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Down Under
Muslim fears for life over calls for sheik step-down
2006-11-08
A prominent Muslim doctor who demanded Australia's mufti quit after his controversial sermon fears for his life after a series of threats. Dr Jamal Rifi says he received calls, emails and letters from Islamic extremists after taking a stand against his former friend Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly. The threats were spurred by an open letter written by the Bankstown GP which condemned the mufti's apparent justification of rape.

Dr Rifi said he has been forced to install a security system at his surgery and take other precautions to protect his family and staff. "I've told my wife to be careful and we now take our kids to school and bring them back every day," he said.

"We're not seeing any new patients either, only people we trust, and I've told my office to take extra care. I have to be cautious because I've had a few nasty emails and a few nasty phones calls and faxes that were not nice at all."

But the threats have not stopped Dr Rifi from further demanding Sheik Hilaly step aside following the inflammatory comments which compared immodestly dressed women with uncovered meat and seemingly blamed them for sexual assault.

He said the cleric's recovery speech last Friday did manage to relieve some tension which had built up "like a pressure cooker about to explode". But his offer to resign if an ethical tribunal found him guilty of condoning rape "just causes more problems", the doctor said.

"He has already been trialled, judged and convicted in the court of public opinion so he must go," said Dr Rifi, who formed the Australian Muslim Doctors Against Violence during the Lebanon-Israel conflict.

"What he said has done a lot of damage. I believe he is the wrong image of Islam and it's really not a good reflection on our community, him staying in this position."
Posted by:ryuge

#11  PS:
Please go to my post # 6 and click on the link for Fjordman's article about "Why We Cannot Rely Upon Moderate Muslims". Please read it and then see if you feel compelled to return and continue your arguments.
Posted by: Zenster   2006-11-08 20:39  

#10  Islam as a whole shouldn't be compared to its extremists.

It's not a matter of comparison, Deveran. Where is it written that the West must delicately pick through all Muslims in order that we do not harm the moderates while we go about eliminating the jihadist threat? We are under no such obligation. The West has only one duty, to preserve itself against all further Islamic terrorism.

If moderate Muslims do not want to be thrown out with the bathwater, they had best begin making a clear and obvious distinction between themselves and radical Islam. To date, these efforts have been minimal where they have even happened at all.

Ask yourself. Where were the large street protests each time there was another atrocity after 9-11? There were essentially ZERO for Bali, Madrid, London and so forth. Neither American nor European Muslims, who live in nations that protect freedom of expression, have gone the least bit out of their way to express any outrage over the incessant stream of Islamic atrocities against the West. The few protests that have happened involve less than a fraction of a percent of the Muslim populations in any of these regions.

Yes, there are murderous and mysogenistic Muslims, but contrary to many of these comments posted, the majority of them are not.

Nice try at the moral relativism, but no dice. You have convolved two separate traits, neither of which are acceptable but ones that do not always manifest simultaneously.

Whether or not Islam is always murderous, it is almost unanimously mysogenistic. Islam essentially represents a policy of instutionalized Abject Gender Apartheid. Disregarding terrorism (if that is even possible), the routine and horrible abuse of women disqualifies Islam as a valid religion.

As I mentioned above, Islam must undergo reformation, just as the Christian church did. Where have you seen the least indication of any groundswell support for such a notion? It simply does not exist in numbers sufficient to make any difference in our policy towards how we are obliged to deal with Islam.

This false religion, in its current unreformed state, is in reality a dangerous totalitarian political ideology which seeks to subvert all host cultures that it infiltrates. Furthermore, it is up to Islam and Islam alone to begin reforming itself. No amount of outside force, save the direct threat of total extinction, will ever be likely to motivate Islam to reform. Again, this is why I place the burden of effort upon moderate Muslims who must now become radical reformists.

