Stopping to smell the roses

Andrew Gilligan’s superb ‘review’ of Tony Blair’s new book A Journey is well worth the read. Gilligan himself played a fundamental role in the undoing of the ’45-minute claim’, on which Blair goes into some detail.

But it is, of course, Iraq where the trust issue reached crisis point. Fascinatingly, Blair admits that even by the tests of his own stated criteria for liberal interventionism, as set out in a speech in Chicago, the case for war was “finely balanced”. Again, not something you’d have known from his campaigning certainty at the time.

The disaster that unfolded post-war is described in those Blairish sentences lacking active verbs – implying that it was almost a force of nature, over which we had no control. Evil outsiders, such as
al-Qaeda and Iran, are blamed – with no mention of who created the vacuum for them to fill. The British reconstruction effort is described as “adequate”, and all problems are blamed on the US – a straightforwardly false claim.

Blair does come clean on some untruths – admitting, just as The Sunday Telegraph revealed last year, that military planning began in early 2002 (in July that year, he’d denied to MPs that any such planning was taking place). He makes a very significant admission about the famous 45-minute claim – that the Government “should, in retrospect, have corrected [it]” in the way it was reported. Instead, he and his press secretary, Alastair Campbell, went to war with me and the BBC.

It is mildly flattering to learn that Blair believes his integrity “probably never recovered” from my charge that his staff “sexed up” the dossier and the 45-minute claim. “I’m not saying we handled the allegation well,” he writes, probably the closest to an apology I and the BBC will ever get. We can also perhaps endorse Blair’s description of Campbell as a “crazy person” who by that stage “had probably gone over the edge”.

Yet in telling this part of the tale, there is the same lack of feeling for which the book so rightly criticises Gordon Brown. When Dr David Kelly died, Blair writes, “the media would declare it was a scandal. They were absolutely capable of ensuring that there was one.” Surely Dr Kelly’s death was a scandal, with or without the help of the media.

In a passage about coming to terms with the deaths he inflicted, Blair explains why he cannot express regret: “Regret can seem bound to the past,” he says. “Responsibility has its present and future tense.” This seems unlikely to convince the Army bereaved. And on the wider death toll, Blair says that estimates of 600,000 are wrong – why, it was a mere 112,000!

Read the full article.

I’m sure it’s a great book.  But I’m happy to wait for the paperback, when it arrives at the local library which I’m not a member of.

A History of Tolerance

A form of moderation has been a central part of Islam from the very beginning. True, Muslims are nowhere commanded to love their neighbors, as in the Old Testament, still less their enemies, as in the New Testament. But they are commanded to accept diversity, and this commandment was usually obeyed. The Prophet Muhammad’s statement that “difference within my community is part of God’s mercy” expressed one of Islam’s central ideas, and it is enshrined both in law and usage from the earliest times.

This principle created a level of tolerance among Muslims and coexistence between Muslims and others that was unknown in Christendom until after the triumph of secularism. Diversity was legitimate and accepted. Different juristic schools coexisted, often with significant divergences.

Sectarian differences arose, and sometimes led to conflicts, but these were minor compared with the ferocious wars and persecutions of Christendom. Some events that were commonplace in medieval Europe— like the massacre and expulsion of Jews—were almost unknown in the Muslim world. That is, until modern times.

Occasionally more radical, more violent versions of Islam arose, but their impact was mostly limited. They did not become really important until the modern period when, thanks to a combination of circumstances, such versions of Islamic teachings obtained a massive following among both governments and peoples.

From the start, Muslims have always had a strong sense of their identity and history. Thanks to modern communication, they have become painfully aware of their present state. Some speak of defeat, some of failure. It is the latter who offer the best hope for change.

For the moment, there does not seem to be much prospect of a moderate Islam in the Muslim world. This is partly because in the prevailing atmosphere the expression of moderate ideas can be dangerous—even life-threatening. Radical groups like al Qaeda and the Taliban, the likes of which in earlier times were at most minor and marginal, have acquired a powerful and even a dominant position.

But for Muslims who seek it, the roots are there, both in the theory and practice of their faith and in their early sacred history.

Read the rest of the short essays.

Mr Khan (the Muslim Community Leader who made Bellamy’s People famous) gives his no-holds barred assessment of the political situation, with a harsh analysis of the Tory Party, Labour Party, and the other one. As the general election reaches fever pitch, Mr Khan brings it all into perspective – the Muslim perspective. No matter how irrelevant, you can be sure Khan will say the word “Muslim” every 25 seconds. If not, please complain to your local Mosque. Discover why David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg would all be better off with beards.

