Transcription of David Oldfield’s interview with Ibrahim Siddiq-Conlon

(Sharia4Australia) radio 2UE, Thursday, 20th Jan, 2011.

0.8 DO: Apparently there is only one god and his name is Allah. Such is what
we’re being told this morning as a local muslim leader has called on the
members of the federal parliament, including PM Julia Gillard to step down as
they have no right to govern.
Well while some may agree with the idea that they indeed have no right to
govern ah, but sharia law and the rest of this stuff is of course, all quite absurd.
However, however, it’s a reminder for us all of the extremists in our midst,
something that many seem to want to have us ignore. I’ll look at this matter
and get your views on the potential dangers posed to us all by the growing
numbers of outspoken islamic extremists 131332 is my number.

1:00 DO: Starting, I suppose, with Ibrahim Siddiqi Conlon, ah you there, Ibrahim?

1:07 ISC: Yeah, good morning, how you going?

1:09 DO: Good thanks, thanks for your time.. Ibrahim, you’re suggesting, firstly,
the only God is Allah and his laws should be obeyed. Does this, is that
correct? Is that a fair statement?

1:20 ISC: Exactly that’s the major point of my message, it’s basically of course to
reach out to the Australian people objectively, ah considering with an open
heart and an open mind um the fact that their creator, who created them,
created us, created the heavens and the earth, he is the only one worthy of
worship and who can legislate.

1:39 DO: So is there any prospect of thought in your mind that perhaps a Christian
God created you as opposed to what you’re suggesting?

1:45 ISC: Well, essentially, obviously the Christian God and the Jewish God and
the islamic god is[sic] the same god.

1:51 DO: Oh ok, so they’re all the same god but they’re actually allah as opposed to
what other people might think the person to be.

1:57 ISC: Well if you look in the Arabic bibles if you look in certainly some of the
original Arabic bibles you’ll see al-lah as well. For example il lah el lah la
samat.. [poor phonetic transcription there] so Jesus clearly talks about calling
us for allah so there is much evidence in the bible that He’s called allah as
well.

2:12 DO: Now you’re, you’re actually calling for Julia Gillard, for example, to step
down and for sharia law to be introduced. Is that a fair report?

2:20 ISC: Well, of course we understand the position of the muslims in Australia,
we’re still quite in a very early stage, and we’ve still got a lot of obviously
personal reformation to do but it’s the suggestion that basically nobody has the
right to legislate except our creator allah. That’s a basic concept. I would love
 for her to step down and for the muslims of course to establish sharia. But we
understand the reality that that’s never gonna happen for quite a while.

2:44 DO: N-Never gonna happen for quite a while

2:46 ISC: Well it’s not gonna happen for quite a while until the muslims of course
reform themselves, until we basically become good people ‘cause that’s the
point of islam,, is to perfect our character

2:55 DO: So it’s fair to say that where you and your followers are concerned your
objective is to work towards an islamic law run Australia

3:03 ISC: Well hopefully with the work of the Australian people. We’re not here to
cause hate we’re here for the most peaceful objective. And that is to work with
the Australian people. But I want the Australian people to at least move
halfway towards us, at least open up their hearts and open up their minds. You
know, we’re getting so much racist backlash that really isn’t, shouldn’t be
saying. You know Christians shouldn’t be saying anything bad about sharia
because basically sharia is is the law of God. So if you’re a good Christian,
you should be saying bad things about sharia

3:31 DO: Well but of course if you’re a Christian you don’t believe that sharia is
the law of god.

3:35 ISC: Well, prove to me that. Show me the proof, cause we believe yes, the
Christians should follow what god almighty has revealed and basically a good
Christian will understand as they have in the past, as they are overseas, that
sharia forms a part of god’s legislation.

3:51 DO: Um, look, Ibrahim is it.. I’m sorry, is it actually beyond your capacity to
conceive that what you’re saying is just simply not believed by other people
and there’s no proof on your side any further than there might be on the other
side?

4:05 ISC: Obviously it can be a subjective thing. We’re saying we believe in our
hearts, with our evidence that we have the truth. Now someone can come with
similar evidence from their side and let’s examine it. Let’s examine the bible.
Let’s show that it’s been corrupted, you know, so bring your evidence we’ll
bring our evidence and let’s have a chat about it. That’s what I’m saying.

4:22 DO: Okay so you’re saying anyway, whilst you’re not expecting it to happen,
I’m not sure Julia Gillard is plugged into doing this as you wish. Ah, you say
“I hate the parliament in Canberra.” A lot of people would go along with that,
that’s a fair statement, um, and you want to you, but you’re saying you want to
go straight for the jugular vein and advise parliament they have no right to
legislate, they should immediately step down and let muslims take over, is that
true?

