Sent: 28 May 2022 15:36
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Deborah Samuel: Soyinka calls for prosecution of Abuja cleric
Dear Baba Kadiri,
Don't impute violence to your truly. I'm more of a David Dellinger sort of fellow. The miscreant in question (a "piano player") disappeared because knowing what he had said when pretending to be drunk, he feared the possibility of a scene like this overtaking him and bringing him to justice, depending on his answers when he would have been asked, just these two questions:
" Does Cornelius Ignoramus look like a bitch?
"Does Cornelius Ignoramus look like your nigger?"
Back in London, I had a good friend like Derek otherwise known as "Cool Black" - from Guyana, Marvin Gaye's personal bodyguard who would have accompanied me to do the questioning. Yet, see how Marvin died. And just look at the kinds of house niggers assassinated Malcolm...
Just as you say, wisdom is universal and is not necessarily based on colour even if some of it takes on local colour because it is culture-dependent. That's how Bedu Annan introduced me to Kwame Anthony Appiah's then major popular publication, "In My Father's House" -that wisdom is not dependent on race etc…
With your insistence on "Let it be known to you that if anyone should slap my wife in my presence, as you hypothetically presumed, I will do everything possible to get the person arrested by the Police for assaulting my wife.", of course, what you have in mind is an ideal society, be it Sweden, or Nigeria where reporting the matter to the Police could be the beginning of the long legal process of someone's pain and grievances being addressed
I think that I have told you before that since circa July 1970 when I spent my first summer in Sweden, till today, 28th May 2022, I have listened to Swedish Radio on less than four ( 4) occasions and the first time that I did, it was quite accidentally, to Radio Sweden in 1985, and this is exactly what I heard: " Nigeria: between the airport and my hotel, I was robbed twice: first by the military, and then by the Police! " At a slightly later date, I suppose that in telling his tale he would have to update us with the third robbery, this time by his Bank Manager at Savannah Bank, at No.10 Aba Road in Port Harcourt, of the sum of £6,000 Sterling.
That's why I'm still chuckling quietly to myself as I imagine you running from the scene of the crime (the slap) as fast as your sprightly legs can carry you to the nearest Police Station in Sokoto to make a report that e.g a miscreant perhaps one of the homeless Almajiris or indeed another hungry Nigerian policeman had slapped your beloved and you hoping that the police constable at the desk where you file your report, will accompany you to find, identify and arrest whoever the miscreant is, because, nobody is above the law!
Back to a more sordid reality, consider what happened to Ngugi Wa Thiong'o when he returned to Kenya - in his case, four men were later arrested.
Baba Kadiri's sorrowful l litany continues to point at the glaring absence of a functioning juridical system that should systematically implement what we would like to see as the rule of law in the absence of which people will tend to take the law into their own hands; since there's already the general feeling that justice delayed is justice denied, that's why in some instances immediate street justice is served. - as happened with Deborah Yakubu.
Obviously, that's what Sheikh Maqary is talking about; criminalise some forms of blasphemy such as Torah, Bible and Quran-burning etc and instead of lynching the miscreant / accused - the matter will be taken to court - all this in the interests of peaceful coexistence
Dear Baba Kadiri,
It's 4.58 a-m, I have now read through your excellent treatise and I'm still shuffering and Shmiling as a grass widower.
I'd just like to make this one point, re- your interpretation of what Brother Malcolm said :
"Please observe that Malcolm X did not say in part of his speech that you quoted that a Muslim should assault anyone that assaults another Muslim. Rather, he emphasized that Islamic religion taught them to be intelligent, be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if anyone puts his hand on YOU send him to the cemetery. Self-defence is an inherent part of any law whether in a theocratic, democratic or autocratic setting. Logically illustrated in law, it is Kadiri alone who in self-defence has the right to deal personally with anyone that assaults him and not Cornelius irrespective of whatever may be his personal relation or affection to Kadiri."
Well, that is one of the Malcolm X quotations that I know by heart - and somehow until about two years ago, I had been mistaken about the exact wording which chivalry clearly remembered as " but if anyone puts his hand on YOUR WOMAN send him to the cemetery!" ( R.I.P.)
