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Britain
Muslim outrage at prophet slur
2004-10-01
A POLITICAL researcher working for high-profile UK Independence Party Euro MP Robert Kilroy-Silk has been accused of inflaming racial hatred by claiming the Prophet Mohammed was a paedophile and castigating Islam as a false religion. Outspoken solicitor Tony Bennett, of Chippingfield, Old Harlow, insists his views, which were published in the Sunday Telegraph at the weekend, are based on historical fact.
Come now, guv'nor, facts don't matter any more!
His comments have been condemned by the Muslim Council of Britain but Mr Bennett said this week he had received a lot of support. "These are things that should be brought into the public domain and talked about," he told the Star. Mr Bennett, who was sacked from his role as assistant to local UKIP MEP Jeffrey Titford in 2001 for writing disparaging remarks about a former colleague, carried out his research following the 9/11 attacks. He concluded Mohammed had between 16-22 wives and had sexual relations with a child bride.
Maybe cause it says so in the book?
He criticised those in the Muslim community who "cry Islamophobia" whenever such comments are made. And when asked his opinion on Islam, he said: "It's a false religion. They deny that Christ was the son of God. The Koran itself talks about Christianity being a false religion."
He's going to get the ArchDruid angry with him now.
Yet Mr Bennett also condemned racial stereotyping, insisting: "There's no hatred here. Many Muslims in this country are hard-working people who just want to get on and I have no problem with them. ... I am dealing with historical facts that are in Islamic textbooks." And he pointed to the fact that he assisted Asian postal worker Mahmood Siddiqui, who was awarded £130,000 compensation after claiming he was subjected to racial abuse while working at the Royal Mail sorting office in Harlow, as proof that he was not anti-Muslim.

Inayat Bunglawala, Essex spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, described Mr Bennett as an idiot. "Those kinds of remarks, saying the Prophet was a paedophile, are utterly unacceptable even if they're true," he said. "The Prophet is held in huge respect by Muslims the world over and he changed the course of history. The best thing we can do is try to ignore him. I think Mr Bennett is not fit to lick the shoes of the Prophet."
Not that he'd try.
He added: "His main claim is that the Prophet married an underage girl but at that time in Arabia they had different laws."
"And she had the body of a 12 year old!"
The Rev Andrew Forys, of Our Lady of Fatima Church, in Howard Way, Harlow, said: "I don't know Mr Bennett's argument or his views so I can't comment, but I'm against religions attacking other religions.
"Except for jihad, because we need to be culturally sensitive, you know."
"Want some of this warm milk? It's really frothy!"
"I'm not against religions arguing — that's something we should be doing to try to prove our point."
"Except that they'd blow us up if we actually did."
Charles Jackson, president of the Harlow Jewish Community, accused Mr Bennett of trouble-making, while the Rev David Kirk-wood, of St Paul's Church, in The High, Harlow, said: "There are differences of opinion between Christians and Muslims but it's very important we respect each other's beliefs and that we don't try to undermine the founder of their religions."
"Except for jihad, and beheadings, and other stuff to which we have to be sensitive."
Posted by:tipper

#19  So I guess we'll just let that "descendants of monkeys and pigs" thing slide, right?
Posted by: tu3031   2004-10-01 10:20:23 PM  

#18  What LiberalHwak said. It's becoming increasingly clear that the US will have to carry the military burden in this war pretty much on our own, as the EUers desert us on Iran and offer nothing useful outside Afghan and, in a few shining cases and for a few months more at most, Iraq.

So we'd damn well ought to start finding real and serious allies in the frontline states, including the cultivation of sensible and brave muslim voices wherever we can. I don't give s**t about postmodern EUros secretly rooting for our retreat and retrenchment; it's the other, non-European populations' hearts and minds that really matter.
Posted by: lex   2004-10-01 6:45:48 PM  

#17  I would like to thank Mr. Bennet for his perceptive views. Knighthood might be appropriate.
Posted by: John   2004-10-01 6:39:11 PM  

#16  OP, I hadn't thought of it before, but the jihadists must really hate Mormons and their prophet Joseph Smith. The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints has to trump the 7th century folks on the chronological holy meter.
Posted by: RWV   2004-10-01 6:39:03 PM  

