Undercover Mosques: The Transcripts Print E-mail
Monday, 15 January 2007

532824_lenovo_notebook_3MPACUK has learnt of a Channel 4 documentary claiming to reveal Muslim preachers in certain Mosques urging their followers to ‘reject British Law’, ‘prepare for Jihad’ and to ‘hit girls for not wearing the hijab’. The Dispatches documentary, which will be aired at 8pm on Monday 15th January  claims to have video footage of these preachers praising the Taliban and making various comments about non-Muslims. The documentary concentrates on a handful of mosques in the Birmingham area claiming that they promote extremism.

 

PART ONE

 

Tonight on Dispatches – an ideology of bigotry and intolerance spreading through Britain

 

with its roots in Saudi Arabia

 

Sheikh Yasin: We Muslims have been ordered to do brainwashing

 

  - on women’s rights

 

Abu Usamah: Allah has created the woman deficient

 

Sh Jibali: If she doesn’t wear hijab, we hit her

 

-     gay rights

 

Abu Usamah: take that homosexual man and throw him from the mountain

 

-  living in a multicultural society

 

Dr Mian: You have to live like a state within a state until you take over

 

-     and holy war

 

Sh Feiz: The peak, the pinnacle, the crest, the summit, of Islam, is jihad

 

 

TITLES

 

 

A Dispatches investigation has uncovered a fundamentalist message, spreading from the Saudi Arabia religious establishment

 

through mosques run by major UK organisations

 

which claim to be dedicated to moderation and to dialogue with other faiths

 

 

Green Lane Mosque in Birmingham is a high-profile mosque

 

 -  and one we’d heard receives theological guidance from Saudi Arabia

 

 

Caption: Undercover filming

 

Our reporter went undercover last summer, joining thousands of worshippers

 

He’s staying anonymous

 

 

Caption: 12 August 2006

 

The theme of today’s lecture is – don’t believe in the arrests of alleged terrorists without proof

 

… as non Muslims are liars

 

Abu Usamah: I don’t believe them, because they are kuffaar, lying is part of their religion

 

 

Kuffaar is an Arabic word, meaning non-believer – an infidel

 

Abu Usamah: Unlike those kuffaar, they do whatever they want to do

 

It’s a term our reporter was to hear repeatedly being used in a derogatory way

 

 

Abu Usamah: they are liars, they are terrorists themselves, liars, they will come before the people and talk and they are lying, you can’t believe them, these are pathological liars

 

 

Shots of Green Lane website

 

Green Lane Mosque calls itself a “centre for interfaith communication”, welcoming people of all religions

 

 

But our reporter filmed there over four months, and found this speaker, Abu Usamah, was their main English-language preacher

 

He says Christians and Jews are enemies to Muslims

 

Abu Usamah: It has come to pass that the Christians and the Jews, America, the UK, France, Germany, they have come against the religion of Islam. Why give up your religion and your long legacy of Islam, to please someone who is an enemy to you?

 

 

Abu Usamah is an American convert

 

and a very popular speaker at Green Lane

 

Abu Usamah (shaking hands with everyone): Hey, my man, how you doing?

 

 

He preaches against non-Muslim laws

 

Abu Usamah: We want the laws of Islam to be practised, we want to do away with the man-made laws

 

And says British popular culture is a threat

 

Abu Usamah: The popular culture, if  you are a person who gives yourself to that, your mind is going to be controlled by the so-called powers that be, who make these man-made laws

 

 

Green Lane’s official website says the mosque is “designed to counter the negative publicity and stereotyping of Islam”

 

But after a few weeks, our reporter was told by fellow worshippers how to access another, much more difficult-to-find internet chatroom

 

It’s run by Green Lane Mosque, and broadcasts Abu Usamah’s speeches live to a small band of listeners

 

He says Muslims should obey British laws and contracts, if they don’t contradict Islam, but he condemns non-believers

 

 

Caption: Green Lane internet broadcast

 

Abu Usamah: No-one loves the kuffaar, no-one loves the kuffaar, not a single person here from the Muslims loves the kuffaar, whether those kuffaar are from the UK or the US. We love the people of Islam and we hate the people of kufr, we hate the kuffaar

 

 

Filmed undercover, he says he doesn’t agree with the violent actions of Muslim terrorists - but he prefers them to non-Muslims

 

Abu Usamah: I don’t agree with those individuals, but at the same time they are closer to me than those criminals of the kufr

 

Cap: Green Lane internet broadcast

 

Abu Usamah: He’s better than a million George Bushes, Osama Bin Laden, and he’s better than a thousand Tony Blairs, because he’s a Muslim

 

 

The mosque films some of Abu Usamah’s speeches, and they’re sold locally as DVDs

 

Caption: The Major Sins: Ahlus Sunnah Productions (2005)

 

In this one, he says even Muslims who don’t follow their strict rules can be ostracised as “kaffirs”

 

Abu Usamah: If you leave off the prayer out of negligence, then you are a kaffir. If he dies like that you have to bury him with the kuffaar. You can’t marry him

 

 

He preaches an ideal Islamic state

 

Abu Usamah: Muslims shouldn’t satisfied with living in other than the total Islamic state

 

 

His vision of the Islamic state includes extreme punishments, as he outlines in this DVD

 

 

DVD: The Major Sins: Ahlus Sunnah Productions (2005)

 

Abu Usamah: Whoever changes his religion from Islam to anything else – kill him in the Islamic state

 

 

The religious leader, or imam, can decide the punishments

 

Internet broadcast

 

Abu Usamah: If the imam wants to crucify him, he should crucify him. The person is put up on the wood and he is left there to bleed to death for three days

 

 

Abu Usamah condemns the Western interpretation of free speech, which means the Prophet can be insulted, but he can be censored

 

Abu Usamah: If I were to call homosexuals perverted, dirty, filthy dogs, that should be murdered, that’s my freedom of speech isn’t it? But they’ll say no, I’m not tolerant, but they feel that it’s OK to say something about the Prophet?

