Was this man really a threat?

The latest enemy combatant to be released from Guantanamo Bay - maybe John Reid should be telling the Muslim youth to monitor their grand-parents in case they are being drawn to extremism.

Reid: Eeveryone is Suspect, even your Children

I know this is a bit late and will try to update the blog more regularly but John Reid and the Labour government's true colours are showing more and more - they have now pretty much come all out and labelled every Muslim child as a potential terrorist.

It is pretty ridiculous for Reid to assume that any parents can have that sort of control over their fully-grow children, and as for tell-tale signs, what are they? Please elaborate and allow us to know what is a tell-tale sign?

Let's be honest; what can we expect from a former hardcore Communist who even when the Muslims in Bosnia were being massacred in 1993, spent three days at a luxury Geneva lakeside hotel as a guest of Radovan Karadzic, the Serb general topping the list of war criminals wanted by the International War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague.

So Mr Reid, what are the tell-tale signs for allies of war criminals who go on to become British Home Secretaries?

As Osama Saeed points out, the reality is that Muslim parents clamp down on any political activity by their children - prevent them from attendign demonstrations, speaking out, writing to MPs, all due to their fear of their children being locked up and investigated for daring to exercise their political rights in this country.

As for Abu Izzedine, I don't normally have much time for al-Muhaajiroun and their ilk, but fair play on this occasion. He stood up and refused to allow Reid to just stroll into East London and demonise Muslim parents. Mind you, George Galloway smelled a rat and wrote an open letter to Mr Reid, part of which is pasted below.

The man who harangued you - Abu Izzadine - is a well-known and violent extremist from an organisation your own government has proscribed. Yet he was allowed within punching distance of the British Home Secretary. How ? Why ?

This is the same man who led a group of fanatic thugs in the brief "hostage-taking" of myself and my daughter and several innocent members of the public during a general election meeting last year. This is well known to the Special Branch and senior police officers in East London - the very people in charge of your security today.

This man has appeared on many occasions on television and in the press as a dangerous extremist who has praised the terrorist attacks on July 7th and 9/11. His comments were amongst those adduced in your own government's case for the proscription of the Al Ghuraba organisation.

There are only two conceivable explanations as to how this man, at this sensitive time, was allowed to hijack your Potemkin Village performance today.

Either our police and security services are so fantastically incompetent that Bin Laden himself might have slipped in to beard you at your podium. Or someone somewhere wanted to engineer precisely this confrontation to show you in a certain light and to portray the Muslims of Britain in the most aggressive violent and extreme way possible, as a justification for the utterly counter-productive policies you are following.

The Pope: Launch of a New Crusade?

I have been quite amazed by some of the articles this week about the Pope and his comments regarding Islam. Many have come out condemning the Pope for his comments rather than banging on about free speech. This piece in the Guardian today by Jonathan Freedland puts to rest the notion that there is such a thing as absolute free speech, with limits being essential for there to be global civility, an argument repeatedly made by Muslims during the Danish cartoon controversy.

Madeline Bunting also has a go at the Pope in general questioning whether it was in fact a mistake or something more sinister.

Probably the best piece I have seen is by ex-nun Karen Armstrong who, like many Muslims, links this to a wider Western enmity towards Islam which has its roots deeply entrenched in the Crusades.

Osama Saeed has posted some excellent background info on the Pope as well as reflecting my own views on his miserable excuse for an apology

Mission Lebanon

http://missionlebanon.blogspot.com/

The Islamic Human Rights Commission has sent a group to Lebanon to investigate human rights abuses by israel. Keep up to date with regular reports and pics.

Survey

Assalam alaikum,

The 1990 Trust is conducting this survey with British Muslims to ascertain their views in the current political climate. Thank you for your participation.

Complete the survey

(It takes 5 mins or so)

Jewish Man Removed from Plane for Praying

Jewish man removed from airplane for praying

I laughed out loud the first time I read this but then after re-reading it, it is quite scary. Again, like Monarch Airlines, the man was removed because of the prejudiced fears of the passengers. This poor Hasidic Jew was reading his book and moving around a little (watch out my dear Sufi brothers). Will we be allowed read Qur'an anymore aboard a flight?

