Tuesday 02 December 2008
Log in | Sign up
The Journal on Facebook RSS Feed

"Hate" literature found at Edinburgh mosque

A recent centre-right think tank report analysing "radical" literature found in the UK's mosques names the Potterrow mosque as one of the perpetrators
Edinburgh Central Mosque
Edinburgh Central Mosque

Article tools

The King Fahd Mosque attached to the Islamic Centre of Edinburgh (ICET) has been named as the only Mosque in Scotland to disseminate so-called "hate" literature.

ICET, which is based close to the University of Edinburgh's George Square campus on Potterrow was identified by the centre-right think tank Policy Exchange last week as being one of the 100 mosques in the UK making “radical” literature available on their premises.

Serving thousands of Muslims in the area and countless students at its adjoining Mosque Kitchen restaurant, questions have arisen over the damaging impact of the report on the mosque's reputation.

ICET's websites have been off-line since last Thursday.

Written by Denis MacEoin, a graduate of Edinburgh University and Fellow at Newcastle-upon-Tyne University, the report was researched by four separate specialist teams.

These teams gathered and analysed various information available from mosques throughout the country, culminating in a report that claims fundamentalist literature is available in many of the most mainstream UK mosques.

The book found at ICET, called Al-‘aqida al-sahiha wa ma yudaduha, wa risalat al-ma‘iyy which translates as Correct beliefs, what opposes them, along with the treatise of the Divine Presence was purportedly a gift from the King of Saudi Arabia to celebrate the mosque's opening in 1998.

The same book was found on five different sites, including mosques in London, Birmingham and Oxford.

The book states: “a person may become apostate for many reasons which can nullify his faith. These reasons would make someone’s blood permissible to spill [to be killed for apostasy] and his wealth permissible to be usurped, because he is no longer a Muslim.”

A mosque source has stated that the book was not stocked or distributed by the mosque and it is unknown how the researchers came across it.

However the report cited instances where material was found “under the counter."

Haithm Alhindi, President of Edinburgh University's Islamic Society told The Journal: It [the report] seems to have a clear agenda to discredit the achievements and positive works of the central mosque as a significant and involved [art of the Edinburgh community."

Among the report's conclusions, it states that a significant proportion of the literature originated in Saudi Arabia and calls for the UK to “demand a far greater level of transparency from Saudi charitable institutions operating in this country.”

Saudi Arabia's influence on UK's mosques is indisputable, particularly in the case of Edinburgh's ICET. The King Fahd mosque cost ₤3.5 million to build and 90 per cent of construction costs were paid for by King Fahd of Saudi Arabia.

The report outlines various steps the UK should take, which include revoking the charity status of institutions featured in the report and introducing strict regulations for Islamic schools.

1 comment

Alec Macpherson
Tue 13 Nov 2007

Good article, but I feel it made an un-necessary swipe at the politics of the Policy Exchange. That it is "centre right" should not impinge on the validity of any findings or recommendations. I rarely say this out-loud, but some of my best friends are Conservatives and they're lovely people. (Libertarians, however, tend to be complete gits.)

The author, Denis MacEoin, has a long pedigree in under/post-graduate study of Arabic and Faarsi and Islamic culture, so carries just as much, and often more, weight as certain other "experts in the field" cited to support opposing views.

The intolerant nature of the literature in question (and more when examining the full report), and its availability at institutions such as the ICET appears pretty much undisputed, so the circumspect use of "so-called" should not be necessary. Questions include whether its representative of mainstream British Muslim thought. Considering that the title of the report is “The Hijacking of British Islam: How Extremist Literature is Subverting Mosques in the UK”, I assume Dr. MacEoin does not think so.

A greater question, in my view, however, is whether this “minority of extremist Muslims” have gained control of the dialogue in the UK. Haithim al-Hindi, as said in the article, may believe “it [the report] seems to have a clear agenda […]”, but such agenda would be much harder to promote were it not for the existence of these texts. Does Mr. al-Hindi deny they were present? Does Mr. Al-Hindi believe he and his colleagues have a duty to monitor such attitudes, just as we should monitor anti-Muslim hatred which may not represent “mainstream British secular opinion”?

Is this comment offensive or unsuitable? Report it

Comment on this article »