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Mark Alexander (Paperback)
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Wednesday, February 13, 2008
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Mark Alexander (Paperback)
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DAILY EXPRESS: FIVE young British Muslims who were convicted of terror charges have walked free today.
The students, who were jailed last year for downloading extremist propaganda, were freed by the Court of Appeal this afternoon.
They had been described by the Old Bailey judge who sentenced them as being "intoxicated" by jihad websites and literature.
But today Chief Justice Lord Phillips quashed their convictions and ordered their release, saying the convictions were unsafe as there was no proof of terrorist intent. Five British Muslims Convicted of Terror Charge Are Freed >>> By Julia White
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
YAHOO NEWS: WASHINGTON - Barack Obama powered past Hillary Rodham Clinton in the race for Democratic convention delegates Tuesday on a night of triumph sweetened with outsized primary victories in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
"Tonight we're on our way," Obama told cheering supporters in Madison, Wis. "But we know how much further we have to go," he added, celebrating eight straight victories over Clinton, the former first lady now struggling in a race she once commanded. Obama wins 3 primaries for delegate lead >>> By David Espo, AP Special Correspondent
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
THE TELEGRAPH: The Queen is distressed by the row over Islamic law which she fears threatens to undermine the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury and damage the Church of England.
According to a royal source, the Queen has not expressed any view on whether Dr Rowan Williams was unwise to say it was "unavoidable" that aspects of the sharia legal system could be incorporated into English law.
But as Supreme Governor of the Church of England she has been dismayed by the controversy that the remarks have generated at such a difficult period in the history of the Established Church, which faces possible schism over the issue of homosexual clergy.
The Queen, who approved the appointment of Dr Williams on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, takes her role as Supreme Governor very seriously. Anxiety of Queen over sharia law controversy >>> By Andrew Pierce
TIMESONLINE:
What Parallel Sharia Means in Practice
SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL:
Shariah Is for Everyone! By Henryk M. Broder
A Bishop Pleads for Islamic Law
"Hurray! We're Capitulating!" By Henryk M. Broder
Paving the Way for a Muslim Parallel Society
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
THE INDEPENDENT: Three men were yesterday arrested in Denmark accused of plotting to murder a cartoonist, two years after a dozen cartoons lampooning Islamic fundamentalism sparked violent demonstrations around the world.
The target was said to be Kurt Westergaard, 73, a staff cartoonist on Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the cartoons. Westergaard's drawings depicted the Prophet Mohamed with a bomb-shaped turban and a burning fuse.
Two Tunisians and a Danish man were arrested before dawn in Aarhus, Denmark's second city and the home of the newspaper. It also has a large community of Arabs and Turks.
Police said they arrested the men while the plot to kill Westergaard was still in the planning stage. The chief of the Security and Intelligence Service, Jakob Scharf, said the arrests came after a long period of surveillance. They were intended, he said "to prevent a terror-related assassination of one of the cartoonists behind the cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed".
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Prime Minister, said: "Unfortunately... there are in Denmark groups of extremists that do not acknowledge and respect the principles on which Danish democracy is built. In Denmark, we have freedom not only to think and talk, but also to draw." Three arrested for plot to kill Mohamed cartoonist >>> By Peter Popham
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
DIE PRESSE: Die französische Sängerin und frisch angetraute Präsidentengattin Carla Bruni will trotz ihrer öffentlichen Ehe ihre Persönlichkeit wahren, sagte sie im ersten Interview seit ihrer Hochzeit. Bruni, sonst für wechselnde Partner bekannt, wolle Nicolas Sarkozy "treu bleiben bis zum Tod".
Als neue französische First Lady will Carla Bruni vor allem sich selbst treu bleiben. Sie wolle ihre Persönlichkeit wahren, sagte Bruni in ihrem ersten Interview seit ihrer Hochzeit mit dem französischen Staatspräsidenten Nicolas Sarkozy, das die Wochenzeitung „L’Express“ am Dienstag vorab im Internet veröffentlichte. Angesprochen auf ihre Vorgängerinnen Bernadette Chirac und Danielle Mitterrand, die sich stets im Hintergrund hielten, sagte Bruni: „Das sind Frauen, die ich respektiere. Aber so wie Nicolas nicht seinen Vorgängern ähnelt, möchte auch ich – unter Berücksichtigung der Würde des Amtes – meine Persönlichkeit wahren.“ Bruni will ernsthafte First Lady sein >>>
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
DAILY EXPRESS: IT WAS the Church of England’s Gerald Ratner moment, wasn’t it?
