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Muslims having fun. What is your problem with that?

The Sun is not happy about the “First National Muslim Fun Day”, to be held at Alton Towers. The Sun says

BRITAIN’S biggest fun park has sparked a race row — with a MUSLIMS-ONLY day.

Up to 28,000 are expected at Alton Towers on September 17 when there will be no music, booze or gambling.

Instead there will be prayer areas, Muslim stalls and all food served will be HALAL.

Organisers Islamic Leisure have billed it the First National Muslim Fun Day and tickets can only be bought through their website.

Non-Muslims phoning the Staffordshire park have been refused tickets.

So far as I can see, Muslims who did not book via Islamic Leisure have also been refused tickets. “Sorry, the park is already booked.” What is so difficult to understand about that?

One, George Hughes, 19, who rang up for 15 tickets for a pal’s birthday, said: “I couldn’t believe it.

“It’s the only day we can go, yet I can’t because I’m not Muslim. Can you imagine all the fuss if there was a Christians-only day?”

I do not know the previous policy of Alton Towers, but a few years back I went with a church playgroup to Thorpe Park for “Prayers in the Park”. The children spent the day on the rides then finished with an open air service. Happy time had by all.

Back to the Sun:

George, of Crayford, Kent, added: “My Muslim friends think it’s outrageous.

“What’s the world coming to when people are being banned from flying the St George’s flag yet this sort of day is allowed? If it must be held, then why not on a weekday rather than a busy weekend?”

Maybe because Islamic Leisure paid the hefty premium that such places charge to book on a busy weekend?

The event is widely promoted on the internet and the Muslim Public Affairs Committee declared it “exclusively for our brothers and sisters”.

The lawyers ought to administer a slap on the wrist for the MPAC for saying that, which probably contravenes discrimination law. The lawyers ought, but libertarians and other people with respect for freedom ought not. Freedom of association necessarily involves freedom to exclude. Sometimes you want the party to be private. How would you feel if you hired a hall for the annual party of your local pro-abortion group and they demanded that the doors be open to anti-abortion activists? Feel free to swap the sides in this example. The point is the same.

(In fact the organisers seem confused as to whether they they actually want non-Muslims along. Some other statements suggest that the organisers feel that if non-Muslims see Muslims enjoying themselves just like everyone else it will would be good P.R. for them.)

The Sun says

Alton Towers said any organisation could hire the park for a day.

A spokeswoman said “We make no distinction regarding sexuality, religious, ethnic or lifestyle choices.”

I doubt either statement is entirely true. We will not be seeing a Nazi Fun Day for the excellent reason that Alton Towers would turn down the booking. That is their right. There are urban myths that theme parks are sometimes hired out for the day to childish but very rich individuals; if that is the booking a park wants to accept then that is their right too. It is tough luck on George from Crayford, but theme parks are not public utilities. Unless you want them to be nationalised (imagine a theme park run by civil servants and tremble) can I suggest that George try Drayton Manor?

62 comments to Muslims having fun. What is your problem with that?

  • dearieme

    “imagine a theme park run by civil servants “: no need – The Dome.

  • It does say alot about Muslims that they have to have such special treatment and think its a good idea to be seen avoid kaffir. It may be their right to hire the park for a day but that does not mean it makes for good PR.

  • “stones for sale.. stones for sale – get your lovely infidel bashers here. stones for sale!”

  • Rob

    Good PR? Who gives a monkeys about ‘good PR’? Presumably you’re suggesting that this bad PR has some kind of consequence, but what is it?

  • I have slightly changed the wording to make it clearer that at least some of the organisers (that portion who appear to welcome non-Muslims going on that day) seem to think it would be good PR for the Muslims if the rest of the population sees them having fun.

  • Excellent post.

    The only constraint on private theme parks (that I would think desirable rather than compulsory – and I’m sure they’ve thought of it) is sufficient notice and advertising to ensure that casual visitors are not unduly inconvenienced.

    Best regards

  • Pete

    What if a group of people who wanted to stop local Muslims, Sikhs or any other religous group attending their local tennis club or joining their pub football team declared that membership was religion based, and that religion was Christianity? I would imagine that the state would find a way to become involved, possibly by using its race relations legisaltion.

  • permanent expat

    I’m all for fun………..and would welcome a ‘Christians Only’ day of fun in a Saudi theme park.
    ………….or, better yet, a ‘Jews Only’ fun day at a similar location.

  • The visitors will doubtless enjoy the Oblivion Ride. But I am not sure that Olde MacDonald’s Farm will meet the strict hallal requirements.

    Anyhow, since the Towers are owned by Dubai Holdings we can’t really complain.

  • Nick M

    Well they booked it… So if they only want disabled lesbians wearing top hats then that’s their perogative. It’s just the same as booking a venue for a wedding or similar – there’s a guest list. An interesting (to me) aside – how much does it cost to book Alton Towers complete for a day?

    I actually think it’s quite positive in a way. Many interpretations of Islam have a very puritanical idea of “fun” of any description.

    In any case, isn’t it better than them going to dreary seminars on Zionist-Crusaders, burning flags and building bombs? One of the things I dislike Islam for is its continual “victim mentality” – they so can whine on… This seems quite the reverse.

    Hmm… I’m thinking. D’ya reckon there is a percentage in taking over an old Butlins holiday-camp and adding a few minarets? Although, in the current climate, anything with “Islamic” and “Camp” in the title is like to end up on the wrong end of a JDAM.

    Perhaps I’m being too upbeat, but the sun is shining and the football is about to start.

    IN-GER-LAND!

  • Nick M

    PS. I’m also narked at the Sun’s use of the term “race row”. Muslims are not a race.

  • Samsung

    Next Alton Towers will be having a “Sharia Law Day” in which all entrants must believe in the stoning to death of adulterous women, the throwing of homosexuals off tall buildings and that all apostates are to executed etc. Oh, and the belief that all Christains are ‘swine’ and that the Jews are the descendants of ‘pigs and monkeys’. Anyone who does not hold to this ass-backward religious point of view will not be allowed on the rides and will be promptly escorted off the premises.

    Don’t laugh folks, the way this politically correct obsessed country is going, this crazy shit just might happen. I don’t know about you, but I am getting well and truly sick off these unenlightened Stone Age f*cking people.

