Shaykh Taj al-Hilali Hospitalized

Hat tip to Austrolabe, which has been covering the developments very well. Shaykh Taj al-Hilali has been admitted to hospital after an angina attack (may God restore his health) in Lakemba Mosque, Sydney. And in a statement [PDF format] he isssued since then, he has apologized (sort of):

I confess that this analogy is inappropriate and unacceptable for the Australian society and the western society in general.

I am deeply saddened and distressed by the acts of some devious groups which lurk in the dark watching me, and who cannot tolerate the moderate balanced way...

Well, my viewpoint on this is that this analogy i.e. Guilty Meat But Innocent Cats is wholly inappropriate for not just Australian/Western Society but also Eastern Society. It is strictly a case of basic morality. On Islamophobic, racist sites like LGF and Jihad Watch, they're having a real go at this. Take for example this slur, all nonsense of course, by Robert Spencer (my regular readers may have observed that I don't provide links to sites featuring Islamophobic content as I have no wish directing more traffic their way):

This sort of thing may just seem silly, or even cute, until one realizes that to anyone who takes the Sheikh's claim seriously, Australia is now Muslim land. Islamic law stipulates that Muslims possess by right any land that once formed part of the House of Islam; this is a key element of the claim to Israel put forward by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The same claim has been advanced, by the way, for America.

I'm sad to note that Islam is often judged by the slightest error on the part of its followers. Nobody spoke when some rabbis justified the bombing of innocents in Lebanon and the second Qana massacre by proclaiming that there were no innocents in wartime:

The Yesha Rabbinical Council announced in response to an IDF attack in Kfar Qanna that "according to Jewish law, during a time of battle and war, there is no such term as 'innocents' of the enemy."

"All of the discussions on Christian morality are weakening the spirit of the army and the nation and are costing us in the blood of our soldiers and civilians," the statement said.

Yesha Rabbinical Council is the recognized authority on Jewish religious questions in Gaza and the West Bank. This week it decreed that at least 56 Lebanese citizens of Kfar Qanna, including at least 34 children, targeted by an Israeli air strike, were not “innocent.”

The council’s edict reflects existing Israeli military/religious law. The chaplain for the IDF forces says, “In war, when our forces storm the enemies, they are allowed and even enjoined by the Halakah to kill even good civilians, that is, civilians that are ostensibly good.”

At least some of the Israeli religious heads are more honest and forthcoming about the intentions (as played out) by their military than the American guardhouse lawyers who have beleaguered the rest of the world with the phrase "collateral damage" during their vicious slaughter of millions for more than half a century now. P.G.Wodehouse wrote there are is no use apologizing if you make a mistake: good people will forgive you anyway, but bad people will use your apology against you. Welcome to humanity. Everyone knows that the statements by this rabbinical council doesn't speak for Judaism or ordinary Jews per se. But guess what, Islam doesn't have the privelege of unequivocal understanding. It is the Other. Whatever can be used against Muslim immigrants and our crusade against their oil-rich homelands will be splashed on our papers. C'mon, The Australian, you who are a flagship paper owned by the corporate lord Rupert Murdoch have been digging your heels on this issue as it runs parallel to your right-wing agenda. You love nothing more than to watch Muslims stumble...brings on the almighty dollar.

IOL is reporting that the Australian Federation of Isamic Council (AIFC) will vote to abolish the Mufti post that is presently held by Shaykh Taj al-Hilali. Amir, the author of the article Guilty Meat But Innocent Cats, commented well before this news appeared:

AFIC should just abandon the ridiculous idea of a mufti and stop trying to turn Islam into an “organised religion” with its own clerical class and “official leaders”. Of course, that would mean AFIC would itself have to go but then that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Hmmm...so it was AFIC who came up with this ridiculous concept in the first place.