A comprehensive trashing of the brand by the guy meant to be spreading the word.
Whatever Rowan Williams does from here on in, his call for Britain to accommodate the Islamic legal system of sharia law is what he will always be remembered for.
With the General Synod now in full swing, perhaps the time has come for non-Anglicans to withdraw from intruding on private grief because there is a far bigger and scarier problem to be considered in the wake of Dr Williams’s outburst than the shambles that is the CofE.
It is this: while the Archbishop and his fellow travellers spout their nonsense, the leaders of British Islam still don’t appreciate the degree to which their behaviour is despised by the majority of the public.
Unless they give up their obsession with grievance and victimhood and instead understand the need to integrate and contribute positively, Britain will slide towards segregation and civil strife.
There are plenty of opinion polls which highlight the views of the estimated two million Muslims in this country. Apparently, 40 per cent wish to live under sharia law. But there never seem to be any polls highlighting what the rest of us think about the Muslims in our midst. I wonder why? The Time Has Come for Muslims to Fully Adopt the British Way of Life >>> By Patrick O’Flynn
Hat tip: Ray Boyd of CommonSense Against Islam
My comment on Mr O'Flynn’s article:Mark Alexander (Paperback)
First of all, I should like to applaud Mr O'Flynn for cutting to the chase in the excellent article. It is indeed time, nay high time, for Muslims to "fully adopt the British way of life". Unfortunately, however, it is not likely ever to happen. Why? Because the notion of integration runs counter to the Muslim’s faith. The prophet Muhammad told them in clear terms NOT to integrate with the infidel; in fact, he went further than this: He told them to dress differently and at all times to tell themselves apart in their behaviour.
Further, Muslims, according to their faith, are supposed to accept the laws of the land wherever they live, but only when those laws passed by government do not contradict or a conflict with Islamic law. Where there is a contradiction or conflict of interest, Muslims are supposed to be faithful to Islam, and Allah's commands.
Muslims view the United Kingdom and indeed all of the West as the lands of the infidel. The lands of the infidel belong to the 'House of War', or Dar ul Harb. The 'House of War' is in a state of Jahiliyyah, or a pre-Islamic state of chaos. This, in their eyes, is an inferior state of being, one which is ripe for takeover at the earliest convenience.
It is therefore hard to see how the majority of Muslims will ever be prepared to integrate into British society as full citizens of our country. The so-called 'moderate Muslims' might, for a time, but what is a 'moderate Muslim' anyway? A moderate Muslim is actually only a Muslim in name, a nominal Muslim. A nominal Muslim can, at any time in the future, re-find his roots and faith and become devout. Indeed, so many of them eventually do, especially as they get older and settle down. Then they can be a 'better' rôle model for their children. At that point, the women start veiling up, and the men start growing their beards ever-longer. This is the reality of the problem we face with Muslims.
To my knowledge, there is no precedent for this integration in world history; on the contrary, each and every country Muslims have ever been allowed to enter and put down roots, they have eventually taken over: Egypt, Libya, Syria, the Lebanon (in the process of being Islamized as I write this), etc. The only exception was Moorish Spain, and that country was Islamized for centuries. It took the Spaniards more than five hundred years to regain their former land, but the re-conquest, or Reconquista, was ugly and bloody.
So, it seems to me that we are hoping against hope in waiting for the full integration of Muslims in our midst. Indeed, history tells us that the opposite is more likely to be the case: The indigenous population of Great Britain is more likely, eventually, to be coerced into accepting Islam. Either that, or become Dhimmis. This, if we are not careful, will be achieved through cultural creep.
This is the sad reality which the Archdhimmi of Canterbury refuses to come to terms with, despite all his so-called erudition and intellectuality. - ©Mark Alexander
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
NEWS BISCUIT: Dr Rowan Williams has failed to quell the row over his recent comments with the announcement that he has been fully accepted into the Muslim faith. He claims to see no inconsistency with his new religion and his continuing role as the leader of the Anglican faith.
