Islam

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 23 March 2017

Speaking for Scotland Sir: I wonder if it is wise of Charles Moore (Notes, 18 March) to assume — as so many do — that because they lost the independence referendum back in 2014, the Nationalists do not speak for Scotland? In the following general election Scottish voting virtually wiped out every political party north of the border, other than the SNP. Might it not be wiser to assume that the Scots had thought again? Ian Olson Aberdeen Birds, gangs and economics Sir: Simon Barnes is correct in his implication that the trapping and harvesting of small birds by criminal gangs in Cyprus is enough to make the average Briton

The Spectator

Barometer | 23 March 2017

Princes among men British DJ Mark Dezzani was hoping to be elected prince of Seborga, a self-proclaimed independent state in Italy. Some other self-declared nations not recognised by others: — Hutt River in Western Australia declared independence in 1970 after farmer Leonard Casley complained he hadn’t been granted a large enough quota for growing wheat. He later proclaimed himself Prince Leonard but abdicated last month in favour of his youngest son, Prince Graeme. — Sealand, previously known as Roughs Tower, is a gun emplacement built to defend the Thames during the second world war but then abandoned. In the 1960s it was occupied by businessman Roy Bates, who ruled as

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The scale of Islamist extremism is a problem for MI5

In her statement to the House of Commons, Theresa May said that the man responsible for yesterday’s attack was British-born and had previously been investigated by MI5 ‘in relation to concerns about violent extremism’. However, May stressed that, ‘The case is historic—he was not part of the current intelligence picture.’  Now, the fact that the attacker was known to the security services will lead to questions about why a closer watch wasn’t being kept on him. But there is, frankly, a volume problem here. The number of radicalised individuals is now so large — there are several thousand Islamist extremists being monitored by MI5 — that the security services have

Sunday

Rod Liddle

Europe’s elite rightly feel extinction breathing down their necks

Allahu Akbar! Greetings from Samsun, where Turkish protestors — their eyeballs spinning in orgasmic Islamic rage — tried to set fire to the Dutch flag while chanting the usual ‘Allah’s dead good’ stuff. They used cigarette lighters and some lighter fuel and up it went — and was then jubilantly trampled on by the inflamed, howling masses. Except that it wasn’t the Dutch flag — they had got hold of the French flag by mistake. I wonder if any of the similarly inflamed Turkish protestors in the Netherlands would have noticed? My guess is most of those demonstrating in Rotterdam had spent their entire lives in the Netherlands, but possibly

Thursday

Rose Asani

Geert Wilders didn’t win – but he has reshaped Dutch politics

Rotterdam If the 2017 Dutch election was seen as a bellwether for populism in Europe, the verdict is still out. Mark Rutte’s liberal VVD may have come out on top, but it was a limping victory. One which saw the party lose around a quarter of its seats and radically shift its position over immigration.  Just a year ago Rutte stood firm that immigrants were welcome in his country. But as the winds seemed to favour the anti-immigration stance of far-right parties, his rhetoric changed. ‘Act normal or go away,’ he said recently. It was in response to growing concerns that immigrants arriving in the Netherlands were not yet integrating. 

Qanta Ahmed Qanta Ahmed

Uncover her face

I was raised as an observant Muslim in a British family. Women, I was taught, determine their own conduct — including their ‘veiling’. We’d cover our hair only if we freely chose to do so. That’s why I’m baffled by the notion that all good Muslim women should cover their hair or face. My entire family are puzzled by it too, as are millions like us. Not until recent years has the idea taken root that Muslim women are obliged by their faith to wear a veil. It’s a sign, I think, not of assertive Islam, but of what happens when Islamists are tolerated by a western culture that’s absurdly

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Europe’s politicians rightly feel extinction breathing down their necks

Allahu Akbar! Greetings from Samsun, where Turkish protestors — their eyeballs spinning in orgasmic Islamic rage — tried to set fire to the Dutch flag while chanting the usual ‘Allah’s dead good’ stuff. They used cigarette lighters and some lighter fuel and up it went — and was then jubilantly trampled on by the inflamed, howling masses. Except that it wasn’t the Dutch flag — they had got hold of the French flag by mistake. I wonder if any of the similarly inflamed Turkish protestors in the Netherlands would have noticed? My guess is most of those demonstrating in Rotterdam had spent their entire lives in the Netherlands, but possibly

Tuesday

Theo Hobson

Is ‘post-theocratic Islam’ a contradiction in terms?

