Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

Salaam

Only a paranoid conspiracy theorist would say there's an 'agenda' behind this.



Credit to the sister to standing up to this nonsense. Again another example of the British establishments attempt to lead Muslims away from their deen. They don't even bother to disguise their intentions.

Lots of comment Ill post them later if time permits. In the meantime.

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Video response



A statement of the obvious.

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Schools response.

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The purpose of government mandated 'tolerance'.

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Good friends are so hard to find these days.

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More generally

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Salaam

And it gets worse. Now there attempting to blacklist children potentially ruining the future prospects.

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The end goal

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You could say the British establishment want to go back to the good old days. When lesser people knew how to behave towards their betters.



Problem for them is that these days are long gone and not coming back.

Salaam

Heres the full conversation. 'Modern' education in the UK.

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Wood Green Academy invites a self-proclaimed Gay 'Muslim' speaker Khakan Qureshi to preach to students that being gay and Muslim is okay. This is an extended audio recording from the session.

Following this incident, students have been; placed in isolation, reported to prevent and be threatened to stay quiet or face further consequences.

Anonymous & Annoyed

Further update on WGA for parents and community following yesterday's update.

10. The Academy has received over 800 complaint by both parents and from the community. However, due to loopholes within their complaints policy majority of these complaints won't be responded to.

11. The school has not allowed parents to generally engage with the school on this subject referring them to thier complaints policy (which is flawed).

12. Mr Topham (Head Teacher) has been in regular contact with Mufti Muhid regarding the incident and ongoing issues surrounding the incident. The Academy say, that students have agreed and understood why the teacher shouted, and accepted isolation as a punishment. This clearly shows manipulation.

13. A 6th form student who is a Hafiz/Imam that initially challenged the preaching was put in isolation for 2 days on the grounds of bad behaviour when clearly there is no concern or evidence of behaviour.

14. A number of students have been reported by the Academy to Prevent and we will inshallah signpost to organisations who can support.

15. Students have been pressured systematiclly by the Academy to keep quite on this incident or face consequences. This has scared many parents/pupils from speaking up.

16. Further support will be given to the Students by both CAGE and Prevent Watch along with UMO (Union of masjid) MEND, IRU and wider community.

17. The DfE have been informed who will investigate this matter along with the Director of Sandwell Children's Safeguarding and Education. All 3 local councillors of Wednesbury are in consultation and will support the community.

18. We as the Muslim ummah have a duty to protect the Aqeedah and Imaan of our children but also their safety and welfare. We will be seeking legal advice and welcome support from any professional legal advisor with experience dealing with the education sector on Safeguarding.

20. A meeting will be held for parents of WGA organised in conjunction with all the masjids in Walsall, Darlaston and Wednesbury to support families and provide guidance. Sunday 20th November 2022 after Zuhr @ 1:30pm. VENUE: MET Wednesbury, Walsall Street, WS109EL.

21. The support received locally, across the UK and beyond so far has been humbling and overwhelming. Everyone stands shoulder to shoulder with you the student and you the parents/guardian's. You are not alone, you are the most important people in this matter and we stand together in support. Many organisations, councillors, professionals and Masjids across the UK have offered support for parents and pupils.

22. If any student or parents are feeling distressed or victimised, please come forward as help and support is here for you.

23. To ensure the voice of our children and their parents are heard, we will support parents with their complaint and collate these which will be sent directly to DfE, sandwell education board and WGA.

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Some sobering responses. However pessimism is not warranted. Bad situations don't last forever.

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Salaam

On to another controversy, this time about the World Cup hosted in Qatar. Over the past couple of months there has been a lot of manufactured hysteria particularly from liberal elites shedding their crocodile tears over Qatars real or imagined failings. Its quite unprecedented. They didn't even bother to show the opening ceremony on BBC 1.

However there has been noticeable pushback. Ill post some here.

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A trifle condescending but never thought Id see this from Piers Morgan.



John Barnes.

'Football can't change people's perspective, life changes your perspective.'

Three Lions icon John Barnes believes you should respect the laws of that country.

