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This article was written by Fariduddien Rice, an Australian brother who was for a long time present on the Usenet group soc.religion.islam and had an interest in the Turkish Naqshbandi shaikh Mahmud Es'ad Cosan (pronounced Joshan). The brother had a website, which has since disappeared, so I decided to repost it here after rescuing it from the Google caché, after seeing that the article it was written to refute, Sufism - The Deviated Path, by Yusuf Hijazi (published in the Australian Wahhabi magazine Nida'ul Islam or the Call of Islam in the mid 1990s) is still being forwarded around. Not all the points made in this article are correct, but it demonstrates how wide of the mark Hijazi's essay was.

I found this French translation of my article, Qadianis: Common Doubts, on the Anti-Ahmadiyya site. The translation is not mine; I apologise if the French is not good.

Un des sujets qui fait de la religion islamique impopulaire dans certains quartiers est son traitement d’une secte originaire du sous-continent indien née sous la tutelle du régime colonial britannique. Le groupe s’est fait appelé « Mouvement Ahmadiyya en Islam » tandis que les Musulmans l’appellent le groupe qadiyani. Les Musulmans qui comprennent leur religion, malgré les divergences sur plusieurs questions, sont tous unanimes sur ce point. Le groupe ne peut pas être considéré comme une secte islamique et ses membres ne sont nullement pas des musulmans. Pourtant, il semble qu’il y a certaines incompréhensions sur cette question parmi certains convertis qui probablement sont influencés par leur esprit et leur passé libéraux. J’ai décidé d’écrire cet article après discussion lors d’un forum de nouveaux convertis sur le réseau. Et cet article est partiellement basé sur les positions que j’ai prises lors de cet échange.

L’attitude à la liberté religieuse parmi les non-musulmans est dominée par les Chartes des Nations Unies écrites après la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale et par des documents comme le Traité des Droits des Etats-Unis, qui découlent des expériences américaines et européennes. Le premier amendement dit catégoriquement, que « le Congrès n’arrêtera pas de Loi sur les religions, et les Etats-Unis ont à faire avec la diversité religieuse. » Alors que les premières colonies de peuplement étaient celles formées des Protestants, des Puritains et d’autres réfugiés en provenance de l’Angleterre pour la plupart, membres de l’Eglise(épiscopale) Anglicane. Aujourd’hui, l’église dominante aux Etats-Unis est l’Eglise catholique romaine. L’Europe et particulièrement l’Europe de l’Ouest a connu des siècles de guerres entre les différentes dominations religieuses mais proches sur le plan doctrinal. En France, les Huguenots ont été persécutés, les croisades contre les Tsiganes en Bohême et en Morave, ainsi que les manifestations contre le Papisme en Angleterre. L’agitation anti-catholique et la violence qui s’en est suivie en Angleterre jusqu’au 19è Siècle. Cela montre bien l’état de persécution de nombreuses sectes, comme les albigensiens, ou même la liquidation des ordres religieux à l’instar des Béguines en Belgique. Ce n’était pas uniquement les Chrétiens qui ont bénéficié des règlements en Europe et en Amérique ; les Juifs, les Musulmans et beaucoup d’autres groupes religieux en ont aussi bénéficié de même les Qadiyanis qui ont été capables de vivre relativement en paix en Occident. Ces mesures n’avaient rien à voir avec la préservation de l’intégrité de toutes les religions. Cependant, la vérité est que ces conflits existaient entre les sectes ayant des différences mineures lorsque la secte qui avait le pouvoir politique prétendait à «l’Orthodoxie.» C’était la conséquence de la domination de ces pays après la 2è Guerre Mondiale que de telles idées ont trouvé leur voie dans plusieurs chartes et conventions des Nations-Unies.

Les Européens et les Américains qui ont été des témoins du comportement de certains groupes religieux dans les pays musulmans comme le Pakistan et l’Arabie Saoudite sont souvent horrifiés dans la mesure où ce genre de conduite leur rappelle la persécution des hérétiques en Europe au cours du Moyen Age. En tant que Musulmans, nous avons une expérience différente d’hérésie qui s’est produite, à plusieurs occasions à travers l’histoire de l’Islam. Des hérétiques ont été torturés, persécutés ou tués. On peut citer un Kharijite hérétique du nom d’Abdul-Rahmaan bin Muljam, qui avait tué Sayyiduna’Ali(RA) et ses partisans Kharijites ainsi que des milliers d’autres Musulmans dont l’unique « crime », était de se rebeller. Il existe aussi les hérétiques Mutazilites qui ont eu raison devant la Cour abasside. Ceux-ci avaient torturé l’Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal et les autres pour avoir refusé d’accepter leurs croyances. Les groupes extrémistes shiites connus sous la dénomination « les assassins »(dérivé du mot arabe « preneur du hashish », allégation à cause de leur brutalité jusqu’à ce que les gens croyaient qu’ils prenaient des drogues), s’étaient engagés dans des campagnes de guerre et de meurtre contre les Musulmans. Le fameux fou Calife d’Egypte qui s’était fait appeler Al-Hakim bin Amr Illah (le seul qui dirige par le commandement de Dieu), était un redoutable génocidaire hérétique Shiite. Tout récemment, les membres de la secte Nusayri appelée communément Alawites ou Alevis, avaient bombardé la Cité de Hama en Syrie en 1982. Après les forces de sécurité ont aussi tué des Musulmans sunnites innocents en réponse au soulèvement dû à la fraternité islamique. Aujourd’hui, lorsqu’ils ne sont pas en train de tuer ou de torturer les Musulmans, ils collaborent gaiement avec les invahisseurs comme les Shiites l’ont fait avec les Mongols sous Ghengis Khan dont la collaboration avait causé des dévastations terribles dans les territoires musulmans et non-musulmans de la Chine jusqu’en Europe Centrale. Lorsqu’ils ne trouvent pas d’abri dans le Monde Musulman, ils se réfugient chez les non-musulmans . C’est notamment le cas des Qadiyanis en Angleterre, dans beaucoup d’autres pays européens et en Israël.

Au cas où quelqu’un voudrait savoir les raisons qui poussent les Musulmans à réagir si fortement à l’égard de faux prophètes, ils devraient analyser notre religion et notre expérience du temps des Sahaba.

L’Islam est la vérité qui se positionne contre l’erreur . Ses défenseurs se donnent aussi l’obligation de défendre et de combattre, par l’épée si nécessaire, les faux prophètes et leurs adeptes. Le plus notoire faux prophète au cours de cette période était Musaylima, fameux pour sa brutalité ; il avait torturé à mort un envoyé musulman appelé( Habib. B. Zaid(RA)) en coupant ses membres devant un groupe de gens.

Al-Aswad al-Ansi avait démontré la fausseté de ses prétentions à tout celui qui doutait de sa croyance diabolique au Yémen. Il avait été tué par le Sahabi Fyruz al-Daylami(RA) que le prophète(SAW) avait appelé « Le serviteur vertueux ». A l’instar de Musaylima, deux Swahabis sont crédités d’avoir tué(Abdullah bin Zaid, le frère de Habib ci-haut cité et Wahshi, puisse Allah soit satisfait d’eux) ; ils sont loués pour leur bravoure car c’était bon. Bref, Musaylima était un ennemi de l’Islam et un cruel tyran.

Lisez tout récit sur le comportement des Qadiyanis au Pakistan, vous y découvrirez qu’ils constituent une secte diabolique détestable. Vu la voie empruntée par les Sahaba vis-à-vis des premiers faux prophètes dans la Péninsule arabique, l’on peut conclure que les Qadiyanis avaient eu un feu vert au Pakistan. Ils continuent à y exercer malgré que le Gouvernement pakistanais ne les permet de s’appeler des Musulmans dans la mesure où ils ne le sont réellement pas. Vous ne pouvez pas vendre une boîte vide et l’appeler un ordinateur sans qu’elle ne dispose d’unité centrale de commande à l’intérieur. Ce qui choque l’esprit, est le fait que quelqu’un peut se permettre d’appeler n’importe quoi Islam dès lors qu’il rejette le principe central de la doctrine islamique(aqida).

Certaines personnes qui ont passé du temps en compagnie des Qadiyanis sont impressionnées par l’unité superficielle et la fraternité qui règnent au sein de ce groupe, en comparaison avec ce que l’on observe dans certaines Mosquées gérées par les Sunnites dans le sous-continent. Je n’ai jamais rencontré d’hostilités dans aucune Mosquée Sunnite où j’ai fait mes prières excepté dans une, (qui du reste, n’était pas gérée par les Sunnites). Pourquoi les Qadiyanis sont-ils plus unis en comparaison aux Sunnites ? La raison en est simple ; c’est parce que le Qadiyanisme est une toute petite secte. Le Conseil Musulman de l’Angleterre estime que la secte ne compte pas plus d’un million de membres à travers le Monde dont la plupart sont des Punjabis de culte Sikh. Par contre, le Sunnisme, a de centaines de millions d’adhérents éparpillés un peu partout, au Maroc, aux Philippines, en Indonésie… L’Islam sunnite constitue la première religion en Russie, en Chine et en Afrique dont les membres s’expriment dans toutes les grandes langues du monde. Pourtant, malgré cette diversité, ils suivent tous quatre écoles de pensée et deux écoles de doctrine. Un sunnite musulman du Maroc trouverait les coutumes de l’Indonésie, du Kenya ou du Pakistan non contraires aux siennes. C’est une miraculeuse preuve de la véracité de l’Islam. Cette situation demeure ainsi à travers des siècles même lorsqu’il n’y avait pas de téléphone ni de réseaux de contact par ordinateurs. Jusqu’à très récemment, les Qadiyanis ont été capables de conserver leur unité parmi les membres à l’instar des Juifs parce qu’ils sont épatés par les récits des persécutions dans le passé et des épreuves qu’ils ont subies. Cependant, contrairement aux Juifs, leur « persécution » ne comprenait pas de massacres, de pogroms ni de morts dans les camps de concentration. Il est aussi facile aux Qadiyanis de jouer avec leur « fraternité » et leur « unité » pour marquer des points auprès d’autres Pakistanais et libéraliser ainsi quelques aspects de leur loi religieuse. En vérité, ils ne connaissent pas de divisions ethniques étant donné que tous les membres pakistanais viennent d’un seul groupe ethnique : les Punjabis. Ils ne connaissent pas de divisions sectaires, car ils constituent une petite secte. Il n’existe pas de problème de désaccord entre les Breilawi et les Deobandi parce que les deux sont des groupes séparés et les Qadiyanis en constituent un troisième qui, contrairement aux deux autres, n’est pas musulman.

