By now there must not be a single table in Italy with anything on it but napkins. H/T M
Something tells me though, that watching him smash it is far more merciful than hearing him play it.
Category Archives: war on the arts
Imams of Sacramento’s two biggest mosques declare music forbidden by Muhammad
Jihad Watch:
“It’s a chain reaction – when people listen to music, they ask for alcohol, which will lead to adultery.” Yep. Happens every time. “Music has magic, it gets in your blood and makes you want to get up and dance and forget your personality. Your butt is shaking and she’s going to get up and her butt is going to shake – where is the religion then?” Where indeed? That’s why Muhammad — and Lenin — hated music.
Islam and art in Scandinavia
H/T Snaphanen.Dk
Bollywood and film dying in Muslim Kashmir as the area of India becomes more Islamic
H/T M
Is Music Forbidden in Islam?
While this is all very interesting it is also worth doing a google search on musicians killed in Islamic nations for doing music.
Opposing Views:
Whether music is permitted in Islam has been a subject of considerable debate. According to a number of conservative religious authorities, Islam clearly teaches that music is forbidden, or haram. However, other Muslim commentators dispute this claim. Instead, they assert that Islam takes a more moderate approach, allowing believers to enjoy music so long as it does not violate core principles of the faith.
Banning Music
The question of whether music is haram has received significant attention in both the Muslim community and the mainstream press. For example, after popular rock artist Cat Stevens became a Muslim, he not only changed his name to Yusuf Islam, but he also set aside his music career after concluding that it was inconsistent with his faith. Moreover, as “The New York Times” has reported, Muslim authorities in places such as Kashmir, Afghanistan and Mali have banned music on the grounds that it fosters lust and causes people to neglect their spiritual responsibilities.
Why Music is Haram
According to Islamic scholars who believe that music is forbidden, proof of its being haram can be found in the Quran and the accounts of Muhammad’s life recorded in collections called the Hadith. As noted in a number of conservative fatwas, or authoritative religious opinions, music violates the Quran’s prohibitions against lust, adultery and frivolous speech. Similarly, a fatwa published on Islam Question and Answer notes that according to one passage in the Hadith, Muhammad predicted that the Muslim community will go astray by permitting believers to indulge in silk clothes, alcoholic beverages and musical instruments.
Two men threaten Danish gallery
Original translation by:
The Observer
From this Danish site:
Because some people are so sensitive to graphic descriptions of Muhammad with items in his turban, I have decided to obscure the drawing, even though I don’t think it will matter to them.
The owner of Gallery Draupner in Århus, Denmark was earlier today threatened by two men. The Gallery has previously exhibited drawings of Muhammad.
The two men wore uniform-like outfits and were carrying an aluminum baseball bat and a gun-like object. They made verbal threats to Erik Guldager, the owner of the gallery, but as of yet it is not known why the threats were made. The police in Århus have confirmed that the two men showed up at the gallery around 1 pm, and that the police were alerted of the incident at 1.15 pm. The episode only lasted for a few minutes. It’s too early to say whether the threats are directly linked with the gallery’s cooperation with Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.
The gallery has previously exhibited Westergaard’s most famous drawing, “Muhammad with a bomb in his turban.” Last weekend the gallery hosted an ‘invite-only exhibition’ for collectors from several countries where copies of the Muhammad drawing were sold. Guldager wasn’t harmed in the incident, but he has told Berlingske (Danish newspaper) that he is deeply affected by it. The two perpetrators are described as Mediterranean looking. One is approximately180-185 cm tall and with a muscular build. The other one is approximately 175 cm tall and with an average build. They left the gallery in a black car with a known registration number, but the license plate of the getaway car belongs to another car that has been reported stolen.
Armed men “behead” Syria poet statue
H/T CB
NOW Media:
Unidentified members of an armed group in northern Syria have cut off the head of a statue honoring Abbasid-era poet Abu al-Alaa al-Maari, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday.
“An armed group in the [rebel-held] town of Maaret al-Numan have cut off the head of a sculpture honoring the memory of poet and philosopher Abu al-Alaa al-Maari, who was born in the town,” said the Britain-based Observatory.
It was not clear who the vandals were but Syrian activists from the town accused Al-Nusra Front Islamist extremists for the act, and distributed a photograph of the ruined sculpture which was also riddled with bullets
“I am not surprised. This neighbourhood has changed”
SDAMATT is doing really stellar work these days. Thanks Hermano
Muslim girl band
‘A priceless heritage destroyed by Islamic barbarians’: Dawkins outrages Muslims with comments over extremists damaging library
H/T Bains
Daily Mail:
- Richard Dawkins’s tweet over library in Timbuktu, Mali, causes offence
- Some of 600,000 followers say professor was unjustly attacking Islam
- Later clarifies he ‘does not of course mean all Muslims are barbarians’
By Mark Duell
PUBLISHED: 06:14 GMT, 31 January 2013 | UPDATED: 09:07 GMT, 31 January 2013
Atheist Richard Dawkins has managed to outrage another religion after calling Muslims ‘barbarians’.
