The Scottish-Islamic Foundation have said that an opinion poll of Scottish society about Muslims shows mixed feelings when it comes to community relations.
The British Council/Ipsos MORI poll found:
Six out of ten people think Muslims are integrated into Scottish society
46% of Scots think Muslims are loyal to the country, while 33% think they are not
Islam is viewed less favourably than other religions in Scotland
Respondents to the poll also expressed a feeling that integration was easier in Scotland than in England.
Commenting on the findings, Asif Ahmed chairman of the Scottish-Islamic Foundation said:
“There are few better places in the world to be Muslim than Scotland – but it can be even better. With more effort across the board, Scotland can be an exemplar to the rest of the world not just on coexistence between Muslims and others, but also harmony and cooperation.
“Compared to polls over the years in Scotland, the situation isn’t getting dramatically better or worse. Greater pushes need to be made for an upturn though as the anti-Muslim demonstrations in Glasgow and Edinburgh over the last year, coupled with the economic crisis, could mean things go the other way in the years ahead.”
“For over a century, an observatory in a south-east London park has been used as the reference point to set every watch on the globe. But Greenwich Mean Time is facing a challenge to its claims as the starting point for each new day. A giant new clock being built in the Islamic holy city of Mecca hopes to usurp the role of Greenwich Observatory….”
The Daily Mail exposes an Islamic conspiracy to undermine GMT.
Quilliam’s Maajid Nawaz has to retract his false claim
The Cordoba Foundation (TCF) rejects utterly libellous allegations made against it by co-director of the Quilliam Foundation Maajid Nawaz. On Sunday 8 August on the Sky News Sunday Liveprogramme, Nawaz falsely claimed that “The Cordoba Foundation, they in Kensington and Chelsea Town Hall, hosted the Al Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki”.
This accusation is baseless, since TCF has at no time organised or hosted any event at the Kensington and Chelsea Town Hall. Nawaz is basing this accusation on a similar report issued by the Centre for Social Cohesion in 2009, which TCF refuted in a statement on 13 November 2009.
It is utterly absurd for Nawaz to state that TCF had hosted Al-Awlaki given that Al-Awlaki has attacked and declared un-Islamic (Haram or Kufr) a number of initiatives and projects which TCF either run or fully support that encourage wider engagement of young Muslims with British and European politics and the media.
This accusation by Nawaz is illustrative of the lack of professionalism, accuracy, sound academic research and even truth, demonstrated by him and the Quilliam Foundation.
Anas Altikriti, CEO of The Cordoba Foundation said “Nawaz’s baseless claim exposes the Quilliam Foundation’s amateurish and flawed working methods for what they are: cheap and simple, for the purposes of achieving mudslinging tabloid notoriety. It is surprising that any political party, organisation or individual should continue to accord such organisations credibility or respect.”
TCF demands Nawaz and the Quilliam Foundation retract the accusation forthwith. Failing to do so will compel TCF to seek legal council.
The Cordoba Foundation continues to pursue its aims and objectives through actual projects, real initiatives and true engagement with those who matter for the future of our country.
A delegation of politicians, religious leaders and campaigners from Bradford will arrive in London tomorrow to ask the home secretary to ban a planned demonstration in the Yorkshire city by the far-right English Defence League (EDL).
The delegation, which includes the Bradford West MP, Marsha Singh, says the proposed demonstration is an attempt to provoke trouble in a city still recovering from the riots in 2001 that followed an attempted march by the National Front.
“The EDL is a racist, anti-Muslim organisation that is coming to Bradford with the sole intention of whipping up tensions and trying to provoke a riot,” said Singh. “Unfortunately, we know only too well what this type of terror can bring and Bradford is still recovering from the disturbances of 2001.”
The Sky News Sunday Live programme this weekend featured a revealing encounter between Maajid Nawaz of the Quilliam Foundation and Jonathan Githens-Mazer of the European Muslim Research Centre, on the subject of Quilliam’s recently-leaked witch-hunting “briefing” against mainstream British Muslim organisations. Jonathan Githens-Mazer accurately nails Quilliam’s contempt for evidence and logic, and rightly argues that the organisation’s primary concern is with guaranteeing its continued receipt of large sums of taxpayers’ money. But there are some other aspects of Maajid Nawaz’s characteristically weaselly performance that need to be challenged.
