Scotland: Imam at Glasgow's Central Mosque praises Pakistani extremist killer Mumtaz Qadri

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“I cannot hide my pain today. A true Muslim was punished for doing which [sic] the collective will of the nation failed to carry out.”

Times of Ahmad | News Watch | UK Desk
Source/Credit: NEOnline | IR
By NEOnline | IR | March 25, 2016

Glasgow: Jihadi values vs Scottish values

In a textbook case of the conflict between moderate Islam and Imams that condone violence and intolerance, Britain is waking up to a serious challenge.

The Imam of Scotland’s biggest Mosque used social media to express his sympathy with a murderer of a moderate politician who opposed strict blasphemy laws in Pakistan. The Glasgow-based Imam Maulana Habib Ur Rehman used WhatsApp to show his support for Mumtaz Qadri, recently executed in Pakistan.

Responding to a BBC story, the Imam claim he was merely taking a stand against corporal punishment in Pakistan. However, that did not explain why he would endorse hate crime by stating “I cannot hide my pain today. A true Muslim was punished for doing which [sic] the collective will of the nation failed to carry out.”

That would be a popular position to take in Pakistan, as a crowd of 100,000 showed up in Qadri’s funeral in Pakistan. But, it is a less popular position to take in Scotland, where Qadri would be simply regarded as a terrorist.

Hate crime in Pakistan

Qadri was the bodyguard of Salman Taseer, the former governor of Punjab, whom he murdered in 2011. The Scottish Imam called Qadri “a brother” and regretted his execution as “a collective failure of Pakistani Muslims.” He likened Qadri’s murder of a moderate politician to partisan resistance against Nazis in occupied France.

The Glasgow-based Imam contrasted the execution of the radical jihadi with the release of CIA contractor Raymond Davis in Pakistan, after he was accused of killing two men in Lahore. The US government at the time paid the families of the diseased $2,3 million to secure the release of the prisoner.

The hate-crime was motivated by Taseer’s opposition to strict blasphemy laws that can lead to the execution of someone who is thought to have insulted Islam. These laws have often been used in Pakistan to target religious minorities.  Members of the Glasgow Muslim community were appalled by the description of Qadri as a “true Muslim.”

Scottish values

Mr. Anwar is a Glasgow based lawyer willing to go on the record as a member of the Muslim community in Scotland against this kind of religious leadership. He wants to see the Mosque’s management reflect “the values and ideas of the people of Scotland.”

In his own defense, the Imam said in a statement that his stand is against capital punishment and the feeling of compassion he extends was that of an individual, not in his public capacity. The conflict of identity and loyalties in this particular case is one with which Europe at large is become ever more familiar.

The response in Scotland has so far placed an emphasis on transparency. A Scottish Charity Regulator watchdog produced a report in January damning the way the center is run by its self-pronounced “orthodox” leaders, particularly the channeling of funds to causes and institutions regarded extremist without due transparency. Importantly, the watchdog’s probe was the result of concerns expressed by Scottish-born reform Muslims, alleging the misuse of funds to promote extremism.

“The behaviours and conduct of charity trustees past and present were not of the standard we would expect of charity trustees in fulfilling their legal duty to act in the interests of the charity,” the report said in January.

Working through rather than against the community has already began to pay off the right kind of attention. Over the last few months, local political and religious community leaders have been taking concrete action to condemn IS violence and isolate extremism.

(BBC, Daily Mirror, heralscotland)


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