Latest news with #FaithMatters
Telegraph
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Ban Islamist preacher who said sex with female slaves was lawful, Cooper told
Yvette Cooper has been urged to block a UK tour by an Islamist preacher who claims it is lawful to have sex with female slaves captured in war. Uthman ibn Farooq, a US preacher, is due to begin a speaking tour of London, Manchester and Birmingham later this month entitled 'Waking the Dead – Returning from the Darkness'. In a YouTube video, Mr Farooq, who is based in San Diego, was asked why it was lawful and not adultery to have 'intimacy' with a slave, but was adulterous to have intimacy with a non-slave. Mr Farooq, a speaker and scholar with the One Message Foundation, replied: 'Allah made [it] that those people taken under a war as captives, who were trying to kill you, [who] you're now going to support and keep in your house and spend [money] on and treat well, that [they are] like a wife. 'This is somebody who you can have those relationships with. So if Allah made it hala [lawful], then it's not sinning, that is not adultery because Allah made it.' Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, called for Mr Farooq to be barred from the UK. 'This man should never step foot on UK soil,' he said. 'His visa must be revoked immediately. Islamists spreading hate and sowing division are not welcome here.' Fiyaz Mughal, the founder of Faith Matters and Tell Mama, which supports victims of anti-Muslim hate, said the comments were 'abhorrent'. 'Saying that sex with slaves is fine and is permissible by God sends a barbaric message to people,' he said. 'It is disgusting and let us not forget what happened to Yazidi women and the way that the Islamic State raped and pillaged their bodies. 'Any sheikh or imam that attempts to publicly justify having sex with people who have no choice should not be allowed in the UK. We have enough problems with backward views in the UK and we don't need others coming here and legitimising such poison.' Stephen Evans, the chief executive of the National Secular Society, said any charity that gave a platform to an imam who condoned sexual slavery should have its charitable status 'seriously questioned'. 'Promoting division and spreading misogyny and prejudice not only undermines social cohesion but also fails to serve any public benefit,' he said. Muslims must 'never apologise' Mr Farooq previously visited the UK last month and previously said Europe, the US and Russia will become fully Muslim countries. 'The future is ours. Every ideal nightmare of a Muslim Europe will come true,' he told a mosque audience in Birmingham. He said Muslims must 'never apologise', 'never compromise' and 'never water down their religion'. In apparently anti-Semitic comments in Leicester, he backed boycotts of Israeli goods because 'I know kaffir [non Muslims] love money, especially those that have the short kufis [caps]'. He also appeared to mock gay people. 'Rome was for gay bro, sorry, I don't know what else to say. Go read your history books, man,' he said. 'That was a part of their military strategy. I'm not kidding, go look it up. They would encourage their military to be gay because then they were like, they're gonna [sic] defend each other as lovers. The great Roman Empire. I don't know about all that. What was their flag? Rainbow?' Mr Farooq will appear with Ustadh Imran ibn Mansur, who bills himself as a Muslim entrepreneur, at an event in London in June. In his social media posts, Mr Mansur advises Muslim women on how to make money without showing their faces. He tells women they should not wear a hijab or niqab when posting on Instagram, but upload faceless content with a voice over, while making sure they don't 'beautify' their voices. He says that if a woman wears perfume they are a 'fornicatress'. 'Any woman who puts perfume on and walks by a group of men so that they can smell her fragrance, she is a fornicatress,' he says. In a separate video on Twitter, Mr Mansur also questions whether Palestine can succeed in its ambitions to be free and win the support of God if it has gay men supporting it. Mr Farooq and Mr Mansur have been contacted for comment.
The Guardian
09-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Anti-Islamophobia group Tell Mama should face inquiry, says Muslim peer
A leading Muslim peer has called for an inquiry into the Islamophobia monitoring group Tell Mama over concerns about a 'lack of transparency' on how it is spending public money. Shaista Gohir, the chief executive of the Muslim Women's Network UK, has also accused Tell Mama of failing to provide detailed data on anti-Muslim hate crimes, being 'silent' when politicians have targeted Muslims, and questioned whether the Tories used it as a vehicle to monitor extremism. Tell Mama denied the claims and described the idea it was secretly being used to tackle Muslim extremism as a 'slur'. It said it regularly reports 'according to the government's due processes' and that no issues had been raised with the group by officials. Lady Gohir said the public had a right to know how taxpayers' money had been spent by Tell Mama. 'We need an inquiry because, if you look at the questions, they're very simple: how much was spent on salaries? How much was spent on consultancy fees?' Tell Mama has been the government's key partner in monitoring anti-Muslim hatred for 13 years, but its government funding was abruptly paused earlier this month, leading to fears it would close at a time when anti-Muslim hate incidents have increased. The faith minister, Wajid Khan, said 'ministers do not have concerns about financial, structural or governance issues in respect of Tell Mama'. Nonetheless, the government said it would launch an 'open bidding process' for the contract to monitor anti-Muslim hatred and to support victims, opening Tell Mama up to competition for the first time. It did not answer questions from the Guardian as to why. Parliamentarians from both houses have privately told the Guardian of their concerns about Tell Mama. Gohir, a cross-party peer, had been raising questions in parliament and in letters to communities ministers under the previous Conservative administration for more than a year before the funding wrangle. Sayeeda Warsi, the former chair of the Conservative party who was involved in Tell Mama's founding, described the group on X as 'unfit for purpose'. But others have rallied to its defence, including the life peer Kishwer Falkner, who raised the issue of its funding in the House of Lords last month, asking for reassurance that 'moderate Muslim groups' were worthy of support. Tell Mama has received £6m in funding since 2012 and has now confirmed that, after extensive negotiations with the government, it has secured funding for work completed in 2024-25, with more offered. The service is run by a community-interest company, Faith Matters, so it is not bound by the same stringent rules as charities when it comes to publishing an itemised breakdown of its spending. Tell Mama's chief executive, Iman Atta, said the organisation would be 'happy to cooperate with anybody regarding the use of public funds'. Faith Matters, founded in 2007 by the former Liberal Democrat councillor Fiyaz Mughal, specialises in interfaith work and conflict resolution. In 2012, it launched the Tell Mama project. Mughal remains Faith Matters' director. Atta denied Gohir's assertion that the organisation was silent when Tories made negative remarks on Muslims, citing past challenges to figures such as Boris Johnson, and insisted Tell Mama did not do any work to tackle Muslim extremism and that it had never received any funding from Prevent, the UK's counter-terrorism strategy. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said it was 'committed to providing a comprehensive service to monitor anti-Muslim hatred and provide support for victims' and would 'soon be opening a call for grant applications to ensure we can meet the challenges communities face today', to which Tell Mama is welcome to apply. Atta said: 'We hope that whichever organisation is successful in the open-grant process is able to continue this work with urgency, dedication and commitment', at a time when 'far-right movements' and 'incidents of anti-Muslim hatred are on the rise'.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Faith Matters: Ash Wednesday and the Season of Lent
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — Senior pastor at Trinity United Methodist Church Brian Erickson joined CBS 42 Morning News for our weekly Faith Matters segment on March 4. This week's topic was on Ash Wednesday and the Season of Lent. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
