The imams say
And there’s the statement of the Australian National Council of Imams.
The Australian National Imams Council is a body that represents the Muslim Imams of Australia and through them the community of Muslims in Australia. Currently there are 94 Imams in the Council and they are drawn from all the States and Territories of Australia. We are responsible for a variety of matters including the Appointment of the Mufti of Australia and the issuance of legal rulings for the benefit of Muslim Australians.
Oh yes? But we always hear that Islam is not like religions that have official centralized clergy who can speak as authorities – so in what sense is the ANIC ‘responsible for’ the issuance of legal rulings? How do all these legal rulings work when crowds and flocks of people issue them while no one has any actual authority to issue them? They seem to be binding yet not authoritative. How does that work? And why does anyone put up with it?
Notice also the announcement that ‘through’ the imams of Australia the ANIC ‘represents’ the community of Muslims in Australia. But it doesn’t. People can’t ‘represent’ people in that way. We don’t get to represent other people just by saying we do. The other people have to agree. Not just fail to object; actually agree. Otherwise this boast of representation is just hot air. I might as well claim I represent all American kuffars. I could make the claim, but that wouldn’t make it true.
Then the statement gets on to the bullying.
[W]e would like to place on the record our deep concern with regards to a course taught at the University under the course name ‘Women in Arabic and Islamic Literature’. The course structure and content has involved repeated and unjustified attacks upon Islam by the lecturer and a course reader that is seriously flawed. The reader promotes a very negative view of Islam and especially women in Islam. It does not represent normative, traditional Islam as practised by the overwhelming majority of the Muslim Population in the world today and through fourteen centuries of Islamic history…We would appreciate a reassessment of this course, its content and the manner in which it is taught so that it more accurately reflects the actual and not imagined teachings of Islam. And to truly reflect the normative teachings of Islam which is best placed under the Centre of excellence in Islamic studies.
No doubt you would. But the content of the course is the business of the University of Western Sydney and Dr Habib. So piss off.
I hope that is more or less what the UWS tells them.
I think that the University of Western Sydney should indulge the imams and give them what they want just this one time. Then I’m sure they’d be happy and stay away and not come back with any further demands.
(Nudge; wink; ;))
Besides it’s only fair to be sensitive. Because after all – it was all these Orientalist Western queers who destroyed the caliphate. So all we kufrs owe the imams reparations. Right? Obviously.
OB,
Just think of ANCI as a political lobby. They don’t speak for all Muslims in Australia, just the ones who subscribe (so to speak) to the authority of the council. My local mosque has zilch to do with them and most of the congregation view them asself-regarding and self-important (and they’re from Sydney!)
“Normative teachings of Islam”
What exactly are these kinds of teachings when practiced by the ‘male only’ congregations outside of mosques? Does ‘normative’ entail demeaning, degrading belittling, beheading, killing, and whipping women?
Is this man’s way of maintaining power over women?
Men, in my estimation who degrade women (more often than not) usually have/had deep-rooted psychological problems with their own mothers. They go through life not knowing the real reason why they insult women. They are more to be pitied! But then again I would not even pity dogs as that puts me above them if I do.
Why are these prophets only ever (mostly) male creatures? They could not even get the balance right with their synthetic, fabricated, manufactured religions
Thanks for the info, DFG. I figured it might be like that (by analogy with the Muslim Council of Britain). But if they themselves say they ‘represent’ it seems worth pointing out that they really don’t.
The more I notice that claim being made, the more I realize what a large claim it is. There’s a big difference between belonging to a particular organization, and thinking the leaders of the organization ‘represent’ one.
Tingey,
You missed my point. These are not CofE muslims, if I am interpreting you correctly. They are not slack, or non-observant. They are devout, pious, what-have-you. They are also non-violent and tolerant. They are not your caricature.
As for human agents. If a Brand New God makes proclamations in a forest and no one hears….is there religion?
And finally to your paranoid theories regarding the factions concluding…
Drop their differences??? Like in Iraq, for example?
Where’d Tingey’s post go?
@ DFG: “My local mosque has zilch to do with them”
But will your local mosque do anything to stop them? If the government starts believing that they actually speak for you, you might find all sorts of nasty, un-Australian things happening.
At what point will the muslims in Australia start putting their money where their mouths are and actually doing something against these misogynists?
Don’t hold your breath, as the saying goes…