Baba Kadiri, please stop sounding like a Yoruba missionary! Surely there's not that much difference between you and YOUR WOMAN ( one flesh) when it comes to protecting and defending her honour and even sending somebody to the cemetery, on her and your behalf, if need be?On Friday, 27 May 2022 at 23:43:45 UTC+2 ogunlakaiye wrote:
Menahem Hamelberg, I have to thank the owner of Heaven, called OLÓRUN in Yoruba language, that you decided on that fateful 16 September 2019, to take your wife home before returning to the scene of verbal assault on her with the intention to strike at the person who had earlier assaulted her only to find out that the *miscreant* had disappeared. Had you met him and executed your plan, you might have been sentenced to a life term imprisonment and, as of date, glorious Gloria would never have had the opportunity to address you as *Cornelius the wise* based on all the wisdom you have been disseminating on this forum to the pleasure of many of us. I don't know what verbal assault your chosen miscreant threw at your wife, but you as a staunch believer of 'an eye for an eye' should or ought to have understood that 'a verbal assault' could only be reciprocated with a 'verbal assault.' You cannot say because you treasure your blood being sacrosanct, therefore, you must draw a machete to behead a mosquito on your thigh. I once witnessed an altercation between a concave-nosed Turkish man and a swastika-necklaced Swede here in Sweden. Enmeshed in his Turkish traditional belief that the greatest insult one could belch out to a person is to say I will 'Fuck' your mother and he decided to demean his Swedish opponent with that expression. And the Swede responded spontaneously, please do it if she allows it. The Swedish man's reply indicated the power of brain over brawn because he was certain that his mother would never allow the Turk to mount on her sexually and if the Turk by any chance should forcibly mount on her, he will be arrested, tried, and jailed for rape. Thus, while a brawn would pull off his clothes to engage in physical combat to avenge an impracticable but contemptuous remark meant only to cause annoyance, the brain would just dismiss such remark as day-dreaming and leave the brawn to live in his deluded life.
Despite of what you and I know about Africa, I am surprised to read about your "authentic African man who is honour-bound and duty bound," and who "knows when, how and where to drop his nuclear bomb on the one who will be foolish to cross the line..." Your authentic African man who is honour-bound and duty-bound has been chopping off the hands of his fellow African brothers in a competition of who among them should send diamond and gold to Antwerp while his fellow citizens are living in penury and abject poverty. Your authentic African man who is duty and honour bound has been sending cocoa beans to Europe for their chocolate and beverage consumptions while his African brothers are toiling in the cocoa plantations for nothing. And your authentic African man who is honour and duty bound has been exporting crude oil at $100 per barrel while importing refined crude oil at $130 per barrel. The list of what your authentic African man who is honour and duty bound is doing to under develop Africa is infinitesimal and I am certain that you know that, but you are only pretending to be smart.
Pouring water on the back of a duck and tacitly referring to me as a Tom and yourself as a jungle man you wrote, "There are a whole lot of differences between your typical tom and the real jungle man." Well, my dear Menahem Hamelberg, it is very easy to take a monkey out of the jungle but it is impossible to take the jungle out of the monkey. The real jungle man of yours truly, is what Lord Lugard already in 1922 referred to as the African Negro whose insensitivity to pain and disregard for life whether his own or others cause him to appear callous to suffering. Most importantly, Lugard observed that the African Negro, your real jungle man, has the courage of a fighting animal - an instinct rather than a moral virtue. The problem of Africans is that we have so much muscles but little or no brains at all. The Yoruba people have three axioms saying (i) OGBÓN JU AGBÁRA; (ii) ALÁGBÁRA MÁ MÈRÒ BABA ÒLE; and (iii) ÌGBÉRAGÁ KÒ DARA. These are literally translated to (i) Wisdom is greater than strength (raw power); (ii) A thoughtless strong man is the father of laziness (weakling) and (iii) Arrogance is not good. Reflecting on the axioms serially, we find that although the Blackman was physically strong than the Whiteman, the latter was wise to exploit the former as slaves in the US and the Caribbean islands. Since the Blackman is incapable of making use of his power (strength) for his own benefit, he becomes the father of laziness and still the black man is arrogant for being exploited.
My grandmother used to tell us who were her grandchildren a Yoruba folklore that illustrated the three Yoruba axioms mentioned above. It was about a Lion King in the Jungle who summoned all the animals in his kingdom to a meeting. He told all the animals that he had noticed that whenever he roared in a bid to prey for his meal, all animals used to panic, even though it was only just one of them that he intended to kill. Therefore, Lion King suggested that a register be created where each animal would register for an appointed day to come to him to be killed for meal instead of him roaring and they panicking. All animals except the elephant agreed to the Lion King's proposal and surprisingly Fox was the first to register to be the meal of Lion King the following morning. At the agreed time, the following morning, Fox did not present himself to be eaten up by the Lion King. By noon, the Fox showed up and breathing heavily he told the Lion King that there was another Lion in the vicinity who had tried to prey on him on his way to the lion therefore, he urged the Lion King to first deal with the rival Lion before making meal out of him. The Lion King beckoned to the Fox to lead him to where the rival Lion was. Fox led the Lion King to a well nearby and pointed that the rivalling lion was inside there. The Lion King peeped inside the well and not knowing that it was his shadow that he saw roared and the shadow charged back causing the Lion King to jump into the well to deal with his rival. And there the Lion King perished in spite of his strength because of his thoughtlessness, arrogance and lack of wisdom.
