Davo is right of course. Check out the passenger lists for all the early ships to OZ. Must have lkept their Jewish and Muslimm identities well hidden as all the names are standard British ones. No other names. I guess they all converted during the trip. Right Irfan?

One link as an example : http://www.hotkey.net.au/~jwilliams4/pass26s.htm. Lots of Ilsamists there Irfan. Could you tell us which ships they were on please?

Hey come on guys. Not so hard on Irfan.

I do believe there were Afghani cameleers in South Australia in the mid ninteenth century.

I can also state for certain, there were Afghani cameleers in Western Australia living in remote areas during the 40's.

My brother and I, living at a remote post office, could hardly wait for the Afghanis to come to "town" on a Thursday where they would give us rides on their camels - a memorable occasion for little kids!

Though I'm only presuming they were Muslims - but then most Afghanis are, aren't they?.

So Muslims have probably been residing in Australia for a long time. Interestingly though, in the early days, we didn't give a cocky's bottom what religion they were!

It was the Catholics versus the "Prottos" in those days! And wasn't my family alarmed when I advised I intended to marry a Catholic.....scandalous!

I think that Irfan has thrown up a smokescreen by hightlighting the word 'values' in his essay. This is a nebulous word that means little when taken out of context. Of course all people have values because they are encoded in their genes via several million years of human evolution. This is a given.

However, if you place values in the context of culture then we have a completely different picture. If anyone has travelled overseas you'll know what I mean. 'Culture Shock' can be a very real phenonomen for many people.

My wife and I lived in a small one bedroom apartment in Riyadh for 2 1/2 years. While we got on extremley well with our Saudi and Sudanese neighbours it still didn't deter the fact that Sunni Islam as practiced by the Gulf States is misogynist to the core. In every facet of day to day life my wife was treated like a second class citizen. But worse than that she suffered sexual harrassment almost on a daily basis during those 2 1/2 years. If I was not there to chaperone her then she was assumed to be fair game for sport.

From my travels throughout the Middle East I could only draw one conclusion - Islam is a misogynist faith due to nature of the Koran and the sexist example set by Mohammed himself.

In comparison, modernised Christian traditions are far less sexist than Islamic traditions. This is as plain as the nose on your face. Every women in Australia should heave a sigh of relieve that we don't have a core Islamic culture.

Irfan (as a Muslim) would have us believe that Islam is a religion that protects women from abuse and violence and is therefore on a par with modernised Christianty in Australia. Nothing could be further from the truth;

'SAUDI ARABIA: GROSS HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES AGAINST WOMEN

This report begins by discussing the discrimination faced by women. Among the issues covered are: laws and customs which specifically discriminate against women...'

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/engMDE230572000?OpenDocument&of=COUNTRIES

'Media briefing: VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN PAKISTAN

Women in Pakistan are severely disadvantaged and discriminated against. Violence against women in the home and community as well as in the custody of law enforcement officials is on the rise. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) found that in 2000 a woman was raped every two hours, and that hundreds were victims of "honour" killings, domestic violence, burnings and murder.'

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA330102002?open&of=ENG-PAK

'TURKEY: WOMEN CONFRONTING FAMILY VIOLENCE

As in countries throughout the world, the human rights of hundreds of thousands of women in Turkey are violated daily. At least a third and up to a half of all women in the country are estimated to be victims of physical violence within their families....Violence against women is widely tolerated and even endorsed by community leaders and at the highest levels of the government and judiciary. The authorities rarely carry out thorough investigations into women’s complaints about violent attacks or murders or apparent suicides of women.'

http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engeur440132004

And my final point. In Western societies misogyni is ad hoc and against the central teachings of the state. On the other hand, misogyni in Islamic societies has a religious component that makes it systemised. We can do with this system elbowing its way into Australian religious tradition - says this atheist.

Snappy Tom / TR,

A country like Egypt have a poor record of human rights and no enforcable anti-discrimination laws.
However, here is another view on the Christian minority there : christians have their onw TV channels and educational programs and the government bans movies like the DaVinci code because it might hurt feelings or shake their faith. Christian minority have the lowest unemployment rate and the highest average income. Their Christmas and Easter is a national full day televised public holiday.
Now which western country do you know offer that to minorities?

Dear Fellow Human

Yours is an interesting post especially the section that notes: "Christian minority have the lowest unemployment rate and the highest average income". Can we rightly conclude from this that Christianity might be just a bit more amenable to economic advancement than Islam? (And I'm not even a Christian by the way.)

On the other hand when I did a Search for Egypt + Christians at Google, six of the first ten references referred to either the persecution of, or disadvantage suffered by Christians in Egypt.