‘Both religions are saying basically the same thing…’ said Rahman Muhammed bin-Williams as he now wishes to be known, ‘…and I hope to bring together two aspects of these two major world faiths. So we will still have the Church of England Christingle Jumble Sale. But instead of getting a jar of home made jam in the raffle, the winner gets to drive a car bomb into the American Embassy.’ Archbishop of Canterbury converts to Islam >>>
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
THE INDEPENDENT: He swaggered into the Elysée Palace on a promise to reinvent France for the 21st century. But after just eight months, Nicolas Sarkozy's popularity is plummeting – and his personal life is becoming a soap opera. Is he up to the job? John Lichfield reports
Tuesday, 12 February 2008
Imagine, for a moment, President Charles de Gaulle in dark glasses and dark roll-top jumper sitting at a café terrace in Versailles with his newly married pop-singer wife.Imagine also le Général in open-neck shirt and jeans on an Egyptian holiday. The tall, austere saviour of France is walking, hand in hand, with Mick Jagger's ex-girlfriend. Her small son sits on his shoulders, looking embarrassed.
Imagine, for a moment, President Jacques Chirac in the Vatican, fiddling compulsively with the buttons of his mobile phone as his companions are being presented to the Pope. The presidential entourage includes, incidentally, France's most vulgar and foul-mouthed comedian, Jean-Marie Bigard, a kind of Gallic Bernard Manning.
Imagine, for a moment, President François Mitterrand receiving ministerial visits to his office in the Elysée Palace with his feet up on his desk. Worse, imagine the suave, icy President Mitterrand addressing almost everyone he meets with the familiar "tu", instead of the dignified and respectful "vous".
In his eight months as French head of state, Nicolas Sarkozy has done all these things and more. Genres have been confused, values muddled, conventions trampled, traditions overturned.
President Sarkozy promised last year to reinvent France for the 21st century, while preserving, or rekindling, "traditional values". He has started by reinventing – or, some say, desecrating – the French presidency. Nicolas Sarkozy: The problem with the president >>> By John Lichfield
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
THE TELEGRAPH: Clergymen inevitably spend much time on their knees. They are supposed to be there in prayer. However, as Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has demonstrated, the Church of England, in particular, loves to genuflect not just to God, but to any threat to the culture of which we all thought it was a central part.
Although we are a secular society - and I stress I write this as an unbeliever myself - the culture of our nation is fundamentally Christian. It cannot but be so when our head of state is also Supreme Governor of the established Church. No one chose that our society should be this way: it is how it has evolved. It has evolved through general consent, under a rule of law, and (for the last 200 years at any rate) via the democratic process. And, as a result, our culture and way of life are accepted to be a sensible basis for our all living together reasonably contentedly.
Why, then, has this idiotic man suggested that some elements of Islam's sharia law should be recognised in Britain? There is no call for it among the majority of Britons, who are quite satisfied with us all being subject to the same laws, and certainly no call for it among his flock. He is doing it for the traditional, British liberal reason: he seeks to capitulate to anyone who offers to challenge the status quo.
All appeasement of those who threaten a settlement - whether it be political, religious, cultural, legal or a mixture of all four - is dangerous and stupid. It is the thin end of the wedge to the overthrow of that settlement. The archbishop argues that Muslims should not be forced to choose between their culture and their country of adoption. I'm sorry, but that is precisely what they - and anybody from any different culture who comes here - must do. Sharia courts? Get off your knees, Archbishop >>> By Simon Heffer
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
JYLLANDS-POSTEN: Early Tuesday morning, Danish police arrested several people with a Muslim background suspected of conspiring to kill Kurt Westergaard, a Danish cartoonist with Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten.
A formal statement by the police setting out details of the action is expected within the next few hours.
Kurt Westergaard is one of the 12 cartoonists who on 30 September 2005 published cartoons of Muslim prophet Mohammed.
The group arrested includes Danish as well as foreign citizens. The Danish Security and Intelligence Service have followed the group for months.
The cartoons and an explanatory article led, as is well known, to the so-called Mohammed crisis involving violent demonstrations, the boycott of Danish goods and the burning of Danish embassies.
