Posted on 10/30/2006 9:47:29 AM PST by presidio9
Sydney - A cleric who said women who didn't wear a veil were 'uncovered meat' asking to be raped will keep his job as the spiritual leader of Australia's 350,000 Muslims.
Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali was confirmed as Mufti of Australia on Friday after the governing body of Sydney's largest mosque rallied behind the Egyptian-born cleric.
'The board is satisfied with the notion that certain statements made by the mufti was misinterpreted,' Tom Zreika, head of the Lebanese Muslim Association, told local radio. Zreika said that as a sop to public opinion, al-Hilali wouldn't be preaching until he goes on the haj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in six weeks' time.
Prime Minister John Howard, who hand-picked al-Hilali for a 14-member Muslim advisory panel after the London bombings in June, said remarks in Arabic in a fasting-month sermon to 500 worshippers that compared unveiled women to food left for stray cats were 'appalling and reprehensible.'
Howard warned Muslims they risked a backlash from other Australians if they continued to back al-Hilali against mainstream opinion.
'If it is not resolved, then unfortunately people will run around saying 'Well, the reason they didn't get rid of him is because secretly some of them support his views,'' Howard said.
Others in his government have called on al-Hilali to be prosecuted for inciting sexual assault or even to be deported.
'If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden, or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem,' al-Hilali said.
In an address that was tape-recorded by The Australian newspaper, Al-Hilali said a woman who stayed home and was veiled would be safe from sexual assault. 'If she was in her room, in her home, in her hajib (veil), no problem would have occurred.'
The 66-year-old apologized for the comments, saying he had 'only intended to protect women's honour,' but he refused calls for him to resign.
A defiant al-Hilali, speaking amid cheering supporters as he emerged from Friday prayers at Sydney's Lakemba Mosque, said he would not be resigning until 'after we clean the White House first.'
The mufti has frequently referred to Howard, United States President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair as the 'axis of evil.'
Al-Hilali has stirred controversy before. He has denied the Holocaust, defended suicide bombers, described as 'God's work' the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, and blamed Jews for 'all the wars and problems that threaten the peace and stability of all the world.'
Al-Hilali, who doesn't speak English despite having lived in Australia for 24 years, referred in his sermon to gang rapes in Sydney in 2000 that led to several Muslims being sentenced to long jail terms. He was critical of the judges, saying they had shown no mercy.
Only white women were victims, and they were told they were targeted because they were 'Aussie pigs.'
Howard, who had hoped an outcry over al-Hilali's defence of rape would force the mufti to resign, expressed frustration.
'What has to happen in relation to this man is that the issue has to be resolved by his own community,' Howard said. 'He was not expressing Australian values, I can say without fear of contradiction that what he said is repugnant to Australian values.'
Al-Hilaly, in his sermon, also caused offence by saying women were mostly to blame for adultery. 'When it comes to adultery, it's 90 per cent the woman's responsibility,' he said. 'Why? Because a woman possesses the weapon of seduction.'
Waleed Aly, a spokesman for the Islamic Council of Victoria, condemned al-Hilali and called for his resignation, saying his views sought to normalize immoral sexual behaviour.
'We would have liked to have seen some form of fairly strong censure just given the magnitude and the gravity of the comments,' Aly said.
But other prominent Australian Muslims refused to criticise the mufti. Imam Abdul Jalil Sajid, the chairman of the Muslim Council of Great Britain, who is visiting Australia, sprang to the mufti's defence. 'I know he is one of the greatest Muslim scholars on earth and Australia is blessed with him,' Sajid said.
If an arab national does get caught, the next stop is Gitmo, not a comfy bus ride back to Nogales. The point is, terrorists don't NEED to sneak in, so why would they?
I think it's a national security issue. I posted one comment which you took exception to and that's fine, but don't expect me to not answer. Remember your first post to me was a question. The hijacking was done by you after a one sentence comment after I had expressed my point on Islam which was after all the main topic at hand. I won't bother to post the various sites reporting strange goings on on our borders. It would be wasted on the audience reading it.
short of closing our airports to all arab men.
Stupidity is, of course, your right. It is an immigration issue. It may also be a criminal justice issue. It is definitely NOT a national security issue. Perhaps you are not clear on the concept. 19 of 19 9/11 hijackers entered this country legally. Fanatics who try to lump the Mexican border in with 9/11 are as bad as gay rights activists who try to lump their cause in with the Civil Rights Movement. Where are you posting from anyway?
BRAVO BUMP!
I hope the Aussies burn the s**t hole mosque to the ground, tar and feather and horsewhip this filthy piece of dung, and wipe their arses on pages of the Koran before his eyes.
A nice idea, but given our dependace on foreign oil it is totally impractical. BTW, Bush 41 had an Arab White House Chief Of Staff.
Classic denial. The facts don't suit your agenda, so you ignore them. Again, arabs don't need to sneak into our country over the Mexican border. The fact that the nine Egyptian students were able to disappear for long enough to carry out a suicide attack only underscores this.
Answer the question: Where are you posting from?
Quite true. As I noted, I got your point, originally, it was just the idea of there actually BEING some elevated risk of being caught by BP that struck me funny. I kept thinking of that video where the House candidate from PA, Raj Bhakta (13th Dist.), was riding back and forth across the Rio Grande on an elephant accompanied by an eleven-piece mariachi band wailing away on the American shore.
Unless you are willing to clarify, I am forced to interpret your response to mean that you are posting from somewhere that arabs have never herd of. Terrorism is not a threat to you. Sure Tim McVeigh types may bomb the heartland. Foreigners will always go for the most bang for the buck. That means NY, Washington, and possibly LA.
If you did live in NY, you might understand. I was working three floors from the top of 1 WTC as recently as the spring of 2001. I went to a couple of dozen funerals in September and October of that year. I walk by the pit every day. There are soldiers with rifles in front of my building, and in the transit system here. Terrorism is CONSTANTLY on my mind. When I see people like yourself using terrorism to advance your own unrelated political objectives, frankly, I find it extremely insulting.
FWIW, I support a wall, but I am smart enough tounderstand it has nothing to do with national security.
LOL Make sure you "fix him" so that his 72 virgins will remain eternally virginal.
"Helping to make Moo's even more unwelcome in the Civilized world. Keep it up mate..."
Thank God they've made it impossible to do anything BUT kick their keisters out.
Dump this chump in the Outback...
Don't agree here.
"..Perhaps Mexicans are taking your jobs, or dilluting your culture, but they are not flying airplanes into buildings. Period."
Right on here.
"...potential terrorists in their bras."
but given our dependace on foreign oil it is totally impractical
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