Tag Archives: islam

Islam in the UK – a clash of value systems?

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The British Muslim 5pillarsuk.com site published the following article by Harith Armstrong (12 Oct 2015):

Why Prevent and the Quilliam Foundation are counter-productive

The UK government’s Prevent strategy is an anti-terrorist strategy, published in 2011. The Quilliam Foundation is an anti-extremism think tank, set up by Maajid Nawaz, himself a reformed radical Islamist.

In its essence the article calls into question the basis and acitivities of both Prevent and Quilliam Foundation, somewhat justifiably at least in the former case. But it also makes some errors of its own, which bring to light the underlying reasons for Islamic extremism – a clash of value systems.

My thoughts…

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Just words on a page? Aslan v Harris

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Anyone who follows the debate on fundamentalist Islamic terrorism will be familiar with Sam Harris and Reza Aslan. They usually come across as intellectually diametrically opposed, but are both clearly humanists and deep thinkers. The fact that two such intelligent students of world affairs, belief systems and geopolitics cannot find a common reference point from which to have more substantive debate is informative.

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Islam and Violence – getting our thoughts in order

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I posted last week on my outrage and revulsion of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, 7/Jan/2015. Those of us in the UK, France, other European and Western countries, and many around the world, expressed similar outrage. Now what?

I spent a good part of the last week thinking about my own reaction, and researching all manner of Islam-related topics on the net. To my surprise, along with much to be depressed about, I found some specific and unexpected resources – all created by Muslims – that give me some hope. (See ‘Resources’ in the middle of this post).

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