Dogmatic Religion

What dogmatic religion does.

Seven years ago in Somalia a 13-year-old girl is allowed out on her own without male supervision. This is probably the first time she has has experienced this incredible freedom in a totally patriarchal society dominated by sharia law administered by dogmatic clerics.

Out of the blue, she is unexpectedly set upon by a group of older men and is very thoroughly raped, sodomised and beaten.

Terrified, hurting and confused, what can she do? Bleeding and torn apart, she goes to the religious court for redress. They will know what to do to make her better and help to heal her in her innocent distress.

Well, of course, the religious court, well-practised in pastoral care, does know its business.

And it knows its texts very well.

And it says...

"We don’t know that it’s true that men abused you in this manner. We have no proof except your word. But we can tell that you’ve had sex – indeed, judging by your injuries you’ve had a great deal of sex lately.

But you’re not married. So you’re guilty of illicit sexual activity and probably adultery. This is the law.

So now before your wounds have stopped hurting we're gonna bury you up to your chest in the hot sand of the desert, and laughing men - men who rape and sodomise and beat innocent children - will now take part in the only other cultural activity that gratifies some of the male sex in this part of the world, which is the stoning of a young woman to death..." This is our religion, and we are those who administer it.

The people who did this were not ignorant; nor were they criminals; they knew very well what they were doing, for they were in perfect conformity with the requirements of their holy books. or, when the future king David wanted to marry king Saul's daughter, Saul wanted the dowry of 100 Philistine foreskins. Yes, really. Being the hero that he was of course, David went even further and collected 200! (In other words, he murdered 200 men and mutilated their penises). Carrying these pieces of sensitive pudenda in a satchel, he presented them to Saul,marrying the king's daughter Michal. Like the Medieval torturers of Christianity during the Inquisition, where clerics indulged their peccadilloes for sadism by the torturing and burning of heretics at the stake on the order of the 'Holy' Roman Emperor Frederick II in 1224 a legal punishment,which in 1238 became the principal punishment in the empire. Like the Christians who preceded them, they did not believe that absolutely anything happens randomly or by chance. They are not under the illusion - like the rest of modern, rational humanity outside of religion that heaven is indifferent; they’re not under the illusion that we are biologically created; that we are here because of the laws of natural selection and random mutation. They don’t believe anything of the sort.

They are utterly consoled by the idea, like the Christians before them, that heaven intervenes and cares about every single action. Allah is aware. God is concerned.

The Almighty Voyeur has you in His sights.

Otherwise why would they put themselves to the trouble of raping, torturing and murdering a 13-year-old, whose last moments you might want to take a few moments to imagine...?

Islam, like Christianity long before it, makes very large claims for itself. Vary large claims indeed. It claims to be the last and final religion. Just as Jesus is the single, exclusive and only, unique, and final way to redemption and the joys of heaven. Islam is also, oddly, the Last and Final Revelation...

When you see bumper-stickers – everyone says you can’t reduce major things to a bumper-sticker – it’s not my idea to invent a bumper-sticker saying “Islam is the Solution” It’s a well-known bumper-sticker associated for example with the Muslim Brotherhood. They say Islam is the solution for everything. It takes care of all your life. And the life to come. Your sexuality. The economy. Banking. Diet. Relations with other religions. Every single thing. Ever. It’s a TOTAL solution.

Now what is creepy about the word, 'Total’? I don’t have to tell a readership like this.

It’s the first 5 letters of the word, ‘totalitarianism’. It's the tag-line of Finality and Certainty with regard to the Jewish People. It’s absolute; it’s all-inclusive; it’s absolute, and, oddly, for a religion, Islam making such large claims, doesn’t particularly like having these claims questioned, or scrutinised.

Religion Is A Blight

And just as is the case for all religions - maybe you have noticed - there is an inverse relationship between the claims they make and the evidence that can be adduced in support for them, (you must have noticed that). With Islam, a younger religion, therefore more in its first flush and bloom, there’s an extraordinarily strong willingness to say that any challenge to its absolutist claims is by definition 'profane' and 'blasphemous'. And we well know how profanity and blasphemy can be the precursor to very severe punishment and often are for Muslims and for non-Muslims alike. If the blasphemer does not repent, the punishment is death.This is not ‘a road for peace’.