Une autre préoccupation soulevée par certains musulmans est de savoir comment traiter avec le groupe Ahmadiyya de Lahore qui rejette la notion de Ghulam Ahmad comme prophète. Ils le considèrent comme un mujaddid, un « rénovateur » de l’Islam en confirmant qu’il n’a jamais prétendu à la prophétie. Ainsi, leur position est mensongère en soi et au mieux une véritable malhonnêteté. Ce groupe est même moins fort que le groupe qadiyani et les Ulémas s’accordent pour dire que ce dernier n’est pas non plus musulman.

Il est important de noter que les nouveaux convertis réalisent combien les Qadiyanis sont loin de l’Islam. Ils ne sont pas à même de propager honnêtement l’Islam, parce que si les Qadiyanis sont à côté des musulmans, ces derniers se détourneraient.

En effet, les responsables de la secte continuent de considérer les faits du groupe(comme des secrets à l’instar de leurs écrits absurdes ex : Roohani Khazain). Le groupe a une présence à Croydon au Sud de Londres et conduit un programme de dawa’h à North End. J’ai eu trois rencontres séparées avec les Qadiyanis à Croydon chaque fois, les gens concernés(deux parmi eux étaient des convertis et habillés comme des musulmans) ne m’ont révélé qui ils étaient jusqu’à ce que nous ayons eu à passer un bon bout de temps avec eux. L’ un d’eux s’est référé à sa « Jamaat Ahmadiyya » tandis que l’autre à un « Imam » nommé Tahir Ahmad. L’un d’eux était arrivé avec un peu de leur gambit favori semblable à leur station satellite de télécommunications dont ils se vantent souvent. Ils font de leur groupe, le seul groupe religieux disposant d’un tel moyen de communication. Ils est absolument insensé pour ne pas considérer qu’il existe plusieurs stations de télévision sunnites dont Iqra est une des plus connues et que des Sheikhs de renom apparaissent régulièrement sur les écrans de télévisions arabes.

J’ai questionné à l’un d’eux sur la prétention de Ghulam Ahmad d’être le Mahdi, et s’il en était ainsi, où était le Dajjal(Antéchrist) ? Il m’avait répondu que le Dajjal est « la civilisation » ;ce qui veut dire la civilisation occidentale. Une réponse étrange avancée eu égard aux nombreux soutiens que leur mouvement bénéficie de cette civilisation notamment l’autorisation de la construction de leurs trois temples au sud de Londres y compris la Mosquée de Londres actuellement située à plusieurs mètres du centre ville ! Ceci va à l’encontre du consensus, selon lequel Dajjal est un homme, un Juif de surcroît. Quant à l’Imam Mahdi(AS), il s’ appelle Muhammad bin Abdillah,(non Ghulam Ahmad !), de la descendance du Prophète(SAW), qui sera reconnu dans le Hijaz, et que Ghulam Ahmad n’avait pas visité, n’apparaîtra qu’après l’occupation d’une partie de la Péninsule arabique par les Chrétiens et l’apparition de Sufiane, le tyran en Syrie. Tout cela ne s’est pas encore produit, des siècles après la mort de Ghulam Ahmad dans un lieu d’aisance(toilette).

Une autre objection est que le Gouvernement pakistanais, supposé en train de persécuter la secte n’est pas un régime islamique. Il est vrai que le Gouvernement pakistanais possède un bon nombre de lois non-islamiques dont certaines sont tirées de la Shariah et qui donnent une image distordue de la shariah. Toutefois, le Gouvernement pakistanais n’est pas le seul à les déclarer incroyant et des imams extrémistes. C’est le consensus unanime des autorités musulmanes tant religieuses que politiques. Les Fatawa ont été décrétées dans des termes durs contre le Qadiyanisme jusqu’au-delà des frontières du Pakistan comme en Gambie. Ce qui suit, vient de ce qu’ un Imam bien connu, Habib Ahmad Mashhur al-Haddad de Hadramaut, a écrit sur eux :

« Ce groupe est plus qu’une calamité pour l’Islam comparée à plusieurs autres sectes qui sont en transgression et en erreur. Ses membres suivent le maudit imposteur Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, qui était créé(sic) par les Britanniques comme une cinquième colonne. Il prétendit à la divinité et à la prophétie. Il a revendiqué qu’il était le Messie, le Mahdi, le Rénovateur de la religion et de l’Islam, tout dans lui seul. Quelle fraude et quelle sédition ! Les Musulmans, reconnaissent d’un commun accord que tout celui qui prétend à la prophétie après notre maître Muhammad(SAW) est un incrédule obstiné. Musaylima, le menteur l’a prétendu, puisse Dieu le maudire !… » En effet, Ghulam Ahmad était plus maudit et vilain que Musaylima le menteur ainsi que tous ceux qui prétendirent à la prophétie, car il prétendit de face être un Musulman….

Les réfuter, c’est suffisant pour montrer qu’ils sont allés contre ce qui est clairement écrit dans le Livre et la Sunna et que toute la Ummah a accepté. Ce qu’ils ont fait est prouvé par les lettres de leur imposteur maudit et leurs livres. Les Musulmans d’aujourd’hui savent tous que les sectaires qadiyanis sont des Kafirs et des apostats qui n’ont aucun rapport avec l’Islam. Les verdicts sans équivoques ont été rendus contre eux comme le soleil de la mi-journée….Qu’Allah les anéantisse ! Comment s’écartent-ils de la vérité ?(Q 9 : 30).(Miftaah al-Jannah, traduit comme Avant-Propos du livre intitulé « le Jardin » par Mostafa Badawa, Presse Quilliam, Londres, 1990).

Il est important d’ajouter que la finalité de la prophétie a été mentionnée dans le Dernier Sermon, que tout le monde, quelque soit son degré de connaissance en Islam, connaît. ( J’ai entendu un Sheikh dire que cette connaissance est tout ce qu’un élève de madrasa de neuf ans doit savoir). L’ignorance est une défense, mais pour ceux vivant dans des régions reculées. Les actions du Gouvernement pakistanais ont été motivées par cette connaissance et non pour des raisons politiques, d’esprit de secte, de caste ou toute autre considération. D’ ailleurs, les Qadiyanis ne méritent pas d’être appelés « Les gens du Livre » parce que leurs prétendues écritures ne proviennent d’aucun Livre révélé(Al Misri et Keller, Reliance of the Traveller, Beltsville, Maryland, 1994).

Le consensus unanime signifie juste - à l’unanimité. Donc, ils ne sont pas tout simplement des Musulmans.

Bismillah al-Rahman al-Raheem

Governments and law enforcement agencies have for years been aware of a scam operating mainly out of West Africa, particularly Nigeria, known as Advance Fee Fraud. This has become known as the 419 scam, after the section of the Nigerian Criminal Code dealing with this type of fraud.

The way it works is that one of their operatives will send a letter, fax or (in more recent cases) an email to some total stranger, out of the blue, in which they claim to be someone of great wealth or power who has fallen on hard times as a result of political troubles in West Africa. They have a substantial sum of money, an eight-figure sum in dollars or pound sterling, which they need to get out of the country to stop the government, or their enemies, getting their hands on it. They need you to help them, either by opening your bank account to them, or by some other means. In return, they'll give you a cut of the money, which will amount to a seven-figure sum.

Once you reply, they will come up with some excuse to demand money from you, either to pay fees to somebody or to bribe an official. And they will keep on coming up with excuses, and getting more money out of you, until you realise that you've been "had" and give up. By this time, you'll have handed up a big sum of money, perhaps your life savings. (In some cases, another group of people will turn up and tell you that the people you'd been dealing with were crooks, and if you stump up some money, they'll go and get your money back for you. You can guess what happens then.)

From time to time, I receive invitations from these scammers which attempt to use Islam to get me to join in. It's not unusual to see Muslim names in 419 emails, because a huge percentage (possibly a majority) of Nigerians are Muslims and this includes a lot of the corrupt élites such as the notorious Abacha family. Less common are emails like the one I reproduce here, in which the author pulls a "help a Muslim brother/sister" line. This was the first of the kind I received, although people have pulled this line on me since.

Here's the email:

FROM:MRS ADJIA BASIRA GUEI.
 SON: MR ISMAIL A GUEI
 PHONE:+225 07493491.

 Dear Yusuf

 I am Hon.Mrs.Adjia Basira Guei from Republic of Cote
 D' Ivoire.I was married to late Gen .Guei Robert the
 late president who was killed during the uprising in
 Abidjan-Cote D' Ivoire.we were married for nineteen years
 and i was the second wife before he was assissinated
 on the 19th september 2002.We had a child (son)Ismail
 A Guei.


 Before his death i was a dedicated muslem.And since
 his death i decided not re-marry or get a child
 outside my matrimonial home which i do not like
 because my hunsband's family are all christians not
 believers in Allah (kafri).


 When my hunsband was alive he deposited the sum of
 $18.5 million (eighteen million five hundred thousand
 U.S.Dollars) with one security company in Abidjan
 later transfered to Brussels in Belgium.Presently,this
 fund is still with the security company in Brussels.


 Recently,my doctor told me that i would not last six
 months time due to the cancer and stroke sickness am
 facing.Having known my condition i decided to donate
 this fund to the work of Allah that would be Utilized
 to build mosques and for orphanages,widows and to
 propagate the word/work of Almighty Allah in Africa/World.

 The koran made me to understand that blessed are the
 hands that gives than the hands that takes,i took this
 decision brecause i have only one son and my husband
 relatives are not muslems and i don't want my
 husband's efforts to be used by unbelievers.

 I don't want a situation where this fund will be used
 in an ungodly way. Conclusively,this is why i have
 taken this decision.I know where i am going.I know
 that i am going to be in the bosom of Allah in peace,I
 don't need any telephone communication in this regard
 for now because of my health and my husband's
 relatives are always around me.

 I don't want them to know about this development.With
 Allah all things are possible. As soon as i receive
 your reply i shall give you the contact of the
 security company in Abidjan and Brussels,I will also
 issue you an authorisation letter.

 Please you can contact my son through the above phone
 number and the same e-mail address.

 Insh'Allah please always contact me on this e-mail
 address.Hoping to hear from you insh'Allah. Best
 regards,
 Hon.Mrs.Adjia Basira Guei. 

Since writing this page I've done a bit of research on this story, and it is a total fabrication. First of all, the expression "bosom of Allah" is not part of the Islamic vocabulary. I looked up this phrase on Google and it produced a few occurrences which appeared in similar scams to this one. A number were by non-Muslims talking about Muslims, sometimes in an insulting way. Second, Robert Guei was not Muslim, and if this lady really was a "dedicated Muslim", she would not have married a non-Muslim at all. Thirdly, I found a letter on an archive of scam letters (since removed) claiming to be from Robert Guei's other second wife, called Franka. How many second wives can a man have?

