Al-Guardian Jumps to the Defense of Britain's Deobandi Clerics...
That didn't take long. The Guardian is already defending the Islam's radical Deobandi sect of Islam, the same sect which spawned the Taliban, since it's nothing to fear and their clerics are "fantastic ambassadors interfaith dialogue and community cohesion." Yes, that is what they claim...
The Times reports today on the activities of one of the Deobandi imams, Riyadh ul-Haq, the former imam of Birmingham Central Mosques. It accuses him of preaching hate. If the Times has evidence that he is guilty of such a crime, I hope they will present it to the appropriate authorities and let him be tried fairly and openly by our legal system. But equally, the Times should be careful not to preach hate in the name of exposing those who preach hate.
I remember having an interesting conversation with Riyadh ul-Haq when I visited the mosque in Birmingham many years ago. We disagreed with each other on the language of the Friday sermon - while I insisted that it must be done in a language that the local people can understand (English), he insisted it must be done in Arabic. (notice it wasn't the content, but the language -ed.)
I can name you many Deobandi imams who are fantastic ambassadors for interfaith dialogue and community cohesion. Many graduates of the Deobandi seminaries work in our civil services as active members of British society and provide brilliant expertise. I can name you great institutions that have been established by some of the graduates of the Deobandi seminaries here in the UK. They are providing world class education for many young people of the community. This report fails to balance its message by not highlighting any of the positive work undertaken by many graduates from the same institution.
I had an encounter with another graduate about their dress code. He was wearing Pakistani/Afghani national dress - Shelwar and Kameez - and portraying such dresses as the Prophetic dress. I told him in no uncertain terms that the Prophet never saw Pakistani/Afghani dress, let alone adopted it as the Islamic dress. In fact, Islam never prescribed any fashion as Islamic. Wearing shirts and trousers is equally as Islamic as the Arab national dress or any other dress.
W Zip
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