A Sceptical Islamist

British Muslims and the problem of mainstream politics

"As in all general elections, British Muslims have been bombarded with advice as to whether and how they should vote. All the parties have appealed to the Muslim vote in constituencies where it has the potential to affect the result, while making sure they do not make promises to Muslims that can be used against them by their opponents... At the same time, there has been a variety of voices from within the Muslim community giving equally conflicting advice... Faced with this confusion, several British Muslim organizations have organized meetings to discuss how Muslims should engage with mainstream politics, and how they should use their votes to maximum effect.

"The problem is that the months and weeks before an election is the wrong time to be thinking about such issues, simply because there is no time to do anything about it. The immediacy of the situation forces Muslims into reactive and short-term responses, instead of more considered ones..."

On Imam Abdul Alim Musa and the UK's list of banned people

"This is a list, in truth, which clearly has no more substance than the "dodgy dossier" by which Tony Blair justified his support for America's invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was later found to have been plagiarised from a post-graduate dissertation that officials found on the internet. 

"That deceit contributed to the deaths of well over 100,000 Iraqis over the next few years.  This one may have somewhat less dramatic consequences, but is no less telling of the true nature of politics in the 'free' and 'democratic' West that the rest of the world is supposed to envy and aspire to emulate."

The Jewel of Medina and the achievement of the Rushdie protests

[An earlier version of this article was published as my 'Perspectives' column in Crescent International, November 2008.]
 
The last few weeks have seen the stirrings of what may become the basis for another world-wide Muslim protest movement like those about the Rushdie fitna and the Danish cartoons insulting the Prophet (saw). Beaufort House, a minor publisher in the US, published a sleazy work of fiction called The Jewel of Medina, by an America author, Sherry Jones, which has been described as a work of "soft porn" set in the time of the Prophet and taking a bowdlerised version of the life of Hadhrat A'isha (r.a.) as its theme.* Mainstream publishers Random House had earlier decided against publishing the book, after taking advice from consulants who told them that it would cause immense offence to Muslims.

Book review: How Islam influenced Britain 400 years ago

Browsing through Amazon.co.uk recently, I discovered that a book that I read and reviewed nearly 10 years ago has been re-issued in paperback: Nabil Matar's "Islam in Britain 1558-1685" (Cambridge University Press, 1998).

This is an academic study of a rarely considered topic, but remarkably readable and quite fascinating. It may interest people to read my review, published in  in March 1999. And if anyone is interested enough to read the book itself, you are unlikely to be disappointed.

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How Islam influenced British culture and civilisation 400 years ago

ISLAM IN BRITAIN: 1558-1685 by Nabil Matar. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1998. pp: 226 (inc. notes, bibliography and index). Hbk: UK£37.50.

By Iqbal Siddiqui
(Book Review, Crescent International, March 1-15, 1999)

The golden age of Islamic civilization, the thousand years from about 700 to 1700CE during which Muslims ruled from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and were the driving and leading force in human history, laying the foundations of much of what is now considered 'modern', have been carefully airbrushed out of modern western history books. History, the west teaches us, can be traced from the Greek and Roman 'ancients', through 'the Dark Ages', to the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the sudden emergence of modernity in/from Europe in the last 300 years or so.

Yaum al-Quds Demonstration, London, Sept. 28.

Details of this year's Yaum al-Quds demonstration in London have been announced.  It will take place on Sunday September 28, in Central London as usual. 

For more on Yaum al-Quds, see: http://scepticalislamist.typepad.com/home/2008/09/yaum-al-quds-and-the-zionist-problem.html

Note that the event is organized and/or supported, as usual, by a coalition of organizations, from Crescent International(!), HT and Friends of al-Aqsa to MCB, Stop the War and even Neturei Karta (anti-zionist Orthodox Jews), so we can hope insha'Allah for a large and inclusive turnout. No "political" excuse for anyone not coming! 

Below is copy of email on the event distributed by Islamic Human Rights Commission, giving full details.