In this eighth segment of his Basics of Islam series, Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer discusses what the concept of jihad really means in Islamic theology. Only 4 minutes, but an excellent little intro to the various kinds of jihad - and to the legitimacy & necessity of violent jihad in Sharia according to all four Sunni schools.

Here is a Good song for all of us who were or are Prodigal sons (Luke 15.11-24), who refuse to come to our senses until the day arrives when we wake up and realise we are surrounded by pigs and we have lost the greatest thing we could have for the sake of a handful of lies. It's now time to get back the relationship we were always meant to have.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The Wayward Son

He was born far away from home
In a troubled place in a distant land
He was guided by a reason as he searched for the truth
Questioning life as he tried to understand
Just who he was

Discipled by philosophy
A dead end street with no way through
Trusting education as the key to his soul
But the room that it opened held no clue
To who he was

And the Wayward Son kept looking
For a path to lead him home
A new age revelation to give him hope
And the Wayward Son kept learning
But the wisdom never came
And he searched for years to find out
Who he was

At forty he was born again
In a peaceful place in a familiar land
Sheltered by a grace God revealed His truth
And day by day he grew to comprehend
Just who he was
Refashioned by the hand of love
In the image of God's only son
He was freed from the fall with the curse in
the dust
In Christ he found the essence
Of just who he was

And the Wayward Son stopped looking
For a path to lead him home
He received a revelation that gave him hope
And the Wayward Son stopped yearning
For the wisdom of the wind
And he began to find out
Who he was

As a newborn son I'm walking
On the path that leads me home
You know the spirit's revelation gives me hope
As a newborn son I'm growing
In the wisdom of God's plan
I must lose myself to find out
Who I am

I am no longer the Wayward Son

Gad Saad discusses Hazem's harrowing conversion out of Islam as well as a wide range of issues dealing with Islamic scripture (e.g., abrogation, apostasy), Islamic reform, immigration, political correctness, and Sharia law, among other topics.

One hour of extremely useful and informative viewing. Beautiful, good natured and at times very funny!

Concerning Sharia Law Courts, I include below a Panorama documentary on British Sharia Law courts from three years ago. The documentary includes undercover footage. There are as many as 85 of these Sharia courts in Britain. Women are advised by the Qadi (the judge in Sharia law) to submit to abusive husbands. There are many "Sharia" marriages that do not give them legal protection under Britsih Law. Sharia promotes polygamy, even in the West, and discriminates against the women.

I note with some satisfaction that Baroness Cox,who is mentioned in the report, is a fine Evangelical Anglican. She carries on in the tradition of Wilberforce and Shaftesbury who worked so hard to abolish slavery.

At the very end of Part 2 a couple of Muslim ladies complain that the Sharia Courts are abusing them because they are not following genuine Sharia, but they are quite mistaken about this. It is not a case of a Patriarchal culture overwhelming the good and nice Sharia law. Sharia law gives rise to the misogynistic attitudes & culture, not the other way round.

Part 1 is 14 minutes and the link is below. Part 2 is here and is also 14 minutes.

We should all be concerned.

A 3 minute video from MEMRI. Sabah Shabr praises and defends this method of spreading Islam.

What are we to say to this? Is this a "Radical" preacher? Well, he may be, but no matter who might be saying it, this is pretty much exactly how Islam spread through those areas on the map above. Neither is he alone in his commendation of this method of evangelism, as my earlier post regarding what they're teaching kids in Qatar about the spread of Islam shows. Indeed, jihad was preached by Muhammad and was employed & commended both by Muhammad and the Four Rightly Guided Caliphs - under whom this territory was conquered.

That makes it extremely difficult for a knowledgeable Muslim to argue against what Sabah Shabr is saying..

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"Iraqi Shiite cleric Sabah Shabr discussed the spread of Islam in a series of lectures about Jihad. Sabah confirmed that most Islamic countries were conquered by force. He said that Muslims should not try to appease the Jews and Christians by denying this and that the "true religion of Allah should be spread by the sword." Sheikh Shabr added that when Muslims conquer the country of infidels, they should give the locals the opportunity to convert to Islam or kill them. If the locals are from among the People of the Book, i.e., Jews or Christians, they should have the third option of paying the jizya poll tax. The entire series of lectures was posted on October 13, 2015 on a YouTube account, dedicated to the thinking of Ayatollah Sistani."
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*Jizyah is a head tax levied upon subjugated Jews & Christians in return for their lives being spared. There were also a large range of discriminatory laws these people had to observe.

