Muslim Heretics Conference

From Mayfair to Mecca

Lady Evelyn Cobbold was a British aristocrat who converted to Islam and - and the age of 65 - performed the hajj

William Facey

May 19, 2008 8:00 AM | Printable version

Lady Cobbold in pilgrim’s attire.
Mayfair socialite, aristocrat, owner of an estate in the Scottish highlands, accomplished deerstalker and angler, not to mention mother and gardener, Lady Evelyn Cobbold (1867-1963) was probably unique in being also a Muslim and Arabic-speaker. Unusually, she claimed to have been a Muslim all her life and there is no evidence of a moment of conversion.

In 1933, at the age of 65, this redoubtable Anglo-Scot became the first British-born Muslim woman to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. Yet the story of her life and her contribution to the literature of the hajj have been inexplicably overlooked until now. Nor has she been studied from the point of view of what her life has to say about Islam among the British.

A new book, just published, aims to rescue Lady Evelyn from the neglect that has befallen her, even among historians of women travellers.

Her unique combination of apparently dissonant traits made her pilgrimage a news sensation on her return home. The tabloids made her an instant celebrity, and the more serious ones favourably reviewed her book. The Manchester Guardian (July 9, 1934), for example, opined:

“As a record of such individual religious experiences, influenced by an intimate knowledge of two great religions, Lady Evelyn Cobbold’s book has a rare appeal of its own. … If she may be thought to be a little prejudiced in favour of her adopted faith, we have been accustomed to hear in its disfavour so much which is based upon pure ignorance and antipathy that a little over praise, if such it be, comes as a welcome relief.”

But what sort of a Muslim was Lady Evelyn? Though she would certainly have claimed to be Sunni it would be difficult to pin her down more precisely. Though clearly firm in her faith, there is no record of her performing the five daily prayers or fasting during Ramadan during her normal life at home. In fact, going on the hajj seems to have been the single Pillar of Islam that she leant on.

There is a long history of British converts to Islam before her time, going back at least to the Crusades and peaking during the 17th century when many Britons manned the fleets of the Barbary corsairs and were absorbed into North African society. But Lady Evelyn belongs in a later category - that of educated converts in Britain itself during the late 19th century. She was contemporary with various other eminent Muslims of this type - Abdullah Quilliam, Lord Headley, Lord Hothfield, and Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, distinguished interpreter of the Qur’an into English, to name but a few.

For many British converts the attraction of Islam lay and still lies in its mystical dimension represented by Sufism. Such converts believe that all the great religions share a transcendent unity behind the superficial doctrinal detail that divides them.

At the level of theology, the refreshing lack of doctrinal complexity in Islam appealed to British converts, who were and are perplexed by the impenetrable mysteries of Christianity such as the Trinity, the divine nature of Christ, the immaculate conception and the resurrection. Islam simply accepts the ultimate unity and indefinability of God, while respecting Jesus as a human being and forerunner of Muhammad as a prophet. For converts, a further refreshing feature of Islam was the lack of a remote, elaborate and gorgeously accoutred priestly hierarchy intervening between the worshipper and the Almighty.

In the west, since the rationalist enlightenment of the 18th century, religious belief has been regarded as properly a matter of personal and private conviction. An individual may choose a religion according to personal taste, and the freedom to do so is protected in law. Religious groups are not expected to play any more prominent a part in public life than other special interest groups such as trade unions or professional associations.

The line between public and private is not always an easy one to draw, for example in the fields of education, family law or public health. Nonetheless, western societies have evolved since the Middle Ages by progressively challenging the authority of religious establishments over public affairs. In the process they have had to develop systems of secular law and humanist values that all citizens can subscribe to. By modern times, what were once Christian societies have become, to differing degrees, essentially secular ones in their public life, and the church has retreated to the enclave of special interest groups and private piety.

This western attitude to faith as a matter of private choice and practice can work very well for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and other religions. However, Islam is perhaps not analogous in this respect. To be a Muslim is a matter of more than mere private religious conviction, to be kept behind closed doors. While historical and social experiences of the religion obviously vary, Islam is often perceived to entail a commitment to a certain type of state and society, certain types of public institution especially where the law and education are concerned, and prescriptions for family life and daily public behaviour. Public space, as well as the private sphere, is considered to be its legitimate domain, and Muslims usually regard their religion as providing not just a personal faith but a complete social system intimately tied up with a specific worldview and norms of identity.

