Redstate

By Charles Bird Posted in War — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

It's hard to know what the Muslim Council of Britain is more angry about, the alleged pandering to the so-called Islamophobic agenda by communities secretary Ruth Kelly, or her announcement last week that the British government was "cutting funding and official ties with the MCB, which until now has been the main body representing British Muslims."

Its mission does not differ significantly from CAIR's, which might be the problem. They spend more resources playing the victim card rather than joining forces with the rest of Britain in eradicating militant Islamists and confronting Islamism. Perhaps because there are so many in the MCB who are sympathetic with the militant Islamist agenda. For example, in the August 14, 2005 Guardian:

A separate Observer investigation into the group has revealed its roots in the extremist politics of Pakistan. Its secretary general, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, and media spokesman Inayat Bunglawala have both expressed admiration for the late Maulana Maududi, founder of the radical Jamaat-i-Islami party, which campaigns non-violently for an Islamic state in Pakistan.

Maududi, a prominent figure in the 20th century Islamic revivalist movement, was a virulent anti-feminist who believed Muslims should struggle to rid their countries of Western influences. The Islamic Foundation, an affiliate of the MCB with close and influential links to the government, was founded by Khurshid Ahmad, a prominent member of the Jamaat-i-Islami.

A second affiliate, the strictly orthodox Jamiat Ahl-i-Hadith, based in Birmingham, practises a form of Islam which demands strict separatism from mainstream society. Its website describes the ways of 'disbelievers' as 'based on sick and deviant views concerning their societies, the universe and their very existence'.

The MCB is a loose structure of more than 400 affiliates, and there is no suggestion they are all extremist.

Then there's the MCB's position on Salman Rushdie:

Last week, Salman Rushdie warned in an article in the Times that Sacranie had been a prominent critic during the Satanic Verses affair and advised that the MCB leader should not be viewed as a moderate. In 1989, Sacranie said 'death was perhaps too easy' for the writer. Rushdie also criticised Sacranie for boycotting January's Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony. 'If Sir Iqbal Sacranie is the best Mr Blair can offer in the way of a good Muslim, we have a problem,' said Rushdie. A Panorama documentary to be screened next Sunday will also be highly critical.

[...]

The origins of the Muslim Council of Britain can be traced to the storm around the publication of the Satanic Verses in 1988. India was the first country to ban the book and many Muslim countries followed suit. Opposition to the book in Britain united people committed to a traditionalist view of Islam, of which the founders of the Muslim Council of Britain was a part.

In the Festival of Muslim Cultures, the MCB would not lend its full support unless it was compliant with Sharia law. The hypocrisy couldn't be more clear. The MCB seeks tolerance from the non-Muslim British but fails to exercise its own tolerance for others. But hey, tolerance is fine, just as long we all submit to MCB's agenda. The former head of MCB honored the passing of Sheik Yassin, founder of Hamas. John Ware:

Well, on this occasion, he said that the loss of civilian life, and he mentioned both Palestinian and Israelis, couldn't be condoned. The Islamist group Hamas claimed the bombing. Their founder Sheikh Yassin was later assassinated by the Israelis. Now, what happened then was that, a year or so later, several Muslim organisations here in London held a memorial service for Sheik Yassin at the Central Mosque in Regents Park, and Sir Iqbal chose to attend the service and organisation, the MCB described Sheikh Yassin as "the renowned Islamic scholar."

As Ware later said, Yassin was "chief ideologist of an organisation whose charter seeks the destruction of Israel. And Hamas has conducted a fair number of the 160 or so suicide bombing attacks since the second intifada, which have killed over 500 people in total - again many of them civilians just as in London." In the wake of Ware's words, the MCB accused the BBC of having a pro-Israel agenda. Anyone who has read a fraction of BBC's Israel coverage would find such a notion laughable. The MCB also speaks well of radical imam Yusuf Qaradawi:

Quinn: What's the Muslim Council of Britain had to say about Dr Qaradawi?

Ware: Like the Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin, the Muslim Council of Britain has also described Dr Qaradawi in fairly flattering terms. They've said he's " a distinguished Muslim scholar...a voice of reason and understanding."

Quinn: What's his position been on Iraq?

Ware: Dr Qaradawi's position on Iraq has supported the resistance which he has described as " valiant". I'm quoting here from the Lebanese National News agency website, where he is reported to have said "We call for material, military and human support ...the Muslims want the scholars to show the Arab and Muslim person's duty is towards this cause." So this, I guess, would imply support for attacks on British soldiers as well as American obviously.

Quinn: One of the Muslim Council's main affiliates is the Muslim Association of Britain which also claims to speak for Muslims here. What have they said about suicide bombings in Israel and Iraq?

Ware: A senior member of the MAB, the Muslim Association of Britain, Dr Azzam Tamimi, has said he supports suicide bombings in Israel. I should stress Dr Tamimi has condemned unequivocally the London bombings but he says that if he got the chance in Israel "I would sacrifice myself it's the straight way to pleasing my God".

