What a sad and divisive blow to the left's written journalism all this endless focus on Islam that Medhi brings to the NS. I've been ignoring his pieces for a while cos I'm soooo bored of them and the horrible, pointless comment trails after (please don't read this as a refutal of all, just a sadness of the futility of trying to have a rational argument about this stuff - don't bode well for world peace does it). For some reason I relapsed this morning. Oh, dear...oh, and I ain't fucking middle class either.

And by the way, no one ever mentions the treatment of Salman Rushdie. Is anyone aware that although he remains unharmed, people connected to the publishing of the book were stabbed and some died. Unless my info is incorrect, the Satatnic Verses remains ilegal in the Muslim (or Islamic - I'm confused now with Medhi's 'Guns don't kill people - people kill people' argument) world. With the exception of Turkey. And also, Medhi, your smearing of some of the posters here as EDL etc is so sloppy, offensive and unacceptable in someone holding such an senior and important post in one of the left's key written publications. I would never want to see you silenced but they really ought to give you a more appropriate job.

If you think you have problems now, just wait till Turkey joins the EU.

To save you the effort of reposting what you've said before:

"In the section from the speech quoted prominently (and, once again, out of context) at Harry's Place, I seem to refer to atheists as "kafirs", as "people of no intelligence" and as "cattle". In fact, I am quoting from the Quran - where the word "kafir" simply means "non-Muslim" or "non-believer" and it is in this sense (in fact, in its atheistic sense), and no other, that I used it. I do, however, acknowledge that in the hands of a few Muslim extremists, the word has taken on more sinister connotations. Perhaps it is a time for a debate on the future of this term - or, alternatively, to reclaim it from the bigots and radical Islamists. The Quranic phrase "people of no intelligence" simply and narrowly refers to the fact that Muslims regard their views on God as the only intellectually tenable position, just as atheists (like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris) regard believers as fundamentally irrational and, even, mentally deficient. As for the metaphorical use of the word "cattle", that has no more pejorative charge than does the word "sheep" when applied by atheists to religious believers - plus, you will note that I also refer to unthinking Muslims as "cattle" in the same speech"

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/dissident-voice/2009/07/islamic-extrem...

So you were quoting from the Koran. And you were referring only to atheists, not all non-Muslims. (But "kaffir", "unbeliever", "atheist" and "non-Muslim" are pretty interchangeable here, aren't they? Either way, it looks like bigotry.)

As for "that has no more pejorative charge than does the word 'sheep'", well... It obviously is pejorative and obviously is a bigoted way to refer to people who have different beliefs from you. And I'd say "cattle" is a lot more ugly than "sheep". It has very different connotations. And it isn't much of a defence to say that atheists also use bigoted language.

When you were attacked for referring to non-Muslims as animals, you said "in fact, I was quoting from the Koran". Now you say "Find me a single verse ... which portrays non-Muslims as 'not quite human'".

"As for the metaphorical use of the word 'cattle', that has no more pejorative charge than does the word 'sheep' when applied by atheists to religious believers"

Here's one final thought experiment.

Compare and contrast:

"Christians/Muslims are sheep"
"Atheists are cattle"
"Homosexuals are dogs"
"Jews are pigs and monkeys"

Equally harmless and metaphorical?

I would never use language like that, of anyone. We all know where it leads. But I'm an atheist and a homosexual, so what do I know?

@Keir

you're such a twit. Do you know anything about exegesis? Check it out.

Shouldn't there have been a discussion amongst European politicans before bringing so many Muslim immigrants into Europe ?

Mehdi Hasan refers above to Ziauddin Sardar's review of an American book about the Islamification of Europe.

I have just read the review. Don't know the author or the book...

However, Sardar is talking out of his hat. He does not make a very sensible case at all.

Perceived labour shortages after the War should not have been met by destroying the fabric of European society.

Why doesn't Mr Hasan defend people's right to mock Islam ?

For example, " I don't like what you say about Islam, but you're perfectly entitled to say it."

Mehdi Hasan - I'll pick up your challenge
http://thebritishresistance.co.uk/the-editor/631-mehdi-hasan-ill-pick-up...

never fancied living in an islamic country but I would back Mehdi anytime over that bigoted israel apologist Melanie Philips to her a palestinian childs life is worth nothing.Still don't fancy moving to an islamic republic.

fuck me prod little himself

fuck off why don't you?

bertie bert, you're racialist filth. Fuck off. You are no more British than the worms in my veg patch. Unlike them you're not wanted. Again, FUCK OFF.

