Tony Blair hears about Islamic moderation, and favoured methods of wife-beating

I see that the Blessed Tony has begun his crusade (if one can still use that particular word) to bring the world's Christians, Jews, and Muslims together in one great embrace. As well as announcing a £1million increase in funding for Islamic studies in UK universities (jizya, anyone?), Blair is hosting a conference of leading "moderate" Muslims, at Cambridge University. No Motoons will be on display...

As usual, of course, what passes for "moderate" among Muslims is roughly the same as that which passes for "psychotic loon" among anyone else. The list of participants at the conference includes, for example Sheikh Ali Gomaa, the Grand Mufti of Egypt. As well as expressing his support for Hezbollah, Gomaa also has some interestingly moderate views on the proper treatment of women:

...when Allah permitted wife-beating, He permitted it to the other side of culture, which considers it as one of the means to preserve the family, and as one of the means to preserve stability.

Another of Blair's new moderate friends is Hamza Yusuf, aka Hamza Yusuf Hanson. As Stephen Schwartz, himself a convert to Islam, has written:

Before 9/11, Hanson, a convert to Islam, was known for his high-pitched, hysterical rhetoric in denouncing America...two days before 9/11, Hanson hollered in Los Angeles, “This country (America) unfortunately has a great, a great tribulation coming to it. And much of it is already here, yet people are too illiterate to read the writing on the wall.”

In another pearl of Hansonian wisdom, the Islamist extremist side of his multiple personality babbled freely at a 1996 convention of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), a paramilitary front for Pakistani jihadists. There Hanson described America as “a country that has little to be proud of in its past and less to be proud of in the present. I am a citizen of this country not by choice but by birth. I reside in this country not by choice but by conviction in attempting to spread the message of Islam in this country. I became Muslim in part because I did not believe in the false gods of this society whether we call them Jesus or democracy or the Bill of Rights or any other element of this society that is held sacrosanct by the ill-informed peoples that make up this charade of a society… [F]undamentals of Islam are being compromised… [C]onvention resolutions are meaningless Masonic exersises (sic) devised by men who desire to engage people in forums that would insure nothing changes… [T]here should be no voting or debate… [W]e have no room for ayes or nays.”

The rest of the participants seem to be a mix of dhimmis (with David Cameron, that great champion of Muslim family values, featuring prominently), and a few Muslims who may actually warrant the label "moderate" (in the sense that they don't appear to be actively siding with the enemy).

And what will this conference achieve? Absolutely nothing. Gomaa and Hamza Yusuf Hanson will repeat their well-worn taqiya party trick, and play the role of nice, friendly moderates. Other Muslims present, who genuinely don't want to kill or dominate everyone, will talk and talk - all to absolutely no effect, since they can wield nowhere near the same influence as Gomaa or Hanson. Dhimmi academics will pontificate, and the hot air will make the conference hall feel like a sauna. And at the end of it all, the situation will be exactly the same as it was before, except that the Muslims may have managed to wring a few more privileges out of the government.