But the scariest element was this quotation:

"The attendant actually recognized out loud that he wasn't a Muslim and that she was sorry for the situation but they had to ask him to leave," Faguy said.

This is so ironic but indicative of where profiling will lead to. Throughout history whenever laws have been brought in to target any specific community, that community has been pretty much wiped out yet the laws have remained, only to be used against other communities in the future. The laws which criminalised the black and Irish communities in Britain decades ago in Britain are still with us today and used against the Muslim community.

That anti-terror laws are now being used against Holocaust survivors such as Walter Wolfgang and anti-war protestors shows that it is in everyone's best interests to challenge these laws with the Muslim community.

Please send an email of complaint to Air Canada Jazz's president Joseph Randell on

joseph.randell@flyjazz.ca

A recent poll by the Evening Standard reported that 1 in 6 Londoners were afraid to sit next to passengers they believed to be Muslims (i wonder how many Muslims were polled, knowing that 1 in 7 Londoners is a Muslim) - I wonder how many would be afraid to sit next to a Hasidic Jew!

Israel's northern border attracts curious

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5300380.stm

Soldier's mission

Amiyad Cohen's family are here. He's a young Israeli soldier, showing his parents and his sister where he fought Hezbollah - in Lebanon, just beyond the peach trees.

Israelis are coming to see where the fighting went on
He told me: "All the Hezbollah in our area ran away."

Amiyad is critical of the government led by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert: "The main problem was that they didn't let us finish the job. If we'd been allowed to get north of the Litani river, we would have won the war."

He went on: "The Israeli nation has a mission - to bring the moral message of God in the world. We have a more important mission. We have more responsibility because we're better."
I suggested that might sound arrogant.

"No. We're moral side of the world," Amiyad replied, "we're better because we are good, and we have a mission to bring good to the world."

May Allah (swt) bless him

Fredi Kanoute could be set for a clash with his Sevilla paymasters.

The Mali striker is refusing to wear the club's shirt with their team sponsor's name, 888.com, on it as he feels gambling is a sin.

The 29-year-old striker covered the logo with tape during the recent meeting with Barcelona in the Uefa Super Cup final and he is refusing to back down.

"Gambling is the work of Satan," said Kanoute in the Daily Mirror. "It is forbidden by the Koran and I will not play in a shirt that promotes it.

"I have told the club I need a pure shirt and I believe they understand my position.

"They have agreed to what I have asked and will let me wear a shirt with this logo."

Its reported on Sky Sports

May Allah (swt) grant him steadfastness upon the deen, and Jannah inshallah. Ameen

September 6 - Independence Day of Ichkeria

September 6 – Independence Day of Ichkeria


Today it is the 15th anniversary of the day when our nation restored independent statehood of our country. It was an act of peace, whose legitimacy was provided by the Constitutions of the USSR, RSFSR (Russian Federative Republic) and Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic, which were acting at that moment, as well as by the special laws and declarations of the Union's government. On that day we thought that the state sovereignty of Chechnya, which was declared, was completing the many centuries of our people's struggle for independence and was putting an end to the countless sacrifices that our nation had made in this fight. But turned out it was not so. It turned out that we still had to go through the main ordeals and main sacrifices.

After a series of failed negotiations, provocations, informational lies, all kinds of blockades and attempts to unleash a civil war, back in December of 1994 the Kremlin unleashed a full-scale war against the Chechen people. Being unable to use the force of arguments against the Chechen independence, the Kremlin decided to use the argument of force. Our people were facing a historical choice: either to submit to the new colonial domination of the Russian empire, or to take up arms and defend their freedom.