  • Millie Woods

    Alas poor Natalie, she’s embraced the apples are oranges tar baby.
    People have a problem with the Muslim them and us mentality because if you’re a them and happen to travel on London public transport on a certain day you risk death. If you’re a them Christian schoolgirl in Indonesia you risk being beheaded and a similar fate awaits Buddhists in southern Thailand. In Sudan if you happen to be the wrong kind of us you’ll be raped if a woman while the rapists are serenaded by females of the right kind of us persuasion.
    And to think those Sudanese hit (pun definitely intended) songs won’t be allowed at the theme park. One can tsk/tsk to one’s heart content about evil neo-Nazis but vile and odious as they may be to my knowledge they are not running a multi-national beheading conspiracy – however, the super PC Alton Towers management wouldn’t sell them an exclusive day.
    Here’s my conspiracy theory. The Muslims want theme park exclusivity so they can booby trap all the rides and attractions in order to have a nice remote control blow up on the first anniversary of 7/7. Pass it on.

  • guy herbert

    So am I fed up with Stone Age people, Samsung – but perhaps quite not the same ones…

    It isn’t ‘politically correct’ poisoning of this country to let people get on with their lives and believe what they choose to believe, however batty. It is the very essence of what’s valuable about this country and worth saving from political correctness, islamo-fascism or the other sort.

  • Millie Woods

    I forgot to add in case any of the indignant heavy hitters take the last item of my post seriously – that it is meant i-r-o-n-i-c-a-l-l-y.

  • Millie Woods

    Guy, I think you miss Samsung’s point.
    He is fed up and I agree with him that too much deference and forelock clutching is paid to Muslim complaints of racism and Islamophobia whatever that’s supposed to mean.
    If certain facets of British life offend Muslims too bad – put up and shut up.
    The celeb culture offends me but so what. The whole every complaint from a non-white has to be listened to and the grievance assuaged mentality has to go if communal harmony is to endure.

  • Robert

    As a libertarian, I would agree with Natalie Solent: people should be free to associate with whomsoever they choose. However, in its purest form, that would mean repealing ALL the anti-discrimination legislation.

    That, actually, might be no bad thing. That Alton Towers’ Muslims-only day has provoked such strong condemnation from so many people, is that they have been repeatedly told by government and the elite that any and all discrimination is totally wrong. Were it not for the anti-discrimination legislation, most people would have accepted this as a simple business decision by Alton Towers’ management. Truly, everything the government touches turns to ashes.

    In the meantime, religious discrimination is illegal in the UK and, as other posters have observed, it is safe to assume the authorities would get involved were someone to promote a Christians-only day.

  • @Millie Woods: well, setting bombs on 17th September for the first anniversary of 7/7 is ironic, is it?.

    And I always thought irony was a sophisticated style (of humerous and mildly sarcastic use of language to mean the opposite of standard interpretation) rather than one requiring belief in miracles.

    I prefer full-bloodied sarcasm myself; so much more old country.

    Best regards

  • Samsung

    Just a thought. In regards to it being “good PR” to see Muslims having “fun”. I remember the last bunch of intolerant Jew-haters who also liked to have their fun days out. In the thirties they built a big holiday resort on the Baltic island of Rügen, where all the family could soak up the sun and go swimming with the kids on the beachfront. They liked their “fun” too. Didn’t stop them carting millions off to the Death Camps though. I’m sure that even the most hard-faced Wahhabi Saudi Arabian Islamofascist likes to occasionally kick a football around and have “fun”. Personally speaking, Muslims having “fun” as “good PR” doesn’t mean shit to me.

  • Alton Towers, Drayton Manor…they sound like drab, dour council estates rather than funparks.

  • Millie Woods

    Oh well, Nigel, is another of those gotcha reactives instead of one who reads for content in a WYSIWYG manner.
    Your comment, Nigel, is similar to one that could be made about 1984 – well Orwell was wrong wasn’t he – 1984 has come and gone and there’s no Big Brother to bully us, is there?
    Your reasoning is similar to the NY and LA Times editors’ reaction to the outcry about their terror enabling leaks. They’re right up there with Sedgwickian thought; here’s a sample – well, if the blogosphere hadn’t given so much publicity to our leaks …. but I needn’t go on. The ‘I’m always right’ reactives are truly amazing in their self-congratulatory righteousness.

  • Chris Harper

    Natalie,

    Well said.

    Alton towers is a private concern, it can hire out its facilities to whomsoever it wishs.

    We are all entitled to an opinion on the matter, but basically it is none of our business.

  • @Millie, who wrote: Oh well, Nigel, is another of those gotcha reactives instead of one who reads for content in a WYSIWYG manner.

    Well, what I saw, in what you wrote, was a seemingly clever comment that lost its cleverness in the mistake over the date of the big visit.

    I got the ironic comment about Orwell’s book. However, my understanding is that, as it was written in 1948, 1984 was a metaphor for “some time in future, no so distant you should not worry about it”.

    The rest went right over my head, not being a regular reader of USA newspapers, nor a mind-reader; sorry.

    Best regards

  • Keith

    from http://timblair.net/ :

    Things could get interesting at Alton Towers if other scheduled visitors turn up early:

    The Alton Towers and Thorpe Park theme parks are the latest venues trying to attract the lucrative “pink pound”.

    Both will close their doors to the general public for a day in September to welcome gay men and women over 18.

  • Nick M

    Keith,

    Now if the bookings for the 2nd Islamic “fun day” and Thorpe Park’s “Gay Pride” events get double booked. Seeing men in tutus fighting with the contents of burkhas – using only over-sized stuffed toys as weaponry would be well worth the admition on its own…

    … It would be one of those “I’d sacrifice my left arm for a HandyCam moments…”

    (And there’s always the RSA in 2010 – fuck!)

  • However, in its purest form, that would mean repealing ALL the anti-discrimination legislation.

    Robert, that is hardly a daring position to take on this blog as I suspect most would regard that view as axiomatic 🙂

  • Agathe

    Lovely post Natalie. It seems all Samizdatists have improved a lot their understanding of Islamic peace and fun.

    We’ve never seen that in France because the all country is a Muslim entertainment park. In summer, forest fires are the hit. Anybody over eight can help start simultaneous fires and watch firemen and civilians running.

    France offers car, buss, and public building fires (and sometimes even women and churches on fire) with submitted civil servants and a two faced justice all year long. I don’t think the private sector can compete with that quality of entertainment.

    The French private sector (shops, flats, companies, taxes) is also entertaining the all third-world, but only respectable grown-ups.

  • RAB

    Um , If I turn up at a Theatre on the night an demand a ticket and the theatre is sold out, it doesn’t matter what colour race or religion I am. I’m not getting in. End of story.
    The fact that one sect or another has block booked it is neither here or there either. So long as they didn’t do it to exclude all others perminently.
    Imagine if Christian voice had block booked Gerry Springer the Opera instead of picketing it and threatening it’s perifery interests and put their money where their mouths are! Na! costs dunit?
    Would have been headline news all over the world though.
    Smash sell out Tour … to no audience!!
    I think that would rebound quite nicely
    But this is just choice, first middle and last.
    Millie, I do tutorials. I ‘m not cheap but worth every penny.