Well, at least Mr Khan votes, which cannot be said of the muslims who pronounce voting to be “shirk” or idolatrous and therefore blasphemous. This idiot, for example, who bases his opinions on a fatwa by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, spiritual leader of the Muslim brotherhood and Ken Livingstone’s token-Islamist accessory:

Most of what I say is based on the Fatwa of our noble Shaykh and Imam Yusuf al-Qaradawi[i] on the issue of political participation in a non-Islamic state.

1. The Basic Principle

The basic principle is that it is not permissible for Muslims to participate or support a non-Islamic government or government which does not govern according to the dictates of the Shari’ah. A state that does not govern according to the shari’ah and goes as far as to enact rulings that goes against the laws and principles of the divine law cannot be supported. That is because Allah said:

“It is not for a believer, male or female, when Allah and His messenger have decreed a matter that they should have any option in their decision.”

But what can be said of this “Unofficial Poll Card”?

"Saving the People from Shirk"

Not the Islamists, however. True to form, a New York based Islamist groupuscule have threatened the makers of South Park with death, ordained by the prophet himself!

Here they are (see video) invoking Ibn Taymiyyah to reinforce the dubious doctrine of “Defence of the Prophet” and their religious obligation to behead the cartoon creators of South Park. They justify their intention by qualifying it with the story of Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf, chief of the Jewish tribe of Banu Nadir and a poet, who was assassinated by an order of Muhammed for writing, and here we rely on Ibn Taymiyyah, ‘offensive poetry’.

Here is the censored episode of South Park:

With this image of “Muhammed” excised. (Islamists look away now)

Muhammed offering a salmon helmet to Peter Griffin from Family Guy

Islamists and their left “liberal” friends who have undergone “Muslim Sensitivity Training” will sleep fitfully tonight, knowing that Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the makers of South Park, might very well have a knife pushed through their throats for producing such ‘offensive’ satire.

Have a nice weekend!

Mosab Hassan Yousef

Introducing Mosab Hassan Yousef, 30.

Mosab’s father is Sheikh Hassan Yousef, senior Hamas figure in the West Bank, currently serving a 6-year prison sentence in an Israeli prison.

Mosab helped Israel’s security forces kill and arrest members of the Islamic militant group, Hamas. He is probably marked for death and but he has published his story in his new book, ‘Son of Hamas’.

A fromer deputy of Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence service said he was one of their agents, helping  to prevent Hamas attacks on Israel. This will be an embarrasment for the militant group, which prides itself on its tight discipline.

Mosab has renounced his Muslim faith, converted to Christianity and denounced his father’s organisation. By doing so, he has exposed his family to persecution in his home town of Ramallah and endangered his own life.

From the Jerusalem Post:

“To be honest with you, being killed is not the worst thing that can happen,” he said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press. “If they want to do kill me … let them do it, and they will be responsible for my blood.”

In his memoir, Yousef, the 32-year-old son of a Hamas founder, claims he was one of the Shin Bet security agency’s best assets and was dubbed The Green Prince, a reference to his Hamas pedigree and the Islamists’ signature green color.

…

During his 50-minute interview, for which he arrived with armed security, Yousef criticized Hamas leaders including political chief Khaled Meshaal. He lashed out atHamas, saying the organization lives in the Middle Ages.

And he hurled his most inflammatory comments at Islam, which he called a religion that teaches people to kill.

“It is not a religion of peace,” said Yousef, who converted to Christianity. “The biggest terrorist is the God of the Quran. I know this is very dangerous and this will offend many people. The more you follow the steps of the prophet of Islam and the God of Islam, the more you get close to being a terrorist.”

Yousef said he started working with the Shin Bet after he was arrested and witnessedHamas brutalities inside prison. When he was released in 1997, he started meeting with the Shin Bet and gravitating toward Christianity.

From the NY Daily News:

For more than a decade, Mosab Hassan Yousef disrupted dozens of suicide bombings and assassination attempts by the militant group, saving hundreds of lives.

Infiltrating the upper echelons of Hamas came relatively easy for Yousef: He is the son of Hamas founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef.

“So many people owe him their life and don’t even know it,” an Israeli security agent told the Israeli daily Haaretz on Wednesday.