Dear Menahem Hamelberg, I regret to observe that you have quoted part of the speech of Omowale Malcolm X as reported in his *Message to the Grass Roots* (p.12, Malcolm X Speaks) to imply that he was an Islamic warrior fighting for Islamic imperialism which is totally false. The same Malcolm X said on p. 20-21 as follows, "I'm not out to fight other Negro leaders or organizations. We must find a common approach, a common solution, to a common problem. As of this minute, I've forgotten everything bad that the other leaders have said about me, and I pray they can also forget the many bad things I've said about them. The problem facing our people here in America is bigger than all other personal or organizational differences. Therefore, as leaders, we must stop worrying about the threat we seem to think we pose to each other's personal prestige, and concentrate our efforts toward solving the unending hurt that is being done daily to our people here in America." Then on p.24 he declared, "Although I'm still a Muslim, I'm not here tonight to discuss my religion. I'm not here to try and change your religion. I'm not here to argue or discuss anything that we defer about, because it's time for us to submerge our differences and realize that it is best for us to first see that we have the same problem, a common problem - a problem that will make you catch hell whether you're a Baptist, or a Methodist, or a Muslim, or a Nationalist. Whether you're educated or illiterate....." Please observe that Malcolm X did not say in part of his speech that you quoted that a Muslim should assault anyone that assaults another Muslim. Rather, he emphasized that Islamic religion taught them to be intelligent, be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if anyone puts his hand on YOU send him to the cemetery. Self-defence is an inherent part of any law whether in a theocratic, democratic or autocratic setting. Logically illustrated in law, it is Kadiri alone who in self-defence has the right to deal personally with anyone that assaults him and not Cornelius irrespective of whatever may be his personal relation or affection to Kadiri.
Why did Malcolm X speak the way he did at that time? It was because the Christian religion was being used to justify and perpetuate the racial persecution of Black Americans and some Black American leaders were asking persecuted blacks to accept their fate and follow the counsel of Jesus in the Bible. Jesus, they claimed in Mathew Chapter 5 verses 43-44 admonished thus, "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you." Further in Luke Chapter 6 verses 27-29 Jesus, they claimed, admonished, "But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you; Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat also." Malcolm X did not like the Biblical counsel that the Black Americans were being indoctrinated with, therefore, he called for revolution against the persecution and exploitation of Black Americans thus, "Revolution is never based on begging somebody for an integrated cup of coffee. Revolutions are never fought by turning the other cheek. Revolutions are never based upon love-your-enemy and pray-for-those-who-spitefully-use-you. And revolutions are never waged singing WE SHALL OVERCOME (p.50, Malcolm X Speaks)."
I believe in freedom of religion but I don't believe in religious freedom to murder anyone as in the case of Deborah Samuel Yakubu in Sokoto. The transcript of the voice WhatsApp group in which Deborah objected to its use for religious propaganda has been made public and nowhere in the voice note was it found that Deborah Samuel Yakubu said according to you, "Who the hell is Prophet Muhammad." Even if the invented exclamation remark credited to Deborah were true, that would reasonably not turn her to a miscreant, much less an invitation to Sokoto's Almajirai (children beggars) to murder her. The constitution and the criminal codes in Nigeria do not permit anyone to murder another person on a loose accusation of blasphemy against a religion or a prophet. And if blasphemy were to be criminal in Nigeria, only the courts are allowed to try and convict breachers of law and not any rag-rapped-headed and religious red-line drawer. According to the 2006 population census, Sokoto State contained 3 million, 702 thousand, 6 hundred and seventy-six people. Since 1999, Sokoto State's government has collected billions of dollars as revenue allocations from the Federal government. Yet, literacy rate in Sokoto State is said to be only 15% resulting in millions of children flooding the streets with bowls in their hands to beg for alms (the so-called almajirai). The Sharia led states in Northern Nigeria, just like in Sokoto State, make Almajirai the basis of their political power and livelihood. The Almajirai who stoned Deborah Samuel to death did not contain any sons of the leaders in Sokoto State. Their children are in faraway USA, United Kingdom and other European countries studying in secular societies that are never governed by sharia law and whose educational curricula are never diluted with Islamic propaganda. https://9newsng.com/sultan-of-sokotos-daughter-graduates-from-u-k-university/
I can never have anything against al-Islam which I, as a Yoruba man and not Arab, don't know what it means. What I have said is that it was satanic to murder Deborah Samuel Yakubu in the name of Islam and that has caused gangsterism to take the centre stage and all that is left is unbridled grandstanding and overpouring of arrant tantrums.
