His comments on Pope Benedict XVI

The BBC had some comments of Brother Tariq regarding the election of Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI. Here we go (hope you have a strong stomach):

It is really important to the Muslim community how the Pope deals with the intra community dialogue, how he deals with different views and trends within the Catholic Church, because this will give us an idea of how he will deal with other faiths. The perception is that he is not so interested in diversity, he wants a return to the fundamentals, to what he perceives as the essentials of Catholic teaching.

Another concern is that Pope Benedict XVI has a more narrow approach to the religious content of Western societies, that he wants to return to the centrality of Christianity in Europe.

We Muslims are building our presence in Europe and we are worried that the Pope will reduce what he sees as a struggle against secularism there to a struggle between Christianity and secularism. He may forget that there is a great legacy of spirituality coming from other religions and this could be a very dangerous reduction of our common roots and our common hopes.

I have news for this jihadiot. First, he is a complete hypocrite for asserting that Ben 16th desires a "return to the fundamentals," considering that Brother Tariq is all in favor of muslims returning to the "fundamentals" of the texts in interpreting how they should live in Western societies.

Second, Judeo-Christian humanism was the driving force in Europe from the Middle Ages until the Enlightenment. Aside from tranmitting Aristotle and other Greek texts to Europe (and letting al-Ghazali, one of the biggest jerks of all time, prevent them from exercising appropriate influence in muslim lands), Islam's effect on the culture of Europe (aside from, say, destroying the Balkans, forcing slavs into soldier-slavery, slaughtering Armenians, etc.) was nowhere near as great as the effect of Judeo-Christianity. So what is so wrong with asking Europe to recognize its cultural heritage in, say, acknowledging it in the EU Constitution?

Third, "we muslims are building our presence in Europe." I'm sure Theo van Gogh is happy about that. So are the victims of the gang-rapes in Sweden.

Instead of all this whining, Tariq - were he indeed a moderate - would tell European muslims "perhaps we should follow the lead of Pope Ben. 16th, realize that religion is an important influence in public life but cannot be used as a basis for a theocracy."

ND should thank its lucky stars that this fool was kept out of the country.