All language subtitles for [English (auto-generated)] Mehdi Hasan _ Islam Is A Peaceful Religion _ Oxford Union [DownSub.com]

thank you very much mr. president ladies

and gentlemen good evening

assalamualaikum lovely to see you all

here tonight we are having a very

entertaining night are we not with some

very interesting things being said from

the other side of the house tonight let

me begin by saying as a Muslim as a

representative of Islam I would consider

myself an ambassador for Islam a

believer in Islam a follower of Islam

and its prophet so in that capacity let

me begin by apologizing to anne-marie

for the Bali bombings I apologize for

the role of my religion and me and my

people for the killing of theo van gogh

for 7/7 yes that was all of us

that was Islam that was Muslims that was

the Quran I mean astonishing astonishing

claims to make in the very first speech

not on a day like today where the

conservative Prime Minister of the

United Kingdom is having to come out and

point out that these kind of views are

anathema and I believe you're trying to

stand for the Labor Party to become an

MP in Brighton if you do and you make

these comments I'm guessing you'll have

the wit withdrawn from you but then

again you Kipps on the rise they'll take

you the BNP they might have something to

say about your views away

away by the way thanks by the way by the

way sort of factual points as we heard a

lot about the second speaker about

backward we Muslims all are on a factual

point you said that Islam was born in

Saudi Arabia Islam was born in 610 ad

Saudi Arabia was born in 1932 ad so you

were only 1300 of 22 years off not bad

not bad start they're talking of maths

by the way a man named hour is me with

one of the greatest mathematicians of

all time a Muslim worked in the Golden

Age of Islam

he's the guy who came up with not just

algebra but algorithms without

algorithms you wouldn't have laptops

without laptops Daniel Johnson tonight

wouldn't been able to print out his

speech in which he came to berate as

Muslims for holding back the advance and

intellectual achievements of the West

which all happened without any

contribution from anyone else other than

the judeo-christian people of Europe in

fact Daniel David levering the author of

the Pulitzer prize-winning historian and

author of the golden crucible pointer

that there would be no Renaissance there

would be no Reformation in Europe

without the role played by even a sinner

and even though Roche than some of the

great Muslim theologians philosopher

scientist in bringing peace to Europe

as for this being our University I will

leave that to the imagination as to who

is our and who is there I studied here

to an astonishing astonishing set of

speeches so far making this case tonight

a mixture of just cherry-picked quotes

facts and figures self-serving

selectively a farrago of distortions

misrepresentations misinterpretations

miss quotations Daniel talked about my

article in the New Statesman which got

me a lot of flack where I talked about

the anti-semitism that is prevalent in

some parts of the Muslim community which

indeed it is of course I didn't say in

that piece that it was caused by the

religion of Islam in fact modern

anti-semitism in the Middle East was

imported from finish the sentence

Christian Judeo Christian Europe where I

believe some certain bad things happen

to the Jewish people in fact Tom

Friedman Jewish American columnist in

New York Times told me in this very

chamber last week that he believed had

Muslims been running Europe in the 1940s

six million extra Jews would still be

alive today so I'm not going to take

lessons in anti-semitism from someone

who's here to defend the judeo-christian

values of a continent of murder of six

million Jews moving swiftly on moving

swiftly on yes

absolutely well I'm about to read a

point no no no I'm about to make the

point you're right I agree with you

I agree with you I agree with you 110%

that is my point I don't think Europe is

evil or bad I'm a very proud European I

don't want to judge Europe on the basis

but if we're going to play this gutter

game where we pull out the barley

bombing and we pull out examples of

anti-semitism this lymangood then of

course I'm going to come back and say

well hold on I mean look let's be very

clear

Daniel here was a last minute

replacement for Douglas Murray who had

to pull out and Douglas and I have a

well-documented differences but to be

fair to Douglas has to be fair to

anne-marie and to Peter atheists

atheists see all religions as evil

violent threatening what the problem I

have with Daniel speech is that Daniel

comes here to wrap this robust defense

of Christianity forgetting that his

fellow Christians people who said they

were acting in the name of Jesus gave us

the Crusades the Spanish Inquisition the

