Followers of the Ahmadiyya movement (known as Ahmadis) are often victims of religious bigotry. They have long been popular targets of religious extremists and have suffered a great deal, especially in Pakistan where they have been continuously persecuted.  Like most commentators on this site I utterly deplore such actions and I defend the right of Ahmadis to freedom of religion.

I personally spent a number of years studying Ahmadi literature, meeting their leaders and discussing their beliefs.  In this article I intend to explain their beliefs, their attitudes towards other faiths and their political views.

The Founder

Ahmaddiya is a religious movement established in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.  Ghulam Ahmad was born on 1839, in Qadian, Punjab, India.  In the early part of his life, whilst working as a clerk in Sialkot (present day Pakistan), he came into contact with Christian missionaries.  As time passed, he began to engage with the missionaries and started challenging them in public debates. This gained Ghulam Ahmad praise from India’s Muslim Scholars and some hailed him as a protector of the Islamic faith against the onslaught of Christian missionaries.  However, all this started to change when he began claiming that he was a recipient of divine revelation.

His Claims

In 1889 Ghulam Ahmad claimed to have received a message from God asking him to create a new movement.  After receiving pledges of initiation from forty of his followers, he founded the Ahmadiyya movement.

Shortly after this, he claimed that he was the Muslim reformer (Mujadid) of the 20^th century.  His next claim was that he was the Mahdi and also the second coming of Jesus Christ.  As time went by he made various other claims.  These included: the discovery of the tomb of Jesus in Kashmir, claiming that the founder of the Sikh faith Guru Nanak was a Muslim and also that he was the likeness of the Hindu Lord Krishna. All these claims led to a barrage of criticism from Muslim, Christian and Hindu scholars, with many declaring him to be a deceiver, apostate and government agent.  The main point of contention between Ahmadis and orthodox Muslims was Ghulam Ahmad’s claim to prophethood.  The vast majority of Muslims believe the prophet Mohammed to be the last prophet of God, whereas Ghulam Ahmad claimed he was also a prophet of God.  Due to this issue some hard-line scholars started calling for the death of Ghulam Ahmad and his followers.

The Split

Ghulam Ahmad died in 1908 but his movement continued under its first successor (Caliph) Hakim Noorideen.  After Noorideen’s death in 1914 problems arose concerning the selection of the next leader. This led to the movement splitting into two groups. The splinter group was led by Maulana Muhammad Ali, a long-time companion of Ghulam Ahmad. He believed the election process was unfair and that Mirza Bashirudeen Ahmad (Ghulam Ahmad’s son) had already been secretly chosen as the next leader.   Maulana Muhammad Ali broke away from the main party and moved to Lahore to set up his own Ahmadi movement.  This movement is today known as the Lahore Ahmadiyyah movement with the main party becoming known as the Qadian Ahmadiyyah movement.

The Lahore Ahmadiyyah movement has very similar beliefs to the Qadian Ahmadiyyah movement.  The main difference being that the Lahore movement does not believe Ghulam Ahmad actually claimed to be a prophet of God.  They claim that Ghulam Ahmad’s only used the word ‘prophet’ in a metaphorical sense.  They therefore claim to be orthodox Muslims and only believe Ghulam Ahmad to be a Muslim reformer.

Persecution

After the partition in 1947 many Ahmadis moved to Pakistan and settled in the city of Rabwah.  This also became their new headquarters after the original headquarters of Qadian went to India. The first foreign minister of Pakistan Sir Chaudhry Muhammad Zafrullah Khan was an Ahmadi.  Riots, usually led by extremist fanatics intermittingly broke out against Ahmadis.  One famous instigator of such riots was the Islamist leader Maulana Mawdudi.  In 1973 Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, under pressure from religious figures, had the Pakistani constitution amended, declaring Ahmadis as non-Muslims.  In 1984 the Head of the Ahmaddiyya movement ‘Mirza Tahir Ahmad’ (Ghulam Ahmad’s grandson) fled from Pakistan and settled in the UK.  This was because of the increasing persecution his movement was facing in under the military dictatorship of Zia ul Haq.

Propagation

In London the Ahmadiyya movement has been very actice in propagating its faith.  It works as a missionary movement and has its own satellite TV channel MTA.  However, many people have criticised the way it operates and have accused it of using underhand tactics to gain recruits.  For example, many ex-members have claimed they were duped into thinking they were converting to Islam and not told anything about Ahmaddiya beliefs or its founder; see the article Escape from Rabwah: http://www.alhafeez.org/rashid/escape.htm.  Other prominent  ex-members who have come out to criticise the movement and its recruitment techniques, include Sheikh Raheel Ahmad and Shahid Kamal.

Views on Israel

Despite claiming to be moderate Ahmadis have been criticised for holding extremist views, especially against the state of Israel.  For example, during the Gulf War the Head of the Ahmadiyya Movement, Mirza Tahir Ahmad, issued a book titled ‘The Gulf Crisis & The New World Order’.  In this book he blamed Israel for the Gulf War and just about every problem in the Middle-East.  He even questioned the validity of Israel’s existence as a country:

“Take for example, the establishment of Israel in the Muslim region.  Although America was also involved in a major way, yet this mischief was initiated by British. It is the product of British minds” (The Gulf Crisis & The New World Order, Islam international Publications, UK 1993, Pg 178)

“Israel was created in the name of the United Nations and the greatest role played in its establishment was by the US. One matter that amazes me is why was no question raised as to whether the U.N. has a right to create a new country in the world? (Pg 178)

“There is no basis for the creation of that country… In fact the creation of Israel is not an act of enmity against the Arabs but against Islam” (Pg 179)

“Do you think the sounds emanating from the minarets of Mecca and Medina are those of Allah and His Prophet? The truth is that these minarets simply project the loudspeakers which are connected to the microphones located in Washington where Israel is the speaker using these microphones” (Pg 192)

Amazingly, Tahir Ahmad also believed that the document ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ (a well known forgery) was a Jewish scheme to control the world:

“This was a scheme of the top leaders of Israel, who believe in Zionism, as to how they shall dominate the world, what mode of action shall be adopted for this purpose, what will be the work principles and objectives, what means will be adopted etc” (The Gulf Crisis & The New World Order, Islam International Publications, UK 1993, Pg 199)

The book is full of the same anti-Israel conspiracy theories peddled by Islamist groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir.  In the same book Mirza Tahir Ahmad also praises the Iran:

“I have openly admitted number of times that their religious differences notwithstanding, the Iranian nation does not behave hypocritically when it comes to Islam: they are the true lovers of Islam…Iran’s services to Islam are second to none” (The Gulf Crisis & The New World Order, Islam international Publications, UK 1993, Pg 194-195)

At times it was hard to believe that this book had not been written by Islamists.

On Jihad

The second leader of the Ahmaddiyah Movement, Mirza Bashirudeen Ahmad, explained the Ahmadiyyah view on Jihad as follows:

“The fifth big objection raised against us is that we deny the institution of Jihad. I have always wondered how such a false charge could have been made against us, for to say that we deny Jihad is a lie.  Without Jihad, according to us, belief cannot be made perfect….We are not against Jihad. We are only against the tendency to label any kind of aggrandizement as Jihad”. (Invitation to Ahmaddiyat, by Mirza Bashirudeen Ahmad, Islam International publications, 1997, pg 52)

“In short, the Jihad sanctioned by Islam is to make war against a people who prevent others from accepting Islam, or who wish to force people to deny Islam.  It can be made against a people who kill others because of Islam”. (Invitation to Ahmadiyyat, by Mirza Bashirudeen Ahmad, Islam International Publications, 1997, pg 56)

It is also worth noting that some Hindu groups blame Ahmadis for the murder of Pandit Lekh Ram, an opponent of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.

Conversions

During my time studying with the movement I got to see a very problematic side to it.  In the beginning the Ahmadis I met were very welcoming and very courteous. I was treated very respectfully and regularly invited to their houses, Mosques and gatherings.  I was also told that after I finished studying Ahmadi literature I would definitely convert to Ahmadism and this seemed to be their main goal.  However, when this didn’t happen, the members and leaders I was in touch with suddenly turned very cold.   They even started getting aggressive and began telling me that I was destined to go to hell for rejecting the Ahmadi truths.  This was coming not just from regular members but also from their leaders and Imams. I was also regularly told that only their version of Islam was acceptable to Western countries and they were working very hard to keep it that way.

It seemed that their sole objective was to convert me and when this failed they didn’t want to talk to me again.  They behaved in a very cult like fashion and I was later to discover that I wasn’t the only one to receive this treatment from them.