Particularly disgraceful is Nawaz’s statement that the North London Central Mosque in Finsbury Park “has recently been accused in parliament by one of its former trustees Khalid Mahmood MP as having hosted Abdulmutallab the Christmas day bomber and Anwar al-Awlaki the Al Qaeda theoretician”. What Nawaz omits to mention is that Khalid Mahmood’s charge against the NLCM was based on a ridiculous US radio report which informed its listeners that Whitechapel Road is in “the Finsbury Park district of London”, confused the NLCM with the East London Mosque and claimed that Abdulmutallab had met al-Awlaki at the NLCM at a time when al-Awlaki was in fact in prison in Yemen.
Here two explanations suggest themselves. Either Nawaz was aware of this, and sought to suggest to Sky viewers that the NLCM was associated with Abdulmutallab and al-Awlaki even though he knew the charge was nonsense. If so, this only reinforces the argument repeatedly put forward on this website that the government should immediately withdraw all state financial support from the Quilliam Foundation. Or, alternatively, Nawaz was genuinely ignorant of the fact that Khalid Mahmood’s accusation against the NLCM was without foundation. In which case, perhaps Nawaz and his Quilliam co-director Ed Husain might consider diverting some of the lavish public funding they currently spend on plush offices, sharp suits and hiring expensive libel lawyers in an attempt to silence their critics, and use the money instead to employ some competent researchers.
And while we’re on the subject of Quilliam’s source of finance, it’s also worth dealing with Nawaz’s claim that “funding that we got from a certain Kuwaiti foundation was cut when we criticised suicide bombings inside Israel”. In reality, Quilliam’s Kuwaiti backers appear to have withdrawn financial support after Ed Husain publicly backed a shameful decision by the then Labour government to ban Yusuf al-Qaradawi from entering the UK. And you can understand why the Kuwaiti foundation took that decision. To anyone in the Middle East it must have appeared incomprehensible that a self-styled “counter-extremism think-tank” should have lined up against a leading voice of moderation in the Muslim world.
Finally, Nawaz asserts that “we’ve opposed banning Hizb ut-Tahrir” and to back up that claim says that he was “quoted by the former Prime Minister in parliament as opposing banning non-violent Islamists”. The reference is to a House of Commons debate in November 2007 in which Gordon Brown did indeed cite Nawaz’s opposition to the illegalisation of HT.
However, while Nawaz has always said he is against a ban on HT, Ed Husain has repeatedly argued in favour of one. He did so in his book The Islamist and has since repeated the call in even more unequivocal terms. Writing in the Daily Telegraph in February 2007, for example, Husain complained:
“Today, in our midst, Hizb ut-Tahrir calls for an expansionist, violent, totalitarian Islamist state – and we continue to ignore it. There is no quick fix to the problem of home-grown terrorism, but banning Hizb ut-Tahrir would be an excellent first step, sending a strong signal to aspiring terrorists that Britain has not changed the rules of game. We no longer play that game.”
But then, as Jonathan Githens-Mazer points out, evidence and logic are of little concern to the directors of the Quilliam Foundation.
A Scottish Islamic group has been accused of sharing the ideology of terrorists in a secret list prepared for top British security officials. The Scottish Islamic Foundation, which receives funding from the Scottish Government, has been described as an “entry level” group for Islamists by the Quilliam Foundation. The list it has compiled identifies groups that it says local and central government should be “wary of engagement” with.
The Quilliam Foundation was co-founded by Ed Husain and Maajid Nawaz, former activists in the radical Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir. In a document sent to Charles Farr, the director-general of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism, a directorate of the Home Office, it lists the Scottish Islamic Foundation and the Muslim Council of Britain along with numerous other groups as alleged extremist sympathisers.
The briefing document went on to say: “The ideology of non-violent Islamists is broadly the same as that of violent Islamists, they disagree only on tactics.”
Yesterday a spokesman for the Scottish Islamic Foundation said: “This is without any basis and we will take legal advice on our options for redress wherever allegations appear. QF (the Quilliam Foundation] is run by a pair of individuals whose intellect is such that they were self-confessed bona fide extremists as late as 2007. They now lecture others in a McCarthyite fashion about supposed links, when QF themselves actually support scholars who advocate a global Islamic state.”
Furious parents last night hit out at plans to serve halal-only school dinners. Pupils will have no option but to eat meat slaughtered following Islamic teachings specifically for Muslims.
The controversial technique involves unstunned animals bleeding to death after having their throats cut. Campaigners say the method is barbaric and should be banned.
