The Wardman Wire

As a follow-up to my article emphasizing that Muslims are as solidly against the actions taken by the Khartoum Government as the rest of us, let me quote from an article by Osama Saeed - who has a prayer bear called Adam. I don’t know my Islam well enough to determine his rank, but Adam is a pretty important prophet in Islam - the first in the Quranic List.

Osama also makes the charge against the Sudanese Government about Darfur that I can best summarise using a Gospel quote

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”

I’m quoting this post in it’s entirety, and I hope Osama doesn’t mind:

Meet Adam the Prayer Bear. He happens to share the name of a Prophet. This toy is owned by hundreds of Muslims up and down the country. If this is a crime, then there are a lot of Muslims guilty of it.

He’s called a ‘prayer bear’ because he recites various lines when any of his limbs are pressed. As I was putting him away after taking his photo, I accidentally pressed down on one of his paws. He said “In the name of Allah, the most Merciful, the most Kind”. Appropriate.

Crime must be low in Sudan. In this country traffic police get a hard time for ignoring “real crimes” like muggings and rapes. Except we do know that a certain place called Darfur in Sudan has seen thousands upon thousands of murders, rapes and incidents of torture over the last few years.

There has been no justice for the victims, but the Sudanese justice system apparently has time to worry about the names of teddy bears. Many of these war criminals may even be called Muhammad. There are enough ignoble people we know sharing the name of the Prophet, peace be upon him e.g. Mssrs Siddique Khan and Atta.

Muslims in this country don’t have a problem standing with Gillian Gibbons on these ridiculous charges. Predictably though, sections of the media have been quick to exploit their own agendas. Right-thinking people can easily see though that this is the usual case of Liberalism vs Authoritarianism, and clearly everyone in this country is on the side of the former in this case. It’s not another chance to pit Muslim vs non-Muslim.

Osama is right on the button in my opinion.

What we now need is to make sure that no one is using this case to stick labels on any other Muslims. There are occasions when a vigorous critique of Islam is called for - this is not one of them. We need rather to critique the fools responsible for pursuing this case. It’s a pity this needs to be said, and the story to be written - but it does.

I can’t help wondering how the Sudanese Authorities would have reacted if the “blasphemous” bear called Muhammed had started reciting the Shahadah when taken into custody by the Government’s finest. I can see them reacting as did Mr Curry to Paddington. Perhaps the bear would have got the lashes. (*)

For completeness, these are the Arabic versions of Adam’s phrases. Not being an Arabic speaker, I only recognise about half of those:

01 Allah-o-Akbar
02 La-illaha ilallah Mohammad ar rasulullah
03 Asalam-o-alaikumwa rahmatullah
04 Al-humdullilah
05 Bismillah ar Rahman nirahim
06 Subhanallah

(*) I know it is serious, but they Sudan Govt does deserve to be lampooned in this case.

Tags: osama saeed, islam, gillian gibbons, sudanese government, sudan, muslims

[tags]osama saeed, islam, gillian gibbons, sudanese government, sudan, muslims[/tags]