Channel 4 cancels Islam documentary screening after presenter threatened

Telegraph:

 A screening of a controversial documentary on the history of Islam has been cancelled on security advice after its presenter was threatened.

Islam: the Untold Story – Tom Holland with Bedouin in Wadi Rum, Jordan

Islam: the Untold Story – Tom Holland with Bedouin in Wadi Rum, Jordan  Photo: Channel 4

2:28PM BST 11 Sep 2012

Historian Tom Holland’s Channel 4 film Islam: The Untold Story sparked more than 1,000 complaints when it was broadcast.

Holland was threatened online with a torrent of abusive messages on Twitter.

A Channel 4 spokeswoman said: “Having taken security advice, we have reluctantly cancelled a planned screening of the programme Islam: The Untold Story. We remain extremely proud of the film which is still available to view on 4oD.”

The private screening was due to take place at the broadcaster’s London headquarters on Thursday before an audience of historians and “opinion formers”.

Click to continue:

 

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

8 Replies to “Channel 4 cancels Islam documentary screening after presenter threatened”

  1. Well, well, well the muhammadans not liking there was no Muhammad in real life???

    I say what a surprise!

    (The terror of the muslims have now become so huge in the West, that even the left is no doubt beginning to feal the heat from those they thought were their multiculti-buddies, in the future they might choose their playmates more carefully)

  2. Pope Urban teh arrogance of the left makes them think they can control the Moslems, and given the number of nukes we in the west they may, but it will be a very bloody control.

  3. The Island nation has handed victory to their enemies, and we have only seen the tip of the iceberg. My sincere condolences to the natives of the UK. You had a good run for the last millennium and a half.

  4. When I read of Tom Hollands program in the TV guide, I thought ‘here we go’ but I decided to see what he had to say before judging it on the Newspaper writeup. Unfortunately, my initial reaction was only confirmed. I looked for substance and structured argumentation for and against, but was only faced time and again by claims that hold no weight. I’ve never witnessed such a poor and frankly empty attempt to discredit something. To say the basis and methodology of Tom’s argumentation was simplistic and illogical would be an understatement. The argumentation he put forth was more demonstrative of the lack of intellectual prowess supporting such a stance. And following it throughout with the well worn comment ‘black hole’ only served to demonstrate a lack of intellectual integrity. As Mr Holland resorted to playing the already chosen card of dismissal. A truly poor attempt, that not only insults the intellect of the viewing public, but also raises questions about Tom Hollands credibility.

    As a Brit Muslim I was very much looking forward to the programme aired on Channel 4 Tuesday 28th, naively thinking it would be an honest attempt at looking at Islamic history both from a western secular tradition of cynicism along with the perspective from the more focalised prism of theological monism, setting the context and backdrop to understand the challenges we face today. Instead I was left angry and disappointed. From the very outset it was very clear that Tom and his staccato styled selective sentences, accompanied by complimentary musical undertone attempted to do the very opposite; a negative portrayal of Islam by tenuously attacking the foundations of nearly 3 million Britons. Channel 4 another State owned BBC like Media organisation, making programme after programme to make muslims feel uncomfortable, falsely labbeled and 2nd class.

    I don’t have the breadth of knowledge to provide the juxtaposition to each one of Tom’s central arguments, but selecting one in particular the “coin argument”, can easily be refuted by a simple search on ancient coin numismatics (volume 4 issue 1 – Islamic coinage, imperialcoins.com ) – which explains how the at the advent of Islam, Muslims were still using the vast Byzantine coins reserves, so the fact Muhammad’s (pbuh) name wasn’t on the early coins was merely down to socioeconomic rationale rather than anything else. You can even argue from a theological perspective that unlike emperors of the past Mohammed (pbuh) with his purist message of asceticism probably didn’t see the establishment of self-indulgent currency as a priority – that would have been vain glorious and quite the opposite to the spirit the original movement was founded upon. Coupling these points together, with its use of history and sound empirical reasoning, even a layman like me can provide a logical counter argument to one of Tom’s central points.

    I then ask why was there an absence of a meaningful east – west dialectic ? bar a single professor who was versed in Arabic proverbs and a few seemingly uneducated desert Bedouins, there were no Muslim academics, no Muslim historians and no Muslim professors, this ultimately led to a single and biased perspective of a secular historian, tenuously flipping from one topic to another in an attempt to debunk the foundations of a monistic faith of 2 billion people.

