'When they shake your hand, their other hand is always in your wallet'

Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran

Friday 26 July - The Reformist Muslim Raheel Raza is surprisingly candid about the Muslim clergy:

'Tehran has confirmed that it has gone beyond the 300 kilograms of low-enriched uranium allowed under the 2015 nuclear deal and that the regime was lying all along.'

'This is not the first time the ayatollahs have lied about their intentions. They seem to have no qualms about this, although they consider themselves divinely appointed as God’s vicegerents on earth.'

'They call themselves Supreme Council leaders and Grand Ayatollahs. From their behavior they are neither "supreme" nor "grand," because they will lie through the teeth for their own subversive agendas – mainly, to bring down Israel and the West.'

'This brings me to the question of the role of Muslim clergy in the area of Islamic reform.'

'For a long time we reformist Muslims believed that change will only come when the Islamic leaders – that is, imams — join the movement and start making statements about the urgent need for change from within the Muslim world.'

'However, it did not take long to realize that this is not going to happen. Genuine and committed reformers have not been clergy, but rather members of civil society who have put their lives on the line to speak about change.'

'For those who think that Islamic reform will happen overnight, they are living in a fool’s paradise; we are only sowing the seeds for change and hope that the movement will pick up traction over the next generations.'

'The Christian reformation is an example of civil society picking up on a movement and passionately pursuing it. Some of the Hindu reforms like abolishing the practice of sati (the burning of widows) also came from civil society.'

'The reason most imams are not on board the reform movement is simple: For them, it’s all about the money.' Halal certification alone runs into trillions of dollars worldwide.

'There are two kinds of imams: For Shiites, they are ayatollahs who receive khums, a tax paid by all Shiites. For Sunnis, there are Saudi (Wahhabist) imams who collect zakat, compulsory charity and fitra (another form of compulsory charity). Both amount to trillions of dollars.'

'Then there are imams who travel the globe in their turbans and frocks pretending to be moderate. They will say exactly what you want to hear but are always loyal to their base. However, when they shake your hand, the other hand is in your wallet or purse.

'Even while speaking in Western countries to diverse audiences, they don their cloak and turban as though it gives them legitimacy.'

'There are, of course, some genuine imams interested in reform, but they have shed their garb of religiosity because this is the garb of theocracy, misogyny and abuse of human rights.'

Author's comment: It's hardly surprising that those at the top would be keen to perpetuate the status quo, with literally trillions of dollars at stake.

But more importantly, although there may be 'imams genuinely interested in reform', if they have 'shed their garb of religiosity' then, strictly speaking, they are no longer true Muslims and will have no influence on what happens within Islam.

Islam was designed to be incapable of reform - it is based on the all-perfect word of Allah, after all - so how can you improve on perfection? The answer is of course, that you can't.

We non-Muslims are just going to have to deal with this on our own, and we will have to do so sooner rather than later if our Judaeo-Christian civilisation is to be saved. We can expect no help from so-called 'Reformist Muslims.'