Cahaya’s Rants

TEHRAN (FNA)- A Non-Governmental Organization in Iran has started production of a documentary called ‘Beyond Fitna’ to respond to far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders’ provocative dissertation ‘Fitna’.

The Iranian organization called ‘NGO Islam and Christianity’ started production of the documentary after the Dutch lawmaker displayed his movie which urges Muslims to tear out “hate-filled” verses from the Qoran and starts and finishes with an insulting cartoon of Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him).

The NGO’s documentary called ‘Beyond Fitna’ deals with incitement of violence in the Bible. Muslims believe that the book deemed holy by Christians today is a distorted version of the original Bible.

‘Beyond Fitna’ focuses on the orders given to worldwide Christians in the (distorted version of) Bible for stoking violence, committing genocide, attacking others, beheading and burning women and children who have been taken into captivity.

The documentary recycles film clips from crimes committed by extremist Christians under the inspirations of the said Bible teachings, and aims to provide a response to the allegations made by Pope Benedict XVI, who called Islam a religion of violence after misunderstanding certain Organic verses.

‘Beyond Fitna’ is produced while an overwhelming wave of protest is shown by worldwide Muslim and Christian communities against Wilder’s movie.

Wilders’ provocative dissertation Fitna hit the Internet March 27. Even before the seventeen minute film’s release, protests erupted.

More here.

Responding to the release of Fitna, Mahaguru58, a frequent contributor to Malaysiakini, an online news portal, said he too “can do a tit for tat movie clip showing you all the murders, violence, hate crimes against Muslims of the world and jack up the animosity of my fellow Muslims against the ones irresponsibly trying to stir trouble amongst us the people of the world”.

Mahaguru58, I am still waiting for your video clip. Never mind. The Iranians are doing it. I am waiting for the release of Beyond Fitna, not because I am waiting to see whether I will be offended or not because I know I won’t, but to see if it will be anything like Fitna.

I am waiting to see what verses from the distorted bible they will be quoting and how they are going to relate these verses to the violence committed by Christians in the name of their religion.

You can bet though, that there won’t be any protest in the streets, nor will there be calls for the deaths of the producers of Beyond Fitna for daring to insult the Bible and Christianity. You can also bet that nobody will call for LiveLeak or YouTube or Google to pull the film of their sites and neither will there be anyone threatening the lives of those people who work for these video sharing companies for daring to host the film.

And one other thing, nobody will be calling for the boycott of Iranian goods just because some group in Iran is producing a film called Beyond Fitna.

I am encouraging the Iranian NGO to produce that film quickly before the furore among the Muslims caused by Fitna becomes a dim memory.

VATICAN CITY - Islam has surpassed Roman Catholicism as the world’s largest religion, the Vatican newspaper said Sunday.”

For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us,” Monsignor Vittorio Formenti said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano. Formenti compiles the Vatican’s yearbook.

He said that Catholics accounted for 17.4 percent of the world population — a stable percentage — while Muslims were at 19.2 percent.

“It is true that while Muslim families, as is well known, continue to make a lot of children, Christian ones on the contrary tend to have fewer and fewer,” the monsignor said.

Formenti said that the data refer to 2006. The figures on Muslims were put together by Muslim countries and then provided to the United Nations, he said, adding that the Vatican could only vouch for its own data.

When considering all Christians and not just Catholics, Christians make up 33 percent of the world population, Formenti said.

Source: MSNBC

That bit of news made a big splash around the world when it came out on March 30. I am pretty sure that bit of news was a big boost to the morale of Muslims the world over. It confirms their belief that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world.

But the fact is there are still more Christians in the world - 33 percent Christians compared to 19.2 percent Muslims.

And the other fact not mentioned in the belief that Islam is the fastest growing religion is the number of people leaving Islam. In Iran it has been reported that in the last five years about 1 million Iranians have left Islam for evangelical churches. This has alarmed the Iranian Parliament so much that a death penalty has been proposed to punish those who leave Islam.

In November 2005, Interfax news agency reported that in Russia, 2 million ethnic Muslims left Islam and were baptised.

In June 2004, International Antioch Ministries reported that 50,000 Iraqi Muslims embraced Christianity as a result of their satellite TV broadcast.

The London Times estimates that about 200,000 Muslims living in the UK have left Islam. In Malaysia, the Mufti of Perak estimates that about 250,000 Muslims have abandoned Islam.

These are just a small sample of Muslims leaving the fastest growing religion in the world. On leaving Islam Magdi Allam, the most recent apostate of Islam, writes that he “has been freed from the obscurantism of an ideology that legitimizes lies and deception, violent death that leads to homicide and suicide, blind submission to tyranny, permitting me to join the authentic religion of Truth, Life, and Liberty”.

KUALA LUMPUR, April 4 (Bernama) — The Malaysian Institute of Islamic Understanding (IKIM) is a credible institution to explain about Islam to non-Muslims.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said IKIM could help translate the philosophy and principles of Islam Hadhari into action as many people failed to understand them.

He said that to this end, the “inter-faith dialogue” organised by IKIM was a good effort.

“Many people had related the poor election result to Islam Hadhari as it had different meanings for different people,” added Zahid, following a visit to IKIM here Friday.

