45 thoughts on “Tim Winter Falls Foul Of The Thought Police”

1. It’s a little weird but the liberal safe house that Muslims found themselves in is crumbling, the holy idol of liberal ideology, homosexuality, has been blasphemed, and the fluffy left wing protectors Muslims were safe with, have shown their sharp and Gnashing teeth.

   • Hmmm….well put. Food for thought.

   • well said!

   • Yep, Liberalism is two headed sword, and via sodomy, the sharper side has turned against the Muslims.

2. Reblogged this on Exploring Life, The Universe and Everything.

   • To be reblogged on THE premier blog for ‘religion’ is an honour.

     I declare a week of celebrations!

3. Salam,

   What many however are dismayed at in all of this is the degree of expediency and how one can be so ambidextrous.

   First of all, in evoking the hadith relayed in Mu’jam ul-Kabeer of at-Tabarani and noted in Jaami’ Sagheer of Suyuti, which is hasan, the Prophet said:
   “…wa undhur ma tuhibb li naas an ya’toohu ilayka fa af’alahu; wa ma takrahu an ya’toohu ilayka fadharahum minhu”
   [how you love for people to do to you, then do [unto them]; and what you dislike to be done unto you, warn them from it].

   Many cannot but help remember what occurred in the UK in 2007. Dr Winter participated in a documentary entitled ‘Undercover Mosque’ which sought to depict some Imams and preachers in the UK, many of whom did indeed say some ill-contrived things, as being part of an insidious “Wahhabi conspiracy”. Now some of those in the documentary did make remarks which reeked of intolerance, simplicity and religious ignorance. Yet in one important case in the documentary, particularly the portrayals of Birmingham’s Green Lane Mosque and one of its Imams, Abu Usaamah adh-Dhahabi from the US and now based in the UK, quotes were taken out of context [like when he was explaining views attributed to some of the noble Companions and Salaf]. There was also considerable editing of statements. To the extent that the West Midlands police and local inter-faith Christian groups condemned the portrayal of the Green Lane Mosque.

   Yet with this, Dr Winter at the time was brazen enough to feature in this tabloid style documentary and join in the debacle, making significant contributions. Ironically, in hindsight, Dr Winter referred to “…the Saudi radical agenda, to push out the more hospitable types of religious leadership and replace them with firebrands, trained and programmed in the major Saudi universities”.

   Some of the statements in that documentary were very much akin to what Dr Winter has only now apparently retracted from. Moreover, it is also noteworthy that Dr Winter only felt the need to retract when there was a tabloid media frenzy and the prospect of losing his Cambridge academic position due the gay student lobbyists at Cambridge University. Why does media punditry dictate to what stances to take and when? Why has tabloid hysteria been given such a pedestal by Dr Winter? Or is it a case of there being issues with “the way things were said”? If this is the case, why on earth did Dr Winter in 2007 wade into condemn moreorless identical statements found among those whom Dr Winter refers to, in his archetypal ad nauseam quips, as adherents of the spectre of “Wahhabism”. Winter then tries to link this to terrorism, which inadvertently regards Salafiyyah (based on Dr Winter’s bizarre caricatures and surprisingly crude readings of the Salafi tradition) as a spring board to terrorism, militancy and paramilitary political violence.

   Generally, Dr Winter, before speaking, should be far more prudent in his critical discourse. Out of all of this then there does appear to be a level of double standards: When discussing other Muslims of the classical tradition with whom Dr Winter does not agree, such as Salafis, anything can be uttered without regard and in the most oversimplified and shallow of terms unbecoming of an academic; yet when talking about non-Muslims he must succumb immediately hereby rendering the tabloid press the authority to dictate. So effectively, non-Muslim homosexuals can be appeased, while Salafi Muslims not even regarded – this in itself reeks of the vice of pride.

   It is neither the tradition of the wayfarer to always have to pander to void tabloid opinion nor is it from the “traditional Islam” of the worshipping jurist to have to retract religious convictions at the behest and call of an ignorant people. It is all the more putrid to observe such a display of placation in ways which are not from the tradition of the four Imams, nearly all of whom stood by their convictions as true victors of tribulation.

   One also cannot help thinking that if a Salafi academic was in the same bother would the ever-poised Sufi academic be at the ready to throw in his few pence worth and berate him in the media for such “intolerance”.

   AbdulHaq al-Ashanti

   • Thanks for reading (I’ll assume you read it, though you don’t really refer to anything in my piece at all).

     The idea that Tim Winter is showing deference to homosexuals but does not extend the same courtesy to the ‘Salfiyah’ (a self appointment debated by me, I would prefer the term ‘Wahhabi’) is neither here nor there and ignores the fact that numerous ‘Salafis’ have made the most hideous remarks about Winter also, rather they do little else in regard to him. The requirement of civility being from one side only is a bit odd.

     It may be that Winter has slandered the Wahhabi movement in the above or other formats, but the Salafi movement is hardly bereft of publishing houses and spokespeople to defend itself. It has done so and reserved the harshest of language, including takfir, for Winter. It is also not the best at giving a platform to it’s opponents (perhaps you should try visiting a religious publishing house or bookshop in Saudi before you require a ‘balanced’ approach from your critics). So the allegation of unilateral bad manners is unwarranted. In any conflict, people usually decry their opponents for not ‘following the rules’, usually while doing the same as them.

     As for the caricaturing of the Wahhabi movement and it’s involvement with violence, merely stating that this is a caricature does not exonerate it: so fatwas of people such as Ibn Baz regarding the conversion of non-Christians and Jews by force being licit (a minority opinion revived by him despite it’s rejection by Ibn Taymiyyah) to the stance taken by Ibn Taymiyyah himself regarding the takfir and violence against Gazan Khan as well as the mid- point of Abd Al Wahhab issuing fatwas for the burning of fellow Muslims and the seizure of their wives and children as well as the massacres at Taif etc. require explanation. In the absence of this, people are free to make links between the takfiri tendencies (that Winter himself is the recipient of from the Salafi movement) and the violence of the past and present.

     Likewise for the allegation that ‘Salafis’ are building mosques, organising groups such as IERA, MWL etc and initiating a ‘takeover’ and proscribing all Muslims of a different view to theirs. These need to be responded to with detail rather than just saying ‘it’s all nonsense’. Perhaps. Then we need to see the diversity in these Saudi mosques and publications and the accommodation of countervailing views of say, Asharis or Maturidis (who the majority of these mosques and publications declare as unbelievers when pressed). If the following comments of the Imam of Makkah, as-Sudais, regarding the murder of Ramadhan Al Bouti (and 50 others) are anything to go by, the Salafi movement is crying wolf:

     ‘(sheikh al-buti was the head of ahli bid’a and dhalalah (deviant) فالبوطي كان من رؤوس أهل البدع والضلال
     فهو مجاهد في سبيل الشيطان بلسانه وبيانه (he is a mujahid in the name of devil with his tongue/explanations etc. (He is the imam of deviants and evil/deviance lessened due to his death) من أئمة الضلال، الذين يخف الضلال والشر بموتهم (Every believer should rejoice as this is glad tidings)وهذا مما يستبشر به كل مؤمن ويفرح’

     Sudais has also tried to retreat from his remarks in the manner you criticise Winter for. But when the Imam of Makkah, a Salafi appointee and approved by the state which manages the very universities which produce the Salafi scholars, seemingly approves a terrorist attack which results in the death of at least 51 people, perhaps people have a right to associate the ‘Salafiya’ with intolerance, and yes, violence.

     Neutral observers may profit from observing the Salafi/Wahhabi response to the misfortune of their opponents such as al Bouti online, and the lack of correction from their defenders (such as the present commentator). Yet Winters volleys at the Wahhabi movement are somehow out of order.

     As for Winter apologising, he did not ‘take a position outside the four schools’ (as is licit for the Wahhabi movement, so this is a void criticism anyway), he merely apologised for his comments and the way they were put, which were a bit crude by Islamic standards. He did not say that he approved homosexuality and if you had taken the time to read his press release, you would see that he had re-asserted the orthodox Islamic position on homosexuality in blunt terms.

     As for his motivation being loss of post etc, first of all there is nothing wrong with that, but it could have equally been for any other reason, such as in genuine regret. The right to suspect your brother (which you as a Wahhabi will not see him as) is an inversion of the Prophets’ (SAW) advice.

     Sorry to be harsh, but I find your response serves no purpose other than to actually gloat at the misfortune of an opponent, in line with your Imam Sudais’ gloating at the death of his opponents. It also reeks of hypocrisy, as you refer to the authority of the Four Schools, which you don’t actually believe in, as evidenced by the stance of Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Baz etc. towards them.

