One of the most characteristic liberationisms of this century has been feminism. Divided into a myriad tendencies, some cautious and reasoned, others wandering into unimaginable territories of witchcraft and lesbianism,

chairman bill wrote:I try to avoid the Daily Heil. But Winter is a Muslim apologist, and not a very bright one at that. Let's face it, Cambridge or not, it's a faculty of 'Divinity', aka 'made up shit about magic man'; critical thinking & reason plays a very subservient part to mumbo-jumbo in what these people do.

Allah has ninety-nine names. Some are Names of Majesty: such as the Compeller, the Overwhelming, the Avenger. Others are Names of Beauty: the Gentle, the Forgiving, the Loving-Kind. The former category are broadly associated with male virtues, and the latter with female ones. But as all are God's perfect Names, and equally manifest the divine perfection, neither set is superior. And the Divine Essence to which they all resolve transcends gender. Islam has no truck with the hazardous Christian notion that God is male (the "Father"), an assumption that has been invoked to justify traditional Western notions of the objective superiority of the male principle.

Islam's position is thus a nuanced one. Metaphysically, the male and female principles are equal. It is through their interaction that phenomena appear: all creation is thus in a sense procreation. But justice is not necessarily served by attempting to establish a simple parity between the principles in society "here-below". The divine names have distinct vocations; and human gender differentiation was created for more than simple genetic convenience. Both man and woman are God's khalifas on earth; but in manifesting complementary aspects of the divine perfection their "ministries" differ in key respects.

It is in the context of the struggle to protect the family that the campaign against homosexualism becomes most universally accessible. The screaming fanatics who "out" bishops and demand a lowering of the "gay" age of consent are among the most bitter enemies of the fitra, that primordial norm which, for all the diversity of the human race, has consistently expressed itself in marriage as the natural context for the nurturing of the new generation. That which is against the fitra is by definition destructive: it is against humanity and against God. This awareness needs to be reflected in legislation, which for too long has sought to relativise the family as merely one of a range of lifestyle options. Muslims sometimes hold that the collapse of family values in the West will serve the interests of wider humanity. Decadence, they say, is what it has chosen and deserves; and the inevitable implosion of its society will leave the field open for morally-strong Islam to regain its place as the world's dominant civilisation. The trouble with this theory is that the implosion shows no sign of leading to total collapse. Technology and wealth allow the creation of surveillance and social-security systems which can deal with the growing number of casualties. There is certainly an irony in a New World Order policed by a state which cannot keep order in Central Park after nightfall. But unless we are foolishly optimistic, or hope for absolute totalitarianism, we cannot but be anxious about social trends in the West. The survival of the Western family is a question of immediate Muslim concern, and we must offer our views until the time comes when our friends and neighbours, their doctrines broken on the anvil of reality, are humbled enough to listen.

Winter, a Cambridge graduate who attended the elite Westminster School, told the Tab: "These are not ‘recent comments’ – I think this clip is from a Q+A I did after a talk in America in the mid-90s, during a fit of youthful zeal. My views and manner of exposition have moved on since then."

Clive Durdle wrote:A Police prosecution under hate crime would be fascinating!

Clive Durdle wrote:© Abdal-Hakim Murad - That is his Islamic name.

Shrunk wrote:However, the article linked above is undated, and it is not clear whether he is actually affiliated with the website from which it originates. So we should probably give him the benefit of the doubt as to whether he still holds these views until further evidence is forthcoming. Having never heard of the guy before this, I'm not the one to provide that....

In 2010 he was voted Britain’s most influential Muslim thinker by Jordan’s Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre.