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On the Facebook page of Cageprisoners, you will find this from Moazzam Begg:

What’s he recommending? Why, himself, of course, telling tales again, on a Youtube channel for jihad. Other speakers featured on “westlondondawah” include the following charmers:

- al Qaeda preacher Anwar al Awlaki

- extremist, 9/11 troofer and fraudster Khalid Yasin

- Hamas supporter and absurd conspiracy theorist Haitham al Haddad

- Tameem al Adnani, deputy of jihadi hero Abdullah Azzam

- Hate preacher Murtaza Khan

The channel belongs to a website called fisabeelillah, a reference to “jihad fi sabeelillah”, jihad in the path of Allah. It offers tapes by Awlaki, Abu Hamza, Murtaza Khan, Uthman Lateef, and more.

How nice to see Mr Begg still contributing to the jihadi message.

The luvvies will fete him this weekend at the Southbank Centre:

Waiting – A play by Victoria Brittain

Date: March 12th and 13th

Time: 7.45pm

Venue: Purcell Room

Southbank Centre (near Waterloo station)

Hear the words of the wives of men detained in Guantanamo, Belmarsh, and Broadmoor for the first time in, Waiting, a play, with music, by Victoria Brittain.

After the play, panel discussion will take place on both nights, including Helena Kennedy QC, Salma Yacoob, Gareth Peirce, Manjinder Virk, Riz Ahmed, and Moazzam Begg

Jihad is just so trendy, isn’t it.

In a little-noticed case on Feb. 26, police in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh arrested Macha Laxmaiah, an author who writes using the pseudonym Krantikar (“revolutionary”), and his distributors, including Innaiah Narisetti, president of the Hyderabad-based nonprofit Center for Inquiry, for “hurting the sentiments of Muslims.” Their alleged crime? The distribution of “Crescent Over the World,” a book including contributions from Salman Rushdie, Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, and a cartoon from the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Mr. Narisetti is out on bail now; Mr. Laxmaiah remains in custody.

Then there are the continuing attacks on Ms. Nasreen and her supporters. Last week, masked men broke into the offices of Kannada Prabha, a local-language newspaper in the southern state of Karnataka. Its weekly magazine had published a piece allegedly written by Ms. Nasreen that criticized the burqa, the veil that many Muslim women wear. Muslim groups had protested the article—which was three years old and republished by the Kannada newspaper without her permission—and violence in two towns ensued, leading to two deaths and dozens arrested. Ms. Nasreen, who fled Bangladesh in 1994 after Muslim fundamentalists threatened her life, currently divides her time between Sweden and the United States, but says she wants to live in India. The government stands in the way, not permitting her to stay in Kolkata, where she prefers to live, and keeping her at an undisclosed location in New Delhi under security surveillance during her last extended stay in the country ostensibly for her own safety.

The sensitivity doesn’t just concern Islam. Last week, India’s foremost painter, Maqbool Fida Husain, who is 94, decided to give up Indian nationality and became a Qatari citizen. Mr. Husain is a Muslim, and among the many themes he has painted are a few paintings of Hindu deities in the nude. These works were completed and first displayed decades ago, but since the mid-1990s Hindu nationalists have campaigned against him, saying his work insulted their faith. They attacked galleries exhibiting his works, threatened him with violence, and filed lawsuits against him. The state attached some of his property and police officers issued arrest warrants against him, even as the Delhi High Court (and later the Supreme Court) ruled in his favor and officials publicly praised him. Unwilling to trust the state to protect him, Mr. Husain, who has lived abroad much of the past decade, gave up his nationality.

Salil Tripathi is a writer based in London, he is the author of Offense: The Hindu Case.

In fact, you may have guessed by now, and it might upset some of you to hear me say this, but I’m not, by any standards, an animal-lover. Unless the said animal is dead and on my plate. For me, animals, as they say, have two functions: to taste good and fit well.

But, in particular, I despise and loathe dogs (which, of course, have neither a culinary nor a sartorial function — unless you live in South Korea). They are disgusting, dirty animals that should never have become pets, let alone such popular pets (there are an estimated eight million dogs in the UK. I feel like vomiting as I type out this gruesome and dispiriting statistic.)

Mehdi is free and easy with the “Koreans eat dog” factoid, but is careful not to mention, even once, another relevant factoid: “Muslims hate dog”. He’s not willing to explore the possibility that his own hatred of dogs might emanate from religious conditioning. As we know, Muslims in general, loathe dogs, because they are regarded as unclean, nasty animals that are defiled by their very existence, to the extent that even the slightest contact with a dog would profane a Muslim’s elaborate ablution. Islamic disgust of dogs could be the result of the tradition that is drummed into every Muslim of the Prophet’s dislike of dogs.

Mehdi quotes the avowedly “secular atheist leftie comedian”, dog-hater Mark Steel to hide behind:

The best insight I had into the mind of dog-owners was while I lived on a council estate, and one dog would regularly crap at the bottom of the stairs to the block. One day, I caught it in mid-dump, and asked the owner if he could not do it again.

He said, “Well, it’s a dog; it’s got to go somewhere.” I pledged that if I ever became a millionaire, I’d hire a huge herd of buffalo and get them to gallop through his flat. And when he complained, I’d say, “Well, they’re buffalo, they’ve got to stampede somewhere.”

woof woof!

Thankfully, we can always rely on those delightfully subversive sufis to puncture the turgid attitudes that underpin Muslim traditions. Here is the the story of Bayazid and the dog:

When the great Sufi Master Abu Yazid al-Bestami, called Bayazid, was walking in the desert on the pilgrimage to Mecca, the Hajj, he walked past a well where many people were gathered around drawing up water. Around them circled a mongrel dog, panting with thirst.

Bayazid called out to the crowd, “Will someone not give a cup of water in exchange for the blessings of fifty years of pilgrimage and prayers?”

One person who knew Bayazid said, “I will gladly do so.”  And so he gave a cup of water to the Sufi Master, and received in return a lifetime of blessings.

Bayazid put the cup on the ground so the dog could drink.

Now if only Mehdi would articulate an equally forthright polemic about hatred of Muslim sectarianism as he does about his (shhh! don’t say it, Muslim) hatred of dogs.

Ansar Ahmed Ullah, who is involved with the International Forum for Secular Bangladesh, has charted these alternating sinusoidal waves in racial identity and religious politics in an article on the short history of activism among Bengalis in the East End of London “from the localised welfare politics to the dangerous shores of Islamism”. I hope the young people from Tower Hamlets who now see themselves as “Muslim activists” would read this to see how the real battles against racism in East London and beyond were fought, not so long ago, by men and women with secular politics first and foremost.

The history of the Bengali community and political activism in London’s East End can be seen as passing through different phases. It started with localised welfare politics. Then it was characterized by Bangladesh’s national independence movement. This was followed by the political mobilisation of the second generation of Bengali community activists in anti-racist politics. But significant involvement in mainstream politics led eventually to the fringes of the global politics of Islamism.

The earliest Bengali political activism in London’s East End can be traced to the first Bengali settlers, the seafarers. The Bengali presence in the UK goes back long before the Indian subcontinent gained its independence from the British in 1947, however it was early in the 20th century that the first large group of South Asian – including Bengali – seamen, known as “lascars”, were recruited in British India to work for the East India Company, and came to the UK.

Some of these seamen had begun to settle in London’s East End from the 1850s onwards. Evidence of the early settlement of Bengali seafarers in London can be seen in the formation of organisations such as the Society for the Protection of Asian Sailors in 1857.

Read it in full.

In an election lost by Mr Livingstone, the Islamic Forum of Europe helped secure massive and unexpected swings towards him in its east London heartland.

In one ward, Spitalfields, his vote share rose from 29.6 per cent in 2004 – an election he won – to 68.4 per cent in 2008, a rise of nearly 39 percentage points.

In every other ward in Tower Hamlets and Newham with a sizeable Muslim population, his vote rose by between 23 and 36 percentage points. His vote in other Muslim and ethnic minority areas of London also rose, but by far smaller amounts.

Mr Livingstone’s economic development body, the London Development Agency, had agreed to pay more than £1.3 million to the East London Mosque, controlled by the IFE, and described by critics as hardline.

Emails leaked to The Sunday Telegraph show that a senior LDA official furiously protested against at least £500,000 of this grant, saying there were “major concerns” about the mosque project and “no case” for giving it the money.

However, the official was overruled and the grant was paid.

Ken’s response upon having these matters brought to his attention:

Mr Livingstone said he could not recollect the project, or whether he had been personally involved in approving the payment. He refused to comment on the activities of Muslims 4 Ken and said: “You are a liar who is stirring up racism.”

Ken also forgot to mention that it is “Islamophobic” to discuss irregularities in Council funding involving he and the East London Mosque.

Hat tip: Potkin via Gene.

International Women’s Day (8 March) is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.

But in some parts of Tower Hamlets, some things remain the same:

Shiria Khatun, 38, told the police that callers threatened to kill her and her four young children. In one call, they warned they would dig up parents’ graves and bury her there instead.

The Labour councillor in the controversial borough of Tower Hamlets is considered one of the area’s most progressive politicians. She was elected in 2006, worked for Ken Livingstone as a transport adviser at London’s City Hall and frequently campaigns for more Muslim women to enter politics.

However, over the past year she has been the victim of a “sick” harassment campaign.

At first she was “too embarrassed” to call the police, but when the threats, mostly made in the Bangladeshi dialect Sylheti, targeted her family she decided to act.

Video report from ITV.

In celebration of IWD and in solidarity with Ms Shiria Khatun, here is Maya Angelou reading her poem ‘And Still I Rise’:

hat/tip: Gauloise Blonde

1) Mention as many times as possible the statements made by present and former officials of Amnesty International, who are paid to tow the official Amnesty line, viz a viz Claudio Cordone, Irene Khan, Widney Brown, Sam Zarifi, Kate Allen et al.

2) Never mention Cageprisoners’ support of jihadi terrorism despite the extensive documentation that demonstrates this support.

3) Never mention Moazzam Begg’s association with Cageprisoners.

4) Never mention the words “partner” or “platform”

5) Never mention the fact that Gita Sahgal has always spoke about the need to protect the rights of Islamists and terrorists from torture, renditions and arbitrary detention.

6) Never acknowledge that Gita Sahgal’s fundamental point is that Amnesty should never have made the individual(s) of point #5 into poster boys or torch bearers of those human rights.

Here is an example of the “Hate Sahgal” template in use at Pickled Politics, which regards itself a progressive Asian blog but which has now become an active detractor of Gita Sahgal.

Criticism of Amnesty on the issues of Moazzam Begg and Cageprisoners should be made if Amnesty is to continue as a champion of universal human rights. Amnesty is a human-rights organisation not a quasi-religion.

Update:

Rumbold of Pickled Politics, has turned direction and stands against the blog’s anti-Sahgal consensus, and issued this remarkable statement:

It’s another reminder of why we need organisations like Amnesty and people like Gita Sahgal. The world isn’t overburdened with people and groups who are willing to stand up and document human-rights abuses. Gita Sahgal had some legitimate criticisms to make of Amnesty, but it doesn’t mean that Amnesty is somehow morally bankrupt either. Too many of us felt it necessary to pick sides, including me, which then caused collateral damage to the very causes that both Amnesty and Gita fight for (by shifting attention away from them). Fortunately I was disabused of that need to pick sides by a very wise woman. Amnesty should reinstate Gita, and both should be left to get on with what they do best: championing the rights of the weakest in the world.

Warning: Very graphically violent material

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When Galloway started going on about the UK police brutality towards the Gaza protesters in London, these were the images of police brutality that went through my head, real vicious sadistic brutality that Galloway chose to ignore. The crimes that the Stop the War worshippers of Galloway do not want to know about.

Under Galloway’s former paymaster, Saddam Hussein:

police brutality under his current paymasters:

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In 1993, at the UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, a group of feminist advocates held a now famous tribunal on Violence against Women. And in that moving event which reflected the experiences of thousands of women across the world, a challenge was posed to governments and to the leadership of the formal human rights movement. It was not a challenge to abandon the principles of human rights, or to dilute them. It was a challenge to embrace them more fully by accounting for the experience of a whole category of excluded victims.

