New Statesman's all Islam all the time ~ Bankrupt of ideas the Left buys into political Islam

A sample of what is going on at the UK New Statesman magazine since the arrival of their new senior political editor Mehdi Hasan. Its all Islam all the time ~ not in a way that challenges it but promotes it. This guy clearly has an agenda ~ that is of spreading his faith ~ via a Left-wing political mag. The Left are so consumed with not being seen as racists ~ that they cannot seem to point out that in the west we separate church and state ~ the religious from the political. It seems to do so would hurt someone's feelings. Though I know that there are those on the Left who are concerned about backing Islamic causes blindly. And it is also worth mentioning that there are many on the Left who are abandoning it because of this Islamist influence ~ so that there should be a new type of Centre Right emerging in Europe.

While the Left obsesses about race ~ Muslims focus on Muslim and non-Muslim ~ non-Muslims being the lesser in need of an education ~ an Islamic one. Here are a few comments made by Medhi Hasan to a Muslim only audience before he took his position at the New Statesman:

“The kaffar, the disbelievers, the atheists who remain deaf and stubborn to the teachings of Islam, the rational message of the Quran; they are described in the Quran as, quote, “a people of no intelligence”, Allah describes them as; not of no morality, not as people of no belief – people of “no intelligence” – because they’re incapable of the intellectual effort it requires to shake off those blind prejudices, to shake off those easy assumptions about this world, about the existence of God. In this respect, the Quran describes the atheists as “cattle”, as cattle of those who grow the crops and do not stop and wonder about this world.” [+]

Medhi Hasan

“I grow tired of having to also endure a barrage of lazy stereotypes, inflammatory headlines, disparaging generalisations and often inaccurate and baseless stories [on Islam].

Medhi Hasan

The News Statesman Leftist mag. is the perfect platform to propagate his world view on Islam. As an analytical magazine it offers surprisingly little challenge to Islam.

“I should like to believe my people’s religion, which was just what I could wish, but alas, it is impossible. I have really no religion, for my God, being a spirit shown merely by reason to exist, his properties utterly unknown, is no help to my life. I have nor the parson’s comfortable doctrine that every good action has its reward, and every sin is forgiven. My whole religion is this: do every duty, and expect no reward for it, either here or hereafter."

Medhi Hasan

Something to go with the Christmas dinner ~ Jesus was a follower of Muhammad!

Jesus: the Muslim prophet article was originally published on 10 December 2009 in the issue The Muslim Jesus

Here a comment beneath the original article - that goes straight to my point:

KaiserFranzJoseph
18 December 2009 at 10:46
I hate to rain on Mehdii Hassans parade it being the season of good will and all but Its not so much funny as sad that this magazine is running the article in the first place.

What strikes me is the similarity between this and the Jesus 4Shariah nonsense over at the Islam 4Uk site run by the malevolent clown Anjem Choudary.

Am an 'Unbeliever' myself, but any bystander can relate how Jesus famously 'turned the other cheek' to his enemies, and released the adulteress by saying' 'let those without sin cast the first stone'. He also refused to be a military leader and lead a rebellion against the Romans.

Hardly the stuff of Jihad and Shariah.

Unlike Choudary, Hasan seems an intelligent and friendly chap, but am not sure that the Statesman should be pushing his Islamist agenda by making him political (rather than religious) Editor where he talks about his religion he's been given a lot of room to promote himself and his views. As for his column "Dissident voice" well it just does not seem particularly dissenting from Islamist propaganda at all does it?.

Why such a venerable old left wing magazine gives so much time to religion in general and Islam in particular is a sign of the times and 'The Left' has long been seen as the 'soft underbelly' by Islamists to push their agenda into wider society.

This comment shows how he has moderated the actual violent event that occurred in order to take Mecca - making Muhammad more Christ-like and probably for the further purpose of wrenching the Jihadists violence away from the acts and instructions of the Prophet.

