Editorial

29 September 2008

The religion of peace and fastest growing religion in the world is seeking to excommunicate one of its number. Usually the process works in the reverse direction.

Examples abound.

She was born and bred a Christian. In 1962 her father was unfaithful to her mother when she was a child and abandoned his family to marry a Muslim woman. His young daughter continued to live with her Christian mother as a Christian, just like her ancestors did since before the religion of peace invaded, occupied and annexed her ancient country. Under the Sharia-based Egyptian law, however, her father's marriage to a Muslim woman made this little girl a "Muslim". She was not aware of her “conversion”. Almost four decades later that little girl, Shadia Nagui Ibrahim, was charged with fraud for writing her religion as Christian on her 1982 marriage certificate. The fastest growing religion in the world was not prepared to let this “Muslim” out of its fold.

Maniam Moorthy being buried as a Muslim

He was a national hero for becoming the first Malaysian to climb Mount Everest in 1997. After spending his last years as a paraplegic and his final days in a coma, when former lance corporal Maniam Moorthy died, his body was snatched from his Hindu wife and family by the Malaysian Islamic authorities who claimed that he had converted to Islam shortly before his death. He was given a Muslim burial.

Gar Eng Gor, a practising Buddhist all his life, who was mute and paralysed during a long, terminal illness was also declared a "Muslim" upon his death. The Malaysian state of Negri Sembilan snatched his body from his grieving family to bolster the ranks of the religion of peace.

The fastest growing religion in the world was not prepared to let these “Muslim” corpses out of its fold.

Lina Joy

She converted to Christianity almost two decades ago and was baptised and confirmed in a Malaysian Catholic church. The Malaysian national identity card issuing authority had allowed her to change her name from an obviously Muslim-sounding name, Azlina Jailani, to a more or less Christian-sounding name, Lina Joy. When she applied for a licence to marry a fellow Christian she was told that she was still a Muslim. The case went to the Malaysian Federal Supreme Court which ruled 2 to 1 (two Muslim justices against one Christian justice) that Joy was still a Muslim. The fastest growing religion in the world, which prides itself in winning zillions of converts a day in the West, was not prepared to let this “Muslim” out of its fold.

Last month he ratified the new constitution of the "100% Islamic" country where he had been head of state for nearly three decades. In 1964 he graduated as the top pupil in Islamic law from Sunni Islam’s premier centre of indoctrination, the al-Azhar medrassa in Cairo, Egypt. In 1965 he fell foul with his country by protesting its recognition of the State of Israel and exiled himself to Nigeria to teach Islamic law.

This is the ecclesiastical gentleman who is being prosecuted for depriving his pericranium of hisute appendages addressing an assemblage of mullahs This is the mosque that Gayoom built

After returning home some years earlier, in 1978 he was elected to the presidency of the republic on an Islamic platform. From the early 1980s he had presided over the establishment of scores of Islamic indoctrination centres and he was often invited to address international gatherings of top mullahs. Under his rule, the religion of peace was able to trample on centuries of proud Maldive tradition by coercing thousands of women into wearing the burqa veil in a climate of 99 percent humidity and 30 degree heat. He withdrew recognition from the State of Israel and established "diplomatic relations" with the PLO.

He ordered the censoring of the images of Pope John Paul II and later, Pope Benedict XVI from the Maldive print and electronic media out of fear that the very sight of the Roman Pontiff would result in mass conversion to Christianity and complete annihilation of the religion of peace in the Maldives. At his orders the Maldive police regularly confiscate and incinerate Bibles. Admittedly he accepted a knighthood of the Grand Cross of St. Michael and St. George from the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, but a little old nun who was travelling in transit through Malé airport once had her crucifix ripped off her neck by his officials. He unsuccessfully petitioned the Government of the Seychelles to ban the broadcast of a Divehi language Evangelical radio programme out of that country.

The constitution that he signed into law last month declared for the first time in the history of his country, albeit rather ambiguously, that every citizen of his Indian Ocean archipelago shall be a Muslim.

And yet in spite of all this, as I write, this man is on trial in the very Supreme Court that he had established just days before. The charge is apostasy. Islamic mullahs are claiming that President of the Republic, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom is not a Muslim. They are petitioning the Supreme Court for his excommunication from the religion of peace. The mullahs who backed the constitutional clause that says that every Maldivian shall be a Muslim are now saying that they were wrong all the time. One Maldivian, they insist, is definitely an infidel. The fastest growing religion in the world has made an exception and wants this “infidel” out of its fold.

Mr. Gayoom's response to the accusation, apparently, was brief, according to one visitor to this site. “Everyone who says the shahadah [the Mohamedan oath of allegiance] is a Muslim” said the president of the republic, with a mischievous grin, and continued: “therefore I am one”. This is slightly less pointed than the response that my paternal uncle made when faced with the same accusation in the 1940s. The late Uthuruganduvaru Manippulu (1904– 1965) said “I know I am a Muslim because my mother told me so and, to my knowledge, my mother never lies”.

One of the charges Mr. Gayoom faces is his failure to coerce the last few patriotic women, including his wife and daughters, into wearing the burqa veil. Another of the charges brought against this eminently distinguished mullah as proof of his apostasy seems to be specifically designed for the benefit of useful idiots in the West: Mr. Gayoom also stands accused of denying the Second Coming of Jesus Christ!

Allah certainly works in mysterious ways.

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