The post links to an interview with the Archbishop of Paris, who mentions court practices in Muslim countries (they work through Ramadan).

But why? What do the court practices of Egypt during Ramadan have to do with French court practices?

There seems to be some kind of dissonance when it comes to issues like this: on the one hand Muslims living in the UK, France, etc. should conform to the cultural norms of their countries* and not of their ‘ancestral’ homelands. Yet you will see commentators and politicians invoking practices of these very same Muslim countries.

“They do it in Saudi!”

Either the man standing trial, in France, is allowed to make an appeal for a delay to trial (for whatever reason and as long as it is done within the framework of French law); or he is not. The court in France will decide either way (and the court said he can).

It shouldn’t matter what Egyptians (or Saudis, Pakistanis, Iranians, Tunisians, Turks, etc) do.

*And this is, in general, a perfectly reasonable demand.

The social services in Rotterdam were right in denying a job to a Muslim man who did not want to shake hands with women. According to the Rotterdam court somebody who meets with customers on a daily basis and builds up a bond of trust must also have hand contact.

The Muslim had turned to the court since he claimed his freedom of religion was being affected. Earlier the Committee for Equal Treatment had agreed with him. The judge agreed with the Rotterdam municipality that somebody who daily receives customers at the social services may not refuse shaking hands.

i recommend jumping to the survey data on page 100. n = 632 for muslim students. you can read these data as glass half-full or half-empty depending on your normative framework.

“What should happen to a person who decides to leave Islam?”

They should be punished in accordance with Shari’ah Law 6%
They should be encouraged to rethink their decision by Muslim elders and people that care about them 45%
Nothing should happen to them – it’s their own choice 36%
Not sure 12%

Of the 6% of total respondents who advocated punishing apostates in accordance with Sharia, half (50%) said that they understood this to mean apostates should be killed, a third (34%) said this was not their understanding and 16% were unsure. 3% of Muslim students polled, therefore, felt that apostasy is punishable by death.

if 1 out of 33 british muslim students believe i should killed shouldn’t it be expected that i feel a bit of islamophobia (quite literally?)???

H/T rod dreher.

I am sure if someone wanted to, they could draw parallels between Locke’s ‘concern’ over atheists and Catholics to present day ‘concerns’ about Muslims.

Further reading: Razib’s citation below and “Varieties of anti-religious imagination” at the Immanent Frame, Robert Winder’s Bloody Foreigners.