And yet, equally oddly, although the punishment for adultery is death and the punishment for theft is the lopping-off of the thief's hands, this is rarely executed. perhaps this is because although the religious law demands these punishments, (and they are totally uncompromising in their sharia requirement) how inconvenient it would be for the economy in the real Muslim world if the hands of every thief were cut off and the head of every adulterer were claimed! Religion therefore must be administered in a certain way and used only against certain individuals and classes of persons.

Thus, it is shown that Islam is no different from Christianity in its tendency towards partiality, tokenism and particularity. Only certain felons who offend against the Holy God and His Holy Laws should be punished. The rest - we may call them, 'the favoured' - are excused. Just like the lying priest in the Church of England who, holding an important ecclesiastical position in the diocese is not disciplined by his bishop after spreading malicious rumours about a colleague that have ruined his colleague's life.

A supporter of the banned Islamic State terror group has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 14 years after admitting a plot to blow herself up in a bomb attack on St Paul's Cathedral in London.

This group (IS) burst on to the international scene in 2014 when it seized large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq. It has become notorious for its brutality, including mass killings, abductions and beheadings. The group though has attracted support elsewhere in the Muslim world.

The Muslim convert Safiyya Shaikh's case raised doubts in court about whether this drug-addicted and emotionally damaged woman would ever have gone through with the attack.

Shortly before midday on 24 September last year at Uxbridge London Underground station, Safiyya Shaikh had finished wiping away her tears. She'd found a soulmate - a woman called Azra, who had consoled her as she poured her heart out. And then Shaikh, happy she had found someone who understood, handed over two pink bags so that her new friend could take them away and fill them with bombs to blow up St Paul's Cathedral.

As they parted, Azra would probably have stopped the covert recording she had been making. She and other undercover investigators had slowly, patiently, reeled in Shaikh - saving London from an appalling attack.

Can I trust the kindness of a religious person?

Shaikh, born Michelle Ramsden in 1983 was converted to Islam in 2007 after being impressed with the kindness of a neighbouring Muslim family. Her adoption of the faith came after a deeply troubled upbringing. She'd spent time in care homes and later confided to one undercover officer that her family was riven by drug and alcohol abuse. She too had become an addict.

"It was the only life I really knew," she said

"Inside my heart always felt empty - I think this [is] why I

used drugs to try to fill the emptiness,

she wrote in one message online.

In the years that followed her conversion to Islam, the Old Bailey heard she had become increasingly distanced from her own family. She initially found a new family - the small community of female converts in London who supported others on the same faith journey.

But drugs soon overwhelmed her. In 2013 she was cautioned for theft and given a community order for burglary. Two years later she was arrested for heroin possession.

Rajan Basra has studied Shaikh's online footprint as part of his research at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King's College London.

"It's clear that she had several underlying vulnerabilities - she created a [YouTube] list specifically about surviving drug addiction," he says. "Her Facebook content shows that she was very isolated from her family. And like many converts, she found it difficult to make that transition - and so she was reaching out to other people in a similar situation."

"Throughout this whole period, she was then watching a lot of extremist content - content produced by supporters and activists generally affiliated with the Islamic State, and judging by the playlist that she created, she was watching this for hours."

Evidence from court shows that she was in contact with members of Al Muhajiroun, the British network headed by the jihadist preacher Anjem Choudary. One particular influence on her life was Abu Waleed, whose real name is Shahid Janjua. He sent her extremist material - and when she began to voice these opinions within the convert community, she found herself ostracised.

Between August 2016 and September 2017, the national Prevent scheme - in which police, social services and others aim to stop people sliding towards violent extremism - looked three times at Shaikh. She denied having extremist views but MI5 ultimately reached a different assessment, based on its own intelligence-gathering. It made her a "subject of interest" - one of the 3,000 potential or active terrorists under investigation.

On 18 August 2019, Shaikh went to Luton Airport to fly to Amsterdam to meet Lemousset. But she was stopped from flying by counter-terrorism officers who questioned her about her plans. Furious, she returned home and, with her helpers, created an image of the New York skyline. In lettering mimicking blood, she added: "PIGS YOU WILL SOON PAY FOR YOUR CRIMES". Two days later, she thought she had finally met someone who could help.

