Shaphan

Al-Qaradawi blues

Sometimes Nick Cohen writes really well, but this week's attack on Qaradawi wasn't one of those times.  I guess, in his eyes, I'd be a pseudo-leftist.  I read the GuardianObserver, believe in tolerance and social justice, and reckon the only admirable act of Ken Livingstone's mayorship has been his support for Sheikh Yusuf al Qaradawi.  It's that last clause that marks me out as an apostate leftist.  According to Cohen, "[y]ou have to go back to the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939 to find a similar accommodation with the dictatorial right."  Yikes.

Cohen rightly describes Qaradawi as a theologian, yet he critiques Qaradawi on secular grounds, relying on secular sources of information, and showing no evidence of having read anything by Qaradawi in its context.  And Cohen's main source seems to be Outrage, which is, er, outrageous (it's like going to IslamOnline to learn about the gay experience).  But Cohen goes even further than Outrage in decontextualizing Qaradawi.  For example he writes:

In June 2003 Qaradawi pondered the question of how a Muslim who decided of his own free will to convert to another religion or become an atheist should be treated. Instead of saying it was none of his business what adults choose to believe, Qaradawi replied: 'He is no more than a traitor to his religion and his people and thus deserves killing.'

He based this on the first item in Outrage's dossier.

1.  Dr al-Qaradawi supports the killing of people who have turned away from Islam ("apostates").

In a fatwa issued in June 2003 concerning organ donation, Dr al-Qaradawi stated: "it is not permissible to donate it to an apostate as he is no more than a traitor to his religion and his people and thus deserves killing."

See:http://www.islamonline.net/fatwa/english/FatwaDisplay.asp?hFatwaID=49276

A question on organ donation?  But Cohen made it sound as if it was a general fatwa to kill apostates.  That is dishonest, abject journalism.  One doesn't have to agree with Qaradawi's interpretation of Shari'a to believe he shouldn't be demonized by 'true-leftist' journalists like Nick Cohen.

Censoring insight

Link: Telegraph | Charity grovels for lampooning murdered film-maker.

Index on Censorship has apologized for not censoring the words of one of its associate editors.  In November, in response to Theo van Gogh's murder, Rohan Jayasekera wrote a piece that offended IoC's readership.  He's now written a response to his critics.  I thought Jayasekera's original piece was brave and truthful.  I too saw TvG not as an entirely innocent victim, as a martyr to be iconized by secularists, but as a willful actor in a tragic drama.  Being critical of Van Gogh doesn't mean supporting his murder.

I thought the film 'Submission' was worse than most people have acknowledged.  The 10-min film was of a woman praying to Allah, sharing with Him her pain and confusion.  So far so good, but then it deteriorated.  This fictional woman has faced all sort of abuses from her men-folk.  The cause of this suffering is a verse in the Qu'ran (nothing else - not the men, her, grinding poverty, tribal customs, et al).  TvG illustrated the point by inscribing that verse on young women's lightly veiled bodies, and while I'm not against soft porn, it did jar in the context of a prayer to Allah.  In addition, the film presented one woman's awful experiences as if it was what all Muslim women experience at the hands of Muslim men, which is a nonsense.

Anyway, Index on Censorship should maybe change its name to Organ of Censorship.