#15  Islam is the antithesis of Christianity and Judaism. It's an attempt by the Arab mind to build a wall between themselves and the rest of civilization, based on a perception that as long as Christianity and Judaism exist, they will be relegated to second-class status. After all, Abraham sent Hagar and her son Ishmael, the founders of the Arabic nation, away after the birth of Isaac. Consider it an extreme example of sour grapes, and a manmade creation to show "see, we're just as good - no, we're BETTER, 'cause our prophet is the LAST one." Like all manmade religions, it's so filled with internal inconsistencies it's collapsing upon itself, and only the "true believers" can't recognize the fact. The entire terrorist movement is an attempt to cover up the fact that Islam is becoming more and more irrevevant, and the "facts" purported by Islam are harder and harder to believe. Islam has turned (once again)to hate and murder to try to salvage itself, but these tendencies are only speeding up the self-destruction.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2004-10-01 6:29:40 PM  

#14  LH: I agree - however the apologist are trying to depict 'Big Mo' as some sort of pious, peaceloving, religious prophet and he simply wasn't - they are truely censoring this researcher from giving an objective historical view.

I find it strange that the MSM screamed 'Censorship!' when certain religious figures complained about 'the last temptation of christ' (which was fiction and not based on fact as far as I know) but are totally silent on these attempts to censor this political researcher's work which is based on the Islamic historic text and their own scriptures.
Posted by: CrazyFool   2004-10-01 2:19:32 PM  

#13  I hear you loud and clear, Liberalhawk (#11), and I basically agree. Still, it's vital to understand "Big Mo's" world in order to understand aspects of his "legacy" today.
Posted by: ex-lib   2004-10-01 11:57:44 AM  

#12  The war on terrorism, “is a long-lasting ideological struggle . . . it ought to be called the struggle of a totalitarian point of view that uses terror as a tool to intimidate the free.” --George W. Bush

"I have no doubt Iraq is better without Saddam; but no doubt either, that as a result of his removal, the dangers of the threat we face will be diminished.  That is not to say the terrorists won't redouble their efforts.  They will.   This war is not ended. It may only be at the end of its first phase.  They are in Iraq, murdering innocent Iraqis who want to worship or join a police force that upholds the law not a brutal dictatorship; they carry on killing in Afghanistan.  They do it for a reason.  The terrorists know that if Iraq and Afghanistan survive their assault, come through their travails, seize the opportunity the future offers, then those countries will stand not just as nations liberated from oppression, but as a lesson to humankind everywhere and a profound antidote to the poison of religious extremism.   That is precisely why the terrorists are trying to foment hatred and division in Iraq.  They know full well, a stable democratic Iraq, under the sovereign rule of the Iraqi people, is a mortal blow to their fanaticism. That is why our duty is to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan as stable and democratic nations. Here is the irony.  For all the fighting, this threat cannot be defeated by security means alone.  Taking strong action is a necessary but insufficient condition for defeating.  Its final defeat is only assured by the triumph of the values of the human spirit." --Tony Blair

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. --Winston Churchill

"Islamic Terrorists are harbingers of death, destruction, chaos, hopelessness and oppression, fueled by a sick, psychologically underdeveloped and twisted social schema, psychosexual arrest, and lack of true education, balancing on a pseudo-intellectual, emotionally-based sado-masochistic teeter-totter, wrapped in a death wish, under the guise of false morals and religion, which amounts to nothing more than an excuse for base brutality and self-agrandizement in a vain quest to appease a god which demands vile acts of violence in exchange for illusory rewards of carnal self-indulgence.” --ex-lib

Well, what can I say . . . all great minds think alike. : ) (tee-hee---just a bit of fun on a dreary, rainy Monday)

Answer to CrazyFool (#10): You're absolutely right. Nine-year-olds do not have the physical, emotional, or psychological development to process sexual encounters of any kind. For a grown man to have had a sexual encounter with a six- or nine-year-old, is so reprehensible, I find it difficult to even come close to describing what this kind of thing does to children. An extremely excellent site on sexual abuse of children is at this link.