She began talking online to someone she called "H". He appeared to be an IS attack planner in the UK but "H" did not exist - he was a fake identity, operated by an undercover team, tracking extremists on social media.

These "Online Role Players" became key in the fight against potential lone attackers - seeking to infiltrate hidden chat groups and identifying the most dangerous suspects.

"I rather die young and get Jannah [heaven], quickest way possible," she told "H".

The officer asked what she wanted.

After a few days of thought, she replied: "So this is really what I want... I would like to kill a lot brother. Until I'm killed. I would like do church... But want to do a place that also means something to kuffar. Like history. They will care more about the building than people killed... U know where they do the royal weddings? Is it possible to put, like, bomb with detonator and then keep shooting until I am killed?" She was referencing St Paul's Cathedral in London.

"Have you thought how you would do it?" H asked her.

"No brother, I don't know.. I just want to do the most effective way possible. I don't know a lot about them things," she replied.

"But you must have an idea sis, so I can help?" he said...

"I just want a lot to die... I had all the intentions to do this, but no other support," she said.

On 7 September, she posted a document to her chat group on how to carry out surveillance of a target. The next morning, she visited the cathedral, carrying a pink bag that she thought would be right for a bomb and later reported back.

"I really thought it would not be possible. But it's easy," she wrote.

"So would you want it in the bag or strapped to you like vest? Or no vest?" asked "H".

"I think bag better," said Shaikh. "What u think? Or both? Won't it be a bigger explosion, if both? Sorry, I expect a lot - lol."

"I agree but it's your niyyah [intention]. I need to know so I can prepare."

"Is that OK then.. Both... U will teach me everything to do?"

"H" told Shaikh that she would now need to meet his "wife", Azra, for the handover of the bags - and to measure her up for a body-worn suicide bomb. She agreed a time and place and replied: "Am so happy to have family."

The women met on 22 September in west London. Azra was recording everything Shaikh said. "I had the really horrible path [sic]," said Shaikh. "I want forgiveness for everything in my life that I've done." She began to cry. "I'm scared of not going to Jannah [heaven]... I've had enough of this place... I want to give something back."

The pair, fully veiled to hide their identities, walked back to the Tube station. And there, Shaikh handed over the two bags for bombs.

Days later, she was arrested.

Shaikh pleaded guilty in February to preparing the attack. But Benjamin Newton, defending, argued at the Old Bailey that all was not what it seemed. The first day of the police interviews had to be abandoned, he said, because Shaikh was in a state of heroin withdrawal.

"The terrorism attack that she is guilty of preparing would have been a truly dreadful act, if carried out, and she recognises that," said Mr Newton.

"The key words are 'if carried out'.

Three people were involved in this plot, and two others were police officers. There was no bomb, there never would be. There were only police officers pretending to care about her, offering her words of encouragement to see how far she would go."

Mr Newton said Shaikh had "cold feet". She had cancelled a second meeting with the "wife" and had asked to put back the attack from Christmas to Easter.

"It is quite clear that her involvement in the organisation that she became involved in were all part of a craving to be part of a family that she never had.

"She was desperate for those she engaged with to like and accept her," said Mr Newton.

Alison Morgan QC, prosecuting, put it another way to the court.

"Had the role player not sat in this position, she would have found an equivalent."

And in a final twist to her tale - that's exactly what Safiyya Shaikh then confirmed herself. Hours after her defence mitigation finished in court, she made a call from prison, that was recorded as standard. A call she knew the authorities would have been listening to.

"I'm so tired about things," she said to her confidante. "I didn't get cold feet yeah... I was ready to go through with it... I wasn't having doubts."

Under the law, the officers did nothing wrong in playing a role that allowed them to gather critical evidence about Shaikh's intentions and preparations. There is no defence in the British courts of "entrapment" - and the transcripts in the case show the officers asking questions, rather than proposing specific targets.

Rajan Basra at King's College London says her case shows how difficult it is to work out how to intervene successfully in the life of a potential terrorist before they go too far.

"Radicalisation is not always a straight line," he says. "She could have waxed and waned in her support for the cause. And so the key thing with prevention services is you have to get there at the right time.

"And then that support has to be consistent - and it has to have that long-term payoff. It's really difficult to say what more that service could have done."