From the Express Tribune.

OK, where did the learned scholars get the idea that Muslims should behave like this?

From scriptures like Qur'an 4.34:
“Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because Allah has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them.”

and

the authoritative Hadith, Sahih Muslim 2127, which was narrated by Aisha (the girl who married Muhammad when she was 6 and with whom he consummated the marriage when she was nine): "[Muhammad] 'struck me on the chest which caused me pain, and then said: Did you think that Allah and His Apostle would deal unjustly with you?'"

and

Sahih Bukhari Volume 7, Book 72, Number 715:
"Narrated 'Ikrima:
Rifa'a divorced his wife whereupon 'AbdurRahman bin Az-Zubair Al-Qurazi married her. 'Aisha said that the lady (came), wearing a green veil (and complained to her (Aisha) of her husband and showed her a green spot on her skin caused by beating). It was the habit of ladies to support each other, so when Allah's Apostle came, 'Aisha said, "I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women. Look! Her skin is greener than her clothes!"


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ISLAMABAD: The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) has proposed its own women protection bill, recommending ‘a light beating’ for the wife if she defies the husband.

The 20-member CII is a constitutional body which gives recommendations to parliament regarding Islamic laws. However, parliament is not bound to consider its recommendations.

CII rules women’s protection law ‘un-Islamic’

The bill was drafted after the CII rejected Punjab’s controversial Protection of Women against Violence Act (PPWA) 2015 terming it un-Islamic. The CII will now forward its proposed bill to the Punjab Assembly.

The council has proposed that a husband should be allowed to ‘lightly’ beat his wife if she defies his commands and refuses to dress up as per his desires; turns down demand of intercourse without any religious excuse or does not take bath after intercourse or menstrual periods.

It has suggested that a beating is also permissible if a woman does not observe Hijab; interacts with strangers; speaks loud enough that she can easily be heard by strangers; and provides monetary support to people without taking consent of her spouse.
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There is more in the article.

Note that many Pakistani Muslims are unhappy about this. It is however, in accordance with Sharia. Again, Muslims are not the problem, Sharia Law - the heart and soul of historic, orthodox Islam - is the problem.

Fascinating interview with the German ex-Muslim intellectual Hamed Abdel-Samad (I previously posted a 14 minute interview with him here).

Abdel-Samad was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as a young man. He was a hafiz - someone who memorised the whole Qur'an and his father was an Imam. So he knows his subject. Due to mounting death threats he has had to leave Germany.

Yes, it is an hour and a half, but this discussion provides a lot of insight and some well needed perspective, no matter one's worldview. They discuss the honour culture; Islamic fascism; the way contemporary Western culture really insults Muslims; the current endemic Jew hatred within Islam (which goes back to the Qur'an); the Refugee Crisis; and the need to reform Islam. Abdel-Samad has an Arabic You Tube channel with 4 million followers. I have previously posted the interview Saad mentions with Nicolai Sennels here.

If you have the time, I do so highly recommend this. Two decent men discussing the real issues and trying to build understanding. Be aware that there are a couple of instances of bad language.

Things we need to know.

Why does the news media present such a different face of terrorism and of Islam itself compared to sources such as this website? Well, where do journalists go for their information? Whom do they trust? Appallingly, in America they trust their avowed enemy the Muslim Brotherhood.

Stephen Coughlin follows on from his previous video on the matter, which I have posted as: "Our enemy wants to control our decision making". Coughlin, a Russian speaker, was once a top Cold War analyst & later became the Pentagon's top advisor on Islam before being rooted out by Muslim Brotherhood elements within the US government. He was in the interesting position of being simultaneously threatened with a prison term by his superiors in US Intelligence while also receiving death threats from Muslim Sharia law supporters outside the government.

As I keep repeating, generally people make the best decisions they can based on the best information available to them. Most are trying to be honest in their appraisals and generous when there is doubt. In the end though, and, despite our much vaunted post-modernist rejection of authority, we end up doing exactly this: relying on authority. People like politicians, academics, Faith leaders and journalists. But where do they get their information? Who are they trusting for the truth?

