This week in London David Cameron and the Tories launched an attack on Hizb ut-Tahrir and the Labour council who fund the Schools they are closely associated with.

This week in Yorkshire not only did a Tory MP share a debating platform with Hizb ut-Tahrir but a Tory council continued to fund one of Hizb ut Tahrir’s favorite schools.

Davies speaking at a Hizb ut-Tahrir event

Last Saturday in Bradford Philip Davies shared a platform with Taji Mustafa of Hizb ut-Tahrir. In a debate titled ‘Has freedom gone too far?’ Mr. Davies appeared to share common ground with Taji Mustafa in decrying attempts to bring “freedom and democracy to the Middle East”. According to a Hizb ut-Tahrir press release “Philip Davies made it clear that he is opposed to the liberal interventionist export of democracy and liberal values by the gun, as supported by some in the West including David Cameron who supported the invasion of Iraq.”

After the debate Taji Mustafa, media representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain, said, “David Cameron spreads lies about Hizb ut-Tahrir – hiding behind parliamentary privilege. However, his colleague Philip Davies MP was willing to share a platform with a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, for the second time, and debate issues.”

Mr. P Davies position seems some what at odds with that of Mr. D Davis and Mr. Cameron’s who have both made it clear that the Conservative Party will not share a platform with Hizb ut-Tahrir, and if in Government would outlaw them. But Mr. P Davies has a majority of only 500 and Hizb ut-Tahrir hold great sway in his constituency of Shipley, so perhaps he’s more forgiving.

Hopkins chair of The Open Madrasah Network

Meanwhile Mr. P Davies’ neighbour and colleague Kris Hopkins, leader of Tory controlled Bradford Council, sits on £550,000 of taxpayers’ money that has been allocated to The Open Madrasah Network.

By funding these Madrassas Mr. Hopkins believes that he is “reaching into the heart of the community and offering more people access to life-changing services.” But what life-changing services? One of these Madrassas, Madrassah Madania Tahfeezul Quran, has had a long and close association with Hizb ut Tahrir and the Hizb ut Tahrir dominated Bradford University Islamic Society and all three organizations have together been campaigning for a number of years for greater Madrasah autonomy and government funding. A campaign that has had little support from national government but recently  found an advocate in Tory Prospective Parliamentary Candidate Kris Hopkins, who was able to secure the £1/2 million funding for the madrassas (one of these madrassas is in Keighley, a Labour marginal Mr. Hopkins is hoping to win at the next election).

When asked about fears that these schools would, in the words of the Express, “groom children for terror” Mr. Hopkins responded “Madrassas are not about indoctrination. What about Anglican and Catholic schools? Talking about religious instruction in that way risks discriminating against a particular faith.”

Talking about religious instruction in that way risks discriminating against a particular faith. A view that is clearly not shared by his party leader down south.

Interesting side note to this bizarre alliance, the majority of money Mr. Hopkins is distributing to these schools comes from Yorkshire Forward, an organization Mr. Hopkins is keen to see dismantled, perhaps he doesn’t want anyone checking on who or what he is spending money on.

This week has raised some interesting questions about the Tory party

• Does Cameron control his northern MPs, PPCs, and Council leaders?
• Do the Tories see Islamic schools as political punching bags; batter them when funded by Labour councils, praise them when funded by Tory ones?
• While the national party publicly calls for the banning of Hizb ut-Tahrir, are Tory MPs/PPCs in marginal seats where Hizb ut-Tahrir have greater influence seeking their support?

Comment at end

27th November, 2009

One of the most entertaining things to watch these days is ‘worthy’ journos flailing around to try to find the “smoking gun”. Not WMDs. We ALL KNOW they’re under the Syrian desert.

The “smoking gun” in this case is nothing less than the reason(s) WHY Mr Blair took this country into the war in Iraq.

Steve Richards, a kind of occasional on-and-0ff Blair supporter thinks he knows here. Somebody told him about a meeting with Blair where it seems that Blair said he didn’t want to be like previous Labour leaders.

R-I-I-I-ight. Can’t blame him for that.

And also something about getting Britain into the euro, and getting rid of Brown.

R-I-I-I-ight. Can’t blame him for those either.

What makes me smile about this kind of analysis is that it takes a certain position, here it’s Blair’s determination NOT to be a typical anti-Europe/anti-war/anti-American/anti-Tory Labour leader – and builds from it a ’smoking gun’.

Though believable in places this article is far too facile. It seems that the “evidence is being built around the policy” as it were.