  • guy herbert

    So long as they didn’t do it to exclude all others perminently.

    If they tried, someone would have the money to open another theatre, and another…

  • The fretting about this “Muslim only” day at the funpark is simply populist tub-thumping and not worth anything more than a cursory glance. I think the really disturbing indictment of many Western societies is that similar “Christian only” days organised in establishments like Alton Towers would run into legal problems.

  • James Waterton,

    I have to say that the Christian-themed day I attended at Thorpe Park a few years ago that I mentioned in the post did not appear arouse any controversy.

    It certainly wasn’t Christian-only. They didn’t check your adherence to the doctrine of the trinity at the door! However tickets were sold through churches and church organisations.

    Still, you may well be right. Things may have changed in the last few years, both legally and in terms of political “atmosphere”, so you may be right. There are several well-authenticated accounts of Muslims being treated with exaggerated deference by the authorities where Christians have not been. (The library that hosted an Eid party but refused to display posters about an Easter service comes to mind.)

    However that brings me back to the main point of the article: the best (perhaps only?) long term defence against unfair treatment by “the authorities” is to keep the authorities out of our daily lives. Hence my belief that contracts between two consenting parties are no one else’s business.

    How much one likes or dislikes Muslims has nothing to do with it. The various criticisms made in the comments about current Muslim mores have nothing to do with it. They riot, says Agathe. I know, and so what? We were talking about group bookings for theme parks.

    Defending the right of Muslims to have their own private parties also defends the right of all of us to have private parties.

    This comment has ended up being more general than just a reply to Mr Waterton, who may well broadly agree with me anyway.

  • who may well broadly agree with me

    No, I completely agree with you! If a bunch of Muslims wish to use their own money to non-coercively hire a funpark for the day and control admission in any way they see fit for the term of their contract, then it’s no one’s business but theirs and the operator’s. Trouble is, I rather suspect that if such a stunt were attempted by Christians* in Australia (and I imagine a number of other OECD countries), certain anti-discrimination watchdogs in certain states would attempt to put a stop to it, and I have a feeling they would probably succeed – either utilising legal means or by simply issuing enough threats and whipping up enough publicity to scare third party private operators into denying said groups access to their facilities. The same watchdogs wouldn’t dream of acting similarly if a Muslim group planned a ‘Muslim only’ event at a private venue – in fact, they’d probably defend that group’s right to hold exclusive social events. It’s this sort of institutionalised double standard, born out of political correctness run wild, that I find worrying.

    *Not that I think any Christian group would attempt to enforce a “Christian only” entry policy to a social event of theirs (from my experience, the missionary aspect of their religion actively encourages mixing with outsiders), but that’s not the point.

  • Agathe

    Nathalie “They riot so what?” They turn public and private spaces into amusement land and combustible and communicate as much as possible on it, to impose division and rejection in the countries that shelter them, to break their markets and weaken their working forces. In France, just before the riots, they were only asking for a few Muslim hours (women only) in public swimming pools and imposing several Algerian or Moroccan flags outside the Town Hall at their wedding, and sometimes even inside to try the cowardice of the mayor. (In France, all the weddings must take place in the Town Hall of one of the spouse.)

    The cost of their parties resulting in taxes, unemployment and ashes is mainly French, but I’m sure it will increase in England. And the cost of the conflicts among occidentals that minorities from the third world create in the UK can’t be evaluated.

    Let’s not be TOO CLEVER (it’s exciting but dangerous) about these foreign advances, let’s see them the primitive – but worldly predominant – way:
    it’s not just a one day contract in a private company, it’s a foreign flag with a sword on your kingdom.

  • Nick M

    it’s not just a one day contract in a private company, it’s a foreign flag with a sword on your kingdom.

    No, it is just that – a one day contract. To say otherwise is to tilt at windmills and to ignore the real issues of muslim assimilation.

    They don’t, by and large, assimilate but that has nothing to do with a day at Alton Towers. It’s to do with education and benefits and immigartion systems and the fact that everyone is too frightened to say anything about it for fear of being deemed “racist” (which is one step below being a “peadophile”).

    There are a very large number of kids born to second and third generation immigrants in Greater Manchester (where I live) who pitch up at primary school unable to speak English. Tackle that, then worry about theme parks.

    What do you think the muzzie plan is – “Today Alton Towers, tomorrow the World!”?

  • Samsung

    What do you think the muzzie plan is – “Today Alton Towers, tomorrow the World!”? – Nick M

    To put it bluntly…. Yes.

    Give them a finger and they will take the whole hand as the saying in goes. It reminds me of the story about the camel who stuck his nose into the tent one cold night, and then it pushed its head in, and then its neck etc. And before you knew it, you were outside in the cold and camel was in the tent. It starts with the little things and grows from there. We now have Sharia banking in Britain courtesy of limp-dicked multi-culti political correctness. Give it a few more years and they will be demanding Sharia Law applied in our Civil Courts, as it is now in Canada. And then they will be pushing for it to be applied in everything from education to government. If we are not careful we will end up with a divided and schizophrenic society within our lifetimes. These people, with their religious ideology, don’t mix in. They have absolutely no intention of. And Alton Towers, however insignificant it may appear, is simply an example of this. It’s the camel’s nose.

  • Nick M

    Samsung,

    I appreciate you’re fighting the good fight but by objecting to something which is ultimately harmless (perhaps even positive) you are playing into the hands of muslims (who have a propensity to whine about anything), the BNP and most importantly a whole load of folks who are more concerned about symbolism than substance.

    The truth is – the Islamization of Europe is not because of things like this, it is because they are positively encouraged to educate their children in an Islamic manner ensuring they don’t mix with wider society. It is because the law turns a blind eye to the cruelty and degradation endured by muslim girls and women. It is because muslim parents have formed a satanic pact with their teenage sons to allow them to do what as long as at some point they marry cousin Aisha from Islamabad.

    It has nothing to do with white-knuckle rides in Staffordshire.

    What has gone wrong with Islamic immigration to Europe is deep and structural within Islam and this has been compounded by the pig-ignorant multi-cult of GROLIES of both sexes.

    Islam generally regards “pointless” amusement as haram. A fun day at Alton Towers is a refreshing example of muslims moving away from that austerity. Nobody having a good time has ever decided to wear a semtex waistcoat.

