“In recent years, several leading UK Muslim organizations have moved away from hosting extremist foreign clerics and have instead begun promoting UK-born and -educated speakers who can facilitate the growth of a native, harmonious Western Islam.
“Next week, however, a major Birmingham institution, the Green Lane Mosque (headquarters of the national Markaz Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith organization) will host two extreme Wahhabi clerics who bolster al-Qaeda narratives…. The Green Lane Mosque has previously been exposed as a centre of hate-preaching. Muslims need to challenge the hateful and divisive rhetoric of such extremist Saudi clerics and those people who promote them.”
Quilliam Foundation press release, 17 December 2009
“Green Lane Masjid refutes the allegation that it has invited speakers that are ‘fellow-travellers’ of Al-Qaeda, which could not be further from the truth…. they all are well known for their open criticisms of Al-Qaeda and its affiliates. Sheikh Faisal Al-Jassim for example is an author of a famous book criticising Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Green Lane Masjid has a proud history of fighting terrorism and extremism over the last few decades – long before it became ‘fashionable’ to do so. A recent example is our two day seminar held on the 17th of July in which we specifically tackled issues related to extremism and terrorism. In this seminar speakers such as Sheikh Faisal Al-Jassim and others exposed the profound flaws in Al-Qaeda’s ideology and the political motives of other like minded groups.”
Green Lane Masjid press release, 18 December 2009
We’ve asked this question before, but it’s worth posing it again. What will it take before all state funding is withdrawn from the Quilliam Foundation? Not only do Ed Husain and his friends squander money in hiring expensive libel lawyers in an attempt to silence their critics but, more importantly, their malicious sectarianism towards those tendencies within the Muslim community who do not share their own narrow interpretation of Islam actively undermines the fight against terrorism. And all of this is subsidised by the taxpayer.