Richards says:

“Blair led the domestic coalition of support that he felt most comfortable with, partly because he thought he would challenge it once: when he took up what he regarded as his historic mission to join the euro. It was in this context that he was uncharacteristically relaxed about media attacks that portrayed him as “Bush’s poodle”. He told allies: “At least they wont be able to accuse me of being anti-American when we have the referendum on the euro.

“Shortly after the war, in the summer of 2003, Blair turned his mind to the euro and was livid when Brown as Chancellor placed impossible obstacles in front of him. He wanted to prove then that he was as much a pro-European as he was pro-Bush.

Once the strategic decision was taken, that a new Labour PM would stand shoulder to shoulder with a Republican President, the course was set.

What of the substance of the issue? We know the answer to that. Recently Cherie Blair described her husband’s decision on Iraq as a “close call”. The substance of the issue was finely balanced, as it was for many, but as far as Blair was concerned the domestic calculations pointed overwhelmingly in one direction. They have not been considered by the succession of inquiries into why Britain went to war.”

1. Nick Clegg has MADE it! Someone agrees with him? Who? Hizb ut-Tahrir, no less. Well, Lib-Dems, already on the wrong side of history over Iraq, have to take support where they can find it. (HuT schools supported by Government. You decide on this one. Even Blairless Labour can’t be THAT mad, surely? SURELY?!)

2. This Telegraph commenter at the Mad George Pitcher’s site mentions something which is counter-intuitively in tune with another reason WHY ‘Blair and the Smoking Gun’. I doubt that the commenter meant this interpretation to be taken on the oft-used “oil” conspiracy. But it has the benefit of showing a wider picture, if a little skewed, in opposition to the picture he really meant us to see.

My picture from this?

A prime minister who had concerns over us continuing to live the life we’d voted him in to protect. Cold anyone?

As a point of clarification – this is not to say that Blair DID go to war in order to secure the warmth in our homes and fuel in our vehicles – I don’t accept that he did. But it is so say that there were many considerations feeding into the decision. Geo-politics DID play a part, there can be litttle doubt.

Relevant comment follows:

‘I think the big question is less to do with the personalities of Blair and his cabinet, and Bush and his admin and more to do with why the whole lot of them bent the evidence.

I don’t agree that it is a settled fact that the war was legal. The British Attorney General certainly changed his mind on that; but it is a side issue. Much the most important question is did anyone really believe that Saddam had WMD? I can’t believe the evidence was as clear and unambiguous that war was justified if there were absolutely non to be found after the invasion. There were not none as in a few but not usable, or as in a whole working programme but no stocks due to lack of materials: There were none as, all destroyed long ago and the programme a myth.

It seems information regarding the closure of the WMD programme was out and the lie was that the opposite was kept going to justify a war. Why? What was the real reason for the war? The Americans seem to have been going to attack anyway and Blair may have gone along for any number of reasons but he cannot have done that alone so how did he and the intelligence agencies convince so many people of the necessity? Even if Saddam had WMD he had that capability for years before and was no more dangerous by 2003; so could have been contained. Why not invade North Korea?

This is probably the only chance left of exposing the truth about the reason for the invasion which has to be oil and the American desire for a Middle East client state and the creation of new bases in the region to control the last viable carbon energy reserves outside Iran and Russia and the Caucasus. That truth may be so bloody obvious people are taking it as read but I think it should be exposed because it is more immoral than anything else. It is the truth that dare not be spoken because we all know it. We all know Blair and Bush were doing it to keep our lives as we like them. They did the unspeakable so that the petrol for the school run remained affordable.’

3. Another Know-All, the most unpleasant Paul Routledge at The Mirror

‘But the only person most of us want to see in the dock is the former Prime Minister who took us into an illegal war in 2003 on the basis of lies.

Early testimony has shown that Blair KNEW Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and had NO links to al-Qaeda

The fibbing ex-Premier may not be called until the New Year, so the investigation into what went wrong in this ill-considered military adventure will cast a long shadow over Gordon Brown’s bid to recover public trust.’

“In the DOCK”? What? You mean it IS the Trial of Tony Blair as I have been warning for months and Anne McElvoy has just cottoned on to?

McElvoy quotes:

‘Gordon Brown hopes to escape a grilling on the grounds that as Chancellor, he was peripheral to the critical decision-making.

His predecessor, however, will be at the centre of the proceedings. “No one is on trial here,” said Sir John in his opening remarks. But for many the inquiry is the long-awaited trial of Tony Blair.’

[...]

‘Lord Falconer captures the ambivalence in the old Blair team about the investigation. “I fear public opinion won’t be satisfied until some form of inquiry condemns Blair.

“I hope that this one is sufficiently authoritative to deal with that anxiety.” At the same time, he says, Blair remains convinced that he was right to go to war.’