 

 

Our reporter has found these views being regularly preached at the head mosque of a major Muslim organisation

 

Green Lane Mosque, Birmingham, is the headquarters of the Markazi Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith, a registered charity which runs over 40 mosques and branches as well as Islamic schools

 

It’s an influential affiliate of the Muslim Council of Britain, which has praised it as “a national body”, “respected for its educational and outreach programmes”

 

 

But our reporter secretly filmed Abu Usamah teaching that a “jihad” is coming against the unbelievers

 

Abu Usamah: Verily Allah going to bring a group of people that he loves and they love him, these people will who will be soft and kind to the believers and they will be rough and tough against the kuffaar, they will fight in the cause of Allah

 

I encourage all of you to be from amongst them, to begin to cultivate ourselves for the time that is fast approaching where the tables are going to turn and the Muslims are going to be in the position of being uppermost in strength, and when that happens, people won’t get killed – unjustly

 

 

After a few weeks, our reporter learns that Green Lane worshippers get regular religious instruction, direct from Saudi Arabia

 

Live, two-way video links are set up

 

Projected onto the wall is the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia

 

Caption: Saudi state television

 

He’s the country’s top religious leader– now being beamed live to worshippers in Birmingham

 

 

They ask questions through an interpreter, and get fatwas – religious rulings (CHK?)

 

 

By now, our reporter has become a regular at the mosque

 

The man who supervises the video links tells him they’ve recorded them

 

Man: We actually record them onto DVDs.

 

Reporter: You do?

 

Man: What we’ll do is, whatever the cost is of the DVDs you just contribute  to that and it’s not a problem

 

 

And our reporter is given them

 

Man: These are the masters, whatever you want to do is fine

 

 

The DVDs show a Birmingham worshipper, who asks the Grand Mufti for a fatwa about understanding between Muslims and other religions

 

CAPTION: Saudi Broadcast, June 2006

 

Question: Some people say we shouldn’t call Christians and Jews kuffaar, and we should establish dialogue and good relations with them. What’s your answer to this?

 

 

His answer is uncompromising

 

Grand Mufti: This is not true. Jews and Christians who do not follow the Prophet Mohammed are kuffaar. They will go to hell

 

He says Muslims can’t help non-believers

 

Grand Mufti: Anyone who helps or defends an apostate, or a pagan, or an atheist, or anyone who attacks Islam, will be cursed

 

 

Green Lane Mosque is spreading a brand of Islam originating in Saudi Arabia – often known as Wahhabism

 

It’s an hardline theology, opposed by many British Muslims

 

Academic Dr Irfan Al Alawi investigates Wahhabism

 

He keeps his face hidden in interviews because of the dangers of his work

 

ASTON: Dr Irfan Al Alawi

Islamic Heritage Foundation

 

Dr Irfan Al Alawi: Wahhabis believe that you cannot show tolerance to other religions, so the religion of Islam has to rule the world. Green Lane in Birmingham, that mosque is one of the extreme Wahhabi centres in the UK

 

 

Caption: Saudi TV

 

Wahhabism is opposed to the traditional, tolerant beliefs of classical Islam, according to leading Muslim academic Abdal Hakim Murad

 

CAPTION: Abdal Hakim Murad

University of Cambridge

 

Hakim Murad: Its principle is totalitarian, it’s highly judgemental, it has no track record of dealing with other sorts of Islam or with unbelievers with any kind of respect. If you are outside the small circle of the true believers you are going to hell and therefore you should be treated with contempt

 

 

Non-believers are called “kaffirs” or “kuffaar”

 

It’s a term they use as an insult, according to moderate British Muslims like Dr Taj Hargey

 

ASTON: Dr Taj Hargey

Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford

 

Dr Taj Hargey: The word kaffir is a very pejorative, negative, disparaging term. When you call someone a kaffir, they are not worthy to be associated with. This kind of intolerance is something that gives rise to extremists

 

 

Many children were present at the Green Lane lectures our reporter filmed, where intolerance and bigotry were openly preached

 

 

In a DVD of a conference at Green Lane Mosque, a preacher called Sheikh Al-Jibali says Muslim children should be kept away from non-Muslims

 

Caption: Preparing to Stand Before Allah: Ahlus Sunnah Productions (2004)

 

Sheikh Al Jibali: What is sad to see is that many parents they send children to the kuffaar schools, they allow them to mix with the kuffaar, so that the lifestyle and beliefs of the kuffaar become deep rooted in the hearts of the kids

 

 

In a fatwa given in the video links, the Grand Mufti says children should be hit if they don’t pray

 

Saudi Broadcast, May 2006

 

Grand Mufti: Tell your children to pray when they are seven, and hit them when they are ten

 

 

The Ahl-e-Hadith’s website directs readers to literature which says “Islam confers equal rights upon all”, regardless of sex

 

But in a crackly internet broadcast, Abu Usamah says women are “deficient”

 

Green Lane Internet broadcast

 

Abu Usamah: Allah has created the woman, even if she gets a Phd, deficient. Her intellect is incomplete, deficient. She may be suffering from hormones that will make her emotional. It takes two witnesses of a woman to equal the one witness of the man

 

 

Saudi-based clerics in the video links preach male supremacy

 

Caption: Saudi broadcast May 2006

 

Sheikh: Khunayn: Men are in charge of women. Wherever he goes she should follow him and she shouldn’t be allowed leave the house without his permission

 

 

Sheikh Al Jibali says the hijab must be enforced on young girls, if necessary with violence

 

Caption: Preparing to Stand Before Allah: Ahlus Sunnah Productions (2004)

 

Al Jibali:. By the age of ten, it becomes an obligation on us to force her to wear hijab, and if she doesn’t wear hijab, we hit her

 

 

Our reporter secretly filmed this preacher, Dr Bilal Philips, giving religious rulings at Green Lane

 

In a speech in the mosque, which was also broadcast in its internet chatroom, he claims marrying off a girl before puberty is permissible

 

He claims the Prophet Mohammed married a nine year old girl, so it’s permissible now

 

