"I interviewed 5 Imams, 3 in South Africa and 2 in Victoria. I got the two Victorians by phoning the Islamic Centre in Victoria and asking for some contacts."

5 imams. Wow, that is a really representative sample of imams. I guess Muslims only live in Victoria and South Africa.

Seriously, Stephany, you need to do better than that.

You mention you phoned the "Islamic Centre in Victoria". Which one? There are over 100 in Melbourne alone.

Have you considered doing an elementary course in statistics?

Also, you mentioned you were doing research with soem colleagues. Was this research conducted under the auspices of an institution? What was the name of the institution?

I presume that, given you are prepared to make serious allegations and cast serious aspersions, you will be prepared to be up front about which organisation or group you belong to ...

Irfan
Stephany is making some telling points which you seem to be side-stepping.

If you are a moderate Muslim you don’t need to carry the can for the extremists, why don’t you come clean & say -yes there is an element/current within Islam ( or, if you prefer, the Islamic community) which has that view - but I repudiate it?

LOL Irfan, yet more evasion.

The members of our research group belong to various bodies. However, this project is our private initiative. It grew informally.

I actually called the Islamic Council (not Centre) in Victoria. Apologies for the error. You can find their website at:

http://www.icv.org.au/index.shtml

I was never under the illusion that five Imams was a representative sample.

Most of us, including me, are well versed in statistics.

As I was careful to emphasise, we relied on multiple sources when we concluded that antisemitism was endemic in the Ummah.

Note that in most European countries increasing antisemitic incidents correlate with a rising Muslim population. In many cases the additional antisemitic incidents can be traced back to Muslims.

Irfan your evasiveness and RETREAT INTO SARCASM is fairly typical of what we found when we confronted Muslims with some of the negative aspects of Muslim migration. We call it the "octopus manoeuvre." (Do you know what an octopus does when cornered, Irfan?)

This exchange is pointless. I'm not going to continue unless you post a substantive response to the issue of antisemitism in the Ummah.

FOR OTHER READERS interested in the fate of kafirs (unbelievers) under Muslim rule from an historical perspective I recommend:

The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims by Andrew Bostom.

See:

http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Jihad-Islamic-Holy-Non-Muslims/dp/1591023076/ref=sr_1_1/104-4157783-1228744?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175902882&sr=1-1

Bostom has also written "The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism" but I have not read that yet.

For a scholarly analysis of relations between Muslims and kafirs in the Middle-East I STRONGLY recommend, "What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East" by Bernard Lewis."

See:

http://www.amazon.com/What-Went-Wrong-Between-Modernity/dp/0060516054/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-4157783-1228744?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175903171&sr=1-1

For an understanding of what really ails the Middle-East the Arab Human Development Reports, 2002 & 2003 are "must reads." The reports were published under the auspices of the UN. They explain the reasons for the abject economic failure of non-oil producing Arab countries.

See:

http://hdr.undp.org/reports/detail_reports.cfm?view=600

For a sense of what goes on in the Arab and Iranian media refer to:

www.memri.org

and

www.memritv.org

MEMRI's evidence was used by a British Parliamentary committee investigating antisemitism.

Irfan,

Where's your sense of balance?

Did Muhammad produced a sample taken from heaven, a list of research statistics to prove your Allah is not a hoax?

Where is your proof that your faith is not based on a hoax, (that grows bigger with every expansion of Islam)?

Why do you expect substantive fact from anyone when you cannot even deal with my simple question, so fundamental and vital to Muslims?

I'm sorry Stephany but Irfan Yusuf is totally incapable of making "a substantive response" to the issues you have raised. I think it is part of his character. Instead there will be plenty of side-stepping, evasion or otherwise complete silence.

At this date I am still waiting for a response to a comment that I left on his "Misreported, misconstrued, mistranslated, misunderstood" article that was carried by OLO on February 23rd. My comment was left on Monday, 5 March 2007 at 10:27:12 AM.

Actually Irfan is dreadfully inconsistent in his approach. He is quite happy to spray all Western Christians with the following comment - "Western Christians have for more than 2,000 years been programmed to hate Jews". [His comment left on the above article on Wednesday, 28 February 2007 at 10:32:33 PM]. Yet on the other hand he leaps to defend the Ummah from charges of ant-Semitism even when there is overwhelming evidence that it is widespread TODAY in Muslim-dominated countries.

Is there a word or words to describe people like Irfan? You betcha – one of them begins with H and ends with E and sounds a bit like a doctor’s oath. But the one I prefer is charlatan.

LOL Savage Pencil,

Irfan's behaviour is all too typical of what we found when confronting Muslims. We dubbed it the "octopus manoeuvre" because an octopus, when cornered, squirts out an inky black fluid to hide behind. Much of Irfan's writing is reminiscent of an octopus' black ink. It's designed to hide rather than illuminate.

I see Irfan's family hails from Karachi. Thought this might be of interest:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Pakistan.html

Quote:

"The media in Pakistan have provided extensive coverage of the political and personal career of the cricket star Imran Khan. Since Khan's marriage in 1996 to Jemima Goldsmith, daughter of a British industrialist and politician, Sir James Goldsmith, Khan was accused of acting as an agent of the "Jewish lobby." Jemima Khan publicly denied that her parents were Jewish. An Egyptian newpaper distributed in Pakistan accused Khan of receiving large sums of money for his election campaign from the "Jewish lobby." Following complaints from Khan, the deputy editor of the newspaper retracted the story and published an apology."

Here's what Imran himself had to say on ABC.

"I did not lose this election , or had a bad result compared with what we might have got because of Islam. The main reason was the opposition very cleverly exploited my marriage and the Jewish conspiracy was really exploited I this country."

And

"Actually I expected most of the sleaze. I expected the Jewish conspiracy, because after all these were the two things they could attack me on."

See:

http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/stories/s400602.htm

LOL Irfan. Tell us again you cannot comment on antisemitism in the Ummah. At least in Pakistan belief in a Jewish conspiracy seems rife enough to cost Imran Khan many votes if not the entire election.