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Tried to reason with them but largely to no avail.

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Germany covered their mouths in the first group game in a virtue signalling move. They were knocked out rather promptly. Qataris response.

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Guess whos hosting the next world cup, the USA. lets see how the virtue signalers respond given its less than clean record in world affairs. (not holding my breath).

Having said that many many travelling fans have had very positive experiences.

Opening ceremony.

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Alcohol ban helps female fans enjoy hassle-free football in Qatar.



More fan responses.

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Nice to see

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Finally

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Salaam

Another update. More comment and analysis on the purpose of hosting the world cup and future implications.



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We'll be asking if Qatar has paid too big an Islamic price for hosting the World Cup.



The World Cup has ended - what a show!

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Oh dear, they havent learnt anything.

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Imagine my shock and surprise.

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To summarise.



In conclusion.

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Hah

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Salaam

Just to finish on the World Cup.

Blurb

The UK media’s censorship of the opening ceremony for the Qatar FIFA World Cup was ‘seen’ and noted by the globe, CEO of emel Muslim Lifestyle, Sarah Joseph said in Doha this week.



You shouldn't be surprised at how low the British press will go.

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Oh dear commiseration to all the virtue signalers at the BBC.

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So much rubbish has been said but these two take the biscuit. Bigotry directed at the Moroccan team.

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More peoples experience of the World Cup.

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English had a good World Cup, not a single arrest! Thats a first. Lack of Alcohol and good policing really made the difference. Compare and contrast what could of happened.

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Salaam

Normal service is resumed.

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The McCarthyite blacklist of Muslim groups Gove wants published should never see the light of day

Some of the people who created this list – as part of the Prevent strategy – held problematic views about Islam themselves

Who poses a threat to British society? The debate about what counts as extremism, which grew so heated during the years of the “war on terror”, has raised its head again in recent months with the sorry saga of the government’s independent review on Prevent.

The review, which has not yet been published, is controversially expected to encourage the government to divert its attention from the growing threat of the far right and instead focus on Islamist extremism. Yet, only in October, we saw a terror attack by a far-right Islamophobe on an immigration processing centre in Dover, at a time when far-right terror was on the rise.

The latest development, reported in the Times, casts light on a supposed fault line in cabinet about the content of the review, which apparently names several individuals and groups it blames for “spreading Islamist extremism in Britain”. The Home Office is said to have redacted some of these names, but the communities secretary, Michael Gove, wants the report published in full. The review’s chair, William Shawcross, is reported to be “increasingly frustrated and annoyed” by the delay in publishing.

But forget the Westminster hearsay for a moment, and recognise this list of names and organisations for what it will effectively be: a McCarthyite blacklist of Muslim organisations in Britain.

This should scare us all.

What’s worse than the creation of such a list is that some of the people deciding who was included, or pushing for it to be public, were themselves holders of hugely problematic views about Muslims.

For example, Shawcross said in 2012: “Europe and Islam is one of the greatest, most terrifying problems of our future. I think all European countries have vastly, very quickly growing Islamic populations.” When he was chair of the Charity Commission, it was accused of disproportionately targeting Muslim charities for investigation. He even defended the torture carried out by US interrogators during the “war on terror”.

Michael Gove hardly fares better in his views of Muslims. The most senior British Muslim in politics at the time, Lady Warsi, was genuinely “fearful of the idea of Michael Gove becoming prime minister” because of “his views on British Muslims”, and noted how he had the same “crazy” anti-Muslim policies as Donald Trump.

The attempt to arbitrarily target Muslim organisations is not new. It was the approach of the now defunct Quilliam Foundation, which, in 2010, sent a secret list to a government official of mainstream Muslim organisations it alleged were extremist sympathisers. But at least the dangers of such a list being made public were realised.

Gove, on the other hand, wants this report to be made public. A few weeks after a far-right Islamophobe attacked a migrant centre, he and others genuinely seem to want the government to publish a report that names Muslim organisations they deem to be “spreading Islamic extremism in the UK”. Surely this poses a huge risk, especially since we also know that when the government’s teams try to determine what is “extreme”, they can get it completely wrong.