Dr Bilal Philips: The Prophet Mohammed practically outlined the rules regarding marriage prior to puberty, with his practice he clarified what is permissible and that is why we shouldn’t have any issues about an older man marrying a younger woman, which is looked down upon by this society today, but we know that Prophet Mohammed practised it, it wasn’t abuse or exploitation, it was marriage

 

 

RIGHT TO REPLY LIKELY FROM DR PHILIPS

 

 

Abu Usamah quotes what he says are the words of a companion of the Prophet, on the Islamic punishment for homosexuality

 

Abu Usamah: Do you practise homosexuality with men?  Take that homosexual man and throw him off the mountain

 

And in a DVD, he attacks the idea of gay rights

 

DVD: Preparing to Stand Before Allah: Ahlus Sunnah Productions (2004)

 

Abu Usamah: They have given them unprecedented rights, so that your child can be exposed and introduced to lesbians. Now they say, if you discriminate against them, you are going to jail

 

 

He says Muslims should discriminate

 

Abu Usamah: We’ll discriminate, but we’ll discriminate in a way where we don’t get in trouble. The Muslim is a dentist and one of those people comes I’m going to take a big needle and stick it in his gum

 

 

Then he says it’s a joke, as it might get the mosque in trouble

 

Abu Usamah: They’ll take this and get us all in trouble

 

 

On the anniversary of the 7th of July bombings, a speech by Abu Usamah was broadcast in the Green Lane chatroom, condemning terrorism

 

Green Lane Internet Broadcast

 

Abu Usamah: We want to make an official statement here, no way are we in agreement to what took place last year on this day in the kuffaar calendar

 

 

But he does believe in jihad

 

Abu Usamah: But in saying that, we do not apologise for any aspect of this religion, there is jihad in Islam. What’s most beloved and favourite thing to Allah?  Jihad in the Way of Allah

 

 

He says the real jihad will come when the senior Islamic clerics declare it – and prays it will come soon

 

 

Abu Usamah: We ask Allah to bring about the means and the ways in which the Muslims will get the power and the honour of repelling the oppression of the kuffaar, where we can go out and perform the jihad. We ask Allah to bring that time, so we can be participants in that

 

 

Abu Usamah he told us: “Islam allows for any Muslim to peacefully coexist here in the UK with non-Muslims even though the UK is not an Islamic society

 

He said he had made it clear that it is a religious duty on all Muslims to obey UK law and the carrying out of Islamic law could only be done in an actual Islamic state

 

He said: “Homosexuality is an abomination against Allah and all mankind and I will never condone it. Even though this is the case, I do not believe in disobeying the law when it comes to the way people deal with homosexuals.”

 

 

A hardline message, influenced by Saudi Arabian clerics, is preached at Green Lane Mosque in Birmingham

 

An imam from the mosque has helped advise the government

 

Abdul Hadi sat on a government taskforce on extremism, set up after the 7th of July bombings

 

 

He was part of its working group on combating extremism in mosques and imams

 

DVD: Preparing to Stand Before Allah: Ahlus Sunnah Productions (2004)

 

Yet this DVD shows he took part in a Green Lane conference in which other speakers urged Muslims to discriminate against homosexuals and hit girls who don’t wear the hijab

 

He seemed to have no worries at the extremism of the message

 

Abdul Hadi: It is very hard to conclude such a beautiful programme, but we have to

 

 

The head of the working group on mosques and imams was Lord Nazir Ahmed, Britain’s first Muslim peer

 

 

He’s previously praised Green Lane Mosque

 

In an interview with BBC radio in 2003, he named it as his favourite spiritual place in the country

 

Cap: Favourite Spiritual Places July 2003

                                                                                                            

Lord Ahmed: Number 20, Green Lane, Birmingham, is my favourite spiritual place

 

 

He said he’d worshipped there

 

Lord Ahmed: This is the most amazing place. When I walk into the mosque, I feel I am entering the biggest palace on earth

 

 

Lord Ahmed recently said he would ask the Lord Chancellor to meet an organisation called the Islamic Shari’ah Council, including its Secretary General, a preacher called Sheikh Suhaib Hasan

 

The meeting would be to discuss the introduction of Islamic divorce laws into the UK constitution

 

 

Undercover filming at Green Lane

 

Our reporter filmed Sheikh Hasan speaking at Green Lane

 

He’s a senior imam at a major mosque in East London, and a former President of the Markazi Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith

 

 

In a speech downloaded from his mosque website, he proclaims the supremacy of Muslims in encounters with the non-believers

 

Masjid Al Tawhid internet broadcast

 

NO SUBTITLES

 

Sh Hasan: And Allah made the words of the kuffaar dung/down and the words of the believers supreme

 

(footnote for the press – HE SAYS IT IS DOWN, NOT DUNG)

 

 

In speeches on other Islamic websites, he predicts the coming of an Islamic state

 

Suhaib Hasan: True Understanding of the Khilaafah

 

Sh Hasan: Allah has decreed this thing, that I am going to be dominant, the dominance of course is a political dominance

 

 

The Islamic state he predicts will have a single, lifelong ruler with no opposition parties or elections and it will bring in a strict version of Islamic law

 

Sh Hasan: The chopping of the hands of the thieves, the flogging of the adulterers and flogging of the drunkards

 

 

Then this state will launch jihad

 

Sh Hasan: Then jihad against the non-Muslims, against those people who are the oppressors

 

 

Sheikh Hasan told us that the word “kuffaar” was “not a racist or discriminatory term when heard in its Quranic sense”

 

He said he’d stated many times that the re-establishment of a “single Islamic state”, would be peaceful

 

He said he had often praised the British welfare state, its judicial, health and education systems

 

He said: “I have never promoted any form of extremism, whether religious or otherwise”

 

 

Lord Ahmed told us that Green Lane Mosque was one of many mosques  he visited

 

He said: “It would be ludicrous to suggest that by visiting an institution I become responsible for, or aware of, every word spoken at that establishment

 

He said he had asked for the meeting with the Lord Chancellor on behalf of all Muslims, and said he was not aware of all the views held by Sheikh Hasan

 

 

