Ayatollah Moezi, the most senior Iranian spiritual leader in Britain with thousands of followers from the Shia sect, said that it was wrong for followers of Islam to serve in the Armed Forces, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq where Muslims were being killed.

“Not only do I not accept it for Muslims to go there, I don’t accept non-Muslims to go there as well,” Ayatollah Moezi told The Times through an interpreter provided by him. “We say that Muslims are not allowed to go and kill Muslims. Do you think that Christians are allowed to go and kill Muslims?”…

Ayatollah Moezi believes that Islam and politics are “inter-mixed” because religion “could not be ignorant of social issues. And part of social issues is politics, therefore Islam should have some sort of eye on political issues.”