Mohammed Ali’s Blog

In an unprecedented move, an Open Letter signed by 38 leading Muslim religious scholars and leaders around the world will be sent to Pope Benedict XVI on Oct. 15, 2006. The letter, which is the first of its kind in several centuries, was a collaborative effort signed by such prominent figures as the Grand Muftis of Egypt, Russia, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, Istanbul, Uzbekistan and Oman, as well as leading figures from the Shia community such as Ayatollah Muhammad Ali Taskhiri of Iran. The letter was also signed by HRH Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal, the Personal Envoy and Special Advisor to King Abdullah II of Jordan. Western scholars have signed the document, including California scholar, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson, Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr of George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and Professor Tim Winter of the University of Cambridge.

Christianity and Islam make up more than half of humankind in a rapidly interconnected world, the letter states, and it is imperative that both sides share a responsibility for peace to move the debate away from the anger of the streets toward a frank and sincere dialogue of hearts and minds that furthers mutual understanding and respect between the two religious traditions.

You can read the letter at the following URL

http://www.islamicamagazine.com/online-analysis/open-letter-to-his-holiness-pope-benedict-xvi.html

The actor Stephen Berkoff (who played in movies such as Beverly Hills Cop, Star Trek Deep Space Nine) has defended the dress code of muslim women (i.e. Hijab) in a letter to the Independent.

Veil puts fashion slaves to shame

Sir: Oh dear, what a huge palaver about the Muslim veil. For everyone, it touches some little flame of anxiety.

For Jack Straw it concerns his ability to read the mind on the human face. Can the voice alone not carry infinite shades of meaning? Was poor blind Mr Blunkett that much less capable of reading the inner thoughts of others? For the articulate Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (9 October) it carries an unending proliferation of horrors from sexual repression and slavery to the inability to go swimming. If that is what they wish then let them be, since I have to admit that they are still far more elegant and dignified than some Western women whose sense of self-respect and dignity has long been eroded by their slavish following of the most absurd iniquities of fashion. When I see young women in the street with their buttocks hanging out and their thongs almost obscenely exposed, it hardly inspires admiration, more, I’m afraid, a feeling of revulsion.

I have to admit that the veil does not do this. Archaic it may be but certainly not sluttish or repulsive. There are so many abominations of human dress in the West that we may have just become adjusted to our own slovenliness. I would certainly put the fashion police on our own tacky style but I suppose everything’s up for grabs now in our terror-ridden society.

STEVEN BERKOFF

http://comment.independent.co.uk/letters/article1838337.ece

The so-called “Salafs” have been destroying muslim heritage over the past few decades, enforcing their radical idea that muslims might one day worship these sites, hence commiting “shirk”. Some of these sites include where the Prophet himself (pbuh) was born, his beloved wife Khadijas home, other family members and companions, turned to rubble.

http://www.westernresistance.com/blog/archives/001966.html