Islam

Tuesday

Douglas Murray

Sarkozy shows extremists the door

Who on earth does Nicolas Sarkozy think he is? The answer, of course, is President of the French Republic. And from that position — and propelled by the Toulouse shootings and doubtless by the imminent election — he has chosen to expel a number of people from the Republic whose views, actions and teachings are deemed inimical to the State. Sarkozy gave the order yesterday and a couple of hours later the men were on planes back to their countries of origin. As the Times reports, the Algerian Islamist Ali Belhadad was flown back to Algiers and Almany Baradji, an imam, was sent back to Mali. The French Interior Ministry

Saturday

Melanie McDonagh

Galloway and religion

A few years ago, The Spectator, in an inspired notion for the Easter issue, asked a number of prominent individuals whether they believed in the Resurrection. And among the surprises was George Galloway, who replied emphatically in the affirmative: ‘Yes, I believe in the Resurrection. I believe God restored the life of Jesus of Nazareth and took him to his bosom. The example of suffering and sacrifice followed by vindication is central to my religious belief.’ One hopes there wasn’t an element of hubris here, whereby George identified himself with Christ — suffering followed by vindication — but the fact remains that it was a very public profession of faith

Philip Hensher

Prophetic times

The subject here is colossal, covering a substantial stretch of the later Roman empire, the last years of the Persian empire, the conversion of the Arabs, the spread of Christianity and what happened to Judaism. The time span runs, effectively, from the death of Jesus to the moment in the eighth century when the Abbasids acquired through violence the vast empire of the Umayyads, stretching from the Loire to the Hindu Kush, and founded Baghdad. The title of Tom Holland’s book is rather studiously general, but his central topic is unmistakable: the founding and establishment of Islam and its political and martial setting. If Holland didn’t want to make a

Wednesday

Melanie McDonagh

A man surrounded — and some assumptions exposed

There was an element of bafflement in the early BBC coverage this morning of the welcome news that police have identified and surrounded the suspected killer of seven people, including Jewish children, in Toulouse. To some people’s surprise, the BBC correspondent remarked in the early reports, the suspect turned out to be a Muslim, Mohammed Merah. So the entire tone of the Corporation’s coverage of the killings turns out to have been misplaced. Ever since the dreadful news that a gunman had attacked a Jewish school in Toulouse after killing three French soldiers, the overriding assumption on the part of the Corporation was that, unless the killer was merely unhinged,

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

Defecting to what?

The wires are ablaze with the news that Syria’s deputy oil minister, Abdo Hussameldin, has switched sides to the country’s opposition. His is, after all, the most high-ranking defection so far, and he doesn’t have any kind words for his former employers. As he puts it in a video that has been posted on YouTube, the current regime are ‘not friends of the Syrian people but partners in the killing of the Syrian people’. We shouldn’t, however, get too excited just yet. This could be a significant moment, not least because it suggests that Assad’s hold over his own government is beginning to weaken. But it’s also worth remembering that

Friday

Peter Hoskin

What the Taliban want

How go those talks with the Taliban in Doha? Quietly, that’s how — although there’s a report in yesterday’s The Hindu that could reveal some of what’s being said, and is worth the time reading because of it. According to the paper’s diplomatic sources, the Taliban want Mullah Mohammed Omar installed as ‘supreme religious and political leader’ of Afghanistan. And, yes, that is the Mullah Omar who sheltered Al Qaeda when he actually was in charge of Afghanistan, and whose policy agenda included the death penalty for those converting to another religion, as well as the general subjugation of women, gay people, individuality, etc. He’s currently wanted to the tune

Friday

James Forsyth

Cameron's ECHR problems won't end with a Qatada deal

The news that Theresa May will fly to Jordan to continue talks about Abu Qatada shows how close the government thinks it is to a deal with the Jordanians that might satisfy the European Court of Human Rights and allow his deportation. One government source explained to me earlier that the problem is the Jordanians are offended by being asked to provide these guarantees about a fair trial and no evidence being obtained by torture. For this reason, there needs to be a fair amount of diplomatic stroking. A deal with Jordan on Abu Qatada is becoming increasingly necessary if Cameron is get out of this bind on the ECHR,