Just like their heroic ancestors, the Chechens chose to fight for their freedom, for their national dignity and for their honor. The best sons and daughters of our nation took up arms and engaged in a battle with outnumbering enemy, -- one of the leading military powers of the planet, which dispatched its force against small Ichkeria; the force that it was saving for the war against the rest of the world. Ever since then the war has been continuing for ten years already. It has brought unbelievable sufferings to our people. Hundreds of thousands of the Republic's peaceful civilians have died. Hundreds of thousands of our fellow countrymen have scattered all around the world. And the rest of the people faced their lot in the Death Camp, which the invaders turned the territories of Chechnya into.

However, the Kremlin has never managed to reach its main objective: in spite of unprecedented atrocities in the history of the mankind, in spite of the mass murders, in spite of the tortures, beatings and nightmares of 'cleansings' that happen at night and during the day, -- the Chechen people have not been brought down to their knees, their Resistance has not been crushed, but on the contrary, the Resistance is getting stronger and stronger each year and each month, and so is the scope of the attacks on the hordes of the Russian murderers and tyrants, who keep ravaging our country. The entire world, including Russia, can see that we will hold out. And our warriors do not doubt for a minute that with the help of Almighty Allah the victory will be ours.

The time will surely come when we and our descendants will be celebrating this day in the country liberated from the aggressors! The time will come when instead of tears of our mothers and sisters, instead of the ruins of our cities and villages burned with the fire of inferno, we will see the smiles of happiness and the prospering country. The time will come because we have paid and we still keep paying the highest price for that future.

And may Almighty Allah help us!

How to be an Ordinary Decent Muslim

How to be an 'ordinary, decent' muslim

You're a Muslim living in a Britain that has become hyper-sensitive to all hints of Islamist terrorism. So how do you convince people that their prejudiced assumptions about you are wrong? Urmee Khan offers an irreverent insider's guide

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1861509,00.html

Urmee Khan
Thursday August 31, 2006
Guardian

For the fastest-growing religion in the world, there have always been a lot of prohibitions connected with being Muslim. Many of the sacraments of secularism have been forbidden to us, which is a shame, perhaps, because so many of them - bacon, booze and bingo - are almost definitions of Britishness. Still, these privations have always been straightforward, and self-inflicted, and so they have been cheerfully borne by us Muslims.

But things are changing. Britain's top Muslim police officer put his finger on it when, following the travel restrictions put in place after the Heathrow terror plot, Superintendent Ali Dizaei said, "We are in danger of creating a new offence of travelling while Asian." And a few days later the joke became real, when two Asian men on a flight bound for Manchester were removed from the plane after a passengers' revolt over their wearing big coats, talking in a foreign language which might have been Arabic and generally being shifty and not white. As one of the passengers said, "Everyone agreed the men looked dodgy."

I know, I know - there's a real threat of terror and everyone is frightened. But just as you didn't blame all Irish people for the IRA's bombing campaign, it doesn't seem fair to blame all us Muslims for al-Qaida.

Still, it is clear that what we need is a check-list of things to avoid if we want to be seen as "ordinary, decent Muslims", if we want to be seen as above suspicion, as normal citizens. This list will settle once and for all what Muslims in Britain can no longer do.

1: Don't wear a big coat

Terribly bad things, big coats. Palestinian suicide bombers during the intifada often wore unseasonal overcoats to hide their explosives. This has led to sartorial choices being forced on Muslims everywhere, and is a particular inconvenience in Britain, as in most English northern towns the sight of a grumpy-faced Muslim elder, fiercely wrapped up in a parka against the ravages of a perfectly mild day, is a very common sight.

In the aftermath of 7/7, the police asked the public to look out for people wearing unseasonal clothes. (The bombers were wearing jackets, and it was July, although not a particularly hot day - I myself remember wearing a jacket on July 7.) It would now take a Muslim from the lowest remedial class in the mosque to say to themselves any morning this summer that "things are a bit parky today".

The prohibition on big coats is so powerful that Scotland Yard's elite firearms unit let it be thought, after they had shot dead (the not-very-Muslim-looking) Jean Charles de Menezes, that he had been wearing a big coat. He hadn't, of course, so this otherwise cast-iron reason for shooting a chap in the head collapsed.