When the UK government described Salman Butt as an “extremist hate preacher” in 2015, it had to pay compensation and apologise “for the harm caused to him and in particular for the fact that the allegation was made and maintained for so long”. When former prime minister David Cameron and former defence secretary Michael Fallon said imam Suliman Gani “supported IS”, Cameron had to issue an apology and Fallon had to pay libel damages.

And even if the process to create this list was reasonable, how could it be fair that Muslim organisations on it be tarred seemingly with no opportunity to defend themselves?

The idea that this is going to get the seal of approval from this government shows the scale of the issue that mainstream British Muslims have to deal with. We can only hope that given sections of the Home Office apparently fear libel action, even though others think this is “implausible”, such a blacklist of British Muslims and Muslim organisations will not be published.

But with this government’s track record on Islamophobia, maybe that’s just too much to hope for.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...prevent-review

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The British state monitoring Muslims, incase they behave in a 'too Muslim' way.

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Also the British state is in the process of manufacturing a 'moderate' Muslims class to do their bidding. Bit like the brown sahibs of the past.

Salaam

Here we go again... . . .

Birmingham school causes outrage by inviting ‘gay Muslim’ to address pupils

Erdington Academy in Birmingham has provoked outrage amongst Muslim staff, pupils and parents by inviting a “gay Muslim” who said the Quran does not prohibit same-sex relations to address pupils aged 11-13.

On Tuesday Erdington Academy invited a “gay Muslim” called Ash to do an online power point presentation and speech during an “enrichment day” session with Year 7 and 8 pupils.

Parents have told 5Pillars that Ash, who said he was a Bengali Muslim from Birmingham, announced that he was a Muslim and gay and said he had read the Quran and hadiths and it is “ok to be gay.”

There is nothing in the Quran that says you can’t be gay, he said, adding that it’s up to interpretation and you have old Muslims and new modern Muslims who interpret it differently.

But when questioned by students about how he could be Muslim and gay given Islam’s strict prohibition on same-sex sexual relations, Ash replied that he lost his faith years ago but still knows lots of “gay Muslims.”

Sources told 5Pillars that the online session took place without Muslim pupils or staff knowing that a “gay Muslim” would address the students.

The presentation included images of two men kissing and other images and captions promoting homosexuality, which, if acted upon, is considered a major sin by a consensus of Islamic scholars.

One parent told us: “Whoever organised this knew what he or she was doing and they were trying to provoke Muslims. Kids and Muslim staff were really angry. Children were telling staff to switch the presentation off because he was lying and misquoting the Quran. A lot of people were distressed.

“Basically, a guy was invited in knowing full well that he was gay and Muslim and that he was going to make a speech to majority Muslim kids and Muslim staff, and he has misquoted the Quran to say that it’s allowed to be gay and that the Quran says it’s ok. That’s unacceptable. Parents need to know what’s going on and the school need to understand what they’ve done is wrong.”

Investigation launched

5Pillars approached Erdington Academy about the incident and asked them why they decided to go ahead with the session on such a controversial topic without consulting Muslim parents, staff and children. We also asked if they considered it appropriate to try to expose Muslim children to teachings which are clearly contrary to their Islamic faith.

The school did not respond directly to our questions but released the following statement:

“We are aware of an issue in a session delivered by an external third party to students on Tuesday. As a result of communications with staff after the session, an investigation to ascertain the facts was commissioned that evening and will be conducted with appropriate actions taken.

“The Principal met with concerned staff before school on Wednesday to listen, reassure and ensure the scope of the investigation covers the specific concerns raised. From the outcome of this investigation appropriate actions and communications will then be taken. A communication has also been sent to parents keeping them informed.”

Meanwhile, educator Yusuf Patel, of SRE Islamic, told 5Pillars that the Muslim community and parents need to push back when LGBTQ identities are being imposed by schools on Muslim children.

He said: “This kind of thing is happening more and more. Schools are jumping over themselves to prove that they are pro-diversity but that diversity seems to emphasise LGBTQ identities and doesn’t take into account that there are Muslim pupils who also have a protected characteristic and should be treated with respect. Schools are forcing a hierarchy of equality where sexual orientation and gender is at the top and faith and belief is at the bottom.

