"Morocco is an Islamic fortress targeted by those who want to tamper with the taboos of Muslims."
"Moroccan Muslims object to wine fair," from UPI, November 14:
CASABLANCA, Morocco, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- Muslim scholars in Morocco have raised objections to an international fair for wine producers in the city of Casablanca.The fair, hosted by the Elbertec group, began Thursday with more than 40 wineries from around the world participating, al-Arabiya reported Friday.
Mohamed Zahl, a founding member of the International Union for Muslim Scholars, said the fair is "a provocation for Muslims and an affront to their religion."
"Morocco is an Islamic fortress targeted by those who want to tamper with the taboos of Muslims," he said.
Sheikh Abdul-Bari al-Zamzami, a member of the Moroccan Scholars Association, faulted government officials for allowing alcohol production in the country.
"We cannot blame those who bring alcohol to Morocco. Official religious establishments and the Ministry of Endowments should be held accountable. They have to oppose this fair, but they haven't taken any action," Zamzami said.
Muslims are very good at whining....
They only allow vintages from the grapes of wrath.
I guess there is no wine bar called "Rick's Cafe" in Casablanca!
This kind of quarrel brings out into the open, for those in Morocco (Berbers and Arabs) who would like to ignore this or that prohibition of Islam, that it can't be done without enraging those who have the texts on their side. Of course wine is haram, but the vineyards brought by the French, to both Morocco and Algeria (that also has a Berber population), not only provide income, but help give people the hope that they need not be as retrograde as, say, the "desert Arabs" of Arabia. But if that hope proves an illusion, perhaps this will enourage some, particularly Berbers who may find the charge against Islam, that it is a vehicle for Arab supremacism, and before those Arabs arrived in North Africa, it was largely Christian (cf. St. Augustine and his Berber mother Monica).
One waits, eagerly, for the first Berber writer, safely in France, to write about an imagined past for North Africa, in which the Arabs -- and Islam -- never arrive, and all of the Maghreb looks much more like Spain, like Italy, like southern France. It is the arrival and imposition of Islam that changed its fate. It is the French and other deux-rivistes who think, wrongly, that there is no reason why a thoroughly-islamized North Africa cannot become part of a Euro-Mediteranean unit. But the more intellecutally and morally advanced people in the Maghreb, or in France with roots in the Maghreb, know otherwise. They know that first the hold of Islam has to be weakened, and there are a thousand ways to do it, and many points of entry.
One of them may be this brouhaha over something as, to us, innocuous, and to believing Muslims an intolerable outrage, as a wine festival.
"a provocation for Muslims and an affront to their religion"
--I'll drink to that!
How about Muslims are an affront to wineries?
Really, wine is "an affront"?
Yet Hash (marijuana) is one of the major exports from Morocco to Europe. Step one foot in Southern Spain and you will be confronted by aggressive Moroccan drug dealers. Going into Morocco itself and you smell Hash everywhere.
And they bitch about wine?
http://goafrica.about.com/od/morocco/a/moroccokif.htm
Just a little travel info about Morocco and hash.
"While hash (kif) is smoked by a large percentage of the male population in Morocco, it is illegal. "
And here's some travel info about alcohol in Morocco.
http://french.about.com/library/travel/bl-ma-alcohol.htm
"Thus, the permission from her employers is essentially a note to the shopkeeper: "This alcohol isn't for me, so don't go thinking I'm a bad Muslim!"
Looks like a law suit right there.
Ok, ban wine...see if I care...
"a provocation for Muslims and an affront to their religion."
That universal Muslim refrain seems to apply from music, humor, cartoons, dancing, books, art, etc.
All in all, Muslims are insulted by life itself.
No wine, kif!
...... reminds me of that old SNL skit - "no Pepsi, Coke!
Islam is a F#*king joke. There is nothing great about it. It has done nothing to uplift humans. It has only given death, hate, destruction, and violence. From India to the United states, to Europe to Australia. Islamic culture is screwed up apart from some examples of architecture and calligraphy, but very scant.
This could be quite serious. As a reminder of how Islam frowns on alcohol, they should have the token, ceremonial smashing of a bottle of one of the finest wines at the fair.
In time they might even further the message by wasting such a bottle on a Jew.
"One waits, eagerly, for the first Berber writer, safely in France, to write about an imagined past for North Africa, in which the Arabs -- and Islam -- never arrive"
Well, I don't know if there is one, but I am reminded of these words in a novel by a Moroccan author called Driss Chraibi about the beginnings of the islamo-arabization of North-Africa;
"Who will win? The Berber or the Arab? Me or me?"
And here,I think,lies the problem. Perhaps even the source of this ambivalence and contradictions so characteristic of Muslim society -except for Arabian society of course. Who speaks? The muslim me or the ethnic me? Arab culture or indigenous culture?
"Mohamed Zahl, a founding member of the International Union for Muslim Scholars"
A man who doesn't know a oxymoron when he sees one.
savsiv
What? You some kind of an Islamophobe or something?
;)
leon,
Hell yeah! I mean Islam even bans dancing. Well you know what it does not ban is blowing up non Muslims, kidnapping of young infidel girls, kidnapping of non Muslims, genital mutilation, making women slaves in burkas and beating them. It is a religion for Muslim men.
No wonder they do not have much time to do anything else but all the violent things that are ordained by Islam, as well as the policing and maintaining oppressive sharia laws.
This could be quite serious. As a reminder of how Islam frowns on alcohol, they should have the token, ceremonial smashing of a bottle of one of the finest wines at the fair.
Posted by: David
Over the head of a Muslim scholar would perhaps be more like it. The musical tone of an empty bottle connecting with an empty head could be quite pleasing
But that could lead to dancing! better not then eh?
"But that could lead to dancing! better not then eh?
Posted by: Jihadtobejoking"
Muslim have been flogging dancers...
"Muslims are very good at whining...."
Posted by: pulsar182
Days of Whine and Poseurs.
Jihadtobejoking,
Not wasting it on a Jew ki-klunk. Wasting it pop-slurp.
Fresh,,The Israeli air strike killed 4 armed Palestinians on their way to blow up the Karni crossing through which supplies reach Gaza, Sunday, Nov. 16. The missiles landed outside a kibbutz
Equipotent,,thats the taliban,,they are robbing up our technonology,,they now have all our stuff,,
I think now the Moroccan government starts to be more more creatif. Its not bad. Its very important to show that in Marocco, other religions are respected and that moroccan islam is not suprematist.
So, as other people than muslims are living (or visiting ) the country and that been not muslim they have the right to drink wine, it is normal to sell wine in Morocco to hold an international fair.
There is also a positif economic impact, in employement field, and tourism.
Muslims has no obligation to drink it of course.
Without forgetting that already some muslim maroccan drink wine, while it is actually forbiden.
I belive that Maroccan who wants to drink wine must be free to do so, as long as they dont bother any one or drive etc...The human been must be free to drink and eat what he wants whatever his religion...
And most importantly, must be free to be or not to be muslim. What is not the case in Marocco. And that is not the case in any other muslim country.
Been muslim just because you have to, its not been muslim.
And not drinking wine just because you are afraid to go to jail, or to the hell, deosnt make people intelligent.
This religion is a total dictatorship.