Honi Soit

Strife. In Arabic, "Fitna".

Here's a link to a film that is getting progressively more difficult to find on the Net, and indeed, anywhere. That's because of the very real threats made against anyone or anything that hosts it.

From the ABC:

A Muslim author and critic of Islamic fundamentalism who was baptised a Catholic by Pope Benedict says Islam is "physiologically violent" and he is now in great danger because of his conversion.

"I realise what I am going up against but I will confront my fate with my head high, with my back straight and the interior strength of one who is certain about his faith," said Magdi Allam.

In a surprise move on Saturday night, the pope baptised the 55-year-old Egyptian-born Mr Allam at an Easter eve service broadcast around the world from St Peter's Basilica.

Mr Allam's conversion to Christianity - he took the name "Christian" for his baptism - was kept secret until the Vatican disclosed it in a statement less than an hour before it began.

Writing in Sunday's edition of Italy's Corriere della Sera, the newspaper of which he is a deputy director, Mr Allam said: "the root of evil is innate in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictual".

An Islam, not Islam per se. Or is it?

The complete quote is at Zenit:

I had to ask myself about the attitude of those who publicly declared fatwas, Islamic juridical verdicts, against me -- I who was a Muslim -- as an “enemy of Islam,” “hypocrite because he is a Coptic Christian who pretends to be a Muslim to do damage to Islam,” “liar and vilifier of Islam,” legitimating my death sentence in this way. I asked myself how it was possible that those who, like me, sincerely and boldly called for a “moderate Islam,” assuming the responsibility of exposing themselves in the first person in denouncing Islamic extremism and terrorism, ended up being sentenced to death in the name of Islam on the basis of the Quran. I was forced to see that, beyond the contingency of the phenomenon of Islamic extremism and terrorism that has appeared on a global level, the root of evil is inherent in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictive.
...
There was a time when my mother’s loving presence and religious zeal brought me closer to Islam, which I occasionally practiced at a cultural level and in which I believed at a spiritual level according to an interpretation that at the time -- it was the 1970s -- summarily corresponded to a faith respectful of persons and tolerant toward the neighbor, in a context -- that of the Nasser regime -- in which the secular principle of the separation of the religious sphere and the secular sphere prevailed.

So yes, it is possible to have an interpretation of Islam which is not evil.

This appears to be increasingly a minority viewpoint, not amongst non-muslims, but amongst muslims themselves. "Behead all those who say Islam is Violent!"

So, with no further ado, Fitna - strife.

I thought long and hard about publishing this post. Not because of personal danger - for there I already have enough of a threat from so-called "Christians", mostly overseas. But because I work with and alongside people from Malaysia, Saudi, and Indonesia. Muslims. Good people. I didn't want to insult them. But I figure that they are even more insulted by what is being done in the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. So this film can't possibly hurt them. In fact, it's a case of Honi soit qui mal y pense.