While we’re always pointing out the insanity of Western religion, let us not forget Islam. This video is the Islamic equivalent of snake-handling: though it doesn’t endanger the speaker, it endangers other Muslims. Yasser Al-Habib is a Shi’ite Muslim cleric living in London; he has a checkered history and fled Kuwait to avoid imprisonment. He now spouts his vicious nonsense on British television. Please take five minutes to watch this and remind yourself of the poison of religion.
You might think this is funny, and the biology is completely insane (about two minutes in he implicates an “anal disease” that produces a sense of unease calmed only by semen); but remember that, as Wikipedia notes, “acccording to the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) seven [majority-Muslim] countries still retain capital punishment for homosexual behavior: Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen.” In other Muslim countries it’s illegal and punishable by up to life in prison. (I have some doubts about the punishment in Pakistan). Now homosexuality is illegal as well in some non-Muslim countries (e.g., Belize, Trinidad and Tobago), and I doubt that government executions for homosexuality are common anywhere, but there’s little doubt that religiously based bigotry, as spouted by this cleric, inflames the severe anti-gay bias of many Muslims.
It also behooves us to remember the internecine hatreds within Islam. Here Al-Habib claims that the Shi’ites are protected by Allah from passive homosexuality, but Sunni Muslims can be turned into homosexuals or (if female) “whores” when an infant is penetrated by the finger of the Devil.
Remember that this was broadcast by a cleric living in the UK on a UK television station (Fadak TV., headquartered in London) a bit over two weeks ago.
h/t: Malgorzata
I don’t know whether to facepalm or laugh my arse off … or shudder.
The stupidity barbed so bad I has to stop after 30 seconds.
Burned
You didn’t get to the really stupid parts yet.
His pinkie ring duly noted.
Is there some kind of agency that generally deals with misinformation on television?
If so, they’d better not be cowards and do something. This is just what Ayaan Hirsi Ali was talking about on a video I saw of her at the Melbourne convention the other day – people are scared of cracking down on lies and harmful practices (even female genital mutilation) for fear of being racist, but by not doing something, you become even worse than racist by being complicit in the act.
Islam isn’t a race … no matter how hard Muslims and their useful idiots try to convince us.
Granted there is no racist element, but this clerics words could be construed as amounting to incitement of religious hatred. Somehow, I don’t expect the Metropolitan Police to invite the Attorney General to take action.
The UK has an agency that deals with misleading content in adverts, but not really during programmes. There are broadcasting standards codes, but they’re more to do with graphic sexual/violent content, and ensuring political balance in news reporting, than content which is simply wrong-headed or misleading.
Given that this channel doesn’t each make the top 200 or so listed in the BARB viewing figures, I doubt that Ofcom (which enforces those codes) would even have noticed this broadcast.
//”people are scared of cracking down on lies and harmful practices (even female genital mutilation) for fear of being racist”//
“Female genital mutilation”?
Why bother including the “female”?
People are terrified of cracking down on ALL genital mutilation.
By far the most numerous victims of non-consensual genital cutting are males, and by far the biggest reason that we have yet to outlaw this horrific invasion of men’s privacy is because we’re scared of being declared “anti-Semitic”.
I get sick and tired of people trying to show their concern for human rights while they’re busy focusing just on the genital cutting of females.
You are no advocate for human rights if you’re ignoring the millions of males who are victims of genital cutting that they have not given their consent to.
This reminds me that there are really two ridiculous comments that one hears again and again with respect to religion and its defenders. The first is that everything will be fine and dandy as long as people respect each other’s beliefs (patent nonsense, since so many beliefs are absurd, harmful, or both). The second comment one is likely to hear in the context of criticizing a particular religion. People will try to somehow deflect the criticism by saying, “but you can find similar problems with all religions”. That may be true, but the speaker is clearly implying that the world’s popular religions are EQUALLY pernicious. They are not – on average, some are a much greater threat to civilization and rational behavior, and there is nothing wrong with pointing this out.
I also note his absurd assumption that a individual is BORN as a full-fledged member of a particular religion, and is miraculously protected from the devil if he or she “is” a shiite. Dawkins tries to expose this silliness by making it analogous to saying that an infant is born as, say, a Republican or a communist.
Yeah, the christian practice of murdering doctors isn’t any threat to civilization and rational behavior, Right?
The countries that allow christians to run wild aren’t that much different from the countries that allow muslims to run wild. There was recently a woman that advocated killing children that she declared witches, she was invited to advocate her practices at a christian conference in the United States. There is a christian man with a strong following in the United States that advocates beating and torturing children.
Muslim christians have the same potential for doing harm as mormonic christians do. The sheep will do as their masters (popes, priests, imams, etc.) tell them to do, to the sheep anything can be justified as the will of their doGs.
Your point is well taken, but that is exactly why I used the phrase “on average.” I am the last one to defend Christianity or Catholicism (with its institutional and systematic sheltering of pedophiles). ALL religions are a threat to civilization and rational behavior – religion indeed poisons everything. BUT, I still would contend that, at present, Islam is an especially potent source of terrorism and barbarism – by codifying so much evil over so much of the world (e.g., with its the death penalty for apostacy). I find the claim that all religions are EQUALLY bad is as disingenuous as the claim that all religions are worth of respect.
If I was positioned under a bomb that was being dropped from 20,000 feet I would be just as terrified as I would be if I was standing next to a bomb disguised as a person. Or a bomb disguised as a remote controlled flying toy, err umm drone.
I’m not a doctor nor do I have any children that have been declared witches so christianity doesn’t evoke an immediate sense of terror in me. I am exposed to the targets used by muslims so am more inclined to feel terror when imagining that my friends could become victims to those tactics. However, if I were the child of a parent reading a beat your children christian book I would be terrorized.
The United States and allies have an overwhelming ability to control the air, which is comforting to the citizens in those countries but I’m sure it is terrorizing to citizens in the countries that the United States chooses to bomb.
I think the real difference is in the physical place that you stand more than in the type of christianity deployed to kill you.
The United States isn’t innocent when considering the drive to dominate other countries economically, some of those being dominated don’t like it much and devise plans using religion as motivation to strike back. Fear of punishment for eternity after death is a strong motivator for all the various christian cult members, even those that are muslims.
A true, faithful Gob-Shiite!
“God”-shite, surely?
“about two minutes in he implicates an “anal disease” that produces a sense of unease calmed only by semen”
Research? Data? How are Shiites protected? So many unanswered questions…
This isn’t too different, in terms of talk, from what you hear from xian fundamentalists. What they do about it is a little bit different.
they obviously protect themselves by lots of semen injections into the anus.
So, I’m guessing this is why there are no gay goats, sheep, donkeys and camels in Muslim countries?
Allah fucking Muhammad!
Yep, homosexuality is illegal AND rampant in those countries. The world would be SO much more relaxed if they would just come out of the closet and do what they want.
He wears that thing on his head to conceal the fact that he has had a frontal lobotomy.
Just evil, sick, twisted.
Something I’ve noticed a long time ago.
A lot of the fundie xian religious leaders seem to be sociopaths at best and maybe mentally ill at worst.
They often get caught up in financial or sexual scandals and occasionally end up in prison. Think Kent Hovind or Ted Haggard.
I suppose it is the same for the Moslems or any other religion for that matter. Easy work, often quite profitable, and all you have to do is be devoid of morality and spout a lot of hate and lies.
I wouldn’t worry too much about this nutjob as no doubt his words have been noted by the tabloid press. We just have to wait until the ‘news cycle’ comes to focus on ‘mad mullahs’ again. A this moment in time is ‘stormy UK’ a la bad weather in summer, If the sun lowers it’s standards and shows up in summer it will be ‘phew what a scorcher.’
Other ‘news cycles’ are dog bites man (people), hoodies/youth (knife crime), scoungers (benefit cheats), infidelity (celebs cheating), Brrrr (it’s cold in winter) we just have to wait until it’s the ‘mad mullahs’ turn again:-)
They gain power if they run unopposed. It is necessary to expose them no matter how tiring or monotonous a chore it becomes.
Now if you have a better method then I would definitely be interested but, silence and ignoring it isn’t better.
If he isn’t a UK citizen, why don’t they just deport him?