4. Another one of the DECIDED, Scott Ritter here at The Guardian probably sees no irony in THIS remark:

‘In short, Saddam had been found guilty of possessing WMD, and his sentence had been passed down by Washington and London void of any hard evidence that such weapons, or even related programmes, even existed. The sentence meted out – regime termination – mandated such a massive deployment of troops and material that all but the wilfully blind or intentionally ignorant had to know by the early autumn of 2002 that war with Iraq was inevitable.’

Whereas, of course, Tony Blair has been found guilty of NOT having found WMDs and therefore his sentence has been passed down by the press – freedom termination – mandated by, so they tell us, public opinion.

Touche?

Good.

Now go hang yourselves.

From the Independent

By Nigel Morris, Deputy Political Editor
Thursday, 26 November 2009

Two private schools are at the centre of a bitter political clash after David Cameron, the Tory leader, alleged that the schools in Slough, Berkshire, and Tottenham in north London had received £113,000 of public money after being set up by an “extremist Islamist foundation”.

He claimed in Prime Minister’s Question Time that the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation (ISF), which runs them, was a “front organisation” for the hardline group Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, retorted that the schools had been inspected and allegations of extremist links were found to have no substance. He said the cash they had received went on providing nursery places at the school in Tottenham. Farah Ahmed, the head of the Slough school, protested that it had not been contacted by Mr Cameron before he made his comments in the Commons.

She said: “Our school is being used as part of a wider political agenda and this type of vilification of the Muslim community needs to stop.”

But Michael Gove, the shadow Schools Secretary, told Radio 4’s PM programme that the situation was “genuinely worrying”. He said: “We know they have received public funding and we know the charity concerned has links with Hizb ut-Tahrir.”

Editor’s Comment: I admit I am not a big fan of HT. Not because they believe in trying to bring about an Islamic state, all true Muslims should share that aim. Nor because they believe democracy is a Taghoot (false god) of this age because that is true also.

Despite all this they are still our Muslim brothers and sisters and we owe it to them to support them as best we can against such attacks and we should make Du’a for them and cooperate with them where they do good and advice them where they wrong and at all times defend our Muslim brothers and sisters from the Kuffar even if we have disagreements amongst ourselves.

Ed Balls attempts to catch Gordon's Nokia.

Today’s PMQs were probably the most fascinating – and telling – for some weeks.  After the traditional litany of the fallen and a solemn statement about the flooding in Cumbria, the PM found himself facing an emollient David Cameron, keen to find out what more the Government could do to support Cumbria’s recovery.  Despite Cameron’s calm and apolitical questions, Labour backbenchers couldn’t help themselves from braying as though he had called for the abolition of trade unions.

Following that, Cameron seemed genuinely to catch the Prime Minister off guard.  Michael Gove had written to Ed Balls to ask about two schools set up by the Islamist ‘kill the Jews’ organisation, Hizb ut Tahrir.  HT had claimed £113k from a Labour council to set up the schools.  Brown, it was clear, had not heard a thing about it from the villainous Ed Balls, who sat nearby staring on impassively as his complacency was exposed.

So, as Gove looked on like a rebellious schoolboy contemplating a prank on the headteacher, Brown fumbled and floundered.  HT wouldn’t be proscribed, he said, as though that was a good thing.  As Cameron pointed out, HT had called for Jews to be ‘killed wherever they are’, and another, similarly dodgy Islamist organisation – Islam for UK – had also not been proscribed.  Where does this leave the Government’s proscription system?

This is a serious issue, which, sadly, was not pursued by the Tories to the fullest extent possible.  HT gets away with a lot by carefully avoiding calling for violence (although advocating death for Jews might seem a little… heated, to say the least).  Islam for UK, similarly, does not call for violence – but it refuses to condemn the 7/7 and 9/11 attackers, calls for the subjugation of women, and calls homosexuality a ’sign of destruction’ of the UK.  They might not be overtly violent, but their attitudes must directly contribute to the radicalisation of impressionable young people.  Put it another way – they’re not proscribed, but do we want them to be using public money to indocrinate children with their extreme and anti-British views?

Brown is never weaker than when he is surprised, as we saw with the election dithering after the Tories surged ahead in the polls back in 2007. Today he must have been close to losing his temper, blindsided by a justifiably jubilant Opposition who had simultaneously exposed his inability to realise how concerned people are about Islamism, and undermined the Brown-Balls relationship.  Stressed and strained, all he could do was warn Cameron, sternly, that he might ‘regret’ some of his remarks about the anti-semites and homophobes whom the Government basically refuses to condemn.