  • Hang on a minute. Are you liberal or not? Not having access to someone else’s property in deference to another individual or individuals is in no way impinging upon my rights. You’re peddling the “slippery slope” argument. No, that dog won’t hunt. Our acceptance of the fact Muslims have hired a funpark will not soften us up for the widespread application of sha’ria law. Where we draw the line on the sort of coercion you mentioned is very clear. IT IS NOT when some Muslims hire out a private funpark for them and their mates. This is perfectly legal, acceptable behaviour that does not impinge upon anyone’s rights. We draw the line when conservative Muslims start telling my girlfriend she can’t wear her bikini to the beach, and physically stop her from doing so. It’s when they tell me I can’t get a loan from the bank, and shut down operators who would like to enter into such a contract with me.

    You do realise that your position on this issue places you closer to the islamists in outlook than it does to (I’m being a trifle presumptuous here, but I’d imagine) all of the Samizdatistas and most of the regular commentariat? You asserting we should step in to disallow this example of free association is simply a different side of the same coin of coercion many of these people you rail against clutch.

  • Agathe

    Yes Nick. It’s already more than a one-day contract, free advertisement for a winning religion directed at those who only value basic instincts. So that their booking is already repaid several times by the occidental mediatic coverage.

    Yes, the Muslims want to be heard and seen every day in thousands of public parks, and tomorrow, millions, because it is the easiest way to follow the VIII th century war criminel that they have chosen as an exemple. They are educated into being as noisy, visible or harassing (posh version) as possible. And when you can accept it, you might be ready to hear worst things about this religion. Everything is the Coran, applied everyday in Europe.

    Nick, I’m sure you’re a nice person, ready to pay for “education and benefits” for “muslim assimilation”, which cost is unknown since it’s never been seen anywhere on Earth.

    In France, the advanced lab melting men, the only political party aiming at “assimilation” of the non-occidentals, as you say, is the Front National, the politically correct aim is “integration”, that is getting up often to go to work, preferably a civil servant life-time job, or to some kind of training. That very light commitment to our country doesn’t inder religious activism and doesn’t comprehend paying taxes.

    This is why I hope the FMI will soon end up this nightmarish lifestyle by declaring France bankrupted. This week, I heard on the radio the well manered economist François de Closet (famous in France), promise us, the French, it could happen anytime, because of public expenses including civil servants wages and pensions. I don’t care who gets accused of the waste, as long as it is acknoledge that no multisomething society is can be profitable. Still, French wealthy and often expatriated actionnaries get artificial benefits from cheating on the social charges related to this new kind of employees. This is why this invasion is sustained by our leaders.

    Honnest liberalism should free Europe from Muslim totalarism and thirld world lifestyle.

    Now I must walk to a posh park, watch evidences of what I’ve just said and remember that you don’t believe me. Nick, you’re nice, and I’m sorry to write this because it makes me a marginal from the right society.

    In France, any indication that you know any desagrement with them or any mention of their cost to the community makes you a paria. It can prevent you from getting a job, getting normal services or your mail, at work or at home etc. You can’t be invited twice if you discuss this subject. What is more, telling the truth confirms that kind of delinquants into their rights to ruin occidental lifes and attracts all kind of perverts and boring behaviors. Don’t wait until you get there.

  • RGT

    “Give it a few more years and they will be demanding Sharia Law applied in our Civil Courts, as it is now in Canada. “

    Got a cite for this ever coming to pass, Samsung?

    RGT

  • Nick M

    Agathe,

    I think you ought to re-read my post. I have made many posts contra the Islamization of Europe on Samizdata over the last few months. I desire that our continent (I assume you’re French?) will remain free of Sharia until the end of the world but I don’t think an organisation hiring a theme-park is part of a dark Islamic masterplan. I think it’s a load of guys with beards and women in tents going on a rollercoaster.

    When I talk about my regret that the UK (and French and other countries) muslims haven’t assimilated I’m not talking about this being achieved by tax-payers money, I’m talking about the desire of the individuals within that particular “community” to become an active part of wider society which is beneficial to us all.

  • In general, I would say that strong private institutions are a bulwark against the type of creeping Islamification – or capture by other minority groups – that concern many of the commenters to this thread.

    Muslims can hire Alton Towers quite easily for one day and adjust it to be more to their liking – no pork at the restaurants, no alcohol sold, strict dress code etc. (No skin off my nose.)

    They can’t hire it and adjust it every day. It would cost too much. And if they did do it for some mad reason, so what? If the rest of the Great British Public found themselves forbidden to wear shorts or eat bacon at Alton Towers they would just take their custom to Drayton Manor, and/or there would suddenly be an enormous opportunity for someone else to build another theme park.

    Contrast that with the position of state institutions, which includes state laws. These are a much more realistic target for capture by determined minorities. If, say 3% of the population feel really strongly about some issue and 97% are apathetic it is actually quite a realistic proposition for the 3% to get laws passed to steer things their way. Much easier than out-purchasing the other 97%, certainly.

  • I think it’s a load of guys with beards and women in tents going on a rollercoaster.

    Yikes! The added drag caused by these obstructive garments and body hair is going to make the roller coaster the slowest and most boring ever!

  • Fastbags

    Amusement park….? These people want a muslim only world. Come to grips with it.

  • Samsung

    RGT, who would have thought a few years ago that we would have Banking in Britain conducted in accordance to Sharia Law, but we have. Canada now has Sharia Law applied within its Civil Courts, and Canada as an Anglospheric and liberal secular democracy is not much different to our own. The point being, if it can happen in Canada, it could happen here too. After all, we have got more Mohammedans living here than Canada has over there. Who knows what will happen in the next few decades to come.

    Nigeria for example, some fifty years ago had a legal system and Rule of Law very similar to our own. As part of the British Empire that was, Nigerian Law was largely based upon the British legal system. But not any more. Now they have Sharia Law. Islam has grown in power and now has the upper hand and now for example, as a woman, if you commit adultery, you run the serious risk of being stoned to death – that’s no joke. Nigeria had a relatively sensible Western style legal system with human rights etc… it doen’t anymore. Today, Holland is a secular, pluralist and liberal democracy, but in less than 15 years time, half the population of Holland, 18 years and under will be Islamic and with no great affilations to Dutch culture or its liberal and tolerant way of life. To many Muslims living in Holland, the Dutch are nothing more than Godless whore mongers. What will happen to Holland in the next few decades to come when half the population obay the commands laid down in an 8th century Saudi Arabian instruction manual, the Koran and believe in Sharia Law? Holland is no more immune to the gradual chipping away by Islam than Nigeria was. Islamic demographics (birth rate & immigration) will play an important part in the way certain European countries will head in the future. France, Spain, Holland and ourselves included. Sharia banking today… who knows what in twenty years time. It’s a new century, and respectively speaking, anything could happen.

