Creeping Shari'a

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

Two recent stories, both involving medical professionals, from the UK:

1. Story from September 27, 2007 edition of the Times Online:

A Muslim dentist insisted that a young woman wear an Islamic headscarf before he would agree to treat her for toothache, the General Dental Council was told yesterday.

The patient, a community nurse, alleges that she reluctantly told Omer Butt, 31, who runs a dental practice in Bury, Greater Manchester, that she was a nonpractising Muslim.

It is alleged that the dentist then told her that he would refuse to register her as an NHS patient if she did not cover her head. She was in so much pain that she agreed to borrow a scarf from a nurse at the clinic.

The panel was told that when the dentist, quoting the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, told her to wait in the waiting room, she felt so humiliated that she left the clinic and made a complaint about his behaviour.

Mr Butt denies the charge that he has undermined public confidence in his profession by discriminating against a patient and failing to act in her best interests. If found guilty of the charge by the council’s professional misconduct committee he could be struck off the register.

After learning of the charges laid against him, he wrote to the council praising Allah. He referred to the patient as his “sister” and concluded: “May Allah protect us all from the evils of Shaitan [Satan].”

John Snell, for the council, said that the woman, referred to as Patient A, went to see Mr Butt at his clinic in April, 2005.

Mr Snell said: “He asked her if she was a Muslim and she asked him why it mattered. He said he needed to know.”

The nurse allegedly told her: “Inside the surgery it is Mr Butt’s world and his rules that apply.”

Patient A told the hearing: “I did ask what would happen if I did not wear a headscarf and was told I would not be able to register there as a patient. I did feel that I was under duress.”

Andrew Hockton, defending the dentist, said that Mr Butt asked Muslim women to cover everything except their hands and faces “in order to protect his honour”.

The hearing continues. [Hat-tip to Kender, who alerted me to the above story]

2. Story from the October 7, 2007 edition of the Times Online:

Some Muslim medical students are refusing to attend lectures or answer exam questions on alcohol-related or sexually transmitted diseases because they claim it offends their religious beliefs.

Some trainee doctors say learning to treat the diseases conflicts with their faith, which states that Muslims should not drink alcohol and rejects sexual promiscuity.

A small number of Muslim medical students have even refused to treat patients of the opposite sex. One male student was prepared to fail his final exams rather than carry out a basic examination of a female patient.

The religious objections by students have been confirmed by the British Medical Association (BMA) and General Medical Council (GMC), which both stressed that they did not approve of such actions.

It will intensify the debate sparked last week by the disclosure that Sainsbury’s is permitting Muslim checkout operators to refuse to handle customers’ alcohol purchases on religious grounds. It means other members of staff have to be called over to scan in wine and beer for them at the till.

Critics, including many Islamic scholars, see the concessions as a step too far, and say Muslims are reneging on their professional responsibilities.

This weekend, however, it emerged that Sainsbury’s is also allowing its Muslim pharmacists to refuse to sell the morning-after pill to customers. At a Sainsbury’s store in Nottingham, a pharmacist named Ahmed declined to provide the pill to a female reporter posing as a customer. A colleague explained to her that Ahmed did not sell the pill for “ethical reasons”. Boots also permits pharmacists to refuse to sell the pill on ethical grounds.

The BMA said it had received reports of Muslim students who did not want to learn anything about alcohol or the effects of overconsumption. “They are so opposed to the consumption of it they don’t want to learn anything about it,” said a spokesman.

The GMC said it had received requests for guidance over whether students could “omit parts of the medical curriculum and yet still be allowed to graduate”. Professor Peter Rubin, chairman of the GMC’s education committee, said: “Examples have included a refusal to see patients who are affected by diseases caused by alcohol or sexual activity, or a refusal to examine patients of a particular gender.”

He added that “prejudicing treatment on the grounds of patients’ gender or their responsibility for their condition would run counter to the most basic principles of ethical medical practice”.

Shazia Ovaisi, a GP in north London, said one of her male Muslim contemporaries at medical school failed to complete his training because he refused to examine a woman patient as part of his final exams.

“He was academically gifted, one of the best students, but gradually he got in with certain Islamic groups and started to become more radical,” said Ovaisi.

“You could see there was a change in his personality as time went by. During the final exams he was supposed to treat a female patient in hospital. He refused to do it, even though it would have been a very basic examination, nothing intrusive.

“But he refused and as a result he failed his exams. I was quite shocked and disappointed about it because I don’t see there being anything in our religion that prohibits us from examining male and female patients.”

Both the Muslim Council of Britain and Muslim Doctors and Dentist Association said they were aware of students opting out but did not support them.

Dr Abdul Majid Katme, of the Islamic Medical Association, said: “To learn about alcohol, to learn about sexually transmitted disease, to learn about abortion, it gives us more evidence to campaign against it. There is a difference between learning and practising.

“It is obligatory for Muslim doctors and students to learn about everything. The prophet said, ‘Learn about witchcraft, but don’t practise it’.”

[Hat-tip to Mark Alexander for alerting me to the above story]

I've been doing research for an upcoming speech and learned that, according to some sources, shari'a law is supposed to apply only to Muslims or to those living under Islamic rule. But Muslims living in Western nations are pushing the envelope. The above two examples are extremes, but other less obvious attempts at applying shari'a law and Islamic customs are also proceeding, most in the name of tolerance and multiculturalism.

Will the West refuse to slide further into dhimmitude (defined HERE by Bat Ye'or)? The National Health Service of the UK must take a solid stand against Muslims such as those in the above two stories! Otherwise, the pushing of the envelope will continue to get worse.

The greater danger of Islamification lies in the West's concessions and in the media's not making certain stories very public, not in the sporadic attacks by jihadists, though the latter get a lot of attention. The West's own desire to be tolerant is leading us down the path of the destruction of Western civilization. No wonder I'm sick!