Source: Bernama

If IKIM is such a credible institution why is it that different people have different understanding of Islam Hadhari? And why do people still fail to understand what Islam Hadhari is all about despite IKIM’s efforts at promoting its philosophy and principles?

When Prime Minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi first came to power he fashioned himself a moderate and tolerant Muslim. But instead, under his administration, race and religious relations between the many ethnic and religious groups in Malaysia got worse. Hindu temples and Orang Asli churches got demolished. The police were involved with the Islamic authorities in “body snatchings” of dead people of whom the Islamic authorities claimed were Muslim. Family legal cases involving Muslim and non-Muslim parties could not receive justice in the civil courts because the courts refused to hear their cases claiming the cases were under the jurisdiction of the Syariah Court.

To make matters worse, Abdullah himself and others in his administration insisted that Malaysia was an Islamic state, and any objection to that claim was seen as usurping the rights of Muslims and insulting Islam. Claims that Malaysia was an Islamic state were seen by many as attempts at diluting the supremacy of the Federal Constitution and the freedom to practise one’s religion. Calls by Article 11, a group comprising 13 NGOs, for an Inter-Faith Commission was quickly denounced and condemned, and a forum organized by the group was disrupted and ended on the advice of the police. Soon after that the government banned any discussion on whether or not Malaysia is an Islamic state.

Islam Hadhari? Totally useless and meaningless. Why do I say that?

A just and trustworthy government is one of its fundamental principles. I doubt many Malaysians see Abdullah’s administration as just and trustworthy!

Protection of the rights of minority groups and women is another. Tell that to Hindraf, the Orang Asli and the Indians whose churches and temples got demolished. Tell that to Lina Joy, Nonya Tahir, Shabashini, Sharmala, Kamariah Ali and others like them.

Islam Hadhari? The proof is in the pudding.

Further Reading:

Is Malaysia an Islamic State?

Catholic Bishops Oppose Islamic State

Malaysia Christians Protest ‘Islamic State’ Comments Ahead of Elections

AS the President of the World Assembly of Youth (WAY), President of Gerakan Belia 4B Malaysia (4B) and President of Dunia Melayu Dunia Islam (DMDI), I wish to send out a strong message of protest towards the irresponsible release of the short film Fitna by Dutch film maker, Geert Wilders.

The 110 member countries of WAY, the members of 4B and DMDI are unanimous in recording their feelings of disappointment, disapproval and disgust towards the uncivilized, thoughtless and obstinate action by Geert Wilders in releasing his film, Fitna, which is defamatory and a wholly inaccurate portrayal of Islam despite protests from the international Muslim community.

We are outraged that Geert Wilders has persisted in releasing his film without permission and regard for Muslims and respect for the Holy Quran. Geert Wilders may defend the release of his film as freedom of expression. We strongly assert that Muslims will not and cannot tolerate such abuse towards Islam and such wanton disregard for the feelings of Muslims worldwide.

We further assert that there must be mutual respect, sensitivity and understanding between different religions and Geert Wilders’ irresponsible act clearly does nothing to propagate that. On the contrary, his act has succeeded in creating feelings of hatred and animosity among Muslims towards Western countries.

We immediately demand an apology from Geert Wilders on behalf of all Muslims.

The above is reproduced from Mohd Ali Rustam, the Chief Minister of Melaka’s blog.

He’s angry that Wilders did not ask permission to release his film. He’s angry that Wilders film did not regard the sensitivities of Muslims. He’s angry that the film is defamatory and does not portray Islam accurately. He’s angry that Wilder’s did not heed the protests of Muslims over the film.

So he, on behalf of all Muslims, wants an apology from Geert Wilders?

ROFL! Free Speech Vs Islamic Intolerance. Which do you suppose will Geert Wilders choose?

Wilders doesn’t give a damn what Mohd Ali Rustam wants!

Mahaguru58, a frequent contributor to Malaysiakini, believes that a “major reason why Muslims are suffering today in this world is because we have no Khalifah watching out over us.” To Mahaguru58, a Caliph to Muslims would be what the Pope is to Catholics.

I beg to differ.

The Pope is a religious leader. He has no power over the running of governments and non-Catholics. Whereas a Caliph exists in a Caliphate, and Sharia law would be the law of the land.

Dr Abdelwahab El-Affendi, author of Who Needs an Islamic State?, thinks that instead of calling for a Caliphate Muslims would be better off with an EU-style confederation of democratic Muslim states.

“I believe it may be necessary to work towards a more modest objective: the creation of a leading Muslim state. The function of such a state would be to play a role similar to that being played by the United States as a leader of the west. This is much less ambitious than a caliphate and falls well short of the building an EU-type union of Muslim states, but could lead to it eventually.”

No doubt, Dr Abdelwahab El-Affendi has been labeled a liberal Muslim, but to the non-Muslims, he is the kind of Muslim of whom they have nothing to fear.

The following is a video of a debate on “Who Needs an Islamic State?” between Dr Abdelwahab El-Affendi and Taji Mustafa from Hizb-ut Tahrir, two Muslims with divergent views. Watch it because you’ll find it instructive on what a Caliphate would be like, if the likes of Mahaguru58 and Taji Mustafa have their way.