Ads for Islam 'misquote Shaw from bogus book'

ANTI "Islamophobia" advertisements due to screen on major free-to-air channels from today rely on a fabricated quote from Irish playwright and avowed atheist George Bernard Shaw, from a book that does not exist, according to the International Shaw Society.

The 30-second ads have been funded by the Sydney-based Mypeace organisation, which says it hopes to "build bridges" between Muslims and other Australians.

Animated with voiceovers and with quotations displayed on the screen, they feature major historical figures including Mahatma Gandhi and Shaw praising the prophet Mohammed.

The advertisements quote Shaw proclaiming the prophet Mohammed was "the saviour of humanity" in a book he is supposed to have written entitled The Genuine Islam.

But International Shaw Society treasurer Richard F Dietrich said he had compiled a complete list of Shaw's works, which did not include the book.

"I think The Genuine Islam is bogus," he said. In his writings, Shaw described the religion in a 1933 letter to Rev Ensor Walters as "ferociously intolerant".

"Mahomet rose up at the risk of his life and insulted the stones (that the Arabs worshipped) shockingly, declaring that there is only one God, Allah, the glorious and the great . . . And there was to be no nonsense about toleration," Shaw wrote.

"You accepted Allah or you had your throat cut by someone who did accept him, and who went to Paradise for having sent you to Hell."

The suggestion that Shaw may have written a book entitled The Genuine Islam has its origins in an interview between Shaw and Muslim propagandist Maulana Mohammed Abdul Aleem Siddiqui published in a Muslim periodical in January 1936.

The interview took place in Mombasa, Kenya, some time between April 10 and 20, 1935, and copies of the periodical remain.

It contains a quotation which describes Mohammed as the "saviour of humanity" and Islam as having "wonderful vitality" and "the chance to rule of Britain, nay Europe, in the next hundred years", but these are not recorded as the words of Shaw.

The quotation appears in a separate quotation box without attribution, and not in the main body of the interview.

However, the main body of the interview does feature Shaw challenging Siddiqui from a rationalist perspective.

"How can you possibly present the picture of Heaven and Hell, which is portrayed in the Koran, in a manner convincing to persons conversant with science, whose minds are inured to accept nothing without visible or palpable proof?" Shaw asks.

Another account of the conversation between Shaw and Siddiqui, published in the Tanganyika Herald of May 3, 1935, does not mention the purported quotes from Shaw, but quotes him commenting on a lecture Siddiqui had given.

"You spoke on Philosophy of Peace, but as a Muslim it would have been more appropriate if you had delivered a lecture on the Philosophy of War, for Islam doubtless was spread at the point of the sword," Shaw is quoted as having said.

Mypeace, a Muslim organisation dedicated to fostering understanding of Islam, did not respond to The Australian's requests for comment. Mypeace founder Diaa Mohamed told the Daily Telegraph the advertisements were a response to "misinformation" about the prophet.

"Mohammed is the most influential man in history and the commercials will show what scholars and historians have said about him," Mr Mohamed said.