4. This piece is well-written. I just find it ironic how a society which claims that it holds the highest echelons of freedom of expression can result to shutting those views up that they disagree with. Huh. They are the ones intolerant of dissent. I don’t understand why some are calling for his resignation. Is there any credible evidence that he will mistreat gay students? Just because I dislike people dying their hair purple, that doesn’t mean I’m going to initiate a witch-hunt or infringe on the rights of purple-headed people. And certainly not Mr. Winter, who is known as being very gentle-natured and sophisticated in religious perspective. He’s anything but zealous, and we all know that.

   As Muslims, we need to make clear that we get our rulings based on a divine text. Therefore, we don’t leave ‘values’ for creative (secular) human minds to decide upon subjective to the zeitgeist. Incest can occur between consenting adults too, but should we say that a consenting father and a consenting daughter having an incestuous relationship be societally accepted? I always hear “let people make their own choices.” Well, people can make destructive choices also and spill their harm on the rest of society. We are going to criticize pornography. We are going to criticize incest. Greed. Murder. Materialism. Etc.

   In a supposedly ‘free’ society, there shouldn’t be an issue over those who wish to question the status quo. Biologically, medically, spiritually – acting on homosexuality has negative consequences, and thus criticizing it should be completely expected. Is there any secular reason for outlawing nudity in public places? Why is it still outlawed? That’s because deep down our fitrah knows. Even though Western countries try very hard to rip apart religion from the law, their roots will always be roots that originated in religious thinking – Christianity in the Western context. That’s why nudity is outlawed in many Western nations. Accepting homosexuality as becoming a norm is a concern because it is a step closer to worsening the damage that militant secularism has caused. Who defines the parameters of acceptable sexual practices? Why is consensual incest outlawed in secular nations? …

   As I said, some creative secular minds would say incest be acceptable. But thankfully, we have the Qur’an and the Sunnah. Secular Muslims who are comfortable with the practice of homosexuality (even worse are those who justify it using an embarrassing an erroneous misuse of religion) need to realize this because they are leading to the destruction of society by their own hands when they were appointed as vicegerents.

   The university better not fire him. It will be pathetic if they do. Furthermore many of us will be even more concerned about the antagonism that this society has towards us.

   • Very well put and argued indeed!

     In reality, when people argue for ‘tolerance’, it is always with the caveat that there are some things which should NEVER be tolerated (at the moment, Islam). This is why the Nazis were able to get into power in a very liberal society, where the Left had more votes than them even in their election, and yes, there was a big gay rights movement too.

     But many Germans agreed that ‘Jews were a problem’ and a threat to their ‘way of life’ and ‘we should not tolerate the intolerant’.

     If you look at it, there had NEVER been a totalitarian regime that went up against EVERYONE: even the dreaded Nazis were in tight with their rival claimants as master race, the Japanese. Standing up for gay rights does not mean there is not an agenda against some other minority and i reality, ‘tolerance’ is usually just a divide an conquer tactic to demonise a particular group. In the past, the demonsied groups were women, Jews and Homosexuals. They have now been co-opted in the war against the new demonised minorities: Immigrants and Muslims. Many have joined this crusade gladly, maybe hoping that the Guardians ire will be kept from them.

     I would argue whether nudity is really outlawed in some countries though…

   • Alhamdulillah what a sweet and deserving response! My thoughts exactly! When did homosexuals departed to make themselves into a separate wing of society?
     Indeed it is secularism that seems to the wave of the future, whatever little future there is. But then again tomorrow when incestual couples march for their rights, by then most of us or our progeny would have already acquiesced to make homosexuality as “normal” thing.
     And of course we will have deleterious hypocrites from within that will openly accept them.

     • Many thanks indeed for your comment! Much appreciated!

5. Well, I find much hypocrisy with these liberal movements regarding this issue. Suppose I bring up the issue of Incest and polygamy, suppose two brothers and a Father in a sexual relationship want to celebrate their polygamous incestuous relationship by making school clubs and participating in parades, the secular side would have to allow and support this with the same passion they defend homosexual movement with, if they were to be consistent. However, still in our culture there exists taboos that are culturally allowed to complain about without backlash, (like what I mentioned above), Homosexuals can make all the comments they want criticizing incest(qualification represented by *) and polygamy, yet their view is the holy grail. Furthermore, most of these secular defenders are of a materialistic atheistic worldview and spend their time trying to argue that morals are relative and religion forces things down peoples throats etc etc, yet look what they are doing.

   *When I bring up incest, liberals always try to argue that it cause genetic deformities in children and that gives them grounds to argue against it. This assumes that Incest only goes towards the direction of producing children, though there are several hypothetical ways an incestuous relationship could go without children, such as having an abortion at every pregnancy, contraception, same sex incestuous relationship etc without the consequence of children, so therefore the liberal contention is faulty.and the point remains.

   • Very true, and excellent examples: who on earth said that if marriage is not restricted to a man and a woman it is nonetheless restricted to two people and not three or sixteen? Furthermore, who said it is restricted to ‘unrelated’ individuals? This makes no sense. Either we liberalise marriage properly or we don’t. This halfway house is clearly in response to a powerful lobby and not genuine considerations of ‘equality’.

     Why are we going from denying homosexual men the ‘right’ to marry each other to denying the ‘right’ of two brothers to be in a sexual relationship (which to counter the later point, would result in no children, as would be the case in all incestuous same – sex relationships).

     Recently, a motion was tabled to outlaw bestiality in Germany. Why? You can eat animals but not be in a sexual relationship with them? How so?

     What about if I agree to my corpse being used for necrophilia by my partner? Why not? I can donate my body to science for other forms of tampering can’t I? Why are the marriage liberalisation lobby not supporting these (smaller) sexual minorities?

     As for the ‘reason’ for incest being proscribed being ‘genetic illnesses’, you are completely right and I have seen them spam this absurd and unscientific excuse.

     I would add that then this would mean that universal genetic testing should be introduced and all people with even recessive illnesses which had a greater that ‘x%’ probability of being expressed should ALL be prevented from marriage and even sexual intercourse. Further, we would have to ban, say, all deaf people who had heritable forms of deafness from marrying each other (as they often do) as disabled children would result…hang on, their logic actually means that disabled people with heritable illness should not marry or have unprotected sex at all, using the same logic as the prevention of incest on the basis of birth deformities.

     It is of note that the individuals you mention DID actually apply this logic in the past to handicapped and mentally disadvantaged people.

     • woah, great examples, I’m going to use those from now on, for a liberal to be consistent it would be trend over cultural taboo, so they are between a rock and a hard place, being socially unfashionable, and a being a hypocrite.

6. @mmclmru

   Your hysterical tirade is just the type of incredulous and emotive response that unfortunately has become so pervasive among alleged adherents of “wara’ and zuhd” branded as “traditional Islam” today in the west.

   Your conflation of all-things-Saudi and Salafiyyah is a case in point, as if Salafis all over the globe whether those in Morocco, Indonesia, Kenya, Burkina Faso, India, Yemen, China etc all somehow blindly follow all that emanates from KSA as a global Salafi monolith.

   Here is a nuanced answer on the al-Buti assassination from one of the Salafi scholars and Usulis from Jordan, Shaykh Mashhur, a student of Imam al-Albani:

   LINK REMOVED

   Your insinuation that IERA and MWL (!?) are Salafis goes to show that you really have no idea what you uttering in regards to Salafiyyah. These entities have never ever claimed to be Salafi, call to it, emphasise it or champion it. Muslim World League is a Saudi Ikhwani organisation. Salafis around London for the last 20 years have never regarded these organisations, one of whom is a recently developed one, as representing Salafiyyah per se. IERA, with staff from a variety of backgrounds and persuasions it appears, is more concerned with da’wah with non-Muslims than promoting Salafiyyah.

   I am also unaware of the ruling of takfir, which is very dangerous and has shurut and mawani’, and the remit of qualified senior Salafi scholarship, being made on Dr Winter. You must substantiate such very serious claims, along with those scholars who have issued such an edict.

   The four schools of course are from the Islamic tradition and it is permitted to
   “follow them” the scholars of hadith have stated, as for “believing” in them, then your choice of words is somewhat odd. Yet equally from the tradition, if not more so, is the Madhhab of Ahl ul-Hadith, aka Salafiyyah.