“But one of our biggest problems is that Muslim parents do not push back often enough. If they did then schools would re-think or think twice about what they do in these sessions. There is a profound difference between someone coming in and saying ‘these are my experiences,’ and someone coming in who has no expertise on Islamic theology and saying ‘there is nothing wrong with being gay and Muslim or that there is nothing in the Quran which precludes these types of relationships.’

“They are speaking about things with no authority, a school would not allow a Covid conspiracy theorist to speak about the pandemic and be given a platform to speak untruths. But in this instance schools are allowing anybody to claim they have some authority to speak about Islamic texts which run country to 1,400 years of normative Islamic values.”

He added: “I would advise parents and the local Muslim community to get organised and involved and liaise with the school, like happened at Wood Green Academy in Wednesbury, and this could yield a positive result.”

https://5pillarsuk.com/2023/03/23/bi...ddress-pupils/

More comment.



To repeat the purpose of this 'agenda'.

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Having said that some good news.

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Salaam

Good summary of what has been previously discussed.

Blurb

Join us for our sixth Ramadan live appeal on Monday 17 April at 11.30pm (BST) where we will be discussing how to combat LGBTQ indoctrination in schools.



Grim

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Like to share add for anyone how has naive views about the supposedly 'neutral' nature of education (American perspective). Ill pick the most interesting parts.

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More comment.

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More history.

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Salaam

Was trying to leave this topic, but this is an important development.

Blurb

Around 200 Orthodox Jews held a protest outside Parliament on May 16 against the British state's attempts to regulate Jewish education, including by imposing LGBTQ guidelines. They said the government is threatening the Jewish way of life.

Salaam

Another update. More on the global 'moderate' Islam project.

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Selective moderation: Indonesia–UAE religious diplomacy

Much has been written of late on the growing relationship between Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), particularly its economic aspects. Over the past five years, the UAE has emerged as the largest Gulf-state investor in Indonesia, with bilateral trade projected to grow from the US$4 billion in 2021 to US$10 billion by 2030. Some US$44.6 billion in future Emirati investment has been promised, including joint development of major infrastructure, energy and IT projects.

Less attention has been paid to the burgeoning religious relations between the two nations, especially a professed shared commitment to combatting radicalisation, promoting Islamic moderation and deepening inter-faith understanding. Such commentary as has appeared in media and scholarly outlets has generally been favourable, frequently citing the complementarity of Indonesia’s rich tradition of religious tolerance with the Emirates’ well-funded international programs on peace and cross-faith dialogue.

Little critical scrutiny has been given to the details of religious relations between Indonesia and the UAE. Behind the carefully crafted statements and stage-managed events lie a tangle of domestic political and strategic interests, not all of which are shared, and nor are they necessarily likely to result in greater religious moderation in either country, let alone globally.

Here I argue that Indonesia–Emirates religious diplomacy has multiple drivers, not all of which accord with liberal notions of moderation. Moderation is commonly defined as the avoidance of extremes and display of self-restraint and reasonableness. A key difficulty here is that this is a relational definition, in that moderation is defined vis-à-vis behaviour or views that are deemed excessive. Deciding what is excessive or unreasonable is often highly subjective. Is the propagation of puritanical religious views extreme or pious, for example? Are calls for major changes to a political system dangerously excessive or legitimate comment?

Certain aspects of the moderation agenda put forward by Indonesia and the UAE do enjoin religious openness and exchange, while contesting faith-based militancy. But other aspects point to fundamentally immoderate intentions, particularly related to the suppression of domestic political dissent. Indeed, one aim of the diplomacy of moderation is to legitimise autocratic state actions that curtail the rights of civil society groups in both countries.

The growth in bilateral religious diplomacy

In the increasingly warm personal relationship that has grown between Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and UAE President Muhammad bin Zayed al-Nahyan (commonly shortened to MBZ), religion comes second only to economic matters as a feature of their public utterances and policy initiatives.

