Whaaattt?

Indeed not!

 

And I thought the only masses there were pigeons.

 

Interesting article by an Imam.


Labour is pandering to radical Islamists
By Dr Taj Hargey

Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, is absolutely right to say that mass Muslim prayer should be banned from public squares.

And Nick Timothy is equally right to view the ritual in the middle of Trafalgar Square, attended by Sir Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, as an “act of domination”.

For many moderate Muslims like myself, the howls of outrage from Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour Party over these views would be laughable if not so serious. Labour has called for Mr Timothy, the shadow justice secretary, to be sacked over his social media post, which said the Trafalgar Square event was an “act of domination and therefore division”.

But Labour is totally wrong about this, and their response is also deeply telling about where the Government is going badly wrong when it comes to pandering to radical Islamists. As an imam of some 40 years, I have been deeply concerned about the direction of my religion in Britain and the West.

What were once fringe, fundamentalist, extremist voices have captured our mosques. Now these hardliners, importing a radical agenda from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other puritanical places, are regarded as the mainstream Muslim voice.

They have inveigled their way into polite society, exploiting useful idiots on the Left to present themselves, somehow, not as the radicals but the normal Muslims who speak for the whole community.

These Islamic militants cannot tolerate any criticism or dissent from their hardline doctrinal positions. Those who dare question their methods are labelled Islamophobic, blasphemous even.

These same people even managed to persuade Labour to adopt a new “anti-Muslim hostility” definition that effectively curbs such dissent. To them, it is their way or the highway.

And so we come to the disturbing scenes in Trafalgar Square the other day. Mr Timothy was right when he pointed out that the adhan (call to prayer) – which declares there is no deity but God, and that Mohammed is his messenger – can, when called in a public place, be misconstrued as a declaration of domination in this Christian land.

As a moderate Muslim, I am definitely not in favour of any manifestation of Muslim triumphalism. It is intentionally provocative and a deliberate red rag to a bull.

The entire point of it was to be divisive. They will be thrilled to have whipped up such anger from white Christian people like Mr Timothy. The fact that Sir Sadiq was among them is highly contentious.

What our politicians fail to appreciate is that Islamic fanatics have an agenda that seeks to spread Islam as the only true religion. To them, all non-Muslims are kufar (non-believers). They will not be content until they have subdued the world under their flag of fanaticism.

Fundamentalism leads to violence and terrorism
It is this fundamentalism that leads people down the dark path of intolerance, violence and terrorism. And yet, instead of casting these awful people out to the fringes of society, time and again our elected leaders actively embrace them.

They do it because they believe they are being tolerant, welcoming and kind. And they do it because they worry that growing Muslim populations will vote them out of office if they do not play ball.

Actually, it is an act of betrayal of our liberal British values to embrace such extremists who hate the West. It is also a disservice to the vast majority of Muslims who just want to get on in the UK and make a good life for themselves and their families.

This is why, as a moderate Muslim, imam and free-thinking scholar, I have been warning for some time about the moves from the opportunist Labour Party to create an artificial definition of Islamophobia. I have spent decades as a Muslim academic critically examining my cherished faith by advancing a return to original Qur’anic Islam.

It seems long forgotten to the modern-day Islamic radicalism that institutionalises female inferiority and goes unchallenged in self-appointed Sharia courts. That version of Islam pushes a poisonous “us and them” dogma that has a highly corrosive effect on British society.

Islam needs to return to the pure, peaceful and pluralist teachings of the Koran rather than this manufactured perversion that has polluted the mainstream in British mosques.

I want a progressive, authentic Islam to prevail so we can enjoy a truly multi-faith, cohesive and tolerant society here in contemporary Britain. That is why I cannot stand to see these mass rituals and domination of public spaces in Britain, a country that I have proudly called my home since the 1970s.

I grew up under the tyranny and bigotry of apartheid South Africa, never thinking that I would find myself experiencing isolationist intolerance and the brazen triumphalism of Muslim supremacists in my beloved Britain. Yet in 2026, the Labour Party’s new Islamophobia definition is dragging us into a dark place.

My informed views, honed over decades of scholastic endeavour, are at risk of being banned as extremist and Islamophobic, while, bizarrely, the militants who are doing profound damage to our way of life are immune from any substantive criticism.

