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I’ve just discovered that the Jewish community’s reform movement has an Islamic counterpart – praise be!

I’m indebted to Tom Carew of Ireland for posting the following on Facebook via “The Muslims Against Sharia – Islamic Reform Movement” website. It was written by Richard Pendlebury for the Daily Mail.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

The Muslim cleric who blames British mosques for the 7/7 bombings, says multiculturalism is a disaster and would throw Islamic fanatics out

Terror: The bus destroyed in the 7/7 London bombings

 

You can usually find at least one in any saloon bar, ready to give you the benefit of their peppery views on the parlous state of Britain today.
This particular example is a clean shaven, middle-aged man with the de rigueur attire of carefully knotted mustard tie and blue, golf club-style blazer.
Brass cuff buttons flash as he pounds an angry fist on to his knee.
‘I will give £5 to anyone in Britain who wants to live under Sharia law,’ he declares. ‘It will help pay for their ticket to Sudan, Yemen, Pakistan, or wherever it is customary to live under Sharia law.
‘Please, please go and leave us alone. This is Britain, not 10th century Arabia!’
We are indeed sitting in a bar, on a busy main road in Oxford.

Violence: Dr Taj Hargey deplores fanatics such
as the suicide bombers who targeted London

But the man before me is no stereotypical Islamophobe.
For one, he is sipping a glass of water rather than something more inflammatory.

More importantly, though by no means obviously, Dr Taj Hargey is himself an Islamic cleric; perhaps the most controversial imam in Britain today.

In an age when the highest-profile Muslim preachers are bearded, anti-Western firebrands such as Abu Hamza or Omar Bakri, Dr Hargey seems an anomaly.

He does not care much for male facial hair. He believes that women can be both seen and heard, even in a mosque at Friday prayers.

And don’t even get him started on the sort of fanatics who blow up London buses, or the poisonous teachings that inspired them.
After three men were cleared this week on charges of assisting the July 7 bombers, there have been calls for an inquiry into blunders made by the security services.

But Dr Hargey has little doubt who, and what, is truly to blame for unleashing such terrorism on our streets.

‘It is the extremist ideology present in many UK mosques which is the cement behind nihilistic plots such as this,’ he says. ‘They are twisting Islam.’

You can read the rest of this item on the Mail Online where it has already received 53 mostly positive comments. Now, I’m no Daily Mail fan but this is definitely more like it.

msniw

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