Nothing less is acceptable. We cannot tolerate Islam's continued pursuit of Weapons of Mass Destruction in order that they may inflict them upon us. If Islam cannot be dissuaded from this unwholesome pursuit, it must be destroyed. Period.
Posted by: Zenster   2006-11-08 20:27  

#9  Perhaps, Deveran , but a goodly portion of the Muslim world is either actively at war with the West, or supportive of those who are. We would love those who are against jihad and the jihadis to speak out against the behaviour of their brothers-in-faith, but very few do, and as another article on this site details, they put the lives of themselves and their families at risk by doing so. If Islam as a whole wishes not to be tarred with the brush of terrorism, then Islam as a whole would be wise to punish those whose actions tar the rest... or at least let the world know that Islam as a whole does not support such ideas and behaviour.
Posted by: trailing wife   2006-11-08 19:48  

#8  Islam as a whole shouldn't be compared to its extremists. Yes, there are murderous and mysogenistic Muslims, but contrary to many of these comments posted, the majority of them are not. It's like comparing the whole of Christianity to the IRA or the Westborough Baptist Church.
Posted by: Deveran   2006-11-08 19:39  

#7  Go Zenster! Well said!
Posted by: BigEd   2006-11-08 14:23  

#6  Maybe some moderates dont talk out because of threats from the radicals.

This is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Not speaking out only further empowers the radicals. Moreover, it is a deadly spiral for radical and moderate alike because, by dint of no opposition, they both aggregate into the enemy. If moderates cannot be distinguished from the enemy, they will become the enemy. Why do you think you see authors like Fjordman posting such articles as, "Why We Cannot Rely Upon Moderate Muslims"?

This is why you see me posting:

After a while silence is not consent. To remain silent is to lie.

Moderate Muslims, like the good Doctor Rifi, will necessarily have to risk their lives if they do not want to be incinerated with the radicals when the tipping point finally has been reached. Again, we ARE NOT obliged to sort these sheep from the wolves. They must begin to take back their faith by force or watch it fully evolve into the political ideology it has become and thence be banned from practice, dismantled and destroyed.

None of this is the West's fault. All of it is Islam's fault. Radicals and moderates alike have willingly put up with Wahabism becoming the de facto global standard for Islam. This has become tacit approval for radical Sunni doctrine and the blowback is just beginning.

I sense the muslims fear the radicals more than their own governments.We need to weed out the bullys with the help of the Muslim community!!!!

You'll note that I support Dr. Rifi getting police protection. In the same measure, I hope all of you will note that a vast majority of Western law enforcement agencies already have anonymous crime reporting mechanisms in place. While it may be that some increased advertising of this in the Muslim communities might be useful, there is no extreme need for establishing an entirely separate wing of this function to deal with radical Islam.

Much more important are stricter laws dealing with religious incitement to violence and harsher penalties, including deportation, for any and all involvement in or financing of terrorist operations.

We cannot save the moderate Muslim. They must save themselves or otherwise their faith really wasn't worth saving now, wasn't it? Is there anyone actually willing to argue that the West must save Islam out of some warped notion of multicultural heritage? We've already tried the equivalent of that in Afghanistan and Iraq with sheer absolute ingratitude as our only repayment.

One of Islam's only hopes is the radical reformist who is willing to take up arms against those who defile their faith. When the jihadis are being stacked up like cordwood behind every mosque, only then can anyone come to me with arguments about Islam being worth saving. My own personal estimation of unreformed Islam is that is is barely worth the powder to blow it up (to use an apt analogy). And blast it to smithereens we must if we want to survive.
Posted by: Zenster   2006-11-08 13:41  

#5  So the "moderate muslim" rate is 2 muslims per billion.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles in Blairistan   2006-11-08 08:09  

#4  Yeah, we had a big thread on just that subject a few days ago. I think the moderates need access to an anonymous 'tip line' or something like that.
Posted by: gorb   2006-11-08 06:03  

#3  Zenster

Maybe some moderates dont talk out because of threats from the radicals.I sense the muslims fear the radicals more than their own governments.We need to weed out the bullys with the help of the Muslim community!!!!
Posted by: Cheregum Crelet7867   2006-11-08 06:00  

#2  The religion of peace at work for you. Can't even stand itself.
Posted by: gorb   2006-11-08 05:51  

#1  As so sadly appears to be the case, vocal moderate Muslims like Dr. Jamal Rifi are an infintesimally small minority. If the Australian government has any class, they will give the good Doctor police protection. If the Australian people have any brains, they will understand that a significant portion of their Muslim population agrees with al-Hilali and act on that basis from now on.
Posted by: Zenster   2006-11-08 03:34  

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