For Salam,

Firstly how about simply being Australian and cease complaining about why you think you are not included. You and all immigrants are Australian once you have become a citizen. The problems of prejudice and racism are part of all cultures and Australia is no exclusion. To me there will be little change until all Australians accept Aboriginals which we have failed to do in over two hundred years. Their acceptance and integration is first priority to me and should be to you and everyone else.

Pointing at alcohol as the only real difference (plus pork etc) is quite silly really. I understand that Islam requires devotees to not drink alcohol.

That doesn't happen for starters. Many Muslims do drink alcohol and still claim to be Muslim. What is your attitude to them? Are they still Muslim or excluded?

In your last point you stated "We are not all oppressed by our fathers and brothers.".

Of course not but the fact you have qualified it by stating "not all" indicates what is well known. Many women are indeed oppressed, less so in Australia and other Western countries than the nation of the family's origion. It happens in Christian families too. In other words religion does not stand up to the written word in all cases. Some people do follow the commands exactly but there are so many versions of what is supposedly "law" that it really just makes a mockery of the religions as a whole.

I am encouraged by the numbers here that have written off religion for what it is, a fraud. Continue spreading the non Word guys.

As to quoting the Bible as an authority on anything! Such people claim the Bible is the word of God, so do other religions. Which one is the "real thing"? Anybody? Anybody?

Above all it is fact that a God did not write the Christian Bible. Men did, and changed it regularly over the centuries to suit the political climate at the time. Flexible religion? Adapting to change? How can that be if the word is written? Credibility, NOT.

Laurie & Boaz: I agree with you Laurie... Most chapters are split up in to various sections. The claim that a whole chapter is universal in import does not always hold to be true (apart from say, some of the smaller chapters towards the end, which are 3 lines or so). The beginning of Ch 23, for example, until verse 10 outlines the general characteristics of 'the believers', which most would agree to be pretty "universal". It then goes on to talk about other events mentioning biblical prophets and other things. These are also continued elsewhere and at different times, so a narrative has to be created. Some of the Qur'an, however, addresses a specific situation that happened to the fledgling Muslim community, and other information needs to be consulted to understand it's context and scope.

Part of the Islamic interprative tradition includes understanding if a verse has a general or specific condition, and a legal or non-legal import (some are merely moral, for example). But it's this section that both Muslim extremists, and other extremists, attempt to ignore or change from the classical discourse, and make Islam out to be a MacDonalds type of fast-food religion. In reality it is not; it's something that is constantly developing from the sources based on new situations. Although it seems that plenty wish "we" would go back to riding camels in the desert and so on.

pegasus: I think the author is complaining more about the innane steeotypes that continue to exist about Muslims, and Muslim women in particular (of which she obviously is one, so experiences them).

If you read the latter part of the article, the author clearly states that "There is a wide variety of Muslims, from those who do their five prayers and fast for Ramadan, to those who have not seen the inside of a mosque for years; those who drink and party with girls, to those who simply follow what they feel is best. There is a place for everyone here and that is the beauty of living in Australia."

Dogmatically, people who do such things as drink are classed as sinners and so on but are still Muslim, no questions asked as veryone makes mistakes and has problems to overcome. Some of the earliest schools of islamic law allowed such things as cider and malt to be drunk because the original arabic term used refers to that which is derived from grapes. Now that's literalism!

Textual sources do not mean inflexibility necessarily. The scriptural sources give pointers to principles, as explained in a specific historical context. These principles (and some rulings, such as worship, which do not change) are applied to the new situations Muslims find themselves in. The problem comes when literalism takes over and a piecemeal approach to understanding the scope of Islam is used, avoiding the methodologies that classical juris-consults have used throughout history. This is a huge problem facing the Muslim community today.

Programme on ABC ,I think it was Foreign Correspondent, and a gentle old Imam being interviewed was asked what would happen to a muslim who changed his religion.
"Why", said the gentle old man,"he would have to die."
Enough said.

Leigh, are you the same Leigh from the conservative blog house of wheels?

Banjo, do I know you from a certain radio show?

I could write about all those racists, who find enjoyment bashing Muslims, this discussion has brought them all together. many belong to same God Club that spreads the hatred of Muslims, are we not supposed be discribing 'what it means to be an Australian. it is difficult to put a Australian lable on any one, other than the original Australian aboriginals, most of us believe we are Australian. how many with duel citizenship say they are Australian, There is one group of people who have duel citizenship they use the Aussie Passport to be able to vote, but when push comes to shove, Australia is their second choice homeland. they are not Muslims I could say much about this group, they are the front runners spreading all the hate,
Many members of my Family have won Gold for Australia, so you could say we are true Aussies, we have a problem with the Aussie[British Flag] there are over five hundred different flags with the Union Jack taking pride of place on those flags , they are all British Colonial Flags, we will become Aussies when our Flag becomes a true blue Aussie Flag, wanabee Aussies need a new Flag for the future, the past is over,
The past is over, but not for many writers to this page they slide back 3000 yrs to dig up false information to support their racist propaganda, sorry mates you are not a Aussie so stop pretending, and stop bashing Muslims,