There are a number of scams a lot like this one; in particular, there are people in eastern Europe who claim to be women seeking to marry western men, who send them pictures of themselves (which are actually of a Russian model) and then ask for money on various false pretences, many of them similar to those used by the Nigerian fraudsters. One of these people, called Oksana (the surname varies), targeted men who posted their email addresses on Islamic matrimonial databases like islam.tc and Kismatlinx, which display email addresses openly (and I suspect the 'traditional' 419ers use these as well). There is a blacklist of bogus Russian brides here, and an article in the Observer (London) about this issue. Note also that there are traditional 419 scams apparently emanating from countries outside West Africa; I have recently received emails of this sort supposedly from Egypt and Pakistan. (I don't think Muslims would go after the lottery winnings that they might be informed of in emails from total strangers, but ... wouldn't hurt to mention it. They're a scam as well.)

More information on this and other online scams

• Watch Out - It's a Scam! - Wael Abdulgawad gives another Muslim perspective, including an "Iraqi" variant
• 419 Eater - stringing the scammers along. It demonstrates just how stupid these crooks are. How could they get $20 million together without stealing it?!
• Artists Against 419 - draining the bandwidth of bogus bank websites run by fraudsters
• Article from The Observer (London) on this subject
• The Kizombe Correspondence - see a scammer get taken for a ride. Also mirrored here.
• J. Cosmo Newbery's Is It A Scam? test
• The Metropolitan Police of London have a detailed page on the racket
• UK National Criminal Intelligence Service also have a page on the scam.
• 419 Fraud - Another detailed page.
• BBC News reports:
  • 27th Nov 2003 - Obansanjo government promises to tackle 419
  • 3rd December 2003 - Britons targeted in lottery scam
  • 3rd March 2004 - Interview with Nuhu Ribadu, head of Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
• Scammed - Article by Umm Zaid on online scams targeting Muslim women (worth reading for men too)
• Muslim Leader Impersonation Fraud - CAIR warning about con men targeting Muslims recently in Florida.
• The Second Golden Age of the Confidence Trick - Christi Scarborough on online auction stings.

(Please note that inclusion here doesn't constitute a recommendation.)

• Zawaj @ Qur'ani Markaz Trust - free, involves personal interviews and meetings in their mosque in South Woodford, near London
• MuslimMatch - UK, free ad, free chat, charges for mail, notifies when your ad is viewed
• Muslim Marriage Consultants - Canada, free ads, free mail exc. for contact details
• 1st Place Muslim Matrimonials - no location given, free ad, free indication of interest, charges for mail
• Muslim Marriage Link - US or Canada (not sure), free ad, charges for mail
• MuslimIntro - UK, free ad, free email exc. for contact details
• Islam.tc Matrimonials - South Africa, completely free, displays email addresses (so vulnerable to spammers and scammers), four madhhabs only, no photos
• PureNikah - UK, free, no photos; formerly KismatLinx, now Unix compatible, no longer displays email addresses
• Muslim Marriage Junction - US, free ads, charges for any contact
• Zawaj.com Matrimonials - US, free ads, charges for contact

By a former member, Abu Uwais

BismillahirRahmanirRahim wa salaat as-Salaam ala Rasulihil-Karim, wa ahla ahli hi wa as-Sahabihi l-karim.

In my youthful, naive and over-zealous days, I was attracted to the group called "Hizbut-Tahrir", it was when their main man was OBM. They appealed to my insecurities and gave me a channel to vent my anger at society and my community and be part of a wider identity driven by "youth".

Anyway after spending a number of years, pamphleting and vandalising public and private property with "Khilafa is coming back" type posters and other such throw away slogans I really started to assess what all this was about and where I was heading as a Muslim. I could not reconcile our anti-kufr stance with most of my HT friends and their love of their designer labels and their materialistic outlook on life. I could not reconcile the fact that one of my acquaintances worked for a large bank in the city; the very ribawi institution that HT purportedly stood against. I could not reconcile the fact that HT did not hold the punishment of the grave as part of their aqida when Imam al-Tahawi clearly states it in al-Aqida al-Tahawiyya:

"80. We believe in the punishment in the grave for those who deserve it, ...".

Imam Tahawi was one of the early imams of Ahl al-Sunnah wa'l Jama'at who listed what the beliefs of Ahl al-Sunnah are in this short treatise. I was told by one of the more "knowledgeable" brothers that "we trust in the punishment of the grave" and that ahad hadith reports do not form part of our aqidah. I later found out that the ahad reports can form part of aqida if one condition can be met: that the tenet of faith mentioned in the hadith is salimun min al-muarada or "free of conflicting evidence", as is the case for this hadith. Besides, I was recalling this belief in the dua after my five daily prayers: "rabana atina fi dunya hasanatan, wa fil akhirati hasanatan, wa kina azabin-naar. WA KINA AZABAN QABRI [and from the PUNISHMENT OF THE GRAVE], wa kina azaban hashiri, wa kina azaban mizan". None of my questions were satisfactorily answered and so the inevitable end came ever closer.

Then OBM left HT and set-up the alternative "Muhajiroon". This I never did quite understand and no one ever explained to me why OBM left seeing as though both parties are working towards the same goal? I also questioned the leadership of the one who allowed himself to be used by the media in the documentary "Tottenham Ayatollah" in which OBM was made to look like a fool. Needless to say my disillusion grew. All I seemed to be doing was pamphleteering and daubing walls with posters and memorising the odd ayat of the Quran to pull out on unsuspecting Muslims to prove my point. I decided to call it a day as I realised that these people were going nowhere and nowhere fast, the bus they were on, so to speak, had not only run out of fuel without the driver noticing; but was heading in the wrong direction in the first place. I could not see how their program would bring about the Khilafa when most of my peers could barely pray properly. All we seemed to concern ourselves with was "siyasa". I increasingly became concerned with my own personal practice of my religion, I recalled the hadith that basically tells the Muslims that if he sees an ill in a brother make sure that ill doesn't exist in yourself and what I saw with my brothers was not good and it existed in me. I wanted to know if I was praying properly ie knowing what the faraid, wajibat, sunan etc of my ibadah were but we just seemed interested in "establishing" the khilafa and nothing else. We were brainwashed into thinking that this was the single most important issue in the ummah today when in fact it was one of many. It seemed to me that if you want to build something like a khilafa it has to be done on good strong and solid foundations, HT/Muhajiroon have put foundations in place but matchsticks cannot hold much for long. Not only have they neglected the foundations but the ground upon which they hope to build on is sand and of no real substance. If they were to establish a "khilafa" it would be just an empty shell and the whole structure would come crashing down.

I now know that these people are totally deficient in the three areas of the Din (Islam, Iman and Ihsan). In fiqh they are pretty much la-Madhhabi, they don't ascribe to any Madhhab and are pre-occupied with their own "ijtihads", in aqida they follow a crypto-Mutazilite rationalism and they are completely devoid of anything spiritual and mock those who make dhikr and attend such gatherings. In short they are the flip side of Wahhabism.

HT/Muhajiroon's goal of establishing the Khilafa is no different to those who are awaiting the Mahdi to do it. It is all to do with tawfiq that Allah bestows and from what I know personally there is no tawfiq in either HT/Muhajiroon and there will never be. In fact I have come to realise that if you don't want the establishment of the Islamic state then the best way is to join up with one of these two groups.

I am much older now and I can see things a lot more clearly without the blinkers and naivety of youth. I know many people who have left this group after maturing and would urge the youth of this group to learn their deen first and expend their energies in creating an environment that would be conducive to da'wah and not prohibitive as is currently with HT/Muhajiroon. Once we all sort ourselves and the community out it will be fertile ground for the seeds of tawfiq to be sown and Allah will cause them to flourish in abundance with the rains of His Mercy.

In closing I am thankful to HT for at least awakening me to my deen even though they did very little to nurture it. I have had a few friends "burn out" from HT and go completely back to their jahiliyya state and this can be blamed on no one else but HT who will be questioned on That Day.

One of the issues which makes the Islamic religion unpopular in some quarters is its treatment of a certain sect which originated in the Indian Subcontinent under the tutelage of the British colonial regime. The group, which calls itself the "Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam", is called the Qadiani group by Muslims. Muslims who understand their religion, whatever their differences in other issues, all agree on this point: this group is not an Islamic sect and its members are not Muslims. Yet there seems to be some misunderstanding of this issue among some converts who possibly are influenced by their liberal upbringing and background. I decided to write this article after a discussion on an email forum for New Muslims, and this article is partly based on posts I made to that forum.

Attitude to religious freedom among non-Muslims is dominated by UN charters which were written after the Second World War, and by documents such as the US Bill of Rights, which flow from European and American experience. The First Amendment states categorically, "Congress shall not make a law concerning religion", and the US has a great deal of religious diversity. While the founders of the original colonies were Protestants, Puritans and other refugees from an England dominated by the Anglican (Episcopalian) church, the biggest single denomination in the US today is the Roman Catholic church. Europe, and particularly western Europe, saw centuries of war between different, but doctrinally very similar, religious denominations. There was the persecution of Huguenots in France, the crusades against the Hussites in Bohemia and Moravia, and the no-Popery riots in England, and anti-Catholic agitation and violence went on in England until well into the 19th century. This is to say nothing of state persecution of a number of sects, like the Albigensians, or the liquidation of religious orders like the Béguines in Belgium. It was not only Christians who have benefited from the settlement in Europe and America; Jews, Muslims, and numerous other religious groups, as well as Qadianis, have been able to live relatively peacefully in the west in the 20th century. These measures had nothing to do with the preservation of the integrity of any religion; the truth is that these conflicts were between sects with very minor differences where the sect which had political power claimed "Orthodoxy". It was because of the dominance of these countries after the Second World War that such ideas found their way into the various UN charters and conventions.

Europeans and Americans who witness the treatment of certain religious groups in Muslim countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are often horrified. It reminds them of the persecution of heretics in the Europe of the middle ages. As Muslims we have a different experience of heresy. It has been, on numerous occasions throughout Islamic history, the heretics which have been doing the torturing, persecuting and murdering. It was a Kharijite heretic, Abdul-Rahman bin Muljam, who murdered Sayyiduna 'Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, and his fellow Kharijites murdered thousands of other Muslims whose only 'crime' was to disagree with them. It was Mu'tazilite heretics, who had gained the upper hand in the Abbasid court, who tortured the Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal (and others) for refusing to accept their beliefs. The extreme Shi'a groups known as "Assassins" (derived from the Arabic for hashish-takers, allegedly because they were so brutal that people thought they were on drugs) also waged campaigns of war and murder against Muslims. The infamous mad caliph of Egypt who called himself Al-Hakim bi Amr Illah (the one who rules by God's command), also a mass murderer, was a Shi'ite heretic. More recently, it was members of the Nusayri sect, commonly called Alawites or Alevis, who bombed the city of Hama, Syria, in 1982 and whose security forces also killed innocent Sunni Muslims in response to the Muslim Brotherhood's uprising. When they are not actually torturing and killing Muslims, they collaborate with our enemies, as the Shi'a did with the Mongol invaders under Ghengis Khan, who caused devastation in Musilm and non-Muslim lands from China to central Europe. When they cannot find a home in the Muslim world, they seek refuge with the non-Muslims: in the case of the Qadianis, that means the UK, other European countries, and (of all places) Israel.

