Swiss Compete with Saudis to Undermine Religious Freedom, Muslims and Islamophobia, NewAgeIslam.com

Muslims and Islamophobia

Swiss Compete with Saudis to Undermine Religious Freedom

The Minaret Ban in Switzerland is one of those incidents that requires some time to process because there are so many threads to the story. Switzerland is the European country that anyone thinks of when they think of neutrality and tolerance. And, yet this is exactly the place where a ban just took place which shows a deep streak of racism towards, fear of, and willingness to discriminate against the 4.5% of the population that is Muslim.

Saudi Arabia is a Muslim country that has a terrible human rights record, is an absolute monarchy, and promotes a particularly rigid and extreme view of Islam that is repressive. In Saudia Arabia churches cannot be built, and it is even illegal to meet for Christian prayers or services. As a Muslim I am absolutely in disagreement with the Saudi position on this and many other issues, and openly state those views, as have many other Muslims. However, any reform movements in Saudi will be a long time coming as the royal family has the strong support of the U.S. government. And because of this no pressure is put on them to do something about their human rights and religious rights situation.

The Saudi situation is deplorable, and yet it seems that in the heart of Europe, the most enlightened country of Switzerland is ready to emulate the Saudi’s and turn its back on the enlightenment, on the best of modernity, and join the Saudi’s by taking the first step down a road leading to a return to a past in which minorities were treated barbarically culminating in the holocaust.

http://newageislam.com/swiss-compete-with-saudis-to-undermine-religious-freedom-/muslims-and-islamophobia/d/2180

‘Europe must learn from the Swiss ban on minarets as quickly as possible‘, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

‘Europe must learn from the Swiss ban on minarets as quickly as possible‘

Either Islam will be Europeanised, or Europe will be Islamised.” In recent years this prediction has been made by many major experts, among them the American Bernard Lewis, the Syrian-born German Bassam Tibi, and the French Gilles Kepel. This is, without question, an uncomfortable and sensitive topic, but it’s one that is very pertinent now that the Swiss have put their foot down and said that they will not accept another minaret within their borders.

In recent decades, Islam has exploded in Europe. You can see the changes with your own eyes from year to year —whether it’s the increasing presence of hijabs on the street in a city like Oslo, or the bearded men with ankle-high baggy pants, or the new and resplendent mosques that are under construction. For my part, I’ve noticed an increasing insecurity and unease among ‘ordinary’ people who feel like aliens in their own country. People ask: What is the purpose of this project? Don’t we, as a nation, have a right to pass our own cultural legacy, our traditions and values, on to our children and grandchildren? Should we, in the name of tolerance, give in to the demands made by ‘others’ whose influence is growing, and whose voices are becoming louder, as their numbers increase? Or as a Norwegian Labour Party politician said to me in a private conversation: “On the day that most of the members of the city council are Muslims, what do you think will happen to the right of Oslo bars to serve alcohol?” Another leading Labourite with over a couple of decades’ experience in politics put it more bluntly when I asked him “What you think about immigration from the Muslim world?” The answer was so crisp, merciless, and genuinely felt that I gasped: “What have they contributed?” Period.

http://newageislam.com/%E2%80%98europe-must-learn-from-the-swiss-ban-on-minarets-as-quickly-as-possible%E2%80%98/islam-and-the-west/d/2211

New EU foreign policy chief lambastes 'Israeli occupation', Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

New EU foreign policy chief lambastes 'Israeli occupation'

By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz

17/12/2009

Catherine Ashton on Tuesday leveled scathing criticism at the "Israeli occupation," in her first speech as the European Union's first high representative for foreign affairs and security policy.

The British stateswoman, who has also served as the Commissioner for Trade in the European Commission, said that in the EU's view, "East Jerusalem is occupied territory, together with the West Bank."

Ashton demanded that Israel immediately lift its blockade on the Gaza Strip, and reiterated that the union opposes the existence of the West Bank separation fence, as it opposes evictions of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem.

The stateswoman, whose full title is Baroness Ashton of Upholland, also only defined Israel's partial freeze of West Bank settlement construction as a "first step," as opposed to the warmer description of the move by EU foreign ministers, who last week took "positive note" of it.