From the Daily Telegraph:

Mr Yousef, who is known as Joseph by friends at the Barabbas Road church in San Diego, California, arrived in America 18 months ago but only recently made “the biggest decision of my life” to go public with his conversion to draw attention to how the Palestinian leadership is “misleading” and exploiting its people.
“Palestinians look really ugly in front of everybody in the world and they are very, very good people … they are misled, and their picture is very dark because of this leadership.

“They need some help, they need people to stop lying to them, and lying to the world.”
Mr Yousef was raised as a Muslim by his politically powerful family. His father, Hassan Yousef, a highly respected sheikh born in the West Bank town of al-Ghaniya near Ramallah, is a founding member of Hamas, whose military wing has instigated dozens of suicide bombings and other attacks against Israel since it was formed in 1987.

…

Mr Yousef said that his doubts about Islam and Hamas crystallised when he realised not all Hamas leaders were like his father, a moderate who he describes as “open-minded, very humble and honest”.

Mr Yousef said that he was appalled by the brutality of the movement, including the suicide bombers seeking glory through jihad.

“Hamas, they are using civilians’ lives, they are using children, they are using the suffering of people every day to achieve their goals. And this is what I hate,” he said.

It was after a chance encounter nine years ago with a British missionary that Mr Yousef began exploring Christianity.

He found it “exciting”, he said, and began secretly studying the Bible, struck by the central tenet “love your enemies”.

Nevertheless he does not advocate the “collapse of Islam”, but rather for people to acknowledge that after 1,400 years “it’s not working any more”.

He said: “It’s not taking them anywhere. It’s making them look ugly.”

He hopes that Muslims will begin to question their religion and “fix it” by rejecting the parts that call for “killing others, cutting hands, cutting legs, torturing people and asking for destruction of entire civilisations”.

He said that after he converted to Christianity, he decided he had to escape and “live my life away from violence because I couldn’t coexist with that situation as a Christian.”

“I was thinking, what is my responsibility now? To see people dying every day or to stand up and say, this is wrong, this is right and be strong about this? So I had to make this move.”

He plans to write a memoir about his “transformation” that he hopes will inspire others and to found an international organisation to educate young people about Islam and preach a message of “forgiveness”, the only way he thinks “the endless circle of violence” between Israelis and Palestinians can be broken.

“I know this take a longer time, but this is the right way to do it, to build a new generation, a new generation who understand how to forgive, how to love.”

George Galloway, a London MP, admitted in recordings obtained by this newspaper that his surprise victory in the 2005 election owed more to the IFE “than it would be wise – for them – for me to say, adding that they played a “decisive role” in his triumph at the polls.

Mr Galloway now says they were one of many groups which supported his anti-war stance and had never sought to influence him.

Indeed he does. Galloway has now sprung to his own defence, as he does, and in a quick and dirty entry in his blog, distanced himself from the IFE and now pleads ignorance of their brand of sectarian, supremacist politics.

A speech I gave in the mosque after my last election victory was secretly taped and has been obtained by Dispatches almost five years on. The IFE were, in fact, one of several groups who helped in my successful antiwar campaign and I credited them for their help – as I did to all of the other groups, from Greens, Liberals, Tories to Trotskyists, who helped my defeat of a pro -war MP.

I don’t know who is or isn’t a member of the IFE, and I have only the haziest knowledge of what they stand for, but the organisation has never approached me for help or attempted to influence me. Again, my lawyers are watching.

I can picture people in the East London Mosque offices, reading this statement and thinking:

“You lying, drunken, cowardly, two-faced kaafir”

And in this case, they might just be right.

Here is a picture of Galloway and Abjol Miah. George now no longer remembers who Abjol is, what he stands for nor how much he owes him for his success.

The things you have to do to get a seat in Parliament these days

The only thing black about Commander Ali Dizaei is his hair dye. Yet this Iranian-born policeman, the most senior officer to be jailed for corruption in more than 30 years, was a president of the National Black Police Association. The NBPA was not the only organisation to have been made a fool of by this arch-manipulator of racial politics: the BBC had made his dishonest memoir its Radio 4 Book of the Week, and The Guardian was also a willing media partner in his campaign to become the country’s most powerful policeman.

It is difficult for any organisation to admit to an error of judgment, and the bigger that error, the harder it is. So perhaps it is not so surprising that the NBPA’s immediate reaction to Dizaei’s guilty verdict was to say that his conviction had “come as a surprise”. Meanwhile, this bent copper’s newspaper of choice seemed to have an exclusive post-trial interview, reporting that “Dizaei, 47, remained defiant and told The Guardian the case was ‘completely outrageous and a fit-up’. He said that he had been pursued by the authorities, who had a ‘vendetta’ against him”. Amazing, given that Dizaei had in fact been found guilty himself of fitting up an innocent man who had crossed him, that any newspaper could publish such comments without its pages turning red with embarrassment.