Andrew Anthony in the Guardian:

'We do not believe in double standards,' said Sir Iqbal Sacranie, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, with one of his two faces. If affiliates of the MCB, like Markazi Jamiat Ahl-i-Hadith, want to say that the ways of Jews and Christians are 'based on sick or deviant views', then, as far as Sir Iqbal is concerned, it's merely part of the 'diversity that exists in the community'. Perhaps we should at least be thankful that he did not prefix diversity with that mindless adjective: 'rich'.

This is the man who has been campaigning, with no little success, for the government to imprison people for seven years for inciting religious hatred. Yet at a time when Islamist fanatics are blowing up commuters, he's not bothered by his own members holding people of other faiths in moral contempt. This is the man who thought that death was 'too easy' for Salman Rushdie. This is the man who still contends that The Satanic Verses should be banned - 'We respect the freedom of expression but we expect freedom of expression to be exercised with responsibility', (unless, it seems, the freedom is exercised by one of the MCB's affiliates).

This is the man who praised Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin, the architect of the suicide-bomb campaign in Israel, as a 'renowned Islamic scholar'. And this is one of the men, in a development beyond satire, whom the government has charged with rooting out Islamic extremists. (Another is Inayat Bunglawala, MCB media secretary, who only months before 11 September 2001 was a propagandist for Osama bin Laden.)

The new head of MCB sounds a bit more tolerant, but is he? To me, no:

His aim, he says, will be to encourage Britain to adopt more Muslim ways, as well as to encourage Muslims to be good British citizens. He thinks that non-Muslim Britons would benefit from having arranged marriages and espousing stronger family values; they would also do well to stop drinking and gambling and to follow many of the teachings of Islam.

I suppose that most Britons would agree that Muslims should be good British citizens. As to the rest, I suspect that British non-Muslims would tell Dr. Bari to either stuff it or to mind his own business. Also noteworthy is that there is no mention by MCB of Muslims assimilating into British society. Rather, Dr. Bari appears more interested in exhorting Britons to assimilate into his harsh brand of traditional Islamic society.

It was Dr. Bari who called British ministers "Islamophobic" when they cut ties with his organization. I call it good news that the Brits did what they did. As Martin Bright writes in a 78-page pdf, MCB's extremist and minority positions have for too long successfully crowded out the more moderate and liberal Islamic points of view in Britain. In fact, the Foreign Office has worsened matters by choosing engagement with Islamist groups.

The influence of political Islam in the higher echelons of the British establishment is strong and growing stronger. The MCB, which claims to speak on behalf of the Muslim community has known links to the ideology of radical Islamism. One of its affiliates, the Muslim Association of Britain, claims inspiration from the Muslim Brotherhood although it has always denied being its British branch. A number of individuals within the leadership of the MCB are sympathetic to the views of Jamaat-e-Islami, the radical Islamist organisation considered the Asian offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. The retired Secretary General, Sir Iqbal Sacranie and press spokesman Inayat Bunglawala have both expressed their admiration for Jamaat-e-Islami founder Maulana Maududi. Meanwhile, the Bangladeshi politician, Delwar Hossein Sayeedi (see above), was hosted by the East London Mosque – whose chairman, Dr Mohammed Abdul Bari is the new Secretary General of the MCB.

The MCB is the Government’s main partner on Muslim issues. Indeed, I would say the two are joined at the hip. Foreign Office sources have told me that when Iqbal Sacranie of the MCB and Jack Straw recently shared an international platform, both men’s speeches were written by the same man: Mockbul Ali. Dr Chetan Bhatt, a reader in sociology at Goldsmiths University and an expert on Hindu and Muslim extremism told me that the Government’s channels of dialogue with the Muslim community were effectively monopolised by Islamist groups. "The overwhelming number of organisations that the Government talks to are influenced by, dominated by or front organisations of the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Muslim Brotherhood," he said. "Their agenda is strictly based on the politics of the Islamic radical right, it doesn’t represent the politics or aspirations of the majority of Muslims in this country."

Later on, the author notes that the majority of Muslims in Britain follow the Sufi tradition, which is comparatively moderate, tolerant, mainstream and apolitical. More on the MCB:

For instance, it should no longer be acceptable for the British Government to deal with the leadership of the MCB whilst it refuses to accept certain branches of Islam as true Muslims. The Ahmadiyya sect has been active in Britain since the early 20th century and has been persecuted in Pakistan and Bangladesh. One might have thought that a beleaguered Muslim minority might attract the support of the MCB – but instead, it has backed the stance of the Pakistani and Bangladeshi governments, which both refuse to recognise the Ahmadiyya as part of the wider Muslim family. When the Ahmadiyya opened Western Europe’s largest mosque in Morden, Surrey, the MCB said it did not regard the building as a mosque or consider the Ahmadiyya to be Muslims. Sir Iqbal Sacranie, then head of the MCB was reported to have said: "They can call their place of worship by any name except for a mosque because that is for Muslims. They are outside the fold of Islam."

The travails with the Muslim Council of Britain parallel my concerns about CAIR. For one thing, we don't know the sources of CAIR's funding, and their principals have a history of skirting too closely to Islamists, particularly Hamas, as the anti-CAIR website will attest. This sort of incident--challenging and confronting Islamists and their sympathizers--is going to result in charges of Islamophobia and bigotry and racism. Our role in this Information War is to make it clear that it's Islamism, not Islam, that's on trial here.