But all high schools in the London borough of Harrow have been told to provide only halal meat on menus. Already two of the borough’s 52 primary schools have chosen halal-only menus. There are fears the other 50 will follow this autumn.
The ruling has sparked huge protests among parents who say they were not consulted. Angry opponents say it is blatantly pandering to Muslims by trampling over the feelings of other faiths.
Update: See also Nick Ferrari’s piece in the Sunday Express: “Have I suddenly woken up in Saudi Arabia? While I wasn’t looking, did we simply stop being a Christian country? There can be no other explanation for the daft and downright divisive decision made to use only halal meat in all school meals in one part of London from next month.”
Around 150 people crowded into a meeting called to organise for the “We are Bradford” unity event on Saturday 28 August. The “We are Bradford” event will be a peaceful, united and multicultural response to plans by the racist English Defence League to bring their anti-Muslim hatred to Bradford.
Last night’s meeting brought together a broad mix of local people, including black, white and Asian people, Muslims and members of other faith groups, trade unionists and young people. The mood of the meeting was positive but serious, with participants resolved not to abandon their city to the EDL. The meeting heard confirmation from the police that a static demonstration by the EDL would not be banned.
Bradford East MP David Ward told the meeting that he wanted to attend the “We are Bradford” celebration to show that the EDL was not welcome in the city.
UAF joint secretary Weyman Bennett said a peaceful, multicultural event in Bradford was essential. The experience of Stoke and Luton has shown that where the EDL is unopposed its supporters are more likely to go on the rampage. Weyman poined out that support for the “We are Bradford” event is coming from across the country, with the trade unions PCS, CWU, UCU and TSSA already giving their backing.
The Rev Chris Howson, City Mission priest and one of the ‘We Are Bradford’ organisers, called for a peaceful response to the EDL to show the world that the EDL only wanted to use racism to divide the city. ‘We are Bradford’ unites all those who stand for peace and unity, he argued.
The meeting also heard Kanja Sesay, Black students’ officer for the National Union of Students speak about the importance of providing a safe focus for young people to show their opposition to the racism of the EDL.
Bradford trade unionists from the PCS civil servants’ union and the NUT teachers’ union spoke from the floor about how they were building the event.
Local activist Ashiq Hussain, who chaired the meeting, urged everyone to play their part in building a peaceful, united response to the EDL, to sign the campaign statement and volunteer as stewards for the event.
Thousands of leaflets were distributed to be handed out across the city.
What you can do
UAF is mobilising for the event nationally. You can download aleaflet here. Please see our transport page for regularly updated coach details.
A secret list prepared for a top British security official accuses peaceful Muslim groups, politicians, a television channel and a Scotland Yard unit of sharing the ideology of terrorists.
The list was drawn up for Charles Farr, the director general of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT), a directorate of the Home Office. Farr is a former senior intelligence officer.
It was sent to him in June by the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism thinktank which has received about £1m in government funding.
Quilliam was co-founded by Ed Husain and Maajid Nawaz, former activists in the radical Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir. Critics of the foundation accused it of McCarthyite smear tactics and branded its claims ridiculous. The foundation declined repeated requests for comment.
In the Sunday Times David Leppard reveals that Sabin Khan, a senior adviser to home secretary Theresa May, has been suspended for opposing May’s decision to ban Zakir Naik from entering the UK. Apparently Khan’s offence was to describe this stupid and ignorant decision, entirely accurately, as “a huge error of judgment”. Leppard reports that Charles Farr, Khan’s boss at the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (the Home Office directorate responsible for counter-terrorism in the UK), also opposed the ban.
Of course, both Leppard and the Sunday Times have an axe to grind here, as it was Leppard’s misleading and scaremongering article (“Muslim preacher of hate is let into Britain”, Sunday Times, 30 May 2010) that provided the basis for the ban on Dr Naik.
A statement by the Islamic Research Foundation rebutting the Home Office’s charges against Dr Naik can be consulted here. It points out that the apparently damning quote produced by Leppard and echoed by the Home Office, that “every Muslim should be a terrorist”, was actually in defence of police repression of violent criminals – a stance on law and order that you might have thought would endear Dr Naik to a Tory home secretary.
Leppard reports that Charles Farr welcomed the IRF’s response as “a good strong statement”. Unfortunately, instead of reassessing the Naik ban and rectifying her mistake, it would appear that May prefers to discipline her critics.
Furious parents last night hit out at plans to serve halal-only school dinners. Pupils will have no option but to eat meat slaughtered following Islamic teachings specifically for Muslims.