2: Don't go on holiday to Pakistan

What's the mantra that comes out whenever the police arrest someone for terrorist offences, the clinching final demonstration that, like the Mounties, they've got their man? "Thought to have spent time in Pakistan." That's how we know Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer were the ringleaders in 7/7 - they had "spent time in Pakistan".
The problem is, spending time in Pakistan is what thousands of British Muslims do every year; it's the equivalent of white Britons trooping off to see old aunt Beryl in Bournemouth. It's a bit peculiar; going on holiday to see relatives in, say, Iran or Syria or North Korea won't raise the same eyebrows. It's Pakistan - where three-quarters of a million of British Asians have relatives - that signals you have been training in jihad. So, Muslims - holidaying in Pakistan? Do yourselves a favour and don't bring your holiday snaps into the office.

3: Don't have a beard

The beard is top of the "Watch out! Muslims about!" charts. We're not talking about designer stubble or a George Clooney five o'clock shadow - we mean scary Bin Laden bumper bum fluff. Think of those two Forest Gate lads. Yes, those two big bushy beards.

The beard is not an essential Islamic feature, yet any Muslim sporting one is instantly seen as a radical. And so, brothers (and a few sisters), get your razor out and shave it off!

4: Don't join groups or clubs

Somewhere there is a dusty office in Whitehall whose function it is to ban organisations (which are always labelled as being "proscribed"). The room is probably full of mildewed, dusty files about Northern Ireland's paramilitary groups, and there is no doubt a faded map of Belfast peeling from the wall. But now the dust has been blown off, because there is a use for the office again.

A couple of months ago, two organisations - al-Ghurabaa and the Saved Sect - were banned in the UK. Now maybe that is right. These were the kinds of groups which, in my university days, used to hang around by themselves having beard-growing competitions, and never seemed to have any female friends. Their views on Jewish people, in particular, made my eyes water. But it cannot have escaped too many people's attention that while some merchants of hate get a good hard banning, others are free to wander the length and breadth of the country, like troubadours of bile. For example, the leader of one such crazed sect, the BNP, who says that, "There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim."

If you are a barking mad, dangerous extremist, in a group prepared to countenance violence to get their way, then you better make sure that you are white. For Muslims, this is a no-no. So, to be a fully accredited ordinary, decent Muslim, you should join only the Scouts, the Brownies or - if force is your thing - the British army.

5: Don't wear the veil

The veil: up until the declaration of the "war on terror", when guns, bombs and bottles of Lucozade took over, it was the hijab which, to many white westerners, was the symbol of being Muslim. It meant oppression - but with a vaguely sexual undertone. Whole BBC2 documentaries were made about it. But now, never mind that veils are a great way of repelling lechers and economising on lipstick, they symbolise either a) a militant female jihadist or b) a male bomber in disguise. (Mind you, John Simpson in a burkha wasn't exactly convincing.)

Most Muslims feel hard done by - nobody tells Catholic kids to take off their crucifixes, or Sikhs their turbans. In fact, Sikhs don't even have to wear a motorbike helmet because of the turban!

But it is becoming difficult to justify the clobber we don. When the BBC asked some Muslims about this, a woman called Salikah from London said that, as a Muslim woman, "and visibly so because of my hijab", she had found people avoiding sitting next to her on the tube. "I've thus resorted to standing to try and avoid any tense atmosphere, reading books such as Harry Potter, and wearing my Make Poverty History band," she said.

So there you go - chuck out your salwar kameez and headscarves/jilbabs/veils, and dress like them next door - as long as they are not also "ethnics".

6: Don't live in High Wycombe/ Luton/Beeston/Walthamstow

Up until a couple of weeks ago, High Wycombe had a happily glum existence as one of Britain's many crap towns. But now, since several terror suspects were arrested there, it is vying for entry to the newly forming premier league of terrorist breeding grounds, along with Beeston, Luton and Walthamstow. Bad news for Muslims from those areas. I would advise packing up shop and going to live in, say, Lyme Regis, Wales or Cambridge. These days, it is perhaps best to live in an "integrated" way, as far away as possible from your family and friends.

