According to Sunday's Independent, Dr. Usama Hasan, an imam who also happens to be a physicist at Middlesex University and a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, was forced to cancel a lecture on "Islam and the theory of evolution" because of death threats. The lecture was to be held at Masjid al-Tawhid, a mosque in east London. Sadly, he not only canceled the talk, but apologized for his heresy:
One hopes that he construed his "mistake" as giving a lecture where he might have been killed, not as talking in a favorable way about evolution. Hasan had given a pro-evolution lecture at the mosque in January, but was interrupted by leaflet-bearing fanatics who shouted him down (was there "forced laughter"?) and threatened his life.But according to his sister, police advised him not to attend after becoming concerned for his safety. Instead his father, Suhaib, head of the mosque's committee of trustees, posted a notice on his behalf expressing regret over his comments. "I seek Allah's forgiveness for my mistakes and apologise for any offence caused," the statement read.
Unfortunately, Hasan's apology—which I'd normally dismiss as intellectual cowardice, but can perhaps be understood if he feared for his life—was not enough. The mosque's committee of trustees fired him as imam and vice-chairman of the mosque (which the Independent describes as running one of Britain's largest sharia courts), and issued a statement characterizing Hasan's views as a "source of antagonism in the Muslim community".
This kind of thing is only going to increase as Britain and other countries of western Europe become more Islamicized. The inimical effect of Islam on science is particularly worrisome in Britian's odious institution of government-supported faith-based schools. Watch part of these two videos by Richard Dawkins (the entire four-part series is here) on that topic. The visit to an Islamic school, starting at 8:00, shows how religious instruction is used to undermine what the students learn in science classes. The upshot: none of the students wind up accepting evolution.
Balance of article at URL above.