Tuesday

Douglas Murray

Why Baroness Warsi has it wrong

For someone who has profited so well from her religion, it is particularly striking that Baroness Warsi should claim today that our societies are suffering because of ‘a militant secularisation’ which she claims is ‘taking hold.’ And worse, she says, that ‘one of the most worrying aspects about this militant secularisation is that at its core and in its instincts it is deeply intolerant. It demonstrates similar traits to totalitarian regimes.’ Not merely ‘militant’ and ‘worrying’, but ‘similar traits’ to those of ‘totalitarian regimes.’ Before addressing the numerous ways in which Warsi is wrong, I should note the one point on which I think she is right. It is true

Thursday

Daniel Korski

Making a call on Qatada

The Prime Minister, we are told, has been trying to reach the King of Jordan to see if some kind of arrangement can be made so that Abu Qatada can be deported legally and that no forms of torture-gained evidence will used against him in a Jordanian court. This seems like a sensible thing to do. But it is important that the government balances its counter-terrorism policy with its foreign policy.   Here is what I mean. Jordan is a friend of Britain, but the King is under tremendous pressure to reform. There are daily demonstrations against his rule and the protests are gathering pace. His reforms, meanwhile, have been

Fraser Nelson

Our enemy's enemy

It’s unusual for The Guardian and The Spectator to agree on anything, but Seamus Milne and our own John R Bradley are sceptical about these Syrian rebels whom we’re being invited to support. Bradley was alone in predicting the Egyptian revolution, and argues in today’s magazine that the conventional wisdom is once again wrong. Who’s backing the rebels? The Qataris, keen to depose the last secular regime in the Arab world. And the Saudis and Israelis, whose hatred of Iran eclipses all other considerations: this isn’t about the Syrian people, but about depriving the ayatollahs of an ally. Some in the West also take the view that the enemy’s enemy

Tuesday

Douglas Murray

Ignore the European Court and deport Abu Qatada tonight

The Al-Qaeda preacher Abu Qatada is a Jordanian national who is in the UK illegally (having come here in 1993 on a forged United Arab Emirates passport). The headache he has caused successive UK governments looks like finally reaching a peak. But there is a simple solution to the problem he poses. Last month, not only for the first time in the decade-long Qatada process, but for the first time ever in an extradition case, the European Court of Human Rights cited Article 6 ‘rights to fair trial’ to ensure that Abu Qatada could not be returned to Jordan. The Court had previously played around in the Qatada case only

Monday

James Forsyth

Cameron's coming battle over the ECHR

The coming release of Abu Qatada on bail is going to put bellows under the whole debate about the European Court of Human Rights. In his recent speech to the Council of Europe, David Cameron rightly protested about a situation with terror suspects in which ‘you cannot try them, you cannot detain them and you cannot deport them.’ We will now find out how quickly Cameron is prepared to act on this issue. If Cameron wants to makes changes to the Courts and the Convention, then he is going to have to get agreement from every member of the Council of Europe. There’s no guarantee that he’ll be able to

Michael Coren

We must be honest about honour killings

White guilt has terrible consequences. This was made profoundly clear in Canada during the three month trial of Mohammad Shafia, his wife Tooba Yahya and their son Hamed. They were convicted a week ago of the first-degree murder of Zainab (19), Sahar (17) and Geeti Shafia (13), and 50-year-old Rona Amir. The three teens were Mohammad Shafia and Tooba Yahya’s daughters, Hamed’s sisters. Rona was Mohammad Shafia’s first wife. The four women had been drowned in their car in June, 2009. The killers had chosen a canal in Kingston — a university town half-way between Toronto and Montreal — because they assumed that the local police would be less sophisticated

Saturday

James Mather

Holy law

In the autumn of 1347, the Black Death arrived in Egypt. In the 18 months that followed, mosques turned into mortuaries across North Africa and the Levant. By the time the pestilence had subsided, up to a third of the Muslim world lay dead. Theologians delved into their books and found a comforting spin: infection was a blessing from God, they pronounced, and all believers touched with it were bound for paradise.  The hordes who fled their villages to escape the disease were apparently unconvinced. So too was an Andalusian scholar named Ibn al-Khatib, whose observations showed it to be spread by human contagion, not the hand of the Almighty.