Kurt Westergaard’s cartoon depicting the prophet wearing a bomb turban with a lit fuse attracted particular attention. What the cartoonist wanted to say with his cartoon was that many people exploit the prophet to legitimize terror. However, the cartoon was widely seen as a depiction of the prophet as a terrorist. Murder plot against Danish cartoonist >>>
THE TELEGRAPH:
Five arrested in Danish cartoon murder plot By Julian Isherwood, Scandinavia Correspondent
BBC:
Danish cartoons 'plotters' held
DAILY MAIL:
Islamic terror suspects seized over plot to murder 'Mohammad' cartoonist
JYLLANDS-POSTEN:
Mordkomplott gegen dänischen Karikaturisten
Complot d'assassinat contre un caricaturiste danois
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
THE TELEGRAPH: The Archbishop of Canterbury has refused to back down over his controversial comments on Islamic law, but admitted his intervention had been "clumsy".
Dr Rowan Williams said much of the storm he had provoked last week when he argued that aspects of sharia could be incorporated in the English legal system had been based on misunderstandings.
Speaking to the General Synod in London, the Church's "parliament", he insisted it was "not inappropriate for a pastor of the Church of England" to address issues about the "perceived concerns of other religious communities".
However, he failed to quell all the criticism from within the Synod, a handful of members of which have called for his resignation.
While the vast majority rallied to his defence by greeting his arrival with a sustained minute-long standing ovation, a small number refused to join in the applause.
After his speech, Canon Christopher Sugden, a conservative evangelical from Oxford, challenged Dr William's arguments and called for an emergency debate, saying sharia law could never be subservient to any other system. Canon Sugden, of the Anglican Mainstream organization, claimed a full apology was the only response the Archbishop could give.
"He has caused great difficulties for our colleagues, especially in Nigeria, especially in countries where there is significant Muslim pressure for sharia to come in," he said. Archbishop won’t back down over sharia row >>> By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent
THE TELEGRAPH:
Dr Rowan Williams's gift to Gordon Brown By Rachel Sylvester
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
THE MAIL ON SUNDAY: The poor old Ayatollah of Canterbury doesn't actually deserve all the slime now being tipped over his modernised mitre. Just some of it.
Of course it is absurd for the chief of the Christian Church in this country to cringe publicly to Islam. But at least Archbishop Williams is open about his unwillingness to defend the faith – as is his colleague, the wretched Bishop of Oxford, who recently announced that he was perfectly happy for loudspeakers to blare the Muslim call to prayer across that city.
Even on their own liberal terms, this pair are clueless about sharia and its scorn for women. It was exiled Iranian Muslim women who defeated a similar proposal in Canada. They had travelled thousands of miles to escape sharia law and didn't want it in Toronto, thanks very much.
Compare that with the Government, which poses stern-faced as the foe of "terror" and noisily jails figures of fun such as Abu Hamza while greasily pretending that there's no connection between Islam and terrorism.
Gordon Brown's Cabinet has also quietly agreed that Muslim men with more than one wife can now claim benefits for these extra spouses – while bigamy remains a criminal offence for everyone else, punishable by up to seven years in prison.
And what about the discreet little Whitehall celebrations of the Muslim festival of Eid, attended by highly placed civil servants?
Or the incessant multi-faith propaganda in supposedly Christian State schools, where children known to me have been pestered to draw pictures of mosques but are given virtually no instruction in the faith and scripture of our own established Church?
Why is it that in Britain, alone of all countries in the world, the most exalted, educated and privileged have all lost the will to defend their own home? Most of us liked it the way it was before they began to "modernise" it.
I know of nowhere else where those most richly rewarded by a free society are so anxious to trash the place that gave them birth and liberty. [Source: At least the Ayatollah of Canterbury is honest, Mr Brown] - By Peter Hitchens
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
Monday, February 11, 2008
DAILY MAIL: The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is fighting for his professional life after saying that the application of Islamic Sharia law in this country was "unavoidable" and that it was not an "alien and rival system" to English law.
The unprecedented outpouring of fury at his observations has caused people to question his fitness for office, with at least two members of the Synod already calling upon him to resign.
In his defence, his supporters claim the entire row has been got up by the "tabloid press".
This old chestnut ignores the fact that people went ballistic straight after they heard Dr Williams say on the radio that the principle of one law for everybody was "a bit of a danger" - well before any newspapers even wrote their stories.
And now this lame self-justification has been blown out of the water by devastating criticism from his predecessor Lord Carey, who said Dr Williams had "overstated the case for accommodating Islamic legal codes" within British law, a move which would be "disastrous".
This followed equally lethal criticism by the Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, who said sharia was "in tension" with fundamental principles of English law.
So much for the ludicrous claim that Sharia was not a "rival and alien system".
