This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/476
British Jilbab ruling was a victory for Islamists
March 6, 2005
MIM: Radical Islamists push for Taliban agenda
"...The same minister told me that one day he handed out one of his pamphlets to a Muslim whom he describes as a "lovely, dignified, old gentleman". The Muslim said to him that their two faiths essentially pointed in the same direction, but when the minister, as tough Protestants do, pointed out that there was a fundamental difference, because Christians believe that Jesus was the Son of God, the old man said, quite seriously: "Oh, sir, please do not say that again, or I shall have to kill you: it is such blasphemy."
For once in his life, the reverend gentleman seems not to have pressed his point further. But if he, who already feels unfairly treated by the authorities, finds his most cherished belief described as blasphemy (and not always by a kindly old man), might not he, too, seek redress if a new law permits it?
In other words, this law against religious hatred is, in effect, an invitation to it. It incites each faith to take offence, and ensures that the most zealous can make the most trouble. Surely wisdom teaches that the law should let sleeping dogmas lie..."
The law against religious hatred is – in effect – an invitation to it
By Charles Moore
05/03/2005
Although we didn't think of it in those terms at the time, I now realise that I attended a very multi-racial school. Between the ages of nine and 12, I went to a prep school in Sussex which, possibly short of numbers, recruited heavily abroad.
The result was sudden influxes of differing ethnic groups. Thus the sons of members of the ruling True Whig Party in Liberia arrived in a bunch, as did several similarly highly placed Nigerians. This improved our sporting prowess. Several Persians, as everyone then called them, also came. The biggest group were the sons of a clan of Indian grocers all of whom had settled in the Canary Islands. I've no idea how the Head found them, but it was a masterstroke. They were popular boys and they markedly improved the academic performance.
These grocers' sons were Hindus. I do not remember this presenting any problem, either with Muslim boys or anyone else (I think all boys came to chapel regardless, singing such hymns as From Greenland's Icy Mountains), except for a point of hygiene. One boy, a particular friend of mine, wore a vest which, because it had been dipped in the Ganges, he would neither take off nor wash. Eventually Miss Crabtree, the matron, took matters into her own hands. "Holy vest or no holy vest," she shouted at Raju, "that thing goes to the laundry next week", and it did.
Miss Crabtree is lucky not to be en poste today. If she had been responsible for clothing policy at Denbigh High School in Luton, I suspect she would have expressed what she would have called "a dim view" of Muslim girls who chose to wear the virtually all-embracing jilbab. She would probably have been suspended for a year or two while the education authority looked into accusations that she was a racist. She would certainly have lost her clothing battle. This week, Lord Justice Brooke decreed that a Denbigh pupil called Shabina Begum had been "unlawfully excluded" for wearing the jilbab.
It is probably a good principle that children may wear what their religion prescribes, so long as it does not undermine the discipline of the school. Note that Miss Crabtree had no objection to the principle of a holy vest - only to the fact that it was very smelly (which it was). Muslim girls at Denbigh High School are anyway allowed to wear the shalwar kameez - a loose tunic and trousers.
But how far does Shabina Begum's "right to manifest her religious beliefs" extend? Suppose she decided to wear the burka, which covers absolutely everything and allows the wearer only to look out through an impenetrable gauze, would that be all right? Mightn't it be better for the school and her fellow pupils if they could see her, and if they could be sure that she was she?
A more fundamental question is raised: who decides what is an authentic manifestation of a religious belief? Because white British people are so bored by these questions, most of us vaguely assume that the Muslim religion dictates that certain garments be worn. But in fact this is not so. As in most faiths, there is a dispute about what the rules are. Our "human rights" culture seems to mean that we defer to the stricter versions of the rules.
Shabina's case was supported in the courts by Hizb ut-Tahrir, an organisation that is banned in several countries, although not in Britain. She said the decision was "a victory for all Muslims who wish to preserve their identity and values despite prejudice and bigotry". Those don't sound like the words of a schoolgirl concerned only with becoming modesty: they sound political, and other Muslim pupils have criticised her for this. What she has been given in Luton would not be permitted in a school in Muslim countries such as Tunisia or Turkey. It is rather as if a Sinn Fein-supporting pupil had won a case claiming that her Irishness required her to wear a beret and a balaclava helmet.