Another panel warned of the impact on women of the rise of violent religious fundamentalist movements across the world – Muslim, Christian – Catholic, Orthodox and evangelical, Hindu and Jewish. And there was a critique too of identity politics – often arising in oppressed minorities and a discussion of the ways in which this identity politics opened the way to the legitimisation of fundamentalism. States were often complicit or directly involved in this process.

This panel was not abandoning the principle of universality. It was a foundational challenge to the way in which universality is constructed. Many of you will have engaged with academic and other debates about whether human rights are a western concept. Do they really apply across the world? If you had been present at those discussions fifteen long years ago, the answer would have been obvious to you. Women intervened in Vienna to influence the deliberations of states. But they didn’t simply speak of their experiences – they fundamentally challenged both the theory and practice of the human rights movement as it was then understood in the West.

There are two things that it is vital to understand. As other speakers have pointed out many groups and organisations in other parts of the world, long before 9/11 were pointing to acts of terrorism and the ideologies of militarism and violence that fuelled them as grave threats to fundamental rights and freedoms. Fear of acts of terrorism was not just a fear of one kind of indiscriminate attack such as a bombing on a bus or in a public space. Nor was it of the kind of spectacular attack of 9/11 which wounded New York so grievously- and so suddenly.

Most acts of terrorism, in most parts of the world, are well sign posted by the groups that commit them. They are often carried out by people who know their targets well. Their aim is not only to murder and maim but to intimidate and control. In short, for civilians who are the targets of such attacks, the enemy is not unknown but an intimate one. And the threat of terrorism affects freedom of expression, freedom of movement, the right to education and to health and work as much as it threatens the right to life itself.

In Amnesty International’s report on Colombia, ‘Scarred Bodies, Hidden Crimes’ which was produced as part of the Stop Violence Against Women Campaign, we demonstrated the links between violence in the family and violence by armed groups.

Rosa was raped by her father when she was 7. He ran away from widespread social outrage to join the FARC, an armed group which controlled the area. The FARC kidnapped Rosa and her mother and later killed her mother’s new partner. They beat Rosa all over while she was in captivity forcing her to say ‘I am a cowardly Colombian woman’. Her mother survived being buried alive by the FARC when she was rescued by local farmers.

Amnesty International found that women were at particular risk if they were political activists; especially if they were from marginalised groups such as indigenous or Afro descendent communities. An indigenous woman from Putamayo said, ‘A young woman who talks who can express herself is seen as subversive. This happens even when we say it is our right.’

In long running conflicts with no side clearly in control, armed groups resort to methods that demonstrate their visible control over the population. They may be competing with security forces or state-backed paramilitaries who use similar methods. In Colombia, armed groups have put up orders to the local population called ‘Rules of Coexistence’ which seek to control what is regarded as ‘deviant’ or ‘immoral’ behaviour. People are attacked for being prostitutes, or lesbians, for wearing cropped tops. Men are not immune from such attacks as young boys with earrings had their ears pulled off.

The Taliban puts up night letters warning teachers not to teach and children especially girls not to go to school. Recently they have issued warnings to barbers’ shops to stop shaving men’s beards. Islamist militants from Algeria to Iraq and Kashmir have threatened women who do not conform to the dress codes they impose or the curfews they enforce. Armed groups may intervene in disputes at community level, providing their own forms of summary justice. The IRA’s practice of shooting offenders in the knee is an example. But such groups usually have a puritanical agenda as well. Their purpose is not simply to attack the forces of the state or an occupying force but to impose control on the population which is supposed to be their support base.

Civilians then are not simply caught in the cross fire between opposing forces. One of the objects of both terrorism and counter terrorism is the control of the civilian population itself. Attacks on civilians using the language of the Geneva Conventions may indeed be both ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘disproportionate’ but they are much more than that. Understanding this properly means unpacking the terms ‘civilian’ and ‘targeting’ in Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. We also need to know what it means to ‘incite terror in a population.’

One of the purposes of orders issued by armed groups- is to set out the terms on which civilians are targeted. Women may be targeted for fraternising with the ‘enemy’, they may be assassinated for being ‘spies’, they may killed for infringements of invented codes of behaviour. Every form of discrimination that is practised in daily life is greatly exacerbated in conflict. But it goes far beyond ‘normal’ discriminatory social norms. According to a testimony obtained by Amnesty International, the FARC told two lesbians who were living together that they had to leave the municipality. Within a month they had ‘disappeared’ and were feared killed. But before these threats, their relationship which was public knowledge had been accepted in the town.

Finally, that is the challenge of a human rights account of terrorism. It is to understand how profoundly the use of a particular tactic of war, is adopted because of its instrumental use in the broader programme of the group. ‘Blood does not drown the revolution, it irrigates it.’ claimed the Peruvian Maoist group, Sendero Luminoso ( Shining Path). As with Shining Path, so with al Qa’ida. The blood of the martyr and the blood of the victim are the confluence over which a profound re-ordering of society is envisaged – one which is founded on violence and discrimination.

Not only governments but non-state groups are fighting the ‘enemy within’ They may be Christian fundamentalists bombing abortion clinics. They may be Hindu fundamentalists attacking Indian Muslims and Christians. It is a mistake to assume that what they are enforcing is simply a strict version of their religion. In general, they are intent on destroying religious minorities and of forcibly re-ordering their own religious practices – in ways that are neither traditional nor historically mandated. These are modern movements, no matter how medieval they may appear.

Amnesty International has reported that the Taliban and its allies in the MMA alliance which is in control of two Pakistani states have attacked such practices as the spring festival of Baisakhi, kite flying and listening to music. These are not Western customs, they are part of the profound expression of local culture, often of religious cultures deeply embedded in society. We have reported the threat to Hindu minorities and the threat to Ahmadiyas a minority Muslim sect who have been declared non-Muslims in some countries. In the context of conflict, these declarations of who is a true believer and who is declared an apostate or a blasphemer are not matters for theological debate. They are matters of life and death.

Yet states counter-terrorism measures do little to defend and protect people’s customary pleasures or their fundamental right to freedom of expression. Instead, they negotiate away the rights of women and ignore the threat to religious minorities. Many governments in pursuing both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ counter-terrorism, play off one form of religion to control another that they deem to be more dangerous to their current interests. It is a cynical game and it is ultimately self-defeating. Governments, including Western governments have done much to promote organisations as their allies against terrorism against whom there are serious allegations of human rights abuses, which could amount to crimes against humanity. These they have termed ‘moderate Muslim’ groups.

