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What I discovered inside Finsbury Park mosque
amatullah
01/28/03 at 07:25:40
I found this strange at parts.

What I discovered inside Finsbury Park mosque
Abu Hamza offers angst-crippled teenagers what they all crave: certainty and a clear path

Johann Hari
22 January 2003

As the Finsbury Park mosque was raided on Monday, I must confess I felt a weird mix of emotions – pleased, certainly, relieved, but also a little bit sad. I know the mosque and its strange, intoxicating atmosphere a little – and I know that, their lunatic leader Abu Hamza aside, most of the young men who gravitate there are not irredeemably insane or vicious.

After 11 September, I was sent by my editor to insinuate myself into the Finsbury Park mosque and – if possible – to talk to Abu Hamza. I ended up hanging around for nearly a week. It is a place notoriously unfriendly to "infidel" journalists, but I had a few advantages over the other hacks desperate to find their way in: I have a vaguely Islamic-sounding name (in fact, it's Swiss); I studied Islamic philosophy at university, so I knew more about Muslim politics than most of the people there; and, because I look about 12 years old, it takes a bit more time for people to become suspicious of me.

There are always a few tough-looking lads on the door of the mosque who act as unofficial bouncers, and anybody new who approaches immediately receives very aggressive questioning. They see the mosque as a safe haven from a hostile society – and although undoubtedly some of these lads are confronting real problems with racism, their paranoia is extreme and vicious. "Everybody in this fucking country is a racist and hates Islam," Amir, who worked for the local halal butcher, explained to me outside the main prayer hall.

Although there are a fair few non-Arab Muslims who hang around, it took a while to convince the regulars that I was One of Them. One thing I hadn't quite expected was the extent to which the lads who follow this extreme strain of Islam are obsessed with gender politics. Their main problem with British society is the "sluttish" way women dress, the fact that "we allow our women – all our women – to be whores, dirty fucking whores". No conversation would go for five minutes without returning to this topic. These are, after all, sexually frustrated young men who are convinced that even masturbation is immoral – so, like all people who fanatically suppress their sexuality, they have begun to hate the thing they desire.

Amir, an unemployed but articulate 19-year-old, claimed obsessively that far from hating women, he sees them as "a precious jewel", and "if you have a diamond, you wrap it up and keep it somewhere safe. You don't just let it roll around in the gutter." So women, he and his friends believe, should be shut away, sealed off in repressive homes and burquas, lest they succumb to Western "filth".

In those days when Ground Zero was still burning and we thought that the death toll would top 30,000, these men celebrated. I wish it were not so; but they rejoiced. There was an obvious contradiction in their stance, though. They saw the "humbling" of America – a term which, shamefully, even some on the British and American left used – as "glorious"; yet they also insisted that no Muslims had been involved in the attack. As Abu Hamza – who proved to be surprisingly ready to talk to me – claimed, "I am not saying every American government figure knew about this. But there are a few people [in the US government] who want to trigger a third world war. They are sponsored by the business lobby. Most of them are Freemasons, and they have loyalty to the Zionists."

Abu Hamza is, in the flesh, quite different from his TV persona, and especially compared to the impression given by those horrific photographs. He rarely raises his voice: instead he speaks in a chat-in-the-pub, good-blokeish style which implies that everything he says is perfectly reasonable. You can have a perfectly amiable chat – he spent 10 minutes telling me why British people are overtaxed, and it was like sitting with a behooked Simon Heffer – and then, without any perceptible change of tone, he would say, "You [in the West] are asking for somebody to fly a plane at a nuclear power station. Suicide bombers who just want to kill – you are provoking them. If you kill people, and they look around and their loved ones are dead, what do you expect? They have no taste for life any more. And when this war [on terrorism] starts, even the winner would not have much to celebrate. It's horrible. There are a lot of nuclear bombs everywhere."

Despite the fact that I find this terrifying beyond measure, I have to say it isn't hard to see the appeal of Finsbury Park mosque to young Muslims. Abu Hamza is charismatic and particularly good at listening to young men who everywhere else are shunned. He offers the one thing that all angst-crippled teenagers crave: certainty, and a clear path through life.