I’ve seen a lot of Moslem clerics spouting Islamofascist hate about the evils of democracy and non-Moslems while living in places like Australia and the UK.
While free speech is protected as an important right and rightly so, I don’t see why a country has to extend it to foreigners who are a negative influence or openly despise that country.
Fled to the UK because the Kuwaiti government threatened to lock him up for his anti-Sunni statements, so a political refugee. Can’t deport him back to Kuwait now anyway, as he’s been stripped of his Kuwaiti citizenship. If the UK tried to send him to a third country, they’d be within their rights to send him back here.
He certainly lives up to his religion.. he talks a load of shi’ite…!
Cue Pat Condell’s next video…
Reblogged this on emmageraln.
It also behooves us to remember the internecine hatreds within Islam.
Everyone should know the back story for the schism between Sunni and Shia’, which arose from a suspected love affair between Muhammad’s youngest wife, ‘Aisha, and a young soldier named Safwan. The consequences of this scandal are enshrined in the Qur’an itself, and resulted in ‘Aisha becoming an important historical figure in her own right, commanding troops in battle.
The violent Sunni-Shiite schism began with a sequence of events called “The Affair of the Lie.”
Here’s the story: ‘Aisha’s wedding gift, a prized necklace, had a defective clasp, and she is said to have lost it in the wilderness during one of the Prophet’s campaigns. Without telling anyone, she went back to find it, successfully, but when she returned to the campsite the caravan had left without knowledge of her absence. ‘Aisha was abandoned and lost in the desert. A dashing and very handsome young soldier named Safwan rescued her and they returned together to the caravan. This led to charges and gossip about ‘Aisha’s infidelity, and the Prophet ultimately had to depend upon God’s revelation via the archangel Gabriel to defend his wife’s honor, which is enshrined in the Qu’ran in the Sura An-Noor (Book of Light), verses 11–18:
This incident also led to the Qur’anic injunction to flog people who make unprovable allegation against “chaste women” with eighty lashes (Sura 24:4):
Muhammad’s cousin, brother-in-law, and standard bearer ‘Ali refused to accept ‘Aisha’s flimsy explanation for her alleged dalliance in the desert with the handsome young soldier Safwan, and counseled the Prophet to denounce and divorce ‘Aisha, advice the Prophet obviously rejected.
When ‘Ali was later elected leader of the believers and successor to Muhammad after the Prophet’s death, ‘Aisha, who had to defend her marital honor against ‘Ali, rejected ‘Ali’s leadership and led a civil war against ‘Ali in the Battle of the Camel in Basra in 656. The ill will between ‘Ali’s faction of believers and ‘Aisha’s led directly to the Sunni-Shiite schism of Islam: the followers of ‘Aisha became the Sunnis and the followers of ‘Ali became the Shia’, meaning literally the “followers of ‘Ali”. All for the want of clasp. And a younger husband.
A good place to read about this episode is Chapter 3 of Bruce Lawrence’s The Qur’an: A Biography. (Hitchens has an excellent book in this series.) Reza Aslan also discusses ‘Aisha sympathetically on the recent and worthwhile PRI broadcast “Reclaiming Islam“, reading from his book.
Thank you for that! I had no idea.
Too bad wireless technology wasn’t around back then. A couple of quick cell-phone photos uploaded to FaithBook might have spared us all from these Sunni-Shiite shenanigans.
Lets just keep in mind that this is what some ‘holy book’ claims about the schism, and there’s probably no good reason to accept the necklace-story as true.
When you look at early islam, there were lots of splits, and a few outright competitors to Mohammed. The Shia-Sunni split get’s really serious with Karbala.
OTOH, I’ve heard some people argue that the Persians, after converting to islam, chaffed under arab rule, and started to tend to favour Shia Islam, practically as a way to throw their nationalistic independence in the arab’s faces. So we might not even have a large branch of Shia Islam today if not for this.
Also notice that there are the Khanjirite’s in the Gulf (the “splitters”), one of the really old, but not so geopolitically important schisms.
And that there are the Alawis in Syria, who are busyily butchering their sunni congeners (and this in a weird example of cross-religious cooperation, as the syrian christians are complicit in the extermination).
this is what some ‘holy book’ claims about the schism
This simply isn’t the case with Islam, which unlike Judaism or Christianity, has a rich history of sources from which an actual history of the early religion can be made. Actual battles were fought with actual armies and actual regional powers and actual historical figures.