In her address to MEPs in Strasbourg, Ashton, who was only recently appointed to the new position, said she had spoken with Israelis, Palestinians and the U.S. Secretary of State about the role the Quartet of international mediators, and that of its special envoy to the region, Tony Blair.

Ashton said she had told Blair personally that, "The Quartet [a special group set up by the U.S., EU, UN and Russia] must demonstrate that it is worth the money, that it is capable of being reinvigorated."

Following her comments, a number of MEPs from the Liberal side of the house called for punitive measures against Israel, including the suspension of the EU's Association Agreement. Irish centre-left member Proinsias De Rossa, who visited the West Bank last week, called Israel's treatment of Palestinians a form of "apartheid."

This time it was neither the "infamous" Swedish president who pulled the EU toward an anti-Israel resolution, nor a "daydreaming judge" in Britain who issued an arrest warrant against an Israeli foreign minister. Criticism of Israel has become the language of choice in European discourse.

http://newageislam.com/no-proof-of-indian-role--baloch-leader-hasil-bizenjo/islamic-world-news/d/2235

دو سو چوراسی برس سے نافذ فرمان, Urdu Section, NewAgeIslam.com

Urdu Section

دو سو چوراسی برس سے نافذ فرمان

The tragic plight of Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel Prize winner for Peace, reminds us of Khilafat-e-Usmania

By Zahida Hina

(Translated from Urdu by Raihan Nezami)

October is the month for the declaration of Nobel Prize winners; the whole world has been waiting for its declaration every October for 108 years with bated breath. Nobel Prize is given to the people for excellent achievements in the categories of Peace, Literature, Physics, Chemistry and Physiology or Medicine, who dedicate their lives to the service of mankind in these fields without any discrimination of caste, colour, region or religion.

This prize was established in 1900 in the name Alfred Nobel at his will. Nobel was the inventor of the most destructive “Dynamite”. His family was involved in the production of deadly weapons. Before his death, he established a trust and made a will to equally distribute the profit of the heavy amount kept in the account of trust among the five finest and extra-ordinary persons of the world who would have achieved the best in the five categories. He formed a committee of nominees.

ct nd astonishing fnd conditionsngedachieved the best in the five categoties.the profit of The members of the committee are changed but not the terms and conditions. It is an astonishing fact, the person who earned money by producing destructive arms and ammunitions, first of all, thought of establishing the Nobel Prize for peace. He wrote in 1983, “Peace prize should be given to the man or woman who would do the noble act of enhancement of peace in Europe and the world. Being a European, he was quite aware of the destruction caused by different wars being fought in Europe, and many wars may be fought in future. So he thought that peace was an inevitable necessity for Europe and the world. He wished it to given to Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicita von Suttner who had worked a lot for garnering peace in the world, but she was finally awarded Nobel Prize in 1905.

http://www.newageislam.com/urdu-section/دو-سو-چوراسی-برس-سے-نافذ-فرمان/d/2304

Israel in freefall: A thorn in the world’s side, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

Israel in freefall: A thorn in the world’s side

By Sever Plocker

Published: 11.03.09

I’ve been invited to deliver a lecture about Israel’s economy and society at Oxford University. As it is a short lecture, and a respectable forum, I gladly accepted the offer. The invitation was extended about six months ago. Yet now, as my trip approaches, I feel concern. I’m hesitating.

My acquaintances are warning me: Don’t go. Hostile elements will cause disturbances, protest, shout and interfere. The atmosphere at British universities is anti-Israel to an extent unseen in the past. Israel is perceived as a thorn in the civilized world’s side.

An Israeli professor who quietly left a prestigious British university told me: “My academic and social life there was intolerable. Colleagues stayed away from me as if I was a leper. I was not invited to meetings, which were shifted from university buildings to private residences in order to keep me out. The fact I openly expressed leftist views was to no avail. My objection to the occupation and endorsement of a return to the 1967 borders made no difference. In practice, I became ostracized.”

