Muslim and non-Muslim analysts often tell us that many Muslims hate the West for its decadence, its immorality, its lasciviousness, which they contrast unfavorably with the supposed morality and uprightness of the Islamic world. Often this boils down to a Muslim critique of Western “freedom,” especially as Bush and Obama (and now Biden’s handlers) pursued military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan ostensibly to bring Western-style freedom to those countries.
In line with that, the Mufti of Australia, Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilali, once complained that “Australian law guarantees freedoms up to a crazy level.” Yet genuine freedom is an indispensable prerequisite for any cultivation of real virtue. Even the post-Christian West makes it more possible to be virtuous than the apparently much more straitlaced Islamic world. With its stonings, amputations, death penalties for an array of offenses including apostasy, Islam has created not a framework in which people can become genuinely good, but an empire of fear. People don’t dare step out of line, not out of an authentic understanding that the path of moral and ethical uprightness is preferable to the alternative, much less out of love for God or a real desire to please him, but because they are afraid of what would happen to them if they did depart from Islam’s vision of morality.
“PA: Anyone eating in public during the Ramadan is a ‘heretic,’ ‘strike with an iron fist’ and enforce ‘the most severe punishments,'” by Nan Jacques Zilberdik, Palestinian Media Watch, April 28, 2021:
As the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan began two weeks ago, PA religious officials have been reiterating the strict prohibition of eating in public during the daytime. Although claiming to be a democracy and claiming to promote religious freedom, the PA is not letting Palestinians decide freely whether they want to observe the commandment of fasting or not.
Whereas the PA’s Grand Mufti instructed “the responsible parties to pursue all those who break the fast publicly, and to hold them legally accountable” [WAFA, official PA news agency, April 13, 2021], the official PA daily in its religious section endorsed an even stricter message from a district mufti in the Gaza Strip.
Rafah District Mufti and member of the Palestinian Supreme Fatwa Council Sheikh Hassan Ahmed Jaber taught readers of the paper that “whoever breaks the fast publicly during Ramadan is a heretic.” He referenced Islam’s prophet Muhammad, explaining that his teachings about eating during the fast of Ramadan means that the person “leaves the circle of Islam and his blood becomes permitted.” Having said this, the Gazan mufti called on the PA Security Forces to enforce “the most severe punishments” on those eating in public:
“I call on all our [Security] Forces in our Palestinian Authority to strike with an iron fist anyone who gives in to the temptation of breaking the fast publicly during Ramadan, by imposing the most severe punishments on them, until [our society] is a pure society that is close to Allah, which fulfills the words of its Master and observes the commandment of fasting as well as possible.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 17, 2021]
Both muftis also called on all cafés and restaurants to close during the daytime hours of Ramadan.
The strict measures to be taken against anyone who does not observe the commandment of fasting during Ramadan is consistent PA policy. Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the PA Grand Mufti in previous years has instructed that anyone eating in public during Ramadan be “prosecuted.”…
Michael Copeland says
“…his blood becomes permitted.”
He can be killed.
gravenimage says
Grimly spot on.
Can you imagine a Christian murdering someone taking a snack during Lent–or a Jew doing the same for someone snacking during Yom Kippur? Me neither…
william says
gravenimage. Do Christians actually fast? I thought the usual practice was to give something up one likes, like meat, alcohol or chocolate. Maybe a few do fast but not for a whole month
As to the purity of Islam, all the Moose Limb countries are in the bottom third of the World Corruption List. That is official corruption, what goes on in private one can only imagine!
gravenimage says
william, you are quite right that few Christians do full fasts for the whole of Lent, which would of course not be healthy for most people. And I know Christians who do fast on, say, Good Friday.
But often Christians publicly announce in church or to friends what they are giving up for Lent–and I have never heard of their being physically attacked if they don’t adhere.
In the grade school I went to there were a lot of Catholic kids, and many of them didn’t make it though Lent successfully giving up whatever they had vowed to. Sometimes they came in for some ribbing from the other kids, especially if they had made a big deal out of it; that was about it.
I didn’t intend to specifically compare Jewish and Christian fasts with Ramadan, but to make the point that Jews and Christians do not violently police each other like this.
notnolib says
I think you’ll find that’s because Christians and Jews are “human”.
