SHEIKH TAJ DIN AL-HILALI DEFIES PRESSURE

By Kilamxx

All that Sheikh Taj Din al-Hilali wanted to do when he addressed a Ramadan assembly of 500 worshippers last month, was to remind Muslim women to dress themselves modestly.

Instead, the 65 year old Imam of Sydney’s Lakemba Mosque received a barrage of attacks from the Australian media and politicians when The Australian newspaper published extracts from his sermon a few days ago, almost a month after the event.

Which was petty odd for a daily newspaper.

The furore surrounding the sheik's comments can be regarded as the latest chapter in Australia's demonisation of Islam and the Muslim community in an era of heightened hysteria generated as part of the 'war on terror'.

Many Muslims feel that this is just another excuse to inflame popular sentiment concerning the question of Islam and its role in Australian society.

Never mind that the senior Muslim cleric, regarded as the Mufti of Australia and New Zealand, was instrumental in securing the safety and eventual release of fellow Australian Douglas Wood from his Iraqi abductors in June 2005 at the request of the Australian government.

Al-Hilali is now painted as being ‘ignorant and naïve’ and unfit to be a Muslim leader and has been summarily told to resign.

Apparently revelation of the mufti's comments only came after he criticised the Australian Prime Minister John Howard last month in The Australian for saying a minority of migrant men mistreated their women.

Sheikh Hilali said such a minority was found in all faiths. "Those who don't respect their women are not true Muslims."

"There's a small percentage found among all religions, but we don't recognise ours as Muslims."

Muslim convert, former Christian Kathy Pugh, 50, perhaps represent the general view of the Muslims when she expressed support for everything the mufti had said.

"He wants everyone to be modest when they walk out the door. What is wrong with that?" she asked.

Most Australian Muslims have rallied behind Sheikh Al-Hilali.

The following is a transcript of Sheikh Al-Hilali's speech on Friday (27th October) at Lakemba Mosque in front of an audience of about 5000 Muslim worshippers:-

Source :News.com.au

We offer peace and blessings and we pray to the son of divine guidance and the messenger of the divine providence and to God's mercy onto humanity, our master Mohammed, and to his pure family and companions ...I can't find more truthful words, and more eloquent of recounts, except in the words of the most truthful speakers and wisest of judges (the Koran): "Vehement hatred has already appeared from out of their mouths, and what their chests conceal is greater still.

"Indeed, we have made the communications clear to you, if you will understand.

"Lo, you are they who will love them while they do not love you, and you believe in the book (in) the whole of it.

"And when they meet you they say: We believe, and when they are alone, they bite the ends of their fingers in rage against you. Say (to the snakes, the scum, the defiled and the filthy): Die in your rage."

Crowd: Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!

Hilaly: Surely God knows what is in the chests.

On the fourth of the month of Ramadan, while we were in this blessed mosque, and after the nightly prayer, the sheik read from the Sura of al-Maida, and I was commenting on the verse, "The man thief and the woman thief, cut off the hands of both..."

God put forward man before woman in theft and woman before man in adultery. And then I started to present the seductive means, and how the man should control his urges.

I am guiding my daughters, my women. I call for chastity. And if this country is going to forbid us from protecting our honour, and preserve our dignity, I preserve my honour with money that I do not spend, may God not bless money after the honour is lost.

Australia is a multicultural society. Whoever wants to, let them take their clothes off. Whoever wants to go naked, let them go naked. Whoever wants to get drunk, let them get drunk. Whoever wants to smoke hashish, let them smoke hashish.

It's a free country; it's none of our business. But it is our right to tell our women the text of the verse 59 of the Sura of al-Nour (The Light) ... of the Sura of al-Ahzab (The Clans).

Verse 59 of the Sura of al-Ahzab: "Oh, Prophet! Say to your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers that they let down upon them their over-garments; this will be more proper, that they may be known, and thus they will not be given trouble." This is the word of God.

Some of our women who are Westernised say that the religious hijab does not accord respect. The religious hijab, they say, does not increase respect for the woman or protect her.

We order the wearing of the religious hijab that God has ordered us to wear. There is nothing to this ... when we condemn debauchery, shamelessness ...

The Australian Bureau of Statistics says that every six minutes in Australia there is an assault against a male minor or female minor. This is rape, and it is present in the Western societies. We are fighting this rape. We are fighting this.

We want to protect the honour of all the people. And we do not encourage our sons to rape. A Muslim man is ordered to refrain from looking. Rape, to us, is a crime worse than adultery. It borders on murder.

We have said it and declared it 100,000 times, that Islam is against rape. Islam does not instruct to rape. Islam prohibits rape. In Islam, the crime of rape borders on the crime of murder.

And still, those who are sick in the heart ... only when the cow is brought down on the ground, you see a lot of knives ...

Everybody is issuing a statement to look good in the eyes of the Government.

I say: By God, if they put the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left hand ... the sun, the moon, Australia, America and the Western world, in order to give up the principle of the Islamic, moderate, Koranic calling, then I swear to God that I will remain all by myself until God makes me a martyr!

Crowd: Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!

Hilaly: It's not about cowardice. I order according to my Koran. And I adhere to the principles of my Koran. And I know that this is a democratic society, and it allows me to speak the word of truth. I don't care ...

It's not about that. We are building the Australian society. And when we order chastity, when we preserve our honour, when we preserve our daughters, it doesn't mean that we are fanatics and extremists ... and we describe the woman as so and so, as meat ... We were comparing.

When you leave a piece of meat in the yard without supervision, when you put a piece of meat on the footpath, the voracious wolves will snap at it. That is our comparison. We're not saying that every naked woman should be snapped at, no.

I will say it briefly and very clearly. As one would say, first of all: Let me clearly state for the record, for the history, that rape in our religion, in our Islamic law, Islamic sharia, is considered a crime whose punishment is execution. The punishment for rape is execution in Islam.

Its punishment is not only to whip the man. So, my dear beloved, we are a nation that God empowered with this religion. And if we seek empowerment in another religion, God will humiliate us.

I know this was concocted three weeks ago. They met. Someone took the tape. Someone translated it, and gave it to The Australian newspaper, and then on to the diplomats to the politicians.

And the aim is ... I say: My name is Taj, my job is a sheik, my tools are my turban, and I am a servant serving the religion of God. I pray to God ... and I will die attesting to the religion of God. I don't belong to any establishment or to any government. And whoever wants to terminate my wages, let them terminate it.

God bless you.

We have with us on this blessed day my friend Abdul Jalil Sajid, the mufti of London and the noted scholar. We thank him, and I am sorry that you came here at a difficult time to find this problem in Australia. But it is a storm in a cup. We say, "no worries, mate", in Australian.

We also have with us the noted Sheik Abdul Ghaffar al-Zoabi, God preserve him. We wanted to have him here since the last week of Ramadan, but the lack of time and my circumstances and his did not allow it.

We will hear the speech of Sheik Abdul Ghaffar today, and we tell them: Our banners will remain raised high, God willing. And our voices will remain heard. And may the world vanish if it doesn't listen to "there is no God but Allah'.

Crowd: Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!

Further Reading: Revised transcript of Ramadan sermon published by The Australian