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An evening with the Muslim Facebook crew

Sarfraz Manzoor

Wednesday, 8th October 2008

Sarfraz Manzoor celebrates an iftar meal with homeless people and his fellow Muslims, a web-generated ‘flashmob’ observing an Islamic tradition of generosity to the needy

The flashmob iftars in London and Manchester offer fascinating glimpses into a new British Muslim identity. Traditionally, British Muslims have been accused of being insular and only caring about other Muslims, in this country and abroad. It is also generally thought that the third generation are the most vulnerable to radicalisation. This is a legitimate concern but it is not the only story, and the hundreds who turned up laden with food are evidence of a more encouraging development. ‘For my generation most of us feel completely British,’ Farah told me. ‘That’s why I want to help the homeless — they are our people too.’

Young Muslims like Farah are tiring of how the media demonises them and impatient with the leaders who claim to speak for them. Now, through small but significant acts of charity, they are beginning to find their own voice.

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New Sondheim: enjoy it while stocks last

Gerald Kaufman

Gerald Kaufman is enthralled by the first Sondheim premiere in 14 years. A minor work Road Show may be, but it is still worth much more than anyone else’s musicals

The law applies to Damian Green, too

Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle is reluctant to join the journalistic herd in its unqualified outrage at the Tory MP’s arrest. But it is certainly time to put the police under the microscope

After Baby P: the crisis in child foster care

Mary Wakefield

Mary Wakefield talks to a courageous woman who blew the whistle on the deep systemic failures in the foster care service — and whose only reward was to be hounded and vilified

The global force behind Mumbai’s agony is in our midst

Stephen Schwartz

Stephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi say that LET — the Army of the Righteous — is a worldwide Islamist organisation which is well-established in Britain. The Mumbai atrocities are further proof that the march of Islamic extremism is the central fact of our time

‘They treat me more like a devil than a god’

Lloyd Evans

Lloyd Evans finds that Bernard-Henri Lévy is not the ageing French dandy of caricature but a serious intellectual with views on everything from Barack Obama to the Muslim veil

Have we ever faced an enemy more stupid than Muslim terrorists?

Rod Liddle

These narcissistic adolescent halfwits should not fill us with fear, says Rod Liddle. The aircraft plot trial showed yet again that those who wish to murder us with fizzy pop and peroxide are a bunch of cowards

Our survey shows British Muslims don’t want sharia

Irfan al-Alawi & S. Schwartz

Don’t believe the Lord Chief Justice any more than the Archbishop of Canterbury, say Stephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi

Cummins may be part of the green ink brigade, but he was right about Islam

Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle looks back at the case of the British Council employee who dared to speak the truth about Islamic ideology — and notes that what was heretical in 2004 is now almost orthodox