Posts Tagged ‘islam’

I recently returned from Paris (I’m not bragging or anything), and one thing I noticed was that I only saw two people wearing the hijab (Islamic headscarf) the whole time I was there (four days). I saw nobody wearing a burka either, though that is to be expected given it is now illegal in France.

One explanation for this could be that there are simply very few Muslims in Paris, but given the multicultural nature of any large capitol, that seems unlikely. A more likely explanation, at least if I was to take an educated guess, is that the French have managed to create a society in which is the Islamic community does not feel oppressed (and therefore needs cultural signifiers such as head scarves) and is able to integrate. Perhaps we’ve simply got it very wrong in the UK, and the segregation many communities are seeing, is the result.

Recently, I attended a debate at Nottingham Trent University, as part of their Islamic Society’s Discover Islam Week.

The event itself was held in a lecture theatre in the Newton Building, which reminds me a lot of the building that holds the student union at University of Bradford – very new money, wide open spaces, etc.

There was a clear division between the sexes in the room – the front eight rows were reserved for males, and the back three reserved for females. They even had separate entrances too – to the point where we were about to go in the top entrance, but had to turn around at the door and go round the building lobby and down some stairs to go in the bottom entrance instead.

As ever with such events, people are going to be walking out of the room with the exact same views as they walked into the room, so decided a slightly different tact was necessary.

I was asked to speak first, which seemed very strange for a debate in which I was the opposition, but it fitted in quite well with what I had written, so I thought I would just roll with it. My speech focused less on rebutting the proposition, which was nothing more than the cosmological argument anyway, and more about offering an alternative explanation for religion.

Unfortunately, not being a philosopher, the rebuttals I did do against the argument were not overly eloquent – though I did get in the core points that it was a case of special pleading, identity of the first cause and attacking the idea that infinite doesn’t exist, though not being able to accurately put why Hilbert had been misquoted let my argument down.

Never the less, it was always going to be a tough task going into the lion’s den if you will, so I was only a little disappointed with my performance.

I also found it rather strange that they finished the event with a video from Siria. Not not a humanitarian appeal which I presumed it would be when they first announced they would be showing a video. Rather, it was footage from a mass rally in which a speaker was telling the gathered mass how Allah would crush their enemies as people chanted his name. I’m relucant to envoke Godwin’s Law and describe it to something that would not be out of place at a Goebbels rally, but then I would only be returning the favour ;).

In any case, I was an enjoyable event and I would like to thank Nottingham Trent University Islamic Society for their hospitality.

I attended Leeds Atheist Society last week. At the event, they were screening the Intelligence Squared debate, “Islam is a religion of Peace”, which is available to stream online if you haven’t seen it.

Overall, though, I’m not sure I would bother. The arguments weren’t put particularly well on either side, although perhaps slightly better for the side against, which swung the audience from being slightly for the motion, to significantly against. I get the feeling that Ayaan Hirsi Ali, as great as she is, is primarily on there because she is an ex-Muslim who isn’t afraid to speak out, rather than the cogency of her arguments. Douglas Murray was a better speaker for against, but didn’t say too much. Despite the victory, I cannot help but feeling that if the late Christopher Hitchens had been with us, he could have delivered a simple unbeatable defence.

What was far more interesting was the discussion afterwards, in which I thought the arguments put forward were far stronger than those featured on the debate. I find arguments such as The Qur’an being directly the word of Allah and the fact that it’s very hard to misinterpret all 524 verses of intolerance in The Qur’an far stronger arguments than anecdotes about how a small minority of Muslims blew up the London underground or the Twin Towers.

Because of course, this is a very small minority. Yes, they were clearly Islamic extremists who perpetrated 9-11, but this was a handful of people in a country which has millions of Muslims – the majority of Muslims are peaceful people.

But it clearly isn’t because of Islam, it’s in spite of it. To understand this, you can’t judge the entire world population of Muslims by the actions of a small radical minority. You can only say this is accurate because when you go back to the core of the faith, you find facts like The Qur’an having 534 intolerant verses, and only 75 verses containing good stuff. Or look at Sharia law states which still have appalling treatment of women, homosexuals and non-Muslims.

