Tag Archives: islam

Court: ‘Allah’ now trademark, only to be used by muslims

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A court in Malaysia has ruled that ‘Allah’ is a trademarked term that must not be used by non-Muslims.

As reported by the BBC and Guadian, a completely unbiased court of three muslim judges ruled unanimously; the ruling was upheld by equally neutral chief judge Mohamed Apandi Ali.

In unrelated news, the definition of democracy still is ‘three wolves and a lamb deciding on what’s for lunch’.

Since ‘Allah’ is the term to refer to God in different faiths, non-muslim believers are strongly advised to trademark their own names for God and/or various holy figures.

Still up for grabs: ‘Virgin Mary’ (but not ‘Virgin’ by itself, as this belongs to a british individual), ‘Holy Ghost’, and, strangely enough, ‘Yahwe’ – in the case of Yahwe, however, the Jews explain that it’s become a generic term for God that can’t be defended.

Stupid is as stupid does

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Under normal circumstances, if you managed to unite the Jewish, Muslim and Sikh communities behind a common cause, you’d be a shoe-in for the next Nobel Peace Prize. Unless, of course, you manage to unite them to picket your lawn. Bonus points for also managing to have the Christians sniping at you from across the street.

And this is exactly what happened in Quebec: the minority government run by the secular Parti Québécois (PQ) seems so accustomed to being the minority that they never realized that the minorities they antagonized Find phone , taken together, make up the majority of voters. And antagonize them they did.

As reported by Time, their proposed ‘Charter of Values’ contains language that would disallow too obvious religious symbols or garments to be worn by

“government workers and employees of institutions that receive public funds—from judges, school teachers and police officers to doctors and daycare staffers. A cartoonish graphic released last week illustrates the types of symbols that would be banned to them (Muslim head coverings of all kinds, skull caps, turbans and especially large crucifixes[…]). And the plan would also require all members of the public to uncover their faces when giving or receiving a state service, like applying for a driver’s license.”

To be clear about this: I think the underlying idea is ethically sound. It’s just that PQ handled this issue with all the grace, elegance and subtlety of a stampeding herd of elephants. It seems that, as a primarily secular party, the PQ strategists thought that the politically correct way to get rid of a real problem (burkas and head veils) was a shotgun approach: To evenly spread restrictions over all major beliefs. They probably thought that if everyone had to give a little, they’d be more likely to agree. It never occurred to them that everyone just might agree to give you the finger.

All this just goes to show that religious people don’t have a monopoly on doing something silly. PQ has shown that seculars can be just as monumentally stupid as the rest.

Well, at least we have something that unites us all.

‘Science’ in the hands of homophobes

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A recent article reported that Gulf States are working on a medical test to ‘detect’ homosexuality in humans.

A medical test being developed by Kuwait will be used to ‘detect’ homosexuals and prevent them from entering the country – or any of the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC), according to a Kuwaiti government official.

First, the consensus among real scientists is that this will be as likely to succeed as trying to find a medical test that detects if you like collecting stamps: Zero. The Gulf states are rich, and can afford some of the best scientific minds money can buy (those aren’t necessarily the best scientific minds, but close enough). It is safe to say that they know that this is a hare-brained idea. So why are they doing it?

Now, it is important to remember that the Gulf States (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) are deeply islamic countries. Like all deeply islamic countries, they are also deeply homophobic (unfortunately, the same can be said about deeply christian countries). Being a homosexual is a crime in the GCC, in Saudi Arabia it’s even a capital offense.

But I don’t think that they are trying to actually produce a working test. Here, the message is more important than the facts. What The GCC are really trying is to

  • publicly associate homosexuality with a disease. If something can be detected ‘medically’, it must be an illness, right?
  • create the illusion of an ‘impartial’ test. Much like the historic tests that determined if you were a witch Number Search , this test can be used against anyone the state deems unsavory. There is no appeal against a ‘scientific’ positive. This will be just another way to suppress people. The GCC are not democracies – pretty much the opposite.
  • establish the opinion that homosexuality is a growing problem that is invading from the outside (hence airport screening), and that they are trying to stop it at the border. People should think that homosexuality is carried into their pure country by foreigners, and that perhaps, as a medical condition, it may be even be an infectious disease.

In short, this is little more than trying to shoehorn science into providing justification for their repulsive beliefs. Something like this has been done before, and resulted in one of the greatest sufferings the world ever endured: the ‘scientific’ racism of the aryan race theory.

A bullet that changed the world?

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On April 4th, 1968 a bullet cut short the live of Dr. Martin Luther King, whose dream transformed the US to a better nation.

Exactly one year ago today, a bullet tore through a child’s head, fired by a Taliban ‘fighter’. He wanted to murder 15 year old Malala for her crime of wanting to go to school.

Malala has a dream – a dream that few women in her part of the world would dare to dream. This dream, too, can transform our world into a better place.

The bullet did not kill Malala. But it extinguished her fear. It gave her purpose. The world noticed.

“The Taliban shot me on the left side of my forehead. They shot my friends too. They thought that the bullets would silence us. But they failed. And then, out of that silence came, thousands of voices. The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: Weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.”

Malala, 16, speaking at the UN, July 12, 2013

Few people have the strength, ability, and courage to move the world. Malala dreams of a world where every woman can have the education she wants.

The world should listen when it’s now Malala who says: ‘I have a dream’.

