The homegrown cleric who loathes the British

The leading preacher of a hardline Islamic sect which controls almost half of British mosques delivers a message filled with anger at non-Muslims

The voice, gentle but clear, has a mesmeric quality to it and as he recites verses of the Koran in Arabic they gain a hypnotic, captivating beauty.

Then Riyadh ul Haq translates the words into English and delivers his own interpretation of the holy text, and what sounded so lyrical becomes a stark manifesto of separationist loathing.

His target is the kuffar, the nonMuslim, whether Jewish, Christian, Hindu or atheist, and the message is simple: their designs are evil, their ways corrupting. Stay away from them.

Mr ul Haq, 36, who is charismatic, intelligent and British, seems to share Osama bin Laden’s stated conviction that America and its allies are seeking to destroy Islam. Both men regard this as the fulfilment of a prophecy made by the Prophet Muhammad, and both find justification in the Koran for the use of militant jihad to attack and kill those nonbelievers who have incurred Allah’s displeasure.

Each preaches the glories of martyrdom, yet while bin Laden hides somewhere near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, Mr ul Haq lives in Leicester and is fêted internationally as a leading scholar of Islam. His views would be cause enough for concern were he merely a maverick cleric with a small group of followers whose austere, rejectionist agenda was isolated from mainstream Islamic thought.

When Mr ul Haq speaks of his contempt for British ways and Western values, however, it carries the authority of the ultra-conservative Islamic movement whose views are preached in hundreds of mosques and madrassas in Britain. The Deobandis run more than 600 of the 1,300 mosques in Britain and their seminaries – known as darul uloom – produce the vast majority of British-trained Islamic clerics.

Walk into a British mosque, particularly outside London, and the chances are that it is the voice of Deoband that you will hear.

Sheikh Abu Yusuf Riyadh ul Haq, to give him his full title, travels the world to speak and lecture, often to audiences of young people, and his books and sermons are sold widely.

Many can be downloaded from the internet. Most offer guidance on the practice and beliefs of Islam. They carry no overt political agenda and are said to display an impressive range and depth of scholarship. Mr ul Haq displays a deep love and respect for his fellow Muslims. It is when he chooses to talk about nonMuslims – and offers his analysis of world events – that the anger erupts.

To feel outrage at the global suffering of innocents in Muslim countries is not, of course, the preserve of any particular Islamic movement. The sense of injustice is shared by many nonMuslims. For Mr ul Haq, however, the narrative that leads from Bosnia, Chechnya and Kashmir to Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel-West Bank carries an apocalyptic theme.

His message is that although Allah created his religion to reign supreme, Muhammad cautioned that a time would come when “different nations will invite one another against you, just as people seated around a platter of food invite one another to consume that food”.

And so it has come to pass. The demonic powers of the West have joined together in a concerted, potentially genocidal mission to humiliate, murder, rape and pillage Muslim lands and people. Their target is Islam.

Muslims have become weak because they have developed “the love of life and the dislike of death”. Their faith is being tested and for Islam to prevail the believer must be willing, even eager, to sacrifice his life “in the way of Allah”. Muslims are living in that era “before the day of reckoning” when, as prophesied, “the truthful will be rejected and the liar will be believed”. In this time of darkness, “adhering to the fundamentals of Islam . . . is considered extremism and the struggle against oppression is called terrorism”.

“Nobody should be able to tell us what moderation is and what extremism is. One man’s poison is another man’s medicine,” he said in a sermon last year.

In one talk, Mr ul Haq tells British Muslims that he is “not suggesting that we should rise here – I’m sure we are all sensible enough to know that”. He also pledges that “we will not endanger the life of any innocent person”.

A sermon about Israel, however, prompts cries of “Allahu akbar!” [God is greater] from the congregation when Mr ul Haq calls on them to “be willing to sacrifice anything that may be required of us”. The al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem must be liberated and “we are willing to die in the process”. When called upon, “we will consider it an honour and a privilege to shed our blood”. Ultimately, Allah has promised that Islam will “prevail over all other religions, even though the disbelivers may dislike it”. Mr ul Haq says: “Do not despair. Victory is ours. It’s just a question of time.”

There is no room in this narrative for any criticism of those Muslims who murder fellow Muslims, nor of those Muslim governments that persecute and terrorise their nonMuslim minorities.

When he is not urging British Muslims to seek martyrdom in Muslim lands, Mr ul Haq finds time to caution them of the grave danger to their faith that is posed by living and working in the kuffar West. The Koran teaches Muslims not to follow in the footsteps of the Jews and the Christians, yet “of our own conscious choice we decide to live, act, work, behave, enjoy and play just like the kuffar”.

“Do not befriend the kuffar” was Allah’s warning to Muslims, and Muhammad instructed his companions “to distance themselves and fear this alignment with the kuffarin every way, even to the manner of dressing”.

For Mr ul Haq, everything that a Muslim does – the way he eats food, the clothes he wears, the way he parts his hair, the length of his beard – should emphasise his separateness from the nonMuslim. The Muslim should not raise his hand to greet a fellow Muslim because that is how Christians greet each other. He should not offer applause as a sign of approval or appreciation – clapping is a pagan practice.

And he should not celebrate “anyone’s birthday, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day” or the new year. “Categorically, the Prophet forbade the celebration of the new year.”

The nightmare prospect for Islam in Britain is that Muslims will be influenced by these ways and habits – “this culture, this evil influence” – of the kuffar. Muslims should beware, because “the Jews and the Christians will never be pleased with you until you follow their way . . . completely, in everything”.

