Mohammed Hijab – Nigel Farage Goes After Muslims
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Hey you, are you wasting your time on
social media again? Your brothers and sisters in
the slam net from Norway are establishing a
Masjid, a dawah center.
Establishing a Masjid to convey the message of
Islam is one of the best deeds a
Muslim can do. There's a huge need for
it in Norway. You know this and I
know this, so that makes the reward even
greater.
So give generously and Allah
give you even more.
Assalamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh. How are
you guys doing?
Right wing proponent Nigel Farage who was known
for his single issue, which was Brexit,
has now started to veer into different directions
and has, for some reason, started to comment
on Muslims
in Britain. Let's take a look at some
of the comments that he's made recently
and come back and respond
in kind. We have a growing number of
young people in country
who do not subscribe to British values. In
fact, loathe much of what we stand for.
So what do you do? Who are we
talking about then? Oh, I think we see
them on the streets of London every Saturday.
What do they look like? Oh, we're talking
about what do they look like? Are we
talking about Muslims here? We are. And and
I'm afraid I found some of the recent
surveys saying that 46% of British Muslims
support Hamas,
support the terrorist organization
that is described in this country.
So we've been and and and what's interesting
is that this prime minister
this prime
minister is building up far more of that
population than anybody before in history. Now many
things have been said,
by different people, proponents of media
and I've been following some of the comments
of, you know, some right wing people who
have actually said, quote unquote, well tell us
what he said that is wrong. I mean
he's saying that Muslims in this country who,
let's say, constitute about 7%
of the country's
population,
that Muslims in this country, the United Kingdom,
they don't respect fundamental British values
and that something needs to be done about
this. And he cited
as an example,
the amount of Muslims
who supported,
the proscribed
terrorist organization in the UK, Hamas,
as evidence for this.
Now the first question is what are fundamental
British values?
Fundamental British values
are 5 in number.
They are rule of law, tolerance,
democracy,
individual liberty and,
respect.
These are the 5, you know, bog standard
if you
like British values
that you have in national curricula
all around the country
and that are taught to students in this
country.
So if we ask the question, is it
the case that there is something inherent about
the religion of Islam
or about the Muslim communities,
or is there a sociological evidence to suggest
that those five aspects are in all respects
rejected by the Muslim community? I would say
that's actually an inaccurate
statement. Let's take the first thing, democracy for
example. Democracy
by the vast majority of traditionalist orthodox Muslim
commentators and scholars
is considered to be acceptable if used instrumentally.
Course it's not seen as an objective truth
in and of itself. I mean, Plato himself
had issues with democracy and there's philosophers even
in the western tradition that had issues with
democracy as a system, as an objective truth
or as a pragmatic
usage.
So democracy, it's not correct to
say that, well, Muslims reject democracy
and all the results of representative
democratic processes.
So I don't think that's we can put
that set aside for
now. Second thing you can say is respect.
There's nothing in the religion of Islam
which indicates that respect
is to be forgotten or is not to
be,
upheld
in fact
And this is a very subjective term. What
do we mean by
respect?
But if you're asking the question about Islam
and Muslim people in particular, there's nothing there
to suggest that. Number 3, if you talk
about tolerance,
well, I mean there are many verses in
the Quran
which
state quite explicitly and quite candidly that people
can live in whatever or using whatever system
they want to use for their life, whatever
world view they want to use. For example,
in chapter 109 of the Quran. You have
your religion, we have ours.
Whoever wants to can believe
and whoever wants to can disbelieve.
Where it's mentioned in chapter 2 verse 256
that
That there is no compulsion
in religion.
This is Islam. Islam does in fact state
that you know, we're not meant to convert
people forcibly in this way. So if we're
asking,
does Islam
practice tolerance? Yes. You'll say of course,
you you guys don't actually have tolerance towards
the LGBT community or this community that community.
With the British context or in the context
of the western world, there's no scholar or
reputable scholar across the world in Islam that
says that there shouldn't
be or there should be some kind of
intolerance practice
against members of communities which we disagree with
the practices of. For example, LGBTQ
communities, etcetera.