S. Kadiri
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
Sent: 25 May 2022 01:22
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Deborah Samuel: Soyinka calls for prosecution of Abuja clericLike a real House-NegroDear Baba Kadiri
Would
"do everything possible to get the person arrested by the Police for assaulting (his) wife"
The authentic African man who is honour-bound, and duty-bound, knows when, how and where to drop his nuclear bomb on the one who would be foolish enough to cross the line - the suicidal line, crossing which leads to self-annihilation of any such miscreant mortal man.
If he is not in possession of nuclear weapons, then any other suitable weapon that is at hand/handy should be used to do the necessary job of dispatching the miscreant to his earthly destiny.
On the 16th of September 2019, somebody said something to my wife, I took her home and five minutes later returned to the scene where the somebody had said something that I didn't like. I returned unarmed , but the cowardly miscreant had disappeared because he must have felt that his end was near. He was tall and gangly alright but it would have taken me less than 20 seconds to have him on the floor and another ten seconds to send him to deep sleep ( of course he didn't know that ) and the fat one would have taken the penalty shot right between the legs.
If I wanted to, I could have planned his demise to happen a little later, with me myself far, far away from the scene of the crime.
There are a whole lot of differences between your typical tom and the real Jungle man
You who like boasting about true Yoruba man-hood, listen carefully to what El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz whose Youruba name is Omowale , listen carefully to what he has to say here:
"There's nothing in our book, the Quran — you call it "Ko-ran" — that teaches us to suffer peacefully. Our religion teaches us to be intelligent. Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery. That's a good religion. In fact, that's that old-time religion. That's the one that Ma and Pa used to talk about: an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, and a head for a head, and a life for a life: That's a good religion. And doesn't nobody resent that kind of religion being taught but a wolf, who intends to make you his meal."
The way you talk about Sheikh Ibrahim Maqari is disgraceful, I should have thought is beneath you, and I will not sleep so low as to start some idiotic tittle-tattle altercation with you about him, about blasphemy or about house niggers,
" Wole Soyinka is a true Black Nigerian… true son of the soil of Nigeria" and the missionary son of a preacher man was NOT CORRECT…
About your other request, that I " reproduce in printed letters what she was reported to have said", kindly disabuse yourself of the idea that I'm your some kind of errand-boy / message-boy at your beck and call to be reproducing reported calumnies and blasphemies uttered against the Prophet of Islam, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam -
I told Emmanuel our Edo Brother about what I read and posted to this forum earlier on, that the miscreant had exclaimed in Sokoto; " Who the hell is Prophet Muhammad !" and Emmanuel's exact words were " That was being suicidal!"
Please take note: I do not intend to fraternise or keep the company of anyone who is inimical to the interests of al-Islam either here, right now, or in the Hereafter
On Tuesday, 24 May 2022 at 23:46:05 UTC+2 ogunlakaiye wrote:
Menahem Hamelberg,
Let it be known to you that if anyone should slap my wife in my presence, as you hypothetically presumed, I will do everything possible to get the person arrested by the Police for assaulting my wife. Sentimental and emotional actions are not recognised in law. If, in defence of my wife, I should slap the slapper of my wife the police on arrival at the scene of the incident will arrest me and the person that slapped my wife for assaults and disturbing public order. Although the law permits self-defence, my wife is not absolutely permitted under the law to retaliate by slapping back at your hypothetical slapper of her face. The law requires her to report the violator of her face to the police for arrest and trial in the court of law. Religious fanatics believe in vengeance of eye for eye and tooth for tooth but secularized societies are against that doctrine because simple gumption dictates that the doctrine of eye for eye and tooth for tooth may lead to the entire society becoming blind and toothless. So, Cornelius, if Mohammad or Jesus is insulted, it is only them that should feel insulted and take action if they can and have the will to do so and not any dumb-ass-headed person who is neither genetically nor racially related to Jesus or Mohammad.