The point, however, is that Dizaei — author of a PhD thesis on “racial discrimination within the police” — wasn’t just a bent copper. He was a politician, brilliantly playing on the fashionable belief that racism is the defining characteristic of British society to advance his career — and his alone. Not everyone was taken in: David Michael, a founder of the original Black Police Association, said last week that Dizaei “subverted the movement for his own ends”. Detective Chief Inspector Michael may have found it easier to say that than some might: he would not fear being described as a racist for attacking Dizaei. After the 1999 Macpherson report’s devastating labelling of the Metropolitan police as “institutionally racist”, its senior ranks had developed an understandable pathological fear of further accusations of bigotry.

So, what difference does it make ?
Oh, what difference does it make ?
Oh, it makes none
But now you have gone
And your prejudice won’t keep you warm tonight

While all this was going on, Begg and his organisation Cageprisoners are busily fetishising anything to do with Anwar al-Awlaki and lionising any two-bit, violent Islamist radical who ever voiced a jihadi sentiment or got into trouble with the authorities. Inclusive of Omar Khyam, Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza.

Let’s return now to Begg. In 2001, he took his wife and children to live in Afghanistan, then under the control of the Taliban. Women scurried from place to place in burkas, risking a beating if a passing Talib spotted an inch of flesh, and could not even speak to a doctor except through a male relative; the horrors of the regime have been brilliantly described in the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. In Begg’s own book, he describes his interrogation by the CIA who wanted to know why a young man from Birmingham was living in Afghanistan. “I wanted to live in an Islamic state – one that was free from the corruption and despotism of the rest of the Muslim world,” was his reply. When they expressed scepticism, he complained: “I knew you wouldn’t understand. The Taliban were better than anything Afghanistan has had in the past 25 years.”

Begg’s enthusiasm for the Taliban is shared by another British Muslim who went to see the regime for himself: “They were amazing people. People who loved Allah. They were soft, kind and humble to the Muslims, harsh against their enemies. This is how an Islamic state should be.”

That is the verdict of Omar Khyam, now serving life for his part in a plot to blow up the Bluewater shopping centre and the Ministry of Sound nightclub (chosen, don’t forget, because it was likely to be full of “slags” enjoying themselves). Khyam appears on the Cageprisoners website, which says it exists “solely to raise awareness of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other detainees held as part of the War on Terror”. He is in illustrious company: the site also lists Abu Qatada – once described by a Spanish judge as Osama bin Laden’s spiritual ambassador to Europe – and the notorious preacher of hate, Abu Hamza.

Amnesty protests that “any suggestion that cooperation with any group or individuals has influenced our work on behalf of victims of religiously inspired abuses and violations is simply false”. But that isn’t the charge against the organisation. What worries its critics is that Amnesty’s name is being used to provide a platform, and legitimacy, for a cause inimical to its core values. Qatada, Hamza and Khyam are not prisoners of conscience. The Taliban isn’t a little bit misguided about women’s rights. Amnesty should consider its reputation – and keep its distance.

TOWER Hamlets council has launched a disciplinary enquiry over pro-Islamist emails sent to a London Euro-MP.

Two e-mails, with a town hall address, attacked proposals by the UK Independence Party to ban Muslim face coverings, including burkas and hijabs, in public places and accused the party of trying to “stoke a religious war on the streets of Britain.”

London MEP Gerard Batten has lodged a formal complaint with Tower Hamlets council and is demanding to know what disciplinary action will be taken against any individual found responsible for sending the emails.

The emails, which have been linked to a Town Hall employee’s email account, were sent last month.

One message said: “Teenage pregnancies, binge drinking, that is what is associated with British culture. Islam is the dominant religion in the United Kingdom. If you don’t like it, go live somewhere else.

“Alcohol, pornography, anti-social behaviour, sexual deviancy; these are the things in Britain that need to be banned.”

A second email, entitled “You will be banned under Islamic rule” said: “Islam is the dominant religion in the UK. And the world. May Allah throw your mocking back on your soul.”

Mr Batten, who was re-elected as London’s UKIP MEP last year. He said the views expressed in the e-mails could qualify as a hate crime and that the party was considering reporting it to the police.