Why Islam beats Christianity and Judaism

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According to this Wahhabi preacher (and assuming the translation is correct), the promise of Islam’s Paradise beats that of Christianity or Judaism hands down – by at least 5’041:1!

“Every Muslim man gets at least two black-eyed virgins in Paradise. Each virgin comes with 70 servant girls. You are permitted [to have sex] with the virgins as well as the servant girls. […] [Your wife enters Paradise] with 70 black-eyed virgins. In Paradise you get your wife and her virgins, each of whom come with 70 servants.”

In cold math this comes down to 2 * 70 (own virgins, servants) + 1 (wifey) + 70 * 70 (wifey’s virgins and servants) = 5’041 sex toys for you. More if you are married to more wives.

Only two questions:

  1. Are the wife’s virgins female? Why? Isn’t Allah supposed to be fair?
  2. More importantly: what’s the surcharge to exchange the virgins for experienced women?

I know I should’t joke about the hateful misogyny preached here, but this was just too silly not to post. To think that people actually believe this. And to be a preacher who preaches his personal wet dream to his flock.

Pathetic.

Malala.

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She publicly petitioned for her right to go to school.

“I dont’ mind if I have to sit on the floor at school. All I want is education”

At age 14, she was shot in the head.

“Which one of you is Malala Yousafzai?
Speak up, or I will shoot you all”

Declared to be the devil by the Taliban.

“… the symbol of the infidels and obscenity”

Today, the youngest nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Here’s to you, Malala. I hope you win the prize. In my heart you already won.

With moderates like these…

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Iran has a new president: Hassan Rouhani. Supposedly, he’s a moderate. The question is: a moderate what? As the guardian reports (emphasis mine):

Parliamentarians in Iran have passed a bill to protect the rights of children which includes a clause that allows a man to marry his adopted daughter and [sic] while she is as young as 13 years.

Recently, the Iranian State News Agency reported that in 2010 alone, about 42’000 children between ages 10 and 14 were force-married. The minors have no say in this. And if the father is also the suitor, he can give himself permission.

The ‘moderate’ president did not block this law. Allowing grown men to marry their ‘adopted’ (who is really fooled by this euphemism?) daughters amounts to legalizing child rape.

Since Rouhani draws the line at girls over the age of 13, one is tempted to think he’s a moderate pedophile.

Ali Baba in Fantasy Land

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So salafists are trying to peddle their version of La-La-Land in Fantasyland. As originally reported by Bild (german, translation below):

Photos on the Internet show salafist Sabri Ben A. in the popular ‘Phantasialand’ amusement park near Brühl (Germany). The close friend of Cologne hate preacher Ibrahim Abou-Nagie is depicted posing with the park’s mascot. He’s wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan ‘Read!’ and holds the Quran in his hands in some of the pictures. The caption to one of the photos reads ’50 copies are now in scha Allah https://findphonebase.ca , in good hands’.

At least they chose the right venue. Plus, their roguish Ali-Baba costumes meshed well with those of the professional clowns.

“Please forgive me, we are not monsters.”

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During the terrorist attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi (emphasis mine):

Elliott’s 35-year-old mother Amber was reportedly able to grab two more children – including a wounded 12-year-old boy whose mother had been murdered – before exiting the shopping mall and taking the children them [sic] to safety.

As the group turned to leave, the gunman allegedly called after them saying the jihadists only wanted to kill Kenyans and Americans, not Britons, pleaded with Amber to convert to Islam and begged “please forgive me, we are not monsters.”

Here’s a hint: if you need to say that, you usually are.

Burqas and Whaling on Lake Zürich

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Last week, the swiss canton Ticino voted on new legislation that makes it illegal for people to wear garments that hide or obscure a person’s face in public. While the text does not mention Burqas specifically, the new law is squarely aimed at them. The proposition passed.

While there is only little controversy in Switzerland in this regard (the overwhelming majority regards Burqas as a hideous piece of applied misogyny. So do I), the media did try to drum up some controversy in the weeks leading up the vote.

In an interview (see here, warning: in german) Nora Illi, member of a radical islamic group in Switzerland, stated that the proposed legislation was about as sane as prohibiting whaling on Lake Zürich.

Mrs. Illi loves the Burqa, and therefore strongly opposes the new legislation. In the same interview she goes on to say that prohibiting the Burqa would curtail a woman’s freedom, and that she knows no woman in Switzerland who is forced to wear a Burqa or Niqab.

In a word: Bull. First, there are women in Switzerland who are forced to wear that abominable garment. The reason Illi doesn’t know them is probably because those women aren’t allowed to venture outside alone or meet other people.

But there is more. It is important to remember that Mrs. Illi has converted to Islam, and hence is indeed wearing the Burqa voluntarily – or for fun. In this she is literally the one-in-a-million exception; the rest isn’t that lucky. Unfortunately, Illi is ignoring that fact.

When she likened the new legislation to ‘prohibiting whaling in lake Zürich’, though, she hit the nail on the head. For two reasons:
First, if there were whales in Lake Zürich, whaling would be prohibited in a heartbeat: to save the whales.
Moreover, Illi forgets that in this regard she’s only a make-believe whale. She, unlike the others, can stop any time. This make-believe whale is doing the rest no favor in advocating their hunt. In other words: Illi is prepared to sacrifice women’s liberation around the world for her privilege to wear a hideous piece of clothing.