Next, we investigate claims that radicalism, linked to the Saudi religious establishment has spread across the country

 

…. even reaching into Britain’s biggest and most mainstream mosque

 

 

PART TWO

 

A Dispatches reporter investigated one of Britain’s biggest and most mainstream mosques

 

Green Lane Mosque in Birmingham

 

uncovering a fundamentalist ideology emanating from the Saudi religious establishment

 

 

He found it promoting male supremacy

Abu Usamah: Allah has created the woman deficient

 

Green Lane preacher: If she doesn’t wear hijab, we hit her

 

Condemning non-Muslims

 

Abu Usamah: We hate the kuffaar, we do not give obedience to the kuffaar

 

and predicting a future jihad

 

Abu Usamah: The tables are going to turn, and the Muslims are going to be in a position of being uppermost in strength

 


Now he was to discover how preachers trained in Saudi Arabia are spreading the same message around the country

 

 

Last summer, a two-week Islamic Studies course was arranged at the mosque, and our reporter was accepted onto it

 

It was to be taught by clerics, flown specially from the University of Medinah, in Saudi Arabia

 

But then it was cancelled at short notice

 

 

Our reporter went to their office to find out more

 

The preacher Abu Usamah tells him what the aim of the course was

 

Abu Usamah: From what I know is, people were going to come and teach the course from Saudi Arabia. Part of the programme was, the students who did good like the first three or top five students, would get a scholarship to go. That was part of the conditions they had agreed with the Professors who are coming, because the Professors are from the university

 

Reporter: Of Medinah?

 

Abu Usamah: Yes

 

 

The most devout worshippers at Green Lane are being offered scholarships to Saudi religious universities

 

Abu Usamah: It’s for people like you

 

 

The aim is to train new preachers, according to Dr Irfan Al Alawi, who keeps his face hidden in interviews

 

Dr Al Alawi: Medinah University is a very hardcore Wahhabi institution. Over the years they have been giving bursaries to students from United Kingdom and throughout the world to recruit students to be brainwashed, then they are trained to go abroad and teach their poison and inject it into others

 

 

Medinah graduates are now spreading the word in mosques up and down the UK

 

Like Dr Bilal Philips, who says marrying girls before they reach puberty is permissible

 

.…. Sheikh Suhaib Hasan, who preaches a future Muslim supremacy

 

……. and Abu Usamah himself

 

Hakim Murad: This is one of the most important items I think on the Saudi radical agenda, to push out the more hospitable types of religious leadership and replace them with firebrands, trained and programmed in the major Saudi universities

 

 

Our reporter finds that Saudi-trained preachers are being promoted in DVDs and CDs throughout the UK

 

He found typical examples being sold in the car park at Green Lane Mosque

 

 

Children are buying them

 

And the stalls are manned by local kids

 

Reporter: Salamu aleikum brother

 

 

Reporter: Thank you brother

 

 

He buys a DVD of Sheikh Feiz, another Medinah-trained preacher

                              

Reporter: Thank-you brother

 

- in which he preaches jihad

 

 

Cap: Death Series: Islam Productions

 

Sheikh Feiz: The peak, the pinnacle, the crest, the highest point, the pivot, the summit, of Islam, is jihad

 

 

He criticises Muslim parents who don’t want their children to learn this

 

Sh Feiz: Today, many parents, they prevent their children from attending lessons, why?  They fear they might create or place in their hearts, the love, just a bit of love, of sacrificing their lives for Allah.

 

We want to have children and offer them as soldiers defending Islam. Teach them this, there is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a mujahid, put in their soft tender hearts the zeal of jihad and the love of martyrdom

 

 

The Markazi Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith, who run Green Lane Mosque in Birmingham told us it was “committed to promoting interfaith dialogue and political harmony in our society”

 

Scholars from many different backgrounds spoke at its mosque, and we had quoted many out of context

 

It had not known what each speaker would say beforehand and did not necessarily agree with everything that may have been said

 

It said the word kuffaar was a neutral term, and said:

 

“We reject the assertion …. that we are influenced by and teach an extreme version of Islam…We accept the rule of law and we treat our non-Muslim neighbours with respect.”

 

It said Islamic punishments are an effective deterrent in Islamic societies

 

 

The most notorious convert to preach in Britain was Sheikh Al Faisal, who studied Islam at Riyadh University

 

He circulated his own tapes, urging followers to kill and to plant bombs, and was jailed for inciting racial hatred

Al Faisal cassette: You have to bomb the Indian businesses, and as for the Jews you kill them physically

 

 

In an interview with the BBC, Al Faisal claimed that he learned his anti-Semitic views from his university training in Saudi Arabia

 

El Faisal: I learned at University that the Holocaust was orchestrated in order that the Jews will establish a homeland in Arab territories

 

 

The war to convert is waged on the internet

 

This website says it’s run by an Islamic charity, which is based in Saudi Arabia

 

It directs readers to a fatwa website, which says it’s supervised by a Saudi scholar

 

Readers can email in questions and get religious rulings

 

 

The rulings say Muslims in the West must have “an attitude of enmity and hatred of the kaffirs ….  all of the kuffaar are the enemies of the Muslims”…

 

Jihad –“ pursuing the kaafirs in their lands…. and fighting them if they do not … submit to the rule of Islam” – is a “communal obligation” on Muslims

 

….  “men are superior to women and are better than women” and husbands can hit their wives – though only lightly

 

…….  it recommends “prodding with the fist”

 

 

DVDs, books and the internet are all ways that the message is spread, according to Saudi expert Mai Yamani

 

Caption: Mai Yamani

Saudi analyst

 

Mai Yamani: Since the 1980s, there has been an increase in the export of Wahhabi teachings to the Muslim world, from Kosovo to Jakarta, and to the United States and Great Britain, supercharged with oil money

 

They sent in money for teachers, for schools, they printed books, they educated imams, so it is like a wave of teachings hitting at the shores of Western countries

 

 

Islamic bookshops in Britain are offered free literature

 

Hakim Murad: A number of bookshops known to me have actually gone out of business because they have been undercut by the more fundamentalist literature being supplied for free by Saudi Arabia

                                                                                      

 

Dr Taj Hargey set up the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford to promote an Islam of tolerance and peaceful co-existence

 

He’s opposed to Saudi influence over British Muslim life

 

Dr Hargey: The Saudi funding of British Muslim institutions come from a variety of official, semi-official and private sources, in addition to government funding through the Ministry of Religious Affairs and other government agencies.