A human rights analysis of terrorism must hold governments to account for their protection of serious human rights abusers. Security interests as a report on Northern Ireland has found,deepened and may have prolonged the conflict. Serious questions have been posed by activists on the protection of Algerian human rights abusers by the British state- possibly to defend its own security interests.

Numerous groups working on the ground in many countries have developed trans-national movements for accountability and justice that challenge the trans-national diasporic movements that have ideologically and financially supported those engaging in terrorism.

These movements were visible at the UN Conference at Vienna since when they have contributed to the negotiations for the Rome Statute; they have gathered evidence of serious human rights violations by both state and non-state actors for instance on the massacre of Muslims by the Hindutva movement in Gujarat, India. And they have demanded that investigations be conducted into serious international crimes using laws on universal jurisdiction. They have attempted to use alien tort law in this country .They have also developed highly innovative methods to put pressure on corporations and attack the charitable status of those groups that are funding the production of hate. None of these activities have been of the slightest interest to Western or other governments.

Few of the advocates come from formal positions in the human rights movement. Yet they have embraced and kept faith with the promise of universality and human rights. I hope that we can keep faith with them.

But I think I know why others are reluctant to address the issues we raised. That reason is fear. In six months of research, we spoke to dozens of people in the Tower Hamlets Labour Party. Almost everyone who talked to us said exactly the same thing – but no one, save Mr Fitzpatrick, was brave enough to say it on the record.

It is not surprising to see why. Most Bangladeshi residents are also fearful of speaking out in public bar a few brave members of the community.

In response to the programme, IFE stalwart Azad Ali has produced not one but two angry personal tirades against Gilligan on the IFE blog. This breaks his long silence after being exposed last year as a “lover” of Anwar al-Awlaki and a supporter of killing British soldiers in Iraq. This comes after he lost an attempt to sue the Mail on Sunday for publishing an article with the headline “Civil servant ‘backed fanatic’s call to kill our troops in Iraq’”. Justice Eady said in his summary judgment that Ali’s case was bound to fail and had about it “an absence of reality”.

A similar absence of reality permeates Ali’s last two blog entries. They also contained sneers at the members of the Bangladeshi community who spoke out against the IFE in Gilligan’s documentary.

The first was this:

Can I also congratulate you for getting 6 people to speak against IFE from one political party from Bangladesh and ‘linked’ to both the Brick Lane Mosque and Bangladesh Welfare Association – stroke of genius.

The second, this:

As for Gilligan’s key witnesses, Hormuz Ali, Nurul Islam, Golam Mustofa, Bodrul Islam, Sajjad Miah and Ansar Ali he still plays cloak and dagger with them, as if the community does not know who they are. He tried to present them as independent members of the community, whereas in reality they are from Brick Lane Mosque and the Bangladesh Welfare Association with Badrul Islam (CEO) and Nurul Islam (Chair) from EMEP.

Gilligan has not played “cloak and dagger” with these participants. The Dispatches documentary made it very clear who these stakeholders were and their role in the Bangladeshi community in Tower Hamlets. Their presence on the film put paid to the notion that it isn’t possible to be a Bangladeshi muslim resident of Tower Hamlets and be a critic of the IFE:

Dispatches’s answer to that charge is that 70 per cent of our interviewees were Muslim. The most important people in the film are the locals of the area – Harmuz Ali, the vice-chairman of the Brick Lane mosque, Badrul Islam, the chief executive of the Ethnic Minority Enterprise Project, and many others. They reject the IFE, knowing better than anyone that it does not represent their community. They dismiss as nonsense the claim that any attack on it is an attack on Islam itself.

Going back to the climate of fear helped along by political expediency and political correctness, there is also the real fear that these individuals, who have so bravely gone on national television to express their dissenting views, might be in some danger themselves. Why exactly is Azad Ali naming these individuals or the groups they belong to repeatedly on his blog? Is there a sinister motive behind his attempts to “name and shame”?

Could I be overstating the threat of danger the IFE represent?

The official spokesman for the IFE is Abul Kalam who, in spite of his support for jihad, has been very busy depicting his organisation as thoroughly peaceful and democratic. Kalam is also Azad Ali’s fellow-blogger and presenter on the IFE radio show ‘Easy Talk’. Here he is writing on the IFE blog and making it very clear what he thinks of muslims who support the Government’s counter-extremism strategy, Contest 2:

One thing will become clear if Contest 2 becomes governmental policy: There will be no hiding space for Muslim sell-outs.

[His emphases]

I wonder whether the IFE, Azad Ali and Abul Kalam regard the Brick Lane Mosque (BLM), the Bangladesh Welfare Association (BWA) and the Ethnic Minority Enterprise Project (EMEP) as “Muslim sell-outs”.

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Fear mongering seems to have become a past time for some Muslims: the fear that the whole world is against Muslims and there are numerous forces out there wanting to undermine and destroy Islam. One of the chief instigators of this paranoid delusional mindset is an individual called Abdul Karim Hattin. This short biography of him appears on the Islamonline website:

Abdul Karim became a Muslim when he was 19 years old and now at 30, he has completed a degree in Media Studies at the University of Luton. He is the co-director and founder of Halaqah Media and Black Banner Media. He wrote the documentary From the Shadows…Exposing the New World Order.

Those who have listened to his recordings will know he is delusional in the extreme; there are great illogical leaps in his historical narrative and just about every war and revolution is linked to those evil people ‘the Freemasons’. In his recent ‘exposing the modernists’ lecture series he tries to explain how various UK based Muslim organisations, i.e. MPACUK, Quilliam, Radical Middle Way, MCB, Murabitun etc. are part of a grand western/Masonic conspiracy to dilute Islam. He speaks about an ‘Aryan Islam’ being promoted under the guise of Modernism. The evidence he presents is mainly from people he has spoken to and from his own analogical ‘deductions’.