“Today you are a welcome guest in the British and European academic world only if you reject the very existence of the colonialist and imperialistic creature that methodically commits war crimes, known as Israel,” he said. “Today it isn’t enough to condemn Bibi and Barak; in order to be accepted by academia outside of Israel one must condemn the Balfour Declaration.”

http://newageislam.com/israel-in-freefall--a-thorn-in-the-world%E2%80%99s-side/islam-and-the-west/d/2096

Zionism was an ‘abnormal’ Jewish nationalism, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

Zionism was an ‘abnormal’ Jewish nationalism

By Shahid Alam

'Zionism was a grave assault on the history of the global resistance to imperialism that unfolded even as Jewish colons in Palestine laid the foundations of their colonial settler state. The Zionists sought to abolish the ground realities in the Middle East established by Islam over the previous 1,300 years. They sought to overturn the demography of Palestine, to insert a European presence in the heart of the Islamicate, and to serve as the forward base for Western powers intent on dominating the Middle East'

The ultimate goal... is, in time, to take over the Land of Israel and to restore to the Jews the political independence they have been deprived of for these two thousand years... The Jews will yet arise and, arms in hand (if need be), declare that they are the masters of their ancient homeland." -- Vladimir Dubnow, 1882

Zionism is best described as an abnormal nationalism. This singular fact has engendered a history of deepening conflicts between Israel -- leading an alliance of Western states -- and the Islamicate more generally.

Jewish "nationalism" was abnormal for two reasons. It was homeless: it did not possess a homeland. The Jews of Europe were not a majority in, or even exercised control over, any territory that could become the basis of a Jewish state. We do not know of another nationalist movement in recent memory that started with such a land deficit -- that is, without a homeland.

http://newageislam.com/zionism-was-an-%E2%80%98abnormal%E2%80%99-jewish-nationalism/islam-and-the-west/d/2109

Arabs Pay Price for Holocaust: Tutu, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

Arabs Pay Price for Holocaust: Tutu

Cairo — Feeling the guilt over the Holocaust during World War II, the West is turning a blind eye to Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians and Arabs, leaving them to pay the price of the Holocaust, Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu said.

"Who pays the penance?” Tutu, a South African Archbishop, told Haaretz on Friday, August 28.

“The penance is being paid by the Arabs, by the Palestinians."

The Holocaust refers to "systematic state-sponsored killing of Jewish men, women, and children and others by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II."

The commonly used figure for the number of Jewish victims is six million.

But the figure has been questioned by many European historians and intellectuals, chiefly French author Roger Garaudy.

"I once met a German ambassador who said Germany is guilty of two wrongs. One was what they did to the Jews. And now the suffering of the Palestinians," Tutu said.

Israeli troops killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and wounded thousands in 22 days of deadly attacks in Gaza in January.

Israel also tightened a crippling siege on the strip, home to 1.6 million Palestinians, since Hamas was voted to power in 2006, badly affecting the livelihood in the enclave.

http://newageislam.com/arabs-pay-price-for-holocaust--tutu/islamic-world-news/d/1697

New wave of Islamophobia in Europe?, Muslims and Islamophobia, NewAgeIslam.com

Muslims and Islamophobia

New wave of Islamophobia in Europe?

By Hasan Suroor

Aug 29, 2009

Are these simply isolated events? Or is Europe in the grip of a new wave of Islamophobia?

First, the books described by writer and critic Pankaj Mishra in a long polemical article in The Guardian as works of "Eurabia-mongers" who believe that Europe is about to be "over-run" by Muslims with at least one American writer claiming that they are already "conquering Europe's cities, street by street."

A common theme running through these books is that Europe's 53 million-strong Muslim population is a "demographic time-bomb" which needs to be defused immediately if the continent does not want to end up as "Eurabia." The solution is simple if stark: keep Muslims out of Europe and, if necessary, throw them out. Some of the suggestions on how to deal with the Muslim "problem" amount to ethnic cleansing.

For flavour, consider this chilling passage from Canadian commentator Mark Steyn's book America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It: "In a democratic age, you can't buck demography — except through civil war. The Serbs figured that out — as other Continentals will in the years ahead; if you can't outbreed the enemy, cull 'em."