   It may be worth while you referring to the following, considering the similarities in your approaches:

   DOCUMENT REMOVED

   As for Muhammad bin AbdulWahhab and takfir, then this is an interesting issue. Maybe the following, straight from his works rather than from the polemics of his detractors may be useful:

   Muhammad ibn ’AbdulWahhāb (rahimahullāh) stated:
   As for takfeer: then I make takfeer of whoever knows the deen of the Messenger of Allāh (sallallāhu ’alayhi wassallam) and then after this abuses it, forbids the people from it and oppresses whoever practices it, this is the one who I make takfeer of and most of the Ummah, all praise is due to Allāh, are not like this (category of people).

   He also said:
   We only make takfeer of whoever associates partners in worship with Allāh and we likewise make takfeer of those who beautify this for the people.

   Muhammad ibn ’AbdulWahhāb did not make takfeer on account of sins as the Khawārij did. Muhammad ibn ’AbdulWahhāb said:
   I do not make takfeer of any of the Muslims due to sins and I do not expel them from the fold of Islām.

   He also said in another instance:
   Another matter that is mentioned to us from the enemies of Islām is that we make takfeer due to sins such as: using tobacco, drinking alcohol, committing zinā or due to any other major sin. We free ourselves for Allāh from even saying this.

   He neither made takfeer generally nor of those who opposed him or did not pledge obedience to him. The Shaykh said in a letter to one of the scholars of ’Irāq:
   Also from them (false allegations) is that you mentioned that I make takfeer of all the (Muslim) people except for those who follow me, this is incorrect. It is strange how this could even enter the mind of an intelligent person, or is this stated by a Muslim or a disbeliever or an astrologer or a madman?

   Muhammad ibn ’AbdulWahhāb also said, in a letter to Ismā’īl al-Jara’ī of Yemen:
   As for the saying that we make takfeer generally then that is a falsehood invented by the enemies who block people from the deen by it. We say: glory be to Allāh! This is a sheer lie!

   Muhammad bin ’AbdulWahhāb did not make takfeer via conjecture, rather there has to be verification and in this way the ignorant is excused due to his ignorance and the proofs have to be established. Muhammad bin ’AbdulWahhāb said when explaining this in a letter to Muhammad ibn ‘Eeid, one of the religious personalities of Tharmada:
   As for the assertion of the enemies that I hold them to be disbelievers only by conjecture, or I hold an ignorant person against whom no argument has been established to be a disbeliever, then these are sheer lies and false accusations by those who intend to drive the people away from the deen of Allāh and His Messenger.

   Muhammad ibn ’AbdulWahhāb (rahimahullāh) did not make takfeer except in matters wherein there was a consensus, the Shaykh said with regards to the issue of abandoning the prayer out of laziness but without rejecting (the obligation of the prayer):
   We do not make takfeer except on those matters which all of the scholars have reached a consensus on.

   He also stated (rahimahullāh) in a letter exonerating himself from fabrications concocted by Ibn Suhaym:
   Allāh knows that the man ascribed to me what I never said and did not even occur to me. One such ascription is that “the people for the last six hundred years had not been on the right path” and that I hold anyone who seeks the intercession of pious people to be a disbeliever” and that I hold al-Busayree to be a disbeliever. My answer to all of these is: this is nothing more than false accusations!

   In a letter to the Shareef of Makkah at the time, Imām Muhammad ibn ’AbdulWahhāb stated:
   As for falsehoods and accusations, their example is the assertion that we hold the people to be disbelievers in general; that we hold migrating to us obligatory and that we affirm the disbelief of a person who does not hold to what we do and does not fight with us to be disbelievers. This and other such assertions are totally false levelled against us in order to drive the people away from the deen of Allāh and His Messenger.

   Muhammad ibn ’AbdulWahhāb (rahimahullāh) also stated:
   In regards to what has been said of me, that I make takfeer on the general body of Muslims then this a slander of the Enemies, as well as their saying that I say whoever adheres to the Religion of Allah and His Messenger while living in another land then it will not suffice him until he comes to me first then this also is a false accusation. Rather adherence to the Religion of Allah and His Messenger is done in any land however we do make takfeer of the one who affirms belief in the Religion of Allah and His Messenger then turns away from it and diverts the people from it, likewise whoever worships idols after knowing that it is the religion of the Polytheists and a form of beautification to the common people, then this is what we make takfeer of as does every scholar on the face of the earth, they make takfeer of these people, except for the stubborn or ignorant person and Allah knows best, Wa Salām.

   Henceforth, the Shaykh and Dr ’AbdusSalām as-Sihaymī, a Professor from the Fiqh Department at the Sharee’ah College of the Islamic University of Madeenah stated in his book Fikr ul-Irhāb wa’l-’Unf fi’l-Mamlakati’l-’Arabiyyah as-Saudiyyah [The Ideology of Terrorism and Political Violence in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia]:
   After reviewing these transmitted statements it becomes clear that Imām Muhammad ibn ’AbdulWahhāb and the Imāms of the da’wah after him traversed the methodology that the Prophet (sallallāhu ’alayhi wassallam) and his companions traversed along with the successors (tābi’een) and those who followed their way such as the four Imāms, Shaykh ul-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn ul-Qayyim and others from Ahl us-Sunnah wa’l-Jama’ah. Shaykh Muhammad ibn ’AbdulWahhab did not oppose them at all.

   It is important that we present nuanced responses, ranting and raving does little to help us get closer to the truth.

   AbdulHaq al-Ashanti

   • Thanks again (though I still see no evidence that you actually read the post in question or indeed my reply properly).

     Apologies for removing your links, but we have the policy of not allowing people to use the comments section as publicity for their websites or indeed full-text books as you have attempted. If you would like to make your point yourself, or write the sources as evidence or post a link to a reference you are welcome to do so below.

     It is amusing to see you describe me as being emotional, ranting, raving while at the same time calling us adherents of ‘wara’ and ‘zuhd’, since you seem to assume that baseless name-calling and insults are not ’emotional’ (i.e emotional and irrational behaviour is only what other people say that you disagree with, never your own actions). Accusing people of ranting and raving as well as hysteria, for which you provide no examples, is an insult. But since your foremost sheikhs such as Ibn Baz and others resort to such behaviour at the drop of a hat, and having read your writing and realised that your language skills need work (so you probably don’t know what you are saying), I will ignore it.

     As for the link regarding the ‘nuanced’ approach of certain Salafi scholars to the death of Al Bouti, this is of no more relevance than the ‘nuanced’ approach of certain British politicians to the invasion and deaths in Iraq: what was at question was the statements of the Imam of Makkah and Salafi appointee Sudais, which you utterly failed to address. No one said ALL Salafis did what he did. But their Imam indeed said it.

     No one equated the Salafi movement with Saudi alone (though that is where it’s inception lies) and your mention of the list of countries where Salafis are present has no bearing on the discussion, other than your presumably seeking to show off which doors have been opened to you via Saudi money, publishing houses and diplomacy. The presence of Salafis ‘everywhere’ no more establishes their truth than does the prevalence of atheists in universities (or indeed ‘everywhere’). Further, it may be considered analogous to the spread of a disease.

     You likewise ignored the issue of Saudi censorship of Islamic texts, the fatwas of Ibn Baz on the licitness of forced conversion, Ibn Taymiyyah’s hysterical tirade against Ghazan Khan etc.

     You assert that MWL, though funded from Saudi, is not a Salafi group. Perhaps then you can show us examples of the freedom of operation in Saudi that these ‘non-Salafi’ groups (apart from the U.S military) such as these ‘Ikhwanis’ enjoy so that we can be reassured (and perhaps set one up there ourselves for Asharis, you know, without getting murdered perhaps. Thanks in advance!).

     For those who would like to know the ACTUAL facts about MWL/WAMY, here is the view of an American historian

     ”The author of Saudi Arabia’s Islamic policy was King Faysal, the
     royal with the most experience in foreign affairs. Since the 1920s, he
     had represented Al Saud to diplomats stationed in Hijaz and visited
     Arab countries as the king’s envoy. Faysal developed the Islamic policy in 1962 in response to Nasser’s adoption of socialism and intervention in Yemen’s civil war. The policy’s formal birth took place at a May 1962 conference that the Saudis organized at Mecca to discuss ways to combat secularism and socialism. The conference resulted in the establishment of the World Muslim League, a religious organization..