Thursday

Daniel Korski

Person of the year: The Islamist?

Last week, Time Magazine named ‘The Protestor’ as its Person of the Year. Myself, I’d be tempted to bestow the honorific upon ‘The Islamist’. For, in the spirit of the Time award, it is the Islamists, rather than the revolutionaries, who are now in the ascendancy in the Middle East. Governments in Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt are all now partly ruled by democratically-elected, if relatively moderate, Islamists. Next year will be about how they manage their newfound power. It will be not about ‘political Islam’, but ‘governmental Islam’. Many wonder if there is such a thing as moderate Islam, and whether all Islamist governments tend towards theocratic rule. Now

Monday

Daniel Korski

Learning to live with Islamists

Islamists have won a landslide in Egypt, with the Muslim Brotherhood and the ultra-Conservative Al Nour party winning some 60 per cent of the votes cast. Future rounds of elections may benefit them further, as they take pace in more rural and conservative areas. Their success should be a surprise to nobody. Egypt is a conservative Muslim society. Islamists have been far better organised than the ragtag revolutionaries that ousted Hosni Mubarak, having run million-person charities for decades. They also benefit from being seen as un-corrupt and having been opposed to Mubarak for years. Further, they have been able to run on a simple slogan ‘Islam is the Solution’ without

Sunday

David Blackburn

Worrying developments in the Middle East

It’s been an eventful , if worrying afternoon in the Middle East. First, the initial Egyptian election results confirm the expectation that Islamist parties would dominate the first round of elections: they’ve taken more than 50 per cent of the vote. Douglas Murray wrote a Spectator cover story two weeks ago on how the Arab Spring is turning to winter; it is required reading. Events in Iran are much more disturbing, though. Iran claims to have shot down an US drone in the east of the country and added further threats about further retaliation for the incursion. The reports have not been confirmed by American agencies as yet; but, following the recent diplomatic

Tuesday

Daniel Korski

Mubarakism after Mubarak

The future of Egypt has been hanging in the balance since Hosni Mubarak was toppled. Now there is real cause for concern, as scores of protesters clash with state security forces. The problem, above all, is military overreach. Stuck in a 1960s view of itself, and keen to preserve their money, status and power, the military has been thwarting the process of change. Since Mubarak’s fall they have continued behaving how they always have and worse — arresting protesters, muttering about US-led conspiracies, demanding extra-constitutional rights and clamping down on dissent. Worst of all, the West has been all to willing to take them at their word. Especially the Obama

Friday

Alex Massie

Ibrox: A Broader Church Than You Might Think

This case looks as though it belongs in some Chris Morris show or something: A Muslim Rangers supporter who chanted sectarian remarks at a game at Ibrox Stadium has been fined £600. Abdul Rafiq, 41, the only Muslim member of the English Defence League, was arrested at Rangers friendly game with Chelsea on 6 August. […] Fiscal depute Seana Doherty, prosecuting said: “The accused was standing in the Govan front stand wearing a flag around his shoulders bearing the Red Hand of Ulster logo. “He was wearing an umbrella stand hat which was red white and blue and also had the Red Hand of Ulster logo on it, and carrying

Tuesday

Douglas Murray

The worst form of censorship

A week ago, the offices of the French satirical paper Charlie Hebdo were burned down. This attack came after it advertised the founder of Islam, Muhammad, as ‘editor-in-chief’ of the new issue. The move was a light-hearted response to the very serious matter of the election of an Islamist party (the Ennahda party) as the leading party in Tunisia (a result which, incidentally, appears not to have greatly bothered most European media). As the staff of Charlie Hebdo contemplated the ruins of their magazine, a much grander and richer magazine, Time, ran one of those pieces which have become familiar whenever there is an Islamist assault against free speech. As