Coughlin quotes Carlos the Jackal: "Only a coalition of Marxists and Islamists can destroy the United States" and by implication the West. I don't use the phrase must watch very often, but this is 11 minutes that really is a must watch. Coughlin's brilliant book Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad is available on Amazon or Fishpond.

I wonder who the New Zealand media trust for information about Islam?

More on this story.

Our friend and Westernised Muslim Raheem Kassam from Breitbart London does a follow up article on the treatment of Zakia Belkhiri. Apparently those darned Right-Wing and Anti-Muslim outlets are using this to capitalise on their vile Islamophobia! Wait a minute, the woman is a proven liar and a hypocrite trying to talk about peace and love while preaching hatred of Jews and trying to stigmatise those who oppose Sharia - including Antisemitism. What are people supposed to think of this? Maybe we are supposed to be polite and not even notice...

Below is the article:~

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Vox.com has sought to reverse the overt Jew hatred of “Muslim selfie star” Zakia Belkhiri, blaming “Islamophobes” for using her comments as an “opportunity” instead.Ms. Belkhiri – who shot to internet fame for taking pictures of herself outside a Flemish nationalist protest – was offered gleaming coverage by the likes of Vox.com, which announced: “She decided to take some cheerfully defiant selfies in front of the protesters”.

Following the Breitbart London story about her anti-Semitism, the Vox.com article was updated, but not in the way you might assume.

Instead of asking tough questions of Ms. Belkhiri, and posting her anti-Semitic comments for all to see, Vox journalist Emily Crockett used the situation as an opportunity to attack anonymous, “Islamophobic” Twitter accounts.

Citing Breitbart London, Crockett’s update said:

"But of course, with virality comes increased scrutiny. Within days, screenshots of an offensive tweet Belkhiri apparently sent in 2012 (reading “Hitler didn’t kill all the jews, he left some. So we [would] know why he was killing them”) began circulating, and getting coverage particularly from right-wing and anti-Muslim media sources.

Belkhiri, who had already been tweeting about wanting to be left alone by the media before her tweet resurfaced, briefly deactivated her Twitter account. Then she reactivated it to tweet a lengthy, heartfelt apology to the Jewish community in both Dutch and English, before deactivating her account again.

Her apology probably wouldn’t be enough for everyone. Still, some used the incident as an opportunity to spout even more of the Islamophobic hatred that Belkhiri was protesting in the first place."

Her article is the second to be updated after the BBC also used Breitbart London coverage to shift their narrative when the facts failed to back up their glorification of Ms. Belkhiri.

The BBC dejectedly wrote that the story of the selfie star had “a not so pleasant postscript”.

Ms. Belkhiri returned to Twitter to suggest her comments were about Zionists, not Jews – even though her initial comments decried the “Jew language” Hebrew, and she made referencehttps://twitter.com/emilycrockett/status/734783827147665412s to the Holocaust – not something that was perpetrated on Zionists, but Jews.

But this isn’t something Vox seemed to be concerned about. Nor were her initial claims that the anti-Semitic quotes were “photoshopped” – an excuse that was revealed to be a lie when she finally took responsibility and “apologised”.
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Emily Crockett even links an expected rise in Antisemitism in the West to the rise of Trump.

I must end with the words of one of the Twentieth Century's greatest philosophers...

An interesting 7 minute video by Dr. Bill French  (who goes under the name Bill Warner) concerning the opposition he sometimes receives for his talks on Political Islam. No matter what one may think of his talks - and I think they're great and offer a very useful perspective - the opposition he receives is becoming quite bizarre. Now he is being called "unstable". I imagine this must be as rare among Physicists like him as it is in those equally emotional & creative professions of Accountancy and Engineering, but I digress... At least he wasn't called a Christian Fundamentalist this time, which is nice, seeing he's a Buddhist.

Here is what he says on the recent slanders:~

"When my talk was announced recently, the “virtuous” progressives call a critic a bigot. They did not produce a single fact, but said that a leftist group claimed that I was one of the chief Muslim bashers. Which is very odd since I don’t talk about Muslims, just Mohammed and Allah. I am an opponent of political Islam, not Muslims.