When the two leaders meet, they regularly praise their respective nations’ efforts to combat radicalism and to strengthen religious moderation. During his 2021 visit to Abu Dhabi, Jokowi said: “I see that religious moderation and diversity in the UAE are widely respected. And that is the area of cooperation we would like to explore more because we both share the closeness in the vision and character of moderate Islam that propagates tolerance.”

This has been accompanied with bilateral agreements and cooperation to promote counter-radicalisation efforts and advocacy of religious tolerance. In 2020, the two governments signed a memorandum of understanding, the paramount point of which was to “promote concepts of religious moderation, values of tolerance and raising public awareness of the risks of extremism.” Particular reference was made by Indonesian officials to wasatiyyah, an Arabic term meaning “centre” or “middle”, but which is also often used to denote moderation.
Over the past three years, more than 200 Indonesian imams have been sent to UAE to take up interim roles in major mosques and to “study how Islam in UAE is fully tolerant and contributes to creating peace in society”. Indonesian politicians and Islamic scholars have also participated regularly in international religious conferences run by the Emiratis and a number of eminent Indonesian academics have been appointed to the advisory boards of UAE Islamic institutions.

Commanding the most headlines has been UAE’s “mosque diplomacy”. Recently, construction was completed on a lavish US$20 million replica of Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Surakarta, Jokowi’s home city. MBZ and Jokowi officially opened the mosque in November 2022, prior to the G20 summit in Bali, to which Jokowi had invited MBZ to be a guest of honour. The mosque has been described by local officials as a “pioneer of religious moderation” which helps “address the contemporary society’s vulnerability to fragmentation”. The UAE is also currently erecting a large mosque in Jokowi’s honour in Abu Dhabi.

At first sight, there appears to be much to applaud in these closer religious ties between Indonesia and UAE. Indonesia has not previously had strong relations with any of the Gulf states, with the exception of Saudi Arabia, and even these have often been strained due to maltreatment of Indonesian domestic workers and accusations that Saudi religious influence fuels intolerance and jihadist violence in Indonesia. The UAE’s ambitious international religious moderation program brings the prospect of raising Indonesia’s profile and clout as a source of innovative thinking on religious reform.

Indonesia’s Islamic soft power

Jokowi has always had a supremely pragmatic approach to foreign affairs, viewing diplomacy as being primarily about generating economic opportunities for Indonesia, whether it be attracting foreign capital and technology or selling Indonesian goods and services abroad.. But religion—and especially religious moderation—has been a major secondary factor in his international interactions. In fact, it has become a key form of Indonesian “soft power” that he has consistently championed during his presidency.

Over the past half century, Indonesia has enjoyed a reputation abroad as a tolerant and harmonious Muslim-majority nation. Following the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington DC, and the ensuing “Global War on Terror”, Indonesia attracted Western attention as one of the few Muslim-majority democratic nations in the world that proudly proclaimed its moderation, and was thus feted as an example from which other Muslim countries should learn.

Jokowi’s predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesia’s most diplomatically adept president, traded heavily on this moderate image and strode the world extolling his nation’s religious virtues. Major Indonesian Islamic organisations also sought to benefit by seeking funding from foreign donors for their “moderate” educational and outreach programs, including scholarships, money for schools and development of anti-radicalisation projects.

Soon after becoming president in 2014, Jokowi took up the Islamic moderation theme in a more specific way than Yudhoyono. He adopted the Islam Nusantara (Archipelagic Islam) concept formulated by Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia’s largest Muslim organisation. The concept’s essence was that Indonesian Islam had unique and commendable characteristics because it married local culture with Islamic legal and theological traditions. NU intended the concept to challenge what it saw as a growing “Arabisation” of Indonesian Islam driven by the belief that Middle Eastern Islam was superior to, or more pure than, indigenous variants. Jokowi gave prominence to Islam Nusantara in numerous speeches abroad for several years (albeit without mentioning Arabisation) and he also instructed his foreign ministry to incorporate Islam Nusantara into its official messaging.