Conclusion

The Ahmaddiyya movement continues to suffer from persecution and discrimination.  This is clearly wrong and we must all speak out against this injustice.  However, the Ahmadi movement itself is not as moderate as it claims to be.  Despite its PR image, it also holds extremist and bigoted views.  As well as supporting the Ahmadis right to freedom of religion their problematic views also need to be exposed and challenged.

"Kill a Qadiyyani and doors to heaven will be open for you"

A police investigation was launched last month, after police saw leaflets being handed out calling on Muslims to murder Qadiyanis, a derogatory term for Ahmadiyya Muslims, who are an evangelical sect of Islam.

It is believed that the literature is linked to a terrorist attack in May, in which 92 worshippers were murdered by Taliban militants in Pakistan, where the government officially regards Ahmadiyya Islam as blasphemy.

Having made no arrests in connection with the incident, Kingston police are appealing who may have seen the people handing out inflammatory literature outside the Jane Norman store in Clarence Street.

A teenage Ahmadiyya girl, who did not want to be named, said she was “shaken and stirred” after being handed a leaflet written in Urdu saying “Kill a Qadiyyani and doors to heaven will be open for you”.

She said: “I was coming back from shopping and a guy handed me the leaflet. While I read it he asked me to come back. I told him I was an Ahmadi girl and he demanded I return the leaflet, but I refused.

“He was about 22 or 23 years old and had a long beard.”

A spokesman for Kingston police confirmed there was an ongoing investigation.

He said: “On July 6, we received a report regarding the distribution of literature related to the Ahmadiyya Muslim faith that was deemed offensive.”

Video Update:

We often hear that the EDL protest the growth of political Islamism and extremism exclusively and non-violently. This man from the EDL might have reason to differ:

An injured English Defence League protester lies on the ground being treated by police medics after being hit by a rock thrown by another English Defence League protester

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Suleman has always known that he was attracted to men. He would wear his mother’s saris when she was out of the house and put on his sister’s make-up in the belief that this is what men found appealing. Suleman also knew that he wanted to be a religious leader, an imam. He joined a madrassa (an Islamic religious school) where he began rigorous training. Small in stature with an imposing black beard, he is dressed in a white kurta pyjama with a matching white mosque hat, the ubiquitous uniform for the men of Allah. He is predisposed to following everything up with religious references.

‘Imams have a lot of responsibility. The Malik (Lord) has chosen me, even with all my flaws, to follow him. If I can fulfil even the slightest one of his wishes, then Allah is pleased.’

At age 32, Suleman leads the five daily prayers and also the Friday jumma at one of the largest mosques in Dhaka. His dry, husky voice, a result of the fiery sermons he delivers, has a cheerful twinkle buried in it.

Suleman made the decision to become a religious leader partly in the hope that it would bring an end to the desires he had for men, something he thought at the time to be outside of the bounds of religious acceptability.

As with the other Abrahamic religions, the story of Lot and the destruction of Sodom, used by some Muslims to condemn homosexuality, was something he was more than familiar with. Suleman tried controlling his feelings by praying and fasting obsessively, ironically in the process excelling in the eyes of the scholars at the madrassa. However, to his dismay he found that his urges did not diminish. If anything, as he grew older, they became worse.

‘All night in the dormitory, my eyes would see no sleep. I wanted to be able to care for a man, marry him and give him physical pleasure,’ he remembers.

One day Suleman reluctantly shared his feelings with a friend, a fellow student. They ended up having sex. Afterwards, he was meticulous about following the guidelines on fornication set out by Islamic scriptures. He had already recited a prayer before they slept with each other; afterwards he washed his entire body, his mouth, hands and only then did he go to sleep. In the morning he prayed for forgiveness and read the Qur’an.

This was a pivotal moment. For the first time in his life, it dawned on him that what he had done was not wrong. He remembers saying in his prayers that day, ‘my friend and I needed and wanted to do this. It gave us peace of mind and body. Is this so wrong?’

Suleman is hardly the norm in the conservative world of Bangladeshi Islamic orthodoxy. I ask him whether he believes what he did was ghuna (sin)? In Islam the sin is in the act and not at the level of the feelings or thinking.

He has given this much thought. ‘Love between men, even in the days of the Prophet, has always existed and always will.’ He asks me if I know the worst sin a person can commit. I don’t. He replies that it is to give koshto (pain) to another. Giving koshto is the equivalent of destroying one of Allah’s mosques.

Read the rest of the article in full.

Front of the Park51 Site

As I pressed the timer on my watch so as to check how long it took to walk from the former World Trade Centre to the Cordoba site, it dawned on me how absurd this whole issue really is; what distance would be appropriate? Should there be some sort of strictly enforced ‘don’t offend me’ radius around Ground Zero? The next day, the New York Times reported that Mayor Bloomberg made exactly this point:

Mr. Bloomberg…said he understood the impulse to find a different location, in the hope of ending the controversy.

“But it won’t,” the mayor said, “The question will then become, ‘how big should the ‘no-mosque zone’ around the World Trade Center be?’”

Arriving at the site (it’s about a three minute walk in case you were wondering), I saw three young New Yorkers holding up signs in support of the mosque. Wishing to get at least some idea of the nature of pro-Mosque New Yorkers, I discussed the issue with all of them and was pleasantly surprised: they were normal, young liberals like me, able to balance an appreciation of the threat of Islamic jihad with an understanding that not all Muslims want to take over the world. It was difficult, however, to keep up a long discussion, as we were regularly interrupted by passers-by, many of them clearly against the plans. Two things struck me about these people: first, the main crux of their argument was that it is offensive to have a mosque built so close to Ground Zero; and second, although they were clearly against the centre, they were unwilling to support any sort of ban on its construction.

Pro-Mosque New Yorkers

Things get heated

On the first point, this is simply not a valid argument, and one that was made recently by a Democrat, Sheldon Silver, who is also the Speaker of the New York State Assembly. In City Hall this week, he said that Cordoba “should take into very serious consideration the kind of turmoil that’s been created and look to compromise.” Instead, he hoped that they could find “a suitable place that doesn’t create the kind of controversy” brought about by the Park51 plan.

In any discussion about the construction of the Islamic centre, the least relevant point is that it is in some way an offensive act. Comparisons with the Mohammed cartoons episode have already been made in this debate, but it is worth repeating that, in order for the ‘right to offend’ argument to hold any sway, it must be allowed to go both ways.

There are, however, a number of concerns that if they had any foundation, would be relevant. Some of these include:

• Islamic supremacism/support for al-Qaeda – beginning with the most absurd accusations that have been leveled at the Cordoba Initiative, it is quite clear that they have no intention to use the site as some sort of celebratory shrine to bin Laden and the 9/11 hijackers;

• Saudi money – considering the deep connection between Saudi Wahhabism and terrorism, this is a valid concern, but thus far there is no evidence to suggest any Saudi involvement. Indeed, even if money for the project does come from Saudi, although it would be worth protesting, there would still be no legal way to prevent it;

• Iranian money – although it has been pointed out that the head of the organisation, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, has voiced support for the extremist Shiite Khomeinist concept of Vilayet-i-faquih, there is no suggestion that he or Cordoba have any official connection with Iran. If they did, there are laws in the United States which could be used to stop the project;

• Islamist connections – Islamist ideology is a key inspiration for global jihadism, but again there is not enough evidence to level any such accusation at Imam Rauf or the Cordoba Initiative. They are not supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, or any other global Islamist organisation.

There is no question that the centre must be allowed to go ahead, and unless they are receiving Iranian government money, or plan to use the site to promote jihadist preachers, there is absolutely no legislation which could be used to stop it. However, for those of you hoping that the inevitable construction of the mosque will prove once and for all that America is not at war with Islam and Muslims, I fear you will all be sorely disappointed. People who continue to peddle this idea, particularly Islamists, have no interest in conceding that they are wrong – in fact, they need it to be true. Take, for example, the reaction of some of the senior members of Egypt’s Al-Azhar University, who are convinced that far from being a symbol of Islamic supremacy, the project is an attempt to link 9/11 with Islam, thus assisting in the ancient and ongoing Zionist-Western plot to destroy Islam.

The majority of people who claim that there exists such a conspiracy do so on the basis of irrational ideas (see above), and using logical arguments will simply never convince them, and no one should waste their time trying to do so.

A friend of mine, accepting my argument that this will not shake people out of their absolute conviction that America wants to eradicate them, told me that instead he holds out the hope that allowing the mosque will convince potential future recruits to Islamism that America does not hate them. This may be true, but it is also almost impossible to measure. Also, considering the myriad of anti-American conspiracy theories that (thanks to Islamists, and many others) are now accepted as gospel-like truths among many within the pool of potential Islamists, we will need far more than the building of another mosque in Manhattan to effect any real change in attitudes.