What such critics understand only too well is the threat posed to this country by a brand of radicalised Islam, or Islamism, that wants to take it over.
As Lord Carey said, Dr Williams's comments will embolden those Muslims in their attempt to turn Britain into a country ruled by Islamic law which contravenes human rights.
The only proper response to this threat is to say that not one inch of leeway will be given to it.
But, instead, the Archbishop has gone down on his knees to welcome it.
Astoundingly, he does not seem to understand that this country is being targeted by a pincer movement of terrorism and cultural takeover.
He does not seem to understand Sharia. And he does not seem to understand the role of his own religion in underpinning British laws, culture and society. The church should have the guts to sack the Archbishop...and pick a man who TRULY treasures British values >>> By Melanie Phillips
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
HUMAN EVENTS: When even the religion reporter for the Times of London has to ask if the Archbishop of Canterbury has gone bonkers, the question has become rhetorical. The answer is all too obvious.
Last Thursday morning, February 7, Rowan Williams -- the Archbishop of Canterbury, top man in the hierarchy of the Church of England -- took to the airwaves. In a BBC Radio Four interview, he said that the United Kingdom will eventually have to adopt Islamic Sharia Law -- on a limited basis -- on the premise that this will create social cohesion.
His words have had quite an impact -- perhaps best compared to the effect of dropping a suitcase nuke into the room at high tea in Buckingham Palace. If there were any English still sleep walking through the destruction of their national identity, the ultimate wake up call just came.
When Henry the 8th wanted a divorce and the Catholic Pope would not give it to him, the Church of England was born. Henry not only broke the bonds of fealty to the Pope, he seized all the property held by the Roman Church, dissolved their monasteries, killed or banished the Catholic clergy, and forced all surviving remnants of Catholicism in England underground for centuries.
While he was at it, Henry ended all foreign ecclesiastical jurisdiction over his Kingdom and made all future monarchs the titular head of the Anglican Church. Henry’s daughter, Queen Elizabeth the First, fleshed out this policy. She decreed that the break with Rome restored to the Crown, “the ancient jurisdiction over the state -- ecclesiastical and spiritual -- abolishing all foreign power repugnant to the same.” This is not just an opinion. It is an Article in the founding document of the Church of England.
The Times’ religion editor, Ruth Gledhill, reviews this history and then adds her own ironic observation. “And now Queen Elizabeth II's very own Archbishop -- and let's not forget she is his Church's Supreme Governor - wants to introduce a new jurisdiction into this realm of England. And an Islamic one at that!”
For those who might not be up to speed on Sharia law, it is not like The Ten Commandments or the Bill of Rights. It is not just Holy Law; it is wholly Holy secular law too. It is the all-inclusive law as imposed by a theocratic state. It governs everything from banking to marriage. And it carries some pretty heavy penalties, from cutting off the hands of thieves to stoning women caught in adultery, even if the adultery stems from a gang rape. It also looks the other way when fathers, brothers, or uncles kill family females who dare to date outside of Islam. These are known as “honor killings.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury supports his partially pro-Sharia law position by citing the inherent inequity which ensues when Catholic adoption agencies discriminate against gay couples. Of course, there are no gay people in Iran according to Ahmadinejad so that isn’t the best illustration the Archbishop might have chosen to make his point. In fact, instances of sharia law being carried out within British Muslim communities have been reported. A young man who knifed someone was judged by a Sharia court and let out on the streets when his family compensated his victim financially. Archbishop of Canterbury Gone Bonkers >>> By Susan Easton
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
Hat tip: Always On Watch
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
MEMRI: In response to reports of the imminent release of a film on the Koran by Dutch MP Geert Wilders, a subscriber on the Islamist Al-Hesbah forum (hosted by NOC4 Hosts Inc. in Florida, USA) posted a message containing death threats against Wilders, and urged the other forum members to copy it and circulate it on the Internet. Al-Hesbah Forum Subscriber Posts Death Threats Against Dutch MP Geert Wilders >>>
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
TEHELKA: Irshad Manji walks a dangerous path, claiming her right as a believer to criticise and interpret Islam. SALIL TRIPATHI talks to her after the release of her new film
Irshad Manji moved to Canada when she was four, a refugee from the tyranny of Idi Amin's Uganda, when Asians were given sixty days to pack up and leave the country. The daughter of an Indian father and an Egyptian mother, Manji settled into her new home, her family seeking the migrant's comfort from the familiar certainties of the community and the faith.
