It really looks like your activist friends paid attention only to things they wanted to see.

they're not in the habit of doing so.

If that's the case, presenting unfavorable evidence to them will not make any difference, because in actuality nothing would ever have.

you don't know the people involved, or you wouldn't make such a silly comment.

No, you addressed a straw man of your own imagining: that a Muslim arsehead is so because of sharia.

that's your straw man, not mine. sorry. you can't bring something like that in and then make out like it was me that was trying to argue such a thing. you either haven't understood what i'm saying or you're deliberately misconstruing me, for what purpose i cannot imagine.

The issue is not to explain why a Muslim arsehead is an arsehead. It's the role of sharia in promoting arseheadery — tautologically but necessary to emphasize in this context, of the sharia-inspired kind — among Muslims.

i agree that that is the issue, but sharia must be coopted to assist in the solution, as without this, it will be used as a barrier to change, as is currently happening. you obviously don't believe such a thing is possible, but i do, partly because of my experience with knowledgeable muslims of goodwill and partly because of my similar experience with halakhah.

I stated a counterclaim (@72) that sharia enjoins arseheadery (your word, to save on unnecessary digressions) on Muslims; i.e., that what the 21st century would commonly recognize as a (worthily) moral system is impossible in sharia, and conversely, much of what sharia inculcates is not likely to be recognized as moral outside Islamic circles, empowerment and community enhancement notwithstanding.

i understand your concern, but the same claims are made about halakhah and they are just as mistaken. to anyone with a deeper understanding of the system concerned these things can be overcome by people of good will – not easily, but steadily.

The subtext here seems to be a slippery slope argument of the form “if we don't defend sharia, we can't defend halakha; and insofar as halakha promulgates an acceptable if not exemplary moral system, it becomes necessary to advance that sharia cannot but do the same, as the basis for a supposed common reason to defend either both or none.” (I can't address an argument of this form, as I don't know enough about halakha, but I find the notion that sharia propounds a moral system up to modern standards dubious in the extreme.)

i wouldn't call it a slippery slope argument – within the uk context, halakha only requires definition as an alternative framework for conflict resolution, like acas. however, i *would* call it one of good faith. people i trust (i dare say you would argue that i shouldn't trust them, but there you go) have tried to show me that such things are possible and i believe they have done so in good faith and that they could succeed, because i have seen such a possibility in other systems. fundamentally, i trust people, not systems. human systems serve the agenda of the humans in them and, partly because of the adaptability of humans, systems tend to reflect that. besides, i don't defend halakha on principle, i defend it because i understand its objectives and that, as a system, it contains the seeds of its own evolutionary survival. i'll give you a hand – there is a principle within halakha which states that “the law of the land is the law”. that is a very powerful principle. there's another principle which states that “the will of the majority prevails, but the dissenting minority opinion must be preserved” – the subtext being that it might some day become the majority opinion and, in that case, it would prevail. both are kosher opinions, but the decision goes only one way. i'm aware that there's a sharia equivalent of the first and i seem to remember that there's one for the second, but can't recall it at present.

as for “al-wala' wa'l-bara'”, i've not got a book budget right now – could you provide a web link, or summarise the argument? you're welcome to come over to the spittoon and do so as a guest contributor.

finally, you may well “find the notion that sharia propounds a moral system up to modern standards dubious in the extreme”, but many people think the same of halakha and, generally speaking, they are so far mistaken as to provoke incredulity when they find out how stuff actually works – when not interpreted and implemented by arseheads, that is.

b'shalom

bananabrain

I thought this thread was dead. Sorry for messing about on it. Could I just thank Naadir Jeewa for the help and assistance?

As you were…

i count as friends a number of eminent jewish activists who themselves counted zaki badawi as a close friend and i trust that they would not have continued to do so if they had any concerns about this.

It really looks like your activist friends paid attention only to things they wanted to see. If that’s the case, presenting unfavorable evidence to them will not make any difference, because in actuality nothing would ever have.

that’s the best i can really do on arguments over hearsay.

Hearsay? Hiskett quoted Badawi in a published book; Badawi could have demanded a retraction or maybe even sued for libel! Much of the same passage is also quoted in a Spectator essay by Anthony Browne. Your activist friends may have been bamboozled by Badawi’s abjuring of violence, but the quote clearly marks Badawi as an Islamist of classical stamp (serenely supremacist and hegemonist, and so secure in his certitudes that he could indulge in condescension towards kafirs.)

As for Rubinstein, his reservations about Badawi go back to 1991 (which is the same era as Hiskett’s book of 1993), so it wasn’t just a case of badmouthing the dead.

as for “whataboutery”, you were the one that started on whether it was islam that made muslims arseheads. i simply addressed that argument.

No, you addressed a straw man of your own imagining: that a Muslim arsehead is so because of sharia. (A ridiculous contention, as Refresh also noted, since one can be an arsehead for any number of reasons. The issue is not to explain why a Muslim arsehead is an arsehead. It’s the role of sharia in promoting arseheadery — tautologically but necessary to emphasize in this context, of the sharia-inspired kind — among Muslims.) And all to change the subject:

You claimed (@59) to know enough about sharia to conclude that it “contains enough self-moderating mechanisms for it to be a liberal, empowering, community-enhancing, highly moral system”. To circumvent your attempt (@61) to whatabout your way out of having to defend that claim, I stated a counterclaim (@72) that sharia enjoins arseheadery (your word, to save on unnecessary digressions) on Muslims; i.e., that what the 21st century would commonly recognize as a (worthily) moral system is impossible in sharia, and conversely, much of what sharia inculcates is not likely to be recognized as moral outside Islamic circles, empowerment and community enhancement notwithstanding. (Once again, I woud urge you to look into al-wala’ wa’l-bara’ as, if not anything more, a taster of what sharia teaches.)

