From: Sean Gabb <cea01sig@gold.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 20:11:51 +0800
To: Alan Horowitz <alanh@infi.net>
Subject: Re: Online Zakat Payment: Religious tithe.
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SV4.3.91.960215205427.20308D-100000@larry.infi.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960216105547.22887B-100000@scorpio.gold.ac.uk>
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On Thu, 15 Feb 1996, Alan Horowitz wrote:

> On Thu, 15 Feb 1996, Sean Gabb wrote:
> 
> > where Islam is concerned, there 
> > are so many individuals behaving badly that we are justified in thinking 
> > the whole religion a force for bad.
> 
> > But the fact is that most Moslems 
> > venerate old men in beards, who think that anyone who disagrees 
> > with them about God should be put to death, that a woman with a 
> > clitoris is a kind of devil, and that Western classical music is evil.
> 
> 
>     And your travels in the Islamic world consist of?   And you 
> personally know how many Muslims?  And you have read how much Islamic 
> sources?
> 
I never visited Nazi Germany, or the Soviet Union under Stalin; but I 
think I am justified in regarding them as nasty places, hostile to any 
concept of liberal civilisation.  Equally, though I have done my best to 
avoid visiting the Islamic world, I have seen enough *religious* Moslems 
here in England, and read enough of their material, to know that Islam is 
more often than not a force for evil.

Turning to literature, I have read my way through dozens of pamphlets 
sent me by the Islamic Propagation Centre International of Birmingham - 
the one that strikes me as most hilariously dishonest is "The Status of 
Women in Islam" by Dr Jamal A. Badawi.  I will upload a review of this 
tomorrow.  I also have a copy of the Koran, translation and Commentary by 
A. Yusuf Ali; and I have read much of Al Ghazali and a French version of 
"The Regency of the Theologian" by the late Ruholla Khomeini.

Of course, even if I list everything I have read about Islam or by 
Moslems, and read three times more, you would still come on this list 
questioning my right to form an opinion.  One tactic - used ad nauseam by 
the socialists - is to dismiss whatever I have read as works 
unrepresentative of the true essence and canon.  Well, I say that I know 
quite enough about Islam to regard it as a horrible religion.  I still 
disagree with Tim as to what response is appropriate.  But I agree with 
him that it would be a nasty day for humanity if Islam were ever to 
become the faith of a powerful and expansionist state.

Sean Gabb,
Editor
Free Life.