 Senator Maulana Samiul Haq, head of the powerful seminary Haqqaniya in the NWFP, has been refused a visa to go to the United Kingdom. He can appeal against the refusal after three years, or he can put pressure on the government in Islamabad to get the UK to “respect Pakistani leaders”. (He was ousted from Europe not long ago.) That he has done; but there is little the Foreign Office can do, given the maulana’s uncontrolled Islamic anger.| "Uncontrolled Islamic anger" With that kind of condition, he really ought to stop making those faces and rolling his eyes. His face could freeze that way. |
The Maulana recently advised the government to create a system of knighthood on the British pattern and then award the title to Osama bin Laden, making him Sir Osama. He was angry at the award of knighthood to British novelist Salman Rushdie, but forgot that our history condemns the knighthood as an award of no importance linked to our colonial past. During the freedom struggle, knighted Muslims tended to surrender their “sir” prefix as a mark of slavery. In the case of Maulana Samiul Haq’s comment, he has offended both Pakistan and the UK. When Britain is faced with the spectre of car-bombings, it can’t be blamed for being scared of him.
| I don't think we in the West are "scared" of him, except in the sense we're scared of mad dogs or vipers. But neither are we under any obligation to open our borders to one of the leading lights of unreason in the world. |
|