Nice. Last month the Muslim Canadian Congress gave Irshad Manji a freedom of speech award – the first “Mansoor Hallaj Freedom of Speech Award.”
I like the picture.
I also like the way Tarek Fatah explained it in the Toronto Sun.
Earlier this week, the Kuwaiti parliament voted to institute the death penalty against any Muslim who is judged by Islamic clerics to have insulted God.
As medieval as this may sound to the ears of the Western non-Muslim, the threat is real and the target is the millions of Muslims, like me, who are fed up with the clerics who have sucked the joy out of our lives for centuries.
The tradition of silencing dissident Muslims by beheading them is not new; its most famous victim was beheaded in Baghdad over a 1,000 years ago and the most recent ones are the victims of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Today, at the Toronto Public Library on Palmerston Street, a group of Muslims are going to say “Enough is enough.” They will honour a 21st century Muslim reformer in the name of a 10th century Muslim rebel who died for speaking the truth. This will be their rebuke to the Kuwaiti parliament.
Where would you prefer to live? Tarek Fatah’s Toronto or Kuwait?
According to the propaganda, Allah is supposed to be omnipotent, omniscient, and various other omnis. If he’s feeling insulted, then he should be able to deal with the insults himself. He shouldn’t need people to take care of that sort of thing.
Not that I’d live in Toronto…..but there are times when I’d happily move back to Ottawa*; maybe after the November election results come in.
* or Vancouver, Halifax, Montreal or Victoria…..
I guess you can add to that “Omnisensitive” or an infinite level of sensitivity. Any insult hurts to an infinite level (think of it being like a two year old not getting the candy he demanded). The fear of the faithful is that if Allah’s feelings get hurt too often he will destroy the universe in a fit of pique.
An al-Haq! An al-Haq!
I don’t know this story. What’s my google search string?
@Robert B.:
Mansoor al Hallaj. A Persian Sufi mystic best remembered for his declaration while in a trance, “An al Haq” – “I am truth.” It was considered heretical because al Haq (the Truth) is one of the names of God in Islam.
Mansoor’s Wikipedia article.
Toronto, where I do live and I used to listen to Tarek on a show called Friendly Fire.
He always gave me the hope of reason after a day of ‘allah predicted Quantum physics’ type proselytising in the common.
Can’t really say the Wikipedia article is that encouraging. Sitting in a trance in Mecca for a year. Making the MYSTERIES of the woo more accessible to the average joe. Mystical woo-woo…
Just like one can despise the Communist Party but have no love for Falun Gong. (Not saying his philosophy is anything like thta rather authroritarian cult)
Still…the recipient of the award is certainly meritorius.