Most of the blokes hanging around him strongly suspect that their chances of advancing and earning status in British society are limited, and so prefer the excitement of international jihad to the grinding boredom of endlessly toiling for our paltry minimum wage. Abu offers an alternative to the consumerism they know they will never be able to revel in; he offers a driving, inspirational way of life to young men who have very little.

This must not be construed as support for their cause, which I loathe. The "Supporters of Sharia", Hamza's little group, are, without question, theocratic fascists. It is no surprise that Hamza has taken to sharing platforms at public debates with the BNP leader, Nick Griffin. The two groups have great chunks of philosophy in common. Both believe in achieving "purity" – the BNP, a mythical community of Christian whites; Hamza, the utopian umma of Wahhabist Islam – and they are prepared to use violence to achieve it. Neither believe in dialogue or debate; neither acknowledge that any differing viewpoint might be less than evil. Hamza and his clique of fans are politically repellent, and the police were absolutely right to raid the mosque.

So why, then, did I also feel a slight tinge of sadness when the mosque was busted? Partly because I knew that some people would see this as yet another excuse to bash British Muslims en masse, the vast majority of whom are decent and moderate and not, as a Daily Mail journalist has claimed, a "fifth column" in our midst. But mostly because Finsbury Park mosque provided one of the few non-commercial spaces in that patch of North London (where I used to live) in which the most dispossessed lads could hang out.

Shorn of Hamza, shorn of the handful of other lunatic preachers who gravitate towards it, the mosque has the potential to be a terrific community centre for local Muslims, as mosques across the Arab world are. Hamza offers a siren call for confused boys; they would respond equally well to sane voices who actually bothered to show an interest in them.

Very few of the men I met went to the mosque as already-formed extremists – they got converted to it there by Hamza. If figures as charismatic and intelligent (but without the crazed fascism) could be brought in, it could become an inspirational place, turning around young lives to lead them not to the battlefields of Chechnya but to economic and personal success here in Britain.

It is sad to see a building that has such potential – which was built in 1990 with precisely these hopes – confirmed as a nest of crime and terrorism. I hope that we rebuild it and its early-1990s reputation for decent Islam as readily as we gutted it yesterday.

johannhari@johannhari.com

http://argument.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=371566&host=6&dir=641
Re: What I discovered inside Finsbury Park mosque
jannah
01/28/03 at 16:38:39
That is a completely messed up article. How disgusting. I definitely don't support AbuHamza or his views or his followers, but the woman is writing an article full of anti-muslim bias and stereotypes and acting superior about it too. Maybe she should ask herself, who really is instigating hate here, them or her.
Re: What I discovered inside Finsbury Park mosque
Anonymous
02/02/03 at 04:08:35
as salaamu 'alaikum
I am wondering if this post will even appear on this board, regardless I have chosen to
write it.

In reply to those who make blanket statements such as "I definitely don't support
AbuHamza or his views or his followers" - as someone who lives in the UK and has seen Abu Hamza
(not in a personal capacity, but at a number of talks over the years) I am truly SICK and
TIRED of some Muslims voicing blanket statements such as "I absolutely do not agree with
anything Abu Hamza says, or his followers". Especially Muslims who may be sitting half
way around the world with no knowledge, whatsoever, of what the brother is upon, other than
what they have read in articles most frequently written by non-Muslims, or by Muslims who
have taken an excessively skewed view of the brother because of a number of mistakes he
has made.

I'm sure some Muslims have not read the brother's excellent book "The Khawarij and Jihad"
which warns against the new Khawarij, mainly emanating from certain areas of Saudi Arabia
and villages of Algeria - which has clear points criticising and refuting, with evidence
from the Quran and Sunnah, the very actions which he himself is charged with
saying/conducting! Now why would he write such a book and then go on to condone and participate in
actions of the Khawarij? Whatever can be said of the brother - he is sincere and does not
show any of the traits of the hypocrite.

