Many on the left drivel on about a tolerance peaceful society while condoning the murder of tens of thousands unborn each year. This sounds very civilised to me! When is the loony left going to try and stop deceiving themselves that somehow they have a mortgage on compassion and all that is good. The earth worshippers at recent protests have shown how much hate an intolerance their is among the agnostics/athiests. I suppose when we see the number of people murdered under godless regimes it is not surprising!

Philip Tang

Good points re Malaysia.

This is a country that touts itself to the wider worlkd as being secular and civilised, but they are still knocking over Hindu temples
on the excuse that when they were built over 100 years ago they didnt have building permission.

So much for Badawis claim of being moderate.

Woops, apologies to B_D.

Phillip, you claim that Muslims in Sri Lanka and Bosnia regard themselves as one. Yet in Bosnia, at least 60% of children are born to mixed marriages i.e. Muslims married to Serbs or Croats. In the Indian sub-Continent, it is almost unknown for Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men. This isn't the case in Bosnia.

In Malaysia, being Muslim necessarily means being Malay. Last June, an non-Malay Malaysian lawyer of Muslim background I met in KL told me that his children are discriminated against in obtaining school places and scholarships for university because they are Indian.

Let's be realistic. My parents have more in common culturally with Indian Hindus than with Malaysian Muslims, who have more in common culturally with Thai Buddhists than with Moroccan Muslims.

If I could once again remind you all that the point of this article is not to talk about the alleged grand Islamic conspiracy to destroy Christianity and replace it with a layer of hommus of chilly sauce. The point of this article is to show how bigotry is anti-liberty.

Once again, I ask people here to state their positions. Do they think it is OK to accuse a black Christian of being a Muslim? And if so, how is this relevant to his ability to be President of the United States, an allegedly secular country?

'Once again, I ask people here to state their positions. Do they think it is OK to accuse a black Christian of being a Muslim?'

No! (Well, that wasn't too difficult...)

Now Irfan, let us explore another statement made by you;

'In the Indian sub-Continent, it is almost unknown for Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men'

This practice by Pakistani/Indian Muslims seems completely xenophobic and anti-liberatarian to me.

So where did this bigotry come from and what are its origins? The answer is - traditional Islam. It is standard Islamic practice to prohibit Muslim women from non-Muslim men. Always has been, always will be. For example;

http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1123996015624&pagename=IslamOnline-English-AAbout_Islam/AskAboutIslamE/AskAboutIslamE

Islam is exlusive, bigoted and sexist to the core and has social practices that a secular democracy wouldn't dream of making lawful. The prohibition of interfaith marriages is one example of that.

Irf,
Since you want us to state our positions on whether 'it's OK to accuse a black Christian of being a Muslim' ,my answer would be no. But you seem to miss that this whole Obama is a Muslim nonsense is a product of the media's tendency to jump on the comments of one or two other politicians, and attempt to build a story out of it. God knows they need something to print about a man who is running for president and has no real opinion on anything, apart from the Iraq war, so far.
Obama has little chance of becoming president in any case, not because, as you would like to think, that his middle name is Hussein or that he has a Muslim daddy, but because he's black. White middle America won't vote for a black man at this point in time, especially a black man with little experience or universal appeal. And you can make of that what you like - it's a simple but inconvenient truth, as Al Gore would say, but has little bearing on what you are trying to imply. You could also bear in mind the nature of American politics recalling in the last US election much mud was slung by either side- Kerry's swift boat service and Bush's non appearance for military duty being the objects of much gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair, while the media gleefully fanned the flames. That being the case perhaps your targeting of conservatives is a little short-sighted as the left has it's own reservations about Obama as well.
So having answered you query perhaps you could answer a few of mine, which I'm sure other posters here would like answered as well- Do you, as a Muslim support the concept of Sharia Law, and if not, how do you reconcile this with being a Muslim, seeing that one of Islam's basic tenets is to live by it? Even better, I would like to see you to write another essay telling us how Muslims can still live as Muslims while rejecting it.

So the message is to trust Irfan since his version of Islam will over ride all the sterotypes of supression,violence,bigotry,hate and ignorance that pervades most Muslim countries on this planet.

When you are gone Irfan,who will carry this new flame of Muslim enlightenment?Why not become a Buddhist,it is non aggressive and accepting of other philosophies,a bit like Christian philosophies;but alas,it will not cater for your lust for power over the infidels whom you have resented because of the ease of their success.

When Muslim men make women their equals,they will be free since the better half of human organisation will make them economically three times more productive.

Your views represent about 1% of the Muslim world,and that is not a safe bet.