How can one define Blasphemy in a secular and multi religious country like Nigeria? Blasphemy after all must mean different things to different people, depending on the choice of deity one has chosen religiously. And paper heads who think with the intestines and not the brain are asking Nigerian Government to pass law to criminalise blasphemy. Yet, religious pretenders have already smuggled section 204 into the Nigerian criminal code that stipulates a two-year imprisonment for public insult on religion. At the same time, Sections 38 and 39 of the Nigerian Constitution guarantee freedom of thought, conscience, religion and expression. Since the Constitution is superior to other laws in Nigeria Sections 38 and 39 of the 1999 Constitution supersede Section 204 of the Nigerian Criminal Code in application.
Sheik Ibrahim Maqari had drawn his Islamic redlines which no one should cross and which trespassers have to pay with their own lives in Nigeria. His Islamic redline in Nigeria is an expression of his cultural inferiority garbed in truculent and tortured inability to discover his self-worth. A Sheik, according to the dictionary is a head of an Arab tribe, therefore, Ibrahim Maqari should move to an Arab land to become a Sheik where he can draw his Arab-Islamic red lines not in Nigeria. If he thinks he is an Arab, he should look into the mirror for his true image and real self. The wannabe Black Arab in Nigeria, Sheik Ibrahim Maqari twitted, "If our grievances are not properly addressed, then you (sic) should not be criticized for addressing them ourselves." The twit justified the murder of Deborah Samuel Yakubu by Islamic predators who accused her of Blaspheming their prophet and what the Sheik was saying in reality is that if the Nigeria could not stop the alleged blasphemy against the Islamic prophet by Deborah Samuel Yakubu, then Muslim predators should not be blamed for taking laws into their hands to murder her. Wole Soyinka is a true Black Nigerian and he was actually correct, being the true son of the soil of Nigeria to demand the arrest and the trial of that counterfeit Nigerian Arab Sheik for his complicity in the murder of Deborah Samuel Yakubu.S. Kadiri
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
Sent: 23 May 2022 20:03
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Deborah Samuel: Soyinka calls for prosecution of Abuja clericMay the Lord have mercy on us all.
"Nothing sits on nothing in a nothing of many nothings a nothing king"
Here's Baba Kadiri sounding off:
"Whatever Deborah Samuel Yakubu might have uttered which was interpreted to imply disrespect to the Islamic prophet, it is only the prophet himself who should feel the disrespect and react accordingly and not any stupid house-niggers on his behalf. In law, one is allowed to avenge the slap on one's own face by a slapper but it is criminal for one to avenge the slap on the face of another person than self. Can you extrapolate a slap on another person's face to your own face?"
If, (God forbid) someone were to slap Baba Kadiri's beloved wife would he simply stand idly by and ask the same dumb-ass question?
I fully endorse the statement STOP BLASPHEMY issued by Muslim Solidarity Forum Sokoto and fully resonate with Muslim Groups Ask Nigerian Government To Pass Laws Criminalising Blasphemy,
The sane one should also take it for granted that I strongly disagree with Mr Soyinka's titanic reaction. It is well-intended, no doubt, he is speaking up in good conscience, supposedly as the good conscience of the Naija Nation, and as usual, what the iconic human rights veteran says resonates through the media waves, but I think that it's wrong, overblown, it misses the target and in the circumstances, considering all the hysteria and sense of moral outrage fanning the air and fuelling the flames from all directions, calling for the head of the Chief Imam at the Abuja Mosque to roll, is probably nothing less than just one more strong-headed, knee-jerk reaction from Nigeria's Shakespeare.
Someone (he?) may be surprised that I disagree, but I do disagree - strongly - and confidently - and you are my witness, for the very simple reasons that I'll explain and everyone should understand my simple explanation in contrast with Mr Soyinka's trademark tirade, the dense & deep Soyinka-esque style of polemic which one had to trudge through before finally coming to the crux of the matter: He is confident that "Both the Sultan and Professor Maqafi cannot be right."
Well, of course, they can both be right, and in this case, in my judgement, they are both truly, absolutely right, and the one does not contradict the other.