They charge me with presenting a “slanted” view of Islam, which is true. All views of Islam can be shown when Mohammed beheaded 800 Jews. Muslims see it as a day of victory; apologists see it as just another historic event. My view is that of a Kafir – beheading the Jews because they said that Mohammed was not a prophet – was an evil act. If you speak about Islamic political doctrine the apologists say you are a bigot.

A clergyman weighed in to say that I do not appreciate the vibrancy of Muslim culture. He is right. I only care about political Islam. I would hope that he would care about the brutality of Islam about Christians in Africa and the Middle East, but he is silent about that evil.

A community college president said that I should be forbidden to speak. This is symptomatic about schools becoming centers of ideology, not fact-based reasoning.

Why all of the insults? It is the only weapon of the ignorant."

In this 12 minute video clip Egyptian and Arabic speaker Ray Ibrahim discusses the persecution of Christians, Islamic supremacist doctrine, the matter of what he calls "Islam's rule of numbers" - why violence increases as Muslim numbers increase - and why Muslims are killing other Muslims.

Elements of this discussion will sound harsh to our ears. "The Left" seems again unnecessarily adversarial, but rememebr that the clip is an out-take of a "Culture Wars" segment. I will also link to useful material if I find it in the "Left".

Isn't it odd how arguements quickly devolve into nonsense these days? If I advocate for the unborn child then that means I want to "trample on the rights of women". If I have problems with homosexual practise because I genuinely believe it's bad for people and contrary to God's loving will then I "hate homosexuals". If I urge caution in bringing in refugees who can't be properly vetted for terror ties then I am accused of not caring about suffering children. If I think we can best lift the condition of all New Zealanders by lowering taxes and promoting the growth of new businesses which will provide jobs then I don't care about the poor and unemployed. And if I have problems with elements of historic orthodox Islamic teaching then I am an "Islamophobe" and of course hate Muslims.

Everything people like me say is usually construed in the least positive way possible and our concerns are dismissed as bigotry. It becomes tiresome, let's not indulge in it. Labelling is not helpful

A very short video (courtesy of Jihad Watch) of a man pretending to solicit donations for the well known terrorist group HAMAS, a group with its ideological roots in the Muslim Brotherhood. The University's motto is "Let knowledge serve the city". What kind of things are they teaching there & what kind of service are they offering the city?

Wow. Incredible. I can't believe it.

I know that the previous post's one hour video is a long time for many of us - so here is a 4 minute video of Robert Spencer's. Former FBI advisor Spencer is always worth listening to - even in small bites.

A MUST WATCH

A most illuminating video interview with Robert Spencer. One hour long - so yes, grab a coffee and turn off "The Bachelor" or whatever engrossing bit of TV is on tonight (I don't know as I don't watch TV - life is too short) and watch this instead.

He and the host have such a worthwhile exchange regarding things like: "well I know some Muslims and they are wonderful people so that means Islam is as wonderful as they are".

The speakers mention books called Hadith and Sira. Hadith are collections of records of Muhammad's life and teachings that do not appear in the Qur'an but have enormous authority. For instance it is the Hadith which says to pray five times a day (the Qur'an says four) and that adulterers should be stoned (the Qur'an says theyshould be whipped). The most authoritative Hadith are the two collections Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim - Sahih meaning "trustworthy". Together with the Qur'an the Hadith forms the basis of what is called the Sunna - the way of life for a faithful Sunni Muslim (i.e. 85-90% of all Muslims). The Sira also has great authority in orthodox Islam as it is the best biography of Muhammad's life and is useful for setting his life in context and illuminating the Qur'an which usually has revelations, statements and actions without a clear context.

A wide ranging discussion with humour and generosity. Yes, really a Must Watch.

David Wood at Answering Muslims has this new 6 minute vidoeo on the media's unwilingness to do basic research and treat all parties in a story impartially.

Recently, a young woman named Zakia Belkhiri showed up to a rally being held by anti-Islam protesters, and she began taking selfies with those who had gathered. The BBC, Huffington Post, Vox, The Telegraph and many other sites praised Belkhiri for dealing with the protesters peacefully and for setting a positive example. Headlines stated: "Defiant teen [actually, she's 22] stands up to anti-Muslim protesters with amazing selfies" and “Muslim woman’s cheeky selfie with anti-Islam group goes viral.”

