The Open Mosque in Cape Town that has been damaged in an arson attack.
Although there are those individual Muslims who are moderate in their religious views and who even may be able to distinguish between the slightly more fluffy Meccan Koran from the Medina Koran with its emphasis on killing the infidel, that doesn’t mean that Islam the ideology is either peaceful or tolerant.
The gay publication Gay Star News has reported that a Mosque belonging to one of the few genuinely liberal streams of Islam has been burned down, presumably by some of the slightly less liberal followers of Islam. The gay-friendly mosque in Cape Town in South Africa had only been opened two weeks when it was damaged by fire on the night of October 4th 2014.
The Gay Star News website said:
“A gay-friendly mosque, which opened in South Africa’s Cape Town two weeks ago amid fierce criticism from the local Muslim community, was damaged by a fire shortly after midnight on Saturday.
According to an AFP report, local police have opened an arson inquiry into the fire which occurred on the eve of the celebration of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice).
No one was injured although the fire damaged the front door of the mosque.
The police have yet to make any arrests.
Launched by Muslim academic Dr Taj Hargey, the South African-born director of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford in the UK, the so-called ‘Open Mosque’ openly welcomes LGBTI people; allows for men and women to pray side by side as opposed to them being in segregated areas conventionally; and had planned to have women as imams.
The mosque has faced fierce criticism and threats of violence from Muslims with 14 national and provincial organizations representing the Muslim community across South Africa issuing a joint statement condemning Hargey’s plans.
Hargey said he believes the incident to be a deliberate arson attack as petrol and oil were used. He added that unidentified people have seen on closed-circuit television footage making several reconnaissance trips to the mosque two hours before the attack.
‘Instead of preparing for the holy day, these people were preparing to destroy the house of God… it’s very sad, disrespectful,’ he said.
Despite the attack, Hargey remains undeterred, ‘They cannot shut us down, they can try whatever they want,’ he said. ‘They have tried verbal intimidation, threats and now arson. This should be the last… Our opponents should know that they don’t have a copyright on Islam.’
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I have immense respect for Dr Hargey because as one of the few high profile genuinely liberal Islamic leaders and academics. I recognise that although he is trying to make a silk purse out of the sows ear that is Islam, he is at least he is trying to walk the path of peace and inclusion. That is something that can rarely be said about many other Islamic paths leaders or scholars.
There are two things that are noticeable about this attack on Dr Hargey’s mosque is that was most probably done by those with a more conservative view of Islam and timed to coincide with the Eid Al Adha. The second thing that jumps out is that this attack is an illustration of just how violent Islam is when compared to other beliefs, especially other Abrahamic faiths. In many places Liberal Christians and less liberal Christians often live together in relative peace, and would not attack one another’s buildings. The same can be said for Judaism as well, a Haredi Rabbi will not recognise a Liberal Rabbi as a Rabbi but the Haradim is unlikely to want to burn down the Liberal rabbi’s synagogue, and vice versa of course.
It is the inherent violence that exists in Islam that makes it very difficult for questioning Muslims like Dr Hargey to practise their interpretation of Islam in peace. A pessimists may say that Islam is incapable of true reform until it gets to grips with its culture of violence. Unfortunately this culture of violence has served orthodox Islam very well for centuries and the policy of invade, kill and forcibly convert has brought about the situation where whole swathes of the globe are controlled by violent versions of Islam.
If there is to be a future where liberal interpretations of Islam, like that of Dr Hargey’s are to grow, then a space for it must be carved out for it by attacking orthodox Islam for that is where most of the violence, misogyny and homophobia in Islamic communities is coming from.
I wish Dr Hargey well with his project but I think that, at least at this point in history, he is onto getting a hiding for nothing.
I am saddened but not surprised to hear of this attack on Taj Hargey’s Capetown mosque. He is one of the few Muslims to have utterly condemned the grooming gangs in the UK without resorting to taqqiya or tu quoque and I wish him and people like Quilliam’s Maajid Nawaz all the best. Like you, i think they are on a hiding to nothing, but at least it is a proof that a genuinely liberal version of Islam can exist, despite violent literalist orthodoxy.
Dr Hargey seems to be verbally attacked on a regular basis by his more unbalanced co-religionists. What happens to Dr Hargey is a good illustration of what happens to those who try to reform Islam or reinterpret its texts.