To circumvent any further whataboutery, let me state my understanding of what seems to be the motivation for it. The subtext here seems to be a slippery slope argument of the form “if we don’t defend sharia, we can’t defend halakha; and insofar as halakha promulgates an acceptable if not exemplary moral system, it becomes necessary to advance that sharia cannot but do the same, as the basis for a supposed common reason to defend either both or none.” (I can’t address an argument of this form, as I don’t know enough about halakha, but I find the notion that sharia propounds a moral system up to modern standards dubious in the extreme.)

No worries. We can all let something touch a raw nerve at times.

persephone

Or maybe it’s this 5 minutes comment delay thing

Any ideas how I can bypass a ‘wow here I am’ screen and go directly to what I want to say?

These are test screens btw. I love you all….

Bloody hell.

http://dougiesplace.blogspot.com/

http://www.blogger.com/profile/11422060678908705962

Apparently not. Any experts around? Leon?

I am experimenting with whether or not my web site will appear here. And whether it will be the right web site or not.

If you see lots of stuff about BMSD or summat, then that would be the right one. If you cannot see anything at all, I’d really like to know that too.

The content is a bit poor so far. I’d just like to know if you can see it.

Sorry Sunny, didn’t mean to mess up a thread…

Jai

There’s a Simpson’s episode where Marge says to Lisa, “Remember when I made fun of Homer’s Sherlock Holmes hat? He sulked for a week then closed his detective agency.”

That’s what you remind me of.

Good for you, “Reza”.

You remind me of a certain person recently on Question Time when he repeatedly denied making a certain speech in the US in front of David Duke even though the event was caught on video, then claimed he’d been “misquoted”, and then came out with a ridiculous excuse when his exact words were quoted back at him.

Or, to give another example, you remind me of a saying from the northern half of the Indian subcontinent, which roughly translates as a person stubbornly continuing to insist he’s still standing up even though he’s fallen over in front of everyone.

Of course, it’s pointless to expect familarity with South Asian culture and society from someone who claims to be Iranian but attempted to promote outright lies such as “Pakistan is ethnically and culturally homogeneous” and “Muslims in India haven’t assimilated in even a thousand years” despite the long history of interaction between the subcontinent and Persia and the fact that modern-day Iran is the immediate western neighbour of Pakistan.

Hubris is a major character flaw, “Reza”. So is being pathological liar.

As several people here have noted, you’re continuously lying so much that you can’t even keep track of your own lies. The really ridiculous thing is that you think anyone still believes your cover story in relation to your background, sympathies and motivations.

Which pretty much sums up your activities on this website from start to finish. I see that you really do believe that if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually believe it. Unfortunately for you, other people are frequently a little smarter than you presume them to be.

“…that’s the kind of intellectual incompetence you’d expect from the type of people who go on Question Time and ramble on about “17,000 years of history involving indigenous Britons after the end of the Ice Age”…”

He must be turning in his ill-fitting suit.

Look, if you’re convinced that I’m a white BNP member using a pretend identity as a “Trojan Horse” then I really don’t know how I can help you.

I tried my best though (see the end of this post):-

http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/6471#comment-183901

Look mate, I’m starting to worry about your health. Just ignore me if you think I’m a charlatan.

Or take a hot drink with ab nabat* to calm you’re nerves.

*Ab nabat is crystalline sugar, sometimes with saffron threads in it, which is dissolved in warm water and drunk to relieve stress, stomach upsets and something called “saardi” (literally “cold-i”) that opium smokers get. In fact my (pretend) Iranian grandmother used to give me ab nabat for virtually any ailment when I (pretended) to live in Iran as a child.

From now on, I’m going to regularly throw in a morsel of obscure Iranian trivia, just for you. Honestly, this isn’t ‘tahrof’, I mean it. I really do care about your mental well-being.

Mochakerham azizam.

Its quite funny when he makes a faux pas without realising it. The reverse of the Coopers in Goodness Gracious Me when they try to act British.

Very true on both counts. What’s even more ridiculous is how he ignores people identifying his numerous faux pas and blindly carries on, obsessively pursuing his Trojan Horse agenda, even after he’s been repeatedly exposed as a pathological liar.

Of course, that’s the kind of intellectual incompetence you’d expect from the type of people who go on Question Time and ramble on about “17,000 years of history involving indigenous Britons after the end of the Ice Age” in front of millions of viewers, even though the last Ice Age actually ended 12-13,000 years ago. They can’t even get that basic fact right.

Or make ludicrous outbursts the next day about how London was “no longer a British city” and has been “ethnically cleansed of English people”, even though nearly 70% of London’s population was confirmed to be white (including nearly 60% white British) during the last ONS census three years ago.

I guess some people believe hyperbole, distortion and emotive rhetoric override reality when they have an agenda to push. Something “Reza” knows all about, of course.

The idea that Shamit would need to Google to find out who any of these characters are is ridiculous.

This whole topic has been a major source of discussion here on PP for years and years. And Shamit brings an intelligence to the debate that goes a bit beyond Google.

IIRC Shamit was a co-sponsor of the ‘Questions for the BNP’ stuff that appeared here.