France: Muslims must be discreet about faith

Nicolas Sarkozy stoked the debate over immigration today with a warning to Muslims to practise their religion discreetly or face rejection by moderate Islam in France.

The President voiced sympathy for Swiss voters who opted last week to ban minarets as he tried to reassert himself in a debate over national identity which he launched last month but that has since spiralled out of his control.

Over the past week, Mr Sarkozy had appeared to retreat from his original comments following a backlash over the way that they were being used against immigrants, particularly Muslims.

But in a column for Le Monde, Mr Sarkozy returned to his theme and said that the result of the Swiss referendum showed how important it was for France to define its identity.

"Instead of condemning the Swiss out of hand, we should try to understand what they meant to express and what so many people in Europe feel, including people in France," he wrote. "Nothing would be worse than denial."

Mr Sarkozy called for tolerance and underlined France's respect for all faiths, but his message was intended primarily to reassure those who are unhappy about what they see as a threatening Muslim presence in the country.

"Christians, Jews, Muslims, all believers regardless of their faith, must refrain from ostentation and provocation and ... practice their religion in humble discretion," Mr Sarkozy wrote.

Addressing himself to Muslims, he wrote that anything that could appear as a challenge to France's Christian heritage and republican values would "doom to failure" a moderate Islam in France.


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Source: Times

See also:
* France: Minarets are urban planning issue, says PM
* Germany: 'Muslims must show restraint with mosques'

Thanks to Islam in Europe

Iran warns Switzerland over minaret ban

Iran warned Switzerland on Saturday of “consequences” over a referendum banning the building of new mosque minarets and urged Bern not to enforce the ban, the official IRNA news agency reported.

The vote went “against the prestige of a country which claims to be an advocate of democracy and human rights,” Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told Swiss counterpart Micheline Calmy-Rey in a telephone call, quoted by IRNA.

Mottaki said last week’s referendum would “damage Switzerland’s image as a pioneer of respecting human rights among Muslims’ public opinion.”

“Values such as tolerance, dialogue and respecting others’ religions should never be put to referendum,” he argued, warning Switzerland of the “consequences” of anti-Islamic acts, IRNA reported.

The foreign minister hoped the Bern government would soon “take necessary steps and find a constitutional way to prevent imposition of the ban.”

IRNA said Switzerland’s ambassador in Tehran was summoned on Saturday before the foreign ministry, which protested against the minaret ban which was backed by more than 57% of voters who cast their ballot on November 29.

Calmy-Rey said the referendum was carried out against the will of the Swiss government, which would “use all its means to support Muslims rights,” the IRNA report added.

The referendum on a constitutional ban on minarets was proposed by a rightwing Swiss party and had not been expected to succeed.

Besides the government, the ban was opposed by the bulk of Switzerland’s political parties as well as the economic establishment.

It drew widespread criticism from the United Nations, Muslim states, fellow European countries and the Vatican.

YNet

UK: Islam must learn to live as a minority, says Chief Rabbi

The Chief Rabbi has called on Muslims to get used to living as a minority in Britain and to learn to separate religion from power.

Lord Sacks said that neither Muslims nor Christians had yet learnt the lessons inflicted on the Jewish people by the Babylonian exile.

“One of the great advantages of being Jewish is you know how to sing in the minor key,” he said. “We have had 26 centuries of experience ever since the Babylonian exile of living as a minority in the midst of a culture that does not share our views. Christianity and Islam have not had that experience.”

He said that Christianity had learnt toleration but only after 100 years of “knocking the hell out of each other all over Europe”.

He said: “So Christianity went through its experience, Judaism has been through it a long, long time ago and Islam has not yet had that experience.

“I have no doubt that Islam will work its way through to the essential situation that Judaism arrived at and Christianity, namely the substantive separation of religion from power. But there’s no quick way of getting there. It is quite a difficult and painful process within religion.

“Only Muslims can do it. Nobody can tell them from the outside. That would be taken as an affront and I would regard it as morally unacceptable. I do see some wonderful Muslims in this country and elsewhere, in Iraq and even in Iran, going through that process.

"I think some of the Muslim thinkers today are some of the most courageous thinkers I have come across and it is very striking how many of them are women.

It is very interesting. So Islam will get there. But I would hope that one of the ways they would get there is just coming to understand how things work in Britain.”

The Chief Rabbi was delivering the annual lecture to the think-tank Theos in London to an audience of politicians, journalists, academics, businessmen and faith representatives.