 

 

Money from Saudi has even reached the most famous mosque in Europe

 

London Central Mosque, better known as  Regent’s Park Mosque, is the most recognisable symbol of moderate, mainstream Muslim life in Britain

 

It says it acts on behalf of the whole Muslim community in dealing with the government

 

 

The Saudi monarchy gave two million pounds to help build it, and in the 1990s, they built its educational and administrative wing

 

 

Wajid Shamsul Hasan was a trustee of the mosque in the 1990s, in his capacity as the Pakistan High Commissioner to Britain

 

He had concerns about the direction the mosque was taking

 

Aston: Wajid Shamsul Hasan

Trustee 1994-1996

 

Wajid: The Islam that I personally would like to follow is liberal Islam. This is a centre where 5,000 people once in a week gather, it should be a cradle for the promotion of liberal Islam, but unfortunately, because of the predominant Saudi influence and Saudi money that comes in, it is supportive of Wahhabism

 

 

Caption: Undercover filming

 

The mosque’s official bookshop is run by a company called Darussalam

 

It’s a British company, but it’s linked to Darussalam Publications - a global publishing house, whose head office is in Saudi Arabia

                                           

Our reporter visited – and bought another video of Sheikh Feiz, the Saudi-trained preacher – condemning the non-believer

 

Caption: Signs of the Hour: Islam Productions

 

Feiz: Kaffir, the worst word that can ever be written, a sign of infidelity, disbelief, filth, a sign of dirt

 

 

He calls Jews “pigs” who will be killed when the end of the world comes

 

Feiz: This creature will say Oh Muslim behind me is the Jew come and kill him. They will be (snorting), all of them, every single one of them

 

 

Regular interfaith meetings with other religions take place at this mosque

 

Yet in a DVD bought from its bookshop, a British-based convert called Sheikh Khalid Yasin, who studied Arabic in Saudi Arabia, condemns the teachings of other religions

 

Cap: Changing the World Through Da’wah: IBC Ltd/1Islam Productions

 

Yasin: We don't need to go to the Christians or the Jews debating with them about the filth which they believe. We Muslims have been ordered to do brainwashing because the kuffaar they are doing brain defiling. You are watching the kaffir TV and your wife is watching it right now and your children are watching it and they are being polluted and they are being penetrated and they are being infected, so that you come out of the house and your children come out of the house as Muslims and come back as kaffirs

 

 

Cap: London Central Mosque website

 

In this DVD from the mosque bookshop, he preaches against the equality of women

 

Cap: Some Advice to the Muslim Women: 1 Islam Productions

 

Sh Yasin: This whole delusion of the equality of women is a bunch of foolishness…. There’s no such thing

 

 

In this DVD, he claims AIDS is a Western and Christian plot

 

Cap: Jihad or Terrorism?: Ahlussunnah wal Jama’ah             

 

Yasin: Missionaries from the World Health Organisation and Christian groups went into Africa and inoculated people for diphtheria, malaria, yellow fever and they put in the medicine the AIDS virus, which is a conspiracy

 

 

The mosque bookshop sells speeches by the Green Lane Mosque preacher, Abu Usamah

 

In this one, he says Muslims and non-Muslims cannot coexist

 

Cap: Natural Disasters: WISE Islamic Centre

 

Abu Usamah: The fire of the Muslim and the non-Muslim, they cannot co-exist, one of them is going to impact the other. The non-Muslims have the authority, and they have the power, their lifestyle is going to impact upon the Muslims. Because the good and the bad, they do not co-exist

 

 

And they sell audio CDs of Murtaza Khan, a preacher who speaks in many UK mosques

 

He’s also an Islamic Studies teacher at Al Noor Muslim Primary School in Essex

 

In this CD from the mosque, he claims the Koran condemns Jews and Christians

 

CD: Time to Return to the Quran: Knowledge Books and Audio

 

Murtaza Khan: Those whom the wrath of Allah is upon, is the Jews, is the Christians

 

 

And he criticises Muslims who follow their ways

 

Murtaza Khan: We have become Jews in our clothing, Jews in our eating, Jews in everything that we do, and the other half is Christian in everything we do. Muslims are following one of these accursed nations. And people are still not waking up to understand the fact that these people are enemies towards us

 

 

He says Muslims should become doctors, so women don’t have to go to non-Muslim doctors

 

Murtaza Khan: We should have a sense of shame. For how long have we seen our mothers, our sisters, and our daughters have to go and uncover themselves before these filthy non-Muslim doctors?

 

 

Murtaza Khan told us: “My discourses have never been delivered with the intent to malign any individual/group or race. They are delivered to inspire Muslims to better themselves and then to play a positive role for their own and wider community in Britain.”

 

 

Al Noor Muslim Primary School told us: “We can confirm that Mr M. Khan is employed as a teacher at Al-Noor Primary School and can also categorically state that the alleged remarks .. do not reflect the views of this educational establishment. No extreme or discriminatory views are expressed or taught at our school by any of our teachers”

 

 

Darussalam International Publications Ltd, which runs the mosque bookshop, told us it sells a wide range of material and did not necessarily agree with it

 

It said it was “totally unfair” to blame them for the views expressed in the lectures

 

 

The current director general of Regents Park Mosque, Dr Al Dubayan, is from Saudi Arabia

 

 

A recent employment tribunal concerning a sex discrimination complaint at the mosque revealed that they had no jurisdiction over Dr Al Dubayan, because he’s actually a serving Saudi diplomat

 

 

Dr Hargey: It’s scandalous. The director general of this mosque is a Saudi diplomat, he leads the largest and most prestigious mosque in this country.