     …that would fund education, publications and Islamic cultural centres.
     The Wahhabi leadership of the World Muslim League made it an
     instrument for exporting the Najdi doctrine. In South Asia, the League
     supported such groups as the Deobandis, Ahl-i Hadith and Jamaati
     Islami to combat Sufism and eliminate popular religious practices.
     The League also sent missionaries to West Africa…schools, distributed religious literature and gave scholarships to attend Saudi religious universities. These efforts bore fruit in Nigeria’s
     Muslim northern region with the creation of a movement (the Izala
     Society) dedicated to wiping out ritual innovations. Essential texts for
     members of the Izala Society are Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s
     treatise on God’s unity and commentaries by his grandsons. In
     Ghana, it recruited sympathizers to diminish the influence of the
     popular Tijani Sufi order. The Wahhabi organization made similar
     efforts in Ivory Coast, Guinea and Mali. In 1972, the Saudis created the World Assembly of Muslim Youth to warn the new generation against ‘false’ ideologies. Except for the focus on young Muslims, its function of propagating Wahhabi views overlaps with the World Muslim League’s.”

     David Commins, ‘Saudi Arabia and The Wahhabi Mission’ p152 onwards (refer to the full text for references, removed by me).

     Or read this:

     ‘the MWL is financed by various Muslim countries but major funding comes from the Saudi-Arabian government.’

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_World_League

     The Same Saudi Arabian government that runs the Ministry for religious affairs that runs Madina University, where Ibn Baz was rector, which signs off the qualifications of all the ‘Salafi’ brothers who ‘studied’ in Saudi etc. etc.

     Perhaps you were confused since I said ‘MWL’ and not ‘WML’ or ‘WAMY’. Or maybe you are just confused.

     As for IERA being a dawah group, this is not mutually exclusive from their being a Salafi group (like Naik’s organisation) and they most certainly are that, as evidenced by their censorship of non-Salafi speakers (aside from celebrity converts, who they are happy to court). Again, both of these groups have been exposed online and your presentation of IERA is about as accurate as your defence of the MWL. In any case, most Wahhabi groups ‘occult’ their affiliations, as you well know.

     It would be lovely if it was indeed the case that takfir was limited to said ‘top scholars’ (not that this makes it o.k mind you). Fortunately we are not in the censored bookshops of Saudi Arabia where your movement enjoys sway (mentioning ‘Indonesia’ and other countries where you have no power to remove non-Wahhabi texts and ban books is of no consequence). Anyone reading this on a computer is already aware of your dishonesty and evasiveness as per the above and is free to type ‘Tim Winter’ into the search bar and see for themselves what Salafis (scholarly and otherwise) say about the man. I wonder why IERA does not work with him? Or Hamza Yusuf? Hmmmm…What did some IERA speakers say about him…

     As regards ‘following’ the Four Schools’ you are against following them and your invention of the ‘Ahlal Hadith’ as a fifth ‘agreed’ school is the same as me saying ‘Yes, I follow the Four Schools, as well as one I made up myself, and the Mu’tazzila and…’

     Your master and commander Ibn Baz is more honest than you when he openly declares in the Saudi periodical ‘al-Majalla’ that he does not adhere to the Hanbali Madhhab “but only to the Qur’an and Sunna,” whereas even Ibn Taymiyya asserts that the truth is not found, in the whole Shari`a, outside the four Schools. Of course you will now tell us that Ibn Baz is a mujtahid (or not a Salafist, you know, like how the Pope is not a Catholic).

     The only thing of any relevance at all you provided (apart from trying to advertise your favourite sites and grandstanding) was a defence of Abd Al Wahhab, but even this is what is known as ‘quote mining’. We will leave aside the fact that you provide no references for any of these as well as the fact that the quotation from the paragon of academic freedom and impartiality, Medina university (note: sarcasm), established by Ibn Baz himself (the first rector) is hardly of any use is it: ‘We are innocent! We say so! We are impartial!’ (even though the Ministry of Religious Affairs overseeing said ‘academic’ institution is run by a direct descendent of Abd Al Wahhab as per the As Sheikh dynasty, so the accused is representing himself so to speak).

     In any case, having written books yourself, one would have thought your reading comprehension would be better: the quotes are irrelevant as I never said Abd al-Wahhab, maniacal and unbalanced though he was, issued a fatwa of Kufr on ALL Muslims, merely that he declared the burning of Muslims who he DID believe were kafirs to be licit. Your extended (and sadly unoriginal) paragraph of praise for his ‘liberalism’ is thus of no relevance, though you failed to mention that all of them are taken from his letters in defence of himself to other Ulema whom he was trying to persuade (though he preferred other means it seems).

     Here are some quotes by him that are relevant:

     For the charming Mister Abd al-Wahhabs’ opinion on burning Muslims he disagrees with, as per a distortion of a report attributed to Abu Bakr (RA), see:

     Abd al-Wahhab, “al-Risalah al-Ula,” in Majmu‘at al-Tawhid, 36, 70– 72; ‘Abd al-Wahhab, “Kashf al-Shubuhat: al-Risalah al-Thalitha,” in Majmu‘at al-Tawhid, 117–18; ‘Abd al-Wahhab, “Bayan al-Najah wa al-Fakak: al-Risalah al-Thaniya ‘Ashra”, in Majmu‘at al-Tawhid, 403–9.

     For an (extensive) list of acts which could mean that you will be in receipt of this punishment see:

     Abd al-Wahhab, “Bayan al-Najah wa al-Fakakmin Muwalat al-Murtaddin wa Ahl al-Shirk: al-Risalah al-Thaniya ‘Ashra” (collected by Hamad b. ‘Atiq al-Najdi), in Majmu‘at al-Tawhid, 413–16.

     Once can also consult his son’s account to witness his ‘liberalism’
     ‘Abd al-Rahman b. ‘Abd al-Wahhab, “Bayan al-Mahajja: al-Risalah al-Thalitha ‘Ashra,”

     The interested reader can investigate these for him/herself and also the defences of the man found online and in Natana de Long Bas’ book on Wahhabi Islam, which portrays him sympathetically (but does not explain his fatwas, equivocations or the massacres by his adherents). See for yourself if this man and his followers were the spotless saints his erstwhile interlocutor would have you believe.

     The aforementioned Western academic writes:

     ‘Is it any wonder that Muslims detested Sheikh Muhammad [Abd al-Wahhab] and his followers when they justified executing Muslim prisoners of war?

     At one time a Muslim had written to him asking for an explanation of his attacks.

     In his reply, Sheikh Muhammad declared that it was proper to fight any idolater, which in this instance apparently referred to someone who did not accept his definition of monotheism, for he wrote that if someone received correct instruction but rejected it, then he was to be fought. Since early Islamic history, Muslims have differed on the essential point of what constitutes correct belief, but at most times, such differences did not result in military conflict or the adoption of coercive measures as in an inquisition. The Muslim consensus had been weakest along the divide between Sunnis and Shiites, but among Sunnis themselves, violent conflict over doctrinal matters was a rarity and it was unquestionably the Sheikh’s castigation of Sunnis as idolaters that fostered a legacy of hostility that would endure…’

     The same point is made in a strangely different way by the ‘idol’ of Wahhabi scholarship Uthaymeen in his book ‘The Attributes of Allah’ where he gives the justification for NOT making takfir on non-Wahhabis (in terms of aqeeda) as that they are like those who deny the omnipotence of Allah, but still they are not kafir (?!)

     I guess this guy is also just ‘hysterical and emotional’ (like Abd al – Wahhab himself and Uthaymeen in the above quotes).

     You wrote: ‘It is important that we present nuanced responses, ranting and raving does little to help us get closer to the truth.’

     Indeed dear boy.

7. Well, an exquisite presentation of the folly of inconsistent arguments if there ever was one! Let’s assess this veritable potpourri of polemical absurdities and intellectual incoherencies once more, which Jahm ibn Safwan himself would be proud of!

   Referral to a Salafi scholar on al-Buti’s assassination was made – you disqualify it

   Referral to authority of Salafi experience in the UK over the last 20 years was made – you deny it

   Referral to primary data in the form of Arabic sources for the works of Muhammad ibn AbdulWahhab was made – you disallow it

   I sign off my remarks with my real name – you hide behind “mmmclru”, not exactly the way of the ‘four Imams’ to use such academic dishonesty. Indeed, the way of the Salaf was “sammoo lana rijaalakum” [name us your men] as Ibn Sireen stated relayed by Imam Muslim in the Muqaddimah to his Saheeh. But as the Arabic proverb says: “kullu kalbin bi baabihi nabbah!” [every dog barks bravely behind its own gate!]

   Referral to a text which features some of the doubts with which you adhere – you remove it, another indication of the lack of intellectual integrity

   Then to top it all off you refer me to a Wikipedia entry and David Commins?!

   “Tilka idhin Qismatun Deezaa”
   [That then is an unjust division]

   As for ignorance of the existence of the Ahl ul-Hadith, possibly due to your ignorance of the Arabic sources, biographical dictionaries and hadith works. For further details refer to The Reality of Abu Ja’far al-Hanbali which can be accessed Online.