Mr ul Haq was 3 when he came to Britain and 13 when he became a student at the first and most influential of Britain’s Deobandi seminaries, which opened in 1975 in a converted sanatorium in the rural hills above Bury, Greater Manchester.

For six years he studied at the feet of Yusuf Motala, a man described by one admirer as “the Pope” of Britain’s Deobandis, and he now runs an Islamic academy with branches in Leicester and Birmingham. Mr ul Haq is so highly regarded within Deobandi circles, The Timeshas learnt, that he is thought likely to succeed his spiritual mentor as the head of the Bury seminary.

Islam has no hierarchical structure. Each mosque is autonomous and the Deobandis have no official leader, but the Bury seminary is so powerful that the man who runs it is held to be the most influential Deobandi in the country.

Mr ul Haq’s status appears unaffected by an encounter with West Midlands police in 2003, when he was employed as the imam at Birmingham Central Mosque. He left the post after being arrested and questioned – but not charged – during a murder inquiry sparked by a fatal shooting in the city.

The killing followed a feud between rival factions at the mosque, whose younger, more militant members were said to be devoted to Mr ul Haq. A subsequent court case heard that tensions exploded after the decision by the imam to marry, in secret, a second wife. Further embarrassment came when he was forced to cancel a visit to Canada last summer after concerns were raised that his speeches promoted hatred of Jews, Hindus and gay people.

Yet in Britain, Mr ul Haq’s stock remains high. In January last year he was chosen to be the guest of honour at a Whitehall reception to mark Eid ul-Fitr, the Islamic holiday. The invitation, described by officials as “an unfortunate oversight”, was later withdrawn and has never been explained.

The sermons.  Extracts from the preachings of Riyadh ul-Haq

On Jews “They’re all the same. The Jews don’t have to be in Israel to be like this. It doesn’t matter whether they’re in New York, Houston, St Louis, London, Birmingham, Bradford, Manchester. They’re all the same. They’ve monopolised everything: the Holocaust, God, money, interest, usury, the world economy, the media, political institutions . . . they monopolised tyranny and oppression as well. And injustice”

On New York “Jew York . . . sorry, New York . . . a slip of the tongue.”

On the Taleban “The only group of people upon the earth who are establishing the Sharia and the law of Allah” [In 2000]

“What crime has the Government of Afghanistan committed? All they have done is they have refused to hand over a person (Osama bin Laden) whose guilt is yet to be proven. Because of that crime, the entire nation is being punished. And as a result, because they strive to represent Islam, the whole of Islam is being demonised. And as a result, Muslims all over the globe are being discriminated against” [In late 2001]

On Europe “Europe has made it clear: they will not tolerate a Muslim force or power in Europe. And if it means massacring Muslims, if it means genocide, if it means a holocaust in Europe again, so be it. For this time, the target is Muslims”

On Muslims in Britain “It’s become insane that as Muslims in this country we are more concerned about the frequency of our bins being emptied than we are about Muslim women being raped, children being massacred, old men being put to death and buried alive, and entire populations being subjugated and being made victims of genocide in other parts of the world”.

On Britain’s anti-terror laws “Muslims are being maligned, our religious ideals and values . . . are under threat and it is naive to suggest otherwise. Read between the lines, peer beyond the spin. Laws are being introduced which . . . are targeted at Muslims. We are being discriminated against. Muslims in this country are being picked up one by one, control orders, imprisonment without trial, imprisonment on the flimsiest of excuses”

On integration “Allah has warned us in the Koran, do not befriend the kuffar [unbelievers], do not align yourselves with the kuffar”

On the threat faced by British Muslims “Winston Churchill made a very insightful comment. He said: ‘Appeasement is the policy of feeding the crocodile in the hope that it will eat you last’. As Muslims today, we think it’s OK, things can happen to Muslims elsewhere, but what will happen when there is no one else to devour? We will be the next meal”

On jihad “The moment we say something, we are branded fanatics, terrorists, extremists. And no one dare utter the J-word. The J-word has become taboo. The J-word can never be mentioned and if someone mentions it even Muslims look at one another. So much is happening and yet we are expected to remain silent”

On Islam’s ultimate triumph “Allah has promised. It is he who has sent his Messenger [Muhammad] with the religion of truth so that it may prevail over all other religions, even though the disbelievers may dislike it, even though the mushrikin [the idolaters] may dislike it. Allah has promised that victory will be for the believers. But we will be tested in the meantime”

On Israel “Oh Allah, do not let us die until our eyes are cooled with the sight of banu Israel [the children of Israel] being punished for their crimes”

On sacrifice “Trust in Allah, trust in the Prophet’s promises and his words. But not just rely on him and sit back, carrying on with our nine-to-five lives and our rat race. No, but be willing to sacrifice anything that may be required of us in the way of Allah”

On culture “Today, the culture of Coke and the Big Mac, the culture of the Americans, the culture of the Europeans, these cultures are dominant and they are all pervasive. We stand in awe of their culture and we are imitating them in everything. This culture, this evil influence, this imitation of the kuffar . . .”

On opera “In some Muslim countries . . . they have built opera houses at a cost of hundreds of millions of pounds. For what and for who? Muslims, Arabs, going to the opera to listen to a Frenchman singing in Italian? That’s the level to which we have stooped”

On Christmas “Muslims celebrating Christmas! It’s amazing. We think that it's innocent. It’s not innocent. The Christmas Eve masses held in their churches. What do they do? They take bread and they take wine in a very formal, customary way . . . They believe they are eating the flesh of Issa [Jesus]. When they drink the wine, they believe they are consuming the blood of Issa, ie the flesh and the blood of his sacrifice. Of course, it’s all mumbo-jumbo.”