Muslim council chiefs ban ALL members from 'tea and sandwiches' in meetings during Ramadan

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it is nothing but common courtesy to refreain from eating in front of someone who is fasting.
No it isn’t.

Fasting is a personal and private act. They fast out of devotion. I’m sure they won’t be tempted to eat just because others are eating in front of them.

The lifestyle or daily routine of non-muslims should not change because Muslims are fasting.


I think this is a perfect example of how political correctness is slowly but surely helping in the Islamisation of Britian, and Europe.

This has nothing to do with tolerance. Tolerance is simply respecting their right to practice their religion. It is not tolerant to force others to accept, or change their behaviours in order to appease another religion.

This may only be a small, insignificant occurance, but this just shows the weak mentality of some people. The politically correct do not realise what they are doing. They are enabling Islam to impose itself upon our society. This is only a small thing, but lots of small things added together result in large scale changes.

I worry about the future of my country. Islam is spreading like a cancer within. It will destroy all that made our civilisation great.
 
This has nothing to do with tolerance. Tolerance is simply respecting their right to practice their religion. It is not tolerant to force others to accept, or change their behaviours in order to appease another religion.
We had to ask the English to stop murdering our priests and butchering us Catholics, was this appeasement too?
 
I think if the people sent the memo want to comply with it (after all, it is a request, not a law), okay. But if some don’t want to. they should not have to, and they should not be punished for not granting this request. In all my years of fasting during Lent (something I did as a Protestant, too), I would never dream of asking my non-Christian friends to not eat in front of me just because I was fasting. If the purpose of Lent is to remember the time Jesus spent in the desert, resisting temptation, then how can we remember it properly if our fast does not also involve resisting temptation? If no one around us is allowed to eat, and there are legal penalties for those who break the fast (lest anyone think making adherance a law would help), then clearly there is no temptation, since the faster is by compulsion or custom made not to be around those who eat, and/or scared away from eating by legal penalty. It makes the fast just as worthless and empty of meaning as if we were to secretly gorge ourselves at night, maintaining an outward appearance of someone who is faithfully keeping the fast.

So I would get all up in arms over this as others in this thread have, but if what has been written here about Muslims’ activity during Ramadan is true (that they gain weight, gorge themselves once the sun is down), then they aren’t doing it right anyway. In as far as compliance with the request would help them carry out an empty ritual, I honestly can’t be bothered to care either way. Comply with the request or do not comply, so long as you do so willingly and with a clear conscience.
 
Murder has the same moral quality as eating something at the “wrong” time?
You tell me, you are the one saying that delaying people from eating sandwiches will lead to murderous Shari’ah law being implemented in the U.K.
 
You tell me, you are the one saying that delaying people from eating sandwiches will lead to murderous Shari’ah law being implemented in the U.K.
I say complying with their ridiculous demands, sorry, requests will lead to their murderous law. Step by step.
It is part of Islam to seemingly blend into non-islamic cultures and pretend to obey local law until Muslims are in the majority. Then they impose their law. And what that means, look at Saudi-Arabia, Iran, Indonesia …
 
I say complying with their ridiculous demands, sorry, requests will lead to their murderous law. Step by step.
It is part of Islam to seemingly blend into non-islamic cultures and pretend to obey local law until Muslims are in the majority. Then they impose their law. And what that means, look at Saudi-Arabia, Iran, Indonesia …
Not out of any love for Islam, but I must question whether the states you mentioned really are good examples of what you claim that Muslims are doing with their “blending in” to non-Islamic cultures. Saudi Arabia was founded as an Islamic state, a sort of formalizing of the Saudi dynasty that has existed in that territory since 1774, allied with that Wahhab guy everyone loves so much that they consider being grouped under that name a slander. Iran is perhaps a different animal since it has a longer history as an established state or kingdom or what have you, with its own indigenous religion. But also in that case, it might be a stretch to say that the Muslims “blended in”…how many Zoroastrians are in Iran today? An Islamic “revolution” means just that. Islam writes the rules. No other influences are needed (they’re there, anyway, in the decidedly European parlimentary and constitutional models followed by the Iranian government, over which Islam of course still predominates).