I fear Ed might find himself at the wrong end of a hurled Nokia fairly soon.

The latest CSC report has been co-written by Houriya Ahmed, who is a follower of the violent and hate filled ideology of neo-conservatism. Proponents of neo-conservatism include her employer Douglas Murray, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and George W Bush . We all know about the way these people “look at the world”. The latter were signatories of PNAC (Project for the New American Century), which promotes American “hegemony” and “full-spectrum” dominance. They have the blood of innocent people on their hands.

Douglas Murray is a well known bigot.
In many places, the 2 neo-conservatives behind this report, use borrowed secondary research from multiple sources. They then uses tabloid style interpretations to make statements e.g. on Page 14 they write:

For example, Nabhani was closely associated with Sheikh Muhammad Hajj al-Amin Hosseini between 1945 and 1948.

They quote reference 10: Suha Taji-Farouki, A Fundamental Quest page 2.

Lets look at what Suha Taji actually wrote bottom of Page 1 to top of Page 2:

“With the assistance of former colleagues from Al-Azhar, al-Nabhani secured an appointment as court clerk in the Islamic court in Bisan, then Tabariyya. He aspired to more than this, however, and soon submitted an appeal to the Supreme Muslim council, requesting it to acknowledge his competence in the legal sciences, and to appoint him as a judge. It is possible that this correspondence with the Council introduced him to Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who headed the organization. While one cannot ascertain precisely how and when they met, it is evident that a relationship of sorts developed between the two men: according to well-placed sources in Amman al-Nabhani was considered to belong to Hajj Amin’s camp during the period from 1945 to 1948”

Firstly, this paragraph does not say that Nabhani was “closely” associated with Hajj Al-Amin. It says

“it is evident that a *relationship of sorts* developed between the two men..”

Secondly, Suha does not reference this “well placed source.” Surely as “researchers” you should be looking for references to back up claims about a person’s associations? Surely you should not be relying on a secondary source of unreferenced material? This is just the first example of the amateurish nature of this reports research and using any means necessary to form conclusions which fit their neo-conservative ideological view.

In fact pages 14, 15, 16, 28, 33, 36, 45, 49, 50, 51, 53, 54, 61, 65, 66, 72, 83, 93, 123, 147 all quote from works by Suha Taji Farouqi as a secondary source without checking the root source.

They even quote the well known reference inventor Maajid Nawaz on pages 19, 46, 53, 56,61,67,93,110,117. The TraditionalIslamism and abu-ibrahim blogs have ample referenced evidences of Maajid Nawaz’s false attributions and constructions.

Shockingly, blinded by desperation, they mention and quote from a serial reference inventor, Rashad Ali, on pages 63,67,93, whose lies have also been exposed on the TraditionalIslamism blog many times.

Clearly, this is very lazy research. In fact, borrowing from serial reference inventors, without actually checking and confirming the source, is amateurish research.
Evidence of selective quoting is also on display.

At the end of page 17, the neo-conservatives write:

“In reality, HT’s state is a theocratic dictatorship. Article 35 of HT’s draft constitution stipulates:

The Khalifah [Caliph] is the State. He possesses all of the authority of the State..”

They selectively reference Article 35 of the Draft Constitution to backup their statement that

“In reality, HT’s state is a theocratic dictatorship”

In the Princeton dictionary, a dictatorship is defined as:

“a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.)”

The same dictionary defines a theocracy as:

“a political unit governed by a deity (or by officials thought to be divinely guided)” or “the belief in government by divine guidance.”

Article 24 of HTs draft constitution states:

“The Khaleefah is deputised by the Ummah with authority for the enactment of the divine law.”

Article 26 states:

“Every mature male and female Muslim, who is sane, has the right to participate in the election of the Khaleefah and in giving him the pledge (ba’iah). Non-Muslims have no right in this regard.”

Article 28 states:

“Nobody can become Khaleefah without being appointed by the Muslims. Nobody can hold the power of the Khilafah unless it is convened to him legitimately, as is the case with any contract in Islam.”

Article 36 states:

“The Khaleefah is restricted in what he adopts by the Ahkam Shar’iah. He is forbidden to adopt any rule that is not soundly deduced from the divine texts. He is restricted to the rules he has adopted and to the method for deduction that he has chosen. Accordingly, he is prevented from adopting a rule deduced by a method that contradicts the method he has adopted, and he must not enact any command that contradicts the rules he has adopted.”

Article 101 states:

“The members of the Majlis al-Ummah are those people who represent the Muslims in respect of expressing their views to the Khaleefah when consulted. Non-Muslims are allowed to be members of the Majlis al-Ummah so that they can voice their complaints in respect to unjust acts performed by the rulers or the misapplication of the Islamic laws.”