If anyone wants to know why Muslims react so strongly to false prophets, they should look at our religion, and our experience, which begins from the time of the Sahaba. Islam is truth, and although "Truth stands apart from error", its defenders are also given the authority to defend it. This includes fighting false prophets and their followers, by the sword if necessary. The most notorious false prophet from that period was Musaylima, who was notorious for his brutality; he tortured the Muslims' messenger (Habib b. Zaid, may Allah be pleased with him) to death by hacking off his limbs in front of a group of people. Another, Al-Aswad al-Ansi, demonstrated the falsity of his claims to anyone who was in doubt through his diabolical behaviour in Yemen. He was killed by a Sahabi named Fayruz al-Daylami (radhi' Allahu 'anhu), and the Prophet (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam) called him a "righteous servant". As for Musaylima himself, two Sahabis are credited with killing him (Abdullah b. Zaid, the brother of the aforementioned Habib, and Wahshi, may Allah be pleased with them all). They are praised for this, because it was good. Musaylima was an enemy of Islam and a cruel tyrant.

Read any account of the Qadianis' behaviour in Pakistan, and you will discover that they are a vile, diabolical sect whose "civilised" front is just that - a front. Given the way the Sahaba reacted to the early false Prophets in the Arabian peninsula, one can only conclude that the Qadianis have got off lightly in Pakistan. They still exist, and the Pakistani government does not allow them to call themselves Muslims because they are not Muslims. You cannot sell an empty box and call it a computer if it has no CPU inside. With that borne in mind, how can someone be allowed to call something Islam, when it rejects (whatever weasel words it uses) a central tenet of Islamic doctrine (aqida)?

Some people who spend time with Qadianis are impressed by the superficial unity and friendliness of this group, in comparison with what one may find in some of the mosques set up by Sunnis from the subcontinent. I have to add here that I have never encountered hostility in any of the Sunni mosques I have attended (except in one, and that was not from Sunnis), but there is a very simple reason why the Qadianis are united, which is that in comparison with Sunni Islam they are a tiny sect. The Muslim Council of Britain estimates that the sect (which, by the way, is notorious for exaggerating its membership) has no more than a million members worldwide (mostly Punjabis); Sunnism, on the other hand, has hundreds millions of adherents in a swathe of land which stretches all the way from Morocco to the Phillipines and Indonesia; it is a major religion in Russia and China, and in Africa; its members speak all of the world's major languages. Yet despite all this diversity, they all follow four schools of law and two (very similar and mutually accepting) schools of doctrine. A Sunni Muslim from Morocco would find the customs of Indonesia, Kenya or Pakistan not dissimilar from his own. This is a miraculous proof of the Truth of Islam, and this situation remained through centuries when there were no telephones or computer networks.

Like the Jews, until quite recently, the Qadianis are able to keep their membership united by rattling off tales of their past persecutions and trials. (Unlike the Jews, their 'persecution' has not included massacres, pogroms and death camps.) It is also easy for the Qadianis to play up their "friendliness" and "unity" to score empty points off other Pakistanis, and to liberalise aspects of their religious law. In truth, they have no ethnic division because almost all of their Pakistani flock come from one ethnic group: the Punjabis. They do not have sectarian divisions, because they are a small sect themselves. They do not have a Breilawi/Deobandi division problem, because the Breilawis and Deobandis are two separate groupings while the Qadianis are a third, who unlike the other two, are not Muslim. So let no-one be deceived by these tactics of theirs.

Another issue raised by some Muslims has to do with the Lahore Ahmadiyya group, which supposedly rejects the notion of Ghulam Ahmad being a prophet. They instead regard him as a mujaddid, a "reviver" of Islam, and insist he never claimed prophethood. However, the ulama of Islam, including those of the Punjab who witnessed the unfolding of these events, unanimously insist that he did claim prohethood. So their position is at best self-deluding and at best downright dishonest. This group are of even less strength than the Qadiani group; there are at least some 'ulama who believe them to be Muslims, but there are other issues with their beliefs.

It is important that new converts realise the threat posed by the Qadianis, and exactly how far from Islam they are. They cannot spread honestly, because if individual Qadianis were upfront with Muslims about their affiliation, the said Muslims would turn around and walk away from them. In fact, the leadership of the sect has kept facts about their sect (such as their absurd scriptures like "Roohani Khaza'in") secret from even their own local officials (See here). The group has a presence in Croydon in south London, and used to run a da'wah stall in the North End shopping area. I have had three separate encounters with Qadianis in Croydon and each time the people concerned (two of them were converts and dressed like Muslims) did not reveal who they were with until we had been talking for quite some time. One of them referred to his "Ahmadiyya jama'at" and the other to an "imam" named Tahir Ahmad. One of them came up with a few of their favourite gambits, such as their satellite TV station which, they claim, makes their group the only religious group with a satellite TV station. This is absolute nonsense; there are several Sunni satellite TV stations (Iqra is one of the best known) and well-known shaikhs regularly appear on Arabic TV.

I asked one of them about Ghulam Ahmad's claim to be the Mahdi, and if he was the Mahdi, where was the Dajjal (Antichrist)? He replied that the Dajjal is "the civilisation", meaning western civilisation, a strange response given the support their movement has received from that civilisation, which allowed three of their temples to be built in south London alone (including the so-called London Mosque which is actually several miles from the city centre!). Again, this goes against consensus, which says that the Dajjal is a man, of Jewish background. Imam Mahdi ('alaihi as-salaam) is named Muhammad bin Abdillah (not Ghulam Ahmad!), is from the descendents of the Prophet (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam), unlike Ghulam Ahmad, will be recognised in the Hijaz, which Ghulam Ahmad never visited, and will not appear until after the occupation of part of the Arabian peninsula by Christians and the appearance of the Sufiani tyrant in Syria - all of which has yet to happen, decades after Ghulam Ahmad met his end in a toilet.

Another objection is that the Pakistani government, which supposedly persecutes the sect, is not exactly Islamically-based. It is true that the Pakistani government has a number of un-Islamic laws, some of them loosely based on the Shari'ah and which give a distorted image of the Shari'ah; it is not, however, the Pakstani government alone which declares them unbelievers, nor extremist imams, though such people exist, but the unanimous consensus of Muslim authorities, and I mean religious as well as political. Fatawa have been issued against the group as far west as the Gambia, in the strongest possible terms. Here is what one well-known imam, Habib Ahmad Mashhur al-Haddad of Hadramaut, has written about them:

This grouping is more of an affliction to Islam than many of the other sects which are in transgression and error. Its members follow the accursed impostor Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who was created (sic) by the British as a fifth column. He claimed divinity and prophethood, asserted that he was the Messiah, the Mahdi, and the Renovator of Religion and Islam, all in one. What fraud and sedition is this? The Muslims are unanimously agreed that anyone who claims prophethood after our master Muhammad (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa aalihi wa sallam) is an obstinate disbeliever. Musaylima the Liar claimed it, may God curse him! ... In fact, [Ghulam Ahmad] was more accursed and vile than Musaylima the Liar and others who have claimed prophethood, for he pretended outwardly to be a Muslim. ... To confute them it is sufficient to show that they have gone against what is clearly stated in the Book and the Sunna, and what the whole Umma has agreed on. That they have done this is proved by the letters of their accursed impostor and their printed literature. The Muslims of today are of the unanimous view that the Qadiani sectaries are kafirs and apostates who have no connection of any kind with Islam. Verdicts to this effect have been issued against them which are clearer than the sun in the noonday sky. ... May God Himself fight against them! What falsehood they utter! [9:30]. (Miftaah al-Jannah, translated as Key to the Garden by Mostafa Badawi, Quilliam Press, London, 1990).

It is important to add here that the Finality of Prophethood was mentioned in the Final Sermon, and is something which is known of the religion by necessity, meaning that anyone with any degree of Islamic knowledge knows this (I have heard a shaikh say that such knowledge is what any nine-year-old madrassa student would know). Ignorance is a defence, but only for those in a position to be ignorant, such as those from very remote regions. The actions of the Pakistani government have been motivated by this knowledge, not by political motives, sectarianism, caste or anything else. In addition, the Qadianis are not entitled to be called "People of the Book", because their false scriptures cannot possibly be remnants of any revealed Book (Al-Misri & Keller, Reliance of the Traveller, Beltsville, Maryland, 1994).

Unanimous consensus means just that - unanimous. They are not Muslims.

Bismillahi Al-Rahmani Al-Rahim

A Consumer Protection Report: Internet Recruiting Firm Iblis & Minions, Inc.

by Sidi Musa Furber

al-salamu `alaykum

One of the sunan that Allah Most High has decreed is that predators prey on the weak, not the strong. This sunnah of preying on the weak is one of the tactics used by Iblis in this war that he has declared against monotheists in general and the followers of Muhammad bin `Abd Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) in particular. But in stark contrast to the appetites of the predators from the animal kingdom which are limited enough that they rarely exhaust the entire population of weak prey, the appetite of Iblis & Minions, Inc. (Allah protect us from them) is unlimited, exceeding the population of weak Muslims. Since Iblis & Minions, Inc. has a weak grip at best over Muslims with strong, sounds beliefs, its employees must first weaken their intended prey before they can strike. Another stark contrast is that while the goal of animal predators is to recruit their prey to the dinner table, Iblis & Minions, Inc. has a two part goal: to recruit you to work for them in this life so you can take advantage of the Iblis & Minions, Inc. next life retirement policy: eternal damnation in the Hellfire. And as the wise saying goes: an once of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

In the case of Iblis & Minions, Inc., one of the best prevention is simply being aware of a few of the steps they use for recruiting Muslims to the Iblis & Minions, Inc. team. The following observations just barely scratch the surface.

Those missionary like salesmen from Iblis & Minions, Inc. typically go through the following steps when recruiting to their cause:

1. Picking the target

The first step is always picking a good target. Since the easiest targets are always the juiciest, they always look for Muslims who are looking to increase their knowledge of Islam. Their least favorite targets are Muslims with more knowledge of Islam, but sometimes they take the risk and invest the extra effort since there's nothing that helps Iblis & Minions, Inc. like all the new targets this one will bring with him. One of the greatest proofs that these people work for Iblis is that they rarely set their sights on non-Muslims.