He said: “Personally I believe that the individual may hold or express his bonkers religious views so long as they are within the law, and so long as he keeps them outside of his employment with the council.

“However, the views could qualify as a hate crime.”

A council spokesman told the Advertiser: “Tower Hamlets council takes any allegation of this nature extremely seriously and has robust procedures to deal with such issues.

“We can confirm this allegation of improper conduct by an employee is currently being investigated through council’s established disciplinary processes and are unable make any further comment at this stage, until the investigation is completed.

We have commented here before on how Islamists have taken over Tower Hamlets council. Now they’re using the TH mail server to send hate mail and claim “Islam is the dominant religion in the UK”.

Despite having served for years as a distinguished Pakistani diplomat, Akbar Zeb reportedly cannot receive accreditation as Pakistan’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The reason, apparently, has nothing to do with his credentials, and everything to do with his name — which, in Arabic, translates to “biggest dick”

According to this Arabic-language article in the Arab Times, Pakistan had previously floated Zeb’s name as ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, only to have him rejected for the same reason. One can only assume that submitting Zeb’s name to a number of Arabic-speaking countries is some unique form of punishment designed by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry — or the result of a particularly egregious cockup.

The Arabs never offered the Pakistani Foreign Office an explanation for their decision. So the Pakistani FO assumed the US was behind it. Obviously.

Shamso Miah, 25, of Redbridge, east London, broke a man’s jaw following a row in a bank queue.
Sitting as a judge, Ms Booth – wife of former Prime Minister Tony Blair – said she would suspend his sentence on the basis of his religious belief.

Also in the Telegraph:

Shamso Miah had left a mosque when he grabbed Mohammed Furcan and punched him. The thug ran outside but Furcan chased after him and demanded to know why he had been struck. Miah punched him again.

The National Secular Society claims her attitude was discriminatory and unjust:

Terry Sanderson, the president of the National Secular Society, which has protested to the Office for Judicial Complaints, says: “This seems to indicate that she would not have treated a non-religious person with the same latitude. We think this is discriminatory and unjust.”

Does it also show that Blair judged against the victim, Mohammed Furcan, because she deemed him to be less religious than the thug who broke his jaw?

The head of the Islam Channel, Britain’s most popular Muslim television station, has been arrested in South Africa and faces deportation to Tunisia over terrorism allegations.

The Times disclosed more than a year ago that Mohamed Ali Harrath, a Scotland Yard adviser against Islamic extremism, was wanted by Interpol because of his alleged activities in his homeland. His arrest on Sunday after a flight from London is being blamed by supporters on a security clampdown by the South African authorities in the run-up to this summer’s World Cup.

Harrath, 46, is the force behind the Islam Channel, which is watched by 59 per cent of British Muslims and beamed by satellite to 132 countries. He has been fêted by politicians, with the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, the minister Shahid Malik and the Tory frontbencher Dominic Grieve attending his annual festival. The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, gave him a platform to address thousands in Trafalgar Square in September at the official taxpayer-funded event to mark the end of Ramadan. Harrath, who has a heart condition, collapsed during his arrest and is being treated at Eugene Marais hospital in Pretoria, where he is under police guard. The broadcaster has been convicted in absentia of numerous criminal and terrorism-related offences by Tunisian courts and sentenced to 56 years in prison.

The Islam Channel last night accused Tunisia of using Interpol to harass and intimidate Harrath.

Before fleeing his homeland, he co-founded the Tunisian Islamic Front, which Tunis accused of seeking to establish a Muslim state by armed revolutionary violence. Harrath insists that the organisation was a non-violent political party set up to oppose what he regarded as Tunisia’s one-party rule.

At Tunisia’s request, he has been on an Interpol Red Notice, its highest form of alert, since 1992 but was allowed into Britain in 1995 and accepted as a refugee.

Mohammed Ali Harrath is wanted by Interpol. See warrant.

According to an internal document, Mohammed Ali Harrath is also a trustee of Inayat Bunglawala’s organ iEngage.

This is a time of unprecedented change for British Muslims. With Muslims facing rising levels of anti-Muslim sentiment, hostility due to terrorism and other factors, questions are increasingly being asked about what it means to be British and Muslim both in the challenging present and uncertain future. It is in this context that we, in co-operation with the Al-Karimia Institute and the St Paul’s Institute, would like to invite you to the first in a series of events designed to build trust and confidence between Muslim thought leaders.

