Saturday, January 12, 2013

Muslim writer: "Islamophobia actually doesn't exist at all...some of our Islamic centres created the term"

Tahir Aslam Gora is a "Pakistani writer, novelist, poet, journalist, editor, translator and publisher." And Huffington Post is a thoroughly hypocritical publication, for Tahir Gora here says what I and a few others have been saying for years; we have been attacked by the Huffington Post for saying it. Why? Because it was "Islamophobic" to say. But when a Muslim writer says the exact same thing, that is just fine by the Huffington Post. After all, a Muslim couldn't be "bigoted against Muslims," could he? But if he isn't, then is anyone who says the same things?
"How Muslims Created Islamophobia," by Tahir Gora in the Huffington Post, January 8 (thanks to Ibn Warraq):
The debate as to who speaks for Muslims in the West has festered among the minds of the western intelleigentsia and politicians since Islamists have capitalised on this question. There are hundreds of Islamic organizations in North America and each one wants to take ownership of it. Is it all about ownership? It shouldn't be. Is it all about portraying a better image of Muslims? I doubt it. Is it all about challenging the self-created fear of Islamophobia? Perhaps.
What do I mean by "self-created fear of Islamophobia"? Do I dare to say that Islamophobia actually doesn't exist at all? Yep, it didn't exist but some of our Islamic centres created the term and spread it around through their actions.
What were those actions? By not denouncing armed Jihad against those Western societies where they are abode now, by not calling a spade a spade such as honour killings, Taliban's attack on Malala Yousafzai, AlQaeda's sectarian war against minorities in the Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan and Afghanistan, etc,.
However, the fact that over 90 per cent of Muslims are not associated with any Islamic organisation or mosque and visit it no more than once or twice a year. That alone should make America skeptical of Islamist groups like CAIR, ISNA, ICNA and MSA.
Ihsan Bagby, a professor and an imam at Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C. wrote after 9/11, "There are a large number of Muslims that hold on to their identity as Muslims, but choose not to practice, not to act out their beliefs in everyday life...a large portion of the American Muslim community are in this group."
The report by prof Bagby, "The Mosque in America: A National Portrait," revealed that of the six million Muslims in the United States, only about 350,000 on average attend the Friday midday prayers.
Thus the incessant drumbeat by Islamists and Muslim Brotherhood legacy groups in the U.S. about rising Islamophobia is reflecting the mindset of the mulla and his scant followers in America, not me or the 90 per cent who have little interest in praying behind misogynist and homophobic clerics.
Even if it were true that Islamophobia exists, the next question would be: What should we do now?
My answer is that all Islamic organizations should make a resolution for 2013 that they would preach to fellow Muslims to live a normal life instead of preaching the addiction of victimhood.
You may ask, what do you mean, a normal life here?
A normal life for a Muslim should be a life without obsessions. Free of all obsessions such as identity crises, niqab, hijab, jihad, alienation and gender segregation and contempt for joy.
As Muslims we should identify ourselves with the culture and land we associate with. Islam also teaches this but unfortunately Islam's true liberal teachings are not being told to us by our traditional Islamic organizations in the West that are in the hands of mainly Islamists.
Similarly Niqab, armed Jihad, alienation and segregation are not endorsed by original version and modern interpretations of Islam but sharia-bound Islamists use them in order to further their agenda....
Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, would take issue with Gora's claim that "armed Jihad" is "not endorsed by original version" of Islam, since he is represented as having said things like this: "The best jihad is the one in which your horse is slain and your blood is spilled" (Ibn Nuhaas, p. 107). But Gora's overall point is sound.

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