Abu Taymiyyah – The birth of the Fitna in the UK Dr Abdulhaq Baker
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AI: Transcript ©
Following on from
my brother Abdul Kadir's
very informative and interactive,
discussion with some brothers recently on what really
happened between Luton,
Stubbs, Sheikh Rabir, and Abdul Hassan.
I've been asked
to give a narrative and an account
on what really happened
between
Brixton,
Luton, Spubs, Sheikh Rabia, and Abu Hassan.
So
here it goes,
an account
for my recollection,
and there are documents in support as well
and recordings as well.
Once we'd invited Abul Hasan to
the UK to take part in our return
to ill
conference, which was an annual affair where everybody
attended martial arts and work around the country.
We picked Abu Hassan up from the airport
and brought him to Brixton, and there was
a lot of excitement around the country of
him being here because, as Abdelkader said,
because of the statements from the masheikh, the
ulama, sheik al abani included,
that he was one of the imams of
Ahlus Sunnah at the time.
Such an endorsement
carried weight for obvious reasons,
and we heard about Sheikh Rabia's position with
him
and other Masheikh
from around the world, particularly Saudi Arabia.
So when he came to the office in
in Brixton, there was a lot of excitement.
Trustees, Shura,
Imams were crammed into the office to meet
him for the first time.
And as we were sitting with him,
we
made an agreement among ourselves before sitting, prior
to sitting, that we wouldn't talk about the
fitna
of
what was going on between us,
Cellophie Publications,
and and the like because it was to
be honest, it was getting boring. There'd been
so many with
so many publications
and other affiliates of theirs, Muradah, Jazari,
and and other brothers. I'll mention names in
this recording, Amir Bashir, who was with them,
Mahfoud,
from whom this incident blew up, Amir Bashir
and Mahfoud when they,
became responsible
or placed,
in responsibility
for the center in, Luton.
Abdelkader didn't mention them by name, but I've
got no problem in mentioning names as everybody
knows.
They were affiliated to Salafi Publications, and they
were the ones who went there and got
them involved in the whole Luton affair.
So before jumping,
into the Abul Hasan affair further, I remember
that thing that took place in Luton because
it was a in Brixton,
and we were contacted. The big fitment had
blown off blown up in Luton
regarding,
this dispute
between the brothers.
And some were calling for us to come
up there
to,
show support, which we declined because we didn't
want to add to any fit now.
Anyway, coming back to when Abdul Hassan came
to Brixton,
when we were sitting in the office with
him discussing the program
of the conference,
we received a phone call.
I kinda cannot remember if it was on
the Masjid phone or one of our mobile
numbers,
and it was Amir, Bashir, and Farooq.
Now and on this, I cannot remember who
it was who's speaking, but it was one
of the 2 of them.
And they insisted on speaking to Abu Hassan.
So reluctantly, and it was reluctantly because we
knew or surmise why they would be ringing,
we gave the,
phone to Abu Hassan.
He spoke with them,
and they requested to see him immediately,
and he invited them down.
So he could see that there was tension
from us as they were coming. We didn't
say anything
because,
unlike others,
clouding or shaping,
a student of knowledge or scholar or Sheikh's
view
without the other side being able to give
or represent at the same time was something
we didn't want to do. It had been
done enough times by others, and we just
felt we didn't want to go down the
same road and and lower ourselves in that
way. So they came.
They introduced themselves.
They associated themselves with Salafi Publications, and they
produced a letter.
And,
the letter started
with words of praise. That was the introduction
to the letter because it was read out.
Abu Hassan read it.
Samantha Bravo, I think Ahmed Bashir read it
and translated it. And when the sheikh asked
him and started discussing Ahmed Bashir excused himself
that his Arabic wasn't very strong,
and the sheikh said that was okay. You
should carry on.
And, yeah. So the words of praise
letter was read out from Salafi Publications and
it mentioned,
various masheic who would praise them and then
it got to the essence of the letter,
which in a nutshell
was about a dispute,
that they had with Luton with the brothers
in Luton.
So,
and what they were requesting arbitration.
So Abul Hasan
confirmed his agreement to that
and and mentioned that to the brothers, Farooq
and Amir Bashir.
And, for my recollection, they left shortly after
that.
That's f one.
We mentioned immediately that we deliberately didn't raise
any of the issues,
pertaining to the fit between
the Salafis
because we wanted to focus on benefiting from
Abu Hassan and focusing on ILM.
But he insisted
that as a guest,
he was prepared and wanted to arbitrate
and bring to Awon
cooperation between the Salafi communities.
So he asked to speak to Luton.
And from what I recollect, he's, a phone
call was made to Abdelkader and the brothers
in Luton, and he invited them down to
come,
and speak with him. And they duly came,
not all in the same day. This was
the evening by this time this all taken
place on the evening of, Abu Hassan landing.
So Luton came
and presented their case, and then
Matheb Basalofia and their representatives came and presented
their case.