This is an invitation-only event, aimed for a limited number of some of Britain’s most influential Muslim thinkers, activists and scholars to attend and discuss issues of socio-political importance. The gathering will be held at St Paul’s Cathedral, London, on Saturday 23rd January 2010.

St Paul’s is an auspicious venue for this event as the first cathedral in this location was constructed in 604CE, shortly before the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) started hisda’wah in Makkah al-Mukarramah. Thus Christians have been worshipping God in this location since the very first generations of Islam. That Muslims are to meet there to discuss what it means to be British and Muslim is a symbol of both the depth of Muslims’ ties to Britain and the ways in which our religious traditions can be used to unite us, not divide.

The topics to be addressed include:

‘British Muslims and a Conservative Government: How to Engage?’ – Panellists will include Paul Goodman MP, Adeela Shafi (Tory Parliamentary candidate, Bristol) as well as other leading Conservatives. This will be moderated by Mehdi Hasan (Senior Editor of the New Statesman)

‘Britishness, Muslims and Integration; Where are the Barriers?’ – This will be chaired by Canon Giles Fraser (St.Paul’s Cathedral) and panellists will include Imam Muhammad Yazdani Misbahi (Islamic Centre of Brent), Captain Afzal Amin (served in the British Army and studied Maliki fiqh in Mauritania) and Lucy James (Author of ‘In Defence of British Muslims: A Response to Racist BNP Propaganda’)

All attendees will be encouraged to make contributions to these important discussions in an intimate and neutral environment, with candour and under the Chatham House rule.

We will start with a coffee reception at 9.30am, followed by discussions, lunch and prayer. A personal tour of the Cathedral will be led by Canon Giles Fraser at mid-day, before the afternoon discussion and we aim to close in time for Maghrib prayers.

We hope that you will join us for what promises to be an inspirational and educational day, inshaAllah.

hat tip: Chishti

“Any such measure would not only alienate people, it would also be ineffective in terms of stopping terrorists. What’s to stop them dressing up as orthodox Jews in order to evade profiling-based searches?”

Hilarious but why specifically mention “orthodox Jews”?

Shadjareh’s talent for dangerously witty repartee is extensive. It appears that it isn’t just profiling that he is opposed to. Shadjareh has also expressed his opposition to the new security measures that are due to be implemented following the aborted terrorist attempt by the Underpants Bomber on the Christmas day United Airlines flight.

“Apart from the costs of the scans, the body scanners are not an effective tool to deal with the terrorist threat since few countries would have the body scanners and someone with intent to attack can quite obviously do it on the return flight. We fear that these measures are just a political stunt to appear tough on security issues rather than deal with the problems effectively. The new proposed policies of profiling and body scanning mask the real issue which is the gross failure to act on intelligence.”

Quite right, we must always concentrate our efforts and our intelligence on known radicals.

Known radicals such as Fahad Ansari?

Last October, Cage Prisoners published a defence of Anwar al-Awlaki, the pre-eminent English-language theologian of armed-jihad and now only the world’s most dangerous radical imam, written by Fahad Ansari. In the piece, which had first appeared in Crescent magazine, Ansari said this of his jihadi mentor:

“One of the highlights of the event was to be a video message from the inspirational Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, who was himself detained without charge in Yemen for two years.”

And who is Fahad Ansari a spokesman for? None other than the Shadjareh’s own organisation, the IHRC! Here is his CiF profile:

Fahad Ansari is a researcher and spokesperson for the Islamic Human Rights Commission where he specialises in anti-terror legislation. He is the author of numerous reports including, “British Anti-Terrorism: A Modern Day Witch-hunt”. He is also a trainee solicitor at Fisher Meredith LLP and a member of Cageprisoners.

Fahad Ansari

Will Massoud Shadjareh be following his own advice, avoid a “gross intelligence failure” and pass Fahad Ansari onto the authorities?

So Fahad, when you’re slipping your trousers off in a little cubicle at Heathrow Airport for the umpteenth time, remember – it was all Massoud Shadjareh’s idea!

It is all for your own good, you know. If only people had picked up the warning signs from that other Awlaki fan, Abdulmuttalab, he wouldn’t be in a prison hospital with a charcoal penis.

hat/tip: The Ahmad Thomson Freemasons Society

And this was accompanied by another article, about Anwar al-Awlaki, entitled “Detroit bomber’s mentor continues to influence British mosques and universities” – which would seem a bit unlikely if you accept the Yemeni government’s claim that he was killed in a recent air strike.