American writer Bruce Bawer's new book Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom, which has been hailed as "an essential wake-up call" for the West (New York Times Book Review called it "unquestionably correct"), is a vitriolic attack on European liberals, including sections of the liberal media, who — it argues — have been driven by a combination of fear and political correctness to appease radical Islam at the cost of their "most cherished values."

http://newageislam.com/new-wave-of-islamophobia-in-europe?/muslims-and-islamophobia/d/1698

A culture of fear: Pankaj Mishra on the 'Eurabia-mongers', Muslims and Islamophobia, NewAgeIslam.com

Muslims and Islamophobia

A culture of fear: Pankaj Mishra on the 'Eurabia-mongers'

Is Europe about to be overrun by Muslims? A number of prominent European and American politicians and journalists seem to think so. The historian Niall Ferguson has predicted that "a youthful Muslim society to the south and east of the Mediterranean is poised to colonise - the term is not too strong - a senescent Europe". And according to Christopher Caldwell, an American columnist with the Financial Times, whom the Observer recently described as a "bracing, clear-eyed analyst of European pieties", Muslims are already "conquering Europe's cities, street by street". So what if Muslims account for only 3% to 4% of the EU's total population of 493 million? In his book Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Can Europe Be the Same With Different People in It? - which was featured on Start the Week, excerpted in Prospect, commended as "morally serious" by the New York Times and has beguiled some liberal opinion-makers as well as rightwing blowhards - Caldwell writes: "Of course minorities can shape countries. They can conquer countries. There were probably fewer Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917 than there are Islamists in Europe today."

http://newageislam.com/a-culture-of-fear--pankaj-mishra-on-the--eurabia-mongers--/muslims-and-islamophobia/d/1727

Qaddafi criticises the inherent unfairness of the United Nations, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

Qaddafi criticises the inherent unfairness of the United Nations

An hour into his address, Colonel Qaddafi began calling for investigations into each of the major wars since the United Nations was founded: the Korean War, the war over the Suez Canal, the Vietnam War and the United States’ wars in Iraq, which he called “the mother of all evils.”

The Afghan war, too, he said, should be investigated for possible prosecution. At times, Colonel Qaddafi veered into conspiracy, saying, for example, that the H1N1 influenza virus, also called swine flu, might be a military or corporate weapon that got out of a lab, and he intimated that an Israeli hand was behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said, should be solved by the creation of a single state, which Mr. Qaddafi called Israteen, but Mr. Qaddafi stressed it was wrong to infer that Arabs hate the Jews. “You are the ones who burned them, not us. You expelled them,” he said, referring apparently to European nations.

For Mr. Obama personally, however, he had only warm words, calling on the collected nations to welcome “our son” on the occasion of his first United Nations appearance. “We are content and happy if Obama can stay forever as the president of America,” he said, saying he feared America would return to its old ways after the end of Mr. Obama’s term.

http://newageislam.com/qaddafi-criticises-the-inherent-unfairness-of-the-united-nations/islamic-world-news/d/1790

Ramadan is the most dangerous time of the year in Eurabia, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

Ramadan is the most dangerous time of the year in Eurabia

By Thomas Landen Journalist

August 27, 2009

It is hot in Brussels. Ramadan has begun. The faithful in the predominantly Muslim borough of Molenbeek are not allowed to eat or drink from sunrise until sunset. Non-Muslim policemen, patrolling the streets of Molenbeek in their sweltering cars, are not allowed to eat or drink either. As every year during Ramadan, that they have been told by their superior, Philippe Moureaux, the Socialist mayor of Molenbeek, they have to respect Muslim sensitivities and not to “provoke” Muslims by violating Islamic Ramadan restrictions in public. In effect, Islamic or Sharia law is already applied - for everyone - in the Muslim areas of Brussels.