BTW, good for Mr. Bennet: Why should this topic be "off limits" somehow? Talking about it is not "Islamophobia." Anyway, the term "Islamophobia" is just a strategy to derail critique. You know who probably really does have actual "phobias" related to Islam? The children and families of Beslan.
Posted by: ex-lib   2004-10-01 11:55:34 AM  

#11  i dont give a double fuck what the hell big Mo did or didnt do in the 7thc century. There are SOME muslims who beleive in big Mo, who, god bless em, are risking their lives to fight the killer jihadis. There are other believers in big Mo who murder children and slice peoples heads off - and who, BTW have no compunction about murdering other followers of Big Mo. And then there are other muslims who are lost in nuance, like its ok to kill Jews but not Christians, or to kill Jews in Israel and Christians in Russia, but not in Europe or America, or its ok to kill Jewish babies in the West Bank, but not so good to do so in Tel Aviv. Im concerned with what we do about these three groups, how we strengthen the first, kill off the second, and knock sense into the last, with a combination of soft AND hard measures - Im not concerned with the details of the life of big Mo. since its pretty obvious to me that you can believe in Big Mo and still be on the right side of things, and you can not believe in him (like certain leftie idiots) and be on the wrong side.
Posted by: Liberalhawk   2004-10-01 10:19:07 AM  

#10  Underage? He married her when she was six years old and consumated the marrage when she was nine years old. She was still a child.

Its not the laws of man he violated but the laws of nature - how many nine year old children do you know who are physicaly developed enough (not to mention mentally or emotionally) to handle it?
Posted by: CrazyFool   2004-10-01 10:03:47 AM  

#9  He added: “His main claim is that the Prophet married an underage girl but at that time in Arabia they had different laws.”

And this changes the facts in what way, exactly? OK, she wasn't "underage" then, but we're also discussing a madman with absolute power. The same lunatic dictator who forced his son to get a divorce so he could marry his daughter-in-law.

There's really not all that much to admire about Mo'. Not by civilized standards, anyway.
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2004-10-01 9:56:36 AM  

#8  He probably took too much acid in CATmandu and got converted to Islam by a terrorist who had his eye on Cat's bulging money belt.
Posted by: Bryan   2004-10-01 6:56:18 AM  

#7  You guys know as well as I that the more one learns of the true tenants of the Koran, the more you have to believe that there is no way in hades this could have been inspired by God!

It's a false religion used by a bunch of assholes to commit crime!

Man, how stupid must Cat Stevens really be? What a freaking tool!
Posted by: RJB in JC MO   2004-10-01 5:41:05 AM  

#6  Fatwa from the loony-fringe in 5.. 4.. 3.. Well done Mr Bennett for being prepared to stand up and criticise the Koran - doubtless he'll be called a nutter by all and sundry across the political and religious divide.
Posted by: Howard UK   2004-10-01 4:25:14 AM  

#5  Islam is not a satanic cult; its just that one of the strictures is that you bow down, then get down on your knees, and let Satan drive! And while your down there, you put you head btwn your knees and kiss your ass goodbye.
Posted by: Comment Top   2004-10-01 3:25:05 AM  

#4  in other news the muslim council of britain reiteratted their support of doing away with TRUTH as a complete defense to libel laws
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI   2004-10-01 1:45:58 AM  

#3  Harlow, the town I grew up in. Although I don't think I know Mr. Bennett
Posted by: phil_b   2004-10-01 1:40:54 AM  

#2  With out being crude I'll go one better. Islam is a satanist cult. Mohammed was a murderer, racist, pedophile and thief. Islam is a religion that practices pedophilia and pederasty as a culturally accepted norm. Saying so is not outrageous. In fact the opposite is try. Claims that Islam is a normal religion is outrageous, ignorant and factually untrue.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom   2004-10-01 1:28:59 AM  

#1  other than saying that Mohammed was a devil worshiping, murdering, raping, thieving, lying, s***bird of a subhuman who raised the Satanic spirt of allan to "god" level...I have no opinion.
Posted by: anymouse   2004-10-01 1:25:24 AM  

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