2. Infiltration and Probing

Once a target has been chosen, the next step is to infiltrate one of the Iblis & Minions, Inc. agents. Today, thanks to the Internet, their task has never been easier. It used to be that they had to hide themselves behind taqiya: showing outward agreement while concealing what they truly believe. Where they used to do this hiding behind lies and slinking in the shadows, now they just slink and tell lies. When their target has some knowledge, they use this stage to probe for weaknesses. An indication of this is a pattern of quick topics switches whenever the target has an answer to their questions; even if they do not succeed in recruiting one of these targets, they're at least kept busy and worn down with an endless stream of questions.

3. Lowering the guard

Soon after infiltration they being the first stage of their plan by getting the target to lower their guard. Sometimes they pretend to be honest seekers of knowledge, perhaps just a bit confused about things or not totally committed. One of the best indications of this is when they throw out a question concerning some controversy and then claim that they are not looking for debate or argument.

And sometimes they are obvious about working for Iblis & Minions, Inc., claiming that they are secretly learning their ways so that they can jump ship and expose them. Anyone who has read the first few pages of Al-Baqara knows exactly for whom they really work.

They have a million cover stories they can use. Another favorite approach is to claim that they are working towards unity, bridging the gap, so to speak. But what they never tell you is that this bridge they're building is one way: from us straight to Iblis & Minions, Inc. The late Muhibb Al-Din Al-Khatib (may Allah be merciful with him) has a few interesting stories of attempts to do this in Egypt this century.

The whole point is finding some way to get you to lower your guard. Being up front and announcing that they are on a mission to destroy your Iman, Islam and Ihsan is not in the best interest of the goals at Iblis & Minions, Inc.

4. Weakening the target

Once the guard has been lowered, the real work starts: getting the target weak enough so they finally succumb. They favorite tool here is to take advantage of ignorance by getting the target to question beliefs that he really has little detailed knowledge about, tricking him into thinking that his personal ignorance is not from his own shortcomings but because Ahl Al-Sunnah has no answer, and then filling the gap they have caused in victim's Iman with Iblis & Minions, Inc. propaganda. At this point they present only some of the facts to the target, and conceal or outright lie about the things the target cannot accept.

The list gives just some of their favorite bait:

Allegation: You contradict the Majestic Qur'an

Their favorite evidence for this is their claim that our practice of washing our feet when making wudu contradicts order in the the Qur'an that they should be wiped.
A response is that the verse concerning wudu has come to us through seven canonical recitations that are mutawatir [related in such great numbers at each point of their chain that it is impossible that the narrators simultaneously agreed upon a lie] -- just like all other verses in the Qur'an. These seven recitations, upon which the Ummah has consensus, transmit two variations: one where arjul (feet) is a direct object governed by a verb and has a fatha on it, and the other where it is government by a preposition and has a kasra underneath it. All Muslims agree upon both of these recitations. Principles of jurisprudence dictate that the significance of both recitations must be taken into account. One way of doing this is to say that one recitation indicates washing the feet and the other indicates wiping over khuff. This is supported by the hadiths transmitted to us by the Companions in general (Allah be pleased with them), including Ahl Al-Bayt (Peace be upon them). The Shayatin claim to have other examples of this, but they all end up being false claims.

Allegation: You pull rulings out of thin air using analogical reasoning, ignoring evidence and making up the religion as you see fit.

An answer to this is that analogical reasoning is found with the Companions (Allah be pleased with them), including those from Ahl Al-Bayt (Peace be upon them). So this allegation is really an attach on Ahl Al-Bayt (peace be upon them).

Allegation: We are rightly guided because we have less numbers and are more downtrodden. Allah Most High has said, And how few they are! (Qur'an) and Few of My servants are thankful (Qur'an)

An obvious answer is that this is a distortion of what Allah Most High said. Allah Most High has said concerning the people of the right (ashab al-yamin), Droves from the first and droves from the last (Qur'an) and so the verse they mention has nothing to do with supporting one group over the other. Rather, the verse has to with the small number of those who are truly thankful compared to those who are not. And similarly the other verse concerns those who perform all possible pious acts compared to those who do not.

Allegation: Your leaders have corrupted the Qur'an, removing many verses concerning the superiority of Ahl Al-Bayt (Peace be upon them), the imperative to follow them and the prohibition of disagreeing with them, it being obligatory to love them, and the names of their enemies - all to protect their self interest.

As evidence for this they claim we removed a verse And we make `Ali your son in law from A lam nashrah (Qur'an), a verse which would indicate that `Ali (Peace be upon him) was the son in law of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) at the exclusion of `Uthman (Allah be pleased with him).

They even claim that we removed an entire chapter from the Qur'an (surat al-wilayah) in which the superiority of `Ali of and Ahl Al-Bayt (peace be upon him) is mentioned. How convenient it is that they have managed to preserve these chapter, as shown here.

An answer to this is that this allegation defies what Allah Most High has promised us in the Qur'an: Verily, We have revealed the Remembrance [the Qur'an] and surely We are protective of it! (Qur'an).

Allegation: The Sunni scholar so-and-so agreed with us.

The answer is that while the named scholar may have said what they claim, it was not one of our scholars. The truth is that they search through the names of our scholars, and whenever they find one that matches the name of someone working at Iblis & Minions, Inc. they forge hadiths under his name and give him the Employee Of the Month award and take him out for a quick something or other. `Abd Allah bin Qutayba was one of their agents while `Abd Allah bin Muslim bin Qutayba was a trusted narrator. And there are two people name Al-Sudi: Al-Sudi Al-Kabir was one a trusted narrator, while Al-Sudi Al-Saghir was a lying hadith fabricator.
Today they love to mention hadiths and then falsely attribute them to Bukhari, Muslim or some other source well known to the average Muslim. Sometimes they even polish the chrome a bit with a volume and page number. They do this knowing that their target is unlikely to be able to verify their claim, and even if able will not do so.

Allegation: Many of their scholars first busied themselves with hadith and its sciences, and some of our best scholars transmitted this from them.

The answer to this is that just as Allah Most High has given specific protection to each verse of the Qur'an, He has given a general protection the Sunnah of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace). This general protection has been by Allah blessed the Muslims with scholars who can sift out the authentic, the weak and the fabricated - even when only a single word has been inserted into a long hadith.

Allegation: Your so-and-so agreed with us in one of his books

This is a variation of (5). The truth is that they pen books under the names of our scholars, putting words in their mouth. One example of this is Sirr Al-`Alimin which they ascribed to Imam Al-Ghazali. In the introduction, the author begs that the book be kept secret, and that what it contains is his true beliefs.
Another recent example of this is Al-Muraja`at, which is supposed to be an exchange of letters between an agent of Iblis & Minions, Inc. and an Azhari scholar. This work has been decisively shown to be a fabrication, just one more example of their genre of fictitious conversion literature.

They cite opinions from scholars from the Mu`talizah and the Zaydiyah, claiming that the scholar is one of our zealous supporters. They then knock down this false opinion that they claim to be ours and bring evidence and proofs that support the creed of Iblis & Minions, Inc.

Allegation: Your so-and-so permitted such-and-such vile act!

This is just another variation of (5). Once again, the Iblis & Minions, Inc. fiction department is busy penning books in fiqh and then attributing them to one of our Imams, mentioning vile and disgusting lies to cause criticism. One example of this is a book named Al-Mukhtasr which they ascribed to Imam Malik (Allah be pleased with him) which includes an opinion that a slave owner may engage in sodomy with his slave. Imam Malik (Allah be pleased with him) did not say this.

Allegation: The great poet so-and-so was really one of us.

Once again: a variation of (5). The truth is that they take our poems and add stanzas to them to delude people into thinking that the author was part of the Iblis & Minions, Inc. team. They did this with the poetry of Al-Hafiz Al-Shirazi, Rumi, Shams Al-Din Al-Tabrizi, Imam Al-Shafi`i and others.

Allegation: The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said such-and-such

Yet another variation of (5), only with most dire consequences. The truth is that they fabricate hadiths and ascribe them to the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace). Once of them is that on Judgment day the Iblis & Minions, Inc. staff will not be asked about a single sin since their sins will be turned into good deeds.
Even worse than this is a hadith in which they have fabricated something and attributed it to Allah (!) in claiming that that Allah Most High says that He will not harm a single person who made `Ali (Peace be upon him) his Imam - even if that person disobeyed Allah, and many other things.
We all know that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said in a mutawatir hadith that whoever intentionally ascribes a lie to him will descend into the fire. May Allah protect us!

Allegation: Since the merits of `Ali and Ahl Al-Bayt (Peace be upon them) are agreed upon by while the merits of Abu Bakr, `Omar and `Uthman (Allah be pleased with them) are not, rationality demands that we take what is agreed upon and abandon what is disagreed about.

The answer is that this is just a variation of what some Jews and Christians have said: since Musa and `Isa are agreed upon, we should all just stick with them. Besides, the merits of Abu Bakr, `Omar and `Uthman (Allah be pleased with them one and all) have come to use with chains of transmission, so there is no need to leave them behind based purely on flimsy logic.

Allegation: `Ali (Peace be upon him) did such-and-such.

Once again, old number (5). The truth is that they ascribe all sorts of things to `Ali (Peace be upon him), some of them outright fabrications and others based on authentic texts with everything removed that disagrees with Iblis & Minions, Inc., something demonstrated in Nahj Al-Balagha.

Allegation: We have amnesty from the Hellfire on Judgment day. The threats and punishments mentioned in the Qur'an are for everyone else.

This is just what the Jews claim. And the Allah Most High rejects this idea in the Qur'an, such as in the verse where He says that Whoever does a bad deed will be recompensed for it (Qur'an).

Allegation: You prefer the schools of Abu Hanifa, Al-Shafi`i, Malik and Ahmad, and give them precedence over the school of the Pure Imams of Ahl Al-Bayt (peace be upon them) even though they have more right to be followed. Ahl Al-Bayt have more right to be followed because they were raised in the household of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and the people of a household are most knowledgeable of what it contains.

One answer to this is that we do follow the scholars of Ahl Al-Bayt (peace be upon them) in particular, just as follow the Companions (Allah be pleased with them all) in general.

Allegation: History agrees with us.

The answer is that in historical accounts they mention fictitious stories to support their corrupt beliefs. One example of this is a story between Halima Al-Sa`diyyah, the wet-nurse of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), and Al-Hajjaj bin Yusuf Al-Thaqafi; Halima (Allah be pleased with her) passed away long before Al-Hajjaj's time.