Barely two miles from Molenbeek lies Brussels’ European district. One of its huge glass and concrete buildings is the European Parliament where the elected representatives from the 27 member’s states of the European Union (EU) convene. The 736 MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) have just returned from their summer break. They are mostly unaware of life in Molenbeek. Most of them never go to that part of the city. It is probably a sensible decision, because Molenbeek is known to be unsafe for non-Muslims. Nevertheless, it is a shame that Europe’s politicians are unaware of day-to-day life just around the corner. It means that most of the 736 MEPs, who make up the second largest democratically elected assembly in the world (after India), do not know what life really is like in an ever growing section of Europe’s urban areas. A walking tour of Molenbeek should be compulsory for every MEP.

http://newageislam.com/ramadan-is-the-most-dangerous-time-of-the-year-in-eurabia/islam-and-the-west/d/1796

Did Prophet Mohammad Exist? German Muslim Academic Questions Muhammad's Existence, Islamic History, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic History

Did Prophet Mohammad Exist? German Muslim Academic Questions Muhammad's Existence

Prof. Kalisch, who insists he's still a Muslim, says he knew he would get in trouble but wanted to subject Islam to the same scrutiny as Christianity and Judaism. German scholars of the 19th century, he notes, were among the first to raise questions about the historical accuracy of the Bible.

Many scholars of Islam question the accuracy of ancient sources on Muhammad's life. The earliest biography, of which no copies survive, dated from roughly a century after the generally accepted year of his death, 632, and is known only by references to it in much later texts. But only a few scholars have doubted Muhammad's existence. Most say his life is better documented than that of Jesus.

"Of course Muhammad existed," says Tilman Nagel, a scholar in Göttingen and author of a new book, "Muhammad: Life and Legend." The Prophet differed from the flawless figure of Islamic tradition, Prof. Nagel says, but "it is quite astonishing to say that thousands and thousands of pages about him were all forged" and there was no such person.

All the same, Prof. Nagel has signed a petition in support of Prof. Kalisch, who has faced blistering criticism from Muslim groups and some secular German academics. "We are in Europe," Prof. Nagel says. "Education is about thinking, not just learning by heart."

http://newageislam.com/did-prophet-mohammad-exist?-german-muslim-academic-questions-muhammad-s-existence/islamic-history/d/994

Islam doesn’t breed terrorism, Swami Onkarnath, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

Islam doesn’t breed terrorism, Swami Onkarnath

Jacques Barrot is the European Commissioner for Justice. In an interview at Café Babel [in French] he gives some revealing answers which indicate that the European suicide is underway. He calls immigration an economic and moral necessity, adding that Islam is welcome in Europe.

Mr Barrot is a former deputy in the French National Assembly, from 1967 to 2004. He was one of the founders of today's UMP party, an institution that claims to be conservative. UMP is the party of Nicolas Sarkozy, who is known to the media and the world as a politician of the "Right." Barrot had previously supported Jacques Chirac, and before that had been a leader of the centrist movement. In 2000 he was convicted in a French court of "abuse of confidence". The case involved the diverting of government money to his party. He received an eight month suspended prison sentence but was pardoned by Jacques Chirac. Since 2004, Barrot has been a European Commissioner. He is also a Vice President of the European Commission.

http://newageislam.com/islam-doesn%E2%80%99t-breed-terrorism,-swami-onkarnath/islamic-world-news/d/903

The Americans are laughing, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

The Americans are laughing

By Dr Muzaffar Iqbal

The Americans are laughing because they have accomplished a regime change in Pakistan through a mechanism that is new even to them. They have every reason to laugh because this is really a unique case in the sixty years of American adventurism abroad since the World War II: Out of the 34 cases of overseas US militaristic meddling in five diverse geographic regions, involving eleven presidencies, George W Bush and his team has accomplished something that no other president of the United States has been able to: they can have their pie and eat it too. From Truman's European reconstruction (1945-52) to the expanding empire under Eisenhower (1953-60), and from the Kennedy-Johnson extensions (1961-8) to the Nixon-Ford consolidations (1969-76), there has been no presidency which has so drastically expanded the American empire as Bush and his team has done in the last eight years.

