Hilaly, OK Anonymous I was Wrong.

Last night I was taken to task in the comment section over a statement I made about the level of support for Liverpool's Sheik Faiz Mohamad.

I made the statement that; “The problem I have with this is of course the other 12.4%, though some of this is no doubt influenced by the fact that the speaker is a religious leader and in this faith the adherents are not inclined to think for themselves.”

Anonymous (I appreciate your comment however if possible in future use a name or pseudo name, I like to address people personally), said; “You clearly haven't had much exposure to Muslim communities in Australia or elsewhere. If you knew how much crap Hilaly had copped and continues to cop for his statements FROM MUSLIMS THEMSELVES, you'd not have written what you wrote.”

The term “are not inclined to think for themselves” is probably unfair and I should have said something along the lines of “ are discouraged from thinking for themselves”

The fact is that after Sheik Faiz Mohamad made the rather inflammatory statement “that women who were raped only had themselves to blame because they dressed immodestly,” 87.6 per cent of respondents on a Sydney Islamic website disagreed with what he had to say.

The problem, and a serious one is that other 12.4%. It is bizarre that such a high proportion could agree with such a statement. Then I found this: -


The above video is found in a more complete form here.

This is taken from excerpts from an interview with him taken from Memri. 



Someone who is ignorant, who does not know any Arabic, or who has no knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence wants to issue rulings?! They say: 'We reinterpret the texts.' 

There is a very dangerous conspiracy against the religion of Islam in newspapers and in what these people say. A journalist, or one of those lowlifes, wants to... 



These people are a mixture of Western, local, and imported ideologies, but they want to express their views with regard to religious rulings. This is the prerogative of religious scholars, not of ignorant people - the prerogative of knowledgeable people, not of fools or heretics. ……………………. 



"Then they will talk about freedom of belief, and say that anyone is entitled to believe in whatever he wants... If you want to become an apostate - go ahead. You like Buddhism? Leave Islam, and join Buddhism. No problem. That's what freedom of belief is all about. They want freedom of everything. What they want is very dangerous. ……………



"Freedom of thought, within some constraints, is blessed. Islam calls for thinking, for interpretation, and for the use of the mind. But as for freedom of heresy, which allows anyone to criticize whatever he wants in Islam, saying, for example, that he does not like the punishment for apostasy, that he doesn't like the punishment for drinking alcohol, or that he does not like the punishment of stoning adulterers - this is barbarism.

Where problems start in any faith is with the fundamental issue in human nature of authority. Some elements tend to use their role as spiritual advisor to control those who seek that advice, and essentially turn it into an authoritarian one. In doing so they lose sight of one of the fundamental teachings, which was to place no man between yourself and God.

The above cleric takes pride in the fact that there are rules in sharia for everything, including 70 on how to urinate and defecate. This is weird, I mean why not just “wash your hands after you go.” These clerics really have to lighten up a bit.