Yusuf Smith of Indigo Jo Blogs posts a t…
Yusuf Smith of Indigo Jo Blogs posts a thorough, crafted, and utterly damning review of a recent Panorama programme presented by John Ware, purporting to expose “extremism” being promoted through private Islamic schools in the UK.
Dan, 
midwinterspring 11:42 am on November 25, 2010 Permalink
He makes some points, but he also does a bit too much apologism:
If someone thinks a Muslim lawyer should refrain from helping a woman fleeing for her life from persecution in Iran or Saudi Arabia (you know, the real places from which people flee, not abstract conceptions of an Islamic utopia) then I think we’ve left the league of “distasteful.”
plimfix 1:13 pm on November 25, 2010 Permalink
Agreed, but I think the bulk of YS’s critique is correct – Ware has cobbled together an assortment of data, presented it under a dubious headline, and for what? To jump on the high viewing/readership figures media bandwagon this is “us” and “them” Muslims. Again. I think the BBC following a media trend led by the gutter press is truely lamentable.
Dan 5:29 am on November 27, 2010 Permalink
What a surprise: fake wannabe mullahs supporting oppression when it suits them.
And is there any wonder why few take the rhetoric of Salafi sites like MuslimMatters seriously when they complain about oppression by non-Muslim forces but endorse it as long as their demented vision of Shariah is at bay? Not to mention when they advocate the use of the niqaab and thus seperate themselves from everyone else in Western countries? The blog author sounds like another Taliban apologist (a trait common with Western-born Muslim converts who think disowning their own culture and adopting Taliban-style Islam is on the path of being a better Muslim), and Britain seems to be teeming with them. Some Muslims seem to have no problem with segregating themselves yet they complain about being ‘persecuted’, and that explains why we have nutjobs like Anjem Choudary and the Hizb-ut-Tahrir buffoons running amok.
So in short: secular oppression = bad, but ‘Islamic’ oppression = good.
“Again. I think the BBC following a media trend led by the gutter press is truely lamentable.”
Well it also doesn’t help with the dubious positions that blog author and many of the commenters hold. Just take a look at how he still coddles the notion that music is haram. I guess by YS’ ridiculous logic, I suppose the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Yusuf Islam are now heretics now.
Yakoub 3:57 pm on November 27, 2010 Permalink
Well, I think Dan’s comment perfectly illustrates how exaggeration, smear, innuendo, fact chucking, and a general suspicion of all Muslims less liberal than Ayaan Hirsi Ali, all tossed together with a generous splash of bile, can be used to truncheon Muslims over the head en masse. I recommend you send your CV to John Ware, Dan. You may be the comic element he sorely needs.
Dan 1:38 pm on November 28, 2010 Permalink
What’s there to exaggerate, Yakoub? Conservative Muslims do a good job of bringing suspicion to themselves, especially when they constantly chastise people for not wearing the niqaab. If these losers hate the West, its values, and culture that much, no one’s stopping them from making hijrah to Saudi Arabia. Sorry to say, but certain Muslims do a much better job at promoting Islamophobia than Islamophobes themselves. Especially when these Muslims have such backward views and praise genocidal fanatics such as the Taliban, just because they think oppression and ethnic cleansing is acceptable as long as Shariah is established.
I can’t take them seriously especially when they endorse oppression when it is on their own side. Would they condemn so-called ‘Islamic’ movements that want to oppress people with the same veracity as they do to certain Western leaders? Answer that for me.