Until I arrived at that paragraph below, I thought that our Irfan had taken the advice he gives to others and taken his pills.

“Leslie has taken an enormous step. She has changed her faith. It will take her some time to change her lifestyle. Human beings are not robots or computers that can be programmed into a new set of habits and behaviour.”

But, here he seems to be assuming that Michelle Leslie will eventually slip into a lifestyle more favourable to the likes of Ameer Ali, whom he rightly castigates. Dr. Ali should refrain from all public comment and find a hobby. His constant whinging does absolutely nothing to encourage people to be Muslim-friendly.

Don’t hold your breath, Irfun. I don’t think you’ll see Ms. Leslie at a mosque anytime soon.

Irfan has mentioned his boozing young friend before:

“I have a Kiwi Muslim friend who sometimes works behind a bar. She serves alcohol, and she enjoys drinking white wine or champagne mixed with orange juice. Both are habits regarded as sinful by mainstream Islam.” - as though the way to a non-Muslim’s heart is to have the occasional snort. But, non-conformist Christian churches also see drinking alcohol as a sin, and some atheists like me don’t drink alcohol, smoke or use illicit drugs, so that makes no impression at all.

I think the idea of Muslims fitting into the fabric of Australian society is about as realistic as Michelle Leslie praying five times a day.

Leigh I think you need to re-read Irfan's piece I'm an atheist too but I find wisdom in his words and it sounds as though you need some.
I've always liked this buddhist saying..

Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others.
Buddh

Irfan you say: "Islam teaches that a good heart and noble intentions matter more than appearances. Some rednecks claim that Muslims believe all martyrs go to heaven into the arms of 72 virgins. But the prophet Muhammad taught that a martyr who dies with the intention of being glorified will in fact be sent to hell. He made the same remark concerning the cleric and the philanthropist who do good deeds just to be seen."
Thank you for clarifying that and i am sorry for the time I once had a go at Islam for supposedly holding that belief. I wonder why people would twist that so? However, I still don't like the idea of people being told that there is heavenly rewards for martyrdom. The terrorists have mostlikely been conned into thinking that they are true matryrs.
Christianity teaches that there will be many self-righteous ones who will be nashing their teeth on judgement day too.

I actually want to go to hell without a doubt - it is the only way I'll get a chance to see Johnny Rotten punch the EMI sell-outs out.
Re: rednecks. Some are okay others can be downright bullies. Don't fall into the trap of your detractors and paint them all with the same brush. I am a bit of a hayseed myself. I spent my formative years on a wheat and dairy farm.
Sometimes, I am easily bored, I like to go on about the things we do. I usually prefer to do this with a little bit of self-effacement and humour. I am, however, often attacked by people who seem to have a bad conscience. There is a kind of cross-over between the flanny crowd and the rural rednecks.
I see ignorance of academic material on one side and ignorance of rednecks on the other. Ignorance isn't being stupid. Smiles are nice.

Fellow_Human rednecks are not generally mentally "challenged" -just as Muslims are not all demons. Please keep that in mind F_H and Irfan.
An ignorant academic for instance would most likely grip a crank handle with his thumb clasped over and end up with a broken hand. A city mate of mine visited me on the farm once. He wanted to have go at shooting my shotgun. We headed off towards the back paddocks. Walking by the tractor shed which also housed three 44 gallon drums of fuel, a speedway car and a few drums of avgas we noticed a rat working its way along the back wall. Without a second thought, old mate lifts up the shotgun "boom!" - the shed didn't blow up but the back fibro wall received nice new window. The chooks went everywhere, the horse jumped the back fence, me missus came running, the neighbours called the cops and the rat went on its way.

Then there is the time we were spotlighting, silly me in the passenger seat with the spotlight, gets out to try and stay on the reflection, at the same time the rifle was plonked across the bonnet - right at my head. Sheeit Marks.

Then who knows that you don't get directly behind a Coastal Brown.