PeterS
22 December 2009 at 11:31
I was highly intrigued Mehdi's story, which I have never come across before:

"Perhaps most telling is the story in the classical biographies of Muhammad, who, entering the city of Mecca in triumph in 630AD, proceeded at once to the Kaaba to cleanse the holy shrine of its idols. As he walked around, ordering the destruction of the pictures and statues of the 360 or so pagan deities, he came across a fresco on the wall depicting the Virgin and Child. He is said to have covered it reverently with his cloak and decreed that all other paintings be washed away except that one."

So I have tried to research into this. I have NOT been able to find this story in any book of Sirah (traditional biography of the Muhammad) or Hadith (the traditions which often provide the basis for such biographies).

The nearest I’ve been able to find is this:

"On the day of the conquest of Mecca the Prophet entered the House (= the Kaaba; my comment) and sent al-Fadl ibn al-Abbas ibn Abdalmuttalib to get water from the well of Zemzem. He ordered to bring pieces of cloth and to imbue them with water and then he commanded to wash off these pictures, as it was done. He stretched his arms, however, over the picture of Jesus, the son of Mary, and of his mother and said: 'Wash off all except what is under my hands!' But eventually he took away his hands away from Jesus, the son of Mary, and his mother." (al-Azraqi p. 111, cf. p. 76)

If Mehdi Hassan is referring to this, he's being somewhat dishonest with his handling of the story, because Muhammad apparently only delayed the deletion of the image of Jesus and Mary by a short time (a matter of minutes, probably).

If you’re reading this, Mehdi, could you post the complete quote and reference(s)? Thanks

That last line there probably speaking to this comment - the removal of reasonable challenges:

mitchy
11 December 2009 at 12:32
Hey, where's my comment?

I thought this was an interesting article too, and [I] was in no way offensive or rude in my comments.

The article Concerns of the ummah starts out talking about the BBC 2 program called Generation Islam ~ the young people the it mentions are those released from prison having served time for some terrorist related charge. The point of the program was that they had not changed their views. ... It goes on to talk about Muslims in the Philippines seeing the Palestinian crisis and being affected by it ~ but they want an Islamic state ~ and are willing to go to any murderous length to get it. And the same can be said of the Jihadist uprising in Southern Thailand. The Left is backing the wrong horse!

Astonishingly Ayatollah Khomeini is seen as an Islamic reformer ~ along with Sayyid Qutb ~ the very man whose ideology reportedly inspired Bin Laden.

Reforming Islam into ~ what is the big question?

Sayyid Abul-A’la Maududi is also seen as an Islamic reformer he founded the Jamaat-e-Islami political Islamic party - which have a presence in Pakistan, India, Kashmir and Sri Lanka. The significance of it is that the Muslim Council of Britain is affiliated with it - a prominent group which advocates for the Shari'a laws integration into British law. In addition recently Yvonne Ridley a Muslim convert - after her capture by the Taliban ~ was barred from attending a Jamaat-e-Islami political rally in Southern India ~ when her application for a visa was revoked.

Worryingly here is the philosophy of the Jamaat-e-Islami ~

On the need for Islamic law:

That if an Islamic society consciously resolves not to accept the sharia, and decides to enact its own constitution and laws or borrow them from any other source in disregard of the sharia, such a society breaks its contract with God and forfeits its right to be called "Islamic".

Lest we not forget Lil' Dalia Mogahed ~ who has an amazing way with statistics on the Islamic world. She uses them to create the pictures that she wants. One of her favorite subjects is the Shari'a and claims to have been hired by the Obama administration as Muslim Faith Adviser 'to tell him what Muslims want'. She was no doubt probably the reason for his headscarf rant in France ~ leaving out the all important statistic that Muslim families attempting to get the French state to go alone with the imposition of Islamic law. Or perhaps it was that she was not entirely interested in the statistics that showed French Muslim parents had an aversion to sending their girls to Biology class, Gym class and on school outings ~ among other request did not want their daughters taught by male teachers. That the headscarf ban was a way to define the secular French state from their increasing religious demands.