A friend recently drew my attention to an ‘Official Response’ issued to the press on 23rd December by the Muslim Debate Initiative which slates me for comments I made about Islam and women in posts on this blog. The Response was authored by Dr Tabasum Hussain, a UK-born Muslim now living with her family in Canada, and is published in full on the MDI website (here).

On behalf of MDI Tabasum took strong exception to a couple of light asides I made about the lack of women in the their organisation in London: In one post last November I wrote (here) ‘Yes, only guys, no girls of course – this is Islam’, and in a December post I remarked (here) ‘No women of course, this is Islam’.

In her Response Tabasum writes that ‘Mr Craig (makes) ignorant and often hateful comments about Islam in general, and in his failing to get his facts straight about this whole issue he does a great job of highlighting the lack of credibility in anything else he may blurt out against Islam, Prophet Muhammad (saaw), Women, and Muslim organisations.’

Fortunately this is neither true nor is it the view of all Muslims. Indeed in my December post, above, I quote journalist and blogger Umar Farooq who listened to my trenchant views on the niqab (Islamic face veil) and the gender bias inherent in Sharia law at MDI’s own Islamification debate, yet gave me the highest rating of the six panellists (here for Farooq’s full report).

So yesterday I emailed Tabasum as follows:

Dear Tabasum,

I was both surprised and sorry when a friend recently pointed out your Statement on the MDI website dated 21st December: ‘Official response to Head of Christian Peoples Alliance party, Alan Craig’s article: ‘Off with their heads.’’

I was surprised because, regrettably, in your Statement you don’t seem to take any account of my genuine warm regard for the MDI organisers as expressed in my comments such as “I take my hat off (to MDI)”, “The (MDI) event was democracy in action”, “courageous”, “genuinely interested in grappling with the issues”, etc.

I was sorry because, understandably but also regrettably , neither do you attempt answer the main thrust of my 9th November post which was a stonking great criticism of convert Paul Williams’ foul fetid views on the ‘hot issue’ (as he excitedly describes it) of the execution of apostates. I’m pleased Paul has since taken down his offensive post, but he refuses to debate the execution of Islam’s apostates with me and instead has retired upset into his shell. Perhaps he has had a slight taste of the distress that the growing number of people leaving Islam in the UK may feel when they read such murderous drivel.

Instead in your Statement you major on my light-hearted asides: ‘Yes, only guys, no girls of course – this is Islam’ and ‘No women of course, this is Islam’.

The fact that MDI takes such huge exception to my asides about Islam seems to indicate that I’ve touched a raw nerve.

This raw nerve – and Achilles heel, to mix my metaphors – is of course the fact that Islam is at root a misogynistic religion. There are all sorts of explanations for this, most of which go back to the Founder of Islam himself and the in-built inequalities between the genders within the religion. Of course there are exceptions which prove the rule (Benazir Bhutto became Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan less than a decade after Margaret Thatcher was elected Britain’s first and, so far, only female PM). And I don’t doubt you personally are an effective member of MDI, nor that the new appointee in the UK, Nazli Ali, will be too although I’ve yet to meet her.

But at a fundamental level it is impossible for Islam to provide for the intrinsic equality of worth between the genders that, for instance, Christianity offers.

However, we are members of our respective debating organisations so rather than writing Statements, how about us publicly debating the issue? I suggest I propose the motion: ‘This House believes that Islam is misogynistic’. You would be free to respond to the motion as you see fit.

Unfortunately I cannot undertake such a debate during your immediate visit to the UK, although I’m looking forward to attending your debate with Beth Grove on 5th March. But perhaps we could fix it for sometime during your next visit this side of the Atlantic?

With best wishes,

It will be interesting to see if Tabasum accepts the challenge, and also see if she is willing to debate Islam with a member of the opposite sex.

I’ll keep you informed.

Following my criticism of the National Secular Society as an essentially deceitful organisation (here), it’s interesting to find myself in agreement with them for once.

Last August Shamso Miah, described as an unemployed 25 year-old and devout Muslim, left his mosque and went to the East Ham branch of Lloyds TSB, just a couple of hundred metres from Newham Town Hall. There he was involved in a ‘queue rage’ assault on Mohammad Furcan, hitting him three times and breaking his jaw.

Miah came before Cherie Booth QC at Inner London Crown Court on 27 January, and the wife of former Prime Minister Tony Blair gave him a suspended six month sentence plus community service.