One of the many problems with Abdul Karim Hattin’s theories is that they are not original, in fact they are re-hashed Nazi ideas with an Islamised vocabulary. He seems to take popular conspiracy theories and put his own warped twist on them. The other problem is that, after highlighting an issue, he fails to provide any solution. Just as his ‘shadows’ recording ended without presenting any solution at all, you are left wondering what solution there can be. He seems to be obsessed with courting controversy and making ridiculous claims, even upsetting the salafis (pdf) by making inaccurate historical claims in his ‘the arrival of Saudi Salafis’ lecture. If you have a spare half hour and want a real good chuckle just search him out on Youtube and read Salafi Manhaj’s ‘A Critique of Abdul-Karim Hattin and his Bizarre Lecture Series Entitled ‘Arrival of the Saudi Salafis’ exposing his conspiracy theory claptrap‘.

It makes one wonder what he is actually trying to achieve. By provoking fear of the mainstream he is implying that Muslim communities must isolate themselves from the mainstream – hardly the message young British Muslims need. And isn’t Islam about having hope? Even political Islamist movements offer the illusion of a future utopian state, he doesn’t even do that.

Verdict: Abdul Karim Hattin should stop reading nutcase conspiracy sites and seek medical help. If you do come into contact with him, avoid eye contact and back away slowly and safely.

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You have seen Abdul Karim “Spot The Fag” Hattin in action in this post. Alas he is not unusual. Let’s take a look at what some of the other preachers who have been welcomed in recent years at the East London Mosque and its London Muslim Centre have to say about gays.

As reported in this documentary, Khalid Yasin is an extremist, a 9/11 troofer and a fraudster. This is what he makes of homosexuality:

There’s no such thing as a Muslim having a non-Muslim friend. If you prefer the clothing of the kafirs over the clothing of the Muslims, most of those names that’s on most of those clothings is faggots, homosexuals and lesbians. [opening of the documentary]

…

The Koran gives a very clear position regarding homosexuality, lesbianism and bestiality – that these are aberrations, they are immoralities and if they are tried, convicted, they are punishable by death. [15:30]

We have covered Abdullah Hakim Quick’s recent visit to City University, King’s College London and the University of East London. He wants people to have no doubts whatsoever about his view on gays:

They said “what is the Islamic position [on homosexuality]?” And I told them. Put my name in the paper. The punishment is death. And I’m not going to change this religion.

Listen to Quick’s speech (MP3)

Abdur Raheem Green runs “iERA”, a group that tours Islamists around the country. He has this to say about gays on his own blog – they should be stoned, like adulterers:

All this applies also to the matter of stoning the adulterer and adulteress to death.

…

There is another direction from which the wisdom of such a punishment can be understood, and that is the death of two criminals can prevent the death and agony of many innocents. There is no doubt that adultery has caused many a jilted partner to kill not only the partner but in some instances the children as well. This is the harm that we can measure and see. It is more than likely that the psychological effects on the jilted partner, the children and their families is extensive, and can lead to behavioural problems that ultimately effect the well being of the whole society! The “harm” of the punishment for adultery is offset by the need of the “benefit” and protects the wider society. All of this also goes some way to help understand way acts of homosexuality are simlarily treated so harshly.

Bilal Philips is a Saudi-trained Islamist who supports the marriage of girls at the age of nine and Islamic corporal punishments. He is an apologist for suicide bombers and linked to the 1993 New York bombing plots. He is banned in Australia. This is from a pamphlet (pdf, pp. 21-22) he wrote called “Contemporary Issues”:

The consequence of AIDS is enough to prove that homosexuality is evil and dangerous to society.

In fact, homosexuality is so bad, Philips wrote, that it merits corporal punishment in the name of Islam, just like robbery (see page 18 of the pdf).

In this video version of “Contemporary Issues”, he says:

As a consequence of this practice [homosexuality], AIDS spread through society and it spread beginning with the homosexual element. People wanted to say, well hey, this is, you know, divine retribution. This was thrown aside. “No, how can it be, no no no, we cannot say this. This is something which happened, we don’t blame it on, you know, God punishing people.” But from the Islamic perspective, yes. [9:00]

…

In Islamic law the punishment for homosexuality is no different from the punishment for adultery and fornication. It could be death. It’s looked at as a deviation, just as if somebody is involved in bestiality, sexual relations with animals. Death! This is a deviation. Adultery is death. So it’s not any special punishment, it is a punishment for deviant behaviour which threatens the family structure of a society. [12:00]

Abu Usamah at Thahabi is an imam at Green Lane Mosque in Birmingham. He is of course known for these quotes from Undercover Mosque:

Do you practice homosexuality with men? Take that homosexual man and throw him off the mountain.

…

They have given them [homosexuals] unprecedented rights, so that your child can be exposed and introduced to lesbians. Now they say “if you discriminate against that, you’re going to jail”. We’ll discriminate, but we’ll discriminate in a way where we don’t get in trouble. The Muslim is a dentist, one of those people come, you want to take a big, big needle and stick it in his gums. [13:30]

Uthman Lateef is an Islamist preacher from the Hittin Institute in London. It supports the annihilation of the state of Israel. Lateef said this to Queen Mary students in 2007:

“We don’t accept homosexuality … we hate it because Allah hates it”

Yasir Qadhi is a founder and leader of the Al Maghrib Institute, the Islamist training group that brought Abdullah Hakim Quick to London universities. He offers an exquisitely stupid and cruel “solution” to gay Muslim men: marry a woman.

And remember that marriage is a solution, so you should seriously consider it. The Prophet Lut ‘alayhis salam told his people, “These are my daughters, they are more pure for you.” Some scholars say that when he said “daughters”, he is also implying the women of the town and not just his own daughters. So he’s telling the men of his community who were guilty of this crime to go and marry women, for they are better and purer for them. Marriage is a solution, because sensuality and sexuality is something that can be satisfied – rather it should be satisfied – by the opposite gender within the confines of marriage.

Mohammed Alshareef is the director of the Al Maghrib Institute. He says Muslims should be proud to be homophobic. They should also follow the lead of Christians who harass gay pride rallies.

If people hear about a lecture like this at the masjid [mosque], they would say “homophobic”. Correct? They’re like “oh my God, they’re a bunch of homophobic people”. And I thought to myself, that’s an amazing word to be called. Alhamdulillah [praise to God] that you’re homophobic. Now notice the propaganda and the indoctrination that you’ve been – when I just said, alhamdulillah I’m homophobic, you’re thinking to yourself “How do you say alhamdulillah? That’s something bad.” These are words that they flipped in our minds. Homophobia means a fear of homosexuality. Alhamdulillah we have a fear of homosexuality. And then they will say it as if it is a derogatory term, but in fact it is a praiseworthy term.

