Hello again Nayeefa,

A good article disguised as a soft-sell for Islam as the religion of social equality and fairness.

What you did not mention is that the only way this equality could see the light of day is through the establishment of Shari'a islamic law in Australia.

Islam cannot survive and strive under any "other" civil law. Or else how would polygamy be allowed for example?

Democracy is the result of the think-tank of Christian values expressed by the power of people in action (vote) .

Islam is the surrender of people to the authorities of their religion.

The God of islam is uncharacteristically different than the God of the Jews and Christians. Therefore the flagrant difference in intrinsic values.

Humans according to the bible were created in God's image. A horrific thought for the Islamic concept of Allah.

A woman in Islam is not equal to a man like in the biblical scriptures. Women surrender to men in Islam.

This inequality alone makes Islam incompatible with our democracy.

Sorry but you miss the target yet again. Islam will never be part of the melting pot in Australia unless it becomes secular of course like the rest of us.

But there is no separation of State from Mosque in islam - therefore no true democracy.

And the lies and deceptions continue. Good luck to you mossies.

“Faith entails observance of a set of principles, so does Islam. It promotes human rights principles.”

Look around the word, no human rights in Islamic controlled countries. Executions, beheading, stoning,women subjected to unhealthy dress, limited education, controlled by men.

“Islam bestowed the rights of inheritance upon the Muslim women 12 centuries ago.”

I personally know of two women who've left their barbaric Islamic husbands, after beatings and other wives. After 4 years the government of Morocco refuses to help them. Men must first give their permission for the women to claim their share, until that time the law has no effect.

“Judea-Christian religious tradition gave birth to the notion of human rights” .

The Canaanite brought human rights to the M.E. 1500 years before Christianity, the Veda 3500 years. The followers of Abraham had the most despotic laws imaginable, not hesitating to ethnically cleanse everywhere, as they're currently doing in the Middle east. Indigenous people of the world had human rights and democracy thousands of years before the god of war Yahweh, was invented and removed democracy by force.

“The perceived clash between the Islamic and Western values is a fallacy.”

More lies, western values are fighting against the onslaught by all the followers of Yahweh. Your entire way of life is alien to freedom

“The Muslim world has absorbed the Islamic faith into its richly diverse customs and traditions.”

Don't you mean, ethnically cleansed its diverse customs, just as Christian Judaism has done.

“There is no doubt that there are some elements in Islam that stand in stark contrast to the Australian pop-culture of pornography, gambling, alcoholism, and drug addiction.”

Less than 5% of the population would fit the categories you provide. Fact, 100% of muslims are mentally deficient, shown by the inability to step out side the dark ages. You cover your bodies sickening sensible Australians, causing you health problems. Along with all monotheists, you thumb your noses at us, creating all the division in the world.

Why is coach the only fruitcake to have commented on this article? Where are dee and all the rest of the non-integrated gang?

I cannot reconcile what Nayeefa is trying to say with the position being taken by others and indeed the facts, as follows:
1. Nayeefa refers to the way modern science is indebted to the Islamic civilisation. But where is the evidence in today's terms. Where are the Nobel Prizes, the patents, the inventions that have lead to the betterment of Human kind in the last 2-300 years? produce by muslims, arabic and others. Of course there are prescious few, if any.

2. If Islam is so civilised why is it that the least free countries are predominantly Islamic.

3. If Islam treats its women so well how do you reconcile your position with that of Janet Albrechtsen, in Wednesday's Sept 6th Australian. One of you has to be wrong.

4. If violent Jihad has nothing to do with Islam how do you reconcile this with the well written piece in recent MEF article, entitled "The Religious Foundation of Suicide bombings, Islamic Idealogy." Again one of you has to be wrong.
http://www.meforum.org/article/1003

5. If the steady increase in sexual assaults and incests on the record in Australia for the past 10 years, is a consequence of the pop culture in Australia, why is it that the incidence of rape by Muslims,in European countries has climbed by an amount that is far higher. Go and talk to the police in Sweden, Denmark and France about what religious group is grossly over represented in this type of crime.

You can soft-sell Islam all you want but the fact remains that recently, in Afghanistan a Moslem was condemned to death for converting to Christianity.

BTW and incidentally why are we sending troops to prop up that regime?

Neither Mossie or Aussie. Why not Mauslems?

And as for the claims of religious origins of justice and equity, they are all off the mark. The Celts had highly developed notions of justice that also extended to placing obligations on their leaders as to how they were to govern fairly with respect for the people.

The Roman inheritors of the Egyptian/Greek/Syrian traditions only applied notions of democracy to a small elite with a large body of disenfranchised slaves etc. And the civilisation they imposed on the Gauls and Celts merely established a more formal method of imposing higher taxes on an exploited populace.

Curiously, Magna Carta was no more than a rewrite of Celtic and Saxon traditional expectations of communities whose primary focus was not on monuments to power but, rather, the well being of the community. This lack of trappings of power (evidence of exploitation) was seen by the exploiters as an absence of civilisation. Plus ca change..