Category Archives: Islam

‘British and Islamic values can go hand in hand’ says Dr Rowan Williams on visit to Lincolnshire

Some choice quotes from the article linked above:

Dr Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, was a special guest at an event at the Lincolnshire Showground that saw thousands gather for four days of debate about Islam. He told the crowds at Living Islam that Muslims have brought back “open, honest and difficult public discussion” as one of their “greatest gifts” to the UK.

At the Lincolnshire Showground, Lord Williams talked about British values and Islamic values and how the two are often reported as being at odds with each other.

Yet he blamed the media for much of this. “In Birmingham, we have seen a local parish and a mosque combining together to provide family services and youth activities,” Lord Williams said.

“It’s really important that we respect and try to understand diversity of conscience and belief and conviction.

“These are not just about what makes us British – they’re about what makes us human.”

He also criticised some sections of the media for portraying Muslims as “un-British”, and slammed the “illiteracy” about religion among Government figures.

Lord Williams said that he believed the most difficult thing facing British Muslims was the media’s emphasis on what made Muslims different.

“I think that Lincoln Cathedral is one of the greatest treasures of Western Europe.

“I have seen that there’s an academy in Scunthorpe that Muslims and Christians study at, St Lawrence Academy, and it’s a brilliant example of integration between different religions in Lincolnshire.”

The event, which was organised by the Islamic Society of Britain, attracted between 4,500 to 5,000 visitors throughout the four days.

Shamima Hossain, 44, who had travelled to the event with family from Norwich, said she had enjoyed Lord Williams’ speech.

“I think he’s amazing,” she said. “As a Muslim, it’s really pleasing to hear a Christian be so encompassing of all faiths.”

H/T M.

Now have a read of the first few chapters of G.K. Chesterton’s ‘The Flying Inn’

From chapter II written in 1914 where a British community leader tries to convince the rest of England that a debt is owed to Islam and that to give up things distinctly British because Islam forbids them can only be a good thing after all:

“. . . do we indeed owe nothing,” the diplomatist was saying “to that gesture of high refusal in which so many centuries ago the great Arabian mystic put the wine-cup from his lips? Do we owe nothing to the long vigil of a valiant race, the long fast by which they have testified against the venomous beauty of the Vine? Ours is an age when men come more and more to see that the creeds hold treasures for each other, that each religion has

a secret for its neighbour, that faith unto faith uttereth speech, and church unto church showeth knowledge. If it be true, and I claim again the indulgence of Oman Pasha when I say I think it is true, that we of the West have brought some light to Islam in the matter of the preciousness of peace and of civil order, may we not say

that Islam in answer shall give us peace in a thousand homes, and encourage us to cut down that curse that has done so much to thwart and madden the virtues of Western Christendom. Already in my own country the orgies that made horrible the nights of the noblest families are no more. Already the legislature takes more and more sweeping action to deliver the populace from the bondage of the all-destroying drug. Surely the prophet of Mecca is reaping his harvest; the cession of the disputed vineyards to the greatest of his champions is of all acts the most appropriate to this day; to this happy day that may yet deliver the East from the curse of war and the West from the curse of wine.

The gallant prince who meets us here at last, to offer an olive branch even more glorious than his sword, may well have our sympathy if he himself views the cession with some sentimental regret; but I have little doubt that he also will live to rejoice in it at last. And I would remind you that it is not the vine alone that has been the sign of the glory of the South. There is another sacred tree unstained by loose and violent memories, guiltless of the blood of Pentheus or of Orpheus and the broken lyre. We shall pass from this place in a little while as all things pass and perish:

“Far called, our navies melt away. On dune and headland sinks the fire, And all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre.

“But so long as sun can shine and soil can nourish, happier men and women after us shall look on this lovely islet and it shall tell its own story; for they shall see these three holy olive trees lifted in everlasting benediction, over the humble spot out of which came the peace of the world.”

And so we see. A novelist 100 years ago this year saw the slingers of pernicious spin doctoring to try and sell Islam as a religion of peace and miscible with values that Islam was in fact, created to destroy utterly and then erase even its memory as being from ‘the time of ignorance’ [sic] before islam was founded.

And we hear it everywhere from cowards and opportunists that see a fast buck or some community position and temporary bureaucratic advantage by selling out not just their own people, but their own culture, their own history and ancestors and even reason itself.

Eeyore for Vlad with a big HT to M.