Park51 is not a conspiracy to promote extremist Islam, and nor is it an effort to destroy the entire religion, rather it is a (poorly judged) attempt to heal some very raw wounds in New York, and one that probably will not succeed in its mission. There are far more important debates to be had about extremism, Islam and terrorism, and about a year from now the most striking thing about this entire episode will be just how little difference it made to anything.

The Park51 debate has now spilled over into the doomed territory of visceral offence taking. The opportunity to have this debate on issues such as the American Constitution’s provisions for freedom of religion and Islam’s obligation to universal principles in the USA may have been lost for good. Nevertheless Manji takes a crack at articulating a set of questions and demands expected of Imam Rauf should Park51 ever get built.

But for all the restless offense I feel, I step back and force myself to think. As I wrestle with the issues, I realize that an opportunity exists for something more constructive than anger.

Namely, accountability. If Park51 gets built, thanks to its provocative location the nation will scrutinize what takes place inside. Americans have the opportunity right now to be clear about the civic values expected from any Islam practiced at the site.

That means setting aside bombast and asking the imam questions born of the highest American ideals: individual dignity and pluralism of ideas.

• Will the swimming pool at Park51 be segregated between men and women at any time of the day or night?

• May women lead congregational prayers any day of the week?

• Will Jews and Christians, fellow People of the Book, be able to use the prayer sanctuary for their services just as Muslims share prayer space with Christians and Jews in the Pentagon? (Spare me the technocratic argument that the Pentagon is a governmental, not private, building. Park51 may be private in the legal sense but is a public symbol par excellence.)

• What will be taught about homosexuals? About agnostics? About atheists? About apostasy?

• Where does one sign up for advance tickets to Salman Rushdie’s lecture at Park51?

These questions aren’t gratuitous. I, for one, remain haunted by the 300 Muslims chanting “Death to Rushdie” on Sept. 10, 2001. They gathered outside a theater in Houston, Texas, to protest a visit by the novelist—the target of a 1989 death warrant from Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini. One Muslim told reporters, “The fatwa is valid even if the Iranian government no longer supports it.” Another warned, “We have not forgotten about him and his evil act.” That man affiliated himself with Houston’s Islamic Education Center. Education or indoctrination? The question deserves an honest response.

Through engagement that emphasizes questions like these, Americans of all faiths and no faith at all may very well make the colorful neighborhood around Ground Zero host to the most transparent, most democratic, most modern Islam—ever.

As a proud New Yorker as well as a reformist Muslim, I think, and not just feel, that this would be a fitting salute to the victims of 9/11. It would turn the tables on the freedom-hating culture of al Qaeda. And it would subvert the liberty-lashing culture of offense

Family members of victims of the bomb attack at Lahore’s Data Ganj shrine grieve over their loss

The broad Sunni-Shia division does not explain all of it

• Most Sunnis adhere to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence. Only 5 per cent of the country’s population belongs to the Ahle Hadith sect or Wahabis.
• The Sunnis are subdivided into the Barelvi and Deobandi schools of thought
• The Deobandis and Wahabis consider the Barelvis as kafir, because they visit the shrines of saints, offer prayers, believe music, poetry and dance can lead to god
• Barelvis constitute 60 per cent of the population. Deobandis and Wahabis together account for 20 per cent
• Another 15 per cent are Shias, again considered kafir and subjected to repeated attacks
• Since 2000, the Sunni-Shia conflict has claimed 5,000 lives
• Others considered kafir are the religious minorities—Christians, Ismailis, Hindus, Sikhs, Parsis, Ahmadias, etc, who account for 5 per cent of the population
• So, 20 per cent of the population effectively considers the remaining 80 per cent as kafir

***
Renowned Pakistani writer Khaled Ahmed points to the irony: “Within Sunni Islam, the Deobandis and the Barelvis are not found anywhere outside India and Pakistan. The creation of these two sects was one of the masterstrokes of the Raj in its divide-and-rule policy.” He says the Deobandi school took roots in India in 1866 as a reaction to the overthrow of Muslim rule by the British. This school believes in a literalist interpretation of Islam, and apart from Wahabis, considers all other sects as non-Muslim who must be exterminated. “That’s why they work side by side, from politics to jehad,” says Ahmed, adding that though the Barelvi school of thought is the dominant jurisprudence in Pakistan, “it is not as well politically organised as the Deobandi school.”

It was the Deobandi-Wahabi alliance, says Rehman, which pressured President Gen Zia-ul-Haq to declare the Ahmadis as non-Muslims. At a stroke of the pen, thus, a Muslim sect was clubbed with other religious minorities. Under the Constitution, they can’t call themselves Muslim or even describe their place of worship as a mosque. Wary of disclosing their identity publicly, the Ahmadis were dragged into the spotlight following devastating attacks on two of their mosques in Lahore that killed over a hundred people.

But ‘Muslim’ status doesn’t insulate even mainstream sects from murderous attacks. Ask the Shias, whose Muharram procession in Karachi was bombed in December 2009, killing 33. The Deobandis regard Shias as kafir, claiming their devotion to the clerics and grant of divinely inspired status to them as heretical. The history of Sunni-Shia conflict is as old as Islam, but this has become increasingly bloody in the last decade—over 5,000 people have been killed since 2000—because of the war in Afghanistan. Since Iran had backed the Northern Alliance there, the Deobandis have taken to retaliating against the sect in Pakistan. They also accuse the Shias of assisting the Americans to invade Iraq.

Says historian Dr Mubarak Ali, “One consequence of the war in Afghanistan is the fracturing of Pakistan’s religious patchwork quilt. Whereas once the faultlines lay between the Shias and Sunnis, these have now spread to the Barelvis and Deobandis, who are both Sunni.” Since the Barelvis are moderate and against the Taliban, the Deobandis look upon them as the state’s stooges, who as heretics should be put to death anyway, Ali argues.

Perhaps the complicity between the state and the Deobandis deterred the latter from targeting the Barelvis till now. Lawyer and columnist Yasser Latif Hamdani says, “There is this potent mixture of Pashtun nationalism and Deobandi Islam. Somehow, there is something intrinsic to the very nature of Deobandi doctrine which the Pakistani military establishment is promoting to advance its so-called geostrategic agenda.” Yet, simultaneously, under US pressure, the state had to crack down on the TTP, which, in pique, has taken to wreaking vengeance on the hapless Barelvis.

As long as powerful sections in the establishment persist with their goal of bringing the Pashtun Taliban back to power in Kabul, they will continue, says columnist Imtiaz Alam, “digging the grave of a democratic Pakistan”. Sectarianism and jehadi terrorism will be its consequent wages, he insists. No doubt, the enraged people of Lahore took to the streets protesting against the attack on the Data Darbar, but what’s of greater urgency is that the state must do some really deep thinking.

Earlier this month he was one of three men arrested in Ontario, Canada:

Three Canadians arrested in an alleged terrorist conspiracy had bomb parts and plans and posed a “real and serious threat”, Canadian police have said.

The trio, arrested this week, were charged with supporting terrorism.

Hiva Alizadeh and Misbahuddin Ahmed were jailed following a court appearance on Thursday.

In 2008, Khurram took part in the auditions for Canadian Idol, where he performed the Avril Lavigne song, ‘Complicated’:

As Khurram told the judges at Canadian Idol, he is from Pakistan and enjoys acting, music and hockey.

Ted Jeory: Well, you’re president…who else is actually on the management structure?
Habibur Rahman: Who else? Well, it would be good for us to sit and talk. Are you just looking for names, we’ve got about 20 people who are managing the organisation
Ted Jeory: The other name that’s always mentioned is [Tower Hamlets council children's services officer] Hira Islam.
Habibur Rahman: Hira? You see, I think someone is trying to push an agenda with you.
Ted Jeory: Well, that might well be the case, but that’s why I’m coming to you to talk to you about it.
Habibur Rahman: Hira Islam is part of IFE, of course he is, but he is also very involved with the Labour party. He’s a member of the Labour party, so he knows a lot of people and people say that because he is working with us, people probably think that he is trying to push an agenda on our behalf.

Thanks to the information revealed in that interview, Andrew Gilligan has now published the identities of two further IFE activists. The reason for going public with these names now and not at the time the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary was broadcast in March is because of “legal advice”, says Gilligan. Explaining why the unidentified IFE activist had to be referred in the transcript of this interview with Councillor Lutfur Rahman, and is alleged to have worked for the Councillor, as “Mr A”.