4:43 ISC: Well let’s discuss this word hate, that’s a very strong word, okay? We
don’t use that word, I never, I don’t use that word –
4:48 DO: [interjection]Okay, that must have been a misquote, that one

4:50 ISC: We dislike, it was certainly a misquote

4:52 DO: [interjection] Dis-dislike

4:53 ISC: We dislike, of course, yes, none has the right to legislate except allah,
except for god, now if you want to legislate by democracy or any other system
except islam, you’re a disbeliever, now that’s what we’re saying.

5:03 DO: Now just say for a second that we were to go along with the idea that
only allah has the right to legislate –

5:09 ISC: [interjection] yes

5:10 DO: How do we actually find out from allah what’s in his mind?

5:13 ISC: Of course it’s in the quran. All people need to do is open up a quran and
read it. It’s very clear.

5:16 DO: So did allah sort of sit down and write this at some stage? And pass it on?
Or -

5:20 ISC: Yes he did, he revealed it to a man called Mohammed over fourteen
hundred and thirty-two years ago and it was revealed in over twenty-three
years. Piece by piece and etched upon the hearts of hundreds of his followers,
even up to today when millions of people in islam today have the whole quran
memorised in their hearts exactly, without a word adding or taking away back
to Mohammed.

5:41 DO: So you’re suggesting that in the future the people of Australia would rely
on laws passed from god to somebody else in the year, you know, fourteen
hundred years ago ah, to then be what it is that runs this country.

5:57 ISC: Well obviously in islam it’s a constant [unintelligible] the law fourteen
hundred years ago is the same law that we ask for today, the same law we
follow. Yes, we ask for that, we are asking for a theocracy where we do
combine, you know, state and church – well, mosque, islam, and state together
–

6:11 DO: uh- that in itself’s an interesting point so essentially what we’re saying
here is that islamic law hasn’t changed in fourteen hundred years.

6:17 ISC: There’s constants and there’s variables, but the majority of it has
remained constant. For example, muslims all over the world, they still pray
five times a day, no matter where you are. Today, fourteen hundred years, a
thousand years ahead they’ll still pray five times a day, we still fast, we still
pay the zakat, we still do hajj. Nothing changes. Our right of legislation to
allah, that will never change until the day of judgement.
6:37 DO: Twelve minutes past eleven, and I thought for information for everybody
you might be interested to see um, what at least some have from an islamic
agenda for the future of Australia, and we’re trying to get to the bottom
reasonably of those matters, and I appreciate your time, Ibrahim. Ibrahim is an
islamic leader here in, ah, in Sydney. Ah, Ibrahim, ah, now it actually sort of
said in the material that I saw, it suggested that you thought that this takeover,
ultimately, of Australia by islam wouldn’t happen without a fight. What did
you actually mean there?

7:08 ISC: Obviously there’s, you know, you’ve got to look at the context of these
articles, these are written by people who are not muslims, who really have an
objective to destroy the name of islam now, you know.

7:17 DO: [voice over] Mmm.

7:17 ISC: What we’re saying is that if you study history, you’ll see that the
majority of cases that people accepted sharia peacefully. Now that there was
always generally a small little fight, because obviously governments and
people they never want to give up their control. But, generally, and we are
asking for peaceful means at all times. This is Australia, I’m an Australian.
I’m a white-skinned, Caucasian, full-blood aussie. That’s the difference. I
didn’t come from another country. But, we’re asking for peaceful solutions.
We want people to open up their hearts and look at the real benefits and this is
what I’m here to debate and show people. There is real benefits of sharia.
Really, real benefits.

7:52 DO: What are the benefits of sharia?

7:54 ISC: Obviously when we look into.. basically the first thing we need to
understand is the thing we can’t go past. Is that I want every single Australian
to understand that none has the right to legislate except for allah. Now when
people –

8:04 DO: [interjection] But we are in the hands of people who are in theory, are
interpreting what allah’s will is in that sense aren’t we?

8:10 ISC: Well it’s all there. It’s –

8:11 DO: It’s, it’s all there, fair enough we won’t go back over that, but um I don’t
quite understand what the, ah, I mean are there advantages of, for example
would this mean you’d introduce stoning adulterers?