The same article that Pitt cites also contains a quote from Yemen’s deputy prime minister for defence and security affairs, Rashad Mohammed al-Alimi, in this passage:

It had been thought the extremist cleric had been killed in a Christmas Eve air strike on the house, in the southeastern Yemen province of Shabwa, but Mr al-Alimi said [al-Awlaki] is believed to be still alive.

Pitt was too busy trying to score cheap “Islamophobia” points to read the facts.

But more importantly, even if al-Awlaki were dead, there are still copious amounts of his jihadi sermons, both printed and on DVD and YouTube that can still be used as material for the radicalisation of would-be jihadis. Al-Awlaki was, by his own admission, influenced by Seyyid Qutb long after the author of “Milestones” had gone to claim his 72 houris in paradise. And in any case, making a martyr of al-Awlaki would improve his jihadi-value amongst the Islamists far beyond what it already is now.

Al-Awlaki, who is also thought to have influenced Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the US soldier who killed 13 people at a military base in Texas in November, has been accused by the US Department of Homeland Security of using his video lectures to “encourage terrorist attacks”.

The 38-year-old’s extremist ideology is laid bare in his pamphlet ’44 Ways to Support Jihad’ in which he declares: “The hatred of kuffar [non-Muslims] is a central element of our military creed” and “arms training is an essential part of preparation for Jihad”.

His role in influencing Abdulmutallab, who is suspected of attempting to blow up a flight to Detroit on Christmas Day, has only become apparent in the past 48 hours.

Abdulmutallab, who moved to the Yemen in August 2009 after completing an engineering degree at University College London, has told the FBI he made contact with al-Qaeda through a preacher he met over the internet. This man is now thought to be al-Awlaki, who himself moved to the Yemen after leaving Britain in 2004.

Yemen’s deputy prime minister for defence and security affairs, Rashad Mohammed al-Alimi, said on Friday that investigators now believe Abdulmutallab met al-Qaeda operatives in a house built by al-Awlaki to hold theological sessions and where he had previously met Abdulmutallab.

It had been thought the extremist cleric had been killed in a Christmas Eve air strike on the house, in the southeastern Yemen province of Shabwa, but Mr al-Alimi said he is believed to be still alive.
Al-Awlaki’s influence on Abdulmutallab is understood to have begun during the bomber’s time as a student in London between September 2005 and the end of 2008. He is thought to have attended at least one of a number of video-link lectures given by al-Awlaki at the East London Mosque’s London Muslim Centre (LMC), in Whitechapel, during this period.

Despite the LMC receiving at least £60,000 in funding from the Government’s Preventing Violent Extremism Fund (PVEF) in the past two years, al-Awlaki has during that period been allowed to address at least two gatherings at the venue via video-link, including one on New Year’s Day last year called The End of Time and advertised with a poster showing the destruction of New York.

His appearances at the LMC were just part of an extensive ‘video tour’ by al-Awlaki of venues around the country.

[My emphases]

How much longer will the British Left continue to insinuate all radicalised Muslims activists operate under the behest of the greater Muslim community and that to criticise them would be an attack of the ‘brown-skinned Muslim community’? Turning this into a race issue which corrals all Muslims into the radical camp is the most dangerous and irresponsible example of anti-Muslim bigotry that is operating today. Sunny Hundal of Pickled Politics is often guilty of passing off this kind of insidious and ignorant propaganda for informed comment. Radical extremists don’t give a flying fig about his confused liberal-lefty values, but thank him for the protection his dubious race-politics affords them.

But then Hundal is simply reflecting a commonly held set of attitudes in the Left and all he is doing is following consensus. Blindness to radicalisation or being fooled into appeasing Islamists because criticising them might be inflame racism against “brown people” is a widespread misconception that is part of this consensus. This isn’t exclusive to Pickled Politics.

When will Muslims call bullshit on this liberal appeasement of Islamic extremism and say to these fools: “This consensus is causing us more harm than good and enough is enough”?

John Cameron, a commenter on this Times piece, could not be more correct:

If the various universities in London allowed their right-wing student societies to invite neo-Nazi speakers to address white teenagers all hell would break loose. If Christian churches allowed disciples of Adolf Hitler to preach the inferiority of women and to sanctify the murder of Jews and homosexuals, the British public would go ape. Yet when Islamic extremists do exactly the same our government and public servants go weak at the knees. According to police sources, 25 British-born Muslims are currently in Yemen being trained in the art of bombing planes. Yet most of these terrorists did not acquire their crazed beliefs out in the badlands of the Islamic world. They were indoctrinated here in the UK.