Today, however, we can reveal that “Mr A” is Hira Islam, a Tower Hamlets council officer, former trustee of the IFE-controlled East London Mosque, director of a number of IFE-linked companies and senior member of the IFE. Hira Islam’s was the name we put to Lutfur in the interview. His was the help and canvassing that Lutfur refused to deny receiving. Lutfur did deny, however, that Hira made any promises or threats to councillors on his behalf. Hira himself refused to comment, when approached.
We can give you Hira’s name thanks to Ted Jeory, the former deputy editor of the local paper, who has just posted on his excellent blog a transcript of a taped interview he did last year with the then president of the IFE, Mohammed Habibur Rahman. I’ve heard the tape myself, too. The IFE president states that “Hira Islam is part of IFE, of course he is… he is working with us.”

Another allegation, made by the local Labour MP, Jim Fitzpatrick, was that several Tower Hamlets councillors, as well as Lutfur Rahman, had connections to the IFE. We named one councillor at the time – Abjol Miah – as an IFE activist, because despite his denials we had substantial evidence for this. Last week, Miah lost a Press Complaints Commission complaint against us for describing him as an IFE activist.

Now, thanks to the same Mohammed Habibur Rahman interview, we can name another councillor who Mr Rahman states has “associations with” the IFE (though is “far too busy with his politics to do anything else.”) He is Alibor Choudhury, who under Lutfur Rahman’s leadership held the key job of cabinet member for employment and skills. Mr Choudhury is a former manager of another IFE-linked organisation, Nafas, which has received a great deal of money from Tower Hamlets council.

Bunglawala’s organ iEngage is not happy at all with this information being brought to the public domain. They refer to this Andrew Gilligan’s journalism, using characteristic Islamist hyperbole, as a “Crusade in Tower Hamlets”!

This time, his “expose” acts as a prompt to highlight the upcoming selection of Tower Hamlets’ first directly-elected Mayor. What use could his comments have except in attempting to, once again, undermine and de-legitimise the active participation of British Muslim citizens in the democratic process? In a time of heightened Islamophobia in the country, the comments of Mr. Gilligan can only serve prompt to the xenophobic elements of our society to continue their tirade against Muslims.

But the “crusade” schtik is ridiculous because as we know, the majority of Muslims in Tower Hamlets voted against Islamist politics (Respect) in the last election and most of them oppose the Islamist partisanry of the IFE outright. The IFE is and always has been as “mainstream” as the BNP.

The Daily Mail reports on ‘The moment an angry crowd protesting against Ground Zero mosque turns on man in a skullcap… because they think he is a Muslim’.

I hope Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller are suitably ashamed. The so-called ‘anti-jihad’ movement spearheaded by these two characters has spawned this kind of mindless bigotry and thuggery by continually blurring the line between ordinary Muslims and Islamists.

I am opposed to Islamism, and I am also opposed to Islam. However, I am not opposed to people having the right to practise Islam or any other religion. The hysteria against human beings who identify as Muslims increasingly seen at events organised by groups such as the worthless ‘Stop Islamization of America’ is an utter disgrace and undermines the principles that lie at the heart of the liberal, democratic West.

How can we argue against extremism, primitive modes of thought, and divisive religious ideologies when ordinary Muslims – or in this case people perceived to be Muslims – are faced with bigotry and hatred? A central problem with religion is the backward views that underly it. Yet these protesters, just like the EDL in Britain, are not defending rationalism, tolerance, and freedom from superstition. Instead, they are the very antithesis of it.

Who would I rather live around – people who believe in a made up God and pay lip service to scriptures brimming over with views which are contrary to reason and the modern world, but who are nonetheless peaceful – or people whose entire worldview is based on a caveman-like hatred of anyone different to them?

No contest.

Update – regarding Spencer and Geller:

Warning: Social cohesion it is not. But don’t worry, no ‘black Muslim Puerto Rican types’ were physically hurt in the making of this video.

This is a take of it from gawker.com :

Both supporters and opponents of the “Ground Zero” “Mosque”—a proposed community center—held rallies in lower Manhattan today. Can you guess which side started chanting “no mosque here” at a black guy wandering through the crowd?

While you spent your Sunday trying to teach your cat to go to the bathroom on a human toilet, a group of brave, freedom-loving Americans gathered in New York City to express their extreme disapproval with the Park 51 project, an al-Qaeda plot to build a community center featuring a swimming pool and auditorium on the very site where a Burlington Coat Factory once stood.

As you can see in the video above, at some point during the rally, a dark-skinned man wearing an Under Armor skullcap and what looks like a necklace with a Puerto Rican flag walked through the anti-”Mosque” crowd. The crowd, astutely recognizing that he was on his way to build the mosque, began to chant “NO MOSQUE HERE” at him. In the video, someone says, “run away, coward.” The man turns around, perturbed. “Y’all motherfuckers don’t know my opinion about shit,” he says. Au contraire, my friend: You are a black man wearing a skullcap, after all! You are definitely a pro-Mosque, anti-freedom Jihadist! Why, aren’t you, in fact… Osama Bin Laden??

No, actually, according to the guy who uploaded the video to YouTube, the skullcap-wearing gentleman’s name is Kenny and he’s “a Union carpenter who works at Ground Zero.” Kenny is also—as he points out several times in the video—not a Muslim. (No word on whether or not he voted for Obama, as one of the very reasonable and intelligent-sounding anti-”Mosque” protestors speculates.) But I’ll bet you Kenny has been totally convinced about the truth of the Burlington Coat Factory Desecration Community Center. Who wouldn’t be?

given that the board of deputies and, by the looks of it, the community as a whole, has withdrawn cooperation with the programme, as it was clearly interpreted as a hatchet job, the same way that “the root of all evil?” was – tendentiously edited and, wherever possible, using extreme examples as if they were the norm. of course whenever the jewish community was mentioned, it was invariably accompanied by a shot of someone strictly orthodox – small boys with giant peyot, or behatted, abundantly bearded, penguinish yeshiva bochurs staring through bottle-top glasses. as we all know, all jews look just like that.

the jewish community yesterday, apparently

a salient example was that of the british humanist society researcher pulling out the “shocking” example of the jewish school that does 8 hours of “religious education” a week compared to 6 hours of science. i wonder which school it was? they didn’t say if it was a mainstream united synagogue school or a strictly-orthodox school, of course.

what the anti-faith-schoolers don’t seem to get is that in this “8 hours of religious education”, they’re *not teaching theology* or “how to be unscientific” – they’re teaching practical skills of language, textual analysis and interpretation. in this sense, the correct analogy is not between a “faith school” and a “secular school”, but between a “specialist school” and a “generalist school” – i don’t see dawkins jumping all over sylvia young because her schools devote 10 hours+ a week to performing arts compared to 6 hours of national curriculum science. these kids need to PRACTICE – and so do religious kids, whether they’re learning Qu’ran or Torah or gita or granth. most religion – and this is an area where the preponderance of christianity in this country distorts the debate – requires considerable grasp of both practical techniques and core knowledge, in the same way that you’d expect a specialist technology college to spend extra time on programming languages to an level of detail not matchable by a specialist modern languages college.

anyway, stereotypes apart, like most of the jewish people (and christians and muslims) i know, religious or not, faithschoolers or not, i do struggle with whether we’re doing enough to encourage critical thinking. and i think it is worth mentioning that, in my opinion, in general, we’re not, which is part of the reason that the kiruv and dawah organisations which are, as far as i’m concerned, the vanguard of clerical fascism, are gaining ground. whether pro- or anti- people don’t know enough about religion to make informed choices and, as a result, many are either accepting it for badly-thought-through, poorly-rationalised reasons, or seeking to have it eliminated for equally misguided reasons. there isn’t a strong enough voice saying that you can be both traditionally religious and a clear, critical thinker, or that even though you don’t believe something yourself you still think it has a role to play. and, in point of fact, i don’t hand over the programming of my kids’ minds to their school, to teach them “the correct way” to think, that has to be my responsibility as a parent as well. part of the problem with the faith schools debate, it seems to me, is that focusing on theology and the problems with critical thinking misses why faith schools are really needed – it isn’t to teach them to “think correctly”, it is to teach them the skills to live in that particular community, which are time-consuming to learn, the same way as if you wanted to grow up to be an orchestra player, you’d need to go to music lessons and spend a lot of extra time practicing in order to be able to perform to the required standard. because christianity does not, generally, require these sorts of skills (say, for example, latin and greek, or scholastic argumentation) it is a lot harder to say how they clearly add value, other than that by all the motivated parents competing to get in increases the performance of the school – i think it might in fact be just another variety of the hawthorn effect.