On March 14, the Government's attempt to make incitement to religious hatred a crime reaches the House of Lords. I have been talking to an evangelical Christian minister who works in north Manchester. Because of the pressures he is under, he prefers that he remains unnamed. He believes that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, and goes round with his small flock preaching this to all and sundry, including Muslims. One day, two policemen in body armour turned up on the doorstep of a couple of his parishioners. They produced a pamphlet that the couple had helped distribute, aimed at the conversion of Muslims to Christianity, and told them that this constituted a serious crime of incitement to racial hatred that might carry a seven-year jail sentence. The racial element, they explained, came from the fact that the leaflet was produced by white people and was targeted at Asians.
The clergyman took over the case from the terrified couple. It took seven weeks for the police to lift their threat, eventually writing a letter to the minister admitting that there was nothing racial in the pamphlet. But what will happen to this little Church if incitement to religious "hatred" becomes a crime? As might be expected from literalist Christianity, the pamphlet is expressed in uncompromising terms. Seeking to draw Muslims' attention to the belief that Jesus Christ atoned for the sins of all, and that Islam has no such idea, the pamphlet speaks of "Slaves of Allah" (intended to represent in English how Muslims regard their own submission to God), "slaves of sin", "slaves of shame". Its aim is clearly to convert, not to abuse, but naturally there will be Muslims (and maybe others) who find it insulting. Are we to have the courts clogged with cases objecting to this sort of thing?
And if we do, will they also be clogged with the same thing the other way round? The same minister told me that one day he handed out one of his pamphlets to a Muslim whom he describes as a "lovely, dignified, old gentleman". The Muslim said to him that their two faiths essentially pointed in the same direction, but when the minister, as tough Protestants do, pointed out that there was a fundamental difference, because Christians believe that Jesus was the Son of God, the old man said, quite seriously: "Oh, sir, please do not say that again, or I shall have to kill you: it is such blasphemy."
For once in his life, the reverend gentleman seems not to have pressed his point further. But if he, who already feels unfairly treated by the authorities, finds his most cherished belief described as blasphemy (and not always by a kindly old man), might not he, too, seek redress if a new law permits it?
In other words, this law against religious hatred is, in effect, an invitation to it. It incites each faith to take offence, and ensures that the most zealous can make the most trouble. Surely wisdom teaches that the law should let sleeping dogmas lie.
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http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/17038092?source=Evening%20Standard
Muslim girl's brother linked to Islam radicals
By Robert Mendick And Kiran Randhawa, Evening Standard
The brother of the girl who won a landmark court battle allowing her to wear a jilbab to school is accused of engineering the case because of his alleged support for a radical Islamic group. A local MP said today the Muslim community in Luton was blaming Shuweb Rahman for "egging on" his sister to bring the action against her former school, which had refused to teach her when she turned up for lessons in head-to-toe Islamic dress.
A local MP said today the Muslim community in Luton was blaming Shuweb Rahman for "egging on" his sister to bring the action against her former school, which had refused to teach her when she turned up for lessons in head-to-toe Islamic dress.
Mr Rahman, a 22-year-old student, is said to be a supporter of the Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir, whose ultimate aim is a worldwide Muslim state. Hizb ut-Tahrir has admitted advising Shabina Begum, who won her appeal on Wednesday, over the past 12 months.
Shabina, 16, was orphaned last year when her mother died from a brain haemorrhage - her father died when she was three - and she lives with Mr Rahman and an elder sister. The family denies Shabina was in any way manipulated.
Margaret Moran, Labour MP for Luton South, said: "The community's view was very, very strongly this had nothing to do with the girl's education but that this was a political stunt made by a fundamentalist group. The word in the community is her brother is a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir. The imams know it, the community leaders know it. My view is this has been engineered by the brother and I feel very sad for this girl ... this has nothing to do with education or uniforms."
Khalid Mahmood, Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Bar, said: "She [Shabina] has been used as a political football by Hizb ut-Tahrir. They have been working on this girl. They want an Islamic revolution and they will try to disrupt anybody they can."
