Light Burns Them
Ummah Pulse:
with most attacks on Islam and Muslims nowadays, the retort when challenged invariably boils down to a tantrum about the "sanctity of race and ethnicity" as opposed to the "flimsy veneer of religion". As far back as 2004, Neocons working for the Daily Telegraph were arguing for the right to criticise Islam on the grounds that it was not an ethnicity. In 2005, the comedian Rowan Atkinson appeared in the House of Lords and argued that "to criticise people for their race is manifestly irrational but to criticise their religion, that is a right".
The author links to a few studies and then concludes that
religious distinctions play a far more decisive role in the formation of identities than genetics, which begs the question as to why on earth is race given such an advantage over religion when it comes to discrimination, ridicule and insults? In other words why should race be a “no-go area” and religion a "free-for-all"?
Because awful choices have consequences.
I've seen this coming. In the Islamic world, criticism of Islam or Muhammad is punished aggressively. (For example, see section 295C of Pakistan.) Now the Islamists are trying very hard to put Islam above criticism in the West as well. The "problem" you see isn't that Islam advocates all sorts of barbarities; the problem is the uncouth person who dares to point this out and holds Muslims accountable.
- Tom Brevoort Continues Down The Path Of Apologia
On his blog, he keeps responding with contempt to anyone who dares speak negatively about Islam. In this example, somebody writes: Why do you continue to release a book that promotes a religion that prompted the kidnapping of innocent Nigerian schoolgirls?...
- Shocking News: Muslims Drawn To Islam.
As many of us argued over the years, there is no moderate Islam. There is just Islam and degrees of practicing this religion. What is known as the Islamic Revival is the return to a full practice of the religion as created by its founder. This trend has...
- Will A Mirage Materialize?
Ibn Warraq via Samizdata:1. What is a Reformation? Defined from the UDHR 1948 perspective Since there is no Pope or even, in principle, an organized clergy in Islam, how would we ever know if an Islamic Reformation had taken place? One person’s reformation...
- When Someone Criticizes Islam, What Should We Call That?
WHEN SOMEONE says some of the passages of the Qur'an are violent and Islam itself is a political religion, what do you call that kind of criticism? It's an important question. Strangely enough, I've heard it called "racist," which seems very...
- More On The Cronulla Riots: "is Islam The Problem?"
There is an excellent article in The Sydney Morning Herald that provides further insight into the recent riots in Australia: Is Islam the problem? Australia does not have a race relations problem. We have a clash of cultures and that's a big difference...