This populist Islamic militancy is evident everywhere in our society. Take the burka (facial mask) and the hijab (head covering), for instance.

There is not a single verse in the Koran that obliges women to hide their faces or hair. It is an alien cultural affectation. So, too, is the clergy’s chauvinist sexism that demands men and women must worship separately.

And so, when these people seek to dominate our public spaces and spread their malign influence further still on our British way of life, they must be called out. So bravo Nick Timothy and Nigel Farage for having the guts to take these people on. And shame on Keir Starmer for his cowardice.

Dr Taj Hargey is an imam and director of the Oxford Institute for British Islam

 

Oh I didn't realise that copying and pasting whole articles was the done thing on here. I shall follow suit!

 

I found it interesting and wouldn’t have read it otherwise.

 

There’s nothing sinister about Muslim prayers in Trafalgar Square. As a bishop, I reject the right’s attacks on worship.

When you think about the unedifying political furore about the open iftar held in Trafalgar Square, try to bear in mind that every year on Remembrance Day – a stone’s throw from Trafalgar Square – the bishop of London leads a public Christian act of lamentation in the open air. It is an act of religious observance which happens in cities, towns and villages across the country. Alongside the hymns sung, there are readings from the Bible and prayers made in the name of Jesus Christ, and a blessing invoking the holy trinity. In Leeds, where I have the honour of leading the service alongside the Roman Catholic dean of Leeds, I am accompanied by leaders from other faiths: Jewish, Hindu, Sikh and Muslim. We join together in this public, open-air, unmistakably Christian service.

Over years of attending and conducting such services – and others like it such as those held in memory of Queen Elizabeth II – I have never heard a complaint from those of other faiths that such services represented a “domination of the public sphere” or that such services in our civic spaces were “an expression of power and intimidation”.

Rather, these complaints have come from Nick Timothy, the shadow justice secretary, in response to the open iftar held in Trafalgar Square. His argument has since been adopted by Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch, who have both sought to suggest that public iftars are an affront to the Christian values of our country.

Timothy’s suggestion that the public iftar event was part of an “Islamist playbook” seeking to replace Christianity is sufficiently irrational in its fear and scaremongering to make it definitive as an Islamophobic slur masquerading as public policy concern.

But Islamophobia is not a Christian value or Christian virtue. Our call as Christians is to create room for those with whom we disagree but see in them their God-given dignity. Our call is neither to dominate nor be dominated, but rather to seek the common good and to live at peace with our neighbour – and where we disagree, to disagree well. The attempts of those on the political right to elide Islamophobia and Christian values stand starkly at odds with true practice of the Christian faith.

Few people understood this better than Queen Elizabeth II, whose own Christian faith informed the speech she delivered at Lambeth Palace in 2012: “The concept of our established church is occasionally misunderstood and, I believe, commonly underappreciated. Its role is not to defend Anglicanism to the exclusion of other religions. Instead, the church has a duty to protect the free practice of all faiths in this country.”

Such an understanding of the role of the church and the place of people of faith stands at odds with those calling for the practice of the Muslim faith to now be limited to behind closed doors on the spurious ground that public prayer is a threat.

As an editorial in Jewish News recently noted in a rejection of Timothy’s assertions: “Are there Islamists in this country who wish to assert their way of life over others? Of course. But it is hard to think of a more counterproductive way of combating such a thought process than by telling the many moderate Muslims that they – and they alone – should be unable to celebrate their faith in a public venue which they have booked for an event.”

Reports show that there is a rise in anti-Muslim violence in England and Wales. That parliamentarians are potentially emboldening such crime and violence through their comments is deeply worrying and highly irresponsible. The danger for us all is that such comments from senior politicians help to mainstream extremist ideologies that seek to eradicate Muslims from public life. At a time when our country has never felt more divided, we should draw on Christian values to reject such hate and to focus on what unites us.

Arun Arora - Bshop of Kirkstall in the diocese of Leeds

 

And the article that was quoted above.

In defence of praying during Iftar in Trafalgar Square

The question here is not one of whether such prayer is an attempt to “dominate”. It is about whether one has the right to publicly express their religious identity in this country.