Disturbingly, this "reporting" included a media outlet that should have known better: Christian Today. CT says the protest was by a "far-right nationalist group". They report that she "told BBC Trending she took the photos 'to show that things can be different. And that we can live together, not next to each other but with each other.' She said her selfies had not been a form of counter-protest and she just wanted to 'share joy and peace'."

A problem arose, however, when people went to Belkhiri's social media pages and found viciously antisemitic comments. In this video, David Wood discusses Belkhiri's posts and the double standards of the media. His "accidental" naming of her as "Taqiyya" Belkhiri is a reference to the Islamic doctrine of deception, Taqiyya. In many cases it is obligatory for an observant Muslim to lie to protect fellow Muslims or Islam.

These problems are enumerated by our Muslim friend Raheem Kassam in his article "Media-Darling Muslim Selfie Girl: ‘Hitler Left Some Jews So We’d Know Why He Killed Them’" [language warning]. This has not been so well covered - to put it mildly - by the rest of the media.

And the media wonder why some people distrust them.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Who will guard the guards themselves?

Was it terrorism? Who was behind it? Why would Muslims deliberately target fellow Muslims? Ibrahim discusses the Egyptian government of General Sisi and the Muslim Brotherhood's animosity towards it since the Egyptian army ousted the MB from power. The Muslim Brotherhood is the ideological progenitor of the Islamic State, HAMAS and al-qaeda.

Six minutes.

Raymond Ibrahim discusses taqiyya, the Islamic doctrine of the permissible and sometimes obligatory nature of lying to non-Muslims for a "good cause".This was back in October 2015 when Republican Presidential candidate Ben Carson mentioned taqiyya and was roundly criticised for it by several "experts".

"Back in the 1980s, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the president of Pakistan, explained to Ronald Reagan how it was no problem for the Pakistanis to sign the Geneva agreements and yet continue supplying weapons to the Afghan jihadis (“freedom fighters”) combating the Soviet Union.

Why wasn’t it a problem?  According to Zia, “We’ll just lie about it.  That’s what we’ve been doing for eight years.”  He added, “Muslims have the right to lie in a good cause.”  (From the Cold War to a New Era: The United States and the Soviet Union, 1983-1991, p.280. Image below)

Compare this casual statement from the president of a Muslim nation with the claims of UCLA’s Abou El Fadl, whom the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler quoted at length in an effort to prove Carson wrong about taqiyya.  According to the Muslim professor, “there is no concept that would encourage a Muslim to lie to pursue a goal. That is a complete invention.”

So which Muslim do you believe?  The strong and secure Muslim who said that “Muslims have the right to lie in a good cause” — in this case, jihad against “infidels.”  Or the Muslim minority surrounded by American “infidels” who claims that there is “no concept that would encourage a Muslim to lie to pursue a goal”?

Apparently it never occurred to the WaPo’s Kessler that El Fadl himself may have been exercising, in Zia’s words, his Muslim “right to lie in a good cause” — in this case, to prevent Americans from ever being suspicious of Muslim individuals and organizations in the U.S."

Good points aren't they?

A Moroccan Muslim who converted to Christ opens up on his experiences.Under 8 minutes - great eye-opening stuff.

Brother Rashid says:~
“Islam silences us in the East by threatening some of us, arresting some, persecuting others, and killing apostates, but in the West Islam is trying to silence us using this weird term: Islamophobia. Islam is a set of doctrines, we have the right to criticize it like any other doctrine, it’s a set of ideas people can denounce them, can criticize them and can even hate them without been harassed or accused of hatred.”

"Stand for your freedom and for your rights!"

It is good that Al-Azhar University, the highest seat of learning in Sunni Islam, has re-established dialogue with the Vatican. Relations turned sour after the previous Pope quoted a Byzantine Emperor's negative view of Islam and its prophet. They were further soured when he asked for protection for persecuted Egyptian Christians, which was understood as "meddling" in the internal affairs of Egypt. Speaking out on behalf of people under threat of terrorist attacks is now "meddling". OK. Got that. But I doubt that will stop Al-Azhar or any other Sunni Muslim organisation complaining about any perceived injustices against Muslims in the West, because that would also be "meddling" in another country's affairs. Isn't that a double standard?

