A hadith depicts Muhammad specifying the punishment for homosexual activity: “The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, ‘Whoever you find doing the action of the people of Loot, execute the one who does it and the one to whom it is done.’” (Sunan Abu Dawud 4462) And so if […]
Malaysia: 131-year-old Hindu temple to be demolished and a mosque built on the site
No one should find this surprising. The tradition of appropriating the holy sites of other religions and building mosques upon them, or converting existing worship sites into mosques, goes back to the beginning of Islam. The idea is to demonstrate the victory and superiority of Islam. “Malaysia: 131-year-old Hindu temple at risk as mosque construction […]
Malaysia: Police identify suspect in viral video insulting Islam; he’s now receiving mental health treatment
Many Islamic countries take blasphemy very seriously; Islamic law prescribes the death penalty for it, and in many majority-Muslim states, penalties can range from incarceration to death. Malaysian law is based on both government laws and the Sharia, and Sharia-based laws sometimes conflict with the values of the state. Nonetheless, it regards blasphemy as a […]
Malaysia: Sharia court sentences MP to jail for saying Sharia discriminates against women
Islamic texts which are the foundation of Islamic jurisprudence assume the inferiority of women, mandating their full covering (Quran 24:31, 33:59), wife-beating (Quran 4:34, 38:44), child marriage (Quran 65:4, Sahih Muslim 3309), sex slavery (Quran 4:24, 23:1-6, 33:50, 70:30), female genital mutilation (cf. Reliance of the Traveller e4.3), lesser value for a woman’s testimony in […]
Malaysia: Court bans protest against Islamization of schools for fear Muslims would riot
No big deal. This is exactly what would happen in the U.S. The whole world has agreed that the proper response to violent intimidation from Muslims is surrender and submission. “Malaysian court bans Chinese-education lobby group’s protest against ‘Islamisation’ of schools,” by Bhavan Jaipragas, South China Morning Post, December 27, 2019: A Malaysian court on […]
Iran’s President urges Muslim nations to deepen financial and trade cooperation to fight US “bullying”
Iran has been suffering under American sanctions; now Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is urging “Muslim nations …to deepen financial and trade cooperation to fight what he described as U.S. economic hegemony, using an Islamic conference in Malaysia as a platform to decry American sanctions against his country.” Rouhani picked the right forum to lobby for […]
Notes on the Fiasco In Kuala Lumpur (Part 3)
Having described what he saw as Islam’s Golden Age, which he seems to think lasted until the 15th century, though historians agree that it lasted only from the 8th to the 10th centuries, Mahathir Mohamed continued his keynote address with still more of his idiosyncratic history: Then around the 15th Century of the Common Era, […]
Notes on the Fiasco In Kuala Lumpur (Part 2)
Mahathir Mohamed’s keynote address sang the praises — not quite accurately, I’m afraid — of Islam’s past: There was a time when Muslims were recognised for their advanced civilisation. They were able to spread the teachings of Islam to the world of that time. They were well-versed in all fields of knowledge, including the sciences […]
Notes on the Fiasco In Kuala Lumpur (Part 1)
All 57 Muslim states were invited to the meeting in Kuala Lumpur of representatives of the worldwide Umma. But only twenty, a little more than one-third, bothered to send delegations. And many of those delegations were led not by heads of state, but by those lower down on the political totem pole. Among those that […]
Malaysia: Islamic leaders assemble to “revive the spirit of the Muslim world” and unite fellow Muslims at war with one another
Leaders of major Islamic nations are attending an Islamic summit in Malaysia that is intended to strengthen ties among Muslim nations and “revive the spirit of the Muslim world.” Among attendees are well known Islamic supremacists and despots, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, and Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani. Malaysian […]