“Moderate” Muslim groups issue Fatwa against airport anti-terror measures saying they are un-Islamic
In a story almost too parodical to be true, it is being reported that Muslim groups in the United States (I repeat, “the United States”, not Europe), have issued a fatwa against body scanners now being introduced at airports to combat the threat from terrorism.
Cited by the Huffington Post, the Metro Detroit section of the freep.com website quotes The Fiqh Council of North America, a symposium comprising leading Islamic scholars, as saying:
“It is a violation of clear Islamic teachings that men or women be seen naked by other men and women…Islam highly emphasizes haya (modesty) and considers it part of faith. The Quran has commanded the believers, both men and women, to cover their private parts.”
The ruling has also been supported by The Council on American-Islamic Relations which said:
“We support the Fiqh Council’s statement on full-body scanners and believe that the religious and privacy rights of passengers can be respected while maintaining safety and security.”
Sorry, hold on a second. At which point did the Council on American-Islamic Relations become experts in counter-terrorism policy? No one likes airport security and few would be anything less then put out at the prospect of body scanners. But the reason we have such measures is that terrorism — almost exclusively inspired by militant Islam — is a threat that needs to be dealt with.
The decision to turn the question of airport security into a zero sum game between Muslims and non-Muslims is not merely a piece of obnoxious bigotry that will unnecessarily inflame intercommunal relations, it provides a stark and depressing reminder of just how committed even mainstream and “moderate” Muslim groups in the Western world really are in the fight against Islamist terror.
Whatever next?
To read the full story, click here:
Tags: Islam
February 12th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Thanks Robin.
Whilst I agree that muslims are in no position to dictate security policy and am nauseated by muslims constantly whining over every imagined imposition on their freedom (whilst working very hard to snuff out everyone elses) I personally am deeply upset by the introduction of the scanners.
Personal privacy and modesty is very important and the prospect of my wife and I having to be scanned in this manner sickens me. I would not allow my wife to be scanned like this by a man and guess therefore that we would not be allowed to fly should she be unfortunate enough to be picked.
What really angers me is that the 99.9999999999% of people who undergo this humility are perfectly harmless and I have heard it questioned that this method would not have prevented the christmas day bomber! Western government bureaucracy is so dumb. Ironically, the israelis who are the most targeted people in the world by the Jihadists don’t suffer antyhing like the humiliation and inconvenience that we agree to put up with.
We need to get smart and be like the Israelis. To read a very interesting news article on how the Israelis do it click here:
http://www.thestar.com/iphone/news/world/article/744199—israelification-high-security-little-bother
February 12th, 2010 at 4:53 pm
Thank you Paul, that web site report on Israeli airport security is an eye opener. it must be a humiliation to go through a body scanner. It may be that in future holiday makers will prefer other means of transport
February 12th, 2010 at 9:53 pm
Private observation
I do my best to avoid sounding crass, rude or anything. We know from the press that Brown, Miliband and the others from the cabinet are running in circles right now not knowing what to do and how to appease the Americans for, reportedly, ALREADY downgrading their intelligence sharing connections in light of the Ethipian secret jihadist’s court case. Britain is slowly but surely falling in its own sword. As a few “expert” outsiders already know, the downhill starts here - and will undoubtadly snowball into a lavina in the future. Again, as others said Britain is finished if the syphatizers of the Pro-Fundamentalist jihadists in the elite-judiciary class keep on going. For years people were brushed aside with all the usual BS stigmas, but NOW even the Islamist-aapeasing gov’t is starting to wake up to the fact what monster-state they have created in the last some 15-20 years. Of course it is, in my view, part of the wider malady and disintegarion of Britain as a cohesive polity, but this particular aspect which is highlighted by the behind-the-scenes disapproval by American circles just brings much of the things others eloquently said in the past about Britain’s troubles (like “MelP” etc. etc.) into the sharpest relief. But let me say one thing that I don’t really understand about the British public life and press-dictated media environment. I am simply at a loss to perceive WHY there is not ANY debate about the country’s current mess and predicament. How on earth is it, that - as WSJ pointed out, according to Goldman Sachs the ‘09 GDP aggregate for France is ~ 2.7 trillion USD (on ‘09 USD rates) and the Uk’s is 2.1 tr.? 600 billion USD more than that of a country which has only about 1-1.5 million citizens more - and we of course know that F euphemistically has much more of “unproductive “welfare-bound” citizens than Britain - to use tis obfuscation. So I’m really simply amazed how on earth in this country there’s no debate about the profound and shocking FAILURE of the United Kingdom vis-á-vis France for example??? I’m really not into bashing Britain, just can’t comprehend how is it possible that there is seemingly NO rational debate about this phenomenon. We all know that Brown boasted at the turn of the centruy abotu the UK’s prevalaence over France and Italy. Now it is struggling, with not much success, to be above Italy. What is going on there? That for example on the UN Human Development Index Spain is 8 posts ahead of the UK. (OK, I also don’t regard anything by the UN as such an uncontestable arbiter, but this still says something, doesn’t it? And tons of other economic-cocial figures and indices.)
Why aren’t this an upheaval? Why aren’t there any sort of “Aux armes citoyens!” by the British public at large? Absolutely and completely astounding and astonishing, if you ask me. Are the British electorate just shrugging their collective shoulders that they are going down the sink and totally humiliated by its former “arch-enemy” France? Is there no deabte in you country about this? I’m really sorry to have veired off the course in my comment but this is something I as an outsideer and a foreigner wanted to have an insight about…
February 13th, 2010 at 2:41 am
The reason (excuse) given for their opposition is so ludicrous it is almost impossible to believe that this islamic group can be expecting anyone to take them seriously.
