Until recently college graduate Ishtiaq Alamgir was an accountant for England's Inland Revenue Service at Luton in Bedfordshire. Now Alamgir (who prefers to be called Sayful Islam – sword of Islam) can be found demonstrating outside the city's Central Mosque, criticizing police raids on suspected Islamist terrorists in the south of England and condoning attacks by Islamists across the world.
A few weeks ago, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported that Islam was distributing pamphlets outside a school. The pamphlet was adorned with a skull and the instruction, "Allah has prescribed jihad ... do not let the fear of death be the reason for you not engaging in this struggle."
Islam, 24, quit his job to take over as leader of the Luton branch of al-Muhajiroun, the group which has been accused of recruiting young Muslims and preaching radical Islamic fundamentalism.
For example. One recent comment from Islam reportedly read "I would like to see the Mujahideen kill thousands in London, with nuclear weapons or germ warfare."
As London's Evening Standard reported, the irony is not lost on the unemployed Islam that Britain is supporting the unemployed him with benefits while he plans its overthrow.
Islam's activities and the Evening Standard's coverage are a sore point with the Islamic Society of Britain (ISB). In a recent e-mail to supporters, organization officials blamed what they called the Zionist media for the Evening Standard's extensive coverage of Islam's activities.
The e-mail read in part, "Zionist elements in the media - and God knows that they dominate that industry - deliberately use (radical) groups like Bakri's al-Muhajiroun and figures like Abu Hamza al-Masri to foster a climate of hatred against Islam and Muslims. It is going to be ordinary Muslims - including women and children - and our places of worship and even our cemeteries who as usual will be left to face the backlash as a result of the behavior and loose and offensive language employed by Bakri and Co."
An editorial from the Evening Standard further irritated the ISB. The group said, "the Evening Standard had the gall to say that if ordinary Muslims did not have the courage to speak out against al-Muhajiroun that they could find themselves to be the targets of hate attacks."
After urging its supporters to call the Evening Standard's editor and protest what it called the huge amount of coverage given to al-Muhajiroun, ISB commented "Be on your guard and do not allow morons like the above-named ‘Sayful Islam' to hijack the image of Islam in your locality. Organize yourselves better to ensure that the portrayal of the mainstream Muslim community is not subverted by a tiny number of fanatics with a divisive and violent agenda. Remember: if we are not willing to act decisively then we should only blame ourselves for what is happening to us and what is about to happen to us."
In the article in the Evening Standard that so infuriated the ISB reporter David Cohen said that until recently nobody took seriously the activities of al-Muhajiroun, led by exiled Saudi, Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammad, from his base in north London.
Cohen commented that in spite of all its inflammatory rhetoric (www.muhajiroun.com) al-Muhajiroun has never been linked to actual violence. However, the Evening Standard continued, with last month's discovery of a half ton of ammonium nitrate fertilizer - the same explosive ingredient used in the Bali and Turkey terror attacks - and with the arrest of eight young British Muslims in London and the South-East, including six in Luton, extremist groups such as al-Muhajiroun are under a renewed spotlight.
Detectives fear, the Evening Standard reported, that so-called homegrown extremists leading apparently normal lives now pose the greatest threat to Britain's national security.
The question is, the Evening Standard asked, how worried should people be? Do al-Muhajirouna and similar groups provide a forum for political posturing, or do they perform a more sinister function by brainwashing alienated young men into becoming potential future suicide bombers?
Islam told the Evening Standard he is proud of his activities which have included covering the town with "Magnificent 19" posters glorifying the 9/11 suicide bombers. "When I joined al-Muhajiroun four years ago, there were five local members ... Now there are more than 50 and hundreds more support us."
Islam's Life Changes
Islam's life has changed dramatically in the last four years. Back then he was a student completing his degree in business economics at Middlesex University in Hendon, north London.
The Evening Standard reported that as the son of a British Rail engineer who came to this country from Pakistan, Sayful grew up in a moderate, middle-class Muslim family in Luton. At the local Denbigh High School, he is remembered as one of the smartest kids there. He would go on to marry, have two children and find work as an accountant for the Inland Revenue in Luton. He was thoroughly uninterested in politics.
However, all that changed, the Evening Standard reported, when Islam met Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammad at a local event. Within two years he had given up his job and become an Islamic extremist.