However, there is little sign that Lady Evelyn was much aware of the public implications of her faith. It could be argued that in this sense she and others like her missed one of the essential aspects of being Muslim. In regarding Islam solely as a matter of private conviction and in subscribing to it entirely on her own terms, she followed a very European model of religious faith. There can be no doubt, nonetheless, of the deep sincerity of her belief.

Lady Evelyn died in 1963 and was buried, as she stipulated, on a remote hillside on her Glencarron estate in Wester Ross. Her splendidly Islamo-Caledonian interment symbolised her two worlds: a piper played MacCrimmon’s Lament, while the Surah “Light” from the Qur’an was recited in Arabic. A verse from the same Surah adorns the flat slab over her grave, over which the deer undoubtedly wander, just as she wished.

From Mayfair to Mecca | Comment is free

Call radical Islam by its name

BY TAWFIK HAMID

Monday, May 19th 2008, 4:00 AM

Recently, the Bush administration opened up a sad new front in the war on terrorism: a battle against words. Yes, the federal government has begun a concerted effort to make certain terms effectively off-limits in official communications. It’s all included in a new memo prepared by the Extremist Messaging Branch of the National Counter Terrorism Center, called “Words that Work and Words that Don’t: A Guide for Counterterrorism Communication.”

“It’s not what you say but what they hear,” says the memo, in bold, italic lettering.

Among the verboten (or think-twice-before-you-say-them) words: “Jihadist” and “Mujahedeen” (which should be replaced by “violent extremist” or “terrorist”) and “Islamo-fascism.”

In the eyes of the feds, the use of such terminology boosts support for radicals by giving them an air of religious credibility, and turning off moderate Muslims who might otherwise sympathize with our anti-terror cause.

As a Muslim reformer - who once counted himself among the world’s Islamists and jihadists before turning away from terrorism and toward liberalism - I consider this a tragically flawed understanding of the war on terrorism in which we are now engaged.

The real way to strengthen moderate Muslims in their fight against the radicals is to spotlight radical teachings and flush out those who believe in them.

Among the most important qualities of any professional are honesty, objectivity and forthrightness - the ability to determine and present facts as they are, irrespective of the preconceived notions of any particular audience.

This is especially true in war: define your enemy correctly, and you will rally legitimate allies to your side. Blur what a battle is about and, stuck in the muddle, you are bound to lose.

Yes, the word “jihad” has several, including some peaceful, meanings - but that doesn’t change the fact that most authoritative Islamic texts and systems of jurisprudence maintain that its primary meaning is “warfare to subjugate the world to Islam.” Closely allied with this predominant concept of jihad is the threefold choice given to infidels: conversion, submission and tribute or death. And it is simply a fact that jihad, as taught by Sunni Islam’s four schools of jurisprudence, is either a war to defend Muslims or to impose Islam on non-Muslims.

It may be uncomfortable to admit these facts - and doing so may run certain risks. But it is true, and the costs of ignoring reality are far higher than the benefits of glossing over it.

Islamists are not waiting for “infidel” Americans to define jihad for them; they defined it themselves, a very long time ago. If Muslim leaders wish to insist that the word refers primarily to a peaceful struggle against the self, they have that option. Let them clearly and publicly denounce the current doctrine and establish a new one. That’s the answer - not redefining reality.

Where does the word game end? Should we also stop calling militant organizations - such as Egypt’s “Islamic Jihad” - by their own chosen names?

The movie “The Usual Suspects” may have put it best: “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

One of the most devious tactics used by the Islamists is scaring their enemy out of speaking the plain truth about this virulent strain of Islam, for fear it might alienate or offend millions of moderate Muslims. But this ensures that no one will directly confront their violent ideologies and the books that contain them - since, under Islamic Sharia law, no one is even allowed to challenge their contents.

Calling angina a “common cold” does not change its nature. It only prevents us from taking the necessary steps in treating it, which will only lead to further sickness, and possibly death.

Playing word games with jihadists is not only meaningless, but plays right into the hands of the radical Muslim terrorists - who, to be defeated, must first be called by their true name.

Hamid, a onetime member of Jemaah Islamiya, an Islamist terrorist group, is a medical doctor and Muslim reformer living in the West.

