Lately Jamal at Radical Muslim has been posting requests for people to sign a petition to the UK Prime Minister asking him to approve the construction of the Abbey Mills mosque. Several people have objected, because he has posted his requests on blog entries which have nothing to do with the subject, even on my tech blog. I had a look at the petition, submitted by one Joseph Ashworth, and quickly decided that I won't be signing it. The reason? It has no hope of being taken seriously because it is so stupidly worded.
The petition is to "Go forward with plans to build a £100 Million mega Mosque", which accepts two of the straw-man arguments of those who oppose the mosque. It's not supposed to be a "mega mosque", but primarily (after the two-week Olympics are over) a place for the Tablighi Jama'at to hold their weekly study meetings, and as for the cost of construction, the mosque's website does not give any indication of how much it might cost; they simply say "it is too early to say". The figure might have been an estimate of how much the Mangera-Avars monstrosity might have costed, but the mosque's website earlier stated that they had abandoned that idea (they have since deleted those words, but here's the cached version at Google), and there is no reference to it on the site now.
The petition was obviously not started by a Muslim, and thinks that having such a petition will show what a tolerant people we are, but nearly all the signatories are Muslims, which really defeats the object of it. Surely Muslims should be starting their own petition, if that is the way to go about this - but it should not be to demand a "£100 mega mosque", as if any mosque should cost that much, but to ask that the decision on whether or not to build it not be swayed by pressure from ill-informed bigots. In any case, the Prime Minister is not the person who deals with local planning applications; the responsible parties are the Olympic authority and the local council's planning department - the local council being that of Newham borough in this case.
Update: Jamal has now posted a libelous tirade against me on his own blog (see trackback below). He has insinuated that among the alleged 2,500 Muslims' signatures on the anti-mosque petition is mine, and it is not. He has insinuated that I am on the payroll of the BNP or the Zionists, which I am not. He in fact knows my position on the so-called mega mosque, which is that I support the plan, with reservations. I know he has read what I've written before on the subject, because he's linked to it in this article.
He insists on calling it the "Mega Mosque". This is the name its bigoted opponents coined for it. The rest of us call it the Markaz, Masjid Ilyas or the Abbey Mills Mosque. The name "mega mosque" derives from the exaggerated claims of a 40,000 to 70,000 capacity, when in fact the capacity is more likely to be around 12,000. Towards the end of his diatribe he takes a pointless side-swipe at sister Ginny for her concern at things the pop singer Akon has said, which she thinks use Islam as an excuse for his immoral behaviour. The occasion for this is that Ginny also objects to his action of posting requests to sign the pro-mosque petition on blog posts which have nothing to do with it, among them this post, about a software release on a blog which is not about Islam. He objects to his postings (I hesitate to call it spamming, because spam is pork which is najasa, but it is basically the same behaviour) being compared to al-Muhajiroun posters, but al-Muhajiroun did exactly that - posted their material where it did not belong. (Sister Ginny has responded here.)
It seems that br. Jamal has a problem with taking things personally as sister Umm Zaid recently wrote at length about many women she knows, so clearly it's not just women. His reaction reminds me of that of MPACUK when their tactics and their lack of any sense of appropriateness was criticised. The problem with these people is that they make us look like excitable incompetents.
For the record, I support the mosque plan, with reservations: that any foreign money (particularly Saudi money) not have strings attached, such as an understanding of future Saudi influence over the mosque, and that it be a beautiful building, not an "iconic", "radical" building, because such buildings are usually ugly to look at and unpleasant to work in. It needs to be a credit to us, not an embarrassment, and the same can be said of Muslims who campaign on Muslim issues.
I do not see the relevance of this point regarding Christians starting the petition as it is more then you have done. Seeing that many Christians are the “closest people in friendship to the believers”, while many Christians are married to Muslims, there is nothing wrong with this. If you really believes that “surely Muslims should be starting their own petition”, then you should have already done this yourself rather then sitting at you computer slandering the efforts of others, comparing the petition to al-Muhajiroun paraphernalia and encouraging others not to sign the petition to build that which benefits Muslims.
For the rest of my response;
http://radicalmuslim.blogsome.com/2007/06/02/support-the-mega-mosque-dont-be-a-yusuf-smith/
Salaam;
I was also requested to post about the so-called 'mega mosque' by Br. Jamal in my comments; I waffled back and forth for several days because he paid no attention to my blog: I am not British, nor are most of my readers (predominantly Americans and Canadians), and it is really one of my blogging pet peeves to have people use my comment section to advertise their own agendas. Furthermore, Br. Jamal stated in one of his posts that he believed construction would go on anyway regardless of all these petitions swirling around and I thought that just made approving his comment doubly pointless!