   Nowhere did I utter that I am against following the 4 madhabs?! This outrageous assertion indicates you did not read at all the link which you so abruptly removed. Same with the references, which I did say can all be fully found at the link provided. It’s as if you are in fear of simply reading the links, which are either my own translations or joint research projects, why the fear “mmmclru”? At least we can vouch for it being a tad more credible than David Commins and a wikipedia entry! Your intellectual denial has unfortunately led you to such utter fear of reading what we presented. Just read the critique of Abu Ja’far al-Hanbali, all references for those quotes are there, quite simple really.

   Where on earth do Salafis assert that Shaykh Sudais is there Imam?! This is an example of how your biased partisanship really has distorted your thinking. This is the first time such a crazed assertion has been made!

   Yes, MWL is not Salafi organisation set up to spread and champion the Salafi da’wah, rather its main emphasis was generic da’wah, unconditional Muslim unity and to stop secular political ideologies taking root in the Muslim world, but not to spread the Salafi creed, publishing just a several books on the correct creed.

   You still failed to demonstrate how MWL is Salafi?! Your referral to Saudi funding does not make it Salafi! Furthermore, over the last few years there have been efforts by Salafi scholars in KSA to have this Ikhwani agenda totally removed from Saudi.

   Indeed one of the founding members of MWL is none other than Taha Jabi Alwani, who has been referred to by many of Ash’ari teachers, such as Hamza Yusuf. Do you now retract what you said about MWL being Salafi?

   Abu Ghudda, a top student of none other than Kawthari and an Ikhwani himself with Asharite leanings, was also a founding member of the MWL! Do you now retract what you said about MWL being Salafi?

   Its founding committee comprised 26 scholars from all over the world, including al-Hajj Ahmadu Bello of Nigeria. Do you now retract what you said about MWL being Salafi?

   43 Muslim countries supported MWL and did not contend it whatsoever, fully cooperating with it. Do you now retract what you said about MWL being Salafi?

   MWL and WAMY used to publish with a passion books by the Ash’ari Sayyid Qutb and books by Mawdudi?! Do you know retract what you said about MWL being Salafi?

   In the early 1980s, MWL sponsored imams in America who had studied at al-Azhar! Do you know retract what you said about MWL being Salafi?

   The evidences and references mentioned prior will not be relayed again here, as that was already referred to in an initial post and was subsequently removed. For further details refer to [BOOK LINK REMOVED] which can be accessed Online.

   AbdulHaq ibn Kofi ibn Kwesi al-Ashanti

   • So once again, you have failed to read the actual reply (I am now seriously concerned about your English comprehension) and tried to demonstrate your verbose but irrelevant and inarticulate prose instead.

     Further, like your teachers Ibn Baz, you have resorted (again) to insults by comparing people to barking dogs by invoking ‘Arabic proverbs’ to hide behind.

     Unlike you, I am not hear to sell my (poorly written) books and promote my websites, so I have no need to ‘give my name’. Your invention of an usool that people in online discussions should give their names, phone numbers etc, mimics the bizarre inventions of your equally inane instructors. I refer you rather to the saying of Imam Ali, that only a fool listens to who is talking as opposed to what is being said.

     Further, since your Imam (i,e the guy appointed by you to lead your prayers) Sudais, who you pray behind en mass, revels in terrorist assassinations, perhaps it is a bit suspicious to have a Wahhabi demand ones contact details?

     As for the issue of MWL, it was made clear that is is a Salafi organisation by a senior academic historian as well as a Wikipedia reference, you correct it only with your own words and no evidence or references whatsoever, (namely that there are a few ‘non-Salafis’ in it. So what?) and that it was supported by many countries, having previously said that there were Salafis in many countries!

     You try the classic gambit of defining what is a Salafi (i.e nothing or everything depending on your arbitrary preferences to avoid criticism) and making a false differentiation between ikhwani Salafis and others.

     Ignoring a more qualified and published historian (who unlike you did not have to rely on a Salafi publishing house to get into print), you as a dilettante expect people to merely take your own word for it. The height of hubris.

     In any case, you were unable even to defend your beloved idol Abd Al Wahhab and in your rage you refer to ‘Arabic’ sources, when again, you expect the only admissible evidence to be the rantings of unpublished Medina university mouthpieces (in English)!

     Since you failed to offer any kind of defence of …anything, other than producing a list of selective quotes which were refuted comprehensively, as well as a list of people who YOU say are not Salafis associated with MWL (again, so what, is your witness better than academia?) and a bunch of signatories to MWL, which is exactly the same as saying the MWL has branches in many countries, including non-Muslim ones like London. Therefore, according to your (il)logic this makes MWL non-Salafi since it is widespread (like all of the heresies of the past)!. You then try your cut price NLP skills of repetition to try and add impact and disguise the lack of content!

     You see this,is what happens when you declare Mantiq and Kalam haraam. You end up intellectually handicapped, as you demonstrate with your delusional overconfidence in your inadequate defence of your folly.

     I have again removed your link, if you can’t make your point yourself then please do not try to post ‘adverts’.

     Also, you are very poor at insulting, comparing people to dogs is straight out of your Sheikhs books and highly unoriginal. But as you were warned off insults before, you will now be banned, which is a mercy to you since you are embarrassingly out of your depth dear boy!

8. Honestly brother, if I may indulge, you have at this point no problem stating that you have good homosexual friends who find…vaginas repulsive ??

   • What the he’ll man?

     • What do you mean ? It is a honest question, rhetorical one, but honest nevertheless.
       What, brother are your point of views ?
       Would you be the least hesitant if I told you I have friends who are sexually involved their sisters (I ain’t talkin about the Jerry Springer Show either!) Or in an open loving relationship with their mothers ? PC? I don’t think so, eh ?

   • Jekyll what is it with you, homosexuality and vaginas?

     • Really ? Are we going to go through this point again ? Uncle Paulie, do you want me to say that as a heterosexual man, I lust after vaginas or something, or are we going to the route of my “sexual insecurity” again ? or that I can’t fathom why anybody would not prefer vaginas ?
       Sure I could yea, but then again in my little Brooklyn naive mind, I can also find it hard to believe why people watch European football, or having ten different girlfriends makes you a man or why anybody would wan to leave the deen of Islam, or anybody can actually have the sheer saintly to maime their own “precious” wife ?

       Let’s just say I coming to term with the world I find myself living in. No, I did not grow in a cocoon, but did come from a very conservative family, where sex and girls or other stuff was not talked about.

       Lets say this; growing up if a Muslim guy had a girlfriend, he kept hidden form other Muslims, to say the least. Now that is not the case, as I have seen hijabis walking with boyfriends openly and happily. and maybe this is the ultimate pride of naivete, but it feels bad when you see Muslims openly doping things like that.

       But oh well, welcome to the modern world Hyde! And don’t forget Dr. Jekyll.

       (It was just a question I framed, and the brother answered it very eloquently below.
       The question was meant to see what the background of the brother was and I found my answers very poignantly answered below).

9. Thanks again!

   No, I don’t have a problem stating it. The reason is that Muslims in the ‘media’ do one of two mistakes: The orthodox ones spend most of their time trying to please their own community and show off to them how pious they are and how good their Islamic behaviour is and so on. Therefore they over-do it and alienate people by worrying about how long their beard is, what clothes they are wearing and by never saying stuff like ‘I have gay associates or friends and let me tell you, they find what we heterosexuals do distasteful, so it is a bit hypocritical for the gay lobby to get annoyed etc.’ because they are worried that Muslim people will say: ‘How come this guy knows so much about gays? This is not appropriate! People in the mosque don’t talk like this!’ and so on.

   The modernists on the other hand spend all their time trying to show the non-Muslims how much they are just like them, thereby alienating Orthodox Muslims by trying to show that Islam is whatever you (secularists) would like it to mean. So they will say something like ‘gay sex is fine, we should not dare to question this blah blah’.

   We as Muslims should not just make up arguments to please our fellow Muslims: this is pointless in terms of making our case to the wider society. So there is no point ‘playing to the crowd’ and expressing our ‘disgust’ at gays and saying we don’t have them as friends or whatever just to make the Muslims feel happy.

   If we want to come out and be scrutinised by the non-Muslims, we have to have the proper way and language of making our point, we need to do research, understand popular culture and even read gay literature etc. This is the level that is needed if we are going to step out, if we want to stay in our own community, then fine. But even there, we need to be careful how we speak.

