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| Britain | |
| BBC lets anti-Islamism bolt, then closes the stable door | |
| 2006-03-02 | |
| Boy, is the World Service making it difficult to Listen Again to the topic Is Islamism the new global threat? - broadcast yesterday on World Have Your Say at 18:00 GMT. Here’s the torturous procedure: From the side bar of the World Service homepage go to the Have Your Say main page. Click on Listen Again - directly above the text World Have Your Say: Is Islamism a new 'global threat'? That will get you to a burning issue, an interview with Liberia’s president. Scratch your head for a while, then, in that window, click on World Have Your Say. That will take you to an introduction to a discussion on South Africa’s ANC. At this point you’ll probably give up in disgust, unless you know that this is how the BBC chose to obscure the Islamism topic during the original broadcast. Stay tuned for a minute and you’ll be in the middle of a fascinating discussion between Ibn Warwick, an academic ex-Muslim from New York State, and Ajmul Masrour of the Islamic society of Britain. (Forgive me if I've mangled the spelling of their names.) Here are some highlights: Ajmul: If someone can show me a verse in the Koran where there are instructions to kill… Ibn: Yes, I can. Sura 9, vs 5-6: Kill them wherever you find them…..Sura 8 vs 12: I will strike terror into the heart of the infidels… Ajmul: That was in the context of a war situation…It's not a generic instruction to Muslims to kill... Ibn: That’s your interpretation. The Koran is not time bound. It is the eternal word of God for Muslims. You can’t relativise it. Ajmul: Yes, the Koran is true for all time, but there are verses that have to be interpreted contextually: If one is to take a knife and kill….it is as if he has killed the whole of humanity. Ibn: Can I have the right of reply here? He quoted that whoever killed a human being it is as if he has killed the whole of mankind. Ajmul is the one taking it out of context: if you read the whole quote, in Sura 5, vs 32 onwards, you’ll find that this supposedly noble sentiment refers to Jews. It’s a warning to Jews:behave or else. Ajmul: [Complete, total and utter silence.] So there it is. Next time a Muslim pompously and piously mentions that ‘noble’ saying from the Koran, we’ll know exactly what he’s talking about.
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| Posted by:Bryan |