But it was when I visited his blog again this evening (before I came over to your blog) and saw the rants against you that decided me. I will not be a part of a slanderous assault against a brother in Islam.
Assalamu'alaykum,
I too had this petition promoted in my comments, but I think doing so truly reduces the value of the petition. First of all, it is open only to British citizens, so if Canadians and Americans and the rest of the Muslim blogosphere interfere, it would only reduce the credibility of the petition. Secondly, the wording struck me as odd and oblivious to the purpose of the construction.
You're right, it's supposed to be a "markaz", and not a "mega mosque". Calling it such will only strengthen the voices against it. From my understanding, this markaz will function in much the same way as the current Dewsbury Markaz; it is a discredit to that centre and to the effort of Tabligh worldwide to call their masjids "mega-mosques"; it reduces them to commercial venues popularized only by their size and budget rather than the effort that drives these masaajid.
Salaams,
I don't understand how you can link this to MPACUK - they are doing good work and I don't see the connection with this person and his actions.
Just because mpac have the balls to hold our leaders to account I don't see that as a chink in their tactics but I thank them for standing up against these so-called mosque leaders.
Fiamaanallah,
Abu Funza
Welcome to my world Yusuf - where you have to deal with mud-slinging from little kids with no sense of nuance.
Islamic Circles Presents
TERROR MOSQUE, OLYMPIC MOSQUE OR WEST HAM MOSQUE
Date: Friday 7th September 2007
Time: 6.15 pm - 8.30 pm
Venue: Ithaca House, 27 Romford Rd, Stratford, London E15 4LJ
A debate with Abdul Khaliq Mian (Newham Respect Coalition) and
Councillor Alan Craig (Newham Christian People's Alliance).
Far away from the oil fields of the Middle East, in the early
1990s, members of the Anjuman Welfare Trust (Tablighi Jamaat)
through sheer sweat and hard work in the rag-tag factories of
East London, managed to purchase a disused and contaminated
area of land near Abbey Mills from Newham Council with an
intention to serve the growing needs of the Muslim community
in East London and beyond, by building a mosque and community
centre.
If we now fast forward to 2007 - post 9/11, 7/7, Iraq and
Afghanistan wars, and the announcement that the 2012 Olympic
Games are to be held in London, we have a situation where
this non-descript piece of land in East London has become
the subject of intense controversy, capturing the attention
of both local and international media.
Nearly 1 in 8 Londoners consider themselves to be Muslim.
Up to half of those living near the area where the Olympic
Games will be taking place are Muslim. Up to a third of the
countries participating will be Muslim majority nations.
So why is it that certain individuals supported by neo-con
think tanks and Zionist inclined newspapers have decided to
target this project, whose administrators are affiliated
to Tablighi Jamaat, a worldwide movement known for being
apolitical? Why is this mosque project being labelled as
a potential source of terrorist activities just because
some of the individuals involved happen to share similar
theological roots as the Taliban?
Is it not ironic that this is happening now despite all
the talk of diversity and multiculturalism - one of the
principal reasons why London won. Note the hijab wearing
children on the TV screens when London's victory was
announced in contrast to the recent French experience
of "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité". What is all the fuss
about? Will the area become an "Islamic Emirate of
Stratford" or perhaps something more akin to a Cordoba
of the past - a shining example of genuine tolerance,
diversity and civilisation?
To debate the issue we have Abdul Khaliq Mian who has been
an active member of the community in Newham over the last
30 years. He has contributed significantly towards the
development of the West Ham mosque project and is currently
a member of the Respect Party. His counterpart will be Alan
Craig, councillor for the Canning Town South ward in Newham.
He is leader of the Christian People's Alliance group and
has actively campaigned against the mosque claiming that the
Tablighi Jamaat are funded by the Saudis and have terrorist
links, and that the project would damage community relations
if it were to go ahead.
All welcome and free entrance - just turn up.
Rail / Tube: Stratford Station
Directions:
5min walk from Stratford Station, close to Ibis Stratford Hotel.
Map: http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=539150&y=184519&z
=0&sv=E15+4LJ&st=2&pc=E15+4LJ&mapp=newmap.srf&searchp=newsearch.srf
For more details and to attend please contact:
Tel: 07956 983 609
E-mail: info@islamiccircles.org