Each article is backed by Islamic sources; including Article 26 which states that “non-Muslims have no right in this regard”. Please ask the “CSC research staff [who] are trained in Islamic affairs” to Islamic evidences which contradict any of these cannons.

Clearly, “HTs state” is not a theocratic dictatorship as the Khaleef cannot assume power by claiming to be appointed by God, but can only attain power through an election by an elected majority. According to the cited cannons, he is clearly accountable to the people and is entirely restricted in what he adopts by the Ahkam Shari’ah.

Therefore, by definition, “HTs state” is not a theocratic dictatorship.

A researcher is usually qualified to make interpretations about a particular subject, since it is assumed they are well read. But these neo-conservative researchers show their lack of depth and reading on page 18, when they state:

“..HT’s economic policies are incoherent and it is unclear how the party intends to finance the wide-ranging responsibilities it sets itself towards its citizens.”

Of course such policies will be “unclear” if one does not read about them. This is yet more evidence of lazy research, selective quoting and a desire to re-run second hand arguments to win brownie points.

Apart from “The Economic System” there are countless articles and books written by members of HT, which talk about revenue generation, funding and investment within the Islamic state. To name but a few easily found sources missed by these neo-conservative – so-called – researchers:

Abdul-Qadeem Zalloom’s “Funds in the Khilafah State”, talks about the rules governing the funds, their sources and types, from where they are collected, the time of their collection and the way they are collected and the sections in which they are kept.
Adnan Khan has written a book about “Constructing an Industrialised Muslim world”.

More recently HT has written “Towards a Tranquil Safe World under the Shade of the Economic System of Islam” where they clearly state Economic policy regarding funding and wealth generation using Islamic Juristic principles.

Pandering to their neo-conservative paymasters is also on clear display.

Without references, on pages 4 they state:

“..a perceived Western ‘War on Islam”

On page 7 they state:

“..a perceived Western ‘War on Islam”

on page 52 they state:

“..perceived Western influences.”

on Page 141 they state:

“..perceived Western-led ‘War on Islam’”

The use of the term “perceived” shows their desperate desire to manifest political correctness and legitimacy in neo-conservative circles that condemn Islamic shariah and justify the wars which have killed millions of innocent people around the world. This desperation clearly blinded their ability to make conclusive points, as statements are made about HT propagating the notion of a “perceived ‘War on Islam’” without actually stating *exactly* where HT say this.

I can go on and on about the amateurish nature of this report but I guess it is expected. It is actually not very difficult to rebut every point using contextualisation, legitimately referenced reality and Islamic sources. But I will savour that for another day Inshallah.

Regarding your recent post, “To Quench the thirst of ‘goddess’ of blood, Hilary Clinton…”
When a belief, philosophy or ideology lacks merit by fair argument, vilification of the alternative becomes the only strategy fueling debate.  You are the victims of a self-imposed ideological siege which leverages hate as the principal motivational force.  The enemies created by your zealotry wish you nothing less than the freedom to prosper in peace while you enjoy life with your families. The simple fact is that the various people of the world already have their own traditional religious beliefs. Your goal of imposing your ideology on the world is an unsustainable activity, conducted at the expense of a functioning economy, a stable social structure, and a life of peace which is a natural right, granted by God, to all of mankind.

The subsequent publicity generated by the revelations in the Sunday Times last week that the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation, which runs 4 schools in Haringey, North London and Slough, was a front for the extremist Islamist colective Hizb ut-Tahrir, has resulted in the council suspending funding to the ISF, as Andrew Gilligan reveals:

Government grants totalling £113,000 were paid last year to the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation…

The public money – from the Government’s Early Years Fund – was paid to help run the nursery school [sic] and two Islamic primary schools where children are taught key elements of Hizb’s ideology from the age of five. It was administered by the local authority, Haringey.

In a statement, the Home Office said: “Haringey Council has decided to suspend its allocation of Early Years Funding, to the schools concerned, pending an investigation.”

This is certainly good news, though whether the suspension will be permanent or the initial funds recouped remains to be seen.

 [ Christ the Wisdom and Power of God ] For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
1st Corinthians 1:18

Comment at end

YouTube video – British TV – ‘What Women Want’

What do Muslim women want in the Muslim world? Dr Nazreen Nawaz, Hizb ut-Tahrir. (45 mins video. From Islam Channel Live.)

Dr Nazreen Nawaz (Hizb ut-Tahrir) and Dalia Mogahed (Senior Analyst of Muslim Studies at Gallup, who also serves on President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships) discuss findings from survey of Muslim women. 4th Oct 2009.