So I don't think there's enough evidence to
suggest
that on a sociological level, on a classical
Islamic level,
that
you know, tolerance is not upheld in Islam
and or by Muslims,
in the in the United Kingdom or anywhere
else in the
west. What about individual liberty? Now this is
connected obviously liberalism
with a small l as an ideology or
something I've spoken about at length is not
something which is compatible with Islam in the
broad sense. But individual liberty if we're talking
about people to choose whatever they want in
the western context. Once again there's no scholar
worth his salt or her salt that would
say that such a thing is,
we we should rebel against it in the
western context.
So really and truly here, and rule of
law of course, rule of law, scholars are
very explicit
that you should obey the law of the
land so long as it does not contradict
Islamic law,
if you're living here. So you could make
the argument actually that fundamental British values
from one
angle or from one respect is not something
we
are in opposition to from that perspective, from
the pragmatic or contextual perspective. Of course, if
you go deeper, you could say there are
points of tension
as an objective reality. So that's one thing.
Then he cites, well, 46%
of people
believe
he says 46 percent, you know, Muslims believe,
or support Hamas. Well, I just looked at
a study done by YouGov which is seen
as a reputable and credible
organization
that says that
of the people that support Palestine
in Britain as a whole, 14%
of them actually supported Hamas. Now that can't
be
constitutive of the entire Muslim
because there's only 7% of Muslims in the
UK. Which shows you that there are people
who support Hamas who are not Muslims in
the United Kingdom.
This is
unusual. You could you could argue because it's
a proscribed terrorist organization.
But suffice it for me to say, it's
not a proscribed terrorist organization in the majority
of the world. I mean, Hamas is not
this is a fact.
Majority of countries do not consider them to
be a prescribed terrorist. In fact, Switzerland for
the longest of time
and Norway for the longest of time. These
are European countries did not consider them to
be terrorist organization. I think they may have
changed that recently, but the point is just
because something
is seen as a prescribed terrorist organization. It
doesn't mean to say that the people who
support that group are necessarily against fundamental British
values the like of which we've just mentioned.
It's actually
conceivable
that someone could could make a case for
Hamas
as a non prescribed terrorist organization
which many have and
still
claim at least to uphold fundamental
British
values. That's the first thing. The second point
which is very important
is that the same
tensions which may exist with the dominant ethic
of the West
and Islam could also said to be existing
within Judaism
and the dominant ethic of the West which
is say liberalism,
classical liberalism.
So if you wanted to make a case
about Muslims because of lack of integration
say or opposition to what you consider to
be fundamental British values and or the dominant
ethic of the
West then you could say the same thing
about Orthodox Jews and this is something that
Abdul Andalusi recently came on GB News and
you know done a fantastic job in being
able to
expound on in great detail and you can
see his video in the link below.
And that is enough for the SOPA analysis
for us to say, I'm sorry to say,
Faraj, you have not been able to make
the case in a strong enough manner.
And to specialize this, to to make a
remarkable case of the Muslim community and peculiarize
and otherwise
the Muslim community above and beyond other communities
like the Jewish community or other communities even
the maybe the Sikh community, Orthodox Sikh communities
and other maybe,
even
evangelical Christian communities within the west. I think
speaks volumes
about your
disingenuity
and it speaks volumes about
how you perceive Muslims in this country, and
it may even speak volumes about maybe who
could be and this may be a question
I should ask you, is paying you? Who's
paying you,
to speak like this? Because back in the
days, you and Robinson and others used to
all have this very patriotic
pro Britain approach and it seems to me
the parliament is changing isn't it Nigel? Now
it seems to me that you're more concerned
with Israel and foreign politics than you are
with national politics of Great Britain. That's what
I will say.
Your brothers and sisters in the slam net
from Norway are
establishing a masjid, a dower center.
This center, this masjid, this educational
institution will act like a beacon of light,
calling the Muslims in Norway back to the
essence of Islam.
So give generously and Allah
will give you even more.