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Anti-Muslim Bigotry

Yet Another Harrow Mosque Protest: Stewards Wanted

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You may remember that during the last week of Ramadan this year, the group “Stop the Islamisation of Europe” (SIOE) threatened to hold a protest outside of Harrow Mosque, in London. For all their talk, only a handful of Islamophobes actually attended the event, as it was apparently cancelled before it had even begun, due to the overwhelmingly large numbers of demonstrators that attended the ‘Unite Against Fascism’ counter-protest.

Many of these counter-protesters were male, Muslim youths. Click here to see the footage of the chaos that results when you have a bunch of young men running around, with little leadership, and even less sense.

Such ridiculous – frankly, shameful – behaviour is not unique to Muslims; rather it can be witnessed in any situation where the existence of strong emotions overtakes the ability for rational thought, for example, at football matches between old rivals.

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So, it is refreshing to see that, in the face of yet another threat of SIOE protest, the mosque’s trustees are taking proactive steps to prevent such chaotic scenes from playing out again on the streets of Harrow. The following is a message requesting responsible Muslim men (yes, they do exist, masha’Allah), to step forward and volunteer as stewards at the next event:

Assalam alaikum

As you may be aware Harrow Central Mosque is once again the focal point for right-wing Islamophobic extremists who will be holding a protest on Sunday 13th December.

Harrow Central Mosque would like to have a number of community volunteers to act as stewards to try and make sure that the young people, and others attending, are kept safe and are not encouraged to do actions by others which will simply damage the image of Muslims in Harrow and the reputation of the mosque.

The key group behind the protest, Stop the Islamisation of Europe (SIOE), had made it very clear that the intention of such protests is to show how violent the Muslims are. It is our intention to refute this by making sure those who attend are not pulled into actions which may break the law or allow the media to get that “money” shot.

We are looking for up to 50 volunteers. You should be calm and level-headed and be able to speak with people in a manner which will deflate tensions. We are not here to police the event nor expect you to assist the police in making arrests or controlling opposing protesters. We simply want to make sure that we do all we possibly can to prevent the young people attending, majority of whom will be Muslim, from getting into unnecessary trouble with the Police and providing a voice of reason and trust.

Training will take place on:

Sunday 6th December
Harrow Central Mosque
(after Maghrib salah)
Duration: approx 1 hr.

If you are interested in helping please contact info[@]harrowmosque.org.uk. Please do let us know if you are coming so that we can make adequate arrangements. Training will be provided by the head of the security firm hired by the mosque.

Please feel free to pass this email onto other brothers and your networks.

I commend the mosque for this plan, and pray for its success.

According to the 2001 Census, there are over 300,000 Muslim men living in London alone. The question is: considering how many are so eager to act so foolish, are there fifty souls from among three hundred thousand brave enough to answer the mosque’s own call for help, against the same people who claim to defend it?

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Dr Mehzabeen b. Ibrahim joined MuslimMatters as a blogger in late 2007 under the handle 'iMuslim', whilst still a struggling grad student. Since then, she has attained a PhD in Molecular Biology and a subsequent Masters in Bioinformatics, and now works as a specialist in this field for a well-known British, medical charity, masha'Allah. Somewhere in between she found the time to get married, alhamdulillah. She likes to dabble in photo and videography, a sample of which can be found on her personal blog: iMuslim.tv.

13 Comments

13 Comments

  1. iMuslim

    December 3, 2009 at 7:18 AM

    I just had a silly thought… maybe I should have written “Heroes Wanted” in the title! That’s what the volunteers would be, after all. :)

    Reply

  2. Ibn Masood

    December 3, 2009 at 9:05 AM

    That protest footage was disappointing beyond words. But I disagree with you on there being no leader in that protest/riot. The leader there was clearly Shaytaan.

    Reply

    • Abdul-Qadir

      December 3, 2009 at 11:42 AM

      The leader there was clearly Shaytaan.

      Word.

      Reply

    • Nahyan

      December 3, 2009 at 9:01 PM

      @IbnMasood – nice one :D

      Reply

  3. MR

    December 3, 2009 at 9:54 AM

    Where are these guys’ parents? Man, my mom would beat me if I was behaving like that.