Call radical Islam by its name

Terror Most Imperial

One of the more subtle tools of imperialism today is the use of value-laden language that seeks to define the Arab and Muslim world. With labels such as ‘terrorists’ and ‘Islamofascism’, they wish to establish an ‘Orientalist’ perspective of otherness, says Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich.

For centuries the colonizers exploited and dominated the third world. Today, one of the more subtle tools of imperialism is the use of value-laden language that seeks to define the Arab and Muslim world. With labels such as ‘terrorists’ and ‘Islamofascism’, they wish to establish an ‘Orientalist’ perspective of otherness denoting barbarism as set apart from Israel and the West which represents admirable qualities. It is imperative to reject this imperial imposition of characterization and for each state, individually and collectively, to self-rule, foremost through self-definition.

The case of Mojahedeen-e Khalg (MEK) showcases the ever present imperial influence of the West in defining the ‘other’ due to the ownership of language. The hypocrisy is stark given that the US with the help of her ally the British waged a ‘war on terror’ which has resulted in the death of over a million people to date. Yet, a certain Lord Corbett of Castle Vale, a member of the House of Lords from Gordon Brown’s ruling Labor Party, has coauthored an opinion piece with Congressman Bob Filner (D-CA), both of whom promote the terrorist organization of the MEK. In their opinion, these two argue that engagement with Iran would risk, among other things, a “support for international terrorism”[i].

Lord Colbert does not do his title justice; to paraphrase Samuel Butler, a degenerate nobleman is like a turnip. There is nothing good of him but that which is under ground. Else how can he explain throwing in his lot with terrorists who are in the employ of Israel? “Israel is said to have had a relationship with the M.E.K at least since the late nineties, and to have supplied a satellite signal for N.C.RI. broadcasts from Paris into Iran” [ii]. Their servitude to the Israelis was after they had committed treason, murder, and terrorism while under the tutelage of Saddam Hossein – the man that the Americans and the British considered a threat to world peace, and whose demise and the invasion of Iraq has now caused a threat to world peace.

While innocent Iraqis were being killed en masse in the ‘war on terror’, the Commander in Chief gave ‘special persons status’ to Saddam’s pet terrorists in Camp Ashraf while an associate from the powerful Republican lobbying group of Barbour Griffith & Rogers invited Neil Livingstone, the C.E.O. of Global Options, an international risk-management firm, and Gregory Minjack, who was an executive at Public Strategies, a Washington-based crisis-management company” to remove the group from the FTO designation. The lobby group was not without help. Congressman Filner has been on the Hill promoting the group. But perhaps one of their most ardent admirers is Cuban-born Congresswoman Senator Ros-Lehtinen who is not new to the game.

In February 1988, Orlando Bosch had been arrested in Miami and implicated in the 1976 Cubana plot, a terrorist act which had resulted in the downing of flight 455 killing 73 passengers. Joe D. Whitley, associate United States Attorney General at the time, called Bosch “a terrorist, unfettered by laws or human decency, threatening and inflicting violence without regard to the identity of his victims”[iii], had the distinct advantage of having Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) Bosch’s release as one of the cornerstones of her 1989 congressional campaign. This murderer of 73 innocent lives had the more good luck. Ros-Lehtinen’s campaign manager was Jed Bush, the President’s son. In July 1989, a month after meeting his son Jed and Ros-Lehtinen to discuss the Bosch case, President Bush rejected his Justice Department’s recommendation and authorized Bosch’s release who became a resident of the United States two years later.[iv] In granting the MEK terrorists asylum in Iraq, George W. is following a family trend.

Bosch’s terrorist partner, Cuban-born, Luis Posada Carriles dedicated his life to the over throw of Fidel Castro and was a CIA recruit who participated in the calamitous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, “he was part of Operation Southern Front…and he worked for the Hammer [Oliver North]…From 1967 to 1986, Luis was a compensated agent of the CIA. And George Bush, the vice president, knew what he was doing.”[v] Yet for blowing up a plane and causing 73 people to be killed, he was arrested in 2005 on immigration charges and released in 2007[vi] . It is interesting to note that George H.W. Bush was director of the CIA when the Cubana airliner exploded. What makes the Cuban-born Ros-Lehtinen support the MEK terrorists, does she have a fatal attraction towards assassins and murderers? Or are she and the rest of Congress following the leader of nation that has waged ‘war on terror’?