7: Don't be apathetic

A funny one this - many Muslims make the mistake of thinking that what mainstream Britain wants from us is apathy, a withdrawal from presumptuous political comment, a retreat to the days of corner-shopkeeping and waggling our heads as we talk. But no, this is denial. My 13-year-old brother is more interested in the World Wrestling Federation than global jihad. But in a few years' time, his non-Muslim fellow citizens are going to start expecting some more cogent opinions from him on subjects other than muscular men in underpants. There seems to be a growing expectation that any vaguely coherent Muslim, certainly if they enter professional or public life, needs to take sides, make their position clear, constantly trim their views to incorporate the necessary ritual condemnation of extremists. However, it is a delicate balancing act - don't be too unapathetic, but don't, at the same time, be a community leader (see below).

8 Don't be a 'community leader'

The phrase "community leader" when used in Britain today is almost never applied to anyone who isn't a Muslim. Frequently it has "self-appointed" added to it. Almost anything can qualify; any form of elected office, of course, but even owning a business or shop on some fleetingly significant street. Being cast as a Muslim community leader is a thankless task. No other community is so replete with a similar cast of leaders, so be prepared for the calumny that will pile upon your head from those who say you are taking an insufficiently tough stance against extremism.

9: Don't be a successful sportsman/woman

Or, in fact, show any sporting prowess at all. It isn't worth it. A Muslim sports star nowadays carries a burden of representation that black athletes have long since sloughed off. To evade it, there is really only one course of action - wrap yourself in the union flag the way black stars did in the 1980s. Amir Khan now must follow where Daley Thompson trailblazed.

That said, you might still be called a "terrorist", the label applied to a South African Muslim cricketer of Asian origin, Hashim Amla, by the former Australian cricketer and (subsequently sacked) commentator, Dean Jones. Or "the son of a terrorist whore", as most believe Marco Materazzi labelled Zinedine Zidane in the World Cup final. (And you also might be labelled a "traitor" by Pakistani fans, as happened to England players Sajid Mahmood and Monty Panesar. And Monty ain't even one of us!) You also run the grave risk of falling into the old Orientalist stereotype of the haughty, touchy, slightly ridiculous Muslim martinet; think of how Prince Naseem used to be described, or the reaction to the Pakistani cricket team's behaviour last week.

10: Don't draw cartoons

Hold on, I've got that wrong - it was we who were trying to ban this after those crazy Danes drew the Prophet (may peace be upon him) in a series of offensive "comedy" depictions. But we can all get carried away.

Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

Nimrod will never beat Ibrahim

“Have you not considered him who disputed with Abraham about his Lord, because God had given him the kingdom. When Abraham said, ‘My Lord is He who gives life and causes to die,” he said, ‘I too have power to give life and cause death.’ Abraham said: ‘Surely God causes the sun to rise from the East. Make it rise yourself from the West.’ Thus was the unbeliever confounded. God does not guide aright the unjust.” (2:258)

Amazing how the kuffar continue to name their weaponry and machinery after tyrants who oppressed the prophets of God. Allahu Akbar - they share the same fate, the latest to be destroyed by Allah this time with 14 of the oppressors on board was Nimrod, named after the persecutor of Ibrahim (as).

Add to that the 3 in Iraq and it seems to have been a good week for the mujaahideen.

Misbah: May Allah Protect Her

I know this is more or less old news now but it must be blogged. The prejudice and Islamophobia of the British media has never been so shamefully exposed as it was last week when Misbah defended her religion, her culture and her family. For the press, forcing a child to stay with her drug-addicted mother and boyfriend against her will and away from her family, was completely justified in order to attack Islam.

An excellent article about this prejudice in the Herald today.

May Allah bless Misbah and her family, continue to guide them and make them shining examples of the beauty of Islam for the entire world.