    If you stood on a soap box on a sunny day in Paris in 1912 and told at the passers by that within a couple of years the whole of Europe would be embroiled within the biggest and bloody war the world had ever seen. If you told them about Arras, the Somme and Passchendaele. About the Mustard gas and the trenches and the millions who would die on French and Belgian soil. And to really blow their minds, you told those very same Parisians about the following rise of Hitler, the BlitzKriegs and the Jews shuffling off to the gas chambers. No one would believe you. They would think you were crazy.

    A poll was taken last year, I forget by whom, maybe YouGov, but the poll found that over 40% of Muslims asked, said they wanted Sharia Law practiced in Britain. To any free thinking, freedom and liberty loving individual, that is serious cause for concern when apparently nearly half of all Muslims living in “Dear Old Blighty” want to see their religious form of barabarism practiced in OUR courts.

  • Nick M

    I think Natalie has hit it full on the nail.

    James,
    I’m a former fluid dynamicist and I have to admit I never took into account the “burkha-drag” effect. Perhaps that’s why I’m a former fluid dynamicist.

    Perhaps there’s still a chance and a Nobel to boot, for the “Effect of Sunnah Beard Drag at UK Amusement Parks”.

    I’m gonna have to go away and calculate Reynolds numbers for an imam’s beard and that is so unfair, this being a Sunday!

    BTW Drayton Manor keeps getting mentioned – where the devil is that?

  • ResidentAlien

    Samsung,

    If British banking institutions are able to offer “Sharia” baking systems then good luck to them. Market power.

    As for Sharia law being applied in Canada I have read that this was discussed and rejected. Simply repeating that this is happening doesn’t make it true. Put up a source or shut up.

  • Agathe

    Thanks Nick for your answer. I only thought that, like a majority of occidentals you were too sure of yourself. Once you’re too close to the vortex, it’s too late. Natalie also should realise, legal and rational points of view (“only a contract”) don’t apply anymore when Muslims become too numerous somewhere. Pity and threat…

    – In France 70% of the jail sentences are never served.
    – As the Economist wrote this week – have you seen the dreadful cover – the Eiffel tower with a crescent on top) ? – In France nine prisoners out of ten have an African father.
    – There is no stability in the Islamic presence (nor in any third-world population figure) in any country. They never stop getting by-passes and accumulating capitals until they are forced to step backward.
    – Our demography won’t allow for safe jails, reliable justice, developed health services, etc.. Which one will you renounce first?

    Why did 70% of the Christians of Cyprus, against their religious and political leaders, voted against their religious and political leaders and against the European Treaty together with high indemnisties for their lost properties in the North of their island? Because they now that the Muslim side will take it as an encouragement to go further. It’s common sense to hold to each piece of one’s land.

    – Do you think they ask favours openly? They, as you say, everyday, collectively and individually (to me, they are educated to harass us) “always wish to be active members of this/their/the community”, they “study and work hard”, “build and built our houses”, “send their best doctors to us with slave wages” (I’m sick), “freed us twice from the Germans” (indeed, look which movie got the Palme d’Or in Cannes this year), but always get rejected by us, the silly ungrateful racist.

    Don’t feel clever.

  • RGT

    Samsung:

    “Canada now has Sharia Law applied within its Civil Courts, and Canada as an Anglospheric and liberal secular democracy is not much different to our own.”

    Once again: Do you have a cite for this actually having come to pass?

    RGT

  • Nick M

    Agathe,
    I’m really not sure what point you’re trying to make but I’ll reply as best I can.

    The end result of the multicultural experiment is terrifying and the intermediate results are not especially nice but I’ll reiterate that a “Muslim Fun Day” is a positive step by the Islamic community to move more into the mainstream (and by God do they need to do that…)

    A crescent on the Eiffel Tower – that’s down to you. That’s down to the French. It’s down to where and when you hold the line. It is important to choose the right battles to fight because some aren’t really worth it and to quote Bismark, a “Fun Day” in Staffordshire is not worth the bones of a single Pommeranian grenadier.

  • Last September this BBC story reported “Sharia law move quashed in Canada.”

    The head of Canada’s Ontario province has rejected attempts to allow Muslims to use Sharia law in family disputes.
    A report by Ontario’s former attorney general Marion Boyd had recommended the use of Islamic law to settle issues such as divorce and child custody.

    But Premier Dalton McGuinty ruled against the move, saying there should be “one law for all Ontarians”.

  • Nick:

    “A crescent on the Eiffel Tower – that’s down to you. That’s down to the French. It’s down to where and when you hold the line.”

    Ideally, yes. Practically… It’s easier said than done. As Agathe wrote earlier (and rightly), holding that particular line in France will make you at best a pariah. And at worse, a target (in a country where self-defense and its tools are heavily regulated and largely prohibited)

    France is truly f*. And one of the causes for my pessimism is precisely that the French have no option to hold that line (and others), even if they wanted to, before things reach their critical mass – in which case it will then be too late.

    The reason why there has been no 9/11 and no 7/7 in France, is not that King Jacques opposed the Anglo-Saxon warmongers or that the French police is more aggressive towards the islamofascist – it’s simply that the Umma knows it can get that crescent on top of the Eiffel tower without firing a single suicide Islamobot (they held the streets surrounding all major French cities for several weeks unabated, after all).

    When that happens, I’ll be with Agathe, although for a last stand, and yet another French defeat.

    Aux armes citoyens, anyways.

  • Samsung

    As far as I knew, because of misguided hippy-dippy multiculturalism, Muslims in Ontario, have been allowed by provincial law to practice Sharia to mediate and settle legal disputes, such as divorce for over 15 years. They have been legaly allowed to do it for well over a decade.

  • Agathe

    Nick, I’m sorry not to be more convincing.
    Thanks Frogman, it’s always good to read you.

  • Nick M

    Frogman, Agathe,
    I’m so sorry you feel the way you do. I didn’t realise it was as bad in France as you say. I thought the French government was more staunchly secular than that. While there are still French folks like you two there is hope. And there has to be hope for France because without France we’ve lost Europe and that is not what Charles Martel’s soldiers bled for on October 10th 732AD.

  • Understanding Islam

    Any open-minded person embarking on a study of Islam, especially if using books written in European languages, should be aware of the seemingly inherent distortions that permeate almost all non-Muslim writings on Islam. At least since the Middle Ages, Islam has been much maligned and severely misunderstood in the West. In the last years of the Twentieth Century, it does not seem that much has changed—even though most Muslims would agree that progress is being made.