Islam told the Evening Standard, "I made a decision that I wanted to follow what Islam really said ... I went to listen to all the local imams, but I found their portrayal of Islam was too secularized. When I heard Sheikh Omar [the leader] of al-Muhajiroun speak, it was pure Islam, with no compromise. I found that appealing. At the same time ... wars were happening in Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Afghanistan. People were being oppressed simply because they were Muslim. Although I had never experienced racism in the UK, it opened the eyes of a lot of Muslims, including mine."
The Evening Standard reported that the events of 9/11 crystallized Sayful's worldview. "When I watched those planes go into the Twin Towers, I felt elated ... That magnificent action split the world into two camps: you were either with Islam and al Qaeda, or with the enemy. I decided to quit my job and commit myself full-time to al-Muhajiroun ... I am a Muslim living in Britain, and I give my allegiance only to Allah."
The aim of al-Muhajiroun ("the immigrants"), Islam told the Evening Standard, is nothing less than Khilafah, or the worldwide domination of Islam. The way to achieve this, he told the Evening Standard, is by jihad led by Bin Laden. "I support him 100 per cent."
A comment from an al-Muhajiroun Supporter in Luton
Does that support extend, the Evening Standard asked, to committing violent acts of violent acts of terrorism in the UK?
"Yes ... When a bomb attack happens here, I won't be against it, even if it kills my own children. Islam is clear: Muslims living in lands that are occupied have the right to attack their invaders," he told the Evening Standard..
Islam continued. "Britain became a legitimate target when it sent troops to Iraq. But it is against Islam for me to engage personally in acts of terrorism in the UK because I live here. According to Islam, I have a covenant of security with the UK, as long as they allow us Muslims to live here in peace. If we want to engage in terrorism, we would have to leave the country," he said. "It is against Islam to do otherwise." That, Islam told the Evening Standard, he is not prepared to undertake.
Like the ISB, Muhammad Sulaiman, president of the Islamic Cultural Society, the largest of the 14 mosques in Luton, dismissed al-Muhajiroun as "verbal diarrhoea."
"They are an extreme right-wing group - the Muslim version of the BNP," he told the Evening Standard. "They think Muslims should dominate, just like the BNP thinks whites should dominate. They use Islam as a vehicle to promote their distorted beliefs, particularly to unemployed young bloods who are vulnerable."
Sulaiman told the Evening Standard that Islam and his friends are not welcome at the mosque. He said while he is unable to prevent them from praying there, he will never give them a public platform. He told the Evening Standard, "I've told Sayful to bugger off and ejected him many times ... Even Sayful's father, who I know well, thinks his son has been brainwashed."
However, the Evening Standard reported, Islam and his friends laughed at that idea. A friend of Islam's told the Evening Standard, "The mosques say one thing to the public, and something else to us. Let's just say that the face you see and the face we see are two different faces." Another friend told the Evening Standard, "Believe me ... behind closed doors, there are no moderate Muslims."
Islam told the Evening Standard, "I want to warn that the police raids - if repeated - could create a bad situation. Islam is not like Christianity, where they turn the other cheek. If they raid our homes, it could lead to the covenant of security being broken. Islam allows us to retaliate. That would include ... by violent means."
Bakri Muhammad and al-Muhajiroun
Al-Muhajiroun's Omar Bakri Muhammad was born in Aleppo, Syria, in 1958 and grew up in a wealthy Muslim family, becoming a serious student of Islam and the Koran. He received his B.A. in Shari'ah and the foundations of Islamic law from Shari'ah University in Damascus, obtaining a master's degree in Islamic jurisprudence from the University of Al-Imam Al-U'zaie in Beirut.
According to the Middle East Media Research Institute Muhammad portrays himself as being the spokesman for bin Laden's International Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders and according to MEMRI has admitted that the organization raises funds for the Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and is "in touch" with the Hizbullah.
According to MEMRI, Muhammad has lived in London since 1985 and preaches at a number of London mosques. He also routinely presents himself as a spokesman for the International Islamic Front, which he describes as being the political wing of bin Laden's Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders.
FAIR USE NOTICE: The above may be copyrighted material, and the use of it on ROPMA.NET may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available on a non-profit basis for educational and discussion purposes only. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 USC § 107. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.