This had both political and diplomatic motivations. NU is Jokowi’s chief base of support among Muslim voters, a majority of whom voted for his opponent, Prabowo Subianto in the 2014 and 2019 presidential elections. Without NU’s backing, Jokowi would likely have lost both races.

A grateful Jokowi was happy to expound NU’s Islam Nusantara and raise the organisation’s profile globally. NU had long felt that it had far less international attention than it deserved, given its size and the quality of its Islamic scholarship, and therefore welcomed having its ideas presented abroad. Jokowi probably also felt that Indonesia’s religious moderation was a natural diplomatic selling point among Western leaders preoccupied with the threat of Islamic militancy.

After several years, Jokowi shifted the focus of his moderation messaging as the limitations of Islam Nusantara became apparent. Most Indonesian Islamic organisations were cool on the concept, seeing it as too NU-centric and not representative of their own religious views and practices. Moreover, doubts arose about the applicability of Islam Nusantara to other Muslim societies.

In 2018 Jokowi signalled a change of tack by appointing Din Syamsuddin, the former chairman of Muhammadiyah, NU’s great rival, to a new position of Special Presidential Envoy for Interfaith Dialogue and Cooperation. A conference of international scholars was organised in Indonesia in the middle of that year, which endorsed “Islam Wasatiyyah” as a pivotal concept for promoting peace and tolerance. The term wasatiyyah had the advantage of already being in common international usage and acceptable to a wide range of Muslim states and movements. Thereafter, Jokowi and his officials made frequent reference to Islam Wasatiyyah, thereby allowing Indonesia to more easily align with international Islamic discourses.

The election of Yahya Cholil Staquf as NU chairman in late 2021 has seen Jokowi again show strong favour to NU as a source of religious diplomacy. Yahya, who has long been close to Jokowi and is a member of the president’s advisory council, had been diligently pursuing building international networks over several years, using various concepts, the most recent of which is called Humanitarian Islam.

The most controversial part of the Humanitarian Islam concept is its call for thorough-going reform of Islamic jurisprudence as a means of delegitimatising radical interpretations and creating more tolerant and irenic understandings. Yahya persuaded Jokowi to support a new religious dialogue initiative known as the Religious Forum 20 (R20) in the run up to the G20 summit in Bali in November 2022, of which Indonesia was the chair. Generous funding for the event was secured from Saudi Arabia’s Muslim World League.

This decision was controversial as the R20 displaced the long-established US-based Interfaith Forum 20 (IF20) which had preceded annual G20 meetings since 2014. Opinion is divided within officialdom and civil society regarding the outcome of the R20, and there is now intense competition between R20 and IF20 to organise the 2023 pre-G20 religious forum in New Delhi. Jokowi has sought to strengthen the R20’s bid by making NU the permanent organiser. If the R20 is unsuccessful, it would be a blow to Indonesia’s efforts to place itself at the centre of global religious diplomacy.

The UAE’s moderate makeover

The Emirates, like Indonesia, regards the economic aspect of the bilateral relationship as the most important, but in its case, the nexus between religious and economic issues is far more tightly interwoven than is the case for Indonesia. The UAE is pursuing a policy of economic transformation in order to create a thriving, sustainable post-fossil fuel-based economy. This not only involves diversifying UAE’s predominantly oil-based economy by attracting and developing a wide range of new industries—such as IT, clean energy technology, financial services and defence manufacturing—but also creating a cosmopolitan and multi-cultural society which is enticing for expatriates who will bring the necessary expertise to enable sweeping economic restructuring.

The UAE has pursued a “Look East” policy for the past decade, placing greater focus on Asia. Indonesia, the largest economy in Southeast Asia and with prospects of becoming one of the world’s top five economies in the next decade or two, presents an attractive option to the Emirates.

