The fatheads who have decided to slander Yahya Birt rather than the vile specimens who concocted the research commissioned by the equally vile Policy Exchange should be aware of two things.

Firstly, Yahya has no responsibility for the City Circle blog because this task has never fallen under his remit. So if you dislike any of the content then be so good (not to say grown-up and sensible) as to post your comments there directly. This is especially true for ‘Anees’, who has not done his homework in the least, and does not appear to be able to read decent prose, since he misreads (wilfully or otherwise) pretty much every article of Yahya’s that he quotes on the ‘Ummahpulse’ website.

Incidentally, why do the people there hide behind a shroud of anonymity? At least our brother Yahya puts his identity in the public domain when he writes his commentary, and takes responsibility for his own analysis (which, I imagine, goes over the heads of more than a few who choose to disregard his years of community work, at FAIR, the Islamic Foundation, CC and so forth.)

Secondly, Yahya knows the Deobandi community really well - as few others do - since he has been intimately connected with it. After he took his shahadah at Dewsbury Markaz some 18 years ago, his local mosque for many years was Balham mosque, where he kept contact with many Deobandi ulama and Tablighi brothers, among whom many are still his close friends. One of his best friends is a murid of Mawlana Shaykh Yusuf Motala.

So, O ye agents of slander, please think before you write. The reason I know all this is because I’ve known Yahya personally for over ten years, and was present when brother Yahya had one of the local Deobandi ulama around at his house for dinner last week (before this revolting slander surfaced).

Also, the person who claimed on ‘Ummahpulse’ that Yahya had backbitten Mawlana Shaykh Yusuf Motala in Birmingham is telling a complete lie and unless he repents will taste the hellfire for it (may he and all of us be safeguarded from such a fate.) Yahya told me this personally. Why should I believe some anonymous poster against the word of Yahya, whom I know to be truthful?

So, my message to those who would blacken the name of our brother is: you have got your facts all muddled and wrong, and you are barking up the wrong tree.

When the penny drops, I hope you will have the good akhlaq and taqwa to apologise to him.

All public and semi-public figures in this discussion or any other should be prepared to face questions and (polite) critique. What they should not have to expect is that people who are confused and not very respectful of facts charge him and find him guilty on the basis of some very poor understanding of the issues involved.

Maligning a few mosques is only one piece of the bigger jigsaw which goes far beyond maulding some managers to tarnish the traditions and taunt the tenants. The idea is to question the credibility of the institutions, their values and their teachings.

Whether coopted willingly or conned unknowingly, Policy Exchange is deep enough to make the naive ones sink in the depths of their stink tank.

As for Denis McEoin just check out the campaigns this ‘scholar’ is passionate about check: http://hnn.us/blogs/archives/3/2005/5/

http://www.zionismontheweb.org/historyofMuslimantisemitismand_anti-Zionism.htm

http://irenelancaster.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/07/what-the-guardi.html

What kind of cards he has up in his sleeves can be guessed from his adulation of the below work as “simply rivetting” http://irenelancaster.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/10/eyewitness-repo.html

The above writings are clear and undeniable evidences of Denis’ obsession to demonize, distort and denounce a specific faith and its values. Attempts to portray MacEoin as a scholar in itself speaks of inviting someone to portray followers of a particular faith in black.

I’m afraid it is perfectly legitimate to now ask some serious questions. This is not a case of suspicion but a direct case of why are you supporting these people? It is something that we all have the right to ask.

I am sure it is an honest case of error of judgement but as we can see it is effecting Yahya’s standing in the community and no doubt contributing to many vulnerable Muslims being confused by the whole reformationist thing.

I hope thins does not cause offence to anybody here.

Salaam.

yeah i agree with that very unwise article…people seem to be going off on tangents about this whole thing i think mosques that have been unfairly labelled as selling hate literature should be taking PE to court.

How very silly of anyone to suspect Yahya Birt and to lump him with “Ed” Hussein.

If i were to make a wild guess, I’d say that Haras Rafiq guy probably knows something about the research.

I feel that The City Circle’s ‘Best of the Blogs’ is a good way to understand exactly where they are coming from. I hope you noted an article from Ali Eteraz that they highlighted last week. When one reads it, it is quite clear that he wants a new deconstructed, reformed Islam. For the City Circle to decide that this is the ‘pick of the blogs’ is just bizarre.

As the director of the City Circle, Yahya Birt needs to take some responsibility for what its website is promoting.

I agree - don’t cast suspicion on your brothers but there needs to be some accountability - especially from such a high profile organisation.

The article on UmmahPulse doesn’t cast suspicion on Yahya Birt.

MPACUK’s original post on the whole PE fiasco was an absolute disgrace - they called for ‘Sufi ZioCons’ to be ‘Hunted Down’ - which gave the PE a perfect excuse as to why it won’t release the researcher’s names. MPACUK took fright and removed the post soon after being fingered on Harry’s Place.

Yakoub- as for your assertion that UmmahPulse has a ‘specious literary panache’ - you are a fine one to talk! The only reason that you are down on UmmahPulse is that they don’t agree with your weird take on Islam so you decided to pack up your bat and ball and go off and sulk in the corner!

I concede MPACUK, in a fairly typical act of broadsiding, cast its net just a little too wide in this instance! However, my point is that Muslim sectarianism is indeed widespread in the UK and often very destructive. Deobandis may do Sufism but that doesn’t mean their pals with every Sufi.

Why not take up their offer and write a response to their posts on this issue for their site?

However, it’s one or two well-known groups - especially the SMC - which are responsible for this and not Sufis in general. Most Deobandis are Sufis, and most Sufis are not represented by the SMC. The only group which may be represented by the SMC are the Kabbani wing of Shaikh Nazim’s tariqa.

Ummah Pulse are made of the same material, whatever their affiliation, articulating social analysis about “Neocon conspiracies” (which I am also a member of, apparently) and other such nonsense, differing from other rubbish blogs/sites only in that they assert their perspective with a specious literary panache.

My reading of the literature is that this sectarianism have a great deal to do with early settlement of South Asians in the UK - where Barelwis in particular were initially marginalised, and, in my view, the influence of Wahhabism here, particularly via Uni IslamSocs.