Andrew Bolt is appalled that the Australian Muslim community is apparently backing a bigot. (Hat tip: LGF readers.)

Excuses over. The disgraced mufti of Australia set Muslims a test last month and they failed.

That test couldn’t have been easier: make Sheik Taj el-Din al-Hilaly pay for preaching that unveiled women invited rape.

Prove that Muslims can’t be led by a man who says raped women must be “jailed for life”. Prove we have nothing to fear from your faith.

Simple? Yet yesterday 34 Muslim groups signed a petition backing this bigot, while others plan a big rally for Sydney tomorrow, denouncing not Hilaly but the non-Muslims who criticise him.

The results are in: Islam here — as represented by many of its leaders — is now a threat.

What’s more: our culture of self-hate makes us too weak to properly resist.

I know saying such things is hard on the many moderate Muslims I keep insisting are out there. I am sorry for that, but where in God’s name are those people? How much longer must we wait for them to speak?

For more than 20 years they said nothing as their most prominent imam, in their biggest mosque, damned Jews as perverts, called suicide bombers heroes, praised terror groups, vilified non-Muslims and hailed the September 11 terror attacks on the United States as “God’s work against oppressors”.

They said nothing as he gave the run of his mosque to a pro-bin Laden youth group and hired one of its translators as his spokesman.

For years they let this man, their mufti, represent Islam in this country, whose language he never really bothered to learn in nearly 30 years of living here.

But I never lost hope, and so for a few days last week thought … at last!

Read the whole thing…

UPDATE at 11/2/06 3:21:07 pm:

Rape-supporting Sheikh al-Hilaly asked his followers to call off the planned rally, but he’s promising a real ‘knockout’ comeback sermon tomorrow. (Hat tip: Killgore Trout.)

THOUSANDS of supporters of Sydney’s Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly are expected to turn out in support of their besieged leader today after he asked followers to call off a planned rally and instead promised something special at Friday prayers.

The controversial Egyptian-born imam has promised a ‘knockout’ comeback at his weekly sermon today, and sent a message of support to followers in an interview on an Arabic-language radio station.

“The trade of cheap politics does not hold any weight or value,” he said during the short interview on Sydney community radio station Voice of Islam.

Sheik al-Hilaly appealed to his community to continue living by Australia’s rules and laws and “protect its safety and peace more than others”, and told them to “expect a knock-out tomorrow, inshallah (God willing),” in reference to the sermon he is expected to deliver at Lakemba Mosque in Sydney’s southwest.

The cleric’s message came as his deputy at Lakemba Mosque, Sheik Shadi Suleiman, called on the community to stand by its leader.

He said while it was “regrettable” that Sheik al-Hilaly had likened immodestly dressed women to uncovered meat during a Ramadan sermon - as revealed last week by The Australian - the community needed to stand by its leader.