Islam = Evil...

Sunday, January 21, 2007

The timing could not be more apposite. After the humorless banalities of the CBC's Little Mosque on the Prairie come the grotesque realities of Channel 4's Undercover Mosque in the U.K.

Journalists from Channel 4's Dispatches programme conducted a 10-month undercover assignment in several of Britain's leading mosques. The resulting segment, Undercover Mosque, was aired on Jan. 15.

What is particularly relevant is that Dispatches has an international reputation for excellence and, important this, for its general left-wing approach to political issues. As such, the producers decided to investigate not those Muslim centres renowned for their extremism but various large, influential and allegedly moderate Islamic holy places.

What it found has provoked waves of shock. Several preachers and imams call for holy war, tell congregations that Muslims have to brainwash people, demand that homosexuals be murdered, insist that girls who refuse to wear the hijab should be beaten, and routinely demand that Christians and Jews be killed.

At one mosque in Birmingham, Abu Usama, one of the most popular speakers, says that Muslims have to "form a state within a state, until we take over." He says that in this state any Muslim who tried to leave Islam would be killed. "If the Imam wants to crucify him he could crucify him. The

person is put up on the wood and he's left there to bleed to death."

The documentary also shows a preacher joking about harming gay people secretly so as not to break the law. He laughs as he tells Muslim dentists to thrust extra- large needles into the faces of gay patients.

This is all especially embarrassing for the government because one of its main advisors on Islam, a Muslim member of the House of Lords, attends this particular mosque and speaks highly of it.

Another preacher in Birmingham, Dr. Billal Phillips, explains that as Muhammad married Aisha, a nine-year-old girl, all such marriages are condoned. "The prophet Muhammad practically outlined the rules regarding marriage prior to puberty. With this practice, he clarified what is permissible."

Referring to non-Muslims, another preacher says that, "No one loves the kuffaar [i.e., non-Muslims]. We hate the kuffaar! Allah has not given those people who are kuffaar a way over the believer. They shouldn't be in authority over us. Muslims shouldn't be satisfied with anything other than a total Islamic state."

The book store of the Regents Park Mosque, the largest in London, sells popular videos of the Saudi-trained Sheikh Faiz calling Jews "pigs" who will all be slaughtered. He then makes the sound of a pig and the audience laughs. In fact, throughout the sermons and lessons there is no sign of disagreement or discomfort from anyone in the packed congregations.

The Taliban is praised for killing British soldiers, and followers are repeatedly told to despise Western society. Muslims are condemned if they send their children to kuffaar schools or allow them to play with kuffaars.

The response so far has been that the documentary is mere propaganda. Tragically, it is not. It appears to be an accurate and objective expose of common teaching within those mosques that were until now considered to be standing on the front line against extremism. We would be foolish not to listen to what these Muslims are telling us.

- Michael Coren is a writer and broadcaster. www.michaelcoren.com.