http://newageislam.com/the-americans-are-laughing/islam-and-the-west/d/752

Faith and Reason in Islam, Islamic Ideology, NewAgeISlam.com

Islamic Ideology

Faith and Reason in Islam

By Asma Afsaruddin

In al-Mas‘udi's day, the great translation movement which had started in Baghdad in the ninth century was bearing rich fruit, making Greek philosophical texts accessible to Arabic-speaking Muslims and effecting a genuine intellectual revolution in the Islamic world. In this period, Muslims displayed a remarkable receptivity towards knowledge and learning, regardless of its source. Persian works of literature and philosophy and Indian treatises on mathematics were also translated and studied alongside Greek works. Some of the best-known philosophers of the medieval period – Avicenna, Averroes, al-Farabi – were Muslims, and their thought was influential in medieval Europe as well. Without this intellectual and cultural legacy that was transmitted to Europe from the Islamic world, there may well have been no European Renaissance!

Pope Benedict's statements, therefore, unfortunately point to a basic lack of knowledge about this organic continuity between the learning of the pre-modern Islamic world and that of the post-Renaissance West. He is not alone in this. Many otherwise highly-educated Westerners (and Muslims as well) are often quite ignorant of these historical connections. There are rejectionist Muslims today who would deny that Islamic thought and learning has in any way been influenced by non-Islamic sources. They too need to acquire a more accurate knowledge of the historical inter-connectedness between the West and the Muslim world. This is why so many find the "clash of civilisations" thesis credible today.

http://newageislam.com/faith-and-reason-in-islam/islamic-ideology/d/203

Tariq Ramadan on Islamic Feminism, Islam, Women and Feminism, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam, Women and Feminism

Tariq Ramadan on Islamic Feminism

by Tariq Ramadan

So you had young boys going out and being much more free than the young girls, and the girls focusing on school because this was the way to occupy their time, and at the same time to find a way to be free, and they did it very well. So what we have now in all the European countries as well as in the States is a very high standard of educated Muslim women, understanding better the distinction between culture and religion, and the fact that very often what was perceived as the true Islamic teachings was in fact influenced by the cultures of origin and literalist readings, and now having this understanding. We are in a transitory period and we have to understand that it is going to be a long process, but these women with other men, with scholars, understanding better the distinction that I was mentioning will help a process of a better access to the legitimate rights for women.

Sunni-Shia Strife: The Sword And The Word, Islam and Sectarianism, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Sectarianism

Sunni-Shia Strife: The Sword And The Word

by The Economist

European Shia-Sunni acrimony is part of a many-sided contest over the future of the continent’s tens of millions of Muslims, says Jonathan Laurence, a scholar at Boston College. The religious authorities in migrant-sending countries like Turkey and Morocco struggle to keep their people loyal to their own varieties of Sunni practice: they see Shia Islam and hardline Sunni groups like the Salafists as equally dangerous and insidious temptations for their sons and daughters in Europe.

http://www.newageislam.com/islam-and-sectarianism/the--economist/sunni-shia-strife--the-sword-and-the-word/d/7319

European intellectuals should stop tolerating inflammatory political rhetoric like the conspiracy theory of Eurabia, Islam and the West

Islam and the West

22 Aug 2011, NewAgeIslam.Com

European intellectuals should stop tolerating inflammatory political rhetoric like the conspiracy theory of Eurabia

By Bushra Ishaq 20 Aug 2011 In the wake of the terrorism and mass murder in Norway on 22/7 many people have struggled to understand what the incident means. The terrorist justified his acts with a hatred of Islam and condemnation of the Norwegian government for accommodating Muslims. The attacks targeted the very idea which lies at the core of our country’s multicultural society. In his 1,500 page manifesto, Anders Breivik expresses his desire for “genuine Europeans” to defeat multicultural society and to “cleanse” the continent of Muslims. He emphasises the myth of Eurabia – the conspiracy theory of a Muslim takeover of Europe. Few in Norway support these thoughts and Breivik’s ideas are, to a large extent, cut-and-paste adaptations of ideas from right-wing extremists in other parts of Europe. http://www.newageislam.com/islam-and-the-west/european-intellectuals-should-stop-tolerating-inflammatory-political-rhetoric-like-the-conspiracy-theory-of-eurabia/d/5299