Among certain Deshi people there is confusion and ignorance about the usage of the term "Islamist'. It does not simply mean 'follower' of Islam, therefore any old Muslim is not automatically an Islamist. An expert in Muslim religious matters is not called an Islamist. In the Western academia, Islamic Studies experts were called Arabists, though that term is out of use now. In the modern world the Islamic fundamentalists have put together a virulent culture of Islamism that is mix of fascist politics and Islam resembling little connection with the traditionally practiced religion. Islamists, then, are the practitioners of this modern Islamism.
The following piece by Tarek Fatah describing his meeting with a bunch of Balochi Muslims in London will further clarify the term.
Farida Majid
From: tarek.fatah@gmail.com
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 07:21:02 -0400
Subject: 'O Mulla', Your belly is like a steamship | Islamic clergy mocked at Muslim event in UK
To: muslimchronicle@yahoogroups.com
While much of the Islamic world was committing collective frenzied hatred, I was in the United Kingdom and Geneva. While in London, I was researching the archives at the British Library for my next book Jinnah's Orphans; while in Geneva I had been invited to speak at the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) on human rights violations in Pakistan-occupied Balochistan.
The trip left me both exhausted and depressed. Europe is sliding down a path of economic ruin while Islamists are exasperating race relations by triggering resentment and anger among ordinary, white Europeans. Native Europeans belonging to the centre-right to the ultra right of the political hue, unjustifiably link signs of a visibly emboldened Muslim population as part of the reason for a decline in their living standards.
Islamists relish this development.
Most Muslims I met are as petrified of the Islamist rise as are mainstream Europeans. But they appear powerless in face of the challenge by oil-funded jihadis. Muslim Europeans worry about race relations getting worse, while Islamists see such a prospect with glee. Unfortunately, Muslims who oppose Islamism and defend free speech are lost in the din of the jihad.
Last Saturday I attended an event with over 500 British Muslims from Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. They danced and sang, read poetry — men and women, girls and boys, granddads and babies, not one of them would fit the profile of the angry Muslim.
These London Muslims were scornful of the raving lunatics who are inspired by the Saudis and the Iranians. Not one of them had seen that film — not one cared about it. One elderly poet, originally from Balochistan, rocked the house with his mockery of the "Mulla." Akbar Barakzai, 70, who heads the Baloch Human Rights Council in the U.K., has lost none of his fire as he took the stage and mocked the Islamic clergy in his famous poem, O Mulla:
Your belly is like a steamship
Your neck resembles that of a rhinoceros,
O Mulla
Your robes and beard reek of scents and perfume
But your body smells like an animal shed,
O Mulla
You indulge in deceit and trickery
Now stop eulogizing your amazing ways,
O Mulla
We are of course not worthy of your path
Go ahead excommunicate us from your community,
O Mulla
You piously carry the Koran on your shoulders
But your heart is full of animal dung,
O Mulla
We do not need your heavenly houries (virgins)
For us our homeland is the most wondrous paradise,
O Mulla.
The crowd roared in delight. The homeland he was referring to was Balochistan, today occupied by both Pakistan and Iran.
Most Muslims are sick and tired of the Islamist enterprise against the West. Just this week, the Arab American commentator Hussein Ibish, addressing Islamists, said: "To hell with you."
Writing in Lebanon Now magazine, Ibish wrote: "Blasphemy is an indispensable human right. Without the right to engage in blasphemy, there can be no freedom of inquiry, expression, conscience or religion."
Responding to calls by Islamic countries to ban insults to Islam, Ibish wrote:
"(T)he OIC wants to globally shut down freedom of thought, conscience and speech to further "protect" Islam from perceived slights. There is only one appropriate response to this, in language the devout should be able to easily understand: To hell with you."
There are millions of Muslims who wish to stand up for freedom of speech, but we are undermined when U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appease the Islamists, instead of confronting their fascist ideology.
The following piece by Tarek Fatah describing his meeting with a bunch of Balochi Muslims in London will further clarify the term.
Farida Majid
From: tarek.fatah@gmail.com
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 07:21:02 -0400
Subject: 'O Mulla', Your belly is like a steamship | Islamic clergy mocked at Muslim event in UK
To: muslimchronicle@yahoogroups.com
September 26, 2012
'O Mulla'
Islamic clergy mocked in Balochistani's poem
Tarek Fatah
While much of the Islamic world was committing collective frenzied hatred, I was in the United Kingdom and Geneva. While in London, I was researching the archives at the British Library for my next book Jinnah's Orphans; while in Geneva I had been invited to speak at the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) on human rights violations in Pakistan-occupied Balochistan.
The trip left me both exhausted and depressed. Europe is sliding down a path of economic ruin while Islamists are exasperating race relations by triggering resentment and anger among ordinary, white Europeans. Native Europeans belonging to the centre-right to the ultra right of the political hue, unjustifiably link signs of a visibly emboldened Muslim population as part of the reason for a decline in their living standards.
Islamists relish this development.
Most Muslims I met are as petrified of the Islamist rise as are mainstream Europeans. But they appear powerless in face of the challenge by oil-funded jihadis. Muslim Europeans worry about race relations getting worse, while Islamists see such a prospect with glee. Unfortunately, Muslims who oppose Islamism and defend free speech are lost in the din of the jihad.
Last Saturday I attended an event with over 500 British Muslims from Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. They danced and sang, read poetry — men and women, girls and boys, granddads and babies, not one of them would fit the profile of the angry Muslim.
These London Muslims were scornful of the raving lunatics who are inspired by the Saudis and the Iranians. Not one of them had seen that film — not one cared about it. One elderly poet, originally from Balochistan, rocked the house with his mockery of the "Mulla." Akbar Barakzai, 70, who heads the Baloch Human Rights Council in the U.K., has lost none of his fire as he took the stage and mocked the Islamic clergy in his famous poem, O Mulla:
Your belly is like a steamship
Your neck resembles that of a rhinoceros,
O Mulla
Your robes and beard reek of scents and perfume
But your body smells like an animal shed,
O Mulla
You indulge in deceit and trickery
Now stop eulogizing your amazing ways,
O Mulla
We are of course not worthy of your path
Go ahead excommunicate us from your community,
O Mulla
You piously carry the Koran on your shoulders
But your heart is full of animal dung,
O Mulla
We do not need your heavenly houries (virgins)
For us our homeland is the most wondrous paradise,
O Mulla.
The crowd roared in delight. The homeland he was referring to was Balochistan, today occupied by both Pakistan and Iran.
Most Muslims are sick and tired of the Islamist enterprise against the West. Just this week, the Arab American commentator Hussein Ibish, addressing Islamists, said: "To hell with you."
Writing in Lebanon Now magazine, Ibish wrote: "Blasphemy is an indispensable human right. Without the right to engage in blasphemy, there can be no freedom of inquiry, expression, conscience or religion."
Responding to calls by Islamic countries to ban insults to Islam, Ibish wrote:
"(T)he OIC wants to globally shut down freedom of thought, conscience and speech to further "protect" Islam from perceived slights. There is only one appropriate response to this, in language the devout should be able to easily understand: To hell with you."
There are millions of Muslims who wish to stand up for freedom of speech, but we are undermined when U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appease the Islamists, instead of confronting their fascist ideology.
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