“It is a violation of clear Islamic teachings that men or women be seen naked by other men and women…Islam highly emphasizes haya (modesty) and considers it part of faith. The Quran has commanded the believers, both men and women, to cover their private parts.”
But, apparently, it is not a violation of Islam teachings to wrap a a bomb around your penis, or stuff it into your vagina or anus, in order to blow other people up.
Incredible. You couldn’t make this stuff up.
February 13th, 2010 at 11:18 am
Quite apart from highlighting this scanner nonsense, Robin also makes a vital point about the complete lack of any moderate Muslim credible interlocutor in the world today.
Governments can talk all they want to the Muslim Brotherhood and its agents and proxies. However they should remember who might be having to pay for 24-hour armed guards for them, in the manner of former Dutch Parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Going a little further back, one remembers the sad fate of the late Airey Neave MP in the House of Commons car park.
February 13th, 2010 at 11:23 am
If Muslims do not wish to be scanned at airports they need not fly. Period. That should make flying safer for the rest of us.
On the other hand everyone should be able to board a plane with a weapon of some sort, just not a gun. We do know that in US states where citizens are permitted to carry concealed weapons the murder rate is much lower. Removing weapons from honest citizens just makes travelers more vulnerable to terrorists. And terrorists count on defenseless victims.
February 13th, 2010 at 7:14 pm
I would support a Muslims only airline. If you are Muslim you fly that one airlines. If it blows up, well, the other Muslims can resolve that.
February 14th, 2010 at 2:16 am
They have picked an issue which they know will resonate with all decent poeple - and they are right. We need to employ the Israeli methods the world over. However, as Israeli equals fascist etc., we will soon be in the ludicrous position of scanning everybody except the terrorists! They are right about scanners. Change the rules.
February 14th, 2010 at 10:45 am
Follow-up
I think Israel should be rest assured. There was a time when I got hysterical when I heard the news - any time - that elements in Britain would be boycotting Israeli produce. First and foremost my paranoia and hysterics stemmed from the exact same ignorance like the boycotters. Now I kind of woke up to the fact that these pathetic creatures, even if they wanted to, simply can’t cause any, ANY tangible harm to theIsraeli economy at large. I know now that “boycotting” parsimons, lettuce, cabbage, oranges or tomatoes can’t and won’t make Israel buckle under. Of course I hated, detested the sheer malice, the base hatred of hese people who initiate such odious things (let’s not forget again, that the boycott is the SAME things the Nazis did to the Jews in the ’30s… In Britain, folks usually lose sight of this fact and the hystorical connotations.) But NOW I’m hardly upset. Let them boycott, let them cause “economic harm” to Israel. These people probably never heard aboutthe cutting edge side of Israel, these sorry to say, cavemen and cavewomen probably never heard about the fact that we (well, I am so immensely proud of them, partly by the “merit” of my descent”) are the “Start-up nation”. Once you (in this case me) understand this, these people at the Tesco (”TESsa COhen”, mind you), the Waitrose and others are only ridiculing themselves with their hatred and, even more so, ignorance. I also can’t help thinking that anti-Semites in Britan both left an right, but on the lft more so, areprobably tearing their hear out one by one at the thought that they are unable, I repeat UNABLE to cause any harm or damage to Israel. Britain, at least the anti-Semitic middle, or upper-middle classes, simply can’t digest certain FACTS. Ice cold, hard facts. That Israel draws in more venture-fund capital than Euopean countries combined. (As I mentioned before, Britain probably among the handful - or only nation - in the civilized West in my opinion that anti-Semitism is usually more prevalent the higher one climbs on the socioeconomic ladder. The proletariat is thankfully mostly free of the Jew-hating desease in England and this is vry commendable! Just one “anecdote” of mine. When I first visitd Britain in summer 1997, during a walk in Cambridge I asked passersby where I could find a synagogue. Of course there was a fair amount of “davka” provocation how they would react and all this. To my shock a homeless, very -very uncared for man of around 60-65 came to me and very politely showed me the way. I thought that I collapse on the site, so much the surprise! This episode at the time in Cambridge had a role that I had a politically far-left, well, yeah at the time - which later I of course totally discarded.). That, again, we are the Start-up nation! And they, at least those who know these facts are so totally, absolutely ENVIOUS about Israel that they are in fact, virtually, more than green with envy. Probably the fact that Israel is not, and would never be in the British “Commonwealth” “family” of nations and that Israel is an independent country in the best sense of the word who cannot be pitied, looked down upon or smiled at, simply drives them crazy. After all, we are not, with all due respect, Ghana, Kenya, “Bangla”, or even New-Zealand (well, that other super-hateful pathetic little sheep-nation totally sucked up by primitive “Independen”-owned anti-Israel propaganda). Yes, I can’t emphasize enough the British in my view cannot comprehendwhat Israel achieved and the left-wing antisemites at the two you know where newspaper and elsewhere at the FO canno get over thisfact. Again, seriously a country which has buckled under France (and maybe even Italy) want to “boycott” us? Really? Who said that the British have no sense of humor?
February 16th, 2010 at 4:36 am
It is ironic that it was Islamic terrorism that resulted in more and more intrusive security procedures and technologies in air travel. Now, Muslims have the audacity to claim special exemption from those security procedures. I, a light-complexioned American Jew, have experienced Israeli airport interviewing techniques. They may be effective, but they also invade privacy (and ultimately, curtail freedom). They are a tragic necessity, courtesy of Islam.