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April 20, 2006

UK: Islamic College Teaches That Non-Muslims Are "Filth"

A report from today's Times illuminates a dark corner of Britain's education system, namely the Hawza Ilmiyya of London. This college advertises itself on its website as:

Hawza Ilmiyya is a centuries old institution famous for the dispensation of religious education. Throughout the Islamic period, the institution has produced thousands of luminaries: religious scholars, philosophers and social scientists. All the way through the heritage of Hawza, students have been studying in the traditional method of learning. At present Hawza Ilmiyya is enhancing and extending the fruitful history of Hawza by responding to the needs of the society by launching a new intertwined system; this new system answers the call of academe for the need of Islamic Scholars in various fields: politics, economics, media studies, law and Islamic banking and simultaneously provides the traditional approach for religious education.

The name hawza is a term meaning a school, but in Shia terminology it means an Islamic academy. But Shia theology, as we have witnessed since the 1979 Iran revolution, is particularly strict, and in the theologies espoused by Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi it is apocalyptic and opposed to Western values.

The Hawza Ilmiyya of London states on its website: " Studying at Hawza is an exhilarating spiritual experience." The article at the Times suggests that those who would be exhilarated by its fare would be those of a fanatical or hateful disposition, for students are being taught fundamentalist doctrines, which allude to non-Muslims as "filth".

The Hawza Ilmiyya of London has a sister college, the ICAS (Islamic College of Advanced Studies) which is validated by my former alma mater, Middlesex University. Middlesex University claims it has examined the curriculum on offer at ICAS, where students can gain a BA degree. However, it denies involvement with the courses on offer at the Hawza Ilmiyya.

A spokesman for the university said: "...Middlesex ensures that the academic standards of this particular programme are appropriate, the curriculum delivers to the required standards, learning and teaching methods allow achievement of standards."

ICAS and the Hawza Ilmiyya share the same premises, a former Church of England primary school in Willesden, northwest London, and many of the staff teach at both institutions.

The Hawza Islamiyyah contains as an integral part of its curriculum, in the Introduction to Islamic Law class, a document written by Muhaqqia al-Hilli in the 13th century. In one of its chapters, this text lays down the terms under which Muslims should fight against Jews and Christians.

Mohammed Saeed Bahmanpour, one of the tutors from the Hawza Ilmiyya of London, said the al-Hilli text featured in couresork, but was treated as "doctrine", nor were its statements treated as "law". He said that he did not discuss the chapter in the book which described non-Muslims as filth.

These are segments from that chapter:

The water left over in the container after any type of animal has drunk from it is considered clean and pure apart from the left over of a dog, a pig, and a disbeliever.

There are ten types of filth and impurities: urine, faeces, semen, carrion, blood of carrion, dogs, pigs, disbelievers.

When a dog, a pig, or a disbeliever touches or comes in contact with the clothes or body [of a Muslim] while he [the disbeliever] is wet, it becomes obligatory- compulsory upon him [the Muslim] to wash and clean that part which came in contact with the disbeliever.

The Times reports that soome students at the college are alarmed by what they find in the college's library, saying some of these are "disturbing" and "very worrying".

The ICAS and Hawza Ilmiyya of London are funded by one body, the Irshad Trust. One of the Irshad's trustees is Abdolhossain Moezi, an Iranian cleric who acts as a spokesperson for Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader in Iran's theocratic regime.

Moezi also directs the Islamic Centre of England (ICEL), a mosque and community centre in Maida Vale, West London, which is registered as a charity. In its charity registration, it states that: "At all times at least one of the trustees shall be a representative of the Supreme Spiritual Leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran."

Both the mosque and the Irshad Trust received substantial donations in 1996-1997, when they were first established. ICEL received 1.2 million pounds, and the Irshad Trust received 1.367 million. Each year since, ICEL has received a million a year.

The courses at Hawza Ilmiyya are eight years' in length. For the last three years of courses, students travel to Iran, where they attend colleges in the Iranian holy city of Qom.

The current situation of Iran funding Islamic Jihad, radicals who are engaged in a current campaign of suicide attacks against Israel, makes one asks questions about the place of such an organisation in Britain.

Yesterday, the Guardian reported that the Iranian regime also funds a group calling itself The Committee for the Commemoration of Martyrs of the Global Islamic Campaign.

This group announced on Tuesday that it was actively seeking recruits from Britain to act as potential suicide bombers against Israel.

While the current situation in Iran is heating up, there is no national need for Britain to have such an establishment in its midst.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at April 20, 2006 8:25 AM

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