WHAT GAME IS GILLIGAN PLAYING NOW?

Blair Supporter & Andrew Gilligan in agreement?

Hmmm…mm…

I was referring to strange bedfellows recently. It was with  regard to the Daily’s Mail’s turning of  a blind eye to the SWP and Military Families Aginst the War, both organisations supported by the man who accused Tony Blair of having “blood on his hands” in St Paul’s nominally “commemorative” service?  Hereafter to be dubbed “the Archbishop’s outing”.

Little did I suspect I’d find myself anywhere within touching – or rather reading and writing  distance of this fellow, Andrew Gilligan – he of the “sexed up dossier” disrepute whose “outing” of David Kelly may, just may have led to Kelly’s suicide. (You remember that? The suicide with Blair’s name written in blood.)

But life is stranger than Gilligan’s fictions.

Gilligan’s Greenwich sounds coolish on the Olympics Village. This huge spread for worldwide consumption will be clearly on view from Greenwich, which is due south across the Thames.  You will recall that the 2012 Olympics was seen as a triumph for Tony Blair’s persuasive powers.

So no co-incidental (dis)interest there then, by the whistleblowers’ favourite whistleblower.

He describes himself as – “a renowned investigative journalist and London Editor of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph. He was previously at the Evening Standard and was named “Journalist of the Year” at the British Press Awards in 2008.”

Gilligan he still insists on working for Iranian state sponsored Press TV when (some ) others British jouranlists have resigned.

Back to strange bedfellows. Why is The Telegraph using this man now?

Wonders aside, his co-authored article, uncritical in tone, but nonetheless interesting, appeared here in The Telegraph.

Barack Obama adviser says Sharia Law is misunderstood

President Barack Obama’s adviser on Muslim affairs, Dalia Mogahed, has provoked controversy by appearing on a British television show hosted by a member of an extremist group to talk about Sharia Law.

By Andrew Gilligan and Alex Spillius in Washington
Published: 8:00PM BST 08 Oct 2009

Miss Mogahed, appointed to the President’s Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships, said the Western view of Sharia was “oversimplified” and the majority of women around the world associate it with “gender justice”.

The White House adviser made the remarks on a London-based TV discussion programme hosted by Ibtihal Bsis, a member of the extremist Hizb ut Tahrir party.

The group believes in the non-violent destruction of Western democracy and the creation of an Islamic state under Sharia Law across the world.

Miss Mogahed appeared alongside Hizb ut Tahrir’s national women’s officer, Nazreen Nawaz.

During the 45-minute discussion, on the Islam Channel programme Muslimah Dilemma earlier this week, the two members of the group made repeated attacks on secular “man-made law” and the West’s “lethal cocktail of liberty and capitalism”.

They called for Sharia Law to be “the source of legislation” and said that women should not be “permitted to hold a position of leadership in government”.

Miss Mogahed made no challenge to these demands and said that “promiscuity” and the “breakdown of traditional values” were what Muslims admired least about the West.

She said: “I think the reason so many women support Sharia is because they have a very different understanding of sharia than the common perception in Western media.

“The majority of women around the world associate gender justice, or justice for women, with sharia compliance.

“The portrayal of Sharia has been oversimplified in many cases.”

Sharia in its broadest sense is a religious code for living, which decrees such matters as fasting and dressing modestly. However, it has also been interpreted as requiring the separation of men and women.

It also includes the controversial “Hadd offences”, crimes with specific penalties set by the Koran and the sayings of the prophet Mohammed. These include death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality and the removal of a hand for theft.

Miss Mogahed admitted that even many Muslims associated Sharia with “maximum criminal punishments” and “laws that… to many people seem unequal to women,” but added: “Part of the reason that there is this perception of Sharia is because Sharia is not well understood and Islam as a faith is not well understood.”

The video of the broadcast has now been prominently posted on the front page of Hizb ut Tahrir’s website.

Miss Mogahed, who was born in Egypt and moved to America at the age of five, is the first veiled Muslim woman to serve in the White House. Her appointment was seen as a sign of the Obama administration’s determination to reach out to the Muslim world.

She is also the executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, a project which aims to scientifically sample public opinion in the Muslim world.

During this week’s broadcast, she described her White House role as “to convey… to the President and other public officials what it is Muslims want.”

Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, said Miss Mogahed was “downplaying” Sharia Law.

“There is a reason sharia has got a bad name and it is how it has been exercised. Regrettably in the US there have been acts of injustice perpetrated against women that are driven by the Sharia-type mindset that women are objects not human beings,” she said.