Omar Saif Ghobash, who is the United Arab Emirates ambassador to Russia, has written a good Muslim-reformist tract called Letters to a Young Muslim. There is plenty of passionate rhetoric denouncing rigidity, praising open-mindedness. There are plenty of insights that give the outsider a glimpse of his difficult inheritance (as a half-Arab, half-Russian boy educated in Britain). But is the bullet bit? A bit. While his liberal sympathies are not in doubt, Ghobash does not quite focus on the core issue with adequate determination. For me, the essence of the Muslim-reformist task is the repudiation of theocracy. This entails more than denunciations of terrorism, religious police, blasphemy laws and so

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 9 March 2017

On Scottish independence Sir: Alex Massie writes of the order permitting a second Scottish independence referendum: ‘Having granted such an order in 2014, it will be difficult to refuse Mrs Sturgeon’s demand for another’ (‘Back into battle’, 4 March). Surely that is precisely why Mrs May should refuse another? It was the SNP who described the 2014 vote as a chance in a lifetime. The only thing way in which Brexit could have changed matters is if it had been a fundamental and unforeseeable upset. Alex Massie, from this and his previous writings, clearly believes it was. But the Conservatives, at the time of the Scottish vote, had promised to

Andrew Lycett

Light in the East | 9 March 2017

Christopher de Bellaigue, a journalist who has spent much of his working life in the Middle East, has grown tired of people throwing up their hands in horror at Isis, Erdogan and Islamic terror, and declaring that the region is backward and in need of a thorough western-style reformation. As he argues in this timely book, the Islamic world has been coming to terms with modernity in its own often turbulent way for more than two centuries. And we’d better understand it, because it’s an interesting story, and often a positive one — the way vast crowds streamed onto the streets of Cairo, Istanbul and Tehran in demonstrations against authoritarian

Monday

Theo Hobson

Islam – unlike Christianity – refuses to see virtue in secularism

There was a good programme last week on Channel 4 about Muslims looking for love, or at least marriage. It was called ‘Extremely British Muslims’, and it did indeed show us some young Muslims who were very much like anyone else. But it was also a reminder that many Muslims have a deep-seated assumption about religion and secularism that the rest of don’t. Lots of these young Muslims, though not very religious, saw it as their duty to become more religious as they grew up and settled down. Religion, for them, was an essential part of becoming responsible, civic-minded, family-minded, and about putting away youthful selfishness. And – the other side of the

Sunday

James Delingpole

How refreshing to find the BBC doing its job instead of handwringing about Islamophobia

Here’s the bad news. One day you or someone like you will be shopping in a mall or enjoying a concert or about to catch a train when the first sudden, sharp crack will rend the air and your world will change forever. Around you, people will start to crumple and as the panic and horror finally dawn the screams will begin while the automatic rifle fire escalates and those still standing will begin to flee — but where to? If you run away from the gunfire you’re being herded into a trap. If you run towards it you’ll be shot, either killed immediately, or casually, later, as you lie

Sunday

Christopher De Bellaigue

The tragedy of Islam’s lost Enlightenment

I am quite used to people smirking into their sleeves when they hear that I’ve just written a book called The Islamic Enlightenment. The really helpful wags say they expect something along the lines of The Wit and Wisdom of Spiro Agnew, which was billed as a collection of all the memorable aphorisms of the former US vice-president, and contained only blank pages. So, the Islamic Enlightenment — good for a laugh. But we’re all familiar with the serious argument that lies behind the jests; that Islam has not been through an Enlightenment, a Reformation, or any of the other rites of passage that have formed our modernity, and that,