Perhaps they believe that by imposing the colonial language of calling the ‘other’ ‘uncivilized’ and state sponsor of terrorists, their mass murder and moral annihilation will go unnoticed. “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.” – J.F. Kennedy.

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich is an Iranian-American studying at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Her research focus is US foreign policy towards Iran, Iran’s nuclear program, and influence of lobby groups. She is a peace activist, essayist, radio commentator and public speaker.

Notes:

[i] http://www.iranfocus.com/en/iran-world-press/dont-enable-irans-offenses.html

[ii] Connie Bruck, “A reporter at large: Exiles; How Iran’s expatriates are gaming the nuclear threat”. The New Yorker, March 6, 2006

[iii] Quoted in Weiner, “Case of Cuban Exile Could Test the US Definition of Terrorist,” p. A1.

[iv] Bardach, “Twilight of the Assassins.”

[v] Bardach, “Ibid

[vi] “The Good Terrorist: The United States and Cuba,” The Economist vol. 383, iss. 8526. 28 April 2007. p. 44.

Middle East Online

Muslims Believe in Islam

John Press

May 18, 2008

Muslims Believe in Islam
Today I attended a counter protest to a nakbah rally near the U.N. building in New York. Nakbah means “Palestinian Catastrophe” and refers to the creation of Israel. Apparently, other Muslim nations also considered the creation of Israel a disaster. All of Israel´s Muslim neighbors attacked Israel on its birthday. They lost. Israel exists. But I did not attend the counter demonstration because I think it obvious that Israel is right and the Palestinians are wrong. Culturism accepts the possibility that the Palestinians believe they are right. Muslims believe the Koran represents perfect morality.
Though we cannot say who is right, we do have a dog in this fight. With small lulls, the West has been fighting Muslims for 1400 years. The Muslims religion started in 622 ad and quickly took over the Middle East, North Africa and attempted to take Europe. The Crusades were aimed at allowing Christians to visit areas the Muslims had conquered. September 11, 2001 echoed the battle of Vienna on September 11th, 1683. In that battle the Europeans halted Muslim expansion into Europe via the East. This mirrored the Western front where the Muslims held Spain from 711 until 1492.
Upon reaching the rally I met up with the beautiful and inspiring Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs. She does not know it, but we disagree philosophically. She considers Islam savage and backwards. In her reporting she considered it ironic that women would parade for Islam. Culturists acknowledge that Muslims believe Islam is right; they are willing to die for their side because they believe in it. We, of course, believe in our side, but no international judge or destiny can prove who is right. If our truths were obvious, they would have been converted a long time ago. Muslims believe in their values as firmly as we believe in ours.
If culturism had a weakness it would occur in cases of genocide and hatred. One Jewish man at the rally was greeted with chants of “Jew! Jew! Jew! I hope you die today!” We who study know of the concept of “dhimmitude” whereby Jews and other non-believers receive humiliating second class citizenship under Islamic rule. In response, first of all, culturism respects majority culture´s rights. That means Muslim states have no right to attack other states such as Israel. Secondly, where such dhimmitude gets implemented, the majority consider it right. They can enforce it via power. Culturism is very realistic. Morality only exists in practice where it can be enforced.

Strategically we are better off understanding those who believe in Islam hold fundamentally different values, are willing to die and kill for them, and will show no mercy once in power. The United Nations will not rescue the West. Their pretended stance of moral neutrality does not exist. The nations there in have a point of view that has nothing to do with impartial declarations of justice. Many in the U.N. sympathize with terrorists and would cheer the day any Western nation, including Israel, fell. When we put our faith in “international,” and “humanitarian” ideals we deceive ourselves. Peace and security can only come about when we realize we are different and respect each others right to define and protect our respective ways of life. We should not assume fundamental agreement. Those in the United Nations take sides and we must too.
Culturism hates multiculturalist belief that we all share fundamental values and are all on the same side. Multiculturalist thinking allowed the Muslims to bring school children in from public school Madrassas to scream hatred towards Western nations and Jews. Multiculturalism fails to realize that Islamic values are diametrically opposed to Western values. They do not agree with Western notions of democracy, feminism, freedom of speech and separation of church and state. U.N. votes show this to be true. Terrorism in Europe over cartoons confirms our differences. Marches against Israel´s existence confirm we have diametrically opposed agendas. The United States and other Western nations need to realize there are irreconcilable sides and Muslims believe theirs is right.

American Chronicle | Muslims Believe in Islam