Here is yet another indication of why we don’t see more genuine reformers in Islam. Those who do try to change things almost immediately end up getting death threats. “Muslim academic gets death threats over women and gay-friendly mosque,” by Stephanie Findlay, the Telegraph, September 16, 2014:
A Muslim academic is vowing to push ahead with the launch of his woman and gay-friendly mosque in South Africa, despite receiving death threats.
Taj Hargey, director of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford, a group of “forward thinking” Muslims, said his Open Mosque will welcome all genders, religions and sexual orientations when it opens in Wynberg, a Cape Town suburb, on Friday.
“You enter the mosque, do I ask you the question who did you sleep with last night? No. It’s not my business who you slept with,” said Mr Hargey, a native of Cape Town.
“Women will enter the same doors as men, women will take part in the service” said the 60-year-old. “This is the first time you’ll see men and women praying together.”
Mr Hargey says the Open Mosque, that has been in development for two years, is designed to counter growing Islamic radicalism in Africa.
“South Africans have become Arabised, they think they must wear the burka, must have face masks, that men must wear pyjama dresses,” said Mr Hargey. “They think that is the only version of Islam.”
With over 300 people expected to attend the first service, Mr Hargey, who has caused a similar uproar in Britain when he called on Muslims to ban the burka, says the response to the Open Mosque has ranged from ecstatic to apoplectic. “A 77-year-old grandmother just called me and said: ‘All my life I’ve been waiting for this, for the first time I can go to a mosque and be warmly welcome,'” he said.
Meanwhile, Mr Hargey says he has received “a lot of death threats”.
The Muslim Judicial Council, a non-profit religious advocacy group, said it was investigating the Open Mosque, telling to The Telegraph in an email it was “in the process of investigating the policy and objectives of the mosque”.
Last week, the deputy president of the Muslim Judicial Council praised the Muslim community for their “vigilance”.
“We see and feel the anxiousness in our community,” said the council’s deputy president Riad Fataar, to local radio station The Voice of the Cape.
Mr Fataar added that the Muslim Judicial Council would not consider the Open Mosque a proper place of prayer.
“We see in the newspaper clippings and the messages that this is a place of worship but we can’t call it a mosque,” he said. “But again we cannot make a complete statement until we have all the facts.”
Bro. Nick says
To me it sounds like an Islamic Ecumenical version of ‘ChrIslam’.
I wonder when ‘the pope’, the Roman Catholicism leader of ‘Apostate Ecumenical Christendom’ will praise and support the movement?
CHRISTians – the times of increasing ‘spiritual deception and falling away’ are truly coming to pass:
(1) Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,
(2) That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
(3) Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
(4) Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
(2 Thess 2:1-4 [KJV])
John C. Barile says
I don’t think the Pope has quite apostatized yet, nor nearly quite set himself up as antichrist. Even so, mistaken notions steadfastly held don’t yield to reason very readily.
John C. Barile says
the imam khomeini allah be pleased him he say is no opening in islam but to please allah he be.
Or some such thing.
John C. Barile says
On second thought, I’ll desist from feeble attempts at humor.
mortimer says
Without ijtihad, there is no ‘reform’ possible. That is the unacknowledged fact that most Muslims are too uninformed or cowardly to recognize.
However, if you reform jihad, and al-walaa wal-baraa (hatred of disbelievers), misogyny and supremacism, what is left of Islam, except for a whole lot of obsessive-compulsive behaviors, washings, strange clothing and bowing to gravel chips.
Salah says
Islam cannot be reformed. Genuine reformers do exist though. They’re are getting louder and bolder by the day. But, by trying to reform Islam they are actually destroying it.
An Egyptian reformer of Islam denouncing al Azhar:
http://crossmuslims.blogspot.ca/2014/08/cannibalism-in-islam-taught-at-al-azhar.html
chase says
Reformers or not,Islam and the Quran have got to go.Stuck back there, unseen in third world countries for the previous centuries,it may have been tolerated ,but this is 2014,the world has shrunk and there is no place for this insanity.The world has enough problems without having to deal with millions of phychopathic, clinically insane people.Reform is a start,but the best way to eradicate this evil is to demonize it, just as smoking , alcohol, or anything else is demonized. As for other religions…if they are non violent they have a right to stay,if not…out the door they go too.
Angemon says
Death threats? Well, he wasn’t outright killed, therefore muslims in South Africa are moderate /sarc off
fair_dinkum says
hilarious. who knows what his motives are.. and what gave him the idea that mosloms would entertain supporting it?
Tim says
Taj Hargey has been a huge critic of burkas, capital punishment, jew hatred and other islamic savagery and openly demand it to be stopped. Sunni’s are not too happy with his stance on Islam. He is a true moderate who in his own way tries to do his bit to reform a barbaric religion.
Joginder Singh says
Total respect to Mr Hargey for making the effort but given its islam and the irrationality and lack of education of the vast majority of its mindless sheep like followers we are dealing with here One has to feel that Mr Hargey is farting in a hurricane
Elisheva14 says
Why not start a new religion instead of reforming a death ideology?
Ekbano says
This mosque affair is a stalking horse for Islams agenda in S. Africa, particularly the Cape. For years a group called PAGAD ie. People Against Gangsterism And Drugs, ostensibly a social movement to take back the streets and low income housing projects for the people of the western cape from drug dealers and violent criminals has sought legitimacy, but has been reined in by the law.They are a muslim organisation that uses violence to instill fear into the population and to further their influence over the local inhabitants of these areas, and to force a “bending of the knee”, and gratefulness to the organisation for “protection” from violence from the local gangs and drug dealers. The thing is, is that the drugs are mostly supplied by muslims, from muslim countries, and the gangs that terrorise and murder each other and the population are all part of the drug trade for protection, distribution, and turf wars. So; the gangs work for the muslim druglords, who use the money to bribe and corrupt government officials, and infiltrate and manipulate government. Pagad has to date not been allowed to operate as a vigilante group as it has wanted, but with this new mosque an oposition muslim “politic” with “reasonable” grounds for dissent/anger , I forsee more violent action taking place in the muslim sphere. The goal being to bring into public focus the muslim “religion”, anger at those who do not follow “orthodox” islam, justification for more radical action taken in “defense” of islam, and a role for PAGAD in ‘policing” the cape communities morals and safety. It is a tool to be used to reach the long_stated objective of taking the Cape for islam. Watch and see as violence and vigilantism increases. God save Africa.