It’s important to remember that when discussing such topics, we’re not talking about whether Muslims are peaceful. That is obvious – the overwhelming majority of them are, and although there is a radical minority, this is true of many groups. But the question of whether Islam is peaceful is a question and answer that is detached from the attitudes of the people that identify with it. Unfortunately, the answer here is far less reassuring.

Most of us reading this will live in 2011, in the Western World. We’re used to living in a civilised society, summer riots aside. But thanks to globalisation, we’re increasingly finding a clash of cultures on many issues.

A good example of this is the World Cup hosting duties being awarded to Qatar.

The problem with this is that being an Islamic nation, homosexuality (well, homosexual acts, but it amounts to the same thing) is actually illegal there. These are enforced, including against people just on holiday there^[1].

Yet, in 2022, thousands of footballers, and several hundred thousand fans will travel to the country. And many of them will be gay. Even if you take a conservative estimate that 1% of people are gay, that puts at least 1,000 gay people in a country where just being themselves – is illegal.

That’s mental. I really don’t think we should be OK with this situation.

Luckily, everyone’s favourite football character Sepp Blatter stepped in to offer some advice. He explained “I’d say they [gay fans] should refrain from any sexual activities.”^[2]. Problem solved, I guess. Of course, this is from the same man who doesn’t seem to have a problem with racism^[3] and is constantly dogged by allegations of corruption^[4].

So what do we do about it? Well, we could get all the major countries to boycott it. Or at least Western countries, who knows how much control His Holiness commands over South America’s attitudes, and the answer is probably quite a lot. We could certainly give it a try though, and it would be a worthy cause. As Bryan Goldberg points out, Qatar also has a terrible human rights record, and that’s just the start of it.

Of course, we probably won’t do that, not because missing the World Cup would be mega rubbish (which it would be, that would be the biggest drawback of not taking part), but because it would be politically insensitive for us to call a nation out on the fact that their state religion is the most intolerant faiths currently practiced in the modern world (then again, maybe I’m just being over critical – it’s easy to take 534 verses out of context⁵).

Instead, our fearless leader David Cameron hopes that bringing the World Cup to Qatar will show them that homosexuality is actually fine^[6]. Apparently, “football can be a great engine for social change and a change of attitudes” and, when it comes down to it, at least there is such a thing as an Islamic soup kitchen.

So, eleven years from now, in an attempt to change social attitudes, we will send hundreds of our citizens into a country where making love to their spouse is a crime punishable by execution. Wonderful.

[6]: http://www.insideworldfootball.biz/worldcup/bids/qatar/8894-cameron-believes-qatar-world-cup-can-change-attitudes-towards-homosexuality – this resource is no longer available

When I first heard of the MDI (Muslim Debate Initiative) I thought, what an excellent idea for an organisation. A robust exchange of ideas is not only the basis of a strong, diverse society but also a sign of respect…

Last year, when ran the Perspective Course for a second time and as part of our session on Islam, Nicola had arranged a speaker from the MDI to come up to Leeds to present a talk.

Being a student society we are very restricted on funding so the MDI had agreed to pay the travel costs associated with sending someone but we set about providing a welcoming atmosphere, moving our social away from the pub and to a local sheesha bar.

Then, on the day before the talk, the speaker phoned me saying he was about to book his train and wanted to check that we were fine to pay all the costs. I explained that Nicola had already agreed with the MDI that they would pay the costs but he denied this and insisted we pay the £70 train bill. I reluctantly agreed, presuming the situation was sorted.

However, twenty minutes later I received another phone call from the speaker saying that actually because he was booking at the last minute, the train bill would come to £250 and were we alright to pay this? To which I, of course, said no and he decided he wouldn’t be able to attend after all. Thankfully, within a day, the Leeds Makkah Mosque were kind enough to provide us with a speaker.

Maybe this was a mix up. I can understand that sometimes this happens.

