De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

Giving Amoris Laetitia a rest for a minute, let's go back to 2013 and Pope Francis' first Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium . I've posted before about this troubling passage in the text: "..for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.” E.G . n. 253 Is it? Samuel Gregg notes in the National Review that Pope Francis’s fellow Jesuit Samir Khalil Samir (who is no knee-jerk anti-Muslim), writes in his 111 Questions on Islam (2002), Westerners who assert that groups like the Taliban are acting in a manner contrary to the spirit of Islam “usually know little about Islam.” In the Egyptian-born Jesuit’s view, “On the sociohistorical level, from the Qur’an onward, the ordinary meaning of jihad is unequivocal. [It] indicates the Muslim war in the name of God to defend Islam.” Later in the same book, Father Samir underscores that, alongside one tradition in Islam of somewhat limited tolerance towards Jews and C...

Andrew Neil started This Week last night with a refreshing and powerful tour de force on the Paris Attacks. Imagine how powerful it would have been if this had been delivered by David Cameron?

This is precisely what has been missing from the Muslim response to the ongoing atrocities of Daesh . Sadiq Khan, the most senior Muslim in Labour’s ranks, has spoken out  at a Westminster lunch for journalists, about his fears that his teenage daughters could be tricked into going to Syria by online jihadists and disclosed that he had grown up in south London with boys who went on to act in “terrible ways”. Khan is the first Muslim I have heard who has the courage to be honest about the reality of the situation, stating: “Extremism isn’t a theoretical risk. Most British Muslims have come across someone with extremist views at some point – and so have I. “It’s affected my personal life, my friendships and my career. People I knew as a boy have gone on to hold extremist views, and even to act on them in terrible ways.” Mr Khan recalled that when he worked as a lawyer he had the “horrible” task of representing people with extremist views: “I’ve lost count of the ...

I've had quite a black day today. Overwhelmingly, I feel uneasy about this. I feel uneasy that the world has just taken another scary step towards darkness and chaos. Looking at my Facebook timeline I am disturbed by the number of anti-religious comments in reaction to what has happened. I know that we immediately want to find someone to blame (this helps us to understand) and I can recognise that for many peaceful people, going about their day-to-day lives quite without malice or hatred, the sudden and brutal events of Friday night leave them looking for a reason why? How could any human being do something so irrational? The answer? To all intents and purposes, the only tangible explanation would appear to be a murderous ideology which demands fidelity and threatens death or at least, enslavement, for those who refuse to 'submit' ( Islam literally means 'submit'). To the modern secular mind, the only thing that matters is that the madness used to justify t...