getting back to the main point about the critical thinking deficit, however, i think a major part of critical thinking is the ability to debate with people of differing opinions. this, i feel, is typified by the current debate over free speech and offence. i analyse the issue and i see a continuum, starting with unintentional offence, going through intentional offence, through harassment to ultimately incitement to violence. it seems to me the debate is currently polarised between those who see all offence as tantamount to incitement to violence and those who see even incitement to violence as merely an expression of free speech. considering the vehemence with which my religion and ethnicity is attacked by the former and their apparent inability to comprehend the continuum connection, one might think that i would go to that opposite extreme – as indeed i have been accused of many times, when pointing out instances of jew-hatred and being told i was merely being hysterical. in fact, i am naturally far closer to faisal’s espousal of the “fry/hitchens standard”, if you like – “so you’re offended? so fecking what?”, as i believe in free speech. my difficulty is where the line should be drawn, which needs a far more nuanced perception than i can currently bring to the debate.

an excellent example of the challenges of critical thinking is currently being debated at harry’s place and elsewhere in this intellectual neighbourhood of the blogosphere between edmund standing and others:

“why would anyone want to take books that manifestly do make assertions about ultimate reality and give clear commands about how humans should behave, the punishments they should incur for thinking or behaving differently, and so on, and then delude themselves and others into thinking that actually those books don’t say what they clearly do say, or attempt to ‘reinterpret’ those books in a way obviously at variance with their intended meaning?”

in other words, if someone says “kill the bastards”, he means “kill the bastards”, not “engage them in debate” – and you should take that statement at face value. the trouble is, mr standing, that *isn’t the way we do it in judaism* (and, i would argue, not the way many people do it in islam) – we take challenging statements like that as a jumping off point, assuming that there is more to the basic statement than meets the eye. it is, for us, clearly established by the talmudic debate about the “oven of akhnai” (BT baba metzia 59b) that human interpretation has the power to overrule a “voice from the heavens”, but our *authority* to do this is derived from the Torah’s plain meaning: “it is not in heaven” (deuteronomy 30) – in other words, that it is for us to interpret how the Text should be interpreted, that’s how it’s designed in the first place, not as an instruction manual free from ambiguity. jewish texts are based on cardinal principles of interpretative methodology and it is understanding how these work that constitutes a large part of the training that jewish children undergo when they are understanding their texts. i would go so far as to say that you can see the difference between people with this training and people without it is abundantly evident from the attitudes of, say, your average bible-belt christian and those of your averagely educated student of jewish law – the latter would not consider carrying out a punishment from leviticus, or even suggesting that it should be carried out as stated in the plain text without the full range of checks, balances and protective safeguards detailed in hundreds of folio pages of Talmud, commentaries and halakhah, under the precise circumstances in which such conditions apply. yet what some people seem to object to is interpretations based on simplistic misunderstandings. the objection then is:

“We don’t look at the work of medieval cartographers and then try to ‘reinterpret’ their maps so they fit with modern understandings of geography.”

well, no, but this isn’t a physical phenomenon here, it’s a legal framework, so its application is always going to be a matter of interpretation. i really don’t see what’s so hard to understand about that – but nonetheless, i don’t see an authoritative argument being made in return for the benefit of those who might not understand why interpretation is important; G!D Forbid, someone might think that that’s what those texts actually mean, or that G!D actually Wants us to behave like bronze age maniacs, when nothing could be further from the truth.

r. jonathan sacks once said, in conversation with john humphrys i believe, that the Torah seeks to teach us to learn to think for ourselves; initially, like a parent, G!D Chastises us and then Picks us up – but there is an expectation that we learn, over time, to pick ourselves up and eventually, not to fall over in the first place. i would argue that developing critical thinking is a salient example of precisely that and that the Commandment to do so is itself a Divine Mandate – so objections such as this:

“In every other area of human thought and writing, we turn to the latest, most advanced ideas, not to the primitive ideas of men of the past.”

should be shown as the red herrings they are. of course, this objection is foreseen:

“There is absolutely no rational basis for ‘reinterpreting’ ancient texts to make them appear relevant to today, nor any objective criteria for how this should be carried out, or to what extent such texts should be ‘liberally’ reinterpreted.”

but why should such criteria be objective? do we demand objective criteria against which to measure the Torah? do we demand that the world be judged against the Torah’s criteria? no, we do not – by the Torah’s own command. nor do we always demand a “liberal” interpretation. the point is that the giants of Torah throughout history to the modern era have always provided for the best of modernity to be understood, whether as “the wisdom of the nations” or as “Torah and wisdom”, but this perspective is in danger from the tendency to look inwards, to assume we have all the answers, from fear and suspicion of the outside world. simply to assert that “it’s not a valid question”, or that “it comes from an impure source” is not going to cut it in the long-term, whether or not you’re able to control the sources of people’s knowledge; and, if this is what is sought, it is both immoral and contrary to the justice that the Torah commands us in the most emphatic terms to pursue.

we need to understand and respond to these questions and attacks as a bona fide challenge, as if they were asked in an open-minded way – because regardless of whether the people conducting the public polemic are open-minded or not, similar questions will always be asked from “inside the camp” – and not to be able to address them effectively will prove the case of the public polemicists.

A Bangladesh court has ruled that people cannot be forced to wear skull caps, veils or other religious clothing in workplaces, schools and colleges.

This ruling comes after reports emerged that a college in the north of Bangladesh forced women to wear veils.

The high court also ruled that women cannot be prevented from taking part in sports or cultural activities.

The court said that wearing any form of religious clothing, for students and employees, should be a personal choice.

It has also asked the authorities to explain why it should not be made illegal to prevent girls from taking part in sports and cultural activities.

In April this year, the court ordered schools and colleges not to force women to wear the burqa, a garment that covers the entire body except the eyes and hands.

Mahbub Shafique, one of the lawyers who filed the latest litigation, told the BBC how this ruling goes a step further.

“The difference between these two is that, this particular ruling today doesn’t apply only on females it also applies to males as well.

Barring the enforced veiling of women or the enforced wearing of skull caps is is a welcome legislation and acknowledgement of the fact that women and young men are forced to wear clothing and other outward symbols of religiosity.

According to the Daily Mail (ho, ho ho), only one in five of you believe David Kelly committed suicide.

According to an exclusive Mail opinion poll, only one in five people accepts the Hutton Inquiry’s finding that the government weapons inspector took his own life.

The survey also reveals that eight out of ten people want a full inquest. With senior MPs making the same demand, the Coalition is under strong pressure to act.

It comes as a medical report says it was ‘impossible’ that Dr Kelly bled to death in the way described by the inquiry.

The “impossible circumstances” of Kelly’s death are described by the pathologist who examined Kelly in today’s Sunday Times (paywall) as:

“an absolute classic case of self-inflicted injury. You could illustrate a textbook with it. If it were anyone else and you were to suggest there’s something foul about it, you would be referred for additional training.”

Details disclosed from the pathologist report include:

• Claims that there was little blood at the scene were inaccurate. Hunt found “big clots” on the inside of Kelly’s Barbour jacket and soaked into the ground.
• Kelly had about a dozen cuts on his left wrist of varying sizes, including “hesitation” cuts — shallow cuts that he made as he tried to summon the resolve to kill himself.
• Two of Kelly’s main coronary arteries were 70%-80% narrower than normal. His heart disease was so severe that he could have “dropped dead” at any moment.
• A millimetre by millimetre examination of his body and DNA testing found no evidence of the involvement of a third party.
• Kelly’s death was caused by bleeding from the cuts to his wrist, severe heart disease and an overdose of painkillers.

Andrew Gilligan also discounts the theories of murder:

Though I’d initially doubted the suicide verdict, that was before I knew quite how badly David had been treated. After learning what he went through at the hands of his employers, it is easier to understand the road that led him to that Oxfordshire hillside.David was placed under great pressure by senior government figures. He was intensively interviewed, forced into televised interrogation, coached in what to say, and then found himself caught in an untruth amid the blaze of publicity – an untruth which, on the morning of his death, his bosses told him they would investigate.

David defined himself by his work, and his reputation for integrity. The fear of losing that work, and that reputation, must have been terrifying to him, even if it was unfounded. Nor had I known (why should I?) of his relationship with his wife – who, we discovered, was not even told he had taken up the Baha’i faith until nearly two years afterwards. All this points to suicide – with only one faint alternative possibility. Not murder, just perhaps a kind of misadventure – a “cry for help” that went wrong.

In today’s Independent, Tom Mangold agrees with Andrew Gilligan, although he makes a point Gilligan omits:

Kelly lied because he had been warned by his MoD bosses that if any other skeletons fell out of the cupboard involving him and unauthorised press briefings, his future would be in doubt. But he had already been betrayed: what the arms inspector never knew was that Andrew Gilligan, in a breach of journalistic ethics, had previously emailed Chidgey, suggesting that Kelly had indeed been the author of those words and the source for Watts’s broadcast. Worse still, Kelly did not know when he gave evidence that Watts had, quite properly, recorded the interview with him for the purpose of record only. She had not warned Kelly.