The Herald notes:~
"Ties were badly soured when the now-retired Benedict made a September 2006 speech in which he was perceived to have linked Islam to violence, sparking deadly protests in several countries and reprisal attacks on Christians."

Oh yes, I remember that. So if someone speaks up and says that it seems that Islam has some strange link to violence Muslims will riot and turn violent. Thus proving the critic.....um, correct. My Muslim friends, this is how some people can get the idea that Islam really isn't a religion of peace. Is it really so outrageous that some draw such a conclusion? 

Robert Spencer makes some comments on the Sheikh Al-Azhar and provides some interesting facts on the would-be dialogue partner:~

"Al-Tayeb has shown himself over the years to be anything but a preacher of peace, cooperation and mercy: he has justified anti-Semitism on Qur’anic grounds; called for the Islamic State murderers of the Jordanian pilot to be crucified or have their hands and feet amputated on opposite sides (as per the penalty in Qur’an 5:33 for those who make war against Allah and his messenger or spread “mischief” in the land); and broken off “dialogue” with the Vatican after Pope Benedict XVI dared to criticize the jihad massacre of 21 Christians in Alexandria on New Year’s Eve 2011. Al-Azhar was also revealed to be offering free copies of a book that called for the slaughter of Christians and other Infidels."

So while we may welcome the beginning of a new era of dialogue, we note with some apprehension the nature of the man with whom the Pope will engage in dialogue. We also note that it seems it will be extremely difficult for the Pope to raise the issue of the persecution of Christians under Islamic regimes without risking another suspension of dialogue.

One wonders what other issues are even worth talking about if discussing millions of suffering Christians is verboten. I mean, that’s a pretty major issue we have to ignore there. When are the hard questions going to be put to Al-Tayeb? What kind of "dialogue" is it that only brushes over superficialities? I'd love the Pope to press Al-Tayeb on his University's free book on slaughtering unbelievers, but it's safe to bet that will never happen either.

Meanwhile, how many will die while these two discuss minutiae? How many students will leave Al-Azhar with degrees that lead them to teach a new generation of Muslims to hate the Other? We don’t know and we can’t even talk about it as that might lead to offence.

Hazem Farraj ends his fascinating series on whether the Islamic State really is Islamic. I commend the whole series - if you have not followed it, do go back and view all the videos. The first video is here. They are all short and he offers pertinent Scriptural references. An excellent introduction!

Farraj says:
"After viewing all 13 videos in this video series, you are now empowered and informed to make your own conclusion. Given the reality that certain teachings exist within the Islamic narrative that are questionable, the viewer must wrestle with the validity of these verses and make a conclusion. We must end the hatred and the violence. However, ignoring the blaring signs within the texts does nobody any good. You heard the facts. You decide."

What a lovely idea - review the information and make your own decision!

This is a little academic but if you follow the migration crisis, it contains actual information and the Polish view of it. Thanks to Vlad Tepes. Fifteen minutes.

The previous post mentions an article by Raymond Ibrahim. It is from 2013 but is an informative & thought provoking piece so I decided to post it below. First though is a more accessible TV interview with Ibrahim on the matter. It's only 8 minutes. Do watch it.

The article is below the fold. You may think it too harsh, but he does seem to have a solid grasp of both historic Islam and current events, so his thesis shouldn'tbe dismissed too quickly.

Pierre Manent

An interesting opinion piece by Matthew Hanley in The Catholic Thing, in which he discusses ideas for reforming Islam and enabling it to become fully assimilable with the West.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I know gossip is officially verboten, but I’m only passing along a news item that has people talking. Did you hear about that guy in Arkansas – Billy Bob Something – who married the wife of his adopted son, after he rather sternly prevailed upon him to divorce her?

No joke. This actually happened – except not the other day in Arkansas, but about 1400 years ago in Saudi Arabia. So it’s history, not idle gossip. Mohammed wanted this married woman as his own, and so retroactively deemed his original adoption of her husband to be illegitimate, thereby clearing the way for a “licit” marital arrangement. This is why legal adoption thenceforth became haram (off limits) according to sharia law.

Might the fact that this wasn’t the behavioral norm at the time – even in that “dark” 7th century, even in pagan Arabia – suggest the possibility that Islam ushered in regressive tenets, hard-wired to resist modification?