    I found this documentry very interesting,although got to say felt very sorry for tom ………he seemed confused it would have been good if he had been to a scholar who had reverted to islam,when people revert specially big names or well known scientist or priest they study religion and try to learn it extensively, this might have made it easier as they might have guided him to a better source than leaving him confused in the black whole like the people he went to………..any ways I would specially like muslims to refrain from being abusive to any one who question’s islam or anything about it as its their right…….it would be nice if people who are confused would intiate a discussion or email some brilliant speakers like nauman ali khan or suhaib webb. I personally found them very informative.I would thank Tom for taking so much interest in the history of islam and also showing the beautiful Kaaba to its full glory to the world.
    sorry if my comments offend anyone.
    peace

    My point isn’t really around the validity of Tom’s claims, but more on why Channel 4 allowed this form of unbalanced journalism and crucially why did it not allow for meaningful representation from both sides ? I know some of the points mentioned in the programme where just grossly inaccurate and baseless. For example it said that there was no evidence to suggest that Prophet Muhammad was born in Macca. It is well known by the Arab historians that Prophet Muhammad was born in Macca. This fact is so easy to prove and trace back, for example Prophet Muhammad was from the Quraysh tribe who lived in Macca.

    Another point mentioned in the programme was that the Qur’an talks about farming and agriculture whilst Maccans where not farmers, so the programme suggests that Islam must have originated somewhere else like Syria. This is very dubiuos, any historian of Islam whether Muslim or non Muslim knows that Prophet Muhammad spent the last 13 years of his life in Madinah which is a place of farming and agriculture.

    It boggles the mind as to how such a historically inaccurate programme could make it onto television. Its the equivalent of some Joe Blogg coming on television and denying that World War II ever took place. Such a programmed undermines the very status of channell 4 as a reliable source of information on any topic. Perhaps it has the integrity and common sense to revoke anything that was mentioned in the programme and perhaps let reliable experts, Muslim or non Muslim present accurate facts about the history of Islam.

    Reading pages of comments following Channel-‘s ‘Untold Islam’ show, I do find it amazing and just perplexing that after over 45 years of living in this part of the world – Western Europe – as to why the European mind and philosophies are so fascinated and equally as perturbed by the great Scriptures and Religions of the world , be Judaism, Christianity Islam whose origin in reality are either East or South of Mt. Carmel in the Middle East. And all other religions from thereafter directs one eastwards towards India and as far as Japan. I do not understand as to why that these religions cannot not be left alone without the constant criticism, undermining and challenging of their Books and their God by some intrigued western ‘historian’ who cannot find his own God in his own midst. I often ask myself as to why God in his infinite mercy has overlooked the Europeans to not to favour them with a Prophet and Scriptures of their own to keep them amusingly preoccupied with the fascinating subject of Religion. As one has not been born as yet or descended from the heavens, I will will have to keep waiting for this European Messiah to satisfy European curiosity.. Perhaps one day! Until then I’ll stick to what I know and inherited. I know what I wake up to every morning. There is no deity worthy of worship except one God. Islam keeps me straight and narrow. That’s good enough for me!

    I’ll tell you something quite ironic. You’re talking about there being no God and religions being man-made, yet complaining about immigration. Have you ever studied bible prophecy, or genuinely attempted to understand it and it’s history? I have and i’m a muslim. In the book of Daniel, Chapter 2, there’s a very accurate prophecy about the future 1 world government, ‘feet of iron and clay’ the prophecy is connected with a more detailed prophecy from the Book of Revelation (new testament). In fact if you did understand these bible prophecies, you’d see the larger picture instead of moaning on the internet lol. “A little knowledge of science makes man an atheist, but an in-depth study of science makes him a believer in God.” Francis Bacon said!

    You know you didn’t evolve from an ape, although I agree humans can behave like animals. Did you not ever question when it was that cells decided to group into male cells and female cells? Or, why the other animals didn’t just evolve too and give humans a run for their money. All the other animals could have just collaborated and got rid of the meddlesome humans. There has to be order in the universe, we can’t survive if everything is random, unpredictable chaos. We humans are very, very weak.

    Remember: We in general act according to our level of understanding. And the more you understand about this amazing universe, you know that it didn’t happen by chance and there is the signature of an All Mighty Creator.
    Iftikhar Ahmad
    http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk

  5. Moslems failed to improve our nonbelievers human life and thus have no right to preach to us nonbelievers, or impose on us nonbelievers .
    The very fact that too many moslems tried to prevent us nonbelievers from analyisng a documentary about islam just proved that moslems are extremely backward by nature. Islam is oppressive and totalitarian, whenever it have the upper hand or whenvever islam were given too much power to oppress or spread.