But how did Gilligan know Kelly was the source? Watts didn’t tell him. He says it was a lucky shot in the dark. But there is an alternative theory. Watts revealed Kelly’s name only to her editor, George Entwistle. It is likely that Kelly’s name reached top BBC bosses who needed to prove Kelly had briefed not only Gilligan but several BBC reporters. In turn, Gilligan, I believe, learned Kelly had been Watts’s source. With this, Gilligan had the ammunition he needed to arm David Chidgey at the hearing.

Kelly was hung out to dry by journalists.

The only conspiracy is the Daily Mail’s campaign. As it has bounced and rolled away from the hills of reality into the forest of wingnuttery, it has accreted additional self-defined experts and a large proportion of the UK population.

(P.S. I recently read David Aaronovitch’s entertaining Voodoo Histories, which debunked the Kelly conspiracy. Much recommended.)

UPDATE: Nick Cohen also weighs in on the BBC’s betrayal of Kelly.

Susan Watts, an honourable reporter on Newsnight, told her editor that she had a tape of Kelly making some of the same criticisms Gilligan said he had made to him. She quickly became so worried about what her superiors were planning to do with her confidence she hired lawyers to protect herself and Kelly from“considerable internal pressure to reveal her source”.

I have been content to have left the party on my own terms and in my own way after researching Islamic political thought for myself. Until now, I have never sought to comment on that further but the ongoing mosque controversy in New York – fuelled by some of the very worst elements of the American Right – and, this silly post by Edmund Standing on Harry’s Place (from which he nominally retired as a blogger at one point) has forced me to review that.

Yesterday, Gene highlighted an incident where Imam Rauf was speaking at a memorial service for Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was brutally murdered by terrorists in Karachi. Pearl’s fate has been weighing on my mind quite a lot as I recently travelled to Pakistan for this magazine and interviewed Taliban fighters in Karachi. It was a hair-raising experience, made worse by their repeated and gloating references to Daniel Pearl. At one point, I was told by my Taliban handler, we were passing ‘nearby’ to where he had been killed. “Do you want to see where?” I was asked.

So I was delighted when I heard about Rauf’s statement at the memorial service. Geoffrey Goldberg writes:

In 2003, Imam Rauf was invited to speak at a memorial service for Daniel Pearl, the journalist murdered by Islamist terrorists in Pakistan. The service was held at B’nai Jeshurun, a prominent synagogue in Manhattan, and in the audience was Judea Pearl, Daniel Pearl’s father. In his remarks, Rauf identified absolutely with Pearl, and identified himself absolutely with the ethical tradition of Judaism. “I am a Jew,” he said.

There are those who would argue that these represent mere words, chosen carefully to appease a potentially suspicious audience. I would argue something different: That any Muslim imam who stands before a Jewish congregation and says, “I am a Jew,” is placing his life in danger. Remember, Islamists hate the people they consider apostates even more than they hate Christians and Jews. In other words, the man many commentators on the right assert is a terrorist-sympathizer placed himself in mortal peril in order to identify himself with Christians and Jews, and specifically with the most famous Jewish victim of Islamism. You can read the full text of his remarks on the B’nai Jeshurun website, but here is an especially relevant portion:

We are here to assert the Islamic conviction of the moral equivalency of our Abrahamic faiths. If to be a Jew means to say with all one’s heart, mind and soul Shma` Yisrael, Adonai Elohenu Adonai Ahad; hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One, not only today I am a Jew, I have always been one, Mr. Pearl.

If to be a Christian is to love the Lord our God with all of my heart, mind and soul, and to love for my fellow human being what I love for myself, then not only am I a Christian, but I have always been one, Mr. Pearl.

And I am here to inform you, with the full authority of the Quranic texts and the practice of the Prophet Muhammad, that to say La ilaha illallah Muhammadun rasulullah is no different.

It expresses the same theological and ethical principles and values.

Today, Standing has been busy parsing those prose. He tells us:

The most pertinent question to look at is how ‘the full authority of the Quranic texts and the practice of the Prophet Muhammad’ relates to Rauf’s claim that, as a Muslim, he is also a Jew and a Christian.

[...]

However, the question is: will they be saved as Jews and Christians, or only if they go on to become Muslims? In other words, does the Qur’an, as Rauf seems to suggest, view Jews, Christians, and Muslims as being on an equal footing?

The reality is, not at all…While Rauf appears to be saying it doesn’t matter which faith you follow, that is very unlikely to be the case.

Standing goes on:

Rauf reduces what it means to be a Jew or a Christian to an Islamically acceptable understanding (‘If to be a Jew…’, ‘If to be a Christian…’). In other words, he takes two ideas – belief in one God and loving one’s fellow human being – and defines this as Judaism and Christianity.

[...]

When Rauf appears to consider Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as one and the same, and proclaims himself a ‘Jew’ and a ‘Christian’, … the type of Jew or Christian he actually envisages [is] – a type of ‘Jew’ or ‘Christian’ who is actually a Muslim – given his view is based on ‘the full authority of the Quranic texts’.

Standing is, I am afraid, falling into to the woefully narrow (and wrong) view here of seeing Islam as a monolithic entity with only one ‘correct’ view. My dear friend Faisal from the Spittoon says it all in the comments to Standing’s piece:

I find this article a mean-spirited attempt at de-contextualisation of theology to villify Feisal Rauf.

Imam Rauf made these comments in a speech made at the memorial service for Daniel Pearl, who was slaughtered in Pakistan by the British Islamist, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and cohorts in Al-Qaeda.

If a situation like that does not impel a cleric to reach out and make conciliatory comments and religious platitudes, I don’t know what does.

What next? Digging out a speech Rauf made at an Easter Celebration and insinuating that he is a liar because Islam does not believe that Christ was resurrected?

One of the most depressing aspects of this debate has been to show that there are people out there who will damn Muslims if they are perceived to be isolationists and in the ghetto, and damned if they attempt to reach out.

I don’t know Imam Rauf. I’ve never met him. But his position when he says, “I am a Jew” or “I am a Christian” sits perfectly well with me. Indeed, it reaffirms the very view of Islam that I came to adopt somewhere on the top floor of Cambridge University Library before I promptly resigned my membership of Hizb ut Tahrir. And that view is this.

I had been reading the work of Abul Kalam Azad (11 November 1888 – 22 February 1958) an Indian Muslim scholar and sometime politician in the Indian Freedom Movement. In the 1920s he wrote his seminal text, Tarjuman al-Quran, which, although ostensibly a commentary on the Qu’ran, indirectly explained his commitment to the Indian National Congress and its secular nationalism.

To cut down a long and verbose investigation on Islamic theology, Azad essentially took the concept of tauhid – the oneness of God – and interpreted it through the prism of a Sufi concept known as Wahdat al-Wajood. Azad argued that the basis of devotion to God should be rational belief and that man should strive to embody as many divine attributes as possible within himself, such as humility and righteousness. This is clearly expressed in the Qu’ran’s opening chapter al-Fatiha, he argued, which states:

Praise is for Allah only – the Lord of all being; the benevolent, the Merciful; Master of the day of judgement

It epitomises the three central attributes of God – tauhid, mercy and justice. From this, continuing his exposition of al-Fatiha, Azad argued that its concept of monotheism is, in fact, a pantheistic one. He supported this by highlighting the Qu’ran’s recognition of all previous prophets and the requirement on Muslims to accept them and their messages as being authentic. Indeed, some juristic schools within Islam accept what they call, “the law of previous prophets” (Shara man qablana).

This was only possible, Azad reasoned, because all religions preach the same essential message of tauhid, stressing universal values of righteousness, piety and humility. All monotheistic faiths are consequently legitimate paths to God having originally been conceived by him, prompting Azad to declare:

the Qu’ran has come only to confirm the previous revealed scriptures and not to deny them.

Therefore, while Azad would, of course, have regarded Islam as the best way to realise God – it was by no means the only way. Indeed, Azad held that against the backdrop of rising communal violence in India, Muslims should not seek new converts to the faith but should instead urge lapsed followers of other religions to rediscover their faith. In short, that would mean advising a non-observant Jew about the virtues of observing the Sabbath or advising Christians about the benefits of going to Church – rather than telling them to become Muslim.

I see no problem with any of this.

It was – and remains – a profound principle challenging the exclusionary beliefs held by some Muslim scholars about the supremacy of Islam and their binary division of the world into believers and non-believers.