 

 

Dr Al Dubayan told us his diplomatic status had been extended to him as a courtesy by the Saudi Arabian government following his appointment

 

He said the mosque bookshop was run independently and he was seriously concerned to hear that inappropriate materials may be on offer

 

The materials had been removed immediately until it was ascertained whether they were “damaging to the principles of tolerance, multiculturalism and equal rights.”

 

He said: “It is simply not true that the London Central Mosque has become dominated by the influence of Saudi Arabia and its religious teachings”

 

 

The Saudi government says it’s cracked down on clerics who preach extremism

 

 It says it does everything it can to “confront and combat extremism”

 

It’s a major ally of Britain

 

Caption: May 2006

 

Jack Straw: We proclaim our shared attachment to civilisation and to the basic human values, of respect, of dialogue and freedom

 

 

Haras Rafiq heads the Sufi Muslim Council, which promotes a tolerant Islam and is opposed to the spread of radical teachings

 

Haras Rafiq: A lot of these institutions that are set up by and funded by Wahhabis and their offshoots, are teaching Muslims youngsters to be isolationist, are teaching Muslim youngsters to be segregationalist, are teaching Muslim youngsters that America and Britain are against them and therefore they need to get up against them and fight against them or struggle against them

 

Hakim Murad: Some Wahhabis believe that this is how the West is to be brought down, by spreading Wahhabism in the heart of the West’s cities.

 

 

Next, we find radicalism, openly preached at a major mosque

 

run by an organisation praised by Tony Blair for its support for multiculturalism and interfaith

 

 

 

PART THREE

 

A Dispatches reporter has uncovered a message of bigotry and intolerance

 

spreading through Britain from the Saudi religious establishment

 

Sheikh Feiz: We want to have children and offer them as soldiers, put in their soft, tender hearts, the zeal of jihad

 

 

Now he was to find more radical speakers, preaching in a mosque run by a major organisation

 

praised by Tony Blair for its interfaith work

 

 

While filming undercover, our reporter met this preacher - Dr Ijaz Mian

 

 

He’s a travelling speaker, who talks at different organisations in Britain

 

Our reporter filmed his talk at a mosque run by the Ahl-e-Hadith organisation in Derby

 

It’s the same organisation that runs Green Lane Mosque in Birmingham, which our reporter found promoting extreme teachings

 

 

Dr Mian praises the Saudi religious police, saying they can imprison people for not praying

 

Dr Mian: They send the police, and they say, well, if you don’t come for prayer, close your shop, we will arrest you  But if you don’t, then we have to bring the punishment on you, you will be killed, and nobody will pray on you

 

 

Dr Mian is yet another UK preacher who was taught in Saudi Arabia

 

He spent six years studying Islam at Ibn Saud University in Riyadh

 

 

He wants to see religious police operating on the street

 

Dr Mian: They would make sure that every person prays to Allah, five times. Every woman will be covered properly, hijab, otherwise the police will just collect them

 

 

He has a radical plan for this country

 

Muslims shouldn’t accept British democracy

 

Dr Mian: King, Queen, House of Commons. If you accept it, you are a part of it. You don’t accept it, you have to dismantle it. So you being a Muslim you have to fix a target, there will be no House of Commons. From that White House to this Black House, we know that we have to dismantle it

 

 

Muslims must grow in strength then take over

 

Dr Mian: You are in a situation in which you have to live like a state within a state, until you take over. But until this happens, you have to preach, until you become such a force that the people they just submit to you, hands up, until you become strong enough to take over

 

 

It’s an extreme vision – that Muslims will one day take over Britain and bring about an Islamic state with sharia law

 

 

Dr Mian invites our reporter to visit Birmingham, where he’s based

 

Dr Mian: We can come to you, you can come to us

 

 

He takes him up on the offer and a few weeks later they meet in Birmingham

 

Dr Mian takes him to Sparkbrook Islamic Centre, where he wants to arrange a talk

 

The centre is run by the UK Islamic Mission a major organisation dedicated to interfaith work

 

 

This is their annual conference last year in Birmingham

 

It runs over 45 mosques and branches in Britain and has 6,000 children in its part-time Islamic schools

 

The Prime Minister has said the UKIM “is extremely valued by the government”, particularly for its “multi-faith and multicultural activities

 

 

Caption: UKIM website


Yet despite his radical views, Dr Mian has worked with the UKIM and given talks at its events

 

At their annual conference, he was a guest on stage

 

 

Today, he’s making a presentation to the UKIM committee at the Sparkbrook Islamic Centre

 

 

He suggests that the committee invites a small group of non-Muslims to the mosque and tries to convert them

 

Dr Mian: Every kaffir has a right to Islam

 

 

He says Muslims cannot accept non-Muslim rule

 

Dr Mian: You cannot accept the rule of the kaffir. We have to rule ourselves and we have to rule the others

 

 

Although his radical beliefs are obvious, the UKIM committee is happy to go ahead with his talk

 

UKIM man: If we invite people, would you be available to speak to them?


Dr Mian: Of course, this is my full time duty

 

UKIM Man: We will organise it

 

 

The UKIM hosts regular interfaith events at this mosque

 

Yet when our reporter joined the worshippers at Sparkbrook for a Friday sermon – he heard the UKIM imam preaching against non-Muslims

 

 

Preacher: God, help us win the fight against the kuffaar, in every field, in every department of life. We beg you to help us fight against the enemies of our religion. Help us fight the kuffaar

 

 

The UKIM runs dawah, or missionary centres, which spread the word

 

Our reporter visits one of them, at Alum Rock Islamic Centre, in Birmingham, to see what kind of materials they circulate

 

 

Reporter: Is the dawah centre open upstairs?

 

Dawah man: Yes, what do you want?