Sigh......Mehdi Hasan won't learn, will he ? He had this argument with Philip Dodd on Radio 3. Any religion is what it is. You have to judge the tree by the fruit. So Islam is EXACTLY what Muslims do. Communism ( in theory ) was a great idea. In practice, it was utter garbage. Islam, in practice, is not successful. Is there any Muslim society anywhere on earth in which NS readers would like to live ?

Tunisia ?
Saudi Arabia ?
Pakistan ?
Bangladesh ?
France ?

Nah, didn't think so.

Jesus H Christ, not the "1.2 billion people across the globe" emotional blackmail nonsense again.

You would have thought that, as a journalist, Mehdi might be leery of such a rank cliche, and such an undignified crutch of global homogenised victimhood. Seems not.

The switch from Islamic practice (what Liddle is talking about) to the Quran is a classic, predictable elision, pulled from the darkest NS days spent apologising for and denying the horrors of actually-existing socialism.

Disturbingly, while Liddle thinks people are good, Mehdi thinks they are bad, and the book is good instead. Mehdi has defined himself therefore as a fundamentalist.

I'm afraid that, if the book motivates people to do routinely barbarous things and on occasion extraordinary ones, then that book is itself questionable.

An example: I can't remember the last time a catholic wife was stoned to death at the door of her father's house because her husband "discovered" she was not a virgin on his wedding night.

Taking Mehdi's approach, this is a human failing in travesty of a noble religion, one that forms part of the chain of Abrahamic religions we are frequently reminded about. If Christians were to get back to basics, stoning to death women, children and idolaters would be almost banal in its frequency.

Telling it the other way around: there is no requirement in the Quran that women should wear either the hijab or the burqua. They, like the refusal to stone the unvirginal wife, are therefore a human and societal derivation from the book i.e. not good. Loosed from any specious tie to scriptural authority, we can see that the rationale for such extensive covering of women is based on the ugly mores of the human structures in which it is promulgated, namely patriarchy, repression, ignorance, a stupid misunderstanding of human sexuality, and base sexism. As such, Mehdi - a feminist and leftist - should be against both. But he isn't.

Taking these two examples, on Mehdi's own terms, shows how utterly specious Mehdi's argument against Liddle is.

Oh, and Mehdi, your infatuation with that grim sanctimonious prig Peter Oborne is utterly nauseating.

"f*ck off why don't you"

The famous tolerance of the 'progressive' left

I was never a Commie to begin with, thinkov. If Mr Hasan is the NS's best writer, however, the mag has more problems than I realised.

Would the NS employ someone who said that "Muslims live like animals" ???

Doubt it.

I prefer Mark Steyn.

Thanks Bertie Bert for linking to that website.

Very refreshing to read. I bet Hasan doesn't try to explain the lies it highlights in his piece. But then truth is a stranger to him. Only a Dhimmi would be taken in.

Mehdi Hasan you are a lying little toad!! Now everyone will see and hear your real opinion on disbelievers...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APAPqT3QdFU

Five hundred years ago, Catholicism faced the problem of violent means justifying an apparently divine end. But it turned out, once the thing had been opened to the light of day, that the Bible did not justify violence of any kind, except that of the civil ruler in the task of keeping order. So Christianity, in the form of Protestantism at least, was not proscribed, but actually prescribed as the model for society. The New Testament helped to form the basis of Western civilisation, supporting democracy and individual rights. Though the Israelites were, Christians are not told to stone anyone, not even their own. No persuasion was to be used other than verbal, no compulsion was to be used other than refusal of association. Dealing with crime was to be the responsibility of the civil ruler in the task of keeping order, and no other. Freedom to believe or not was seen as of the essence in civilised society.

But with Islam, the violence, the compulsion, the confrontation with democracy, is there, in the book.

There is a choice to be made, Muslims.

> "Find me a single verse of the Quran which justifies or allows "forced marriages" or "female circumcision", or which portrays non-Muslims as "not quite human". I dare you."

In Mr Hasans very own words.

“The kaffar, the disbelievers, the atheists who remain deaf and stubborn to the teachings of Islam, the rational message of the Quran; they are described in the Quran as, quote, “a people of no intelligence”, Allah describes them as; not of no morality, not as people of no belief – people of “no intelligence” – because they’re incapable of the intellectual effort it requires to shake off those blind prejudices, to shake off those easy assumptions about this world, about the existence of God. In this respect, the Quran describes the atheists as “cattle”, as cattle of those who grow the crops and do not stop and wonder about this world.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APAPqT3QdFU&feature=player_embedded

Is Miss Warsi qualified to condemn 'Islamophobia' when she is guilty of 'homophobia' herself ???

