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October 31, 2007

UK: Hypocritical Mosque Chairman Slams Report

The report published on Monday 28, October by the Policy Exchange think-tank has been condemned by the chairman of Birmingham's Central Mosque. The Policy Exchange sent researchers to almost 100 mosques, and found extremist literature in a quarter of the mosques visited. Much of this material was of Saudi Arabian origin.

The chairman of Birmingham Central Mosque is 84-year old Mohammad Naseem (pictured, left), who claims to be a "moderate". He is a bizarre character, whose hypocrisies I will describe below. In an article from the Birmingham Post, Naseem called the Policy Exchange study "irresponsible".

He said: "A mosque is an open, public place and anyone can distribute literature or leave literature in a mosque. The real question is who is publishing these leaflets? These are people that spread hatred and the people who do publish this literature generally don’t put their name on it. If such literature comes to our notice we will confiscate it and we will report it to the police."

He added: "My presumption is that these leaflets have nothing to do with the mosques - it's irresponsible to suggest that a quarter of mosques are involved with this."

Earlier I wrote of the exposure in the Times and other media of the Deobandi "scholar" Riyadh Ul Haq, who for years had been the imam at the Birmingham Central Mosque while Mohammad Naseem was the chairman. Ul Haq was criticized for his anti-women, anti-Hindu and anti-Jewish views. In one speech he said: "Of the peoples of the Earth, the ones that hate Muslims the most, the ones who are bitterest of their enmity towards Muslims, the most unrelenting, unforgiving, are the Jews and the mushrikin (Hindus), idolaters in all their forms."

Dr Muhammad Naseem may say that he is against extremism, yet he has presided over a mosque that had a Deobandi extremist as its imam, and his mosque website still has material that is anti-Christian, such as the article condemning the "deceptive" ways and dishonest tactics of Christian missionaries.

As I wrote in September:

In August 2004, Ul Haq was named in a feud which cost the lives of two people. On July 29, 2004, 35-year old Azmat Yaqub (pictured) was shot dead as he worked out at a gym. A fortnight before he was shot several times at the gymnasium in Sparkhill, Mr Yaqub had become a father. Earlier, on March 17, 2003, Mr Yaqub had been hit by gunshot in his shoulder, a victim of a drive-by shooting. Shaham Ali, companion who had been with him, was shot in the head and died. In the March 2003 killing, six people were arrested, and two were charged with attempted murder. The murder charges were rejected by a court, but the one of the two accused was sentenced to two year's jail. 31-year old Mohammed Sharafit Khan was found guilty of false imprisonment and assault. Two others were found guilty of false imprisonment.

Khan had invited the secretary of Birmingham Central Mosque, Mr Shockat Lal, to his home. There, the victim was kept captive and repeatedly beaten over a period of one and a half hours. The secretary had had an affair with a woman, and she had fallen pregnant. What had incited the anger of young Muslims from the mosque was the fact that the woman was Riyadh ul-Haq's wife. As she was Ul Haq's second wife, the marriage was not legal. Ul Haq had taken offence, and had sacked Shockat Lal. Others who supported the secretary were either expelled from the mosque or ostracized. In March 2003, Ul Haq was arrested from the home of his father, Mohammed Gora Pirbhai, who was an imam at a mosque in Leicester. Ul Haq was questioned about the drive-by murder, but received no charges. The two men who had died were friends of Shockat Lal.

Ul Haq's arguments that women are inferior to men still appear on the website of Birmingham Central Mosque. The Mosque website also has articles extolling the virtues of Deoband and also the extremist missionary group Tablighi Jamaat. The shoebomber Richard Reid, the American Taliban John Walker Lindh, and members of the ISI have links with this group. Two of the 7/7 bombers attended a Tablighi Jamaat mosque in Dewsbury. Dr Mohammed Naseem has been the chairman of the mosque for 32 years, and he claims to be a "moderate". Naseem, who was Riyadh Ul Haq's boss for a dozen years, is convinced he is being targeted for MI5 surveillance.

Three weeks after the 7/7 bombings, Naseem tried to claim that the four bombers were innocent, despite DNA evidence. Speaking of 7/7, he called Tony Blair a liar and an unreliable witness. He has publicly questioned the existence of Al Qaeda. Naseem runs the Islamic Party of Britain and has said that homosexuals should be executed. Naseem is a major funder to the "Respect" party, whose only MP is George Galloway. After the atrocities of 9/11, Naseem had said that "we are not convinced that those people who perpetrated these actions were actually Muslims."

One of the main problems with Muslim leaders such as those in the Muslim Council of Britain (a body also criticized for support of extremism in the report) is blatant hypocrisy. Dr Naseem is no different.

Advocacy of violence against homosexuals was one of the criticisms of the literature found by the Policy Exchange group. Surely Dr Muhammad Naseem, a man who believes that homosexuals should be executed, is in no position to complain about a report exposing extremist literature, when he himself supports such an extremist course of action?

After his rash remarks in 2005 about Yasin Hassan Omar (who was this year convicted of attempting to commit a suicide attack in London on July 21, 2005), there were calls for him to resign. On the Birmingham Central Mosque, letters in support of the hypocritical chairman were published. It appears that this tactic has worked, as he is still the chairman of the mosque. Shortly after his statements about Yasin Hassan Omar and the 7/7 bombers, Naseem said on BBC Radio: "I don't think al-Qaeda exists because we Muslims all over the world have not known this organization. The only information about this organisation is coming from the CIA. Now, the CIA is not known for telling the truth."

When he made this statement, Naseem was already supporting George Galloway and his Respect Party. Galloway is virulently anti-American, and Naseem's paranoia about the CIA is a theme he would return to later.

Dr Muhammad Naseem has previously claimed that he is being monitored by Britain's security agencies - possibly MI6. He said in November 2005: "My anxiety comes from my suspicion that the secret services in this country may be beginning to act independently of the political establishment. The CIA has apparently acted independently of the US Government and it worries me that MI5 and MI6 may be taking steps which are not discussed in or approved by Parliament."

In fact, the only claim that Naseem can make that he is a genuine "moderate" is that he kicked out Hizb ut-Tahrir from the Birmingham Central Mosque and appealed for calm after the 2005 Birmingham riots.

Naseem is certainly no help in any of the security agencies' attempts to deal with extremism and terrorism. On January 30, 2007, police anti-terrorism officers arrested Muslims in Birmingham. These individuals were suspected of plotting to kidnap a Muslim member of the armed services to torture and kill for a video presentation - Al-Qaeda style - on the internet.

Instead of supporting the police action, Naseem was nothing other than obstructive. He claimed the arrests were examples of persecution of Muslims, and compared the situation of Muslims in Britain to Jews under Hitler's Germany. He said: "This is a persecuting course of action that the Government has taken. They have invented this perception of a threat. To justify that, they have to maintain incidents to prove something is going on. There is dismay and people feel they are being persecuted unjustly. There is no reason for that. If there is a reason, the process should be open and for everybody to see what is happening."

He also claimed that Britain was becoming a "police state". Does Birmingham really need such a hypocritical and paranoid individual as head of its largest mosque?

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at October 31, 2007 12:23 AM

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