 

Reporter: I’m looking for some books

 

Man: yes, yes

 

 

He’s given some free leaflets

 

Man: Yes this one. If you start with these, these are easy to understand, for everybody who doesn’t know anything about Islam

 

 

They’re by a Pakistani religious leader called Sayyid Mawdudi

 

He He wwas the founder of a fundamentalist political party in Pakistan called Jamaat-Islami

 

The UKIM literature outlines his radical message

 

 

Pamphlet:  “Islam is a revolutionary ideology which seeks to alter the social order of the entire world”

 

Muslims form an “International Revolutionary Party”

 

The pamphlets contain some of the ideas that Dr Mian preaches …..

 

that Muslims must work towards doing away with all non-Islamic governments, and set up an Islamic state

 

 

The party Mawdudi founded, the Jamaat Islami, has links to the Saudi religious establishment

 

 

Although it stands in Pakistani elections, its aim is to set up an Islamic state run by sharia law

 

Protesters: Long Live sharia constitution!

 

 

The man who runs the missionary centre in Birmingham says the UKIM is an independent organisation, with its own objectives

 

… but he says they follow the same ideology as the Jamaat Islami

 

Man: ideologically we are affiliated to Jamaat Islami

 

Reporter: It’s the same ideology?

 

Man: Yeah you can say that, it’s the same ideology

 

 

He claims the UKIM shares the same ideology with other fundamentalist organisations, like Hamas in Palestine, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt

 

 

Bookshop man: Some are in Pakistan, some are in Egypt, wherever they are their ideology is the same, so you can say our ideology is the same with them

 

 

Our reporter finds the UKIM accepts money from Saudi sheikhs

 

 

Every week at its Sparkbrook mosque, a list of donors is read out

 

Speaker: Saudi Arabian Professor Sheikh

 

 

Caption: August 2006

 

Our reporter attended a day of talks, arranged at the UKIM’s Sparkbrook mosque

 

When we contacted the UKIM, they said they had hired their centre out to another organisation, who arranged this event

 

 

In public, the UKIM has told Muslims they can participate in British democracy, and it invited politicians to its annual conference last summer in Birmingham

 

Rob Marris, Labour MP: I’m here as a friend of Islam and as a Labour politician

 

 

But in the day of talks in their mosque, invited preachers condemned democracy

 

Speaker: Today we find ourselves bearing the brunt of a pervasive attack against Islam, trying to win the hearts and minds of Muslims over to become advocates and supporters of a democratic system

 

Never will the Jews and Christians be happy with you until you follow their way, and their system and their way of life. Call the people to avoid and renounce the way of the Jews and the Christians, which is the way of freedom, which is the way of equality, which is the way of democracy

 

 

The next speaker is introduced as the deputy headmaster of Darul Uloom Islamic High School, a single faith secondary school in Birmingham

 

The government has urged single faith schools to promote “tolerance … inclusion … and understanding between different sections of society”

 

 

Deputy head: They talk about integration, there is an overt as well as a covert plan, a programme, they talk about you need to integrate, if you don’t you are a freak, you’re strange, there’s something wrong with you, like if you have something against homosexuality, they’ve got a name to call you now, you’re a homophobic man there is something wrong with you, not with this gay – sorry homosexual. Which part of this society are we supposed to take and adopt as our life, which one?

 

 

His criticism of Western society even extended to democracy itself

 

Deputy head: And they’ve got all these people, all these organisations talking about it, let’s be “democratic”. And I disagree with using the word democracy. They should call it according to the Islamic understanding of the word, which is kuffrocracy, kuffrocracy that’s their plan. It’s the hidden, cancerous aim of these people

 

 

Darul Uloom School told us that the deputy headmaster had left the school after this speech was made and said his views and opinions did not represent those of the school

 

It said: “We` promote the view that students should integrate and become good and upright citizens of this country”

 

 

The UKIM works with the police and invited officers to its annual conference

 

Police officer: I take huge comfort from the really positive messages from the Muslim community

 

 

But in the event which they allowed at their Sparkbrook mosque, another invited speaker said Muslims can’t join the police

 

Speaker: Is it correct, is it viable, to join the police? How can you be implementing the laws of kufr? It means a rejection of the concept of democracy, rejecting the entirety of the system

 

 

He mentions a Muslim who joined the British Army and was killed fighting the Taliban last summer

 

Speaker: There was an individual who was killed in Afghanistan recently - what was his name? His name was a Muslim name you know what they’d written in a tabloid newspaper? Hero of Islam!

 

A hero of Islam who went into the Muslim Afghanistan to kill Muslims. Why? Because they are implementing Islam

 

 

Then, he praises the Taliban fighters who killed him

 

The hero of Islam is the one who separated his head from his shoulders.

 

 

((((((IN LIEU OF THEIR STATEMENT TO COME, taken from the Oberver RTR and our letter)))))

 

The UKIM told us its Sparkbrook hall had been available for hire and said: “Some of the organisations that hired it allowed some speakers with views that are not our own. No more external groups will be allowed to hire our community hall at Sparkbrook”

 

It said the UK Islamic Mission has no organic links with Jamaa’t-e-Islami in Pakistan or any other Islamic party or society overseas

 

It said the UKIM believed in “genuine plurality, multiculturalism, universal human rights, cultural diversity

 

 

Dr Mian told us that he did not advocate that Islam would be forced upon anyone, and said we had not quoted his many speeches condemning  terrorism and the killing of innocent people

 

 

Our investigation has uncovered religious bigotry and intolerance spreading from the Saudi religious establishment through major, mainstream British organisations
 

 

Haras Rafiq: The radicalising power of this ideology is extremely dangerous.  We are losing our children to extremists

 

Hakim Murad: I regard what the Saudis are doing in the ghettoes of British Islam as potentially lethal for the future of the community

 

 




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Readers have left 16 comments.
Zubair Ahmed:

Assalamu 'alaikum w.w.


These scholars etc. ought to review what is alleged against them and clarify any misinterpretations or false allegations, as well as review their views and statements whilst taking the advice and viewpoint of several other Muslim scholars of diverse backgrounds into consideration.