He warned that Europe’s loss of a tolerant religious culture made it vulnerable to the advance of fundamentalism.

Tolerant religion was “the only strong enough defence with some of the religiosity that is coming our way with the force of a hurricane,” the Chief Rabbi said.

“Let me be blunt. Either we win or the fundamentalists win and that is the challenge. If the fundamentalists win, I wouldn’t hang around too long.”


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Source: The Times, h/t London Muslim

With thanks to Islam in Europe

Examples of "Tolerance" for Muslims on Facebookupdated with new "pearls of wisdom" from facebook bigots

Aaron Ayoun-Rapolani:
"I don't see why anyone would be complaining about the fate of those Muslim scums. There are no good Muslims."

Aaron Goldsmith:
"Muslims should be gassed"
"I'd have you all [Muslims] 'cleansed'"
"the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim"
"KILL MUSLIMS, ALL OF THEM, COCKROACH FU#@IN^* C#%TS"
"drown Muslims in hog shyte, thats right"
"F#@k Muslim c&%ts esp the women who are sluts and should be raped by all Israeli soldiers until they give birth to our sons" ^**
"And who is Wilders anyway? A traitor scumbag that employs filthy muslims to do his dirty work. He'll get popped one day."
"I'll f#@k all your asses you jew and muslim f#@ks"
"Tread on the heads of Muslim babies"
""$#it-on-a-stick" is a perfect description for these sand monkeys haha"
"I would not even bother to bury Muslims. They should be thrown in land fill sites for the seagulls, rats and crows to chew on and $#it out"

Agneta Jorgenssen:
"GENOCIDE FOR MUSLIMS IS BEST THINGS FOR YOUR PEOPLES. THANKINGS YOU"

Avril Goetz:
"hihi I'd say that all Muslim men, women and kids should be EXTERMINATED in the millions including khalim massoud. Did he really think we had any respect for him? hi hi kill them all"
"Two mooselims in a Vauxhall Zafira have driven off a cliff in Wales. The police said its an appalling tragedy because the car was capable of seating seven."

Charlene Hogan:
"muslim dirt bag"

Chuck Baeder:
"CU#@ING MUSLIM $#IT-4-BRAINS"

Elizaveta Antsyforov:
"can someone please tell me, what is wrong with gassing Muslim vermin? Nothing! It's just like calling in Rentokill or another bug killer!"
"i will gas the c#@t muslims with u aaron, they get an extra hour in the shower at least with an extra few cans of zyklon B"
"Muslims! I'd shove them all in a meat-mincer and use them for cheapp meat to feed starving Ethiopians"
"Radovan Karadzic is HERO.....he showed us how Muslims SHOULD be treated. Get 'em killed and raped and tortured"

Emerald Sharp:
"MUSLIMS TO THE GAS"
"kill fu#@in stinqy paki pigs"

Fleur Agama:
"you filth, go die dirty muslim"

GeertWilders Fantwo:
"Pity Muslims actually exist in their sandpits in Asia and Africa. Nuke them"

Gordon Brown Fukwit:
"f#@k you muslim cockroach, your mum should be raped by israeli soldiers"
"f#@k you cockroach muslim"

Harold Shipman:
"I don't mind Jews....but Lefties AND Muslims should be gassed"

Klingon Mad
"Muslims must be exterminated completely 150%. It's the only way to peace"

Knobama Barack:
"Pity Nazi Germany didn't target Muslem vermin instead. YOU LOT SHOULD ALL DIE"

Leo Singer:
"I can't stand Moslems of any kind. Get off my fr. list if you are Moslem. They are the scum of the earth and parasites of the free west"
"Massoud you are a M-U-S-L-I-M and as such you have N-O real friends on Facebook. I $#it and p!$s on your Qur'an and f@#k your sisters and mothers mouth. Israel will NUKE all you mother fu@#ers and you will all be melting flesh from your bones soon. MUSLIMS TO GENOCIDE"

Little Red Deville
"f@#k you muslim tw@t. I hope your whole family get eradicated by an Jewish nuke"

