Communicating Arts - Main Web Site"The ultimate goal of every Muslim is to establish Sharia law over the whole Earth," he says. "It is a superior way of life and every Muslim living in the UK has an obligation to call for Sharia law to be implemented" (Khalid Kelly as quoted in Natalie Clark's Daily Mail article, "Disaffected, raging, and hungry for the harsh finality of Sharia law" [1]).
Natalie Clark spoke to Khalid Kelly this past winter, but he has been around for some years after having found Mohammed, if you will, in a Saudi Arabian prison where he served time in 2002 for distilling and selling alcohol. [2] In her 2004 article (cited), Lynne O'Donnell called him "public face of the tiny London-based organization called Al-Muhajiroun,' a radical organization that has been "long been linked to bin Laden's International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders."
Henry Schuster, writing for CNN in 2006, starts him off as, "an alter boy growing up in Dublin who sent to Saudi Arabia years ago to work as a nurse" and in his next paragraph provides the finish: "In prison, Kelly embraced Islam, took the name Khalid, and came out -- by his own account -- a changed man." [3]
The organization cited by Clark, Al-Muhajiroun, disbanded in 2004 according to the Schuster article, but such organizations have a half-life compared to the fundamental drive in Islam to preserve and impose Sharia law.
Let's suspend that alter boy cum Shariah firebrand Khalid Kelly in cyberspace for a moment.
It takes little time on the Internet, itself a bane and a boon to Islamic interests, to summon up both the high-handed case for Sharia, which adherents believe issued directly by Allah, and the common cause that may perhaps have an as implied basis, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" [4], for the litany of recent beheadings, hangings, amputations, and stonings grows quickly long.
Khurram Murad, publishing through Canada's Young Muslims web, first quotes from doctrine the timeless nature of Shari'ah law:
"‘And perfect are the words of your Lord in truthfulness, and in justice; His words cannot be changed; He is the All-hearing, All-knowing’ (al-An’am 6:116).'"
In exegises, he then goes on to state the following:
"Changes in human understanding, progress in standards of civilization, which is considered to be linear in time, and advances in technology are all supposed to generate genuine pressures on the Shari’ah to change or to give up those parts which do not seem to rhyme with the late twentieth century time. But what has really changed? Has man changed? Essential human nature, its motives and drives, its emotions and desires have remained virtually unchanged throughout the ages. Technology has certainly advanced and some ways of looking at the world have altered but no new definitions of concepts like ‘cruelty’, ‘civilized’, ‘justice’, ‘equality’ have emerged to command universal adherence. Man’s lusts and fears, hopes and anxieties, loves and hates, aspirations, yearnings and longings remain what they have always been. Similarly, the idea that something which evolves later in time is necessarily superior to that which preceded it is also untenable. The only absolute and universal criteria can be those given by God, the All-knowing, whose words are above any change."
Any creative writer worth an ounce of salt would recognize the elevation of the universal and timeless in life as the subjects most attended to for the purposes of contemplation and meditation in the making of art.
However, the same writer may not be so quick to grant one book the final say on how such things may be perceived, as so many other books, from the BaghadVita, Torah, and Bible (hardly an exhaustive list but a convenient trio) to all the world's folk tales plus Homer, Shakespeare, and, say Bochco, the television writer, bear down on our minds and hearts as we search for language and law that promote our common betterment and welfare as children of God, or, if atheist, of nature.
Most in this life--truly, Islam comprises but one-fifth of the world's people--would seem humble enough to accept not knowing with certainty all of life's secrets.
Khalid Kelly seems to slip from the top of the Google listings for his name around fall 2005. Journalist Kathleen Moore provides this comment from her interview with him after the London transit system bombings in July of that year:
"He says he hates alcohol and pornography because God says to hate them -- and adds in the same breath that he hates Jews and Christians for the same reason.
"But doesn't the Koran teach tolerance of "People of the Book"? Yes, he counters -- but only Jews and Christians of the time, not nowadays.
"Some might ask -- if he hates so much about Britain and the West, why does he continue to live there? Kelly says he hopes to emigrate to somewhere in the Middle East." [6]
I haven't yet reached out to "primary" news sources, so rich has been this Internet mining, and yet today I wonder where Khalid Kelly has gone to live, not to mention what he may be doing.
This is not Kelly's thought but rather part of a fatwah promulgated through an "Islam Awareness" web site in 2005:
"Islam is the only religion which has established machinery for the perennial evolution of human society in accordance with the fundamental principles and permanent values of life." [7]
Then how is this for evolution:
"Fatehi was sentenced to death in an Iranian court a year ago, after admitting to stabbing to death one of three men who tried to rape her and a 16-year-old relative. Fatehi was 17 at the time." [8]
Nazanin Fatehi's trial in Iran was held in January 2006. International attention brought to bear by Canadian beauty queen Nazanin Afshin-Jam brought about a retrial in January 2007, and, according to activist Maryam Namazie, she was acquitted of all charges on January 14, 2007. [10]
Nazanin, it would seem, shared the right first name with a Canadian who was in a position to do her some good.
Is this how it's going to be, I wonder: barbarity accompanied by some western-style response (we speak--we are free to do that much) followed by compromise (or progress), possibly?
For the claim to absolute standards found in the Qur'an and Hadith, the Imam or culture, perhaps both, seem able enough to reverse course when conditions suit. Had there been no intervention for Nazanin Fatehi, she would surely have been put to death for having defended herself and a relative in the course of their rape.
Of course, the articles over which I've glanced have made no mention of the punishment, if any, to the men who raped Nazanin Fatehi.
For the pleasant task, I am sure, of having to review her plight a second time, the fair state of Iran dunned Nazanin Fatehi $30,600 for court costs. [11]
# # #
3. Schuster, Henry. "Angry young men." CNN, July 7, 2006.
4. King James Bible, John 8:7.
5. Murad, Khurram. "Shariah: The Way of Justice". Young Muslims.
6. http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/09/6527882e-6393-487c-92e5-71a08336af59.html.
8. CTV.ca News Staff: "Former Miss Canada hoping to save Iranian woman." Via Netscape, June 9, 2007.
10. Namazie, Maryam. "Nazanin Fatehi Acquitted!" January 14, 2007.
11. Gateway Pundit. "Iranian Rape Victim Nazanin Fatehi Cleared of Murder Charges." January 14, 2007.
Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim
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