City folks are likely to drown in a wheat silo.

So what, if we love to sit and watch "Smokey and the Bandit" over few beers and drool over Sprint cars? I have moved away from hunting, and politics can be wrong (Mike Horan is the nicest man in politics), but I still embrace the good things in my hayseedness.
We're all ignorant on some things - if you have read this now you're a little more informed. Stupid, or mentally challenged people, are generally afflicted in a way that is beyond control. Everyone else can learn and grow.
I wish for all of us to learn good things - Irfan. Welcome mats are nice.

Rancitas, I think Irfan was using the term "redneck" as "persons who are ignorant and close-minded and celebrate the fact" rather than "rural-dweller". There are certainly as many ignorant folk in the cities as in the country, location is hardly an indicator of sense!

There are too many Muslim spokesperson who consider their opinions are world shaking in importance and there is far too much publicity devoted to airing those opinions.
What may be terribly important in the Muslim community matters very little out of it.
There appears to be an establishment per every two Muslims and each wants their comments given due space.
So far as the young woman is concerned the sooner she sinks into obscurity the better......we have heard enough of her.

I guess the Michelle Leslie 'issue' can be seen from many angles. I guess alot of Christian women may live their lives in a way deemed "immoral' by some Christains who have a particular view on such things. To others, there is no issue taken.

Many Christains are Gay and many Catholic women have abortions. Some elements would disagree, others would tolerate, and others would accept. I guess thats why we have different denominations, and degrees within particular faiths. Religous history is full of splits, reformations, revivals, etc etc. Although it did seem a little 'conveinient' that Ms Leslie was parading in her undies one minute, then embracing Islamic head dress the next, the author does have a good point:

"...belief is a matter of the heart. Only Michelle Leslie and her Creator know what is in Michelle Leslie's heart". I guess thats whats important here.

Cheers

SM

Irfan's humane and tolerant attitude, recognising as it does the central truth that faith (or the lack of it) and faith-related behaviour are a matter for every individual, is a lesson to us all. It is a shame that most Islamic officialdom (if I can use that term), in Australia at least, is like the first-generation migrants of a few decades ago: rigid, tied to traditional social attitudes imported from the "old country" and prescriptive. As if such people have a direct line to Allah, God, the Prophet, Christ or whoever, and it's their duty to impose their narrow perspectives on their co-religionists.

Out of all the comments so far, Silent Majority has pretty much summed it up for me.

Michelle Leslie can worship her god in whichever way she choses, but I did think it was a bit rich to one minute don the burqa and then suddenly turn up in a tank top the split second it was all over. I personally wouldn't have had the confidence to make such a drastic dress change so soon after the event.

To question the right of a woman to dress (religious or non religious) as she wants, is hardcore fundie islamist, no matter how Salam Zreika cloaks it in the article “Michelle Leslie please explain” http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=3853

Or to as Yusif even more subtly attempts: “Leslie has taken an enormous step. She has changed her faith. It WILL take her some time to change her lifestyle. Human beings are not robots or computers that can be programmed into a new set of habits and behaviour.”

What’s this “will” take her some time business? What is Yusif assuming she “will” do as a female muslim bikini model in Australia? Changing a lifestyle to come to terms with islamic laws on “modesty” when you are a bikini model is as insane… even if “moderate” Yusif kindly is willing to allow her “some time” to do this.

Obviously the sad truth of the issue is it’s taking “some time” as in generations for muslims in Australia to “change their lifestyle” to one that is respecting, accepting, dare I say encouraging of Australian laws on freedom.

Muslim or non muslim …. Michelle DOES NOT have to do or change anything as an Australian muslim women she is free by Australian law to wear bikins, drink beer (even even a hell of a lot of it), cuddle pigs or have sex with any man or woman or transsexual they want to. She may even want to criticize Allah who knows.

She IS FREE to do all this under Ozzy law.

There is no sharia and there will never be sharia. Never forget for a second we are actually free here!

