A long read but an important one. Many people want to believe that somewhere there really are a few muslim moderates. Muslims who want to live and let live, without conflict and in peace and acceptance of others. The problem with that pie in the sky mentality is bigger than the lack of any supporting evidence such a muslim was ever born. The real problem with islam is bigger than the violence it encourages. Other less obvious problems are the subjugation of women, children, hatred of non-muslims and the blatant disregard for individual rights and freedoms. I am still waiting for the mythological muslim moderate to appear and name those inside their mosque preaching or participating in muslim extremism.
I am going to have to wait for a long, long, long time.
Sara Hassan, 31 Aug, 2008, The Telegraph
Britain’s leading Muslim bodies say they are fighting extremism. In one of our most respected mosques, Sara Hassan came face to face with hardline female preachers of separatism. Here, she reports on the shocking results of her investigation.
-Sara (not her real name) is risking it all to save what is left of Britain. Although she is attempting to show a difference between moderates and non-moderate muslims, she fails to do so.
In a large balcony above the beautiful main hall at Regent’s Park Mosque in London – widely considered the most important mosque in Britain – I am filming undercover as the woman preacher gives her talk.
What should be done to a Muslim who converts to another faith? “We kill him,” she says, “kill him, kill, kill…You have to kill him, you understand?”
Adulterers, she says, are to be stoned to death – and as for homosexuals, and women who “make themselves like a man, a woman like a man … the punishment is kill, kill them, throw them from the highest place”.
These punishments, the preacher says, are to be implemented in a future Islamic state. “This is not to tell you to start killing people,” she continues. “There must be a Muslim leader, when the Muslim army becomes stronger, when Islam has grown enough.”
A young female student from the group interrupts her: the punishment should also be to stone the homosexuals to death, once they have been thrown from a high place.
These are teachings I never expected to hear inside Regent’s Park Mosque, which is supposedly committed to interfaith dialogue and moderation, and was set up more than 60 years ago, to represent British Muslims to the Government. And many of those listening were teenage British girls or, even more disturbingly, young children.
-She never expected to hear it, I on the other hand would have been shocked to hear anything else.
My investigation for Channel 4’s Dispatches came after last year’s Undercover Mosque, which investigated claims that teachings of intolerance and fundamentalism were spreading through Britain’s mosques from the Saudi Arabian religious establishment – which is closely linked to the Saudi Arabian government.
In response, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia denied it was spreading intolerance, while Regent’s Park Mosque, which featured in the film, urged all mosques to be “vigilant” and monitor what was taught on their premises.
So earlier this year, dressed in a full Islamic jilbaab, I went back to Regent’s Park Mosque to see what was being taught there. As a woman, I had to go to the main female section, where I found this circle preaching every Saturday and Sunday, eight hours at a time, to any woman who has come to pray.
The mosque is meant to promote moderation and integration. But although the circle does preach against terrorism and does not incite Muslims to break British laws, it teaches Muslims to “keep away” and segregate themselves from disbelievers: “Islam is keeping away from disbelief and from the disbelievers, the people who disbelieve.”
Friendship with non-Muslims is discouraged because “loyalty is only to the Muslim, not to the kaffir [disbeliever]”. (more…)
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