Religion is a key part of the Emirates’ makeover. MBZ, the main architect of this this process, is determined to replace the his country’s image as a traditional, rather puritanical Islamic society with one that is open, pluralistic and welcoming of different faiths and cultures. An ambitious program has been implemented over the past 15 years to achieve this, placing particular emphasis on interfaith outreach and Islamic moderation. The UAE has opened diplomatic relations with Israel as part of the 2020 Abraham Accords and is now constructing a massive multi-billion-dollar Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi which will feature a Catholic church, a synagogue and a mosque—all on an opulent scale. It describes the project as a manifestation of “Common Humanity”. The Emirates is also building large Hindu and Sikh temples and has funded a succession of international interfaith conferences and initiatives.

Establishing itself as a credible voice for moderation has been more challenging for the Emirates as it lacks home-grown ulema (Islamic scholars) and institutions of high standing in the Muslim world. As a result, it has had to recruit reputable ulema from abroad and form new organisations capable of raising UAE’s religious profile. Its chief recruits have been Sheikh Abdallah bin Bayyah, a Mauritanian scholar; his student Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, a prominent US-based scholar; and Sheikh al-Habib Ali al-Jifri, a Yemeni Sufi (mystical) scholar.

New institutions followed soon after. In 2013 the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies (FPPMS) was founded, headed by bin Bayyah, with the aim of building international networks and producing Islamic scholarship supportive of moderation. Bin Bayyah has published extensively and travelled the world propounding his views on religion and peace as well as correct political behaviour for Muslims. The following year, the Muslim Council of Elders was set up, with the stated objective of “extinguishing” sectarian and jihadist “fires” in the region and promoting humanitarian values. Ali al-Jifri’s main vehicle was the Tabah Foundation, which challenges what it sees as “fundamentalist” thought using Sufi ideals. The UAE also founded Hedayah, an international body to counter violent extremism, and created a Ministry of Tolerance in 2016.

UAE religious engagement with Indonesia is part of this effort to rebrand the Emirates; Indonesia’s reputation as a stronghold of religious tolerance makes it a useful partner. In effect, the Emirates is hoping that closer and more high-profile relations with Indonesia and other religiously diverse and tolerant nations will reflect positively upon it, helping it to appear more like its international partners.

Indonesia and the UAE also have similarities in their legal and devotional practices that make international partnerships easier. The Emirates is often incorrectly seen as sharing the strict Wahhabist doctrine of its neighbour, Saudi Arabia—but it in fact adheres to the mainstream Sunni law schools and has strong Sufi traditions, as does Indonesia. UAE religious institutions such as the Muslim Council of Elders and the Tabah Foundation directly contest Wahhabist doctrine, as also does NU in Indonesia, and they deploy the term Ahlul Sunnah wal Jamaah (“followers of the tradition of Prophet Muhammad and the community”—in effect, mainstream Sunni Islam) in seeking to exclude Wahhabists and other perceived fundamentalist groups.

Indonesian Islamic scholars with expertise in traditional jurisprudence thus have much in common with their Emirati counterparts. Several senior Indonesian Islamic scholars, such as Professor Quraish Shihab, hold advisory board positions in Emirati Islamic organisations. In 2022, FPPMS bestowed on Jokowi the Hassan bin Ali International Peace Prize for his G20 leadership and also invited Indonesia’s vice president to be a keynote speaker at their annual Peace Forum. For its part, Indonesia ensured that Abdallah bin Bayyah spoke at the R20 conference in Bali and at other interfaith events.

Less moderate than it seems?

To what degree is the Indonesian and Emirati rhetoric of tolerance and moderation genuine? At one level, both nations have a strong interest in enjoining moderation. Indonesia has grappled with a serious terrorism problem since the early 2000s, and, although attacks have been rare in recent years, much is due to successful police counter-terrorism operations rather than ebbing terrorist recruitment. The UAE’s terrorism threat is less severe but nonetheless present.

Whether the kinds of “civilisational” discourses favoured by the two governments will have any effect on extreme radicalisation is questionable, given that militant Muslims usually reject the authority of mainstream or official ulema. Undoubtedly, also, both Indonesia and the Emirates aspire in a broad sense to have harmonious, plural and tolerant societies, and are bent on inculcating these values in their communities. Their espousal of religious moderation thus has some substance.