Beneath the Veil of Consciousness says
I love the photo with the broken down junker in front of the wretched hovel.
Kind of reminds me of Islam itself. Perhaps Abbas can can spare a few million of the billions he’s stolen from his own people to
rehabilitate the area and follow in the footsteps of the exalted Muslim, Barack Obama, and offer some cash for clunkers.
mortimer says
Most of the Pally youth have already left the region and moved to prosperous Western countries. Many modern, complete towns built with aid monies are almost totally VACANT, because the Pallies don’t want to live in these areas due to the DICTATORSHIP of Hamas.
Hamas rewards its own people with MONSTER HOMES in Cyprus.
gravenimage says
“Palestinians” flooding into the West is not actually a good thing. Their wanting to live in more prosperous lands does not, unfortunately, mean that many of them have rejected Islam and its barbarism, nor its unhinged hatred of Jews.
Chris says
Exactly!
mortimer says
The supreme religious authority in the PA is demanding that VIGILANTES take the law into their own hands.
We see the ‘moderate’ mask of Islam fall off once in a while. Here it is.
Islam’s leaders unconsciously reveal that Islam is NOT benign as they often mendaciously claim to non-Muslim audiences.
mortimer says
The mufti of course did not say ‘HERETIC’, since that is not an Islamic way of saying it.
The mufti would have called them a ‘KAFIR’ … that is the dirtiest and worst thing a human can be.
A kafir has no right to live.
gravenimage says
And this from the supposedly moderate “Palestinians” is little different from ISIS:
“Isis ‘crucifies children for not fasting during Ramadan’ in Syria”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-crucifies-children-not-fasting-during-ramadan-syria-10338215.html
Rarely says
They call it a “Fast”, we call it “skipping lunch”.
Perhaps they should simply try being kind to non-muslims for a month. Now THAT would be a hardship.
Chris says
Something they won’t ever do.
Walter Sieruk says
That Mufti by his own words revealed that Islam is region that uses the violent of force might ti ensure devotion in outward practice and not inward heart devotion.
That alone hows that something is wrong. Very wrong.
gravenimage says
Mufti calls on PA security forces ‘to strike with an iron fist anyone breaking the fast publicly during Ramadan’
…………….
There is *nothing* moral about this barbarism.
notnolib says
That’s why I make sure to have my ramadamadingdong fast breaking meals at one of Allahu’s Snackbars, conveniently located, with hours that match “The time to eat that won’t get you beat”.
Order their 2fer on pulled pork sandwiches. They’re fit for a prophet and to die for!!
Chris says
I made myself a special ramadan sandwich yesterday: tomato.and bacon filled with nice and creamy mayonnaise. It was great.
Andrew Blackadder says
islam, a religion of anger,sexual perversions, idiocy,backwardness, evil, oppression, but NOT of peace in any shape or form, these people are Nucking Futs…
I had a private,on line, conversation with a muslim guy somewhere in the islamic World, I live in South East Asia,though I am a Brit, anyways, I wanted get into his head, learn even more about islam, though I have been in 6 islamic nations and even lived in one, anyways, I was just winding his guy up and then he told me just how wrong I was about everything, so I told him I am a Jewish none religious Homosexual guy that lives with his none practicing muslim boyfriend, and we always hang out at home nude,its a tropical climate, and we often have many other male friends come over and who enjoy a nudist lifestyle with us as we have a swimming pool..
Well, this guy went bat shit crazy, answered me in capital letters telling me how deep I am going into the Hell Fire.. It was a blast… FYI.. I am neither Jewish, Gay and have no muslim friends… gay or straight…
I have lots of time on my hands these days and though i dont live in the UK for decades i still have a very British sense of humour… with a U in it…
gravenimage says
Very funny!
Chris says
Indeed.
OLD GUY says
Islam what a religion, totally enforced through violence and murder. Refuse to follow islam or find you no longer believe its teachings and its a death sentence. Violate its sharia laws and get beaten, dismembered or killed for dishonoring someone. Not to forget the sexual slavery and child marriages that are blessed by their religion.
andrew mckendrick says
And others call it a nocturnal glutton-fest!
Chris says
That’s what they do. Hypocrisy at high level.