Allegation: Your scholars relate hadiths that diminish the station of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace). For example, they relate hadiths showing his neglect to order the right and forbid the wrong and not being protective of his wives (Allah be pleased with them). They even related that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) allowed `A'ishah (Allah be pleased with her) to watch the Habashis demonstrate their martial skills in the masjid, leaving the Habashis and others to look at his wife (Allah bless him and his entire household and give them peace). And they even relate that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) urinated standing up!

There are many answers to this, but the first one goes back to putting hadiths back in their proper context. So one response to the first hadith is that this event took place before the verses concerning covering the head, and there is no admonishment for things done before something is declared unlawful. Everyone agrees on the famous event where the Chief of the Martyrs Hamza, Abu Talha and other companions (Allah be pleased with them one and all) drank wine and became drunk and the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) saw them in this state and remained silent without admonishing them.

Another answer is that authenticity is determined by careful examination of the chain of transmission, not by our own intellectual whims. So one response to the second hadith is that it is authentic, in Bukhari no less.

And amazing how they accuse us of reducing the station of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) by mentioning hadiths such as the above, yet they remain silent about the things their own scholars claim to relate from the pristine Imams of Ahl Al-Bayt (peace be upon them); things to make the skin crawl. In one of these hadiths that they consider authentic, they claim that Abu `Abd Allah (peace be upon him) said to his companions and partisans (shi`atihi) "Our bonds women's service is for us, and their private parts are lawful for you [to use]." And in Kanz Al-`Irfan, their great exegesis of the Qur'an, the author explains the verse These are my daughters if you [must] do it (Qur'an) saying that Lut (peace be upon him) meant was using his daughters for unnatural sex acts.

5. Entrapment

And once the target has weakened and the target begins to agree with them on some issues, they move on to outright entrapment by getting the target to behave like the staff at Iblis & Minions, Inc. One of the favorite ways is by temporary marriage, since they know that this clearly is a point no return. Many times they get two targets at the same stage to engage in this, killing two bird with one stone.

6. Infection

After the target has been entrapped and thinks he has no chance of escaping, they start revealing the things they previously kept hidden about Iblis & Minions, Inc. At this point the target may start to wake up to the deception, but whatever they did to trap the target is all that holds them back.
Here it is important to note that is most cases the entrapment is purely psychological: it is the fear of rejection that prevents the target from trying to leave Iblis & Minions, Inc., not an actual instance of rejection.

In sha Allah these observations are enough protect us from one of the ways Iblis & Minions, Inc. wages war on Muslims. And may Allah protect us. Lest someone feel that I have been overly harsh, ask yourself: is it a friend of Allah who uses lies and deceptions or a friend of Iblis? is it a friend of Allah who intentionally causes people to have doubts about their beliefs or a friend of Iblis? and isn't there a difference between the janitors at Iblis & Minions, Inc. who are simply misguided and those working in their missionary recruitment department who intentionally misguide?

And Allah knows best.

wa al-salamu `alaykum

--musa

This article was posted by Abu Zakarya to the Islamic forum Gawaher.com. A modified version was later published in Q-News.

Bismillahir rahmanir raheem.

On Sunday, 12th October after dhuhr salah, I attended the seminar by Hizb ut Tahreer commissioned by Croydon Masjid called "Drugs: an Islamic Perspective". I went on behalf of the Union of Former Hizb ut Tahreer Members and Students to offer my support to them in this very important issue since I am a doctor specialising in the field of Addictions. However, what I discovered was a shocking manipulation of the drug addiction by a party that will use anything as a platform for their deviant views and many of whose followers are themselves addicted to drugs. Furthermore, they did a good deal of harm in the general campaign against drugs in the Muslim Ummah.

It should first be said that Hizb ut Tahreer is currently undertaking a drugs campaign in London - they have been active across South London and have held seminars in Tower Hamlets. Croydon Masjid's management committee contains a number of HT students and supporters so when it is said this seminar was arranged by Croydon Masjid, this is akin to saying it was organised by HT. Moreover, the Chairman of the seminar told me he wanted HT to do this seminar to reward them for their help in the running of the masjid such as cleaning, etc. I also spoke to the Imam who said he had questioned why this seminar was given to HT.

The seminar was divided into two parts: one was talks by "experts" and the other was talks by ex-users and a dealer. The experts were both HT members or students. Alhamdulillah the ex-users were very good and showed no signs of "HTness". The two HT speakers included one newly qualified GP who has little or no experience in drug misuse and had actually asked me for advice before the day of the talk. His answers to questions demonstrated a lack of even basic knowledge of Addictions...clearly he was chosen due to his affiliation with HT ahead of the many experts in drugs in the area who are Muslim. The second "expert" was a member of HT who didn't seem to know what certain drugs were and publicly refused to condemn as haram the following three drugs: tobacco, khat and amphetamines.

My hope of helping the Muslims of Croydon with a good project turned to despair as I heard the HT member start talking about "the absence of Khilafah". The issue of drug misuse is a very serious on in the Muslim community not just in England but all over the world. People's lives are literally smoked or injected away - this issue is not a political football. It became clear that HT had simply used this issue as a platform to propagate their views about what they consider the "real" issue - Khilafah. No-one doubts the importance of Khilafah but to a 20 year old unemployed Muslim who spends £1,000 a day by stealing to feed his drug habit, is he to wait until before he can get help? NO! There is no need. We already have many treatments that can help now!

However, the speakers clearly had no idea what drug treatment entails. They rubbished things which are standard interventions which actually work. Hence, they discouraged those with addictions from getting help without offering any alternative. In fairness, the HT member who spoke did say that rehabiltation centres do some good. Unfortunately, the multitude of HT supporters who been shipped in from all over and outside Croydon including one of the management committee suggested their was no effective treatment and the overall impression they gave was that there was no solution until Khilafah!

At the end of the seminar, they handed out "drug information packs". What a joke! If the issue wasn't so serious, I'd split my sides laughing. I rather felt like crying when I saw an unreadable assortment of literature on drugs and an "Islamic ruling" on drugs by...you guessed it...a member of HT. We in the drug services are not perfect - far from it - we recognise we are fighting an uphill battle and the Muslim workers understand the need for a combined approach with da'wah. However, when we produce drug literature, we try to make it accessible to users - they are not going to read a 20 page article and they also need practical advice on how to get help.

Now all this is quite bad enough I think. I will now elaborate on some of the other disgraceful HTisms which they came out with on Sunday. One HT follower stood up and claimed that a sudy published in a journal looked at a Muslim community with a drug problem. When they researched what helped them, they realised it was the arrival of HT in their community! Subhanallah, next time I get someone with alcohol withdrawal syndrome, maybe I should prescribe a dose of HT....NOT!

At what point I asked why these HT followers were advising the youth on drugs when many of them are addicted to the most dangerous drug of them all: nicotine. Furthermore, their "scholars" have permitted the use of the intoxicating stimulant Khat and one follower even told one of my friends that Amphetamines were "doubtful"! I asked explictly for the HT member to say the following drugs are haram: tobacco, khat and amphetamines but he refused. In fact, he claimed there was a difference of opinion on these drugs; when I stated that Khat was undoubtedly an intoxicant, the most he would say was the following fudged statement: "IF it is intoxicating, it should be condemned."

You may feel that was progress to get him to say that...wrong! Afterwards, I was surrounded by emotionally aroused HT followers. Many of them had the yellow teeth and rotting smell of tobacco on their breaths! They not only supported Khat use but tried to tell me that tobacco was not harmful!!!!!! (I noted the doctor in their number was sheepishly quiet at this juncture.)

When I categorically proved that tobacco is indeed harmful (actually, today I got one of them to admit that he would not allow his pregnant wife to smoke because it is harmful but not because it is haram!), they changed the goalposts and said Islam does not forbid harmful substances. However, the Prophet (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam) said, "No harm may be inflicted on oneself or others" (Ibn Majah, Ahmad). Maybe it is not mutawatir so they chose to overlook this hadith!

The HT member who spoke then started to say they don't accept tobacco as a drug because this is a Western definition of drugs! Subhanallah, a drug is a drug - it has nothing to do with Shari'ah: it's like saying I don't accept the Western definition of the colour purple! So now he started to say that drugs in Islam only means Khamr and that harmful substances are neither here nor there despite actually knowing the hadith above. Even if this were true, what about Khat which IS khamr?

Some ignoramuses even started to claim there is no medical evidence that smoking is harmful. My God! I have been in medicine since 1992; have I missed something? There is a consensus amongst doctors going back 50 years that smoking is harmful. Professor Muhammad Ali al-Barr, member of the Royal College of Physicians, says that "Smoking hazards are not to be denied. It is far more dangerous to health than the plague, cholera, smallpox, tuberculosis and leprosy combined."

I would go further and say that tobacco is more harmful to the body than heroin. Now the interesting bit is this: I've been researching tobacco use. It is true that some early scholars permitted its use - why? It would appear that they did not have all the information that we now know about smoking. They didn't know it caused so many diseases, it was addictive and indeed an intoxicant (which I'll explain later). Many people rightly point out that it is haram because it is harmful to the body, it wastes wealth and harms others. (Editor's note: scholars have been saying tobacco is haram since the 18th century on the grounds of harm to body and mind. See "Reliance of the Traveller", section w41.)

However, I will now tell you something which even most doctors don't know. Nicotine is an intoxicant (Khamr). If you don't believe me, pick up the 10th Revised Edition of the World Health Organisation's International Classification of Diseases. It is easy to see why people overlook its intoxicating effects since people seem to smoke up to a hundred cigarettes in one day without losing their senses. However, this is not the whole story. When a person first smokes, he experiences intoxication which is similar to the effects of marijuana and whose "drug-liking" effect is as high as cocaine.

The person experiences coughing, nausea, dizziness, euphoria and light-headedness. These effects very quickly wear off as the smoker becomes tolerant to these effects. The addict, therefore, no longer becomes intoxicated - this is similar to alcohol addicts who can drink vast quantities of alcohol and remain sober. It will not be surprising then if I say that nearly 100% of smokers are addicted to it and 80% want to stop but can't. When they give up smoking they get Nicotine Withdrawal Syndrome hence only 5% of smokers ever manage to stop.

It is clear, therefore, that this drugs campaign by HT is bogus. They are unqualified in this field and are preventing Muslim addicts getting the help they need now. Furthermore, many of their own devotees are drug addicts. They claim to be against Capitalism yet they themselves line the pockets of American tobacco companies. The rate of smoking is higher in poor countries than it is the West and amongst Muslims it probably causes more deaths than all the other drugs out together! Khat is a drug which devastated the Somali community and there are fears of an epidemic here in the UK. Wake up HT! Put your own house in order then people might listen to you preaching about drugs. How are you going to run an Islamic state/fight Jihad when you are stoned or wasting away from cancer?