This is but one of many disquieting incidents – among the assorted depredations, licentiousness, and violence attributed to Islam’s prophet with which many Muslims themselves are not well (or comfortably) acquainted – that might help us frame the prospect for “reform” within Islam.

Take, for example, the Somali-born-turned-Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali (now an American citizen) – maligned by the multiculturalists and mullahs alike for having left Islam. She has proposed five particular aspects of Islam that need to be altered. First, she insists that Islam drop its simplistic obeisance to Mohammed and the Quran; the other things that she says need reworking, including jihad and sharia, flow from this.

Therein lies the intractable heart of the matter. However you slice it, there is no getting around the fact that reprehensible acts (including the kinds making headlines today) have been perpetually sanctioned because they were committed and championed by the person deemed to be the paragon of all human behavior. If the deeds of Mohammed simply cannot be scrutinized because they are irreproachable, then emulation and no little turmoil will persist.

Reform is no reform at all if it evades this central consideration – the ounce of water that would not just dilute the faith, but dissolve it. Ultimately, there is only acquiescence, or what Ali herself chose: disavowal.

The French political philosopher Pierre Manent, recognizing that “reform” isn’t really a viable option, has labored conscientiously to come up with a proposal to deal with the sizeable Islamic presence now lodged within France. His hope is for mutual respect, which would necessarily have to be grounded in a return to authentic French identity; postmodern France is in no position to take on a radical challenge, having severed itself from its nourishing roots.

Manent proposes a kind of “social contract” in which Muslims would be free to live with their particular customs and practices as full French citizens, with two exceptions: that only monogamy be recognized, and that the burqa be banned. In return, they would have to accept the range of liberties protected by French tradition, and to abandon external allegiances.

A 6 minute interview of Donald Trump by Piers Morgan. Interesting when you can hear what people actually say isn't it? It really does seem to me that what Trump says here is pretty moderate and sensible. Morgan is a pretty left of centre person and even he seems to end up defending Trump.

I do wonder, though, how some news outlets might end up framing this.
+++++++++++++++++++++
UPDATE- THIS IS ODD

LINK DISABLED. The original link has been disabled over a copyright issue. Fair enough. However Good Morning Britain has not put the interview up on its own You Tube channel. There looks to be a video of that interview here on their own website, but I can't get it to play for me for some reason. The only video I can find from GMB on YT is one which includes only a fraction of that original video here. That clip "Frames" Trump and provides a lens through which one is supposed to view him, rather than just hearing him talk for himself. This happens a lot with people and issues the media doesn’t like – think of the example of Family First here in NZ. The weird thing is though: GMB has put up the full video of Sadiq Khan's response to Trump's original interview on YT and GMB.

I find that a little odd. It seems GMB have that interview on their own site (it just won't play for me, so I can't tell) but why not put the original interview up on You Tube along with so many other GMB videos they have on him? Especially when there is such a lot of world-wide interest in Trump and a potentially huge audience waiting. Especially when they have a section of their YT channel dedicated to Donald Trump UK Exclusive Interviews. Why not put Trump's interview in there? Again, they put up Khan's response to Trump on YT.

Is it just a coincidence that Trump seemed to come off as so reasonable and fair that even the left-of-centre Piers Morgan ended up defending Trump and yet this segment has disappeared? We are left with heavily edited clips of Trump while the full interview with a happy, charming, inclusive Sadiq Khan - who is so warmly received by the hosts - is left up. We can't even see for ourselves what Khan is responding to. A person has to know about the first Trump interview and go looking for it on the GMB website (and then actually have it play for them) to hear Trump speak for himself.

Perhaps I'm being overly sensitive but at the moment these just don't seem like the actions of an entirely impartial, or even competent, news outlet. Just seems a bit odd to me. I'm sure it's probably just an oversight that will be fixed shortly though. Let’s check back in a few days - I'd love to see the whole interview!

UPDATE X 2
Here we are on the 28th of May and the video has still not been uploaded.
Probably safe to say now that it never will be.
Gotta wonder why not eh?

In this sixth segment of his Basics of Islam series, Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer discusses whether or not the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) is Islamic. Under 5 minutes of reliable information.
Not to be missed.