What you said might be true of the Islamic approach to the resolutely non-Muslim Christian countries (of which there are few these days, thanks to a strangely anti-Christian interpretation of secular law and life), but I’m not so sure about elsewhere.
 
This is what I wrote:
This has nothing to do with tolerance. Tolerance is simply respecting their right to practice their religion. It is not tolerant to force others to accept, or change their behaviours in order to appease another religion.
This was your response:
We had to ask the English to stop murdering our priests and butchering us Catholics, was this appeasement too?
To me, tolerance is respecting the freedom of religion. It means allowing people to practice their religion freely, as long as that religion does not harm the greater good.

Forcing a religion on somebody is not tolerant. By attempting to be respectful to the Muslims, the Council leadership are being intolerant to those who want to eat during the daylight hours.

The non-Muslim members of the council also have a right to eat at the normal times. It is intolerant to force them to change their everyday routines because of the religious sensibilities of certain members.

The council leadership should not change standard practice to appease ANY religion, including Christianity. It is sufficient to allow religious members the right to privately practice their religion, without forcing non-believers to change their ordinary practices or behaviours.

How you can compare eating habits to homicide is beyond me. We are not persecuting Muslims by allowing non-Muslims to eat at their regular meal times. The English Catholics were persecuted and killed because of religious hatred. All we asked for was the right to practice our religion without fear of persecution or discrimination. Thankfully, we now have that right. However, the Catholics in this country do not force our beliefs on non-Catholics. We do not force non-Catholics to abstain during lent, and we don’t ask for any special treatment. The same cannot be said for certain Muslim groups.

LDN Catholic, I really respect the fact that you are very tolerant and accepting of other religious faiths. I wish more people were like you. However, I think you need to realise that we live in a secular, democratic society. Everyone has the right to practice whatever religion they choose. Nobody should be forced to adopt the practices of a religion they do not follow. I admit this is only a small issue, but the principal still stands.
 
Apologies Dempsey my comment likening this sandwich affair to the persecution of English Catholics was more of a retort to the previous comments that were fear mongering ‘‘first they take our sandwiches, then they take our freedom!!!’’ style messages.

The food served at the meeting is a courtesy and to the best of my knowledge is not a legal requirement, so they don’t have to provide food at all. Were it a legal requirement then I could understand the problem.

Thanks also for the kind words.
 
Not eating out of respect could be a personal choice, not an obligation. In SA, my friends are harrased if “caught” eating that they end up hiding to eat…one of them changes his eating habits because not only he can’t eat, but he doesn’t even find a place that serves food during the day…they tell us this later in an amusing way that makes us laugh, but remembering something is not like living it despite yourself…we see that Muslims come first, the others can beat their heads on walls…

when we fast, do we ask restaurants to close? do we ask restaurants to stop serving dairy products and meat because we abstain? no, fasting is a personal experience that must be based on joy, not on outward appearances .

Let us see Qatar during ramadan:

Muslims are required to fast from sunrise to sunset during the month of Ramadan. As such, it is illegal in Qatar to eat, drink (even water), or smoke in public during fasting hours, i.e., approximately 5:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. Approximate times for sunrise and sunset will be announced in local newspapers. If Muslims are present in the work place, they expect non-Muslims to respect their fasting and not eat, drink, or smoke in front of them, even in motor vehicles, or to prepare food that they can smell or see. As it is illegal to serve food or drink during fasting hours, restaurants will be closed during daylight hours, with the exception of a few hotel restaurants that serve non-Muslims only.

Is that respecting non-Muslims or only Muslims’ sensibilities?

Muslims have things to observe, so they must mind their own business…others are not supposed to change their lives because Muslims are fasting just as we ask no one to change anything because we fast for nearly 2 months even from meat or any animal product…
 
2 thoughts:

I would have a serious problem w/ this “request”, and just have to ignore it. I’m currently battling gestational diabetes (pray that it goes away when the baby’s born. My dr. said it may or may not), so yes, I HAVE to eat at certain times of the day, waiting an hour and a half would wreak havoc on my blood glucose levels. Now, the Catholic Church is sensible enough in her rules on fasting and abstaining that exceptions are made for health reasons (i.e., pregnant and nursing women are not required to fast during lent). Does Islam allow these exceptions? (I can’t imagine how a diabetic could go all day w/o eating, then gorge themselves all night for an entire month w/o serious physical repercussions. Diabetes is nothing to mess around with!).

I love meat. Fish is ok, but meat is always my first choice of main dish, if possible. Friday’s during lent are a big sacrifice for me (as they’re supposed to be!). Yet, as tempting as the smell of meat is, especially when I can’t have it, it would be rude and wrong to tell others they can’t eat it just because I can’t, even if they, as nonCatholics, are in the minority. I used to work in an office that was mostly Catholic (probably due to the fact that St. Louis is a very Catholic city). On Fridays during lent, 3/4 of the people in the lunch room ate meatless meals. We never tried to make the other 1/4 feel guilty for having burgers, or, worse, tell them they shouldn’t be eating them in front of us. It’s the same thing. This area may be majority Muslim, but if even one nonMuslim works there, they shouldn’t be imposed on. That, imo, is more rude than eating in front of someone who’s voluntarily fasting.

Just my :twocents:

In Christ,

Ellen
 
Of course, none of this is actually true. The request was that non-Muslims don’t eat the food that had been left for Muslims to break their fast with. Iftar food does not mean all food.
*
"As normal, water will be provided at council meetings taking place during Ramadan.

"Tea, coffee, Iftar packs and non-Iftar snacks will be available in a separate room.

“All that’s being asked for is courtesy to be shown to the sensitivities around some councillors eating during the council meetings while others in the room are fasting.”

She said: “Non-Muslim councillors have simply been asked to ensure that there is Iftar food available for Muslim councillors, because in previous years, Muslim councillors wanting to break their fast following prayers had found that Iftar packs had been eaten.”*

24dash.com/news/Local_Government/2008-08-29-Tower-Hamlets-denies-imposing-Ramadan-request-on-council-staff

Meanwhile, I’m enjoying my first fast of the month. Opened it with an omelette and a glass of water, so need to worry about me gorging myself to death. 🙂
 
Of course, none of this is actually true. The request was that non-Muslims don’t eat the food that had been left for Muslims to break their fast with. Not eating the Iftar food does not mean not eating any food at all.
*
"As normal, water will be provided at council meetings taking place during Ramadan.

"Tea, coffee, Iftar packs and non-Iftar snacks will be available in a separate room.

“All that’s being asked for is courtesy to be shown to the sensitivities around some councillors eating during the council meetings while others in the room are fasting.”

She said: “Non-Muslim councillors have simply been asked to ensure that there is Iftar food available for Muslim councillors, because in previous years, Muslim councillors wanting to break their fast following prayers had found that Iftar packs had been eaten.”*

24dash.com/news/Local_Government/2008-08-29-Tower-Hamlets-denies-imposing-Ramadan-request-on-council-staff

Meanwhile, I’m enjoying my first fast of the month. Opened it with an omelette and a glass of water, so need to worry about me gorging myself to death. 🙂
 
Of course, none of this is actually true. The request was that non-Muslims don’t eat the food that had been left for Muslims to break their fast with. Iftar food does not mean all food.
*
"As normal, water will be provided at council meetings taking place during Ramadan.

"Tea, coffee, Iftar packs and non-Iftar snacks will be available in a separate room.

“All that’s being asked for is courtesy to be shown to the sensitivities around some councillors eating during the council meetings while others in the room are fasting.”

She said: “Non-Muslim councillors have simply been asked to ensure that there is Iftar food available for Muslim councillors, because in previous years, Muslim councillors wanting to break their fast following prayers had found that Iftar packs had been eaten.”*

24dash.com/news/Local_Government/2008-08-29-Tower-Hamlets-denies-imposing-Ramadan-request-on-council-staff

Meanwhile, I’m enjoying my first fast of the month. Opened it with an omelette and a glass of water, so need to worry about me gorging myself to death. 🙂
Well then there we go, hardly an imposition of Shari’ah now is it?

Thanks Kadaveri, and Ramadan Mubarak.
 
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