Thursday

Christopher De Bellaigue

Islam’s lost Enlightenment

I am quite used to people smirking into their sleeves when they hear that I’ve just written a book called The Islamic Enlightenment. The really helpful wags say they expect something along the lines of The Wit and Wisdom of Spiro Agnew, which was billed as a collection of all the memorable aphorisms of the former US vice-president, and contained only blank pages. So, the Islamic Enlightenment — good for a laugh. But we’re all familiar with the serious argument that lies behind the jests; that Islam has not been through an Enlightenment, a Reformation, or any of the other rites of passage that have formed our modernity, and that,

Jack Wakefield

Conning the connoisseurs

Rogues’ Gallery describes itself as a history of art and its dealers, and Philip Hook, who has worked at the top of Sotheby’s for decades, is well versed in his subject. Sadly for the prurient, this is not an exposé of the excesses of the market from one of its high priests; and Hook says that where possible he has avoided writing about the living. It is hard not to feel a bit disappointed. For an alarming moment in the introduction, it seemed as if he was preparing to write an academic treatise about how dealers influence art and taste. The book does start as more of a conventional history

Andrew Lycett

Light in the East

Christopher de Bellaigue, a journalist who has spent much of his working life in the Middle East, has grown tired of people throwing up their hands in horror at Isis, Erdogan and Islamic terror, and declaring that the region is backward and in need of a thorough western-style reformation. As he argues in this timely book, the Islamic world has been coming to terms with modernity in its own often turbulent way for more than two centuries. And we’d better understand it, because it’s an interesting story, and often a positive one — the way vast crowds streamed onto the streets of Cairo, Istanbul and Tehran in demonstrations against authoritarian

Wednesday

Gavin Mortimer

Emmanuel Macron’s idyllic vision of France is a myth

As Emmanuel Macron stood on the steps of Downing Street on Tuesday urging Britain’s ‘banks, talents, researchers, academics’ to move across the Channel after Brexit, security services in France were dismantling yet another Islamic terror cell preparing to launch a terrorist attack. That makes three this month, a clear indication that the Islamists are itching to carry out a major attack in the run-up to April’s presidential election. Tuesday’s police raid targeted addresses in Clermont, Marseille and the Paris area. ‘The suspects had a plot that was sufficiently advanced for the police to decide to arrest them’, said a police spokesman. According to the French media, police had been monitoring the suspects’ text

Wednesday

Rod Liddle

Shock horror! Many Europeans agree with Trump on Muslim immigration

Well, now… would you just look at this. I’d read it here if I were you because I suspect it won’t be covered on the BBC News tonight. A large majority of Europeans are in total agreement with Donald Trump in his restriction upon immigrants from Muslim countries. Here are the figures. Now, never mind what I think. And for that matter, never mind what you think. Simply accept that the shrieking at Trump and from that idiotic, jumped-up thick-as-mince dwarf, Bercow, weighing in with his two pennorthworth, is a million miles from how the majority of people in our continent view the matter. Again, this is not about my point

Tuesday

Theo Hobson

Saint Joan is the perfect religious play for our ignorant era

The chief appeal of Saint Joan, which I saw last night at the Donmar, is that it is a brilliant vehicle for a young actress. Gemma Arterton is great, if a little too mature and attractive to convey teenage innocence. Otherwise, I don’t quite see the point of George Bernard Shaw’s play, and wonder why it is regularly revived in our time. Does it have anything intelligent to say about religion? It romanticises a medieval mystic who took up arms – which has rather little to do with contemporary Christianity. At one point it suggests that her stubborn individualism is the source of Protestantism, but this is muddled in various

Saturday

Matt Ridley

A new puritanism explains why some feminists are making common cause with Islam

The bicoastal elite might be more effective in opposing Mr Trump if it weren’t obsessed with the persecution of anybody who says the wrong thing. ‘While you self-involved fools were policing the language at the Kids’ Choice Awards,’ raged the broadcaster Bill Maher last week, ‘a madman talked his way into the White House.’ This new puritanism must explain why some feminists make common cause with Islam. One of the Women’s March organisers was Linda Sarsour, a defender of sharia law, which is misogynism incarnate. She said on Twitter of Brigitte Gabriel, a feminist critic of Islam, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a victim of female genital mutilation and of death