It's not unusual to find sections of the British press displaying Islamophobic or racist sentiments - we all know about the Daily Express and its long-standing vendetta against immigrants, and at the other end of the scale Polly Toynbee in the Guardian with her hostility to all religion, at least when it comes in contact with the state. Recently though, the Daily Telegraph has been playing host to a far more extreme anti-Muslim bigot calling himself Will Cummins, and some of the letters in reply to him have been worse still. It's real foaming-at-the-mouth stuff.

First of all, who is this Will Cummins? The closest thing anyone has come to an identification is a suggestion that he is one Harry Cummins who works for the British Council. It's doubtful, however, that they are the same person; he is described by Mark Law, the comment editor of the Telegraph, as "a former teacher whose opinion pieces have not been published before [and] wishes to remain anonymous". In other words, he's a complete nobody with an axe to grind. One could understand this newspaper publishing this sort of material if it came from someone who has made some sort of contribution to society or if he is an "expert" of some sort, but "Will Cummins" has had four articles published in the Telegraph, all in July 2004, and they are all Islam-bashing.

His first piece (Dr Williams, beware of false prophets, 4th July) makes the outrageous suggestion that "Christians are the original inhabitants and rightful owners of almost every Muslim land", and that Muslims forced Islam on all of the lands of Islam. If this were so, why do Christians remain in the Levant, Egypt, Iraq, Turkey and even Iran? The Muslims conquered Cyprus very early on, but that country is still predominantly Christian. They also ruled India for centuries, and that is still predominantly Hindu. In fact, one of the Mughal rulers attempted to build bridges with the local Hindus by propagating a syncretic religion. The fact is that all of these lands consist predominantly of the descendents of converts, not of the Arab armies, and these are the Muslims who are attacked in Cummins' articles. More bizarrely, he numbers Hindus among the indigenous non-Muslims who were "reduced to the status of third-class citizens in their own countries, their fate to this day". In reality, it is Hindus who have carried out pogroms in places like Gujarat, and their extremists have attempted to whip up trouble elsewhere. They are in no need of anyone's sympathy.

(Chris Doyle, of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, points out (11th July) that his contention that Christians were there first brings to mind notions of the worshippers of various ancient idols taking control of the near east and our own country being overrun by Druids. Christians would have hardly anything.)

His second piece, We must be allowed to criticise Islam (11th July), alleges that Shaikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi has endorsed "Jew lynching and wife beating" and "the murder of homosexuals". Well, the term "lynching" was invented in the USA to cover murder by mobs, usually by hanging. We believe in fighting the enemy and in the death penalty for certain acts, neither of which bear any resemblance to lynching. I have already discussed the issue of "wife beating" before (see here). As for homosexuals, merely being gay is not enough to attact any penalty - what is punished is sodomy.

This piece brought out one real crazy by the name of Robert Baehr of Haselbury Plucknett in Somerset. He called our Prophet (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam) the Antichrist. The 4th-century bishop Cyril of Jerusalem identified the Antichrist as someone who would come as "the concluding events of the world draw nigh", not thousands of years before that; who would decieve the Jews by lying miracles, while our Prophet (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam) saw only very few Jews convert to Islam; who would reign for three years and six months, and then be overthrown by the return of Jesus (peace be upon him). By Baehr's reckoning, the Second Coming has already happened and the world should be no more; in reality, the Prophet's (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam) mission lasted about twenty years. Some of what I quoted conflicts with Islamic teaching (such as the exact length of time the Antichrist will be on Earth), but this is what a real Christian theologian says about the Antichrist, and it bears no resemblance to the Prophet (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam).

Baehr further alleges that "Jesus stood between the fallen woman and the lynch-mob, whereas Mohammed would have been the first to cast a stone". In fact, the passage is disputed, and some early manuscripts don't contain it at all (see the footnotes to the Good News Bible); Jesus (peace be upon him) may have been using his authority as a Prophet and Messenger of God in the case of this one woman. Our Prophet (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam) had a woman's hand cut off for stealing, and this woman was a member of one of the more powerful tribes of Makkah, the Makhzoum, and rebuked one of the Companions for trying to intercede for her.

Cummins had a third article published on the 18th of July: The Tories must confront Islam instead of kowtowing to it, encouraging the Tory party to stop appealing for the Muslim vote and become "hostile" to Islam, which raises the question of what sort of hostility he advocates. Perhaps he would like the nonsensical rantings of Nick "well-directed boots and fists" Griffin shown on the BBC programme a few weeks ago to become commonplace at party conferences? Or perhaps promises to force pork down the throats of Muslim schoolchildren, as in some districts in France, or bans on hijab in schools or even universities? The piece is also libellous, describing the Muslim Public Affairs Council UK as "one of our more extreme political groups" (in fact, it's a group which encourages Muslims to vote for MPs sympathetic to Muslim issues - the extremists tell Muslims it's against Islam to vote at all), and making an obscure reference to "the local Janjaweed", with no indication as to who exactly he meant. The Janjaweed are an Arab tribal militia who attack blacks in Sudan, including Muslims. No group anything like this exists anywhere in the UK.

Towards the end of the piece, he plays up the possibility of "an Islamist nuclear, conventional or biological strike on Britain", claiming that Ken Livingstone and John Stevens, the Metropolitan [London] Police Commissioner, have said this is inevitable. The fact is that Britain has never been the victim of an Islamist terrorist attack unrelated to Iran, and it has been more than two years since the Sept 2001 hijackings, and we are still waiting for the "inevitable" attack, despite the UK's heavy involvement in American operations in two Muslim countries. So far, the only people who have used "dirty" (radioactive) weapons are the western armies in Iraq and Afghanistan; all the terrorism we have seen here since the end of the IRA's campaign are three bombings committed by David Copeland, a lone Nazi who likes killing people. This does not mean that due vigilance should not be exercised, but it does suggest that the constant talk of the terrorist threat is irresponsible scaremongering with ulterior political motives. He also talks of a "Nazi-Soviet pact" between the left and Muslims, which is one of many examples of his tendency to use the most offensive comparisons available. Muslims chiefly demand the right of our girls to dress in a manner appropriate in their religion in schools paid for out of their parents' tax money, to not have destructive actions in the Muslim world carried out with our tax money, and to have Muslim schools, which is not unreasonable given that the Church of England and the Catholic church have had their schools for decades or centuries. As for the "enormous popular groundswell against Islam", this is entirely in his imagination, and there could not be one without an enormous propaganda campaign.

His last piece to date (as far as I know), Muslims are a threat to our way of life (25th July), he attacks another writer in the Telegraph, Jenny McCartney, who had attacked his scaremongering in earlier issues. In response to her concern about attacks on law-abiding Muslims following a terrorist attack here, he writes, "it's good to know that, as the rest of us hug our bottles of Evian in the irradiated ruins, mourning thousands of dead, Jenny will be lying awake at night worrying that someone might drop a dog poo through the letterbox of her local balti house". He may not remember, but in the aftermath of every major terrorist attack in the USA, Muslims were attacked in the streets - some were stabbed, and there have been shootings of Sikhs who were mistaken for Muslims. Bear in mind that one of these was carried out by white anti-government extremists. He takes McCartney to task for comparing British Muslims to Jews in the Third Reich rather than to Nazis; later on, he compares us to Zionist invaders and non-Muslim Britons to Palestinians, after calling it "Muslim folklore" that Palestinians were natives dispossessed by the Zionists.

The fact is that a far greater threat to public order in this country comes from the likes of Will Cummins and Nick Griffin (much as "Cummins" professes to dislike Griffin) than from any Muslim group. Most Muslims, actually, dread any international "Islamic" terrorist attack here. We have as much chance as anyone else of being caught in the attack itself, and we are likely then to suffer the public hostility resulting from it. The UK's recent history has generally been tolerant of minorities, and the government has resisted public opinion in their defence. Mainland Europe has a long history of being suspicious of minorities, be they Roma, Jews or Muslims. They seem not to have learned from what that led to in the 1940s. On the other hand, rabble-rousers have in the past been the cause of disorder aimed at minority groups, notably anti-Catholic agitators in the north-west in the 19th century, some of whom were killed in the riots they incited. The British media have a strange relationship with racism - on one hand, using some racial epithets is unacceptable, but some racial groups are still fair game: AA Gill was allowed to get away with a series of dreadful anti-Welsh articles for quite some time, while one of the tabloids printed a screed about how the "Frogs" (French) treat their elderly in the wake of the heatwave of a few years ago. Words like nigger, Paki, wog and Yid are deemed unacceptable, while Taffy, Frog, and "the Hun" still rear their head every so often, and if you hide your prejudices behind talk of "bogus asylum seekers" and "militant Islam", you can get away with it. We Muslims do complain about attacks on ourselves and our religion. Cummins alleges that "Islam", like an obscure villain in a Roman Polanski film, doesn't want its name in the papers (except on its own terms). The fact is that Jews do not put up with people maligning them or their religion, and groups like MPAC do not see why we should either.

Right now, there is no reason for any violence between Muslims and non-Muslims in the UK. If there is any, it is likely to be the result of the efforts of troublemakers like Cummins. If the Tories really want a repeat of the Brixton riots, or something worse, they might take Cummins' suggestion seriously.

Bismillah al-Rahman al-Raheem

For an explanation of the terms used, click here.

I became aware of Shaikh Faisal over several months in 2000 and 2001, through hearing his tapes played in certain Islamic bookstores and meeting certain people who admired him and his lectures. Until last year, when he was tried for incitement to murder persons unknown and jailed for nine years (he may well serve less than that, and will probably be deported after the end of his sentence), he was little known outside the Muslim community, and many people within our community were unaware of Faisal's simplistic, extremist and heretical views (I saw him referred to on a South African Deobandi site as "Maulana Faisal of Jamaica"!). I have acquired and listened to several of Faisal's tapes: The Devil's Deception of the Saudi Salafis, Imam Abu Hanifa, The Peak of the Matter, The Devil's Deception of the Bareilawis, Cancers in the Body of the Ummah and (wait for it), The Devil's Deception of the 21st Century House Niggers. It is clear from all of these tapes (except the second of them, which contains little which is controversial) that Faisal is an extremely dangerous character, whose inflammatory speeches are at the extreme end of the Wahhabi spectrum, and could cause a lot of damage.

It appears that the public (and the authorities) first came to know about Faisal when Abdul-Haqq Baker, one of the leaders of the Ibnu Taymiyya mosque in Gresham Road, Brixton [1], was interviewed by the BBC following the arrest of the "Shoe Bomber" Richard Reid, who had been among the congregation there, though he was lured away towards the extremist crowd. Since then the Times has publicly exposed him as "Britain's Shaikh of Race Hate", concentrating (as one would expect from a paper owned by Rupert Murdoch [2]) on Faisal's anti-Jewish sentiments. The Times correctly stated that Faisal makes anti-Jewish jokes during his speeches (as he did on "Jewish Traits in the Ummah"), and that he endeared himself to the crowd by using streetwise language like "brain-dead" and "dodgy".