Azad went further. Arguing that no one was immune to redemption, he suggested that the exclusionary practices of Muslims which failed to accommodate diversity demonstrated their failure to appreciate the lessons from the Quran’s opening chapter. Failing to make common cause with wider society through emphasising points of similarity violated God’s unity, he argued:

The unity of man is the primary aim of religion.

And Azad did not just stop with those who might be referred to as obvious ‘people of the book’. He also argued that Hindus were ‘people of the book’ too.

The history of the Hindu concept of God is a panoramic view of conflicting ideologies. On the one hand there is the philosophy of the unity of God, and on the other there is the religion as it is practiced [today].

After all, some aspects of Hindu theology, particularly those which stress the trimurti (Hindu trinity) are monotheistic in their basic composition. Followers of the trimurti itself subscribe to a central belief about the unity of God represented through three of his attributes – Brahma, the creator; Vishnu, the sustainer; and Shiva, the destroyer. While these deities are often represented independently through artistic depiction, examining the theoretical basis of trimurti reveals that it is not dissimilar to the Christian concept of the trinity, particularly Sabellianism, which maintains the belief that the three agents of the trinity represent different modes of the same person, rather than three wholly different people.

The idea of conceiving God through his attributes is not an alien concept within Islam either. The name ‘Allah’ represents a composite mix of his ninety-nine attributes by which he can also be known. Therefore, just as Smartha Hindus believe God to embody the attributes of creation, sustenance and destruction, these are characteristics similarly attributed to Allah, by which he can also be invoked rather than using the central name: Allah. Muslims therefore also regard Allah as the creator, Al-Khaliq; the sustainer, Al-Qayyum; and the one who takes life (i.e. the soul), Al-Mumit.

The Qu’ran also makes it clear that Muslims can invoke God by calling on those attributes, telling its readers,

Call upon Allah, or call upon ar-Rahman: by whatever name you call upon Him, (it is well): for to Him belong the Most Beautiful Names.

By reassessing the theological relationship between Hinduism and Islam in this way Azad hoped to deconstruct the tensions which kept Hindus and Muslims apart. From establishing this principle it followed that all religions can be the same in spirit because the religion of God is one, if religiosity is defined as devotion to God, however conceived. This also circumvents questions about the validity of differing religious codes by suggesting their differences reflect the diversity of human civilisation, but that their essential spirit remains the same and universal.

Azad’s acceptance of multiple paths to God makes it entirely unholy to forge division based on religion alone. Religion, viewed this way, is a constructive social element which can be used to transcended racial and communal difference by employing universal values. Azad told his readers:

If an idolater honours and worships God in his own way, he should not be shown any disrespect, because the honour and worship of God is, in any event, still the honour and worship of God.

Indian Muslims were therefore urged to see themselves as part of a wider, indivisible Indian society and not distinguish themselves by virtue of religion alone. For these reasons, Azad bitterly opposed the division of India and the creation of Pakistan.

This is where Standing gets it so wrong. Simply telling Muslims their religion is rubbish at every opportunity will get you nowhere. What Azad’s scholarship offers is the most compelling case for a progressive, liberal, and secular Islam at peace with itself and the wider world. Popularising those beliefs from within – and with reliance on – an Islamic tradition gives ordinary Muslims the best chance to decisively and fatally undermine the millenarian mania of their co-religionists.

How could any sincere and thoughtful contributor to this debate want anything else?

Postscript: I should add that the ideas discussed here are much more meaty and substantive than what I have offered up. Friends who are more qualified and understanding than myself will expand on these concepts and ideas for those that want to pursue the debate in all its theological nuance. As I’ve said before, theology really is not my game.

Alex Massie’s comment on the “Ground Zero Mosque” is spot on:

One of the recurring arguments against the plan is that, however well-intentioned its backers may be, it represents an unfortunate and unnecessary “provocation”. Even if those involved mean no harm and don’t mean to “provoke” they should have been wise enough to appreciate that their proposal was bound to provoke a hostile reaction. Which means they should think again.

That’s certainly an argument; I just don’t think it’s a very good one. It is a familiar one, however. Cast your mind back 20 years and remember the rumpus that erupted when Salman Rushdie had the temerity, the gall, the bare-arsed effrontery to publish The Satanic Verses. There were those – including plenty of so-called liberals – who effectively sided with the book-burners and maniacs who protested against Rushdie (and the Penguin group) calling for the book to be banned.

Rushdie, you see, should have appreciated that publishing was bound toprovoke people and, this being so, he should have been wise enough to pulp his novel. Yes, yes, of course we all believe in the right to freedom of expression but, in this instance, is it really sensible to insist upon it in such a provocative fashion? If there’s a backlash, well, poor Rushdie has brought it upon himself hasn’t he? He should have known better.

It was, as Christopher Hitchens has often argued a telling and not-so small moment that showed how willing many soi-disant liberals were to abandon liberalism as soon as that liberalism was tested. Liberty must be trimmed or even abandoned for fear its expression might upset someone else. The “right” not to be offended trumped all other more ancient and worthwhile rights.

But no-one has the right not to be offended and to try and insist upon such a right is a) absurd b) wrong and c) deeply inimical to the values of the kind of society we like to think we may, in our better moments anyway, be.

As with the Rushdie case, so with this “Ground Zero Mosque”. You can be as offended by it as you want to be but the mere fact that you may be offended does not trump other, more vital, considerations and nor does it give you any kind of moral, let alone substantive, veto over proceedings. Your outrage is not persuasive and nor does it shift the fundamental aspects of the matter.

Which is why the sub-Augustinian stuff we’ve been hearing lately is so depressing. Grant me religious tolerance lord – and a respect for the Constitution! – but not here and not yet, not now! That, you must understand, would be too hard.

To oppose the building of GZM on the grounds that it is “offensive” or a “provocation” or “controversial” is puerile and reactionary. The depressing fact is not so much that plans for a religious edifice near the site of “Ground Zero” could be shafted lest it offend anyone, it is rather that there is a large contingent of Americans today for whom building a mosque almost anywhere in the USA is an affront.

It is not “anti-American” to make this observation, nor does a mosque have to be in the vicinity of the World Trade Centre in south Manhattan to be considered an offensive “provocation”.

Take a look at the anti-mosque antics in Sheboygan Wisconsin, where:

a few Christian ministers led a noisy fight against a Muslim group that sought permission to open a mosque in a former health food store bought by a Muslim doctor.

At one time, neighbors who did not want mosques in their back yards said their concerns were over traffic, parking and noise – the same reasons they might object to a church or a synagogue. But now the gloves are off.

In all of the recent conflicts, opponents have said their problem is Islam itself. They quote passages from the Quran and argue that even the most Americanized Muslim secretly wants to replace the Constitution with Islamic Shariah law.

Not every opponent of the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” is an anti-Muslim bigot with arguments rooted in prejudice. But if I were opposed to the GZM, I would be very keen to distinguish my set of reasons for opposing it from those by reactionary demagogues like Bill O’Reilly or Raheel Raza or even from a bunch of redneck farmers from Sheboygan, WI. Because at the moment, they are hardly indistinguishable at all.

If the reasons for opposing the mosque come down to not much more than being “offended”, then the response proffered by Stephen Fry in a conversation with Christopher Hitchens is without peer.

“So, you’re offended? So fucking what?”

Update: Good post from Gene at HP

That’s what happened at the Finsbury Park Mosque, last month. The perpetrators of this criminal and disgusting act have yet to be caught. However, the mosque has a very good idea of who is to blame. Not neo Nazis: but rather their former trustee, the Labour MP Khalid Mahmood: abetted by Hansard, James Forsyth of the Spectator, and me.

That conclusion may surprise you. It certainly surprised me. However, as Andrew Gilligan points out, this does appear to be their explanation.

The slur against the MP is repeated in the Islington Gazette:

The current trustees, who took over in 2005, believe the pig’s head incident happened because Birmingham MP Khalid Mahmood, himself a former trustee, recently cast fresh aspersions on the mosque.

What are these aspersions? They relate to the suggestion that the Finsbury Park mosque may have hosted – one assumes, by video link or video – a talk by the Al Qaeda recruiter, Awlaki, which Abdulmutallab the Undiebomber may have attended. I don’t know how likely that is. My guess is: vaguely possible.

I say that only because one of the trustees of the mosque is Mohammed Sawalha, who the BBC Panorama identified as a fugitive Hamas commander, who is identified on the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islam-Online website as the Manager of the Political Committee of the Muslim Brotherhood in Britain and who has spent the last year or so as a prominent activist in the Gaza “aid” campaign. I am pretty sure that Sawlaha was formerly the President of the Muslim Association of Britain. The Muslim Association of Britain hosted Awlaki in December 2003, on what Alex Hitchens describes as “a remarkable “grand tour,” which saw Awlaki championed by the MAB over the length of the British Isles, from London to Aberdeen”.