Dr Ameer Ali's suggestion (edict?) that Michelle Leslie should choose either to be a "decent" (fully clothed) Muslim or not a Muslim at all is one way to blur the lines between reality and a particular vision of what's ideal.

Another is the media's pumping of the question: In her own mind, is Michelle Leslie a Muslim? That is, has she had a "fake" conversion/reversion to grease the wheels of her case? Quite a few people I've spoken to are deeply suspicious of her conversion/reversion because her behaviour doesn't seem to conform to the stereotype of a covert - that is, "more Muslim than Muhammad". But that's just a stereotype, and one that is perpetuated and reinforced by Dr Ali's comments.

Now I don't think anyone would argue that Dr Ali, as an individual, isn't entitled to say what he thinks is appropriate. But the question is whether Dr Ali IS merely speaking as an individual OR whether he is speaking as a representative of the entire Muslim community, with all its divergent practices and contestable (and contested) theological intricacies. Dr Ali DID seem to be giving the impression that he was functioning as a representative, and yet, with his palm-card account of "acceptable" Islamic behaviour, was simultaneously FAILING to actually represent the diversity of views within the Muslim community as a whole. One can't fault Dr Ali for what he said as an individual Muslim, but one can definitely fault him for appearing to act as a representative while proffering unrepresentative views.

Michelle Leslie changed her story several times during her trial.

This, together with her abrupt change of dress type, lead the public to believe she was not being truthfull and her credibility was blown out the window.

Whether the public perception is right or not, time will tell.

Few people care whether she is Muslim or not.

Having been involved in a few events which the media covered, sometimes very closely, I can say that every account had some detail wrong - so to all those relying on the mainstream press for your information about this episode, its reporting cannot be taken at face value as even accurate, before there's any question about the media's own agenda skewing things.
As to Dr Ali's comments, with Ed and the writer who said that the spokesperson has nothing to say to a woman who wishes to make her own choices about how she runs her life. Muslim spokespersons speaking out of line, let alone not reflecting the diversity of Muslim belief and practice, is a very dangrous precedent. We don't (yet) have a Sharia Council in Australia, and I pray to all gods that we don't get one. Have a look at some of the things Britain's Sharia Council has said recently and see if you think the whole lot of them should be arrested for incitiment to murder. If one starts up here, at it's first such pronouncement it should be shut down.

Irfan. Bridging the cultural gap. Can you, Salam, Waleed, Nada or other Mossies have a yarn together and set out what you think are the reasons why Aussies believe Muslims are intolerant and many are not interested in intergrating.

Frankly, I want to talk to people who speak the same lingo, without me being called a racist first off, because I seriously question the concept of multiculturalism. After a bomb goes off in London or Bali or I read that some girls are beheaded somewhere,it does little to console me if some old bearded bloke says "Islam is a peacefull religion" or "there are only a few Muslim terrorists" Oh Yeah!
Or get some convoluted interpretation of the Koran.

It cannot be just bigotry on the part of Aussies. There are far too many people, like teachers, nurses, shop assistants, ambulance, etc. that have daily contact with Muslims that speak negatively about male Muslims in particular. These people cannot all be bigots and they use discriptive words like rude, arrogant, dictatorial, overbearing, beligerant and others meaning similar.

We have to do a lot, and quickly, to promote better relations and intergration of Muslims and non-Muslims. Are immigrants sufficiently informed about our society before coming here? Should we have education of new arrivals about the ways of our community?

Is John Stone right in that some don't want to intergrate and we should stop Muslim immigration.

Governments, of any flavour, have to be seen to be doing something, so what happens after the next terrorist attack, or an attack here?

Political suicide to remove more civil liberties from everyone, so the question of restricted Muslim immigration will be prominant.

Hope you Mossies can provide more answers that I can, or the thick sheiks can.

On a lighter note... I personally prefer Michelle Leslie photographed wihtout the Hijab than with it.