anti-jewish pogroms European colonialism

in Africa and Asia the Lord's Resistance

Army in Uganda not to mention countless

arson and bomb attacks on abortion

clinics in the United States of America

to this very day I would like a little

bit of humility from Daniel first before

he begins lecturing other communities

and other faiths on violent terror and

intolerance but no thank you

but I would say this to address the

gentleman's very valid point here I'm

not going to play that game I don't

actually believe that Christianity is a

religion of violence and hate because of

what the LRA does in Uganda or what what

Crusaders did to Jews and Muslims in

Jerusalem and they took back the city in

the 12th or 13th whatever century it was

I believe that Christianity like Islam

like pretty much every mainstream

religion is based on love and compassion

and faith I do follow a religion in

which hundred and thirteen out of 114

chapters of the Quran begins by

introducing the God of Islam as a God of

mercy and compassion I would not have it

any other way

I don't follow a religion which

introduces my God to me as a God of War

as some kind of Greek god of Wrath as a

God of hate and injustice not at all as

Adam pointed out you go through the

Quran and you see the mercy and the love

and the justice and yes you have verses

that refer to warfare and violence of

course it does this is non emotion about

pacifism and I'm not here to argue that

Islam is a pacifistic faith it is not

Islam allows military action violence in

certain limited contexts and yet a

minority of Muslims do take it out of

that context but is it religious we

talked about Willich Daniel and

anne-marie have suggested that it's

definitely religion that's behind all of

this well actually what I find so

amusing tonight is we're having a debate

about Islam and the opposition tonight

have come forward we have a graduate in

law or graduate in modern history a

graduate in chemistry and you know I

admire all of their intellects and their

abilities but we don't have anyone who

is actually an expert on Islam a scholar

of Islam a historian of Islam a speaker

of Arabic even a terrorism expert or a

security expert or a pollster let alone

to talk about what Muslims believe or

think instead we have people coming here

putting forward these views putting

forward these sweeping opinions listen

to Professor Robert Pape of the

University of Chicago one of America's

leading terrorism experts who unlike our

esteemed opposition tonight studied

every single case of suicide terrorism

between 1980 and 2005 315 cases in total

and he concluded and I quote there is

little connection between suicide

terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism or

any of the world's religions rather what

nearly all suicide terrorist attacks

have in common is a specific

a killer and strategic goal to compel

modern democracies to withdraw military

forces from territory that the

terrorists considered to be their

homeland and the irony is when we talk

about terrorism the irony is that the

opposition and the Muslim terrorists the

al-qaida types actually have one thing

in common because they both believe that

Islam is a warlike violent religion they

both agree on that they have everything

in common

Osama bin Laden would be nodding along

to everything is earth to know from the

opposition that he agrees with them the

problem is the problem is that

mainstream Muslims don't the majority of

Muslims around the world don't in fact a

gentle Nick I started quoting all sorts

of polls Gallup carried out the biggest

poll of Muslims around all of 35,000

fifty thousand Muslims in 35 countries

93% of Muslims rejected 9/11 and suicide

attacks one of the 7% who didn't they

all when pulled and focus groups cited

political reasons for their support for

violence not religious reasons and asked

for Islamic scholars and what they say

well Daniel talks about our University

of Oxford we'll go down to Oxford Center

for Islamic studies get hold of a man

named Sheikh Afifi Alec ET who is a

massively well credentialed and

well-respected Islamic scholar who has

studied across the world who in the days

after 77 published the fact were

denouncing terrorism in the name of

Islam calling for the protection of all

non-combatants at all times and

describing suicide bombings as an

innovation with no basis in Islamic law

go and listen to shake the adult ivory

one of Pakistan's most famous Islamic

scholars who published a 600 page fatwa

condemning the killing of all innocence

and all suicide bombings unconditionally

without any ifs or buts there's nothing

new here this is mainstream Islam

mainstream scholarship we just said this

for years you don't go out and kill

people willy-nilly in the high street or

anywhere else on a bus or a mall based

on verses of the Quran that you

cherry-pick without any context any

