[The Australian - April 2008]
GRIFFITH University’s embarrassment over a sweetheart funding deal with the repressive Saudi Arabian Government, with a $100,000 donation in the bag and potentially $1.37 million more to follow, has highlighted a growing disquiet in some quarters over sources of financing for Islamic studies.
[...]
There is even a guarded comment from a senior Muslim academic, the University of Melbourne’s Sultan of Oman professor of Arab and Islamic studies Abdullah Saeed, who is an associate of Mohamad Abdalla, founding director of Griffith University’s Islamic research unit through their joint involvement in the National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies.

He agrees funding is a sensitive area. “In the current climate one has to be very careful,” says Saeed, the centre’s lead director.

The establishment of the $2.4million Sultan of Oman chair in 2004 occurred without incident, but when Ismail Albayrak was appointed to the newly created Fethullah Gulen chair in the study of Islam and Muslim-Catholic Relations at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne last October, there was controversy.

[...]

And so on – national-false-prophet-assisted-suicide.

It isn’t the “blog-owner” with his “agenda-blog” who tells us what is
banned under islam – it is muslims themselves – prohibited things include, but are not limited to – Bibles, churches, soccer, music, cd’s
mobile phones, television, exposed female faces, mixed sex swimming, weddings, alcohol hand wash, basic hospital hygiene,
eating food in front of muslims during ramavan, guide dogs and service animals – you name it, some muslim somewhere has banned it, often backing up the ban with threats of “dire consequences” if the ban is not observed. YMMV.

About the only thing not banned is barking madness.

What this article shows is that there are a lot more liberal Muslims out there than he wants the readership to think. The fact is that there are hundreds of saterlite channels in the Arabic language with huge followings that are simply giving information, entertainment as is demanded by the public that watches it.

It also shows that there is debate, not in the theocratic institutions (which is a shame but will come) but in the airwaves and homes versus the rhetoric in those radical Mosques.

Thus the reality is that there are elements still in some form of power who want to shore-up their power and give statements like the above, whilst at the same time there is the increasing power of the moderate Muslim media whom simply will show what people really think, give entertainment, movies, humour, free journalism, show religous items as chosen by them and so on. Here in Morocco I can see all those channels – I do not like most of them because they do not follow my taste, and we also have private Moroccan Arabic/French channels that are similar – with no problems from authoritities at all (2M, Med1Sat and others). The article mentioned MBC, that includes MBC2 (mostly western movies and series in English with arabic sub-titles), MBC3 for kids, MBC 4 are just series and MBC Action which is action-series. FOX Movies and FOX Series are Egypt based. MBC 4 late at night shows David Letterman, ET and the Insider and Inside Edition and sometimes CBS News. The Rotana Group have many music video stations which I think the blog-owner would want to supress from his agenda-blog with singing, dancing (some belly dancing) and pretty much what he would like to tell us is banned under Islam.

A last point, one of the realities of the above article has nothing to do with what is Islamic or not or halal or not – it really has to do with Saudi Politics as the King gets older the succession is voted and not necessarily the oldest son or the King’s choice. Talal is one of the candidates as he is a favourite nephew, ultra-rich world-class businessman and very anti-wahhabist. So go figure.