8:20 ISC: Obviously, you know, we always come back to the stoning issue and the
cutting off the hands, no, obviously we’re in Australia, mate, um, you know,
this is, this IS sharia, we can’t deny this is a part of sharia, but when you look
back at the history, certain elements of sharia were sometimes negated,
sometimes left out of the sharia. Now, we’re not asking for stoning in
Australia we’re asking -
8:40 DO: [interjection]Not yet

8:40 ISC: - genuinely in this case, for a plural legal system. What’s wrong with a
plural legal system? There’s ninety thousand jewish people in Australia, yet
there’s four hundred and fifty thousand muslims in Australia. Muslims, ah,
Jewish people have their own law system, they have their own court system,
you know, that’s very documented, it’s called the Beth Din court. It’s only a
hundred thousand jewish people, four hundred and fifty thousand muslims in
Australia.

08:59 DO: [interjection]mmmm

8:59 ISC: why can’t we have that right?

9:01 DO: Well they don’t have a criminal relationship there. I mean jewish people
are tried under the same laws for any of these sorts of things, as the –

9.6 ISC: [interjection] well hang on,

9:07 DO: - as the rest of people, but ah, but ah, Ibrahim, let’s just sort of come back
to this um, situ - well for example Rodney Adler, who went to jail over the
situation of insurance, with ah, H, was it HGH or goodness –

9:22 ISC: [unintelligible interjection] –

9:23 DO: - the insurance company that he was involved in that he went to jail over,
now he’s a person who is of the jewish faith, so clearly he was tried under
Australian law, no jewish law, as just an example, only recently, of course
with the collapse that cost so many Australians so much money, with ah that
particular insurance company that’s name currently escapes me, H G or H G
H, can’t remember.

9:41 ISC: [unintelligible interjection]

9:41 DO: no, but anyway, Ibrahim, I want to come back to this. Now what about
those Australians, just briefly, because I need to, um, get to your
comrade,colleague, ah, faith friend Zaky in a moment. But um, what about
those Australians, for example who actually want to have a say, believe in
democracy and are not happy about having the law fourteen hundred years ago
imposed upon them. Those who are not willing to open their hearts to these
things. What do you do about them?

10:09 ISC: Well that’s okay, let’s look at modern law. Let’s look at where does our
modern, democratic ideas come from. Hang on, what rings a bell? The bible,
the old testament, the ten commandments, how old are they? Huh? How old
are these? They’re older than the islamic views. We’re going back to the times
of Moses here.

10:28 DO: Yeah, in fact they were before islam, weren’t they? That’s in itself an
interesting pronouncement that you made there. Yeah, okay, now look, um, I
 think that’s as much as we can do here this morning in in certain with the
constraints that we have but I appreciate you appearing and telling us what it is
that you’re wanting to do, and grateful for your time.

10:46 ISC: Can I just say one more thing? We’re really working to, want to work
peacefully with the Australian people, you know this. We don’t like this
backlash the muslim community in Australia -

10:53 DO: [interjection] on that I’d have to ask you though, but, eh,does it occur to
you that there will be Australians, and I can tell you I’m one of them, who
have absolutely no interest whatsoever in converting to islam. No interest
whatsoever in you and your ilk ever having anything to do with the running of
this except perhaps through the normal democratic means of being elected to
parliament, where people represent, so I mean I for one am standing here right
now telling you that, ah if there’s gonna be a fight, I’ll be involved in it. In fact
I’m involved in it now. So what happens, what happens when you get all of
those other Australians who feel as I do, who just reject this completely out of
hand, and say if you want to be like this, go back to the Middle East and do it
there.

11:27 ISC: Okay, this is what I said, I’m not from the Middle East, I’m Australian,
David

11:31 DO: Yeah, but what you’re bringing here is coming from the Middle East, so
rather than trying to impose these views on Australians because you’ve
converted why don’t you go somewhere else to do it? What happens to
Australians like me, Ibrahim, what happens to us? Your kind talk about doing
it peacefully what happens to Australians like me who actually just don’t want
a part of this? Whadda you do to us?

11:49 ISC: I’d ask you a question, David, what about the aborigines who want islam
in Australia? Where do they go back to, huh? Tell me that.

11:53 DO: well they can convert to islam if they like and go to one of your mosques,
but what about the laws? What about the law? Ibrahim, what happens to
Australians like me who say that we reject this, we don’t want this?

12:04 ISC: David, they tell me how about you guys go back to your country.
Aborigines.

12:07 DO: This is my country. I was born here, Ibrahim obviously we’re not getting
an answer to that question but I appreciate your time. Hopefully we’ll talk to
you again on that matter. David Oldfield seventeen minutes past eleven. When
we’re back, some more very interesting information for you on these matters
of people who have particular plans for us that well, maybe you embrace or
maybe you reject them as I do