…

Whenever there is a gay rally – isn’t it interesting that they call them gay, they’re happy people, right? – there are a type of people who go to these rallies and stand up for the truth. They have signs that tell them to stop what they’re doing or they will go to hellfire. Do you think they are Muslims? No, they are not Muslims, they are Christians. They are Christians who stand up for this. … I pray to Allah that you will join the ranks and start to stand up and speak against things like this. [from 25:00]

Murtaza Khan too is keen on “proper” Christians – he thinks they have a charter for killing gays, just like Muslims:

Now what is the punishment? According to the Bible, excuse me, this is a Christian country. Read the history of this country. Christian country. According to the Bible, the Bible says the person should be thrown down from a mountain and then stoned on top of that. That’s what Isa [Jesus] told you people. But they teach “no, you’re homophobic”. And those Christians who stand up against this abominable action, which goes against humanity, then they’re fundamentalists like us as well then.

…

I’m not homophobic. I believe in a natural way of life. I’m repeating you what your Bible tells you. In the hadith you find: “You find the people doing the action of Lot, kill the one who does the action and the one the action is being done to.” [4:40]

This is from the East London Mosque’s reaction to the Dispatches broadcast:

We try to ensure that those who use our facilities, including for speaking engagements, reflect the values of moderation and tolerance we hold and adhere to.

Ha ha. It continues:

On rare occasion it may be that someone, speaking at an event for which a room or hall has been hired for example, says something we neither agree with nor approve of.

I love the “may be”. Here’s the get-out clause:

It is not possible for any organisation in a position such as ours to vet and approve in advance every statement to be made by every speaker addressing audiences at the Mosque and Centre.

Well, a few speakers have been vetted right here. They preach vicious hatred against homosexuals. Why take the risk of hosting them? Why lend them any support at all? Will they be barred from the East London Mosque and the London Muslim Centre?

After all, the mosque does say that it holds to “values of moderation and tolerance”.

Harry’s Place has been playing a cat-and-mouse game with someone over the last two days to bring you this video of the homophobic lunatic Abdul Karim Hattin speaking at the East London Mosque.

The video has been removed from YouTube three times, each time reported to YouTube for “breach of copyright” or “terms of use violation”.

We can’t be bothered to fight with YouTube and explain that it is neither of these. It is legitimate criticism regarding a matter of public concern… so we’ve hosted the video privately.

In his address at the East London Mosque, Mr Hattin has a section of his PowerPoint presentation called “Spot The Fag”, which is – he says – a “game I like to play”.

We have no idea who is so desperate to make sure this video isn’t exposed to a wider audience, but we can understand that it must be profoundly embarrassing to the East London Mosque who hosted the event, or perhaps inconveniently attracting more attention than Mr Hattin wants to his hateful mission.

outside the serene environment of the museum, however, the dispute between the self-appointed guardians of faith and reason continues to rage. professor richard dawkins, the napoleon of socio-biology, recently devoted an entire episode of his hagiographic (but mostly excellent) series on darwinism, “the genius of charles darwin”, to rubbishing religion, as usual choosing its most rabid, swivel-eyed partisans, leavened with a selection of double-tongued “intelligent design”-peddling weasels to make his point about the idiocy and irrationality of belief. the sole exception to this parade of lunacy appeared to be the archbishop of canterbury, whose lyrical, articulate moderation was immediately dismissed by dawkins as yet another creationist strategy, this time the stealth doctrine of “absorption”. to this way of thinking, even the honour accorded to darwin by burying him in westminster abbey was suspect.

it is notable that those who find evolution unpalatable are similarly splenetic, even if they fail to match dawkins’ magisterial contempt in either grammar or coherence. but however less militant in tone than his ferocious assault on religion, the god delusion, “the genius of charles darwin” still left the indelible impression of an agenda that believes there can be no genuine meeting ground between empirical, peer-reviewed truth and obscurantist, infantile fantasy. religion, in dawkins’ view, quite simply cannot be taken seriously as a choice for anyone who considers themselves intellectually sound or critically robust. it is a vestigial remnant, a reminder of the dark era before scientific knowledge was available, a sentimental, regressive attachment – and it must be discredited, debunked and unmasked for the toxic, anti-reason fallacy that it is.

this is, of course, not the first time that religion has been attacked in these terms. the european “enlightenment” was founded upon a profound hostility to religion as an obstacle to progress, judaism in particular. much of enlightenment criticism of judaism could also be characterised as a new version of christian supercessionism, this time using reason and science to prove that christianity was more “modern” and “progressive” than its “backwards”, “primitive”, “uncivilised” predecessor. naturally, some thinkers went far further than this, rejecting any and all religion in favour of a new faith in reason, science, progress, class, nation or race. for judaism, however, the hostility remained constant; whether the aim was to convert or debunk. and, ultimately, even for those who abandoned traditional belief or any kind of belief, a new form of hostility, based on a vicious distortion of science itself, was able to make even having jewish ancestors a crime punishable by extermination.

pseudo-scientific racism offered judaism no opportunity to defend itself but, fortunately, science and reason seem unlikely to lead to a new holocaust. but existential issues notwithstanding, the militancy of science-inspired hostility to religion seems to have adopted a recognisable posture and set of tactics. they appear to be strikingly similar to those of the famous mediaeval spanish “disputations”, in which judaism, represented by such luminaries as nachmanides, found itself called to account before the kangaroo courts of the catholic church and the inquisition.

i do not seek to defend all religion against assaults when it seems manifestly obvious that some are well-deserved and many criticisms can be shown to have excellent foundation; in particular, the accusation that religion has often shown itself as all too ready to excuse injustice, immorality, inhumanity and the abuse of power, whether as a social influence or a political force. the prophet jeremiah speaks of the dichotomy between a “heart of stone” and a “heart of flesh”. we must be unarguably able to lay claim to a voice of righteousness and truth, or we will be unable to respond, as we should in no uncertain terms:

our religion is not as you say it is. you are misrepresenting what we say, misrepresenting what we do and misrepresenting our mission in the world. you are either ignorant of what we actually believe, or you are guilty of the same lack of critical engagement that you believe religion exhibits where darwinism is concerned and violating your own principle of empirical investigation. we have no problem with science, especially darwinism; it undoubtedly has some important things to teach us about ourselves and the universe. but we are not interested in a war between religion and science. more to the point, we will take responsibility for our own benefit to society and will not have our terms of engagement dictated to us by you. they should be dictated by our respect for the sources within judaism that enable us to articulate that benefit:

“when i behold your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you established; what is man, that you are mindful of him and the son of man, that you think of him?”  psalms 8:6-7

“if a man is worthy, they say to him: ‘you preceded the angels’; but if he is unworthy, they say to him: ‘a gnat preceded you, a snail preceded you’” genesis rabbah 8:1

“man has no pre-eminence over the animals, for all is breath” ecclesiastes 3:19

 there are often surprising sources of religious authority for such interpretations. one such is the towering figure of “the rav”, rabbi j.b. soloveitchik, who asks in response:

 “in truth, what is man when set against the vast universe and the heavenly realms? what is his worth in comparison to the cosmic process? what is he when set against the world and the fullness thereof? what is he in relation to worlds, visible and invisible?” ‘halakhic man’, p.169

 soloveitchik understands us as being reconciled by understanding G!D’s Recognition of us as “worthy to stand before G!D”. i do not think it unreasonable to suggest that the purpose of religion is to make us worthy of that divine recognition – and where we are not, we cannot expect protestations of moral superiority to hold water.

The picture below features Abjol Miah (on the right) who helped George Galloway become the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow.

****

This post from earlier this week covered the men the Young Muslim Organisation (YMO), the youth wing of the Islamic Forum of Europe, recommends for spiritual advice about Ramadan. Every single one of them is an extremist. Three of the nine have been convicted or charged with serious terrorism offences.

So it is no surprise to come across a page that the YMO lists as its most popular, “Du’a (prayer) for Gaza”, and find a video of this man first on the list: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

There are five more videos on the page. Four have been removed from Youtube “due to terms of use violation” and one has been deleted. Hmm, why might that be?

Well, this might be a clue. Two of the missing tapes feature Rashid Al Afasy, a Saudi-trained Kuwaiti imam. Here is another tape where he prays for Gaza (warning – graphic). He calls Jews – not Israelis – “evildoers” and “murderers of the messengers and prophets”. He beseeches Allah to “crush them down and shatter them”.

Saudi preacher and judicial official Saleh Al Luhaidan is the star of another tape that has been removed. Here he is in 2004 advocating jihad in Iraq:

In an audiotape secretly recorded at a government mosque last October and obtained by NBC News, Luhaidan encourages young Saudis to go to Iraq to wage war against Americans.

“If someone knows that he is capable of entering Iraq in order to join the fight, and if his intention is to raise up the word of God, then he is free to do so,” says Luhaidan in Arabic on the tape.

He warns Iraq is risky because “evil satellites and drone aircraft” watch the borders. But he says going is religiously permissible.

“The lawfulness of his action is in fighting an enemy who is fighting Muslims and came for war,” says Luhaidan.

…

A Saudi spokesman twice denied the tape was authentic, claiming Saudi intelligence analysts determined it was “a crude fake.” So NBC News called Luhaidan himself, in Saudi Arabia, and played the tape.

Luhaidan confirmed those were his words, saying in Arabic, “Yes, this is my voice.”

But the sheik said what he really meant was that it’s not worth it for young Saudis to go to Iraq and that the Iraqis are capable of fighting on their own.

Uh huh. For Luhaidan, even television network owners deserve death if they are “evil”:

A Saudi scholar has issued a religious decree saying it is permissible to kill the owners of television networks broadcasting “depravation and debauchery”.

“It is lawful to kill … the apostles of depravation … if their evil cannot be easily removed through simple sanctions,” Saleh al-Luhaidan, chief justice of the supreme judicial council, was quoted by the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya news channel as saying.

“The situation is serious … the degradation of morals is a form of perversion on Earth,” al-Luhaidan said.

The 79-year-old scholar, who holds the highest judicial authority in the kingdom, made the comments during a recent radio show in which he was asked by a caller for his opinions on immoral programmes being broadcast on Arab televisions during the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

Here’s another Gaza page from the YMO: “Questions from Palestine“. It employs typical antisemitic themes – Israelis are Nazis at war with the whole world and Zionists control the media:

Israeli leaders intensified their blitzkrieg following intensive aerial “shock and awe” that killed hundreds of civilians. This was intended to subdue not only the 1.5 million impoverished and starved Palestinian but the larger human community around the world and reengineer the political map.

…

To be honest with ourselves, we must recognize that what Israel counted on materialized in a few cases: ineptness of the UN security council under threat of a US veto (itself under threat of the Zionist lobby), ineptness of the Arab league, the collaboration of many Arab governments, the apathy of large segments of the Israeli public, predicted local attempts to contain the anger in the street (from Cairo to Ramallah to Baghdad etc), and success of Israeli and Zionist forces and well financed propaganda not only in preventing reporting from the ground in Gaza but in controlling the message in much of the supine Western media.

…

The slaughter of the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII similarly cannot be said to be justified by weak Jewish leadership and strong Nazi leadership. History is not kind to aggressors and in this case history will be written differently. An army that shells a market place causing this kind of destruction will not be successful at surviving any more than any other fascist army in history

…

For Zionized Western media, why do you think you can keep a lid on the anger of and keep oppressing the aspirations of 10 million Palestinians, 300 million Arabs, 1.5 billion Muslims, and nearly 6 billion human beings who aspire for JUSTICE with peace?

The YMO helpfully provides a link to the website of the author of the piece, Mazin Qumsiyeh. There you will find the poisonous work of Holocaust denier Paul Eisen, with this cute disclaimer:

Posting articles on my website does not imply endorsement or agreement with ideas expressed. I think it is useful to post controversial material that start discussions and exchanges.