And what happened is that, aspects of the
conference
were disrupted
due to the Sheikh. Sorry. Abul Hassan. He
was a sheikh at the time, no longer
now. As we know, there's this,
this this man haj that when someone has
been disparaged,
they no longer have the appellation of sheikh,
to them.
Not quite sure where that comes from.
I'm sure there's some evidence for it. But
anyway, Abul Hasan,
as he's commonly referred to, I'll stick with
that,
had arbitration and met the group separately.
Now
we said to him, when he was sitting
with Luton
and arranging to sit with Sanofi Publications,
that we wanted to have our own
sitting then in that case, so that we
could raise any grievances that we had against
either parties or one of the parties or
whatever.
But he declined
and said as, we were the hosts,
he he would ask us to honor him
in the sense that he saw
after listening to Luton that our grievances
and Luton's grievances were the same and that
we were closer
connected as brothers and communities so that we
would form one entire group and Salafi publication
will form the other group.
And we agreed because
we were
very close and we continue to be very
close with our brothers in Luton, Marcelo, and
Turakula.
Those arbitration,
sit ins took place.
Individuals bought book boxes down
and produced their evidence and such like, and
Salima Hilali was involved in these sittings.
Doctor Jabali was involved in these sittings.
This is the first part of the recording,
regarding this stage.
After they'd listened
to everyone,
Abu Hassan arranged
for a meeting
in what
remains
an area,
that's allocated in Masjidim, Tamir, Brixton to the
sisters.
And he wanted
the opposing side's,
affiliates and those who supporting them to come
into that room.
And so it was quite packed.
There were a number of us sitting in
that room
at the because he was going to give
his conclusion,
of his observations,
summary,
and direction.
We all gathered,
with the exception of Abu Khadija, who had
sent a letter or sent a message. I
didn't see the letter, but Abu Hassan read
it out that Abu Khadija was traveling to
Kuwait at the time and had asked to
be excused and that he would abide by
whatever decision Abul Hasan had made.
But Abul Hakim was there, Abu Sufyan was
there, Muradah Jazari
was there, Abdul,
Kadi Kadi was there, and us and from
Brixton were there as well. And the recording
of that sitting is available. I have a
copy of it,
and I will make it available.
And it's a bit grainy, but you can
hear Abu Hassan speaking, and you can hear,
one of the brothers who used to be
with us, a graduate from Medina, brother Faraz
from Tooting,
translating.
So everything was read out, the points that
were read out, and
the brothers were were asked to ask specific
brothers, including myself, to sign to the agreement
at the end.
Now rewinding a little bit,
when that
document was prepared,
Abul Hassan and Celine al Hilali
rang Sheikh Rabia from the office of Brixton.
And as they were speaking to Sheikh Rabia,
they wanted to fax him what they had
written.
They faxed it to him for him to
read.
And the translation that I got, because we
were in the office while this was going
on,
was that
Sheikh Rabir
found these,
points
acceptable.
He said he would write and and nothing
Abu Hassan requested. Can he confirm his acceptance
of them because it will put the brothers
at ease, and and they will find it
more accepting generally.
So Sheikh Rabir confirmed he would do this,
and he asked for the fax number of
Brixton.
But due to a technical glitch, and we
had a problem with our phone at the
time, we could only send faxes but not
receive.
So I suggested
to give Sheikh Rabir an alternative
number of 1 of the brothers who ran
his family business on Brixton High Road, which
is about 2 minutes walk away from the
Masjid.
And the name of the shop at the
time was called Force Home Care.
So I contacted the brother, asked for his
fax number.
He gave me the fax number
and I went across there quickly and waited
myself
for Sheikh Rabi's fax to come through.
And the facts came through.
And I went straight back with the facts
to the office,
to give to Abul Hassan and and Salima
Al Hilali,
who then continued their conversation with Sheikh Rabia
to say that they'd received the facts.
Copies of the fax
have since been scanned,
with the the the written Arabic
agreement that, Abdul Hassan had put together
and was signed with the signatures as well.
That is still with,
us even though it's faded by now, but
it was copied and scanned. And that is
also available,
with Sheikh Rabi, Hafizullah's
signature,
and his written endorsement.
That's still available.
What coming back to the the final sitting
with Abu Hassan,
when he'd have got
representatives
of the two sides
to sign this document, my signature is on
there, and we signed under Sheikh Rabi's signature
because when we saw that he had written
and endorsed it, that made us all feel
more secure that, yes, Sheikh Rabi has endorsed
this, and we all signed.
And then Abu Hassan asked us because the
conference was at its conclusive stages
to come out to the main area, main
of the masjid.
He gave a speech
talking about how Islam had been made and
words to that effect. And he asked
members of the respective parties to come and
speak conclusively.
I was asked to speak. Abu Hajj Abdul
Rahman was asked to speak. Abu Hakim was
asked to speak.
Muradah Jazari was asked to speak.
Abdelkader was asked to speak. And if I
recall rightly, everyone spoke, and that tape is
still available.
