This is a guest post by habibi
Next week the City University Islamic Society will hold its annual dinner. Three speakers will appear.
One of them, Anwar al Awlaki, will speak by video message. This makes sense: he might, one hopes, have great difficulty negotiating official obstacles at Heathrow. For he is an odious preacher of jihad, as reported here when he and other extremists addressed a meeting at the East London Mosque’s London Muslim Centre.
As we noted then, one of Awlaki’s latest works, published on his blog in January 2009, is a pamphlet titled “44 Ways To Support Jihad”. HP has a pdf copy if you would like to read it. It opens this way:
Jihad is the greatest deed in Islam and the salvation of the ummah is in practicing it. In times like these, when Muslim lands are occupied by the kuffar, when the jails of tyrants are full of Muslim POWs, when the rule of the law of Allah is absent from this world and when Islam is being attacked in order to uproot it, Jihad becomes obligatory on every Muslim. Jihad must be practiced by the child even if the parents refuse, by the wife even if the husband objects and by the one indebt even if the lender disagrees.
Dear brothers and sisters the issue is urgent since today our enemy is neither a nation nor a race. It is a system of kufr with global reach. The kuffar today are conspiring against us like never before. So could we be heading towards the great battle between the Romans and the Muslims – Al Malhamah – which the Prophet (saaws) spoke about?
Again, the point needs to be stressed: Jihad today is obligatory on every capable Muslim. So as a Muslim who wants to please Allah it is your duty to find ways to practice it and support it.
Oh, by the way, Mr Awlaki is apparently quite fond of prostitutes as well as jihad. He was arrested twice for soliciting in the US. Perhaps City University’s Islamic Society, which is not particularly keen on fornication, is unaware of this.
Another speaker at the dinner will be Haitham Al Haddad. Have a look at him here, saluting the “victory” of Hamas in the Gaza conflict:
There’s plenty of extremist madness there. Note in particular these annihilationist words:
My proposed solution for the Israelis is to leave Palestine and to go back to their own countries to live in peace. If they want to live in peace, in real peace, they should leave Palestine and leave it for the Palestinians and those Jews who would like to live in Palestine, but under the Palestinian government, not under the Israeli government.
Another speaker is Murtaza Khan. He appeared in the “Undercover Mosque” programme. This is from the transcript:
CD: Time to Return to the Quran: Knowledge Books and Audio
Murtaza Khan: Those whom the wrath of Allah is upon, is the Jews, is the Christians
And he criticises Muslims who follow their ways
Murtaza Khan: We have become Jews in our clothing, Jews in our eating, Jews in everything that we do, and the other half is Christian in everything we do. Muslims are following one of these accursed nations. And people are still not waking up to understand the fact that these people are enemies towards us
He says Muslims should become doctors, so women don’t have to go to non-Muslim Doctors
Murtaza Khan: We should have a sense of shame. For how long have we seen our mothers, our sisters, and our daughters have to go and uncover themselves before these filthy non-Muslim doctors?
What a charmer.
This is City University’s policy on free speech on campus:
We will guarantee by policy and action the right of free speech within the University community unless the exercise of such a right can be shown to lead to or increase significantly the probability of the discrimination of individuals or groups, harm to individuals or groups within the University, or the University or the community within which the University is located.
In my opinion preachers of jihad and intense religious hatred fall decisively on the wrong side of this line.
City University should take a close look at the activities of its Islamic Society.