But it was her comments that caused a minor storm. According to last week’s Newham Recorder (here), she told Miah that her reason for suspending the jail term was ‘based on the fact that you are a religious person and have not been in trouble before’. She added: ‘You are a religious man and you know that this is unacceptable behaviour’.

But the fact that Miah is a ‘religious man’ (she mentioned it twice) should not of itself qualify him for special treatment. In the UK at least, religious and non-religious people are all equal before the law and what the NSS wittily calls ‘Cheria Law’, with its apparent bias in favour of people of faith, is un-nuanced and inappropriate.

However judges have to take individual and personal factors into account of course and those of previous good character may expect to receive a more lenient sentence than habitual criminals. A law-breaker who is normally embedded in a stable family within a close-knit local community may be less likely to re-offend than a solitary unattached inner-city dweller. And a man who is a leader, earning obscene sums of money from his fans and promoted as a role model for youth such as John Terry, may expect less sympathy in court than ordinary Joe Soap. And in sentencing, religious belief is as relevant as these other personal factors

But spiritual discernment is required to assess such belief as not all religions are the same, and it’s regrettable that most of our judges, like most of society, are religiously illiterate. For instance, as the Royal Navy shows (here), many authorities seem to think Satanism may be treated as the spiritual and moral equivalent of, say, Quakerism. And it’s rare for a member of the media commentariat to throw political correctness to the wind and draw a fair distinction between ‘harmless’ Christianity and ‘sinister’ Islam, as Andrew Brown did recently in the Guardian (here).

Different religions, like different foods, have different effects on their consumers. And good food is good for you while bad food ain’t. And as a case in point, it ought to be blindingly obvious even to our secularised authorities that Devil-worship – including the Admiralty-approved variety – certainly ain’t good for a soul, a ship’s crew or society.

So instead of making blanket catch-all assumptions about ‘religious people’, Ms Booth should have looked at Mr Miah’s particular faith – as well as his crime record, employment status, family and home background, education, etc – and its effect on him personally. Then she could make the right judgement about an appropriate sentence for this particular individual in respect of his particular crime.

I guess we are no longer surprised that the government, led by The Harperson, does its best to write fatherhood out of the script. Men are the cause of the financial crisis (here), are no longer required on the birth certificate (here), and, as Melanie Phillips observed in her usual incisive style, have been reduced to ‘sperm donors, walking wallets and occasional au pairs’ (here).

In theory the church should do better. After all, it was Christ – alone of the founders of the monotheistic faiths – who majored on the fatherhood of God and introduced the possibility of a warm personal relationship with ‘Our Father which art in heaven’ (Matt 6:9; Mark 14:36; Gal 4:6; etc).

So I became concerned at church recently as we prayed through a prayer about Haiti which was projected onto the screen.

Like others I had watched with tears as the human tragedy of the Haiti earthquake unfolded. In particular I had identified with the panic and despair of fathers as they picked frantically with bare hand at the rubble of collapsed buildings, looking for their families inside: I too have young children.

In context the prayer was beautifully empathetic. Someone had emailed it to a member of the church at work and – at the urging of a Muslim colleague who perhaps had felt the compassion in the prose and shared the urge to appeal to the Almighty – he forwarded it to the company’s HR department who in turn published it for all the staff. Not bad for our secular age.

“Lord I thank you… because this morning I woke up and knew where my children were… because my home was still standing… because I am not crying as my spouse, my child, my parent does not need to be buried or pulled out from beneath a pile of concrete…

“Lord I cry out to You, the One who makes the impossible possible, the One who turns darkness into light. I cry out that You give those mothers strength, that You give them the peace that surpasses all understanding…

“(I cry out) that You may open the streets so that help may come… that You may provide doctors, nurses, food, water… Give them peace… hope… courage to go on… Protect the children and shield them with Your power.

“I pray all this in the name of Jesus.”

It was an admirable prayer that I, together with the rest of the congregation, entered into with full but heavy hearts, willing the Lord to answer urgently.

“But hang on,” I thought half way through, “what about the fathers? Why are we praying for mothers in Haiti but not their partners?”

I concluded sadly that the world often impacts the church more than vice versa, and the writer of the prayer – consciously or unconsciously – had simply bought into the secular mindset that ignores the primal social and spiritual importance of fatherhood.

So the invisibilisation of fathers continues apace. The cost to our society, and to the church if she follows suit, will be enormous.