Mona Siddiqui and the Muslim Infiltration of Scotland

Someone at the Herald has obviously been given orders to engage in pro-Muslim propaganda because yesterday the newspaper published yet another lightweight, Islam-friendly puff piece, this in the form of an interview with Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic Studies and Public Understanding at the University of Glasgow.

The Muslim gives Glasgow a little pat on the head. Thanks, Muslim!

"Although Scotland is a very small and rather incestuous society, Glasgow is quite unique in having a diverse range of people not just from different ethnic backgrounds but from different [social] backgrounds. That gives it an acceptance of diversity.”

Reviewing her website, it seems Mona Siddiqui once gave a lecture called "Is Islam law ethical?" The text of the lecture can be downloaded here. Unfortunately, she doesn't really make a serious attempt to answer the question. She does take the opportunity to engage in some taqiyya-style apologetics for the Islamic death penalty for apostasy. According to her, the Islamic texts calling for the death penalty to be applied to apostates must be seen:

in the wider political picture of Islam as a fledgling faith, where survival of the community was imperative and those who left the faith both formally or informally would be seen as a physical threat, equivalent to sedition or treason against the state.

She claims the Islamic texts that call for the execution of apostates are somehow marginal or contentious:

While there is no Divine punishment mentioned in the Qur’an for turning away from Islam, there is some evidence of this in certain disputed hadith or prophetic sayings.

In fact, the Bukhari collection of hadiths says this:

Whoever changes his religion, execute him.

Couldn't be more clear, could it? There is no ambiguity there. The Bukhari hadiths are regarded as canonical for all Sunni Muslims, who constitute 80-90% of the global Muslim population. So it is grossly deceitful for her to pretend that these texts do not have widespread acceptance. In fact there is an overwhelming consensus among Muslims in support of the view that apostates should be executed, and this has been re-affirmed even in recent times by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. Pretending that Islamic texts are "disputed" is a classic taqiyya tactic.

Mona Siddiqui is also chair of the The Chair of the BBC's Scottish Religious Advisory Committee. The Muslim population of Scotland is generally judged to be about 1% of the whole. Why has a member of this tiny faith community been allowed to have a predominant say in the BBC's coverage of religion in Scotland? It is the same thing at the UK level. The BBC's overall head of religious programming is the Muslim Aaqil Ahmed, who, both at the BBC and in his previous tenure at Channel 4, has commissioned programs which subtly demean Christianity.

It seems Mona Siddiqui is also a member of the Committee on Scottish Devolution. The statutory purpose of this body is:

To review the provisions of the Scotland Act 1998 in the light of experience and to recommend any changes to the present constitutional arrangements that would enable the Scottish Parliament to serve the people of Scotland better, improve the financial accountability of the Scottish Parliament, and continue to secure the position of Scotland within the United Kingdom.

Why is a woman who was born in Pakistan, grew up in Yorkshire and has lived in Scotland for only 15 years being allowed to influence the constitutional future of Scotland? How was she appointed to this position? I haven't found any explanation of that, but it is bizarre indeed. And it's not the only bizarre thing about this body. Look at its membership. It has 15 members in total. One is called Rani Dhir. Although she doesn't seem to be a Muslim, she is a member of an ethnic minority. And this status seems to be very important to her.

She is also currently a trustee of two black and minority ethnic-led organisations - PATH (Scotland), which supports training and employment in housing and social services, and Ankur Arts, which supports artists and artistic productions.

The woman is clearly a racist. She supports organisations that explicitly give preference to people according to their supposed race. Here is a quote from PATH's website:

PATH (Scotland) was established in 1998 with charitable objectives to address the under-representation of Black and Minority Ethnic Communities in Housing and related areas. We have supported over 240 people from BME Communities to access employment and career progression in their chosen field.

So the Committee on Scottish Devolution contains two ethnics out of a total membership of 15. This equals 13.33% of its membership. The ethnic minority population of Scotland is generally stated to be around 2% of the whole. How is it fair that these ethnics, who are presumably appointed on this basis alone, are given 13% of the influence on the constitutional future of Scotland? This is outrageous racial favouritism!

Their website also offers translations of the Commission on Scottish Devolution's "Commissioning Note" in Punjabi, Bengali, Chinese, Urdu and Arabic! WTF?!?