Lucky McGrath:
"Ladies and Gentlemen, kill all Muslim babies. This way we stem Muslim terrorists at the root. Stamp on baby Muslim heads, eat their brain, stew their testicles if they are male. Bomb their towns and cities. I like to nuke lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi, Yemen, UAE, Turkey, all the Kurds, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia.....NUKE THEM AND WATCH THEIR SKIN HANG OFF THEIR BODIES"
"DEATH TO ALL MUSLIM SCUM"
"Pam Geller and Robert Spencer are traitors to the USA. They are undercover Muslims"
"if i had my way i'd get you fucking muslims to the gas"

Manchester Gal
"all muslims should be tortured and killed. I agree with them"
"F@#K YAZ MUSLIMS. I'D STICK ALL OF YA INTO THE ATLANTIC WITH BRICKS TIES TO YOUR ANKLES"

Peter Mandelson Splatted
"i just hate moose-lim f#@ks. Let them all perish in PIG S#!T"
"DEATH TO MUSLIM SCUMBAG PIG C#@TS"
"Hell yes, Karadzic for King! No more Muslim filth!"

Prince Harry Mark III:
"NUKE MECCA"
"No-one likes "shit skins" i.e. Muslim and any sensible person would want them all obliterated off the face of the earth."
"fu#@ing dirty smelly-assed Moslems who are as thick as cow $#it. The worlds better without them....the only good moslem is a dead moslem"
"Radovan Karadzic FOREVER! MAY THEY CONTINUE TO SLAUGHTER THE $#IT-SKINS EN MASSE"

Reggie Kray
"go piss in your grandmothers mouth Khalim aka Linda Ahmad you scumbag pig muslim you should die along with the other billion"

Rob Smilles:
"EXTERMINATE MUSLIMS"
"KILL MUSLIM BABIES TO STEM TERRORISM"

Ron Wilson DeKrayzie
"muslim pedopile pig"

Salmon Rushedie
"INJECT MUSLIMS WITH DRAIN CLEANER"

Sammy Padfield:
"It's not our fault that you are a freakin' Muslim and that you can't face the fact that you are HATED globally. I'd have you lot shot mate."
"all Muslims are liars"
"Gas is too good for Muslims, I'd just hack them all up like the civil wars in Africa. Hack them slowly and make them suffer and squeal"
"Lets have a proper ethnic cleansing campaign and just nuke every Muslim country"

Shytface Chakrabati
"PAKIS TO THE GAS"
"DIRTY STINKY MUSLIM C@#T. I HOPE YOUR MOTHER GETS CANCER AND DIES"

Sian West
"Radovan Karadzic is a hero. He had you lot raped and killed. He's a national hero and a global trend setter"

Smyth Alexandra:
"f#@k you paki c@#t bastard"

Stacea Joseph:
"MUSLIM FU#$ING PIG"

Trace Mckenzie:
"fuk (sic.) off your dirty paki c#$t"

^*This and some other words are edited by MASH. Unedited version is available upon request.
^**"Aaron Goldsmith" is most likely impersonating an Israeli Jew. Sometimes he/she uses highly derogatory ethnically charged remarks about the Jews.

A few "people" here seem to hate Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, and Geert Wilders almost as much as "they" hate Muslims. Therefore one should wonder whether or not Bill Warner of WBI is behind some/all of those facebook accounts.

Source: Facebook

Don't tell King Abdullah how to run King Abdullah University

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah will apparently only put up with so much from his clerics.

Sheikh Saad al-Shethry has been removed from the kingdom's highest council of religious scholars by royal decree, after he criticized a newly-opened multibillion-dollar university for being un-Islamic. Shethry had a particular problem with co-ed classes:

"Mixing is a great sin and a great evil," al-Shethri was quoted as saying. "When men mix with women, their hearts burn and they will be diverted from their main goal (which is) ... education."

Abdullah has acquired a reputation as an unlikely reformer after this year's Valentine's Day reforms, in which he sacked the head of the infamous religious police and appointed a woman to his cabinet for the first time.

But as Saudi Arabia expert Toby Jones argued at the time, Abdullah is probably less interested in liberalizing Saudi society than he is eliminating threats to his family's power.

The firing of Shethry certainly seems to be an example.

The university -- which is named after the king, of course -- is something of a legacy project for Abdullah. He has touted it as a "beacon of tolerance" and as part of his plan to make Saudi Arabia a center of technological innovation. His patience for unsolicited sharia advice from the peanut gallery is likely to be pretty low.

Source: Foreign Policy

Algeria Using Sufism to Stem Jihadist Ideology

July 28

By Boualam Ghimrassa

Algiers, Asharq Al-Awsat-

The Algerian authorities have been trying to propagate Sufism in Algeria to contain a strong Salafi movement in the country, espoused by most members of the armed Islamist groups.

