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December 31, 2006
UK: TV Message Muslim From Fanatical Sect
Britain's Channel 4 TV planned to have a veiled Muslim woman present an "alternative" Christmas message. Khadija Ravat was chosen to speak about the joys and tribulations of Muslim life in Britain. Ms Ravat is a teaching assistant at al-Aqsa Primary School in Leicester, headed by Ibrahim Hewitt, who is chairman of the so-called "charity" Interpal, which is designated by the US Treasury as a terrorist entity. Ten days before Christmas, Khadija decided to pull out of the agreement to appear. Sources at Channel 4 suggested that her own religious community pressured her not to appear.
However, Channel 4 were determined to have a Muslim in a face-veil appear, if that is the right word. So on Christmas Day, while the Queen appeared in a lime green coat and extolled the supposed virtues of multiculturalism, a black-shrouded female appeared on Channel 4. The woman behind the veil also claimed to be called Khadija.
The Mail provides some details about Khadija II. I was hypnotized by the Queen's lime-green outfit and did not switch over to hear Khadija's message, where she criticized comments made by Jack Straw on October 5 about veils. Khadija II spoke of how they "liberated" women. Such a bizarre viewpoint led some to speculate that the true identity of Khadija II was Yvonne Ridley, the journalist who was sacked by Al Jazeera for being too "extreme". Ridley was forced to convert by the Taliban in Afghanistan, and now appears in a burka and promotes the lie that veils liberate women.
The Mail states that Khadija II is a 38-year old English convert to Islam called Elaine Atkinson. Her great grandmother was a suffragette, and Atkinson was formerly a "feminist". She converted to Islam in 1996. Previous statements by Atkinson have included her describing non-Muslims as "rats or gerbils in cages going round on a treadmill" of consumerism whose true destiny is Argos (a store chain). Atkinson has said she wants to see UK pubs turned into mosques. Married to a man of Pakistani origin, Atkinson now goes under the name of Khadija Iqbal.
She told fellow Muslims at a Sheffield conference this year that it was morally wrong to listen to music or watch soap operas on the TV. She even urged Muslims not to watch any TV. Yet she sees herself fit to appear on television, albeit shrouded in black fabric.
Atkinson lives in Barking, east London, not far from her mosque in Forest Gate (292 - 296 Romford Road, London E7 9HD). This mosque is the UK headquarters of Minhaj ul Quran, an Islamic "missionary" or "dawah" group which was founded in Pakistan in 1981. The exact number of countries in which Minhaj ul Quran operates is hard to quantify - the figure ranges from 50 to 80 to 92.
The founder of Minhaj ul Quran is Dr Muhammad Tahirul Qadri (pictured), who lives in Lahore in the Punjab. It is in Lahore that Minhaj has its international headquarters. Recipient of numerous awards around the globe, and extolled as an Islamic scholar, there is nonetheless a side to Qadri which is politically ambtious.
He is head of the Pakistan Awami Tehrik, or PAT, a political party. This party claims in its propaganda to uphold the rights of women, and says it aims at the "eradication of poverty, violence, child labor and crimes against women and ensuring universal standard of respect for all human rights."
Despite this, there are some serious doubts about what Qadri really believes. In Sialkot city, Pakistan, in 2002, the local branch of Qadri's Minhaj ul Quran group issued a fatwa denouncing the Islamic sect known as Ahmadiyya (the Ahmadis). The fatwa said: "Ahmadis are apostates, hypocrites, infidles etc; anyone who thinks that Qadianis have been wronged, is himself an infidel; and anyone who does not consider him an infidel is also an infidel; all Muslims should boycott Qadianis on all occasions of life and death; it is not permitted to inquire into the health of a sick Qadiani, nor is it allowed to join his funeral."
Formerly, Qadri stood in the Pakistan National Assembly as a member of parliament, representing the PAT party. He supported Musharraf at first, but in late 2002 began to criticize the Pakistan-US coalition against terror. He finally left the National Assembly in late October, blaming Musharraf's autocracy.
In September 2002 he had an electoral rally in Jhang district, in Punjab. During this rally, his guards openly displayed their weaponry to the public. The police stopped Qadri's convoy and arrested nine guards. Along with the guards, police seized two Kalashnikovs, a pistol, a 44 bore rifle, one 12 bore gun, one pump action gun and 235 cartridges.
In 2005, one of the American websites of his religious group, Mirhaj ul Quran stated its goal as "Islamic world domination, elimination of the influence of atheist ideologies and Islamic domination both politically, culturally, academically, socially, spiritually and economically."
On the issue of the Danish cartoons of the so-called prophet Mohammed, Qadri was so incensed at freedom of speech that he was a signatory to a fatwa against the images.
Minhaj ul Quran is behind a Danish Islamic group called Muslims in Dialogue which was one of the groups which tried to mount a lawsuit against Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper which published the cartoons. The lawsuit was thrown out by a Copenhagen court on October 26.
The internet is flooded with websites promoting Mirhaj ul-Quran. They all claim to be advocating a "moderate" Islam. As Oriana Fallaci said: "There is only one Islam." There is nothing to convince Western Resistance that this group is in any way moderate. A group that can issue fatwas against a genuine non-violent sect of Islam is hardly "moderate". If the founder of the group, Dr Qadri, has his armed guards openly displaying semi-automatic weapons to the crowds at election rallies, there are more doubts about the nature of this group.
Channel 4's attempt to present a "view from Islam" as an alternative to the Queen's Christmas message was a cheap gimmick. Their naivete is exposed by a statement which they issued, saying: "Minhaj-ul-Quran is a spiritual movement which promotes peace and tolerance of other faiths. It is against all forms of extremism and radicalism whether religious or otherwise."
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at December 31, 2006 5:15 PM
Comments
To the best of my knowledge, Yvonne Ridley was not forced to convert. Her own story is that her captors gave her a koran and she promised she would read it when she got home. Which she duly did, and then converted. What to believe?
Posted by: Silvester ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.westernresistance.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at December 31, 2006 7:58 PM
Once again, great reporting from Western Resistance! Thanks, Giraldus.
The veiled ex-feminist twit is a member of a group that owes allegiance to the sufi sunni Sheik Gilani of Pakistan. The sheik is a spiritual advisor to Osama BinLaden and other prominent jihadis.
Sheik Gilani toured the U.S. in the 80's, recruiting black men from prisons into his sufi group called the Muslims of the Americas or MOA. He also set up a jihadi arm called Al Fuqra. Over the past twenty years, MOA/al Fuqra have been involved in murder, firebombings, identity theft , et. They live in compounds across the country and provide safe houses for illegal jihadis.
The Sheik is the person Daniel Pearl was trying to interview when he was kidnapped and murdered. He is a shadowy figure who manages to work under the radar and has many ties to the Pakistani government. He is as evil as they come.
This woman,with her involvement with Minhaj al Quran, is a taqiyya public relations puppet.
Posted by: the poetess at January 1, 2007 1:03 PM
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