   I have many scholarly Muslim friends who are proud that they have never seen a movie, or read a magazine. One told me that he had never seen ‘Star Wars’. He was trying to show how pious he is. but I was thinking; ‘how can you represent Islam in the English speaking world when you are so ignorant of their culture?’

   The culture and necessary knowledge includes the haraam things as well. Umar (RA) said that he feared that the Muslims would have leaders who did not know about Kufr. This is exactly what has happened. So we have guys who want to ‘refute’ Western Civilization who have never seen Hollywood movies or even been in a relationship with a girl etc. So for the non-Muslims to beat them is like taking candy from a baby.

   We should not get hung up on the issue that ‘how can someone have gay friends?’ and what is the Islamic and Western meaning of friends etc but we should focus on the best way to make our point. So if someone says he has gay friends, but is speaking against it, I don’t think we should worry about it or what he means by ‘friends’. For example, disbelief is worse than homosexuality, so now will Muslims proudly say ‘I don’t have any non-Muslim friends’? Of course that would be a mistake and it would get them in trouble.

   Also, nowadays it is not enough to know that homosexuality is prohibited, we need people who have a deep knowledge of the Gay Lobby and what they want etc. and having knowledge of something or having friends who are kafir, gay, polytheist or whatever does not mean we accept or embrace that lifestyle of beliefs.

   • Brother, my point of view is clear, I said that some people (including me) don’t like gay sex. It will not help us as Muslims to start insulting gays or something. Dumb Muslims do that just to make Muslims ‘feel good’.

     So likewise I can say that kufr is Islamically more problematic than homosexuality, so should we start announcing to everyone that we don’t have any non-Muslim friends at all and it is prohibited to have them etc? Will that help the Muslims? And when Muslims get thrown out of England for saying stuff like that, will our Muslim ‘brothers’ take us into their countries? Saudi? Malaysia? UAE? Who? Like they took in the Palestinians (not)? Like they are helping the Muslims in Burma (not)? So completely ignoring PC in your own land is dangerous, just as completely following it. We have to know the culture and act accordingly. Muslims are hated in the West, but (almost) no one would dare to say: ‘I don’t have any Muslim friends, they are dirty etc.’

     Also, I understand what you are saying about incest and these things, but again, be careful. Do you have for example an Islamic proof that homosexuality is as bad as incest? Are they equivalent in Shariah?

     How this point about incest is to be used is regarding LEGALISATION in the West – so for example, if the principle guiding sexual relationships is that we can do anything that feels good, as long as we do not physically harm others (as is the argument for, say, gay marriage) then why can’t three people get married or a son get married to his mother. This is a good point. But it does not mean gay sex = incest. What it means is that what is the BASIS for allowing or disallowing relationships and that by the same basis that we legalise gay marriage we can if we like also legalise incest or bestiality.

     If however we say ‘gays are the same as people who do incest’, someone could say to you ‘prove it’ and you will be in trouble and you will find it hard to prove from Islamic sources as well.

     Also, as you know, people in the West do not believe in our basis for what is right and wrong, so we have to explain it in a way they CAN understand.

     I think you are getting too concerned with the word ‘friend’ and it’s meaning and whether this is an Islamic meaning or whatever. I understand what you are saying; if my son told me he had lots of gay friends, I would be concerned, so I am not trying to show off that I have gay friends, I clearly said that people are entitled to critique their behaviour. But also saying ‘No Muslim should have gay friends’ is not going to help Muslims or their perception in the West.

     • Well you are a tough cookie to criticize and you do have a point, and I have read your other entries and look forward for others to come…

       BUT first of all your entries seem caffeinated on criticizing Muslims, (be that as it may, that the ax falls on Wahabis), dumb muslims, stupid muslims, retarded muslims….
       and I am proud that I do not have a television set at home. I use to it, and watched crap load of worthless junk including sports and it did not get me anywhere.
       There should be certain Muslims that are well versed in western culture and rightly so they can hit back or tell other Muslims about it. But to read gay literature, really ? Am I going to have a one night stands for a week, and then come in the next week to tell Muslims how bad it is and ‘that is what the kaffirs are doing’ ? And most Muslim preachers do not talk about about homosexulity, because
       a.) who the heck ever that thought the absurdity of sodmomy would be so eventful, that there would be debates about it (“Brave New World”) I am not 25 yet, and can clearly remember my on naive childhood, when something like homosexulity was “unimagained” (Heck I did not know what it really was until I was like 16-17).
       b.) People are talking about it! Like us! But are we to run into a Masjid and start warning that gays are out there ?…they have always been out there, but for the first time in history, they want to be incorporated into the status quo.
       c.) How much deep in the gutter do we need to go in ? Our purpose on Earth is not debating homosexulity. I have said it before, and yes, you may find it juvenile, my propensity regaring homosexulity is soley based on an Islamic point of view. This in mind, most muslims may see (some do) as something that is problematic as all the other fitnas our ummah faces. I mean they have co-ed bathrooms in some university in Florida…how do you tell these tell people that men and women sit separately in close gatherings ?
       Personally muslims will have to very, very soon make clear cut remarks regarding this “filthy fitna” as a brother put it because it is at our doors already. Some of the young imams are discussing it, but unfortunately, some of them have have this insane idea of making it “friendly”.
       And the idea that you talk too much gays, and people start wondering about how you know all this stuff is really patronizing to the young muslim youth who see this sh&* all around them (‘name one serious televisions show that does not have a gay character who for all practical purposes is ‘just one of the guys… normalization of extreme”)

       Anyway I get your point, and your last paragraph gave me solace.
       (Just a pause to reflect what our beloved children and their children will go through in this world is enough to sent chills down my spine, so carry on)

   • You have beautifully represented the problem Muslims today are facing, Irrelevancy and modernism. I believe the Prophet(sw) said to be a person of travel, and Imam Ghazali talked about deeply learning ones opponents, saidly, this isolationist or modernist reaction is just ruining the Ummah. May Allah help us reverse this.

     • Many thanks indeed. Imam Al-Ghazzali articulated this very well, you are right.

10. Many thanks again.

    No one is saying that you have to watch television, but you have to be aware of your environment. How will you know what the idiots on Fox News are saying? They reach far more people than your local Imams. Someone has to know about this stuff and ignorance is not bliss.

    If you look at most sites by Wahhabis, they are dedicated to not only criticising other Muslims but also takfiring them, and I don’t see why it is an issue for me to take Muslims to task. This is totally off topic. There are numerous scholarly articles and videos on this site, far more than many ‘Salafi’ or ‘Dawah’ site that I know of. It is not my religious or personal duty to write articles which make people ‘feel good’ like some Islamic version of the ‘Disney Channel’.

    In any case, if we don’t prefer to be corrected by our fellow Muslims, perhaps you will enjoy being corrected by the non-Muslims. I guarantee it will be much worse.

    Also, it does not matter that you did not know about this fitna till you were in your late teens: you cannot generalise your experiences to others. And in the current community people know about it very early. If you want to know about Quantum Mechanics or pre-Raphaelite art you will have to research them. Likewise with gay literature and what ‘they’ say. .That’s how I know that they make disdainful statements about vaginal (or penile) intercourse and I can support my case. It does not mean you have to read gay porn, I don’t see why you seem to take the worst possible interpretation of what I say

    So yes, ‘really’.

    The suggestion of one night stands as ‘research’ was absurd, and would only be justified if I had said ‘to know about the context of homosexuality in this society, one should try it for oneself’. I never said that and I find your example unhelpful. This is why Muslims don’t do their research, don’t have an academic approach in general and get burned by their opponents, because we have a bunch of people (like you in this case) telling then that research is haraam, bad etc.

    I am 10 years older than you and if people had been paying attention (for example, to the television) they would have realised that it is becoming so common, so if it was ‘unimagined’ this shows poor awareness of what is going on in the wider environment. Also, why did they not imagine it? You said:

    ”they have always been out there, but for the first time in history, they want to be incorporated into the status quo.”

    That is even wrong from the Quranic point of view: there was a time (people of Lot) when it was far more widespread than now and was in fact the practice of the majority. So this is what I told you about doing your research. And Lot did not just bury his head in the sand like you seem to be advocating, he called them to the correct path, with wisdom and good preaching.

    If you are worried about children, then my advice is to come up with some good arguments and put them in a way which is acceptable to them. Just saying it is ‘filthy’ is not going to cut it when their teachers and society is continuously showing them more detailed arguments in favour of this practice. if you want to ‘protect’ them, then nuanced thinking is required. If you cannot even accept that a person says he has some gay ‘friends’ and then uses that as an example to criticise their stance, then you will have a hard time dealing with modern society. If we find it ‘impossible’ to explain things like segregated toilets or gayness without getting emotional, then this is fine, but do not stop others from dealing with it in their own terms.

