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July 25, 2006

Australia: Islamist Preacher Challenges Archbishop To Debate

We have covered the controversial, though accurate, criticisms of Islam which have been made by the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell. We first mentioned the Archbishop on May 4, and again on the 5 May, referring to speeches and articles that he made. The most important of these was an article entitled "Islam and Western Democracies" which was written in Florida.

This should be read in its entirety as it is cogent, and represents a wake-up call to those who sit on the fence, thinking that their liberal societies can survive the militaristic assaults of Islam. As Pell states: " An anorexic vision of democracy and the human person is no match for Islam."

On May 5 we reported on the reactions to Pell's descriptions of Islam as a violent faith. Pell had the support of Prime Minister John Howard, who said that Cardinal Pell had been "a strong proponent of good relations between Christianity and Islam".

Keysar Trad, of course condemned the Cardinal, saying that earlier he had made "ill-informed comments".

On June 5, we reported that Cardinal Pell had further outraged Islam again by declaring that Islam was more warlike than Christianity. He said that Australia had not been much changed by rising Islamist threats since 9/11, "But this could change depending "on how many terrorist attacks" Islamic extremists could "bring off successfully"."

Now Cardinal Pell is in the news again, as reported by Catholic News and Australia's Herald Sun.

Cardinal Pell, with years of theological training, is being challenged by a fanatical Muslim preacher, who calls himself Abu Hamza (not the hook-handed convict). Abu Hamza runs the Islamic Information and Services Network (IISN). This Abu Hamza has challenged the Cardinal to an open debate about whether the Islam or Christianity is more violent. If judged on doctrinal points alone, the former would automatically be deemed less violent than Islam, which values "jihad".

Hamza runs a mosque in Coburg, in Melbourne, Victoria, and has about 250 congregants at his services. The website of IISN is virulently "anti-Zionist", which is not surprising, considering that Abu Hamza is a Salafist. Salafism is the most hardline and extremist of Islamic ideologies, and it derives from the Kharjites who emerged in North Africa in 657 AD. This movement was responsible for wars and murders, including the death of "Imam Ali" which led to the schism between Shia and Sunni.

"Abu Hamza" is of Lebanese origin, and is sometimes called Samir Mohtadi.

The challenge, if taken up by Cardinal Pell, would be quite interesting, especially if it was moderated and televised. To get an idea of how ranting and manic "Abu Hamza" is, you can find his arguments against Cardinal Pell in an MP3 download, available HERE.

The recording is poor, and lasts just over 14 and a half minutes. For the first 2 minutes and 58 seconds, Abu Hamza praises Allah, so you must be patient to hear his words.

In brief, the "argument" against Pell does not exist, other than damning the Cardinal for attacking Islam. Hamza states of Pell: "He said something that has made the Muslims very angry. This ignorant man does not know Christianity, let alone Islam". He also calls the Cardinal a "clown".

Hamza starts his "argument" by mentioning how in Deuteronomy, a man caught raping a woman was forced to pay 50 pieces of silver to her father and then should marry her.

This is better than the treatment Mohammed ordered for the wives of the Jewish tribesmen of Banu Qurayzah. After their menfolk were all decapitated, the women were given up as slaves as well as their children. The prophet allowed his warriors to perform rape (az'l) upon their women captives.

The next two instances are seriously poor arguments against Christianity. Hamza cites how Noah became drunk, and how he then lay naked.

He then brings up the case of Lot, whose two daughters got their father drunk and then one of them had sex with him while he was asleep.

That is what Hamza states. He then launches into a rant:

"You know what? If there's one book that should be banned, it is the Bible. So I would not allow my sons or my daughters or my friends or my enemies to read that Bible. I am too embarrassed to read some of the things in the Bible. If you want more information, look at Evilbible.com. Evilbible.com and it's got nothing to do with the book. I love my (inaudible). George Pell? An archbishop? How dare you make comments like this. How dare you make your comments in these circumstances that we're in. When we're in desperate need to break this barrier. And here you are you absorb (?).this situation, you incite hatred and you accuse Islam - it's not a case of the Muslims - it's not that you speak of Omar Allam (?) or Abu Hamza or this man or this man, we don't care - but we care when someone speaks about Allah. We care when someone speaks about our religion. That's what we stand for. That's what makes us honourable............."

Hamza rants about how Muslims are honourable and how it is more honourable to live one day in honour than 1,000 years in shame. He describes the Catholic church, covering up for "hundreds of years" the activities of priests who indulged in paedophilia. Hamza conveniently forgets that Mohammed the so-called prophet was a paedophile, having sex with a nine-year old girl.

He then condemns Catholic "clubs" for allowing drink to be served. Hamza then launches into a description of the Crusaders in Palestine, saying that 70,000 Palestinians were slaughtered in Palestine. He says "Palestine shall NEVER be called Israel."

And then he finishes off with ad hominem slurs against Cardinal Pell's integrity.

If this is some measure of Hamza's debating skills or trains of reasoning, he will fail miserably in convincing anyone of his argument.

In response to the rantings of Hamza's sermon, Cardinal Pell said this week from the Vatican: "I am not sure how much Mr Hamza's comments improve the situation, but there are no teachings of Jesus, unlike Mohammed, which advocate violence against followers of other religions."

At the start of the attack upon the Cardinal in his sermon, Hamza made mention of Pell's comment, made in May, in which he said: "In my own reading of the Koran, I began to note down invocations to violence; there are so many of them, however, that I abandoned this exercise after 50 or 60 or 70 pages."

I would like to see the debate. Abu Hamza states that Islam is the fastest growing religion, but AIDS and chlamydia are the fastest growing diseases, and that does not automatically justify or validate their existence.

According to an article in Free Republic, Abu Hamza along with another firebrand Australian cleric, Sheik Mohammed Omran, believes that the incidents of 9/11, which caused Cardinal Pell to start questioning Islam, were the work not of Muslims, but of the US government.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at July 25, 2006 10:55 PM

Comments

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