She cited the example of Muzzammil Hassan, a Buffalo man who ran a cable channel aimed at countering Muslim stereotypes and was charged earlier this year with beheading his wife after she filed for divorce.

“Americans understand by example, it’s not as if we are an ignorant mass of people. Just as we don’t broad brush all Muslims, so should Dalia not downplay the serious nature of sharia law.”

RELATED

What Women Want also at:

• Hizb ut-Tahrir
• Doc’s Talk
• Jihad Watch
• Act For America
• Muslimz

ACT FOR AMERICA -

Did you realize that “The majority of women around the world associate gender justice, or justice for women, with sharia compliance”?That’s right, according to Dalia Mogahed, President Obama’s advisor on Muslim affairs, who made this astonishing statement in an interview on a British television show (see story below).

Mogahed has made news before.

She was a member of the U.S. Muslim Engagement Project, which called for “engagement” with the Muslim Brotherhood — the organization that has a 100 year plan for subverting and overthrowing the West.

She teamed up with John Esposito to conduct a poll on Islam, then misrepresented some of the results (some called it “cooking the books”) in order to increase the number of Muslim “moderates.”

What makes Mogahed’s demonstrably untrue assertion about shariah even more disturbing is that she made it in an interview hosted by a member of the radical Islamist organization Hizb ut Tahrir.

Hizb ut Tahrir is committed to the overthrow of democracy and capitalism and the worldwide imposition of shariah Islamic law. The organization has been banned as a terrorist organization in several countries — but remarkably, not here in the United States.

For Mogahed to assert that shariah promotes “gender justice” would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic.

That she has the ear of the White House is yet another chilling reminder of how our nation is being led down the path of forced Islamification that England and Western Europe have already walked.

This is another reason why, over the past few weeks, we have been issuing such an urgent call to action to you, our members. If you have not yet responded to our fall “Call to Action,” there’s still time to help us reach our goal.

There are ample signs that a large percentage of the American people, once adequately informed about the multiple threats of radical Islam, don’t want an America that looks like England.

Help us reach them. Help us educate them. Help us mobilize them. There is time — but we don’t have ten or fifteen years. We need to act NOW, as if our very future depends on it — because it does.

 

---

---

Siguiendo con la política de acoso a gupos islamistas radicales que se desarrolla en Kirguistán, se ha detenido en el día de ayer a tres personas, acusadas de poseer material propagandístico de esta organización, ilegal en el país.

Estos tres individuos, de 62, 29 y 26 años, se encuentran ya en una prisión a la espera del preceptivo juicio.

Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT) are seldom out of the news these days.  Like other organisations that peddle extremism in the UK, HuT have a tiny membership (3-4000), yet punch far above their weight through the use of the new media, by employing various front organisations and recruiting amongst the most politically active and technologically savvy.

HuT’s raison d’être is thus:

[...] to resume the Islamic way of life by establishing an Islamic State that executes the systems of Islam and carries its call to the world.

The organisation’s ideology rejects secular democracy and hence procedural secularism:

Hizb-ut-Tahrir…struggles against colonialism in all its forms and attributes in order to liberate the Ummah from its intellectual leadership and to deracinate its cultural, political, military and economic roots from the soil of the Islamic lands. Hizb-ut-Tahrir endeavors to change the erroneous thoughts which colonialism has propagated, such as confining Islam to rituals and morals.

Furthermore, as if this weren’t enough to set alarm bells ringing, HuT’s strategy is revolutionary in scope:

The party proceeds in the three periods which the Messenger of Allah (saw) proceeded in order to achieve his objective:

1- The period of study and culture in order to generate the party culture and incorporate the ideology in a group of individuals, i.e. in order to form the bloc.

2- The period of interaction with the Ummah and the struggle for the sake of making her adopt the ideology of the party as her own, make it her raison d’être and work towards establishing it.

3- The period of attaining and seizing the reins of power through the Ummah in order to implement the ideology in a comprehensive manner, because it is forbidden to seize partial power. Hence, the arrival at the ruling must be total and the implementation of Islam must be comprehensive.

Clearly, HuT is incompatible with a liberal democracy such as the UK’s, which makes today’s report in The Daily Telegraph that 3 schools with connections to HuT have received over £100,000 in government funding all the more astounding:

Accounts filed at the Charity Commission show that the Government paid a total of £113,411 last year to a foundation run by senior members and activists of Hizb ut-Tahrir — a notorious Islamic extremist group that ministers promised to ban.

The public money helped run a nursery school and two Islamic primary schools where children are taught key elements of Hizb’s ideology from the age of five.