Some of the brothers who spoke, and I
won't mention at this point because you can't
see what's in people's hearts, spoke very vaguely,
very vaguely. But what was clear from their
very vague general speech was that they were
not happy with the outcome. That was clear
to us.
Anyway,
that's how it concluded,
and we left it at that. The
Arabic,
agreement
and Sheikh Rabir's speech was duly translated by
Fraas.
And then doctor Jabali, when he got back
to the States, he translated it
and provided
a a tighter translation, but both translations were
very close to each other.
And from there,
there was expectation
to
move forward.
Expectations
by a number of individuals, but there were
some of us who felt things weren't going
to move forward because we'd seen many times
before
that when, meetings for ISLA had come about,
particular
sections or particular
individuals
continually broke those agreements.
So that's what happened
with that. When our conference had finished,
Abil Hassan had been invited to travel up
to North England, and we took him. And,
the brothers from Celtic Publications had invited him,
and he was supposed to go, but he
declined because of time constraints. That was all.
As we were going up north, he couldn't
make it, and he asked to be excused.
And he went straight up, I think, to
Manchester.
Brothers took him up to Manchester.
That was the last time Abu Hassan visited
1st and last time Abu Hassan visited,
the UK,
from what I recall,
the rest is history.
But for the record,
after we had heard
what had been going on, Mirada Jazayer turned
up at Jeddah Airport with to see Sheikh
Rabih with a box of books and everything,
and he was supposedly arrested until an appeal
was made to Sheikh Rabir. And he confirmed
he was coming down to see him as
a student,
alleged stew student and so so forth. And
we heard that there was an attempt to,
undermine
and discredit the agreement of Abu Hassan
after some of them had signed it.
Basically,
things started falling apart and going from bad
to worse.
Now when we heard that Sheikh Rabir
had basically discredited it and said that his
signature and his writing was no longer valid,
some went so far as to say that
he said he never wrote anything, and they
tried to deny that, which was that that
was impossible.
And I don't think the sheikhs said that.
Brothers were saying that from themselves.
What basically happened is that we then said,
right. If this is what's happening
and this discrediting is taking place,
The the agreement doesn't hold any water. We
are away from it.
So much so that weeks after
this happened,
the kukba, which was given by our brother,
Abu Mariam Samir, okay, Coombsun,
and he won't like me for putting his
name out there like that because he's a
very shy individual,
mentioned on the mimbar
in in as a side point, but a
very clear side point. I heard it myself
that this was no longer being,
abided by adhered to by Brixton,
because of the dispute arising around it.
And from that point in time,
no cassettes,
nothing from Abu Hassan
was seen or heard in
the masjid.
So those brothers who keep running around
like youngsters who were maybe 5 years old,
when this Abu Hassan affair took place,
taught with such certainty. And as Abu Dhabi
said, they haven't verified the truth. And as
the Quran says in Surah Al Hujurat, they
haven't verified the truth because they hold particular
entities to be thick cut based on their
own,
understandings, which is really unfortunate. It's just it's
just it's a joke. It's not even worth
going into.
So, anyway,
there was one other occasion where when the
fitna blew up between Abu Hassan and Sheikh
Rabi
in
Saudi Arabia.
I remember Sheikh,
Rabbi,
speaking clearly,
about the dispute about Abul Hassan
in that instance.
A phone call was made to Abu Hassan
when I was back in Brixton. I can't
remember the brother who made it, but some
of us were sitting in the room. And
he asked
about he asked me. He said, I heard
you were in Modena.
Why didn't you come and see me?
And I said, I didn't know that I
didn't know where you were, Sheikh. That was
it. And he asked, he goes, what are
we upon? This is what Abu Hassan asked.
He asked, what are we upon? And we
said, we are as you found we are
upon the same thing that you found us
upon
with regards to our the Manhaj sunnah. This
is what we were talking about in that
instance there.
And that was the statement.
But one of the Somali brothers who was
with us who
then decided he would have not then, but
he be he became influenced by the other
way as we I'd call it of of
Maktaba Salafiya.
He tried to take some mileage out of
that and,
out of that telephone conversation, and yet he
was the translator or he was in the
room at the time. I can't remember which
one he he was. But that's all that
was said. And it was very clear because
Abu Hassan said, oh, put out my stuff
against Sheikh Rabir and and and defend my
arguments and everything like that. And we went
quiet and just ended the conversation.
And he wanted Abu Hassan wanted affirmation from
us that we were going to do that,
and he did not get it. We ended
the conversation.
And that was the the last time,
Brixton had any sort of,
connection
or communication,
should I say, with Abu Hassan. And, Arlen,
this is coming up to 20 minutes long.
And as Ablucard
said, the the brothers who from
from
and and their cohorts
are so much into this, and this is
what their life is centered around.
And really, I'm not gonna put anything else
out after this because it's not something I've
looked at for a long long time because
it's wasted a lot of people's time. And
as I said, some some some of the
youth who were 5 at the time or
even 4 or were they even born
or 19 now,
I've got I've got so caught up as
though this is the be all and end
all.