So the Jews have the Times to take care of their interests; my intention is to warn the Muslims of the danger posed by Faisal's idiotic rhetoric. It occurred to me that I should not have this published, lest he be deported to Jamaica and face some sort of evil there. However, ignorant leaders like Faisal have the potential to encourage groups of Muslims to act irresponsibly, and when this happens, the results are state crackdowns and communal riots, as we witnessed in Gujarat a few months ago.

Faisal's errors fall into a number of categories. He quotes weak opinion as fact; he is insolent to major ulama, including Imam Shafi'i; he has errant opinions on what removes one from the fold of Islam - indeed, he appears to be obsessed with kufr and apostasy; and he has little restraint on condemning people. In fact, he also commits the classic Kharijite error of using verses revealed about the unbelievers, and interpreting them as if they referred to the Muslims.

A Wahhabi

The Peak of the Matter, or the first third of it, telescopes most of Faisal's extremist views into about half an hour. He insists that for someone to say "Ya so-and-so" from a distance is shirk and kufr, as you are attributing to that person the ability to hear them wherever they are. He then says that when by the graveside of the Prophet (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam), it is permissible to give him (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam) salaams by saying "ya Rasoolullah", but as for those who say it is permissible to say this from anywhere else, they "don't have any evidence for it ... even though they have a dodgy evidence; I won't even bother to make mention of it". The chief evidence, in fact, is that during our salaat we say "As-Salaamu 'alaika ayyuha 'n-Nabee" (Oh Prophet), which is precisely to address the Prophet (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam) from a distance.

He then goes on to "demonstrate" that anyone neglecting any of the five pillars is a kafir, using a series of defective evidences including a highly improbable debate in which Imam Ahmed allegedly confounded Imam Shafi'i. When his audience suggests that the majority view (about the position in Islam of the person who does not pray) is the strongest view, he says "are you introducing democracy into my study circle?". He also accuses Imam Shafi'i of "refuting" an ayat of the Qur'an, an accusation he levels elsewhere against an American salafi preacher whom he charges with kufr[3]. On top of this, he states (as fact) the opinion that the father of the Prophet (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam) is in the Hellfire, on the basis of one Hadeeth from Sahih Muslim; in fact, this is one of three hadeeth in the same collection about the same incident, and contains weaker narrators than the other two, which do not mention the father of the Prophet (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam).

Impudence

In Cancers in the Body of the Ummah, he lists a number of sects, many of which don't exist anymore, including the Murji'a and (in its original form) the Mu'tazila. However, the last "Cancer" he mentions, before Allah mercifully cuts his tape off, is the Asha'ira! This is the madhhab which included, almost from its inception, all of the Malikis, most of the Shafi'is, and some Hanbalis (including Ibn al-Jawzi) and Hanafis also. So he is grossly impudent to all of the Ulama of the deen going back centuries.

The Inter-Salafi Feud

The Saudi Salafis is of great concern to me as I have even seen it being sold in a Bareilawi mosque, as if it was a critique of Salafism in general. It is, in fact, an attack on "pro-Saudi" Salafis by a supporter of the violent extremist wing of the sect, primarily against their denial of the term "tawheed al-haakimiyya" - that is, that Allah is the only law-giver. While there is valid criticism of the Saudis and their supporters for their compromising of the Shari'a, Sunnis should beware that this is very much a Wahhabi critique, not a Sunni one. He clearly states, for instance, that the alleged practice of the Bareilawis of "making du'a to the inhabitants of the graves" is shirk, which it is, but nobody is advocating this anyway.

In his attacks on the "Saudi salafis", he falls short of the adab due from a shaikh, or even a Muslim. At one point he accuses an un-named Salafi preacher in the UK of trying to deceive the Muslims by wearing a thawb and sporting a large beard; he then says "do not insult our intelligence; we do not accept you as a believer by the virtue of a beard and a thawb, because Fidel Castro of Cuba has a nice beard! And whenever I see the Pope, he always has a nice thawb!". He repeatedly casts aspersions on people's sincerity, alleging that "they [black pro-Saudi salafis] want to live off the deen; they don't want to live by the deen", and by his use of the term "house niggers", meaning slaves who love their master: "revolution is not on his agenda", "they love kufr, and they love kufr-dom". He calls the pro-Saudi group the "Yahood of the Ummah", alleging that "they oppress their wives, the way Jews oppress their wives", citing the fact that they make niqab (face covering) obligatory for women, and driving unlawful - ignoring the fact that many other scholars agree, including some Deobandis.

Most ridiculously, in his conclusion to The Saudi Salafis, he says: "They are major hypocrites; there is no difference between a Salafi [meaning a Saudi Salafi] and a disciple of Musaylima", because they "exchange the Shari'a". This idiotic statement needs no enumeration. Furthermore, he says that any woman married to one of them should disassociate herself from him; merely to look at him, he alleges, should make her feel sick. (One wonders where they will get a group of ulama to pronounce their divorce; then again, Faisal has been known to pronounce divorces for women - and one must ask where his authorisation comes from - without looking into the full facts.)

In House Niggers, he starts by relating the Hadeeth Qudsi concerning Allah's declaring war on those hostile to a friend of Allah; in Faisal's rendition, he translates "wali" as "servant"! (It means friend or ally.) He repeatedly calls the black American Salafi preacher he is attacking a kafir, and at one point asks the crowd "what shall we do with this man?" and they reply, "Kill him!". After this is repeated two or three times, he says, "I think that makes sense". At the end of this lecture, he plays to the audience a private telephone conversation he had with Salim Morgan, confronting Morgan over his aspersions on Faisal's sanity.

Faisal on Indian Muslims

Probably the most offensive tape, however, is The Devil's Deception of the Bareilawis, with its cover showing a man worshipping at someone's grave. His accusations all seem to be derived from a book by one Ehsan Elahi Zaheer, and it contains statements of gross ignorance, over-simplification, and the usual accusations of kufr and shirk. He repeats accusations that Imam Ahmed Rida was a shi'ite, accusing him of insulting Umm al-Mu'minin A'isha (radhi Allahu 'anhaa), claiming that members of his family had names which were not commonly used by Sunnis, and accusing him of getting support from the British. He also claims that his shaikh was the brother of the bogus prophet Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, by the name of "Mirza Ghulam Qadir Baig", and states that "they drank from the same fountain". In fact, Imam Ahmad Rida's shaikh was called Mirza Qadir Baig, and was no relation to Ghulam Ahmad at all. He also claims that "They do not have any scholars ... no scholar would lower himself to be a Bareilawi". However, they have huffaz, who have been "slandered" on a number of occasions, Faisal alleges, for sodomising little boys. Well, if this is slander, why does Faisal repeat it? He seems to want to fill his lectures with any dirt he can get on Imam Ahmad Rida and his followers, without investigating the facts.

It is very clear from the tape that Faisal does not believe in what is commonly (and mistakenly) called karaama - that is, out-of-the-ordinary events happening to demonstrate the status of the person around whom they appear. Faisal calls these stories "lies". Concerning an incident in which the young Ahmed Rida Khan is unable to repeat a verse of the Qur'an after his father, whereupon it turned out that his father had recited it wrong, Faisal accuses the Bareilawis of making Imam Ahmad Rida infallible to a degree greater than the Prophet (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam) himself.

Later on he mendaciously alleges that they attribute to Shaikh Abdul-Qadir al-Jilani the power "to turn a woman into a man", which seems to refer to a story in which a Christian priest, who could not accept the truth of the Mi'raj, was made to experience life as a farmer's wife somewhere else in the world, bearing several children, all within the blink of an eye, in order to prove that this was possible for Allah. Allah knows best about the truth of this story, but nobody to my knowledge attributes any of this to the Shaikh; they attribute it to Allah, to Whom all Muslims attribute everything.

Faisal makes takfeer on the Bareilawis on numerous false grounds including their supposed making du'as to the people in the graves. Qadi Iyad relates in his Shifa' that Imam Malik was asked by the Abbasid caliph, Abu Ja'far, whether he faced the qibla when he supplicated, or the Prophet (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam). He replied, "Why would you turn your face from him when he is your means and the means of your father, Adam, on the Day of Rising? I face him and ask him to intercede and Allah will grant his intercession." (See page 238 of the Madinah Press translation of this book.) Does Faisal dare call Qadi Iyad a kafir? Lest Faisal say, "Imam Malik and the Qadi made ijtihad, and were mistaken", I say: Why is it an ijtihad error for Imam Malik and Qadi Iyad, but kufr and shirk for a Pakistani Bareilawi? Lest he say it is a weak report, I say: Then why does Qadi Iyad report it at all if there is any hint that it is haram, let alone kufr? Yet Faisal has said that Bareilawis are worse kafirs than the Christians, as the Bareilawi has the Qur'an in front of him and cannot claim ignorance; he has said: "You kill the Bareilawi before you kill the Christian".

Not all of Faisal's tapes are as inflammatory or obviously controversial as those mentioned above, and it is possible that some people listen to Faisal's tapes not realising the nature of the man they are listening to; perhaps they think they will take what is true from Faisal's work and leave what is bad. However, if one is not a scholar - and if one is, one does not need to listen to Faisal - how does one know what is true, or if falsehood is being slipped in that they did not expect? The ulama warned the common people against approaching Ibn Hazm, who was also noted for his extreme views on certain matters; however, the scholars do make use of his work on occasions, especially as his verdicts on ijma carry particular weight, as his criteria for ijma' were more exacting than most other imams (Al-Misri, Keller & others, Reliance of the Traveller, Sunna Books, 1994 - section x161). It is clear that Faisal is not a shaikh at all, displaying none of the adab required; that his views are extreme and dangerous, and could lead to innocent blood being spilled. I call on the book retailers who still stock his tapes to stop doing so, and on the scholars to warn people against him, and on the Muslim public to rely for their deen on reliable scholars.

Lastly, if I have made any mistakes in this piece, I would welcome correction (see my email on the previous page). And Allah knows best, and He alone gives success.

Notes

[1] Ibnu Taymeeyah Mosque is the well-known Brixton Mosque which is home to a hard-core Salafi community of mainly Carribean and Somali origin.

[2] Rupert Murdoch is a Christian Zionist, who publishes the notorious right-wing rag The Sun as well as the more upmarket Times. One of his leader-writers stated, in response to some attack on "Israel" in 2001, that "we are all Israelis now", apparently on behalf of the whole British nation! You speak for yourself mate.

[3] To refute something means to prove it wrong, not merely to contradict it.