Mr Soyinka himself is not infallible, he does not claim to be the new Pope, nor does he enjoy a monopoly on interpretation, even if there is a Southern consensus on what he says, he could be humble enough to take a step back and reconsider that he may have misread and thereby misunderstood what the Imam of the Abuja Mosque Sheikh Ibrahim Maqari said because, of course, given his background, the less than omniscient Professor Soyinka has obviously read into Profesor Ibrahim Maqari's statement much more than Professor Maqari actually said - at least on the surface. Professor Soyinka with all his own personal, foreordained prejudices, whims and caprices, his backlog of irritations with land encroachments by Fulani herdsmen, the Boko Haram menace, his disappointment and disillusion with the Nigerian Presidency etc, he has imputed to Sheikh Professor Dr Ibrahim Maqari 's terse communique, much more than the Sheikh actually said or intended on paper and only Sheikh Ibrahim himself is in a position to elaborate on what he intended, which does not mean that every individual reader does not have the freedom to arrive at his/ her own subjective understanding or interpretation of the message.
This is what the Sheikh said on Twitter that is causing all the brouhaha :
"It should be known to everyone that we the Muslims have some red lines beyond which MUST NOT be crossed. The dignity of the Prophet (PBUH) is at the forefront of the red lines.
"If our grievances are not properly addressed, then you should not be criticized for addressing them ourselves."
Catholics have their Popes some of whom have been proven to be less than infallible human beings throughout the ages. Others have other authorities such as Babalawos, big, pompous bishops officiating in and out of their cassocks, Pentecostal pastors carrying their crosses on their chests, husbands, wives, mistresses, gang leaders, high court judges "taking bribes on the side", ransom kidnappers, bank governors, teachers of big and little grammar etc all have their flocks,
Another way of looking at the mess: A few others "could be living in another country, under another name" , i.e under a name other than God's Ineffable name , because the way I understand it - some people, such as e.g Wole Soyinka believe themselves to be living either in the kingdom of Satan's anarchy or under or side by side with First Citizen Muhammadu Buhari and the Nigerian Constitution, a Muhammadu Buhari that was democratically elected as Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala 's highest political representative in secular Nigeria which is largely governed by the aforementioned still amendable 1999 Nigerian Constitution and not by Sharia Law, the Ten Commandments, or the Sermon on the Mount.
As the late Rabbi Jacob Neusner puts it, on page 19 of "A Rabbi talks with Jesus"
"When I accept the yoke of the commandments of the Torah and do them,I accept God's rule. I live in the kingdom of God, which is to say, in the dominion of Heaven, here on earth. That is what it means to live a holy life: to live by the will of God in the here and now."
This thread is hinged on Human rights activist and Nobel Laureate in Literature Wole Soyinka's sermon from the heights of the moral high ground that he believes that he occupies, and in his own judgement self-righteous Soyinka with feet on the ground is delivering the sermon from somewhere up in the clouds, but certainly below heaven, which is certainly OK with me, that at least he is not claiming that he delivered this message sitting on the throne on God as that would have been another good example of blasphemy in thought and word but not in actual deed, enough reason for the all the Pharisees to unite in stoning him and by all the Pharisees I mean the Muslim Pharisees, if indeed such holy people exist, and of course, the other Bible thumping Pharseees, the Pentecostal pastors and the evangelical bigots among them.
All that Soyinka and other critics could say is that what is missing from the Abuja Imam's terse message, is the message that even when a congregation of Muslims are tried by suffering extreme provocation, mob rule/the mob mentality should not be allowed to take over - so in addition to expressing an understanding of the extreme provocation that led to " If our grievances are not properly addressed, then you should not be criticized for addressing them ourselves", what's called for is an explicit exhortation that our Muslim Brethren control their nafs al ammarah and try to not take the law into their own hands.
That the Imama did not give such advice in that short message, does not mean that the highly cultivated Imam has not given more goodly Islamic advice elsewhere.
It is not OK to curse a Prophet in the presence of his followers; it is not OK to burn the Holy Quran outside the mosques, and it is not OK to piss on the grave of dearly departed when you go on pilgrimage or on Ziyarat
Once again, for those who care and have the time I recommend ISLAM: Past, Present, and Future by Hans Küng
On Saturday, 21 May 2022 at 22:07:58 UTC+2 toyinfalola wrote:
Ben Ezeamalu posted: "Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, has urged the Nigerian government to remove from office Ibrahim Maqari, the Imam of Abuja Mosque, over his comments following the mob killing of Deborah Samuel, a student of Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto. Mr S" Premium Times Nigeria
Deborah Samuel: Soyinka calls for prosecution of Abuja cleric
Ben Ezeamalu
May 21
Mr Soyinka said the cleric should be tried under any existing laws that approximate hate rhetoric, incitement to murder and abuse of office.
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