It's strange that The Spectator is more liberal than the New Statesman. I don't think Rod Liddle has been anywhere near as vicious as Mehdi Hasan.

Who is the liberal ?

Roderick Liddle is a hero.

Fascinating debate here, but can we just go back to basics for a second. Mehdi - your fundamental problem seems to be with Rod Liddle saying that "the ideology of Islam" lends itself to:

(a) homophobia, b) the subjugation of women, c) anti-Semitism d) viciousness towards so-called apostates, e) authoriatianism and f) a somewhat medieval approach towards crime and punishment

So in that case, do you believe that a) there is no correlation between nations of the world that espouse those attitudes (relative to the UK) and those that are in some sense muslim theocracies, or b) that there is another reason for the observed correlation? If you don't accept Liddle's point, then it must be one or the other.

well said Oliver

@Mehdi

"If you listen to the whole speech, in context, you'll see that the Harry's Place 'expose' is a hatchet job and disingenuously cut out of context"

I did say that that was my impression at the time. I'm not interested in tedious Harry's Place spats and I'm well aware of what they do.

I don't remember the original details of this. I'd happily view the whole of the speech if it's available online.

"I must point out that 'cattle' is indeed a metaphor and was applied in that speech to Muslims and non-Muslims alike, as it is in the Quran"

I'm well aware that it's a metaphor. What's at issue is its meaning and whether it's acceptable to refer to anyone as "non quite human". I don't think it is.

I wasn't aware that you were also referring to Muslims. That does make a difference. I haven't seen the whole of the speech.

The context is you urging Muslims to engage with secular thinking. Fair enough. But why refer to those who fall short - Muslim or non-Muslim - as "cattle", as "not quite human" because they're not thinking in the right way?

I'm not familiar, either, with how the Koran uses this language. If we accept that this is intended to refer generally to people who don't think, who "do not stop and wonder about this world", then we're left with a Bernard Manning-style defence that it's OK to use obnoxious language as long as we're obnoxious about everyone.

It seems to me terrifically misjudged to refer to anyone, when making a serious point, as "cattle". It may not be bigoted or extremist but it is, at the very least, unwise.

"But you don't want to hear this, I suspect, you just want to come to a conclusion - Mehdi Hasan = extremist - which fits with the agenda of so many trolls on this site."

Hmm. Do you really think that's fair? I don't have an "agenda". I'm certainly not interested in defending Rod Liddle. What was that about leaping to conclusions?

Medhi, I think you are a little manipulative as you should be well aware about the verses in the Quran that refer to these things in regard to women and you are deceptive to pretend that the Hadiths do not exist as valid sources. Do you want to explain why you did not ask about the Hadiths?

Just in the Quran - husbands are given permission to beat their wives (Sura 4:34). Also interesting reading on this is Sura 4:11, Sura 2:282, Sure 4:24, Sura 4:3, Sura 4:129 . Of course I guess it is fine with you that men are given permission to marry 4 wives and have as many sex slaves as they desire. Indeed in the Quran it talks about the possession of women in the context of slavery in Sura 23:6 and Sura 70:30.

In the Hadiths Muhammed had a vision of hell and saw that it was mostly full of women. Also of course Muhammed allowed the rape of war prisoners and did not prevent his men from doing this. And of course Muhammed is recorded in the Haddiths as having his own concubines (Haddith Bukhari Vol 9 book 89, 321 along with his many wives (which he was give permission to have in the Quran (Sura 33)) - including a 6 year old who he slept with once she turned 9.

Just to also mention to other Hadiths - Muhammed is quoted as saying women have "deficient minds" which he argues is proved because of their "lack of common sense".

All I have done here is quote verses in the Quran and mention events in just a few of the Hadiths - is this Islamaphobic? I have only addressed the topic of women. Now Medhi will you explain the value that you put on the Haddiths? And explain these verses?

I bet you do not "Fisk" anything I have just typed without hyperbole. I expect you to ignore it as it addresses your challenge or just claim some mis-translation has taken place. But do not patronize me in this way - I am aware of the Arabic having attended classes for 10 years of my life as I was brought up a Muslim.