This year, the month of Muharram falls close to both Christmas and Hanukkah, and at this time, we extend our warmest wishes to the Christian and Jewish communities. As a revered Prophet for Muslims, we also remember that Isa (as) or Jesus dedicated his life to serving his community, and spreading the message of peace and freedom. In Hanukkah we are again inspired towards sacrifice in the face of oppression.

The month of Muharram is one that holds a rich and powerful history for Muslims, and the Muslim Council of Britain marks this month as one that should inspire us towards the search for truth and justice and sacrifice in the way of the communities that we are part of.

Two weeks later, they are advertising the following Event:

Exposing 21st Century Crusade Against Islam

Annual winter conference with lectures delivered by guest speakers; from Arabia; including Shaykh Ali Hasan Al-Halabi; Shaykh Khalid; Al-Anbari; Shaykh Husain Al-Awayishah; Shaykh Bassam Al-Jawabirah.;

Topics to be addressed include:
The Bloody History of Christianity; (From the Crusades to Modern Times);
History of Muslim Tolerance; towards Non-Muslims;
The Shari’ah; Are Muslims in the West Trying to Impose a State within a State?

Venue: Masjid Al-Gurabaa, 116 Bury Park Road, Luton, Beds, LU1 1HE
Everyone is welcome to attend.

Granted this event is organised by the neophyte Salafi zealots from the Al-Gurabaa Mosque in Luton. But how does the MCB justify advertising events like this while at the same preaching to government worthies about the deleterious effects of “Islamophobia”? What, for example, does Muhammad Abdul Bari say in defence of this Seasonal Message (PDF) to the “kufaar” from the Al-Gurabaa Mosque, Luton:

Congratulating the kuffaar on the rituals that belong only to them is haraam by consensus, as is congratulating them on their festivals and fasts by saying ‘A happy festival to you’ or ‘May you enjoy your
festival,’ and so on. If the one who says this has been saved from kufr, it is still forbidden. It is like congratulating someone for prostrating to the cross, or even worse than that. It is as great a sin as congratulating someone for drinking wine, or murdering someone, or having illicit sexual relations, and so on.
…
Whoever does anything of this sort is a sinner, whether he does it out of politeness or to be friendly, or because he is too shy to refuse, or for whatever other reason, because this is hypocrisy in Islaam, and
because it makes the kuffaar feel proud of their religion.

habibi’s update: perhaps the MCB would like to explain why it has published this Green Lane Mosque press release about hate preachers on its website, in toto, without qualification or comment?

As such he has made it clear that when he referred to ‘the Jews’, this reference was not to Jews in general, but to those elements that have shown hostility to Muslims and resorted to violence.

Yeah, right.

A few quotes (pdf) from the Green Lane preachers:

“The oddities of humans and bands of creation that are Jews (may Allah make them ugly) have smeared creation and defaced mankind. The band of the Jews have amassed despicable qualities and vile characteristics of which only one of those qualities would be enough to indicate the sordidness of their cause and the greatness of their malice, so what if all those traits were combined in them?”

- Abdul Aziz As-Sadhan

“We have to be prepared for those enemies [the Jews] and for every enemy of Islam and Muslims and we have to prepare the means of victory and be sincere in our intention to Allah, and we have to return to the religion of Allah and call towards the Sunnah and Tawhid, and if people returned to that the banner of jihad would be lifted to raise the word of Allah and to implement his shariah … and we have to also prepare all the weapons we can and prepare the material and moral means, so when these things are achieved Allah will help us to victory.”

- Faisal al-Jassim

The MCB pushing Green Lane’s pathetic “defence” tells you everything you need to know about the organisation’s real attitude to Jew hatred.

The man was nearly blind, brilliant and a maverick cleric who always stood against Islamic extremism in Indonesia. His death is a loss to his country and to the cause against political Islamism and radical extremism.

A brilliant and cultured man who read widely and loved the music of Beethoven, he spoke out to preserve an inclusive form of Islam that is under pressure today by a tide of radicalism.

As leader of the Muslim group Nahdlatul Ulama, with up to 40 million members, and later as president, he promoted rights of minorities, of non-Muslims and of the often-abused community of ethnic Chinese.

To his critics he responded: “Those who say that I am not Islamic enough should reread their Koran. Islam is about inclusion, tolerance, community.”

His liberal views were sometimes a step ahead of those of his countrymen in the world’s most populous Muslim nation, now numbering 235 million.