The name of the ‘foundation’ responsible for the administration of the three schools is enlightening:

The three schools — in Tottenham, north London, and Slough, Berks — are run by the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation, a registered charity.

Shakhsiyah (or shakhsiyyah) is a transliteration of the Arabic word for ‘personality’ (شخصية) and the term ‘Islamic personality’ or Islamic Shakhsiyah, coincidentally, happens to be the title of a famous three volume treatise written by the founder of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Jordanian-Palestinian Taqi ud-Deen an-Nabhani.  You can view the three volume treatise here and here (unfortunately the 3rd volume is not available in English, but each volume is available in Arabic here, here and here).

According to the Charity Commission’s site, the ISF (Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation) actually run 4 schools (2 primarys each with a nursery):

Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation runs two independent primary schools and two attached nurseries.  The schools and nurseries run on an alternative ethos as detailed on our website.  We provide other services to the community including various classes and community events.

The article goes on to examine the schools’ management team:

The foundation’s lead trustee is Yusra Hamilton, a leading Hizb activist who is married to Taji Mustafa, the group’s chief spokesman in Britain.

At least three of the four trustees are Hizb members or activists, including Farah Ahmed, the head teacher of the Slough school, who has written in a Hizb journal condemning the “corrupt Western concepts of materialism and freedom”.

A spokesman for the foundation insisted that it was not a Hizb ut-Tahrir operation but involved “Muslim women from a wide variety of backgrounds”.

And we can see what sort of  ’alternative ethos’ guides the ISF’s approach to teaching and learning, their so-called an-Nabhani inspired Shakhsiyah Model:

The Islamic belief of the purpose of life is fundamentally in opposition to the secular belief. The secular education system therefore has fundamentally different goals to the Islamic education system. It is not sufficient to insert some Islamic aspects into secular systems.

The curriculum fits perfectly with HuT’s ‘three steps to Khalifah’ goal:

The schools’ history curriculum states that children are taught that “there must be one ruler of the khilafah [caliphate]”. The schools’ website says that “in the glorious history of Islam… the Sharia was the norm”.

And the ISF, despite clearly being a HuT front organisation, received funds via local government from the Department for Children, Schools and Families:

The Shakhsiyah Foundation spokesman said the government money, from Whitehall’s “Free Entitlement” and “Pathfinder” programmes, had been claimed by parents on behalf of the school.  However, a spokesman for Haringey council, which administered the grant, said this was incorrect and that the foundation had applied for the money.

This means that British taxpayers are helping to fund the ideological indoctrination of children by an extremist Islamist group; a group that former PM Tony Blair claimed he would proscribe in the wake of the 7/7 bombings, but then reneged on his promise; a group which has now been banned in Bangladesh for attempting to foment an Islamic revolution and destabilise the government; a group with nuclear ambitions.  

Chris Grayling, the Shadow Home Secretary, promised to ban HuT if the Tories form the next government: 

The Home Office has another key responsibility.  The security of our people and of our nation.  To take the lead in the battle against terrorism.  And the fight against an ideology of hate and violence.  An ideology that damages the reputation of decent, law abiding British Muslims as well as threatening life and limb.  And let’s be clear. That ideology wants to destroy the civil liberties that make this country what it is. No Government should allow them to do so, and the way this Government has eroded those liberties is shameful and must be reversed.

Our police and security services have done a magnificent job in protecting us against the terrorist threat.  We owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

But we are still not tough enough on those who spread a doctrine of hate in Britain.  So I will immediately ban Hizb ut-Tahrir, and any other group that actively incites hatred and violence.

We also have extremists using video links to hold meetings with banned preachers of hate from overseas who urge violence against our society.  If I am Home Secretary the people who organise those meetings will be arrested and prosecuted.

Under this Government the extremists have been free to protest on our streets and incite violence and hatred in the most blatant ways.  We cannot and we will not allow this to continue.

HuT are unlikely to be banned under the Tories as it would be reasonable to assume that, had it been possible, Blair would have added them to the proscribed list of organisations.  That he didn’t suggests two things:

1 – There is as yet, despite the plethora of anecdotal and documentary evidence (not least here), no hard evidence linking HuT in the UK to violence.

2 – Banning HuT is seen as counter-productive.  When Omar Bakri’s outfit, al-Muhajiroun, and several of its offshoots were outlawed, another organisation, Islam4UK, popped up featuring many of the same individuals involved in the previous incarnations.  Meanwhile, Islam4UK continue to spout extremist rhetoric within the letter of the law,  as it seems do HuT.

A useful discussion on the merits of banning Hizb ut-Tahrir and the likely problems with such a strategy can be found here.