Earlier this year we began planning a big debate between Andrew Copson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association and an Islamic speaker, so we once again contacted the MDI, presuming on good faith that last time has been a mix up. They agreed to send a speaker and after many emails being exchanged, everything seemed to be in place.

Then, when we contacted them a week before the debate was due to take place to confirm all the final details, the speaker emailed us back saying he had been told the debate was cancelled and so would not be attending.

I then contacted the MDI to find out what was going on and they confirmed what their speaker had said – they had decided the event was cancelled and told him not to go. They then asked if they would like them to provide another speaker and I said yes – and then never heard back from them.

Another debate successfully avoided.

What is interesting, is the parallels between these incidents and the infamous February 2009 debate with the Islamic Society at Leeds in which they actually went out of their way to prevent the event from going ahead. After all of this, I find myself very nostalgic for the debates we had back in the day with the Christian Union.

Because the Islamic Society at Leeds University Union generally refuse to talk to us, we were left wondering how we could get an Islamic debate for this year’s Reason Week 2010 held in April.

In the end the solution we went with was to contact Ahlul Bayt, which is a different sect of Islam – they are basically to Islamic Society what the Catholic Society is to the Christian Union. They’re treasurer had spoken at an interfaith panel discussion we had held before so we were on fairly good terms with them.

The debate itself took place to a packed out tent, as people crowded in to hear Norman Ralph speak for our side on the subject of whether Islam provides everything you need to live a good life.

The debate itself went very well so we thought. With a formal debate there is always a little toing and throwing – or as you would normally call it, debate, but everything seemed to remain friendly.

We had also gone out of our way to accommodate the members of their society, providing a specifically vegetarian dinner with no meat option at all so that we could avoid any issues surrounding non-Halal meat.

One rather amusing incident was when the present of AbSoc, who was sitting in the audience, raised her hand to make a point and explained that she wore the headscarf because it empowered her to hide her looks. Norman countered by pointing out that with or without her headscarf, she was clearly a rather attractive woman.

The debate continued and afterwards several of their society members hung around to continued the debate is a less formal environment until eventually everyone dissipated and we thought job well done.

However a week later we received an email from Ab Soc saying that our attitude had ruined the debate. They accused us of not being impartial, of them not being given chance to respond to points and it generally being an attack on Islam.

They also said it was highly inappropriate for people to have been drinking in the tent and that there were people in the corner shouting and jeering which isn’t “the sort of behaviour that we expect at a formal debate.”

Further more, when they’re speaker spoke about the constitution of Islam, an audience member apparently replied “that’s shit” and Ab Soc went on to demand that there was “action taken against this person” as it was “at least offensive and at greatest illegal!”

To address these points…

The debate was chaired by a representative of Debate Society. I personally felt they were impartial, but even if you didn’t, I don’t see how you can throw a criticism at Atheist Society for that.

The people shouting and jeering in the corner of the tent where not members of the Atheist Society. But even if they were – that actually is the kind o attitude you expect at a debate. It isn’t a real debate unless there is at least some fist banging and shouts of “here, here!”

These were the same people who were drinking. We have a no alcohol policy in the tent, but we don’t control these people and drinking is part of the real world – they wouldn’t tolerate alcohol in a mosque nor would we take alcohol in out of respect, and yet when they come to our venue they do not respect our free choice to consume alcohol.

Finally, it certainly isn’t illegal to criticise an idea. I’m not exactly sure what is referred to by the “constitution of Islam” but I’m fairly sure it is a pile of shit and I have every right to voice that opinion under British law.

Obviously the first reaction of the committee was a very offended one but we soon calmed down and suggested we just ignore it. Our president at the time Sophie, felt that it needed a response though and decided that rather than cause an argument she would send an apology.

We presumed this would be the end of it but apparently not – we received another angry email back from Ab Soc, in response to our apology, saying that Norman had repeatedly attacked Islamic and this should have been totally off the cards is a debate about Islam.