An event was officially launched last Saturday, organized by the Zaouia [religious confraternity] Alaouia, with the participation of 5,000 people from 34 countries.

The event featured lectures and seminars calling for moderation and shunning hardline behavior, and Sufi chants.

As part of a fierce war that has been going on with the extremist Islamist groups since the early nineties of last century, the authorities have found a different way of stemming the influence of the Salafi jihadist ideology which is espoused by the armed hardliners.

This new approach consists of propagating the Sufi thought through bodies that have thousands of followers inside and outside Algeria. In this respect, the Mostaganem Governorate, 250 km to the west of Algiers, has been the scene of festivals commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Allaoui religious confraternity, under the slogan: "Let us sow the seeds of hope in the minds of people."

The organizers of this week-long event say that it is aimed at "encouraging people to return to traditional Islam, the Islam of tolerance and open-mindedness." Its aim is also to "revive the spiritual and cultural heritage."

The event's launching ceremony was marked by a parade of folklore troupes, with the participation of scout groups from several countries. The Algerian news agency said that 5,000 people would be watching the planned spiritual activities, including 2,200 coming from 34 countries such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Jordan, some European countries, Canada, the United States, Argentina, Japan and Indonesia.

According to the event's program, the week-long lectures and seminars will go beyond broaching the spiritual aspects of Islam to include discussions on current world issues such as the environment and communication technology. This will be in parallel with lectures on "revelation," "Sufi spiritualism," and "awareness-raising education."

For their part, the organizers of the event say that the Alaouia-Dargaria-Chadhilia religious confraternity dates back to the time of the descendants of Prophet Muhammad, God's prayers and peace be upon him, and is strongly inspired by the ideas of the man who revived it early in the 20th century, namely Cheikh Allaoui. The latter succeeded his master, Cheikh El Bouzidi, in 1909. The Cheikh Allaoui confraternity is known for associating traditions to modernity in Islam, and its current Cheikh is called Adlan Khaled Ben Tounis. He is a writer and lecturer on Sufism and Islam.

These celebrations are sponsored by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika personally, and call for brotherhood, tolerance, fighting hatred and spreading the values of tolerance. They are keenly used by the Algerian authorities to confront the activity of the propagators of Salafia jihadi ideology, which is infiltrating society through mosques, books and compact discs distributed to the young in various places, including schools.

The Salafia jihadist ideology is also propagated through films inciting combat, which are shown on the Internet. Investigations indicate that a large number of armed groups' members have espoused this ideology as a result of the propagation of a discourse calling for war against the state.

Moreover, the Algerian gendarmerie announced over the weekend that border gendarmes had seized four tons of drugs, two weapons, ammunition, and a mobile telephone in the small town of Oued Ritma, Bechar Governorate, 965 km to the south west of the Algerian capital Algiers.

In this respect, an Algerian source stated that border guards in Oued Ritma ambushed and opened fire on a convoy composed of four vehicles belonging to drug smugglers; the gendarmes arrested four and seized 4,060 kg of treated drugs and an automatic weapon.

Source: Asharq Alawsat

Moderation in a Higher Place

By Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein

An Orthodox Jew and an Egyptian meet on an international flight. The debate turns to whether there were or could be Muslim moderates. Think that you can predict who picked which position?

It was just not what I wanted to hear. The middle seat on the flight from Los Angeles to London had stayed unoccupied, and both of us at the ends hoped it would remain that way. Just before the doors closed, a gentleman walked on and sat himself in what could have been great extra space on a long flight. Then, he turned to me and began speaking, and the flight became longer yet.

"Hi!" he opened with a large smile. "I'm Egyptian."

We did not reenact the Yom Kippur War at 35,000 feet. We did wind up debating Middle East politics for a tolerable portion of the journey, but it did not go the way you might have expected. He turned out to be a Christian, a Copt to be precise, a group that has been persecuted for quite some time in Egypt, has had its churches burned and its adherents assaulted, and is under increasing pressure from the Muslim Brotherhood. The argument concerned whether there were or could be Muslim moderates. He refused to consider such a thing. It took me, the Orthodox rabbi, to argue the contrary both from history and from my own experience.