Wassalaam,
Zubair.
(1) 2007-01-15 14:23:08
salahuddin cummins:

It is very disappointing - but salutary - that Dispathes and not "we" the Muslims of GB who have identified the illiberal, depressing and negative view of submitting to God which is being propounded here.This travesty of the very concepts of compassion and mercy, the bedrock of human understanding of Allah, can only damage Islam, Muslims, and the political liberalism and cultural pluralism which makes Islam possible here. It's up to all of us to say "no" to this vicious twaddle. This not the way forward for da'wa. Good for Channel Four!
(2) 2007-01-15 17:56:30
Khadeja Khan:

I haven't seen it yet so I cannot judge, but by the sound of it they are quoting similar objectionable views that I have been hearing and complaining about from the mid nineties- but i haven't personally heard them preached in mosques.I even heard this kind of thing in a school Islamic Society AND complained regularly. The speakers abused me. The school authorities appeared supine. In the end the Islamic Society folded for a bit as the kids stopped going - not, sadly, because of the appalling views went against their understanding of Islam (which seemed minimal) but because at last they realised that the speakers were racist. The kids had at least learned from their not-Muslim school teachers that racism is wrong and gradually ceased to turn up at the meetings.
(3) 2007-01-15 18:21:07
Anon:

The views quoted are no different to the views held by BNP and openly expressed in pubs throughout this country! So i dont know why Dispatches is making a mountain of a molehill. Its a simple case of muslim bashing in attempt to convince all the liberal non muslims that muslims are just pure evil.
(4) 2007-01-15 20:25:45
Shazy:

Here is the battle ground for Muslims! Here is the Jihad that we must fight! The enemy is within and he slowly poisons the minds of the weak and impressionable and then uses them for his own ends. It is these people that claim scholarship and knowledge that urge the vulnerable to carry out acts against our neighbours. Yet not once do they place themselves in danger. Oh no, they are pleased to take their fees and scuttle off back to safety.
(5) 2007-01-15 20:46:17
ATEEQ:

Just saw the programmes. I believe there was not too much wrong. Most of the wording by channel 4 was pure islamaphobia, and I support most of the views made by some of the imams. However, I do have my doubts about Wahabbism – a little extreme. Lets hope MPAC does not follow up with a programme to further undermine muslims like they did a two months ago.
(6) 2007-01-15 20:59:31
europamedical:

Channel Four have done us all a service by alerting us to the full horror of the ignorant monsters in our midst.It's up to all civilised Muslims to denounce these madmen.
(7) 2007-01-15 21:03:37
Yusuf Smith:

Khadeja: can you please tell us who the speakers were and in what way they were racist?
(8) 2007-01-15 21:20:23
h:

i saw most of it. i think this is a work of very sophisticated propaganda - notice martin bright was used on the production crew as a "consultant".

Some of the statements by scholars were ill advised and illiberal and they should learn from their mistakes but a lot of the program is complete propaganda against the religion of islam itself i.e. we heard the imam praeching that jews and christains are astray - shock horror!?!?!?

well isnt that the whole reason allah sent mohammad saw? tell us something we dont know duh!

but on a seroius note anybody not familiar with the scholars previously will think they are a bunch of paedophiles/terrorists/trying to force sharia on england by stealth/wanting to beat up all women etc etc.


i hope we can band togther as a community to fight this ugly hatred they have levelled at all of us and our religion and may allah make clear the truth punish the liars and guide us all to better and more beautiful speech so evil doers do not have such an opportunity to twist our meanings so hideiously!
(9) 2007-01-15 23:16:21
shelina:

It wasn't so long ago that MPAC was using this very same programme to promote itself and complain about mosques. Now you're making a fuss? Can't have it both ways!
(10) 2007-01-15 23:24:39
Dave:

It's nothing we in the Northwest of England didn't know already. The Kuffer is starting to wise up to the Islamic Fascist view of all things non Muslim.

al-Taqiyya anyone?
(11) 2007-01-16 00:00:31
dave 2:

seems like the programme was upset that believers dislike non blelievers aka kaafirs. i reckon that the christian speakers would say try not to mix with people who are disbelievers i.e people who drink smoke do crime etc. wots the big scary deal....
(12) 2007-01-16 13:48:08
islam:

brothers and sisters, if you look closly it is quite obvious and smart what the kuffar have done here. they sent sum1 2 spy on the muslims in the house of Allah then they put a program together with all the things that seem negative but have just been put out of perspective. most of the things said by the sheikhs and imams are based on hadith.are we know going to condem the words and actions of the prophet
(saw)! abu usaama was right.dnt trust these kuffar.read the quran and see what Allah has said about these kuffar
(13) 2007-01-16 18:12:45
Muwahhid:

They said they filmed for 4 months and thats all they had to show the people, selective propaganda, stereotyping, taking things out of context. If you notice how cleverly yet by deceit they edited the whole film. only choosing those words and phrases that will cause misconception and misconstrue the whole topic at hand. Any critically thinking individual won't buy it.
(14) 2007-01-18 10:44:55
Realist:

Thankyou C4 for showing,or confirming, what most of us 'kuffar' already knew. I wonder if these hatred spewing individuals will be bought to the courts as was BNP leader Nick Griffin for what NOW seems his moderate comments...and NO...I'm NOT a supporter of the BNP,just a believer in justice. It scares me to think that there are people like this living in Britain. Could you imagine the outrage and arrests made if the tables were reversed and these scenes had been recorded in a Christian church? I've noted comments about the contents in this programme being edited but none the less the comments aired WERE said. Why didn't the 'moderate' muslims in these mosques shout down these rantings or better still,walk out in disgust?
(15) 2007-01-22 09:00:00
Mohamed Abdel Rauf:

It's hard to show video of people saying these kinds of things unless they actually said them. Instead of worrying about "damage control" and convincing people that the BBC are racists, perhaps a more effective tactic for Abu Usaamah and the lot would be to quit being a bunch of bigoted, backward-thinking morons who stain the name of Islam. It's a bit ridiculous for these numbskulls to act like caricatures of poorly educated religious reactionaries and then cry "Islamophobia" when someone catches them on tape being themselves. You did it to yourselves, but worse, you're doing it to us, the real Muslims, too. Just shut up.
(16) 2007-01-29 19:00:20
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