Meanwhile, when Sophie had pointed out that they had laid into homosexuals during the debate this was only apparently because someone had asked about it and the question was answered “representing Islam” which as you will probably know, is intolerant of homosexuality.

They then want on to state that saying “that’s shit” was a violation of the Public Order Act because several members of the audience felt “distressed” by the comment. They went on to say that they would never make such a comment (presumably about the atheist constitution if there was such a thing) and put this down to their respect for diversity – even though they’ve already said that they don’t tolerate the gays.

At this point we made a decision as a committee that Ab Soc were just looking for an argument and the best thing to do would be to simply turn the other cheek and ignore the email so as to not aggravate the situation any further. Again, we presumed this would be the end of it.

However a week later we received another email from Ab Soc demanding an answer to their previous email.

So eventually Sophie emailed him back saying she hadn’t responded because she didn’t want to cause more of an argument, but while we’re on the subject we didn’t appreciate being compared to football hooligans, that she didn’t appreciate the threatening emails he had been sending her and that if they wanted to go the police and ask for a criminal investigation, we would welcome it.

Personally I would have added that if we were to be held accountable for the behaviour of people who weren’t members of our society but were never the less self describing as atheists, whether Ab Soc would be answering for those individuals self describing as Muslims who carried out 7-7 and 9-11. But Sophie is more diplomatic than I am.

Ab Soc shortly emailed back saying they would discuss their next move in their next committee meeting but encouraged us to take their emails to the police if we wanted, showing how meaningless their initial threats against Sophie had been.

Sophie still wanted to repair relationships however and so set up a meeting with Kay, our development coordinator for faith and cultural societies at the union. The meeting with Kay went well – Sophie presented her case and Kay agreed that the emails were threatening and offered to set up a meeting with Ab Soc so we could talk it out.

Unfortunately, on the day the meeting was schedule to take place, Kay was off sick. It was rescheduled to a week later but again, when the say came Kay was off sick again so once again the meeting didn’t take place. So by this point we decided to give up and wait to see if anyone else forced the issue. And that was the end of our exciting adventure with Ab Soc.

With out speaker from the Muslim Debate Initiative having canceled us on the night before, a speaker from the Leeds Makkah Mosque kindly stepped in at the last minute to present the session on Islam. I found it a really good session, there were some excellent questions asked and interesting answers given.

For those of you who haven’t heard of the English Defence League (I hadn’t until today), they bill themselves as “peacefully protesting against militant Islam” so you can fill in the blanks. Anyway I was linked to their website via UAF’s website and had a quick browse around. They don’t have much content but they do have some interesting Google Adwords on their forum registration page 😀 .

On Tuesday we had a debate with the Islamic apologist Adam Deen. The man is a fantastic public speaker and even though I think most of us from A-Soc have heard all the arguments before, they were very eloquently put. Norm did a good job of speaking for outside, as did Sophie chairing a debate for the first time – not an easy one to start on!

Wednesday we had a long awaited debate with the Islamic Society scheduled. It was a big step forward as traditionally they have been very hostile towards us and generally refused to engage in any kind of interfaith communcation.

It turns out though that the guy organising it had “left ISoc” which apparently (though I’m going on what I’ve been told, but this is by people directly involved) that he was kicked out of the society for trying to encourage interfaith dialog between ISoc and Atheist Society.

We had no idea of this though and ISoc didn’t seem to actually be organising the debate (which would fit with the above being true) so we volunteered to take responsibility for running the event and get it all organised.

This was a bit of a headache but needs must and all that so we took about getting it all sorted.

It turns out however that the day before the debate, ISoc had gone down and cancelled the venue booking (which was in their name because they guy originally organised) to prevent the event from actually going ahead.

We only found this out at about noon yesterday (the day of the debate) and tried out best to get the message out to everyone but unfortunately didn’t get to everyone – some people were doing three hour round trips to attend and were not amused to find out it had been cancelled.

So there you have it, I don’t know why we expected better from ISoc but at least we won the debate by default – does that count as proof there is no god? 😀 .