Having described what he saw as Islam’s Golden Age, which he seems to think lasted until the 15th century, though historians agree that it lasted only from the 8th to the 10th centuries, Mahathir Mohamed continued his keynote address with still more of his idiosyncratic history: Then around the 15th Century of the Common Era, […]
Notes on the Fiasco In Kuala Lumpur (Part 2)
Mahathir Mohamed’s keynote address sang the praises — not quite accurately, I’m afraid — of Islam’s past: There was a time when Muslims were recognised for their advanced civilisation. They were able to spread the teachings of Islam to the world of that time. They were well-versed in all fields of knowledge, including the sciences […]
Notes on the Fiasco In Kuala Lumpur (Part 1)
All 57 Muslim states were invited to the meeting in Kuala Lumpur of representatives of the worldwide Umma. But only twenty, a little more than one-third, bothered to send delegations. And many of those delegations were led not by heads of state, but by those lower down on the political totem pole. Among those that […]
A Big Muslim Mess In Kuala Lumpur
The well-known antisemite and Holocaust-denier Mahathir Mohamed, Prime Minister of Malaysia, along with the heads of Turkey, the inimitable Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, thought it might be a good idea if the 56 Muslim-majority states met to discuss problems within the Umma, the Community of Muslim Believers. From the get-go, […]
Hugh Fitzgerald: A Few Questions For Mahathir Mohamed (Part Three)
Mahathir Mohamed may not know this. He reads the paper, about protests in Gaza, or tunnel-building by Hamas, or perhaps he pays too much attention to the U.N., which seems to spend half its time, and more than half of its resolutions, condemning the mighty empire of Israel. But Israel is not the only, and […]
Hugh Fitzgerald: A Few Questions For Mahathir Mohamed (Part Two)
As to Israel, Mahathir Mohamed blames its existence for all the subsequent trouble in the Middle East. He says that before Israel was founded, there were no problems in the Middle East. Let’s just begin to examine that remark by looking at the Middle East today. The Sunni-Shia enmity, which dates back to the first […]
Malaysia: Yet another man arrested for insulting Islam on Facebook
This keeps happening in “moderate” Malaysia. But in the West, we are much more enlightened. We don’t arrest people for insulting Islam. We simply excoriate them as “racists” and “Islamophobes,” and ostracize them from polite society. We are much more advanced in the West. In case you missed it: Mahathir Mohamed, who has famously said […]