    QUESTIONABLE MOTIVES & GENERAL IGNORANCE

    I feel that an elegant summary of the West’s ignorance of Islam and the motives of Orientalism are the following words by the Swiss journalist and author, Roger Du Pasquier:

    “The West, whether Christian or dechristianised, has never really known Islam. Ever since they watched it appear on the world stage, Christians never ceased to insult and slander it in order to find justification for waging war on it. It has been subjected to grotesque distortions the traces of which still endure in the European mind. Even today there are many Westerners for whom Islam can be reduced to three ideas: fanaticism, fatalism and polygamy. Of course, there does exist a more cultivated public whose ideas about Islam are less deformed; there are still precious few who know that the word islam signifies nothing other than ‘submission to God’. One symptom of this ignorance is the fact that in the imagination of most Europeans, Allah refers to the divinity of the Muslims, not the God of the Christians and Jews; they are all surprised to hear, when one takes the trouble to explain things to them, that ‘Allah’ means ‘God’, and that even Arab Christians know him by no other name.
    Islam has of course been the object of studies by Western orientalists who, over the last two centuries, have published an extensive learned literature on the subject. Nevertheless, however worthy their labours may have been, particularly in the historical and and philological fields, they have contributed little to a better understanding of the Muslim religion in the Christian or post-Christian milieu, simply because they have failed to arouse much interest outside their specialised academic circles. One is forced also to concede that Orientals studies in the West have not always been inspired by the purest spirit of scholarly impartiality, and it is hard to deny that some Islamicists and Arabists have worked with the clear intention of belittling Islam and its adherents. This tendency was particularly marked—for obvious reasons—in the heyday of the colonial empires, but it would be an exaggeration to claim that it has vanished without trace.
    These are some of the reasons why Islam remains even today so misjudged by the West, where curiously enough, Asiatic faiths such as Buddhism and Hinduism have for more than a century generated far more visible sympathy and interest, even though Islam is so close to Judaism and Christianity, having flowed from the same Abrahamic source. Despite this, however, for several years it has seemed that external conditions, particularly the growing importance of the Arab-Islamic countries in the world’s great political and economic affairs, have served to arouse a growing interest of Islam in the West, resulting—for some—in the discovery of new and hitherto unsuspected horizons.” (From Unveiling Islam, by Roger Du Pasquier, pages 5-7)

    The feeling that there is a general ignorance of Islam in the West is shared by Maurice Bucaille, a French doctor, who writes:

    “When one mentions Islam to the materialist atheist, he smiles with a complacency that is only equal to his ignorance of the subject. In common with the majority of Western intellectuals, of whatever religious persuasion, he has an impressive collection of false notions about Islam. One must, on this point, allow him one or two excuses. Firstly, apart from the newly-adopted attitudes prevailing among the highest Catholic authorities, Islam has always been subject in the West to a so-called ‘secular slander’. Anyone in the West who has acquired a deep knowledge of Islam knows just to what extent its history, dogma and aims have been distorted. One must also take into account that fact that documents published in European languages on this subject (leaving aside highly specialised studies) do not make the work of a person willing to learn any easier.” (From The Bible, the Qur’an and Science, by Maurice Bucaille, page 118)

    ORIENTALISM: A BROAD DEFINITION

    The phenomenon which is generally known as Orientalism is but one aspect of Western misrepresentations of Islam. Today, most Muslims in the West would probably agree that the largest volume of distorted information about Islam comes from the media, whether in newspapers, magazines or on television. In terms of the number of people who are reached by such information, the mass media certainly has more of a widespread impact on the West’s view of Islam than do the academic publications of “Orientalists”, “Arabists” or “Islamicists”. Speaking of labels, in recent years the academic field of what used to be called “Orientalism” has been renamed “Area Studies” or “Regional Studies”, in most colleges and universities in the West. These politically correct terms have taken the place of the word “Orientalism” in scholarly circles since the latter word is now tainted with a negative imperialist connotation, in a large measure due to the Orientalists themselves. However, even though the works of scholars who pursue these fields do not reach the public at large, they do often fall into the hands of students and those who are personally interested in learning more about Islam. As such, any student of Islam—especially those in the West—need to be aware of the historical phenomenon of Orientalism, both as an academic pursuit and as a means of cultural exploitation. When used by Muslims, the word “Orientalist” generally refers to any Western scholar who studies Islam—regardless of his or her motives—and thus, inevitably, distorts it. As we shall see, however, the phenomenon of Orientalism is much more than an academic pursuit. Edward Said, a renowned Arab Christian scholar and author of several books exposing shortcomings of the Orientalist approach, defines “Orientalism” as follows:

    ” . . . by Orientalism I mean several things, all of them, in my opinion, interdependent. The most readily accepted designation of for Orientalism is an academic one, and indeed, and indeed the label still serves in a number of academic institutions. Anyone who teaches, writes about, or researches the Orient—and this applies whether the person is an anthropologist, sociologist, historian, or philogist—either in its specific or its general aspects, is an Orientalist, and what he or she does is Orientalism.” (From Orientalism, by Edward W. Said, page 2)

    “To speak of Orientalism therefore is to speak mainly, although not exclusively, of a British and French cultural enterprise, a project whose dimensions take in such disparate realms as the imagination itself, the whole of India and the Levant, the Biblical texts and the Biblical lands, the spice trade, colonial armies and a long tradition of colonial administrators, a formidable scholarly corpus, innumerable Oriental “experts” and “hands”, an Oriental professorate, a complex array of “Oriental” ideas (Oriental despotism, Oriental splendor, cruelty, sensuality), many Eastern sects, philosophies, and wisdoms domesticated for local European use—the list can be extended more or less indefinitely.” (From Orientalism, by Edward W. Said, page 4)

    As is the case with many things, being aware of the problem is half the battle. Once a sincere seeker of the Truth is aware of the long standing misunderstanding and hostility between Islam and the West—and learns not to trust everything which they see in print—authentic knowledge and information can be obtained much more quickly. Certainly, not all Western writings on Islam have the same degree of bias—they run the range from willful distortion to simple ignorance—and there are even a few that could be classified as sincere efforts by non-Muslims to portray Islam in a positive light. However, even most of these works are plagued by seemingly unintentional errors, however minor, due to the author’s lack of Islamic knowledge. In the spirit of fairness, it should be said that even some contemporary books on Islam by Muslim authors suffer from these same shortcomings, usually due to a lack of knowledge, heretical ideas and or depending on non-Muslim sources.

    This having been said, it should come as no surprise that learning about Islam in the West—especially when relying on works in European languages—has never been an easy task. Just a few decades ago, an English speaking person who was interested in Islam, and wishing to limit their reading to works by Muslim authors, might have been limited to reading a translation of the Qur’an, a few translated hadeeth books and a few dozen pamphlet-sized essays. However, in the past several years the widespread availability of Islamic books—written by believing and committed Muslims—and the advent of the Internet have made obtaining authentic information on almost any aspect of Islam much easier. Today, hardly a week goes by that an English translation of a classical Islamic work is not announced. Keeping this in mind, I would encourage the reader to consult books written by Muslim authors when trying to learn about Islam. There are a wide range of Islamic book distributors that can be contacted through the Internet.