    So if you & me don’t know how to explain things like same sex toilets to ‘them’ then that does not mean that no-one else can do it either, so please bear that in mind and do not generalise our experience and our limitations.

    You are also doing exactly what I mentioned in my first reply and catering everything to the Muslims and your own community. This is wrong.

    We can’t all go and hide in the mosque.

    • “We can’t all go and hide in the mosque”… certainly not the new one they opened up in Paris.

      Brother, I ask forgiveness if it appeared that I was arguing against you; I was not.
      And I am from Brooklyn, I hate this ‘pretty-politic’ , pc kissy-kissy kindergarten islam that seems to be all the rage much as you do. I despise liberals more than Fox News, and trust me I watched plenty of News and not having telly at home doesn’t mean I am not informed about what is going on around.

      I certainly was not advocating that we all run to sherwood forest and “practice Islam” there and hope no “kafir” wanders in there. Muslims need to step to the plate and start talking about the real problems. For example how would you agree to these points ?:

      I. Saying Darwin is haraam is not going to work anymore. It may work for a elder uncle who drives a can or is a construction work, but it ain’t gonna work for the kid who is studying molecular biology at Harvard.

      II. Girls..fitna…yeah not gonna work when he has already has gotten a girl pregnant. I know I have going to have the “birds and bees” talk with my kids at 7 or 8. Most muslims have this diseased separation of church and state dilemma going on in their heads. Inside the masjid, it is all salaam, but outside it is do whatever you feel like. To this day one of the worst thing to happen in Western society was the separation of church and state. The separation was meant to stop the church encroach encroach the rights of the church. In turn, however the church itself was destroyed and whatever little was left of it has come under the rule of the state. Very soon chaplains, and local imams will probably have to go through “gay sensibility” training before they preach.

      III. There has been literature that gave us premonition. Read the American writers Chris Lasch and Neil Postman. SHY was warning about this since the ’90’s. And apparently people only are only waking up now. Most Muslims in america care for the dreamlife of going to a good [thoroughly secular] school, getting the dream job, getting sweet wife and then moving into the suburbs and living their life. And get only get disturbed when some islamophobia disturbs their false utopia or when their daughter brings home a boyfriend or gay guy friend, they should slap themselves.

      That being said, do you think Muslims should have debates weather our sisters should marry non-muslim men ? Or weather having dates is okay ? Or it is okay to pray behind a women or have a homosexual imam (apparently we do; read Mehdi Hassan’s new blog on the huffington post. The man has fallen). Next they will be saying, should be saying pbuh after we mention the greatest of creation ? Go read the goat milks blog and see.

      The non-muslims are doing what they are doing, generally spreading the disease of democracy around and following the “pleasure principle”.
      And since Islam seems to be the only real form if system standing, the arrows fall on us.

      You don’t have to keep saying thanks; I like what you are saying and will be reading this blog.

      My main concern is to not invite fitna home, but tackle it eruditely and Islamically. Bidah this fitna this haraam this is not bring the new generation in the folds of Islam. Once they see that in the west you can live with “keep religion at home or at the mosque”, they are going to lose any interest in the deen itself.

      You are absolutely right in that insteading of using ‘realpolitik’ muslims have nuanced to ‘pretty-politik’, but not so much as sheltering muslims from ‘what’s out there’, but going to the other end, and bring everything from out there inside, that’s also worrisome

      And I was not practicing tomfoolery when I juxtaposed homosexuality and incest; they way one desentized, the other will too.

      As your theme is, the world is what i, and yes absolutely Muslims can’t pretend the world in which they inhabit is the same world as that our Beloved Nabi (pbuh)…and yet at the same time, we can’t abandon the our traditions, rules and our rulings (i.e. Irshad Manji’s gay jihad is not going to overrule the teaching our ulema of the past)

      I am sorry I can’t argue with hadiths and islamic jurisprudence as I am not versed in them.

      -Salaam & Keep up the posts.

      If I may ask, are you a revert, married, background ?

      P.S. I did my major in Quantum Mechanics/Physics.

      • Wasn’t it true that the dis-believers that the Prophet(sw) preached to were incestious, female child killing messed up societies? The Prophet understood their society, and held them remedy and follow the light…

      • Nevertheless I got the answer for your background….

11. I think the problem is actually in terms of the different Muslim community in the States and in the UK: My perception from your comments is that in the States you are more under attack from ‘modernists’. In the U.K, we don’t really have people who say these kind of things who have any kind of Islamic authority. People like Irshad Manji and Ziauddin Sardar get ignored because they have to take their case to the non-Muslim media and big publishing houses: the non-Muslims know that these people enjoy zero approval in the Muslim community and imposing them as our spokesmen/women is the same as imposing dictators in the Middle East (as they have done). But at home it does not work.

    I have travelled in the States and I know the Muslim community is much more ‘integrated’ and perhaps secularised than in the U.K. It is also much smaller, so I am not speaking for you guys, it is for the people with local knowledge, like you, to think of the best way of preserving their faith and dealing with secularists, the gay lobby etc.

    But I would suggest a rational and unemotional manner and avoiding the kind of spiel found in mosques in the UK. I think Hamza Yusuf is a good example in the States of how to go about talking about homosexuality without getting in trouble. In the UK, the mosque guys and the Salafi speakers have no clue and they get frequently embarrassed. Tim Winter presents his case so well that in this latest incident, many gay people came out to defend him, because he treats them with respect and does not say things like ‘I hate you, you are not my friends’ etc. So he maintained orthodoxy and criticised their sin without getting in trouble (kind of).

    To tackle the fitna properly, we need nuanced responses: in the U.K there were Muslims making hateful comments about gays and advocating violence etc. and that did not help matters at all and brought Islam into disrepute. Also, the (mainly Salafi) people talking about this stuff have very poor knowledge and say ridiculous things like ‘gays should be harmed/killed etc’, and this is nowhere in Islam, they make up a lot of nonsense with their rubbish ‘neo-ijtihad’ and then get us all into trouble. The ruling for gays is the same as that for heterosexuals: if they have sex in PUBLIC with four witnesses, then it is a problem. Otherwise, no ‘punishment’. And in Hanafi madhab, punishment for gay sex is LESS than for heterosexual fornication (because it is a discretionary punishment and cannot reach the level of the least ‘hudud’), So before talking, full knowledge is needed, but the Muslims are often just trying to ‘suck up’ to their community to get fame and money the same way people like Manji are ‘sucking up’ to the non-Muslims for the same reason.

    I am not saying you personally don’t know about the news or that you should watch TV, I am just giving an example that some people in the UK are proud to not know anything about their society, and this is strange. It does not, of course, mean you.

    Yes, I agree with you, we need to refute secularism. So this means we need to read and study and learn how to make our case. To present our case well does not mean compromising the Message. But the message is also not decided by what Muslims ‘want’ the same way it is not decided by what non-Muslims ‘want’. Most Muslim speakers are not up to the standard of refuting secularism properly because they have a very non-academic approach, and Islamically, the academic approach is a must, from the earliest times.

    Here is an example of what I mean: a famous American secularist came to the UK and we debated him in an reasoned way and he had no answer:

    Who said we should debate if women can marry non-Muslim men? Of course it is not a valid ijtihad, but if people challenge us on it, we should be able to make a convincing case for the orthodoxy.

    As for going on ‘dates’, the only thing that is haraam in Islam is for a man and woman to be ALONE together. So it depends what you mean by ‘dates’. If I want to go to a public place to meet a girl for purpose of marriage, even with no mahrem, then that is allowed; in a coffee shop, park, whatever. I am not going to change that just to keep Muslim parents happy or culturally biased people happy. That would be taking culture above the deen. Watch our video on sex segregation in Islam for a scholarly viewpoint on this subject and then make up your own mind:

    I read Mehdi Hassan’s article and I think you have misunderstood him a little: he clearly said that the vast majority of Muslims, including ‘moderates’ say homosexuality is haraam: his example of the gay imams was possibly rhetoric to show non-Muslims that these guys do exist and in a subtle way say that; ‘if we are so violent, how come there are openly gay Muslim ‘Imams’ and no one is harming them?’. This is rhetoric, but I don’t know his intention and I don’t use this personally as I know it will confuse people, but there is no way he said we should pray behind that Imam or women. You have to remember, that article was written for the non-Muslims. I don’t agree with the style and think he is sucking up a bit too much. I think you have good example of how to balance this in the US with Hamza Yusuf as I said.

