When people are forced to steal just to survive, amputating their limbs hardly seems just.

When Muslim scholars take absurd positions and oppose anything that resembles compromising (a portion of) sharia, they undermine their own credibility. For many, it also involves them speaking and judging in areas beyond their expertise. The trial judge who sentenced Amina Lawal on the basis of a minority (and largely discredited) position within the Maliki school of law was a classic example of this.

These scholars also make it hard for other scholars, writers, professionals, business people and other ordinary Muslims who are busy trying to engage with their fellow humans. It is hard to tell someone that your intentions are peaceful when your religious scholars are intent on imposing criminal sanctions seemingly based on mindless violence. So much being able to fruitfully engage with non-Muslims!

Of course, our scholars could always just state the truth. They could acknowledge that there are serious obstacles to be overcome before any aspect of sharia is implemented on a national level in any Muslim country. They could also acknowledge that sharia is not just concerned with criminal justice but also with economic, political, social, educational, matrimonial and every other form of justice. Sharia is as much about curbing anti-competitive behaviour in the market or ensuring mediation becomes a primary means of settling commercial disputes as it is about punishing criminals.

Law does not exist in a social vacuum. Let's get our Muslim societies in order before we start drastically increasing the severity of our criminal punishments. Let's ensure we have in each Muslim country an independent judiciary, a corruption-free police force, court officials who do not take bribes, politicians who feel the full force of the law and social conditions which mitigate against theft, murder and every other crime the subject of hudud.

Tariq Ramadan has a point. And Anwar Ibrahim is living proof that no Muslim country is ready for hudud. Let the Muslim country bound by the rule of law cast the first stone.

(This article was first published on April Fools Day 2005 on the US-based website AltMuslim which can be accessed at www.altmuslim.com. The funky folks at Naseeb Vibes then reproduced and published it 4 days later with plenty of reader feedback which can be seen at http://www.naseeb.com/naseebvibes/prose-detail.php?aid=3726. It finally found a home at the Adelaide-based Australian Islamic Review.)

Words © 2005 Irfan Yusuf


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