The 71-year-old author of The God Delusion was referring to the severe damage caused by Islamist extremists to a sacred library in Timbuktu, Mali, but his remarks were seen as insulting to all Muslims.
Oxford University academic Professor Dawkins told his 600,000 Twitter followers on Tuesday: ‘Like Alexandria, like Bamiyan, Timbuktu’s priceless manuscript heritage destroyed by Islamic barbarians.’
Comments: Richard Dawkins said Timbuktu’s manuscript heritage was ‘destroyed by Islamic barbarians’
But his comments were criticised, with some followers claiming he was unjustly attacking Islam and others saying he should be considering vandalism acts by Christians, reported the Daily Telegraph.
Muslim Twitter user ‘Shawa5i Al Nasseri’ from the United Arab Emirates said: ‘You call us barbarians, truly no respect’, before later adding: ‘How do you explain this “destroyed by Islamic barbarians?”’
More…
Professor Dawkins responded to the comments by saying: ‘You mean you were one of those who burned the books in Timbuktu? No? I thought not. So I wasn’t calling you a barbarian was I.’
He also said to all of his followers: ‘I was calling Islamic barbarians barbarians’, adding: ‘By “Islamic barbarians” I mean those Muslims who are also barbarians. I do not of course mean all Muslims.’
Backlash: Professor Dawkins’s comments on Twitter were criticised, with some followers claiming he was unjustly attacking Islam and others saying he should have considered vandalism acts by Christians
Music festival in Saudi Arabia
I was all turned around about this issue. Saudi Arabia does have music festivals and I suspect a lot of them are Jimi Hendrix fans.
H/T Magic Martin
The answer to the ancient question is now known. If you give a million monkeys a million typewriters and wait a million years you will not get a single line of Shakespeare. What you will get, is a million broken and feces covered typewriters.
Short version here
Charlie Hebdo explains its reasons for doing a cartoon history of Mohamed.
A couple of quick points.
As I have mentioned before, I think the reason they are doing this is to prove that Muslims react viciously and violently to any discussion of their religious dogma no matter how truthful or accurate it is, if it is not done in a manner sufficiently worshipful and submissive (in the case of non-Muslims discussing it) for Muslim sensibilities. Remember the Islamic definition of slander is not ours.
Secondly hadiths and sharia law is ignored in his reasoning, depending only on Koran. In any case, the results of this experiment, while predictable, are still beneficial. People need to see that Islam is not just another relatively benign religion but an intolerant and domineering fascist ideology that must be excluded from Western democratic institutions.
Familiar looking, ‘angry Santa’ painting, pulled from auction.
H/T Snaphanen.Dk
Here is a google translation of a story about another work of art being censored for one reason or another and a spoiled Christmas celebration because of objections to a public tree.
Paintings outrage Islamic hard-liners in Pakistan
National Post also covers this
H/T Magic Martin
AP:
By ASIF SHAHZAD
The Associated Press
LAHORE, Pakistan —
Pakistan‘s leading arts college has pushed boundaries before in this conservative nation. But when a series of paintings depicting Muslim clerics in scenes with strong homosexual overtones sparked an uproar and threats of violence by Islamic extremists, it was too much.
Officials at the National College of Arts in the eastern city of Lahore shut down its academic journal, which published the paintings, pulled all its issues out of bookstores and dissolved its editorial board. Still, a court is currently considering whether the paintings’ artist, the journal’s board and the school’s head can be charged with blasphemy.
The college’s decision to cave to Islamist pressure underscores how space for progressive thought is shrinking in Pakistan as hardline interpretations of Islam gain ground. It was also a marked change for an institution that has long been one of the leading defenders of liberal views in the country.
Pakistan is an overwhelmingly Muslim nation, and the majority of its citizens have long been fairly conservative. But what has grown more pronounced in recent years is the power of religious hardliners to enforce their views on members of the population who disagree, often with the threat of violence.
The actual paintings:
Muslims in Syria doing what Muslims do best.
These guys are destroying statues for allah. After all, one of Mohamed, the founding thug of Islam,’s most celebrated actions is when he slaughtered the quite decent people of Mecca and then had all their 360 archetypal statues destroyed in the great temple preferring instead, a vagina shaped rock that his own followers circle and kiss for some reason. So no surprise that wherever Muslims go they will follow that example.
H/T Magic Martin
Islamists silence the musicians who guide rural Mali
H/T EDL Buck
CS Monitor:
For centuries, griots have directed ceremonies, smoothed over disputes, and served as repositories of history and genealogy. Now in northern Mali they are out of a job.
By John Thorne, Correspondent / November 27, 2012
Bamako, Mali
Down a street of red earth near the outskirts of the Malian capital, a family is preparing for the naming ceremony of its newest member – an event now forbidden in their northern home region by Islamist militants who seized control there earlier this year.
“They say sharia forbids it,” says Rakiatou Wallet Tannal, an aunt of the newborn girl, referring to Islamic law. “That’s their sharia, not the sharia of Muslims.”
The stricture hits especially hard for families like Ms. Wallet Tannal’s, part of a hereditary caste of bards and storytellers found across West Africa and commonly known by their French name, “griot.”