If you see this text then you need to update your flash player.

Print this pagePrint this page.

Recent Publications by New English Review Authors
Not With a Bang But a Whimper: The Politics and Culture of Decline
by Theodore Dalrymple
In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas
by Theodore Dalrymple
Defending The West:
by Ibn Warraq
Nations, Language and Citizenship:
by Norman Berdichevsky
Romancing Opiates
by Theodore Dalrymple
Which Koran?
by Ibn Warraq
Our Culture, What's Left of It
by Theodore Dalrymple
What The Koran Really Says
by Ibn Warraq
Life at the Bottom
by Theodore Dalrymple
The Origins of the Koran
by Ibn Warraq
Why I Am Not Muslim
by Ibn Warraq
Spanish Vignettes: An Offbeat Look Into Spain's Culture, Society & History
by Norman Berdichevsky
Leaving Islam
Edited by Ibn Warraq
Tuesday, 15 July 2008
Channel 4 documentary - The Qu'ran
I have been thinking since 10 pm last night when it finished what to make of the 2 hour long Channel 4 documentary last night The Qu’ran.
The TV last night columns in the on-line papers are no help.
At two hours it was also bottom-numbingly long, and I did wonder beforehand whether it might be excusable to take a 20-minute snooze somewhere in the middle, but I stayed awake and alert throughout, and congratulated whoever it was who decided to run the thing in a single go, and not in two or even three parts. In the age of the short attention span, that showed resolve, although I wonder how easy it was to sell advertising space: "Hello, would you like to take a 30-second spot in the middle of a two-hour documentary we're showing? It's called The Qur'an? Hello ... hello?"
Of course, even over two hours it is easier to squeeze a camel through the eye of a needle than it is to explain the complexities of the Qur'an. Thomas did a fine job, concentrating on the apparent contradictions in "the most ideologically influential text in the world".
Apparently, it boils down to whether Islam is feeling threatened by the non-Islamic world. There is one interpretation of the Qur'an for peacetime, and another in times of war. Which doesn't bode too well for the rest of this century.
Still, Thomas made sure that the benevolent face of Islam, all too often overlooked in the West, got a fair showing. I was almost moved to tears by the manifest decency and tolerance of a fellow called Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bukhari, who questioned how people can claim that their god is somehow more valid than their neighbour's. "Who are we to say that one is better? You have your religion and I have mine." That seems like a creed worth believing in.
I think he must have been snoozing during the final half hour, as long after the 9pm watershed as narrative flow would permit, when the footage of the little girl undergoing FGM was shown.
The Guardian was even less helpful
It's perfect - a two-hour lesson in Islam for dummies. No, not for dummies, that's not fair; it's more Coles Notes. Remember Coles Notes? (Never used them) Those thin books with stripy covers that people used to help them through GCSE and A-level English Literature, in the days before you could do all your cheating on the internet? Well, this is Coles Notes for the Qur'an.
I feared a beautiful presentation, all calligraphy, melodious recitation and verses of peace. We got all that.
We got Tariq Ramadan (Of Oxford University – but not what college or role, but doesn’t “Oxford University” sound gooood!) and Timothy Winter of University of Cambridge School of Divinity although they didn’t tell us that in some circles he is really Abdul Hakim Murad.
Shots of Cairo during the funeral of Nasser in 1970; 7 million Egyptians on the street and nary a veil in sight. Today few women in Cairo dare set foot outside without at least a hijab, and many wear niqab.
We also got images of execution – the burkaed lady shot in the football stadium in Kabul, close ups of the chained and sandaled feet of young men hanging in Iran.
The little girl aged about 7 in (I would guess from the dress) Northern Nigeria screaming with sub titles.
“No, no, don’t tie me down, Mum she’s cutting me, she’s pulling my bits, no, no please no.” And then afterwards the girl being slapped “For making a fuss, it doesn’t hurt that much” My husband went white.
There was Patrick Sookhedeo and best of all an interview with Christopher Luxenburg, in shadow with his words interpreted into English by the same man who translated his work into English.
A clip of the suicide video of Mohammad Sidique Khan and the opinion that all he got for his trouble was a bunch of grapes.
Overall I think it was a worthwhile exercise.
The violence wasn’t whitewashed out. It was very much in evidence. The doctrine of abrogation was explained as was the origin of the Shia, their division with the Sunni and the presence later of the Sufis.
The presence of the peaceful verses gave hope but the treatment of women was given prominence, not always with comment.
Anthony Thomas credited the viewer with the intelligence to assess the evidence he amassed for ourselves.
Posted on 6:28 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Comments
15 Jul 2008
Send an emailMary Jackson

the benevolent face of Islam, all too often overlooked in the West

Overlooked? We're constantly having Islam's "benevolent face" shoved in our Kafir faces. What about the "black heart"?

Overall, probably worth showing, if only for Christopher Luxemburg. No doubt it failed to make clear that the violence is intrinsic to Islam, rather than a "misunderstanding" of it.



15 Jul 2008
Pali

The trouble with 'it depends on how threatened Islam and Muslims feel at the time' for an explanation of how the Koran feeds into violence and hatred is this: Islam always makes Muslims feel under threat. Simple peaceful co-existence of human beings, equality of all people and of both genders will threaten Islam and Muslims will react at all times for all ages as if they are under attack. Because the Koran contains all the seeds for Islamic lunacy and hatred, it is an ever perpetuating, self-sustaining enzyme of paranoia, victimhood and hatred.

It equips its followers for nothing else than constant struggle against all that is not Islam. Not-Islam is the entire world, every society, every social system, every religion, every culture that is Not-Islam must be overthrown, derided, spat on, and fought against, with violence at some point.

Have a free functioning liberal democracy which aspires to equality of opportunity for all like contemporary Britain? No worries, that too is Not-Islam, and must be derided, the dancing-sluts killed, the idea of tolerant co-existence and equality of all people attacked, even though Muslims in the UK are the most free in the world.

Enough apology. Plain speaking is the need of the hour. At least we have acknowledged now that Islam and the Koran is 'the most ideologically influential text in the world'. Now is the time to dissect and pull apart the ideology of Islam as contained in the book of Muhammad. Pull it apart, allow nothing of its ethos to become embedded in our society. Time to point out the naked Emperor, all the warts and diseases on his 'ideological' skin.

 

 



15 Jul 2008
Paul Blaskowicz
The Independent: I was almost moved to tears by the manifest decency and tolerance of a fellow called Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bukhari, who questioned how people can claim that their god is somehow more valid than their neighbour's. "Who are we to say that one is better? You have your religion and I have mine." That seems like a creed worth believing in.
"Seems like a creed worth believing in."  Really? Because a muslim mouths that platitude  he is manifestly decent and tolerant and almost moves the reviewer to tears..? 'Strewth. In as much as he says that, he is being disloyal to islam or  - more likely -  delivering just a wee bit of ticky-tacky taqiya for the (almost to a person) liberal decents of the enthralled audience. "Julian - just look at the wonderful whirling sufis in their beautiful clothes." "Marvellous Camilla -  and we're supposed to be able to teach them about civilisation..."
Pleased to see that the ineffably oleagenous Tariq "moratorium on stoning until the caliphate" Ramadan-adan-dan was looking haggard - and possibly worried that the softly-softly approach of the interviewer might suddenly change to hard questioning. 


Most Recent Posts at The Iconoclast
Search The Iconoclast
Enter text, Go to search:
 
The Iconoclast Posts by Author
The Iconoclast Archives
sun mon tue wed thu fri sat
     1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30 31

RSS Site Feed
RSS Feed