So, was Khalid Mahmood’s question about a possibly Awlaki-Abdulmutallab link the cause of the racist attack on Finsbury Park Mosque? Hugely unlikely, for the reasons Andrew Gilligan set out below:

Something about that rang alarm bells with me. It turns out that the blog was only published by the Spectator at 8.49pm on the night of the 19th. Do racists of the kind who would carry out such an attack obsessively read the Spectator blog? Could they have been so outraged by this relatively obscure and moderately-worded post that they immediately decided to rush out and attack the mosque? And how did they managed to get hold of a pig’s head in a few hours at 9pm?

Let us be charitable and assume that Finsbury Park mosque is innocently conflating and reversing the events of those two days. Because it would be very cynical indeed, were it the case that they were using a racist attack on a place of worship, to engage in a vendetta against their former co-trustee.

Which brings me to Andy Hull. Andy is policy wonk at the IPPR, who is quite keen on the “Moderate Muslim Brotherhood” thesis: the notion that we need to ally with “non violent” Islamists to defeat Al Qaeda. He is also a Labour councillor in Islington. Perhaps he hopes to be a Member of Parliament. He might well be, one day.

As a councillor, Andy quite rightly wrote to the Islington Gazette, to express his horror at the racist attack on the mosque. This is what he said:

HALF a decade on since the days of Abu Hamza, a lot has changed in Finsbury Park. North London Central Mosque is now a beacon in the north Islington community. The management and congregation are doing sterling work in the area, not just for local Muslims but with their non-Muslim neighbours too. What was once a place of hatred and division is now one of pride and progress.

The cowards and criminals who stuck a pig’s head on the mosque’s railings in the dead of night last week should be ashamed of themselves. There is no place for such bigotry and sacrilege in our ward, which is home to people of every culture and creed, and is brighter and better for it. – Councillor Andy Hull, Labour Party member for Highbury West, Islington Town Hall, Upper Street, N1.

The parts of the letter that I have not highlighted are excellent.

Those that are in bold, contain the example on which the Moderate Muslim Brotherhood argument rests: the replacement of the Al Qaedaist, Abu Hamza, with the “non violent” Islamist trustees. Recall, incidentally, that “non violent” means “supporting the targeting of civilians, but only outside the United Kingdom”. Consider the sum of the various scandals alleged by Khalid Mahmood, and the politics of Mohammed Sawalha.

Remember, also, that even if Awlaki was not broadcast at the Finsbury Park Mosque in 2007, it does appear that in 2003, the Muslim Association of Britain was promoting Awlaki’s tour around Britain. Two years later, trustees who included activists with the Muslim Association of Britain were ‘gifted‘ the mosque, in furtherance of the Moderate Muslim Brotherhood thesis. These are the men who are supposed to protect us from Al Qaeda!

Knowing all that, ask yourself whether Andy Hull was right to describe Finsbury Park Mosque as a beacon of “pride and progress”.

Mr Miah, Respect’s leader on Tower Hamlets council, is no longer a councillor, and his party was all but wiped out, after he was exposed as an IFE activist by the Telegraph and Channel 4’s Dispatches. We also played the viewers a secretly-recorded tape of Mr Galloway, you might remember, saying that his election to Parliament in 2005 owed “more than I can say, more than it would be wise for me to say, to the IFE.”

Mr Miah complained about an article headlined “Is Respect the stupidest party in Britain?” He claimed that we had said that he was a member of the IFE, something he denied. Not so; we said he was an activist – as we have said many times before – and we produced what the PCC called “a substantial amount of on-the-record corroborative evidence” to prove it. Such as, for instance:

• the fact that he was one of only four main presenters on the IFE’s radio station;
• that he was described as a “member of the IFE” by John Rees, the former secretary-general of Respect;
• that he was a former office-holder or senior figure in three IFE-linked organisations, the Young Muslim Organisation (the IFE’s youth wing), Blyda, and Elite Youth.

The PCC ruled: “The Commission did not consider that the complainant [Mr Miah] had been able to establish that the article had been significantly misleading or inaccurate on this point such that it warranted correction or clarification under the Editors’ Code.”

Why is Abjol Miah so determined to distance himself from the IFE? Anyone would think that association with this fundamentalist Islamic pressure group might harm a person’s political ambitions.

If that is the case, why are Abjol Miah’s political allies in the Respect Party out to wreck his political career by writing this about him:

Abjol divides his precious spare time between relaxing with his family, fishing and cycling and presenting a regular slot on the locally acclaimed radio show Easy Talk.

Mr Miah might want to communicate with his Respect Party partners to let them know that you are not an IFE activist if you present a “regular slot” on the IFE radio show, Easy Talk. Even if the PCC refuses to believe it.

The recent deluge of sensitive information by Wikileaks on the US in AfPak has made me really mad. I don’t care about the breach of security, although, the naming of Afghan informants was highly cavalier and Julian Assange should have blanked out assets names. Intelligence and the suppression of strategic information should become more open in some respects, but what Wikileaks have done is just simply reckless. The Afghan people have been risking their lives to give us information and intelligence which they hoped would help defeat the Taliban and its allies. But, what really annoys me the most is the fact that Pakistan has been complicit in sponsoring militants and playing us for fools, or have they? That position is certainly conventional wisdom at the moment, but is it strictly accurate?

While trying to dissect our recent strategic failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, we should reflect, that this new information- the regrouping of the Taliban and the continued sponsorship by Pakistan’s ISI was known by the Prime Ministers, Presidents, diplomats and politicians, but has been hushed up since the initial invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The Taliban were making progress in Quetta, Pakistan in 2003 just as British troops were heading off to Basra. I know what the Taliban were getting up to- receiving help from the ISI and Pakistan’s religious parties. I didn’t need Julian Assange and Wikileaks; I simply picked up a Pakistani newspaper and read about it. OK, so I guessed the ISI involvement, but normally the ISI and the religious parties are joint at the hip. That’s another fact, which has been muzzled by the US and British press. The religious parties help breed jihadi culture, the army and ISI help polish their best recruits and send them on their way- Kashmir, Tajikistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, Indonesia, Xinjiang, Kargil, London, Mumbai, New York…

Our political leaders and diplomats muzzled their military leaders and intelligence specialists. Tony Blair and Bush knew about what was happening in Pakistan, yet decided to exasperate the situation by invading a Muslim country in a different geographical region under false pretences. The Iraq inquiry needs to address this or it will fail to teach our future leaders anything.

We need the press to help to break the chains of their governments; they need to delve into investigating militancy like Daniel Pearl tried to. You, the media, are our only hope especially with our intelligence services steeped in a history of supporting Islamist militants. They have put more effort into covering their tracks than destroying their former allies. I’ve never met a former intelligence officer that was posted in Pakistan in the 1980s who didn’t say that Jamaat were anything but democratic, these guys should know they helped Jamaat create jihad and militancy in Pakistan. They feign shock when confronted with it “have you got evidence we actually funded Bin Laden”, and I’ve replied “ well no, not on me, but if you pop into your local Waterstones or Borders you will be able to buy a few books; authors from the left and the right- oh and French, which will hopefully refresh your memories…”

We also have political elite which hasn’t bothered to learn about the radical Islamist phenomenon. I remember listening to a tale of how senior US politicians while being briefed by the US’s most seasoned counter-terrorism experts were asked by Jeff Stein, a renowned reporter whether Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were either Sunnis or Shias- they all managed to guess wrong. I mean, c’mon! The only people who seem to know anything about Islamists are the neocons and that’s only because they once cheered them on. The neocon Achilles heal is that they don’t do anything but the Mid East. If it’s not a problem which affects Israel directly you might as well be whistling in the wind. They’ve even tried to link AfPak to Iran in recent months. It’s so bad in an academic sense, but if US politicians who sit on Intelligence Committees don’t know their Sunnis from their Shias you could have a field day to be honest. Good luck to the neocons.

David Cameron may have been cavalier in his recent comments on Pakistan’s continuing support for Islamist militancy, but at least he didn’t invade another Muslim country knowing you were allowing the culprits of 9/11 to retrain, re-arm and regroup whilst also reducing your military personnel to a literal skeleton crew. Tony Blair and Bush muzzled their Generals so they couldn’t put daylight on the problem. A seasoned journalist or a crusading politician could have raised the problem and dragged it before an influential foreign affairs committee. It may have helped turn the tide. Maybe it is too late. That was a strategic mistake; that was cavalier…