    IMPERIALISTIC AIMS & EAGER MISSIONARIES

    Moving on to a more detailed look at the West’s distorted view of Islam in general and Orientalism in particular . . . Edward Said, the Arab Christian author of the monumental work Orientalism, accurately referred to Orientalism a “cultural enterprise”. This is certainly no distortion, since the academic study of the Oriental East by the Occidental West was often motivated—and often co-operated hand-in-hand— with the imperialistic aims of the European colonial powers. Without a doubt, the foundations of Orientalism are in the maxim “Know thy enemy”. When the “Christian Nations” of Europe began their long campaign to colonize and conquer the rest of the world for their own benefit, they brought their academic and missionary resources to bear in order to assist in the task. Orientalists and missionaries—whose ranks often overlapped—were more often than not the servants of an imperialist government who was using their services as a way to subdue or weaken an enemy, however subtly:

    “With regard to Islam and the Islamic territories, for example, Britain felt that it had legitimate interests, as a Christian power, to safeguard. A complex apparatus for tending these interests developed. Such early organizations as the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (1698) and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (1701) were succeeded and later abetted by the Baptist Missionary Society (1792), the Church Missionary Society (1799), the British and Foreign Bible Society (1804), the London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews (1808). These missions “openly” joined the expansion of Europe.” (From Orientalism, by Edward W. Said, page 100)

    Anyone who has studied the subject knows that Christian missionaries were willing participants in European imperialism, regardless of the pure motives or naïveté of some of the individual missionaries. Actually, quite a few Orientalist scholars were Christian missionaries. One notable example is Sir William Muir, who was an active missionary and author of several books on Islam. His books were very biased and narrow-minded studies, but they continue to be used as references for those wishing to attack Islam to this very day. That Christians were the source of some of the worst lies and distortions about Islam should come as no surprise, since Islam was its main “competitor” on the stage of World Religions. Far from honouring the commandment not to bear false witness against one’s neighbour, Christians distortions—and outright lies—about Islam were widespread, as the following shows:

    “The history of Orientalism is hardly one of unbiased examination of the sources of Islam especially when under the influence of the bigotry of Christianity. From the fanatical distortions of John of Damascus to the apologetic of later writers against Islam that told their audiences that the Muslims worshipped three idols! Peter the Venerable (1084-1156) “translated” the Qur’an which was used throughout the Middle Ages and included nine additional chapters. Sale’s infamously distorted translation followed that trend, and his, along with the likes of Rodwell, Muir and a multitude of others attacked the character and personality of Muhammmed. Often they employed invented stories, or narration’s which the Muslims themselves considered fabricated or weak, or else they distorted the facts by claiming Muslims held a position which they did not, or using the habits practised out of ignorance among the Muslims as the accurate portrayal of Islam. As Norman Daniel tell us in his work Islam and the West: “The use of false evidence to attack Islam was all but universal . . . ” (p. 267).” (From An Authoritative Exposition – Part 1, by ‘Abdur-Raheem Green)

    This view is confirmed by the well known historian of the Middle East, Bernard Lewis, when he writes:

    “Medieval Christendom did, however, study Islam, for the double purpose of protecting Christians from Muslim blandishments and converting Muslims to Christianity, and Christian scholars, most of them priests or monks, created a body of literature concerning the faith, its Prophet, and his book, polemic in purpose and often scurrilous in tone, designed to protect and discourage rather than to inform”..” (From Islam and the West, by Bernard Lewis, pages 85-86)

    There is a great deal of proof that one could use to demonstrate that when it came to attacking Islam, even the Roman Catholic Church would readily embrace almost any untruth. Here’s an example:

    “At a certain period in history, hostility to Islam, in whatever shape or form, even coming from declared enemies of the church, was received with the most heartfelt approbation by high dignitaries of the Catholic Church. Thus Pope Benedict XIV, who is reputed to have been the greatest Pontiff of the Eighteenth century, unhesitatingly sent his blessing to Voltaire. This was in thanks for the dedication to him of the tragedy Mohammed or Fanaticism (Mahomet ou le Fanatisme) 1741, a coarse satire that any clever scribbler of bad faith could have written on any subject. In spite of a bad start, the play gained sufficient prestige to be included in the repertoire of the Comédie-Française.” (From The Bible, the Qur’an and Science, by Maurice Bucaille, page 118)

    WIDESPREAD LIES & POPULAR CULTURE

    The dedicated enemy of the church, referred to above, was the French philosopher Voltaire. For an example of what he thought of at least one Christian doctrine, read his Anti-Trinitarians tract. Also, the above passage introduces a point that one should be well aware of: the distortions and lies about Islam throughout the ages in Europe were not been limited to a small number of scholars and clergy. On the contrary, they were part of popular culture at the time:

    “The European imagination was nourished extensively from this repertoire [of Oriental images]: between the Middle Ages and the eighteenth century such major authors as Ariosto, Milton, Marlowe, Tasso, Shakespeare, Cervantes, and the authors of the Chanson de Roland and the Poema del Cid drew on the Orient’s riches for their productions, in ways that sharpened that outlines of imagery, ideas, and figures populating it. In addition, a great deal of what was considered learned Orientalist scholarship in Europe pressed ideological myths into service, even as knowledge seemed genuinely to be advancing.” (From Orientalism, by Edward Said, page 63)

    “The invariable tendency to neglect what the Qur’an meant, or what Muslims thought it meant, or what Muslims thought or did in any given circumstances, necessarily implies that Qur’anic and other Islamic doctrine was presented in a form that would convince Christians; and more and more extravagant forms would stand a chance of acceptance as the distance of the writers and public from the Islamic border increased. It was with very great reluctance that what Muslims said Muslims believed was accepted as what they did believe. There was a Christian picture in which the details (even under the pressure of facts) were abandoned as little as possible, and in which the general outline was never abandoned. There were shades of difference, but only with a common framework. All the corrections that were made in the interests of an increasing accuracy were only a defence of what had newly realised to be vulnerable, a shoring up of a weakened structure. Christian opinion was an erection which could not be demolished, even to be rebuilt.” (From Islam and the West: The Making of an Image, by Norman Daniel, page 259-260)

    Edward Said, in his classic work Orientalism, referring to the above passage by Norman Daniel, says:

    “This rigorous Christian picture of Islam was intensified in innumerable ways, including—during the Middle Ages and early Renaissance—a large variety of poetry, learned controversy, and popular superstition. By this time the Near Orient had been all but incorporated in the common world-picture of Latin Christianity—as in the Chanson de Roland the worship of Saracens is portrayed as embracing Mahomet and Apollo. By the middle of the fifteenth century, as R. W. Southern has brilliantly shown, it became apparent to serious European thinkers “that something would have to be done about Islam,” which had turned the situation around somewhat by itself arriving militarily in Eastern Europe.” (From Orientalism, by Edward W. Said, page 61)

    “Most conspicuous to us is the inability of any of these systems of thought [European Christian] to provide a fully satisfying explanation of the phenomenon they had set out to explain [Islam]—still less to influence the course of practical events in a decisive way. At a practical level, events never turned out either so well or so ill as the most intelligent observers predicted: and it is perhaps worth noticing that they never turned out better than when the best judges confidently expected a happy ending. Was there any progress [in Christian knowledge of Islam]? I must express my conviction that there was. Even if the solutions of the problem remained obstinately hidden from sight, the statement of the problem became more complex, more rational, and more related to experience.” (From Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages, by R. W. Southern, pages 91-92)

    Regardless of the flawed, biased—and even devious—approach of many Orientalists, they too can have their moments of candour, as Roger DuPasquier points out:

    “In general one must unhappily concur with an Orientalist like Montgomery Watt when he writes that ‘of all the great men of the world, no-one has had as many detractors as Muhammad.’ Having engaged in a lengthy study of the life and work of the Prophet, the British Arabist add that ‘it is hard to understand why this has been the case’, finding the only plausible explanation in the fact that for centuries Christianity treated Islam as its worst enemy. And although Europeans today look at Islam and its founder in a somewhat more objective light, ‘many ancient prejudices still remain.'” (From Unveiling Islam, by Roger Du Pasquier, page 47 – quoting from W. M. Watt’s Muhammad at Medina, Oxford University Press)

    SOUND ADVICE & CONCLUDING REMARKS

    In conclusion, I would like to turn to a description of Orientalism by an American convert to Islam. What he has this to say about the objectives and methods of Orientalism, especially how it is flawed from an Islamic perspective, is quite enlightening. While summarizing his views on a book by an Orientalist author, he writes:

    ” . . . (t)he book accurately reports the names and dates of the events it discusses, though its explanations of Muslim figures, their motives, and their place within the Islamic world are observed through the looking glass of unbelief (kufr), giving a reverse-image of many of the realities it reflects, and perhaps calling for a word here on the literature that has been termed Orientalism, or in the contemporary idiom, “area studies”.
    It is a viewpoint requiring that scholarly description of something like “African Islam” be first an foremost objective. The premises of this objectivity conform closely, upon reflection, to the lived and felt experience of a post-religious, Western intellectual tradition in understanding religion; namely, that comparing human cultural systems and societies in their historical succession and multiplicity leads the open-minded observer to moral relativism, since no moral value can be discovered which on its own merits is transculturally valid. Here, human civilizations, with their cultural forms, religions, hopes, aims, beliefs, prophets, sacred scriptures, and deities, are essentially plants that grow out of the earth, springing from their various seeds and soils, thriving for a time, and then withering away. The scholar’s concern is only to record these elements and propose a plausible relation between them.
    Such a point of departure, if de rigueur for serious academic work . . . is of course non-Islamic and anti-Islamic. As a fundamental incomprehension of Islam, it naturally distorts what it seeks to explain, yet with an observable disparity in the degree of distortion in any given description that seems to correspond roughly to how close the object of explanation is to the core of Islam. In dealing with central issues like Allah, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), the Koran, or hadith, it is at its worst; while the further it proceeds to the periphery, such as historical details of trade concessions, treaties names of rulers, weights of coins, etc., the less distorted it becomes. In either case, it is plainly superior for Muslims to rely on fellow Muslims when Islamic sources are available on a subject . . . if only to avoid the subtle and not-so-subtle distortions of non-Islamic works about Islam. One cannot help but feel that nothing bad would happen to us if we were to abandon the trend of many contemporary Muslim writers of faithfully annotating our works with quotes from the founding fathers of Orientalism, if only because to sleep with the dogs is generally to rise with the fleas.” (From The Reliance of the Traveller, Edited and Translated by Noah Ha Mim Keller, page 1042)

    As anyone who has studied Orientalism knows, both their methodology and their intentions were less than ideal. The follow remarks serve as a pointed synopsis of the approach of Orientalism to the Qur’an in particular and Islam in general:

    “The Orientalist enterprise of Qur’anic studies, whatever its other merits and services, was a project born of spite, bred in frustration and nourished by vengeance: the spite of the powerful for the powerless, the frustration of the “rational” towards the “superstitious” and the vengeance of the “orthodox” against the “non-conformist.” At the greatest hour of his worldly-triumph, the Western man, coordinating the powers of the State, Church and Academia, launched his most determined assault on the citadel of Muslim faith. All the aberrant streaks of his arrogant personality — its reckless rationalism, its world-domineering phantasy and its sectarian fanaticism — joined in an unholy conspiracy to dislodge the Muslim Scripture from its firmly entrenched position as the epitome of historic authenticity and moral unassailability. The ultimate trophy that the Western man sought by his dare-devil venture was the Muslim mind itself. In order to rid the West forever of the “problem” of Islam, he reasoned, Muslim consciousness must be made to despair of the cognitive certainty of the Divine message revealed to the Prophet. Only a Muslim confounded of the historical authenticity or doctrinal autonomy of the Qur’anic revelation would abdicate his universal mission and hence pose no challenge to the global domination of the West. Such, at least, seems to have been the tacit, if not the explicit, rationale of the Orientalist assault on the Qur’an.” (From: “Method Against Truth: Orientalism and Qur’anic Studies”, by S. Parvez Manzoor, Muslim World Book Review, Vol. 7, No. 4, Summer 1987, pp. 33-49.)

    Need we say more?

    Please visit http://thejourney2islam-team.blogspot.com/ to read more

  • chris

    iam disgusted at the muslim only day. if there was a christian only day there would be a political riot. All this talk about it being a day for muslims to intergrate with society is such rubbish. whats happened to the world? if muslims want to feel part of society they need to start socialising with other religions, instead of feeling sorry for themselves.ive never heard of such crap in all my life. if muslims dont feel the can intergrate with the western country, why live here?

  • Uncle Bob

    Muslims having fun, what is our problem with that?

    Well, maybe that they won’t keep the fun for themselves, and won’t respect a contract either… Linky, linky(Link)

    So how does it feel being so naive (again)?

  • Well ‘Bob’. you clearly do not think Muslims have a right to free association. And as they hired the place, what has naivity got to do with any of this? Twit.

  • carly

    so wat muslims deserve there day at the theme psrk cuz we dont come and join in there christmas extravaganza
    !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • muslims in a theme park mmm…