Pride of Lions, Part 11

We continue Pride of Lions from Part 10 by continuing our look at a four-part interview with Gina Khan. We pick up with The Gina Khan Interview - Part Three (I have fixed a few typos):

Q: You knew Moazzam Begg from Bimingham?

Moazzam Begg was in Guantanamo. He was a local turned mujahid who was once a member of a Birmingham gang called the Links alongside Shahid Butt (during the 90s Butt was arrested in Yemen for planning a bombing and there are videos of him around sitting next to Abu Hamza and appeared on Dispatches ranting as any Jihadist would).

The civil rights lawyer (this seems a contradictory term for her) Salma Yacoob fought for their release. When I look and see what they are doing to Birmingham now I wonder why they were ever let out.

After being released from Yemen in the 90's Shahid Butt still roams free in Birmingham as a mujahid, while Moazzam Begg is still preaching from the Quran on British TV about the 'Ummah' and attempts to mobilise Muslims using extreme interpretations. He claims all Muslims all over the world are all from one body of Islam - a huge myth that needs to be dispelled. These guys embarrass me and the majority of British Muslims. Their notion is for Muslims to discredit the countries they are born in and join their 'ummah' to revive political Islam to revive a Caliphate. Similar attempts and doctrines are used by Hizb ut Tahrir. There is no 'ummah' anymore.

This is interesting.

In the past, when tyrants have sought world domination, they have begun with a nation-state. Now, however, militant Islam is just a disguised attempt to take over the world, without starting with a nation-state. (Of course, there are some nations that are or have been at the front of a movement to expand a certain version of Islam, so we could perhaps argue that point.)

The question that ought to be on the minds of Muslims who are trying to revive this "ummah" is this: once the caliphate is established, which earthly human will be in charge of it?

The point I'm making here is that young men from the Islamic community are dying, only to establish an empire for some rich sheikh.

Q: So you are not part of this 'Ummah'?

For Muslims like me I prefer to read the last message the Prophet gave to his people in reference to the society and community he ruled. The 'Ummah' is a powerful myth. It comes from the root word 'motherland' and the only motherland I have and would stand up for is my country, Britain.

Thank you, Gina! :)

Now, she goes on to make an important point:

Even if there was this exaggerated 'ummah' and a Muslim deferred from their nationality, Islamists would disable half the body of Islam by reversing the rights of women as they have done in Afghanistan or Iran. This reversal was also attempted in Pakistan by General Zia to reverse the freedoms and rights of Pakistani women in the 80s who engaged with Islamists. And for anyone who wants to debate me then read Maududi's version on Human Rights in Islam. He avoids the issues regarding equality of minorities and Muslim women.

Q: Women round here (Ward End) look like they think they are part of the Ummah?

I don't believe that wearing a ninja outfit will protect any Muslim woman against rape or sexual harassment. In the Quran it only states that "The believing woman should cover her bosoms and private parts" and most women in the world do that anyway. There is no 'true Islam ' to return to unless they are going to totally reject western modernity and ship in camels as well.

Perhaps you shouldn't suggest that part about bringing in camels.

So much more so that, since Saudi Arabia is running out of oil, and they have invested not in industry or alternative energy sources, but rather in hatred and holy war, camels is about what they are going to be left with not too far down the road.

Osama bin Laden didn't create this ideology, the ideology created him. Syed Qutb, Maududi, Al Wahab to name a few were inspired by the 13th century scholar Ibn Tammiya who badly distorted Islam and attempted to shut down Muslims' thinking and reasoning. That's another great myth the Butts and Beggs can't get a grip on. They can't shut down women's thinking or independent reasoning, or that of the majority of Muslims in general. No Islamic ummah will protect any woman. Women need a reality check if they believe that.

"Osama bin Laden didn't create this ideology, the ideology created him."

I very much respect Gina Khan and her views, but I would like to point out that, in my opinion, the ideology is Islam -- Osama bin Laden didn't create Islam, Islam created him. And, Islam created Wahhab, and thus Wahhabism.

Now, there are evil people ready, willing and able to hijack and pervert anything. My point here is that, in my opinion, Islam lends itself to such hijacking much more than, say, Buddhism.

In fact, does Islam even need to be hijacked to become violent? And, how many Buddhist fundamentalist terrorists does the world have?

Q: How best to combat the Islamist ideology round here?

It's because of these "mujahideen" and the Islamists who have a voice in Britain today (why? Oh government, please wake up and help us out here!) Muslims have to re interpret the Quran again in the 21st century. I am in no denial that there are verses that discriminate against minorities, women or the infidel. Fund more modern women to become Imams. It is not against the preachings of the Prophet for women to lead Friday prayers or teach pluralist Islam. Lets debate the Islamists who claim to represent this 'true Islam'.