    Please remember, if Hassan makes any type of statement about homosexuals above and beyond what he did, he will be banned’ from the media. So there is a tact of handling these matters. We may not agree, but at the same time, he said it was a sin.

    Where Hassan messed up was by saying that he is a ‘committed secularist’. That was dumb.

    As for my background, I am a born Muslim living in England from South Asian parents.

    Finally I would humbly like to suggest that as someone who has knowledge of Quantum Mechanics etc, then this would be very beneficial in refuting scientific atheists such as Laurence Krauss who like to use ‘universe from nothing’ models to refute Muslims and advocate atheist arguments using science, specifically cosmology and Quantum Physics and talking about ‘Quantum fluctuations’ and Quantum vacuums’. You can see his debate with Hamza Tzortzis (a Salafist type speaker who works for a Wahhabi group) here:

    Sadly, there are not may Muslims who study these subjects and hence can refute them in an academic manner. It would be excellent if you would get involved and I would encourage you to apply your knowledge to clear up confusions amongst Muslims that have occurred due to the ‘scientific atheism’ arguments of people like Prof Krauss and Stephen Hawking (for example, in his book ‘The Grand Design’).

    Christians do have some people qualified in mathematical physics but sadly we have hardly any and none in the field of defending Islam (apart from Hafiz Mahmut). Perhaps you would consider a critical review of ‘A Universe From Nothing’?

12. Absolutely right Semsav12. Sadly today, Muslims, who in fact are actually insecure about both their ability to refute kufr and their own sexual problems and proclivities, try to compensate by spreading hateful comments and getting us all in trouble (*cough Wahhabis).

    Yes, the gay lobby is powerful and censorious, but we DO have examples of how to get our point across (Tim Winter is one, so is Hamza Yusuf). And in any case, as you rightly say, they have a right to dawah.

    If child killing gangbangers (like the Jahiliyyah Arabs) have the right to dawah, then so do everyone else.

    It is interesting that those who claim (wrongly) to be the descendants of these aforementioned Arabs, who benefited from the mercy of the Prophet (SAW) would now deny that elevation to the people of today, many of whom are much nicer than their ancestors were before Islam…

    • Brother, If I may make an article request….

      If you could analyze the early communities the Prophet preached to in relation to what we are facing now…Give a big wake up call to the Ummah.

      Just a suggestion, and I would be able to show examples from the Prophets life why Muslims should stop this isolationist behavior…

      I mean, I am sick of just “yeh darwin biddah hai acha theek hai” as an answer that some imams give, with no sophistication or nuance… especially with the anthropomorphism some of them teach! It is a breeding ground for athiesm!

      • This is a good point and a lovely suggestion.

        However, I fear that the ‘squeamishness’ of Deobandi Imams/Salafis is incurable. I wonder if it will help the youth though.

        You are entirely correct that things in the time of the Prophet (SAW) and certainly before Islam was ascendant amongst the Arabs were much worse: multiple men on one woman ‘marriages’, child killing etc.

        Frankly, most of these Imams are not suited to any society, past or present.

      • ABSOLUTELY 100%
        I agree, some Imams don’t know anything about society and believe God literally has a hand, feet etc just pushing the youth into athiesm. I am a Youth and would love if you made an article of the the early communities. Jazakallah khair

      • It is very perceptive: the belief that Allah is a body or has ‘limits’ or even ‘specifications’ (like two right hands – why not one or three or both left etc?) can lead to disbelief. I recommend Imam Al Juwaynis’ famous book ‘Al Irshad’ or ‘The Conclusive Guide To The Principle Of Belief’, available in English. You probably know of it. Al Ghazzali said anyone who worships a body of any kind of an idol worshipper. Harsh, but he said it. This blogger is onto it:

        http://thesultansjester.com/2013/04/03/152/

        Wahhabis are lucky that the Atheists that Tzortzis and others are fond of debating have not done their homework about Islamic heresies due to their arrogance. When they do, there will be trouble.

        There will also be trouble from Christians: the actual disagreement between Wahhabis and Christians is WHICH creation Allah enters, nothing more: Wahhabis day he enters Earth (or the ‘nearest heaven), the Arsh etc. Christians (and Hindus I believe) say he enters a man/men.

        It is not as big a gulf as they seem to think…

      • Exactly! Not only that, they present God as some sort of deformed monster with 2 right hands and what not. Ghazzali was right in what he said before.

    • Yes you are correct, brother in stating that there are different scopes of Muslim integration in the states than the UK and even broadly Europe. Muslims in Europe are not entirely a new phenomenon and you will see second and even third generation Muslims. With the exception of the African-American and revert communities, there are few second and very rarely third generation Muslims here. And because there is stronger integration of communities, there is more a “see home, feel home” lethargic perceptive. Yet because exactly of this, the few outliers seem to think that in order to bring “updates” to the Muslims, they must become modernized i.e. secularist. Right now there is a big debate on how to “re-mosque” the new generation that seems to not come to the masjid.

      Also there is the “Americans” that we have. There is good to in it, that because there are so many different Muslims here, the confluence are stronger, and instead being Arabs, Pakistanis, or Egyptians, there tends to be more of an American feel. The bad side of this is that there seem to be renegades that take the “cowboy” mentality, i.e. gay imam, women leading the prayers, masjids for the this and that.

      The identity issue is a biggie. When I went to England a few years back, I was appalled to see that British-Pakistanis that may be second or even third generation still identified with Pakistan! One kid even had a picture of Jinnah in his room. My views on nationalism, particularly for the creation of Pakistan, I’ll leave to another time, but we, here, albeit not going nuts flying the American flags or anything, feel more comfortable with our identities, generally speaking. But you guys do have platforms like the MDI, something that really is defunct in the states. Most Muslims tend to just focus on their degrees and careers and I suppose the only time there is an interfaith dialogue, is something tragic happens.

      Yet there is no real bad mouthing of the gays or kaffirs in the sates either. Either the Muslims do not want to get in the spotlight or they are other manners that seem to be more important. Far as denominations are concerned, with some big exceptions, most imams here too seem to be on the debobandi/salafai manner, but certainly not anything like in the UK. More in aqueedah, but ‘bidha this, and bidha that’, not too much. In fact SHY seems to get in the spotlight by Muslims in the UK more than anyone here! (Personally I would not be even here if it was not for the sermons of SHY).

      Also I think generally speaking Muslims are better educated in the states than in the UK. After the Jews, if one were to count the Muslims as one general group, we make the second largest educational forum. At halaquas and gatherings, most of the brothers are relative knowledgeable about what is going on in the country and the world, and maybe not in the local “uncle going” masjids, but in school and college gatherings, we do have “comfortable” talks on values and traditions and the changing customs.

      As far as gender segregation goes…well let me watch the lecture by the sheiks and then come back with an opinion.

      And I studied Quantum Mechanics a while back and currently am studying the issue of gay marriage and perhaps may write a review for that. But you are correct, Muslims better shape by the end of the decade because debates of relevance would be happening with atheist, and physicists like Kraus not so much Christians anymore. How General Relativity or the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle affects Tweed itself will issues we should be focusing on.

      • Okay Three different views:

        
        
        

      • Thanks for a useful insight into the Muslim situation in the U.S.

        There are actually a lot of sources that say that the US Muslim community is more educated and financially well off relative to the European experience as most of them are not ‘migrant workers’, however, I do think most of them are more intimidated as the American culture is more pervasive and invasive than that of, say, the UK.

        I think Jeffrey Lang’s book ‘Losing My Religion’ nailed it about American Islam and I recommend this book very strongly if you have not already read it.

        The ideas about physics and Islam, you should pursue yourself, certainly there is no-one in the UK who is qualified in physics and also speaking about Islam. It is very sad. I hope people like you will change that.

        Sherman Jackson is a very articulate and useful voice. Bilal Phillips, all due respect to him, is not very useful in my opinion and like most Wahhabi type speakers, their ideas can actually make Muslims lives MORE difficult…

13. السلام عليكم
    No I have not read Dr. Lang’s book but have seen his very sound and articulate lectures. But I think he has dropped out of the lectures trail for some time now.

    And sa I stated before most Muslims do not rigorously fall into what background the speaker maybe, albeit it is certainly important. I like Dr. Sherman Jackson, but also have immense respect for Bilal Philips His conversion to Islam story should be enlightening to everybody.

    The line in the sand is what sort of promulgation is Islamically authentic and what is just baseless liberal appeasement.

14. @mmmclmru
    Thanks for turning me to Jester’s Blog!