The Qur’an has nothing whatsoever to say about the putatively post-Qur’anic schism between Sunni and Shia’.
So this is all about a young chick with a much older husband who couldn’t keep her skirts on? A bit like Christianity, really. 😉
Basically Muslim clerics are allowed carte blanche in Western countries to engage in hate speech directed at any group. This is the fruits of PC.
This is from MEMRI – I wish it wasn’t but it is.
In which case the first thing that I would do is to ask a native Arabic speaker to verify that the translation is correct.
Come on guys – we’re SKEPTICS. That means checking stuff.
Since the beginnig of MEMRI’s existence nobody has found any lies or mistranslations in MEMRI’s material. Good luck to find it this time.
I’d check, but then I’m a skeptic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MEMRI
It would be quite enlightning to look a bit further than Wikipedia. MEMRI has a huge section “Democratization and Reform in the Arab and Muslim World” where many Muslim reformers, liberals and democrats can find a place to publish their texts (usually not published by mainstream Western media), as well as many artcles about situation of women in Muslim countries – written by Muslims or ex-Muslims.
It’s not that we’re trying to find a mistranslation or mistrusting MEMRI’s translation.
It’s that we want to make sure, that when we slap this crazy arse shit all over some islam or religion apologist we have all our duck in a row.
So ‘they’ can’t come back with “Oh but that’s MEMRI, we _all_ know they’re just anti-islam, blah blah blah”.
That’s why we want verification.
MEMRI’s usually seen as biased in so far as they’re all over it when a muslim says something crazy, not that they actively mistranslate a person’s words. I seriously doubt that after saying the stuff in the video above the cleric added “now that’s the sort of stuff a crazy person would say, but as we all know ‘it’s okay to be gay'”.
The choice of subject, the obsession with details. The poor guy is probably fighting the devil in himself. Ted Haggard and the like.
So he’s saying everyone in the world who is not a Shiite is a “passive homosexual” or a whore. Interesting that girls can’t be homosexual. I had thought that “passive homosexual” must mean not actually practicing until he made it clear that it didn’t mean that at all, so now I’m confused. WTF is a “passive homosexual” supposed to be? He also states that they both penetrate and are penetrated so that can’t be the distinction either. His God is a bit of a dick to let all those babies become “passive homosexuals” or whores when he hates those things so much.
Let us all now go and put on our ‘Your god is a bit of a dick’ t-shirts.
Which bit?
The best part about that headline is “Shi’ites are immune”, as if just believing in one particular brand of bullshit could change your biology and/or immune system.
What a pathetic A-hole. I have absolutely no respect for anyone who believes this bigoted rhetoric
God-shite, surely?
Please excuse my staggering ignorance, but what is an “Emir of believers”? I have looked this up on the interweb and it just seems to be yet another name for Muslim cleric.
Is Yasser Habib’s problem that “Emirs of believers” aren’t conservative enough, some sort of “Mullah Light”, perhaps?
Watching this again, it dawns on me that this nutcase is referring “every human being”, other than Shi’ites, having the devil’s finger stuck up one or other of his or her holes.
This is not an attack against all Muslim sects apart from Shi’ites but on the whole non-Shi’ite human race.
Clearly, the man is suffering from some sort of mental illness (I should know, I’m clinically depressed, not helped by watching this sort of nutter who gives mental illness a bad name).
It’s odd to think that, had he been whisked away from his birthplace, adopted by, say, a Christian fundamentalist creationist family, he would be just as nutty spouting their nonsense as well – and he’d still get to slag off his fellow human beings who happen to have been born gay.
I blame the parents!
Do you think that he is gay? I think he is gay . . . yep deffo gay.
Another cancer cockroach. You have to laugh at the benevolence of the West.Do you suppose for one second if the arabs had colonized the west and found oil by their own endeavours and technology, they would have given away one penny’s worth? Once our dependence on oil is gone and they have spent the cash on shiny things and bombs to kill each other,the world can bask in a golden age of freedom,reason,progress and respect for all people.