So, with all due respect, hold you tongue. Exercise some husna dhan of the brother -
which you would easily exercise over a brother in your country who would happen to say
something foolish such as "there are no ayaat in the Quran relating to offensive Jihad" or "the
hoor al ain promised to the shaheed is only allegorical" - if statements like these can
be made, and it be said that the latter brother merely made a mistake and we should leave
from the bad he said, and just take the good - then why rush to condemn another brother
who just happens to make a mistake on the other side of the spectrum?

It's because in a non-Muslim environment saying some of the things Abu Hamza has said
makes it difficult to peddle a certain form of 'Da'wah'. Some of the things Abu Hamza has
said are correct. As an example, he has said repeatedly it is more desirable (if there are
no dependants by shari'ah upon the man) that men should leave to fight against a
non-Muslims aggressor in a Muslim land. Yet for saying this he has been jumped upon by many
Muslim organisations as a violent extremist, despite the fact he is simply re-enforcing the
statements of Allah:

"Warfare has been ordained for you, though it is hateful unto you; but it may happen that
you hate a thing which is good for you, and it may happen that you love a thing which is
bad for you. GOD knows, but you do not know." [2:216]

"O you prophet, you shall exhort the believers to fight. If there are twenty of you who
are steadfast, they can defeat two hundred, and a hundred of you can defeat a thousand of
those who disbelieved. That is because they are people who do not understand." [8:65]

"You shall prepare for them all the power you can muster, and all the equipment you can
mobilise, that you may frighten the enemies of GOD, your enemies, as well as others who
are not known to you; GOD knows them. Whatever you spend in the cause of GOD will be repaid
to you generously, without the least injustice." [8:60]

"And why should you not fight in the cause of God and the weak and oppressed among men,
women, and children who say, "Our Lord rescue us from this town whose people are
oppressors. And give us from You, a protector. And give us from You, a helper." [4:75]

"O you who believe, if you encounter the disbeliever's who have mobilised against you, do
not turn back and flee. Anyone who turns back on that day, except to carry out a battle
plan, or to join his group, has incurred wrath from GOD, and his abode is Hell; what a
miserable destiny!" [8:15-16]

"Do you consider the providing of drinking water to the pilgrims and the maintenance of
Al-Masjid-al-Haram (at Makkah) as equal to the worth of those who believe in Allah and the
Last Day, and strive hard and fight in the Cause of Allah? They are not equal before
Allah." [9:19-20]

Now this is not a response to those who hold the view there is no need for Muslims to
fight today - it is clear that most understand that need, and there is a whole collection of
ahadith that stipulate fighting, specifically, will continue until the final hour by a
group from amongst the Muslims. This is a response to those who jump on brothers like Abu
Hamza who call for fighting (sometimes in the correct manner and place, and sometimes
not).

The brother called for the need for Jihad in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Eritrea and
Chechnya. Now those who do not see the need for an armed struggle in those areas need their eyes
and minds examining. Before we are so eager to make a blanket statement such as "oh I
don't support anything he says..." perhaps you should look to his missing arms and eye
(which the media love to concentrate upon as they think it makes him look like some sort of a
monster) and realise he lost that in Jihad - fighting for the right of Muslims to live in
a land free from oppression. He, and many like him, gave his body in that struggle - and
although it does not purify him from all sin and mistake in the future surely it protects
him from the offhand and immature insults/rejections of a Muslim youth woefully ignorant
of what he has tried to give the deen.

wa salaam
Re: What I discovered inside Finsbury Park mosque
jannah
02/02/03 at 04:44:10
I think you misunderstood what I wrote bro/sis.

I didn't mean Abu Hamza and his followers/views etc were disgusting, but that the clear bias in the article was.  The point that I was making is that I don't dislike the article because of what it says against Abu Hamza et al but because of the misconceptions and clear bias and propoganda in the article.

And no I don't support Abu Hamza/his followers/views from what I've read and heard about him from Muslims and I don't believe this is the proper forum to argue over it.
Re: What I discovered inside Finsbury Park mosque
BrKhalid
02/02/03 at 04:48:09
Asalaamu Alaikum Anonymous ;-)

[quote]...a Muslim youth woefully ignorant...[/quote]

To me it's not just the youth that are ignorant but we all are sometimes [including myself] when it comes to how we disagree with each other over matters of deen.







 


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