understanding any interpretation or any

commentary please

well it's I didn't say it doesn't happen

at all I never said it didn't happen I

don't blame his son yes it's a very good

point and a lot of us a lot of us are

campaigning against that and we're

campaigning against it in the name of

Islam we're campaigning against in the

name of various interpretations of Islam

and Marie comes and scares us with her

talk of Sharia law I would like to see

the book of Sharia law it doesn't exist

people argue over what Sharia law is and

you empower the extremists by saying

there is only one version you empower

them all I don't believe you took any

interruptions Amory so I think you

should stay there for a moment here's

here's what we're dealing with say that

we're dealing with we are dealing I took

your point I take your point here we are

dealing with a 1400 year old global

religion followed by 1.6 billion people

in every corner of the world a quarter

of humanity of all backgrounds cultures

ethnicities and yet the opposition

tonight wants to generalize stereotype

smear in order to desperately win this

debate and here's my question if we're

going to generalize and smear if okay

people say yesterday's bombers and we've

got to be careful there's a trial going

on where yesterday's attacker sorry

motivated by is our big debate I don't

believe they were let's say they were

let's say Faisal Shahzad the Time Square

bomber was motivated by Islam let's

assume for sake of argument that Richard

Reid the shoe bomber was in Israel if

Islam is responsible for these killers

if Islam is what is motivating these

people and Islam is therefore not a

religion of peace of religion war then

ask yourself this question why aren't

the rest of us doing it why is it such a

tiny minority of Muslims are

interpreting their religion in the way

that the opposition claim they are let's

assume there are 16,000 suicide bombers

in the world there aren't let's assume

there are for the sake of argument

that's 0.001 percent of the Muslim

population globally what about the other

99.99% of Muslims who the opposition

tonight either ignore or smear the

reality is that the rest of us aren't

blowing ourselves up tonight the reality

is that the opposition came here tonight

not worried about the fact that me and

Adam might pull open our jacket to blow

ourselves up today because we're

followers of a warlike warrior religion

which wants to take over Europe and

Daniels University the issue is this

the opposition can tell us tonight and

Peter Atkins is here one of our great

atheist intellectuals can tell us

tonight

can they can answer this question

tonight well I doubt the vast majority

of Muslims around the world behave as

violently and aggressively as a tiny

minority of politically motivated

extremists then they might as well give

up and stop pretending they have

anything relevant to say about Islam or

Muslims as a whole ladies in German let

me just say this to you think about what

the opposite of this motion is if you

vote no tonight think about what you're

saying the opposite emotion is that

Islam is not a religion of peace it's a

religion of war of violence of terror of

aggression that the people who follow

Islam me my wife my retired parents my

six-year-old child that 1.8 million of

your fellow British residents and

citizens at 1.6 billion people across

the world your fellow human beings are

all followers promoters believers in a

religion of violence do you really think

that do you really believe that to be

the case they say that in the Oxford

Union the most famous debate within 1933

when Adolf Hitler looked out for the

result of the king and country motion

where they voted against fighting for

king and country and Hitler was

listening out for the result well

tonight 80 years on there are two groups

of people around the world who I would

argue awaiting for the result of

tonight's vote there are the millions of

peaceful non-violent law-abiding Muslims

both in the UK Europe Asia Africa and

Beyond who see Islam as the source of

their identity as a source of spiritual

fulfillment of hope of Solace and there

are the phones the haters the bigots out

there who want to push the clash of

civilizations who want to divide all of

us into them and us and ours and their

ladies in London I urge you all not to

fuel the arguments of the phobes and

bigots don't legitimate their divisions

don't legitimize their hate trust those

Muslims who you know who you've met

through you here who don't believe in

violence who do want you to hear the

peaceful message of the Quran as they

believe it to be taught to the majority

of Muslims the Islam of peace and

compassion and mercy the Islam of the

Quran not of al-qaeda ladies and

gentlemen I beg to propose this motion

without I urge you to vote YES tonight

thank you very much