Trafalgar Square is a place for all. Jewish News has been delighted to co-host the community’s annual Chanukah in the Square event many times in the past, as we light the Menorah and sing Maoz Tzur. It plays host to events celebrating other religions as well, from Christian Pentecost prayer events, to Vaisakhi and Diwali celebrations; and this week, to an Iftar celebration during the Muslim month of Ramadan. The uproar in response to that latter has been considerable – and notably ugly in tone.

For one thing, this week’s Trafalgar Square Iftar event had invited those of many different faiths – different Christian denominations, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs and others – to attend. At a certain point, those Muslims present who wished to pray, did so. There were no exhortations for those of the many other faiths present to join in – if that was an “act of domination and therefore division”, as some have suggested, it was a remarkably odd one.

The question here is not really one of whether such prayer is in fact an attempt to “dominate” – or the more obvious explanation, that during Ramadan one breaks ones’ fast by eating very briefly just before and then more properly after the evening Maghrib prayer (yes, like our own Maariv prayer). Rather it is about whether one has the right to publicly express their religious identity in this country. In this specific instance, an event to mark a key event in the Islamic calendar had been openly and legally booked for Trafalgar Square. Muslims present had every right to pray as a part of that.

At the beginning of Ramadan, another event made headlines – a police officer defending the right to freedom of speech of a Christian preacher in Whitechapel. The officer said, in response to those who claimed that it was “a Muslim area”, that “In this country we have freedom of speech… “I understand that you guys don’t want to hear it, so I would just recommend that you walk away and don’t listen to him. He’s not in your home.” It appears that some of those who so loudly championed that police officer last month have forgotten what she said – or think that there should indeed be a double standard.

There are times when Jews in this country wish to openly and publicly display our faith, whether that is through dozens of public Menorah lightings around the country, Purim parades through neighbourhoods with large numbers of Jews, road closures for a Hachnasat Sefer Torah, visiting streams or lakes on Rosh Hashana for Tashlich or large throngs of Charedim protesting education bills outside Westminster while reading Psalms and then davening Minchah. We are fortunate to live in a liberal, democratic society where such things are open to us – for many centuries such things would have been unthinkable.

We would be wise to defend that right for others, because what guarantee do we have that if it were taken from them, we would not be next? We would urge those members of the Jewish community who are inclined to support condemnation of such public prayer to consider where such things can lead – and it is not particularly difficult to see. Attempts in Western countries to circumscribe the Islamic way of life almost always end up doing the same to Jews. Whether via attempts to ban religious slaughter, religious courts or circumcision – initiatives where a significant percentage of advocates wish to make life more difficult for Muslims will also affect Jews.

Are there Islamists in this country who wish to assert their way of life over others? Of course. But it is hard to think of a more counterproductive way of combating such a thought process than by telling the many moderate Muslims that they – and they alone – should be unable to celebrate their faith in a public venue which they have booked for an event. In fact, there are few things more likely to help Islamists in their portrayal of British society as irretrievably hostile towards Muslims.

There are those in our community who will respond to this by telling us that the situation with Muslims is ‘different’. To that we would encourage them to look across the Atlantic. A number of the most influential right wing voices in the United States were railing against Muslims a few years ago. Now they have switched their sights to target Jews.

If you think that could not happen here, you are kidding yourselves. Uphold religious rights for all – you’ll never know when you’ll be glad that you did.

By Voice of the Jewish News

 

It does; just think back to the Crusades, the Reformation, the Hussite wars, the Bartholomew Day massacre, Dissolution of the Monasteries, English Civil War and more recently the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

 

What do the Buddhists have to say?

Ommmmmmmmmm…..

 

The words you quoted were the Imam's, not mine.

 

I was aware of that, blame the software.

 

Will do!

@LG_ , I only copied the article as if you post a link, sometimes not everyone who wants to can open it. Re your two articles, it does not surprise me religious groups want to defend public expressions of religion. The Imam's article, on the other hand, was surprising. It is quite rare to hear from someone on the inside of a religious group who can see a problem and is willing to raise themselves above the parapet to air it.

Remembrance Sunday is mentioned in one of your articles as an act of outdoor praying. I've never seen it that way. It's to honour all those who gave their lives, not to celebrate a god. Yes, politicians and royalty muscle in for a chance to look as though they care, but they are a sideshow. The religious aspect may make pointless death seem more palatable for some. Me, I'd say ditch the platitudes and think more deeply about what those men and women really lost. Everything!