But at another level, Indonesia and UAE are using “moderation” in an instrumental and selective way for domestic political purposes. Both the MBZ and Jokowi governments have repressed local Islamist movements, often using methods that breach civil liberties. The UAE aggressively targets Islamists, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood and its sympathisers, which it sees as one of the major sources of opposition to the monarchy. Amnesty International says there are currently at least 32 political prisoners in jail and in recent years almost 100 Muslim intellectuals and activists from the Brotherhood-linked al-Islah Islamist group have been tried and jailed under a vaguely worded but draconian counter-terrorism law. Moreover, the UAE uses state-employed ulema, such as Bin Bayyah and Hamza Yusuf, to argue for political quietism and obedience to the ruler, thus seeking to cast dissent as sinful.

The Jokowi government has also quashed Islamist activism that it deems a political threat, albeit somewhat less harshly. It banned Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia in 2017 and the Islamic Defenders Front in 2020—movements which had tens of thousands of members—on grounds including involvement in terrorism and sedition that many observers believe to be unsubstantiated. Numerous Islamist leaders have either been charged and convicted of questionable offences or forced from public view on threat of investigation into alleged criminal behaviour. Both governments behave immoderately when it comes to suppressing opposition but use their religious diplomacy of moderation to deflect attention from their autocratic tendencies. Most of their fellow world leaders are happy to ignore or play down such excesses.

It is also the case that, despite their apparent warm relations, the UAE and Indonesia sometimes pursue contrary agendas. A recent case is the R20 conference in Bali, largely funded by the Emirates’ rival, Saudi Arabia. Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah’s Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies (FPPMS) pointedly hosted the US-based IF20 as part of its annual Peace Forum in Abu Dhabi last December, enabling the IF20 to demonstrate it was still active despite its exclusion from the broader 2022 G20 program. FPPMS and IF20 have made clear their desire to supplant Indonesia’s NU-organised R20 and restore the IF20 to the next G20. In effect, Indonesia and UAE, through their proxies, are now competitors to manage what is arguably the world’s premier interfaith event.

Despite the lofty rhetoric of Indonesian and Emirati religious diplomacy, hard-headed and politically self-interested considerations drive the use of moderation and tolerance as strategic commodities. If aspects of these religious programs succeed in implanting moderate and pluralistic values in their respective societies, then there will be cause for praise. But it is also the case that moderation has also become a tool for crimping the ability of Indonesians and Emiratis to organise and express themselves freely. From this perspective, the diplomacy of religious moderation has an empty ring to it.

https://www.newmandala.org/selective...indonesia-uae/

The new face of 'moderate' Islam!

In the UK - The leader of MCB Zara Mohammed

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And in the US Imam Omar Suleiman. Hes been nicknamed the 'sandwich Imam'.

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In this episode of the Blood Brothers Podcast, Dilly Hussain speaks with the American scholar and founder of Safina Society, Dr Shadee Elmasry. #BloodBrothersPodcast #LGBT #Liberal

Topics of discussion include:

• Quick fire Maliki fiqh questions.
• "Navigating Differences" joint statement on LGBTQ ideology. Praise and criticism.
• The struggle for Muslim rights vs Islamic identity in the West.
• Post 9/11 Muslim politics and activism in the West.
• Can Muslims “co-exist” with the LGBTQ community?
• Future of Muslims in the West and hijra.
• Muslim laity accounting and criticising scholars publicly.

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Another update. Back to whats going on in France.

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France’s estimated six million strong Muslims are subject to daily inhuman treatment at the hands of a militant secular state. Islam as a faith has long been traduced and othered, exceptionalised as a religion that must be chastened by French enlightenment.

It is this context that we observe with horror the recent episode of brutality. Seventeen year old Nahel Merzouk was killed at point blank range for a minor traffic infraction. His death, normally another statistic, was caught on camera and led to days of protests and rioting.

To help us make sense of this tragic week, we have invited back onto The Thinking Muslim Rayan Freschi. Rayan is a legal expert and researcher for Cage International and he has recently authored a disturbing report on the French government’s policy of “systematic obstruction” of the Muslim community. He recently wrote a piece for Middle East Eye analysing these tragic events.

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