Yes, just asking questions and trying to be helpful, aren’t we. Here is some more of Mr Qumsiyeh’s wisdom:

The overriding fact also remains that Zionism is the main cause of wars and conflict throughout the region from Palestine to Afghanistan. Peace is possible and it must start with ending US support for that apartheid regime…

…

…Italy and Egypt have governments that are subservient to Zionist and US imperial and elite interests. It ensures that money is funneled through corporations and governments in support of Zionism from ordinary citizens who have no clue about these transactions. Hence extra cost for products that carry a “kosher label” that go not for the cost of such certification but through the Orthodox Union to support Israel and Zionism. Hence US taxpayers unwittingly pumping several billion every year to Israel because their politicians want to be (re-)elected and need the power of the Israel-first lobby (cash and media access).

…

The Zionist tribalistic mentality [sic] exists out of its own desires to be separate and treat any non-Jew with contempt. It is the same idea that lets Zionists express that the world is always “against us” and privately claim to each other that any support they get is because of their might and muscle

…

War, instability, and fear are needed to perpetuate injustice. No wonder Hitler thought highly of Zionists and Zionists regularly collaborated with the Nazis.

This is how the Islamic Forum of Europe opens its reaction to the Dispatches broadcast:

The IFE wholly rejects the allegations made against it by Andrew Gilligan in the latest episode of Channel 4’s “Dispatches”.

It is untrue that:

1. the IFE supports extremism;

As they say, you couldn’t make it up.

For a number of years now, British Muslims have been told that they must all eschew terrorism and instead seek to influence policy through the process of democratic engagement. In Tower Hamlets we have seen young people – particularly following the deeply unpopular war against Iraq – seeking to do just that and join the local political parties including George Galloway’s Respect party. And instead of being commended for this they get smeared as being “entryists” by people like Fitzpatrick. Of course, Fitzpatrick’s bitterness would have nothing whatsoever to do with the fact – not mentioned by Gilligan – that he is up against George Galloway in the upcoming general election and his majority of 8000 might not be enough to save him – just as the pro-war Oona King’s 10000+ majority failed to save her in 2005.

But this is a hopeless lie, as Andrew Gilligan points out. There is nothing democratic about the ultimate goals of the IFE.

First of all there is in their training literature, the necessity for their activists to buy into the doctrinal struggle for iqamatud-Deen – establishment of an Islamic social, economic and political order.

Such as, for instance, the transcript of a 2009 recruit training course where the organisation tells its new members: “Our goal is not simply to invite people and give da’wah [call to the faith]. Our goal is to create the True Believer, to then mobilise those believers into an organised force for change who will carry out da’wah, hisbah [enforcement of Islamic law] and jihad [struggle]. This will lead to social change and iqamatud-Deen [an Islamic social, economic and political order].”

Then there is the call to dedicate one’s life to the creation of the Khilafah. Not exactly an institution built on democratic principles.

Or the leaflet where the IFE tells us that it is dedicated to changing the “very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed … from ignorance to Islam.” Or the document where the IFE says it “strives for the establishment of a global [my italics] society, the Khilafah … comprised of individuals who live by the principles of … the Shari’ah.” The IFE’s “primary work” to create this state, the document goes on, “is in Europe [my italics] because it is this continent, despite all the furore about its achievements, which has a moral and spiritual vacuum.”

And finally, there is IFE’s resident Awlaki-lover, Azad Ali, community affairs coordinator, caught on camera categorically dismissing democracy in favour of sharia:

“Democracy, if it means at the expense of not implementing the sharia, of course no one agrees with that”

Wrong. Most Muslims in Tower Hamlets agrees with that and would rather have democracy than sharia. That is why they choose to live in this country. That is why Jamaat-e-Islam suffered a resounding defeat in democratic elections held in 2008 in Bangladesh, when the choice between secular democracy and Islamist theocracy was put to 130 million people. The IFE have learnt well from that lesson.

They know that no electorate will accept sharia or iqamatud-Deen when it is presented with a choice. If asked to take it or leave it, Muslims will leave it, in droves. But the IFE are fully aware of this, which is why they employ dishonesty and deceit by the bucketload:

The IFE’s deceit is borne of necessity. For all their claims that any attack on them is an attack on Islam itself, they know that their support among Muslims is small – as shown in our documentary, where Muslim Londoner after Muslim Londoner lined up to express their outrage at the IFE’s presumptuousness as much as at its views. The fact that fully 70% of our interviewees were Muslim should answer any charge that this was an “Islamophobic” programme.

Two days ago the Pakistani Sufi organisation Minhaj-ul-Quran launched their remarkably comprehensive fatwa (religious ruling) against terrorism and suicide bombing.

Since then the Muslim Brotherhood’s Azzam Tamimi has been on a one-man mission to discredit it.

On the BBC, he mocked al-Qadri for not preventing suicide bombings in Pakistan before saying that he himself believed that suicide bombing was allowed in “self-defence” (but not against “innocent civilians” – as opposed, presumably, to guilty civilians) and saying that:

‘Then there is the question of utility and whether this is actually good for the cause or bad for the cause and in most cases it’s not good for the cause. And I think this is the argument we need to push forward rather than resorting to fatwas because for every fatwa, there is a counter fatwa.’

So, in other words, the question of whether or not jihadists should kill civilians is not one of morality but rather of ‘utility’. If killing civilians produces results, Tamimi says, then it is ok.

He then hammers this point home by saying that British Muslims should not carry out suicide bomb attacks at present because this would be ‘counter-productive’:

‘British young Muslims; I would advise them against resorting to any of these tactics because they are counterproductive. But I cannot apply the same thing for people who are defending their country and defending their homes and for people whose families have been wiped out completely by coward pilots flying F16’s and Apache helicopters.’

Presumably then, if circumstances changed and suicide bombing in the UK stopped being ‘counter-productive’ and instead became ‘good for the cause’, Tamimi would then be supportive of such attacks.

Tamimi’s latest outburst is yet another nail in the coffin of the increasingly threadbare argument pushed by pro-Islamist lobbyists Andy Hull, Jamie Bartlett and the widely discredited Robert Lambert that the Muslim Brotherhood should be used by the British government to fight jihadist terrorism.

Instead, as Tuesday’s anti-terrorism fatwa by Minhaj-ul-Quran proved, it is those non-Islamist groups that openly condemn terrorism ‘with no ifs and no buts’ who are our real allies against religious extremism.

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.”