But Manji was a spunky child (and now she is a spunky adult), and she was quick to notice the contrast between her secular, public school, and the religious madrasa which she attended on weekends. Early in her controversial best-seller, "The Trouble With Islam Today," she notices a contrast. A senior teacher disapproves of her locker displaying stickers supporting the Ayatollah's revolution in Iran. He bristles at her insubordination, but does not stop her, or discipline her, grudgingly respecting her right to defy. And then there is the religious teacher, who sternly admonishes her each time she questions particular religious passages that bother her. Hers was not to reason why; hers but to obey and cry. Or else.
When Manji persisted, wanting to know more about a class in which the teacher cites particularly venomous passages criticising the Jews, and insisted on seeing the original text, she was admonished. The mosque had a library but it was accessible only in one part of the mosque (which was of course segregated between men and women) and as she had passed the age of puberty – she had just entered her teens – she could go to the library only at particular hours, after the men present there had vacated the area. And there, she found books in an alien tongue, and an undecipherable script.
She continued to question, and her teacher gave her an ultimatum – accept his command or leave. And she left, seeking refuge yet again in her life, this time in a public library. There, she found an English translation of the Koran, and as she read more into the book, she also came across a concept that her teacher never mentioned. And as she was to discover later in life, it was not only that teacher who denied the existence of that term; so did, it seems, most maulvis and imams and scholars who spoke in the name of Islam.
It was the concept of ijtihad, a term that means you arrive at an independent interpretation of the faith, applying reason. It means yanking Islam from the 7th century to the 21st, fast-forwarding it, making it relevant in present times, removing it from the siege mentality that views the non-believer as an enemy, dividing the world between the unbeliever and the apostate, treating the words in a book as divinely-ordained, and putting to sword anyone who challenges its supremacy. "What was relevant a thousand years ago is no longer relevant today," she says disarmingly.
She is in London promoting her film, "Faith without Fear," about her quest to capture the essence of Islam. She is a senior scholar at the European Foundation for Democracy, and writes extensively on Islam and modernity. At the New York University, she is launching a new project on moral courage, where, she says, her inspiration is the non-violent civil disobedience and passive resistance of Mohandas Gandhi. The Trouble with Manji >>>
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
THE GUARDIAN: 'The prevailing attitude … was one of heavy disagreement with a number of things which the [speaker] had not said.' Ronald Knox's description of discussion at a student society in the 1930s has a certain familiarity after the last few days; but given that public comment and criticism has been cast in such highly coloured terms, I've thought it right to say a few words to Synod this afternoon about what was and wasn't said last week and what the questions were which I had hoped might benefit from some airing.
Some of what has been heard is a very long way indeed from what was actually said in the Royal Courts of Justice last Thursday. But I must of course take responsibility for any unclarity in either that text or in the radio interview, and for any misleading choice of words that has helped to cause distress or misunderstanding among the public at large and especially among my fellow Christians.
It's Lent, and one of the great penitential phrases of the Psalms will be in all our minds – 'Who can tell how oft he offendeth? Cleanse thou me from my secret faults.' I'm deeply grateful to many of you for the support as well as the challenges I've received this weekend, and for your willingness to treat all this as a serious issue that deserves attention. But I believe quite strongly that it is not inappropriate for a pastor of the Church of England to address issues around the perceived concerns of other religious communities and to try and bring them into better public focus.
I hope anyway that you'll bear with me now if I pick up a couple of points that I think have been distorted in the discussion. The lecture was written as an opening contribution to a series on Islam and English Law… >>>
THE GUARDIAN:
Archbishop Defends His Sharia Remarks By Louise Radnofsky
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
ASSOCIATED PRESS: PARIS (AP) — Former Dutch lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the target of death threats over her criticism of radical Islam, said she has asked France to grant her citizenship because she cannot be assured of protection back home.
"I would be very honored and grateful if I were to become a French citizen, and the question of my protection could be resolved once and for all," Somali-born Hirsi Ali said Sunday on France-2 television. Hirsi Ali Seeks French Citizenship >>>
DUTCH NEWS:
Brussel’s Urged to Fund Hirsi Ali’s Security
COURRIER INTERNATIONAL:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali in Search of Protection in Europe
Bernard-Henri Levy Argues that Europe Can't Let Ayaan Hirsi Ali Leave
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
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