We parted friends, although he continued to look at me like some naïve Westener, who couldn't possibly know what was going down. The question is not academic. At stake is just what the Western world can and will do to stop the jihadist juggernaut. If Islam is locked into a model that permits, in the final analysis, only loyal Muslims on the one hand and dead people on the other, then what the rest of us must do is arm ourselves to the teeth, build larger walls, and try harder to ferret out the danger already in our midst. If, as I strongly believe, the centuries-old struggle within Islam can resolve itself if a way that more pacific voices prevail, then there will be a different response. We must still take all precautions in the interim, but also do our utmost to identify and deepen our relationship with those who can become a significant counterforce from within to the jihadists.

Not that small numbers are the only possibility. Late last year, a delegation of Indonesian religious leaders visited Israel as guests of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, led by a colleague, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Center in conjunction with the LibForAll Foundation. These religious leaders met with Palestinians, and visited Ramallah, but also saw Sderot up close. They visited Jewish and Christian holy sites, and prayed at Islamic ones. They danced with hesder yeshiva students celebrating Chanuka in Kiryat Shemonah. They presented President Shimon Peres with a kippah emblazoned with "Kedamiain" the Indonesian word for peace. They stuffed packages in a food distribution facility that serves poor Jews and Arabs in Yaffo. One of them openly wept at Yad Vashem. "How could this have happened? They were only children!"

These Muslim leaders are part of two religious organizations that comprise seventy million people of the 195 million Muslims in the most populous Muslim country in the world. What will come of the visit? Hopefully, a changed perspective on the part of the participants, and future visits by others. The initial press coverage was positive; it later precipitated inspired fierce argumentation on Indonesian blogs. After a week, the model response was, "OK, perhaps Israel wouldn't be my personal travel destination. But all they did was talk. How bad could that be?" Minimally, a debate has begun.

Can we dare, though, to think of more? Might it not lead to a few less terrorists in the future, or a few more teachers in classrooms who will deliver a different message than the one heard in Gaza, or a rediscovery by some people of the interpretative tradition that was once the rule in Islamic thought?

What happens to Muslims trained in Salafist madrassas, taught from childhood that Christians and Jews are pigs and monkeys, when they meet Christians and Jews who act different in every regard from the ugly stereotypes they took for granted? We know that in many cases they not only change their attitudes towards those they previously hated, but they are forced to painfully reexamine every other stereotype, every other extremist view they were taught. When some of these become journalists, professors, and clergy, how many people can they reach, in the space of very few years? Might some in time become potential bridges to the Palestinians?

Jews in particular have historical reason to be hopeful. For close to two millennia, we had good reason to believe that Christianity itself was an enemy of Judaism, and that some of its texts and traditions precluded any softening of its stance against the Jews. A hundred years ago, could anyone have predicted a document like Nostra Aetate, or a Pope's visit to the Western Wall, asking G-d for forgiveness for the Christian treatment of Jews? Protestant denominations ate supersessionism -- the doctrine that the Jews of the Bible had been replaced in G-d's favor by the New Jews, i.e. Christians -- for breakfast. Who would have thought that group after group of Protestants, standing shamefacedly in the aftermath of the Holocaust, would have moved supersessionism to a locked cellar, reached out to the Jewish people, and worried about the theological details later? (No, they did not eliminate antisemitism from their midst, and the record of some of those groups regarding Israel is appalling. But the change in attitude is still a step in the right direction.) Reason overwhelmed them and they found a way for faith to accommodate it. Decades of interfaith dialogue will not be as effective as multifaith contact that leads to change coming from within, not negotiated or compelled from without. Could this not happen to Muslims? This optimism may prove to be groundless, but does it make any sense for Christians and Jews not to try to facilitate change?

On my way back from London, the cabin attendants brought out the meals rather quickly. As I struggled through the various layers of covering of my kosher meal, the fellow sitting next to me peered at the food. "I see you are eating a kosher meal. I am Egyptian…"

Then I noticed that he, too, had a special meal: halal. This flight, however, was not going to be a rerun. He was not a Copt, but Muslim. This could turn into a long flight, I thought. But my cabin mate continued. "Hmm. The kosher meal reminds me of a good friend of my oldest daughter. Shoshana from Tel Aviv…."

Might I dream that the pleasant conversation that ensued will take us all, in time, to a better place between Muslims and Jews?

Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein is Director of Interfaith Affairs at The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. He is also a contributing member to AskMusa.org, a site that promotes understanding and tolerance between Muslims and Jews through knowledge and dialog.