Disaster: Half of British mosques are under quasi-Taliban control; Update: Taliban reportedly killed South Korean hostage for refusing to convert

“Quasi-Taliban” meaning they belong to the the Deobandi school of, ahem, “pure” Islam. Ponder the fact that Islamic radicalization in Britain is a trend dating back years and years, since well before 9/11, and yet despite the London bombings, despite the failed car bomb plot this summer and the airline plot last year, despite the endless warnings from MI5 of the gravity of the situation, the situation’s still deteriorating. To wit:

Riyadh ul Haq, who supports armed jihad and preaches contempt for Jews, Christians and Hindus, is in line to become the spiritual leader of the Deobandi sect in Britain. The ultra-conservative movement, which gave birth to the Taleban in Afghanistan, now runs more than 600 of Britain’s 1,350 mosques, according to a police report seen by The Times.

The Times investigation casts serious doubts on government statements that foreign preachers are to blame for spreading the creed of radical Islam in Britain’s mosques and its policy of enouraging the recruitment of more “home-grown” preachers…

Seventeen of Britain’s 26 Islamic seminaries are run by Deobandis and they produce 80 per cent of home-trained Muslim clerics. Many had their studies funded by local education authority grants. The sect, which has significant representation on the Muslim Council of Britain, is at its strongest in the towns and cities of the Midlands and northern England…

A commentator on religious radicalism in Pakistan, where Deobandis wield significant political influence, told The Times that “blind ignorance” on the part of the Government in Britain had allowed the Deobandis to become the dominant voice of Islam in Britain’s mosques.

Khaled Ahmed said: “The UK has been ruined by the puritanism of the Deobandis. You’ve allowed the takeover of the mosques. You can’t run multiculturalism like that, because that’s a way of destroying yourself. In Britain, the Deobandi message has become even more extreme than it is in Pakistan. It’s mind-boggling.”

Follow the link for a taste of the fanatical separatism that characterizes the sermons. The key is the boldface part, though: this isn’t a problem that’s being “imported,” it’s a problem that’s being exported, developed at home within the ideological infrastructure built over the course of years while the Brits looked the other way as part of a unstated bargain that allowed jihadist proselytizing so long as it was directed outward. In fact, to a certain extent, that bargain is still in effect. The Times notes that ul Haq takes care to stress that the Sunna only permits jihad overseas; that’s part of the “covenant of security” Muslims are supposed to abide by when living in non-Muslim lands. To see how tenuous it is, skip ahead to about 3:00 of the clip below (if you’re counting down) and just watch it play out.

One more note: ul Haq is the leader of the Birmingham Central Mosque, the largest in western Europe. I’ve written about Birmingham’s jihadist problem more than once, but still not as extensively as Rusty Shackleford has. This post is must reading. Take three minutes and go.

Update: Sweetness & Light catches a little Deobandi magic in action.

“Among the 19 hostages who returned on the second (of September), some were asked by the Taliban to convert and when they rejected, they were assaulted and severely beaten,” reported Park Eun-jo, pastor of the hostages’ home church, Saemmul Presbyterian Church in Bundang, just south of the South Korean capital Seoul.

“I heard from the hostages that they were threatened with death,” he added, according to Christian Today Korea. “Especially it is known that the reason Pastor Bae Hyung-kyu was murdered was because he refused the Taliban’s demand to convert.”…

Meanwhile, medical examinations showed no signs that the last 12 women were raped and none reported being sexually harassed despite reports from the first two released hostages – both women – who said they were repeatedly raped by their captors, according to an ABC News report on Saturday.

Mirajuddin Pathan, the governor of Ghazni province, had also said he received reports that “various Taliban commanders were fighting over the women hostages” and that “[t]hey were abused over and over“, according to ABC News.

Update: The Daily Mail has some of ul Haq’s greatest hits in bullet point form. Enjoy.

Update: Right on cue, the first Muslim contributor to the Guardian’s opinion website steps up to defend ul Haq and the Deobandi school. Click.

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