And, if Islam is to be a "Religion of Peace", it will be because of Muslims like Gina, acknowledging troubling passages in Islamic holy texts, and implementing ideas such as this.

Ex Hizb ut Tahrir member Hassan Butt clearly stated in the media "that until Muslims acknowledge the violent streaks in the Quran, nothing will change." And he is right because those are the edicts that Islamists and Jihadists perpetrate to mobilise our minds. Osama Bin Laden swears by the Quran on video that he is not lying, and I'm telling you he is not lying. The Quran gives two messages and we as Muslims have a choice which message we want to adhere to. If the Quran speaks of war, it also speaks of peace. The Prophet Mohammed states in the Quran that "there is no compulsion in Islam, difference of opinion in my community is a manifestation of divine mercy". You wouldn't get any Islamists mention that passage in the Quran. They suppress the spiritual message of the Holy Quran. They have managed to establish their extreme version of Islam into the West because of imported, distorted translations and imported imams who can dynamically quote the Quran. Hence we tend to rely on them for the interpretation of the Quran.

It's not just the Quran that gives two messages; and there are more than two messages.

Again, if some criminal is looking for justification to do evil, that justification can be found.

With respect to the old historical Jihads, well those wars were similar to the biblical wars. These men fought face to face on battlefields, the Prophet had set principles in war; that women, children and the elderly must not be killed. So when it suits Islamists they reject what the Prophet preached and they transgress international laws. Islamists, be they Salafists, Wahhabists, Khomeinists, twist verses of the Quran reading it off into the present century as timeless, quoting historical edicts and interpretations that have not only hijacked the religion but blacklisted the name of Allah and Mohammed round the globe. These are not men you can sit around a table and negotiate with like the IRA. Jihadists won't even coexist with other reformed or moderate schools of thought. It is a supremacist ideology - it's their way or the highway.

Well, some terrible things happened to women and children while the "Prophet" stood right there. Mohammed was no saint.

Q: What about the suicide bombing ideology?

These suicide bombers are not 'martyrs'. They are brainwashed (like my Dad became), become brain-dead and then used as pawns in this modern Jihad. These human bombs blow themselves up as well as innocent bystanders - it's a pathetic human carnage. They don't care what religion, race, gender or age we are. How can this just be a Muslim problem? It's criminality not religiosity.

True.

But, Islamic texts -- and even the conduct of the Prophet -- give plenty of bad examples.

We need to collectively oppose this ideology and name the ideology as Jihad. It is jihad. Osama's Jihad is an unholy war. Secular, modern Muslims in the 21st century with even half a brain know that and we must break the Islamists' silence to oppose it. It's no good repeating Islam means peace because we have been blacklisted as a religion globally thanks to their perverse and dangerous version of Islam.

Interesting.

The Islamists have infidels beaten down with cries of racism and whatever else, while Muslims are under threat of accusations of apostasy, and the death warrant they bring.

As far as Islam being "blacklisted", if that is the case, why do so few dare speak out against it openly?

For Muslims and non Muslims to feel secure in opposing this ideology there must be a law against Jihadism as there is for racism or Nazism - one that works on a community level. Jihadists' literature must be challenged and opposed - better just pulped.

Ban it, and it will become the forbidden fruit.

Better to allow it to exist, and encourage that it be studied and debated.

We have to speak out about Islam -- and other matters -- and allow the truth to be arrived at in the crucible of debate.

In the same light, making laws that prohibit the denial of the Holocaust is a foolish endeavor. In fact, making and enforcing such laws is a process that brings us a giant step closer to repeating the Holocaust.

Politics must be kept out of mosques and the likes of Dr Nassem in Birmingham must be forced into retirement. His politics and views are dinosaur-like to the great majority of Muslims. We - British Muslims - are not being victimised (though victimisation is a key Islamist strategy). The whole world is being victimised here by this extreme violent ideology that uses Islam as its doctrine.

"Victimisation is a key Islamist strategy" -- that nails it!

If you don't challenge the interpretations intertwined with the oppressive theology thrust upon Muslim women, you cannot defeat the enemy. I don't see how they (the British Government) can defeat the ideology in Birmingham Sunni mosques by handing them half a million pounds to eradicate radicalism when no one has even banned the anti west, anti gay, criminal edicts on minorities or apostles, or books on the War on Islam - when this country gave us full freedom to practice and worship our religion. We were never under attack for our religion until Jihadists and Islamists sent their human bombs to attack innocent bystanders.

Very true -- in the West, Islam was at first accepted as something different, perhaps even exotic, but it is only now that people are seeing what comes with Islam that Islam is beginning to be questioned.

But, since victimization is a key Islamist strategy, and since the Islamists are well-funded with the proceeds of criminal activities, with petrodollars, and even with Western handouts, people have to question Islam quietly, and not openly.

We need open debate about Islam.

Stay tuned to Stop Islamic Conquest as Pride of Lions continues.