The MP has in the past likened the group to the British National Party and claimed it had a record of targeting young people to lure them away from the mainstream Muslim community. Dr Nazreen Nawaz, Hizb ut-Tahrir's women's representative, confirmed she had advised Shabina. "We offered her general support. She just needed encouragement. Our work in the west is about explaining Islam to the community. I first had contact with her about a year ago. It was to give general advice about the Islamic view on the issue of the jilbab. But it needs to be stressed she is somebody who thinks for herself.
She has discovered Islam for herself."
Dr Imran Waheed, spokesman for the group, said: "Any suggestion that Hizb ut-Tahrir motivated the girl is complete nonsense. This was a religious issue, not a political one." The group could not confirm if Mr Rahman is a member.
Denbigh High School in Luton refused to teach Shabina when she arrived for the first day of the academic year in September 2002 wearing a jilbab. Her appeal court victory is being seen as effectively ending a school's right to decide its own uniform policy.
Shabina told the Evening Standard : "When a Muslim woman reaches puberty she has to decide what path to take. I decided I wanted to follow Islam and go all the way."
The Children's Legal Centre, a charity based at Essex University, took on Shabina's case. Julia Thomas, her solicitor, said: "Shabina is a very determined young lady. We have been certain from the outset this was coming from her. There has been no adverse influence by adults."
Hizb ut-Tahrir was founded in Jerusalem in 1953 with the aim of creating a single Islamic state but was banned in much of the Middle-East after an attempted coup in Egypt in
1974. Germany also banned the group, accusing it of promoting anti-Jewish sentiment.
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MIM: The radical Islamist agenda behind the campaign to enforce the Jilbab (at a predominently Muslim school which allowed some forms of Islamic dress ), was inadvertently attested to by this article in support of Begum, where the writer referred to Begun as a "martyr" and gushed that she sought to perserve her modest "in the face of a disrepectful infidel". http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3284-1514035,00.html
"...They will also have earned the martyr's mantle. There is no figurehead as potent as a young, beautiful and vulnerable girl who seeks to preserve her modesty in the face of a disrespectful infidel. The Old Testament and the legion of Catholic saints include many such role models, and they have proved an inspiration for millennia. Force Shabina out of her jilbab and you will see Muslims rallying to her defence..." ----------------------------------------------- Warning after Islam girl http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005100457,00.html THE former Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday warned that a schoolgirl's court victory for the right to wear Islamic dress to school could spark religious tension. Lord Carey said the Appeal Court ruling entitling Shabina Begum, 16, to wear a jilbab gown to school in Luton, Beds, was "very unfortunate". In a GMTV interview to be shown on Sunday, he says: "The ripple effect could be a growing tension between the Muslim world and the non-Muslim world." ----------------------------------------- Muslim Girl wins Jilbab school case http://www.gg2.net/printArticle.asp?nid=2213&tid=breaking_news "...The Muslim Council of Britain hailed the decision as ‘very important', noting that opinion on proper attire for Muslim women varied greatly. ‘Within this broad spectrum, those who believe and choose to wear the jilbab and consider it to be part of their faith requirement for modest attire, should be respected,' secretary general Iqbal Sacranie said. But some fear the judgement could spell the end of school uniforms; there has also been concern that Begum was backed by Muslim groups with strident views. The court had heard that Begum, an academically strong pupil of Bangladeshi origin, who hoped to become a doctor, had previously worn a shalwar kameez. But having developed a deepening interest in Islam, Begum arrived at the start of the academic year in September 2002 wearing a jilbab. She was told to go home and change, something she refused to do. Denbigh School`s lawyers argued that she could have worn skirts, trousers or a shalwar kameez, and that by being the only pupil to insist on wearing the jilbab, she had effectively chosen to stay away. During an appeal in December, prominent civil rights lawyer Blair -- who uses her maiden name Cherie Booth in her professional life -- argued that the girl's rights had been infringed upon. ‘Her rights to manifest her religious beliefs should be respected,' said Blair. ‘I say our policy is to respect diversity, and it is not for the public authority to judge which beliefs are more valid than others,' she said. This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/476