Christ is reported to have once said ...
Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
Here's what Rupert Murdoch said about those nasty ragheads ...
You have to be careful about Muslims, who have a very strong, in many ways a fine, but very strong, religion, which supersedes any sense of nationalism wherever they go.
... the Muslim citizens of Israel, the sleepers ... They benefited from Israel's open ways to grow in numbers and to evolve from a docile and ineffective community into an assertive one that increasingly rejects the Jewish nature of the Israeli state, with potentially profound consequences for the future identity of that state.
SBS broke the news last night that Australia’s 360,000-odd Muslims now have a new Mufti.
Last night’s premiere episode of Salam Café saw Dave Hughes dressed up in ceremonial robes and a turban and declared mufti by compere Ahmed Imam (whose dad, coincidentally, is current mufti Fehmi el-Imam). Sheik Hughsy left the live Melbourne audience in hysterics.
SBS picked up this community-based show from Channel 31, where the show picked up a bunch of Antenna Awards in 2006 including Best Program on Community TV. The show features a panel of talented young Victorians including a couple of brilliant young stand-up comics, three charming hostesses, an author and that son-of-a-mufti I mentioned earlier.
The show was filmed before a live Melbourne audience, though rumour has it they’re filming some shows in Sydney.
One panel member is no stranger to mainstream TV. As a university student, ophthalmologist Dr Ahmed Hassan raised eyebrows among conservative community leaders by appearing on and (if my memory serves me correctly) winning a “Red Faces” segment on an episode of that Channel 9 classic Hey Hey! It’s Saturday. Back then, the idea of using popular culture to break down stereotypes was a little too cutting-edge for the middle-aged men that ran Australia’s mosques.
But times have changed. At least they have in Victoria. A fair few stars of this show hold senior positions on the Islamic Council of Victoria. And with Sheik Hughsy as their spiritual leader, it looks like mufti day has just hit the big time!
First published in the Crikey daily alert for Thursday 8 May 2008.
Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf
Hardline Saudi wahhabi jihadist salutes his fellow mujahideen.
It was June 2006. The Mufti of mass-media, Sheik Rupert bin Murdoch, was in Australia to receive an award for being the most influential Australian - an awesome honour for someone who showed his commitment to Australia by throwing away his citizenship to become an American. During an interview with Channel 9, Sheik Rupert issued this fatwa:
You have to be careful about Muslims who have a very strong, in many ways a fine, but very strong religion which supersedes any sense of nationalism wherever they go.In other words, these blasted Muslims are disloyal to Australia because their loyalties lay elsewhere. It’s like those bloody Jews who are more loyal to Israel. Or those nasty Catholics more loyal to some German dude who now lives in Rome.
The Saudi Government - largely through its embassy - is believed to have funnelled at least $120 million into Australia since the 1970s to propagate hardline Islam …Kerbaj commences his article with an example of this hardline Islam:
THE cheque from the Saudi Government for $360,000 was enclosed in an envelope.So according to Kerbaj, talking about “the tragedy of the Palestinians and what’s happened to them” is clearly an example of “hardline Islam”. If you don’t want to be seen to be a follower of “hardline Islam”, you basically have to deny any Palestinian suffering. You have to believe that the Palestinians are living in absolute utopia, free to practice their high-jumping skills on the “security barrier” being built through their farms, villages and towns.
It was a donation, a gift, a part payment to subsidise the construction of a building that would become Sydney's Muslim heartbeat: Lakemba mosque. More than 35 years after Sydney cleric Khalil Shami received the cheque, he insists it came with no strings attached. But while the cheque had no tangible conditions in the form of written instructions or binding contracts, the cleric received a message from his donors several months after depositing it.
"They said: 'Please, can you mention the tragedy of the Palestinian people and what's happened to them in your sermon?"' Shami tells Inquirer. "Which is really a very noble cause, a very noble cause, I couldn't see a negative in their request."
Click here to discover New Zealand's Muslim heritage. You will find an article published in the NZ Listener on 21 April 1979 which discusses a mosque being established in Ponsonby, as well as some of the pioneers of Islam in New Zealand.
There's plenty of stuff here for Sheik Dicky Kerbaj to make an issue of. Even here, in New Zealand, the nasty Saudis had their tentacles. Too bad they invested more in Kerbaj's employers!
Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf
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You and family are cordially invited to an Indonesian Cultural Festival to celebrate the first anniversary of the Indonesian Community of Queanbeyan Association. This special event has also aimed to provide an opportunity to showcase Indonesian culture to the whole communities in surrounding Queanbeyan and the ACT. The Indonesian Cultural Festival will be held:
Venue : Queanbeyan Conference Centre
Crawford Street, Queanbeyan
Date: Sunday, 18th May 2008
Time: 11.00am to 02.00pm
RSVP by Friday 9th May 2008
To Mrs Titha Febritasari (email: tant_01@yahoo.com)
The festival will present diversity of traditional foods, handicrafts, and dances from all parts of Indonesia. A special short talk on the topic of ‘The journey of Islam in Java’ will be delivered by Dr George Quinn, an Indonesia’s specialist and senior lecturer from the Australian National University (ANU). In addition, there will be an auction of Indonesian handicrafts from our sponsors in the festival, and it is also anticipated that about 500 people will attend this performance. The admission is a gold coin donation.
This event would be an important opportunity for wider communities in Queanbeyan and the ACT to learn more about Indonesian culture.
On behalf of the Indonesian Community of Queanbeyan Association, we look forward to seeing you at the festival.
Queanbeyan, 22nd April 2008
Yours sincerely,
Mrs Ida Palaloi Suhadj
Chairperson
(Thanks to SJH.)
ABC Religion Report presenter Stephen Crittenden today viciously attacked Georgetown University and one of its leading academics, Professor John Esposito. Professor Esposito is the author and editor of numerous books on Islam, Muslim societies and Islamist movements. He is also the author of a number of standard texts and authoritative reference works including:
* The Oxford History of Islam
* The Oxford Dictionary of Islam
* The Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Modern Islamic World (4 volumes)
Apart from these and many other works, Professor Esposito recently co-authored with Dalia Mogahed the book Who Speaks for Islam? What A Billion Muslims Really Think. That book is based on a Gallup World Poll - the largest study of its kind - conducted between 2001 and 2007, using a sample which represented
... residents young and old, educated and illiterate, female and male, and from urban and rural settings … representing more than 90% of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims.
... Georgetown University in Washington DC- the Jesuit University there - where the big department that looks at interreligious dialogue between - I think it is called Muslim and Christian understanding - is run by John Esposito who is in fact, in the West, one of -I guess- the leading academics of that "It's all the fault of the West" approach. (emphasis mine)
The following letter has been written to The Australian for publication tomorrow, and has been distributed today by Ikebal Patel, President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils ...
More ridiculous claims against Dr Abdalla
If ‘secretive’, as claimed by The Australian, then the Tabligh Jamaat (TJ) group must be one of the worst kept secrets in the Muslim world. Established in India in the 1920s, TJ has a presence in over 80 countries around the world. The main activities of the apolitical movement are to encourage Muslims to be more religiously observant, particularly in terms of prayer, charity, and fasting, as well as to provide social support to Muslims who are isolated, sick, or disadvantaged. Muslims associated with the TJ spend considerable time in mosques and regularly make spiritual journeys to mosques in different towns, states, and countries.
In Australia, the TJ operates with the full knowledge and support of the mosques in which its members are present. Although many Muslims see TJ members as conservative in terms of their views and appearance, they are generally appreciated for their simplicity and reminders of traditional Islamic values, norms, and manners. While actual TJ members generally comprise only a small proportion of the congregation in most Australian mosques, it is not uncommon for large numbers of the congregation to join TJ study circles after prayers to listen to narrations of Prophetic traditions.
It is this traditional focus that attracted Dr Mohamad Abdalla to the movement in his younger days. While he is not a leader of the TJ, he maintains a close association with the group as he does with various other organisations within the Muslim community. As Acting Imam of the Kuraby Mosque for many years, Dr Abdalla was expected to develop positive relations with various Muslim groups and to build bridges of tolerance and understanding between the Muslim community and the wider Australian society. He is widely acknowledged for his success in both these regards.
Time and again Dr Abdalla has been a voice of forgiveness and restraint. In the aftermath of the burning down of the Kuraby Mosque in September 2001, it was Dr Abdalla who calmed the Muslim community and began working with various levels of government on engagement strategies. He has subsequently played this role at times of other major issues such as the Cronulla riots. Dr Abdalla should be judged on his work; false assumptions and innuendos are no bases for a fair assessment of this important Australian figure. It is unbecoming for The Australian as the national daily of this country to tolerate sensationalist, inflammatory, and biased journalism like that of Richard Kerbarj. Mr Kerbarj has previously been proven to have written misleading articles but has chosen to not correct these. A correction is expected this time.
Statement endorsed by:
Ikbal Patel
President, Australian Federation of Islamic Councils
Suliman Sabdia
President, Islamic Council of Queensland
(Representative body of 16 Islamic Societies of Queensland)
Shaykh Moez Nafti
Australian National Council of Imams
Imam Yusuf Peer
Chairman, Queensland Council of Imams
Dr Mohamad Hanief Khatree
President, Muslim Business Network
Mahmood Surtie
Kuraby Mosque
Naseem Abdul
Islamic Society of Gold Coast
Mustafa Ally
Crescents of Brisbane
Nora Amath
Managing Director, AMARAH inc.