    You can’t do anything in Jail, so what’s the point.

    Reply

  4. ttpoptt

    December 4, 2009 at 8:15 PM

    The only Jahillya and foolishness was those fighting over foot ball teams. Coming out to defend the mosque is only a commendable act.

    Reply

  5. Holly Garza

    December 5, 2009 at 10:08 AM

    Asalaamu alaikum parents need not know where there child is at all times….. “mom going to work” “mom going to class” all common phrases said by youth as to not say “ma going to a protest”…which, they would clearly be stopped by then…..

    It’s hard, I was a youth; not that I had to lie, I had no supervision after 16; but teenagers and young adults aren’t always forthcoming even when not lying.
    As a parent now, I know I have to be everything I hated and didn’t want to be. I wanted to be the “cool, understanding, smart, easy to talk to mom”….yeah okay =)

    Reality check, I have a daughter, NOT going to happen, even if I had a son, wouldn’t happen. At 16-19, heck even at 20-24 years of age our brains function a lot differently than in later years. My daughter has to grow up in this misguided, scary world. It is my job to teach and prepare her. To guide, and mold her, to be understanding yet firm and strong, Not to be her buddy who will tell her a skirt is cute on her, not to be her “friend” that will say “oh everything is good”. As a mom my job is to try my hardest to avoid her lying to me and going to those things or worse. If she still does…At least I tried.

    My point before I went off on a tangent =) was children often don’t tell mommy and daddy whats really up and some parents think they are cool and allow these things

    Reply

  6. UmmOusama

    December 6, 2009 at 2:19 AM

    Assalamu alaikum,

    @MR. Are you a parent? How old are your kids? You see it is very easy to say when you have young kids: “I won’t allow my kids to do this or that”. The truth of the matter is that you, as a parent, you do your best. You make du’a that Allah protects your kids and leave them on the straight path. But the outcome is not yours.

    It is also easy to judge when one’s Imaan is high. Again, the truth of the matter is that yours and your wife’s imaan will fluctuate through life. Your Imaan might go down quite a lot or your wife’s imaan might go down quite a lot. This will affect how the kids.

    Anyway, educating kids is a very hard job. Having young kids is very easy compared to having teens. Knowing when to give more freedom and how much freedom to teenagers is very difficult to achieve. Give them too much or too little freedom or responsibility is bad.

    Don’t judge parents of older kids. You don’t know how your kids will turn out to be. Make du’a, du’a, du’a and don’t disobey your creator are the best ways of having pious children. However, reflect on the two last examples of the story of al-Khidr in surah al-Kahf and you’ll know that everything is in the Hands of Allah.

    Umm Ousama

    Reply

  7. Muhammad Ibn Abdullah

    December 6, 2009 at 2:13 PM

    Maybe we should give bay’a to a Khalifah and all our problems would be sorted [lol]. Seriously those who turned up had a mixed intention, they wanted to defend there faith and have some fun. Don’t rush to criticise your Muslim brothers, this is the problem with many people on this site, they have no rahma toward the believers and can’t advise them in a respectful way. If you call them idiots and senseless and words to that effect, then may Allah Guide you because you have lost your way.

    Reply

  8. Imran

    December 27, 2009 at 10:01 AM

    There were a large group of organised brothers between 80-100 who were patrolling the streets in set groups & locations around the Masjid (not part of the main demo outside the Masjid). The media didn’t film them how strange.

    Believe me there were lots of EDL in vans driving around the streets but did not get a chance to do anything as they saw lots of large group of brothers patrolling the streets. Lots of non Muslims came and thanked them, also kids were finishing school and there were lots of sisters who were on their own with the children coming up to them and thanking them for being there.

    So before you comment and pass judgment, if these bros were’ not there it could of got nasty. The EDL are a lot quieter now after Harrow aren’t they :)

    To the brothers you know who you are may Allah reward you for your efforts and Allah knows what happened that day doesn’t matter what the blamers say :)

    Reply

  9. Ahmed

    December 30, 2009 at 4:33 PM

    Asalam Alaykum

    This is a very biased article, what makes you think muslim brother went there to cause chaos , i was there and its true some young brothers started to mes about. A lot of muslims young and old and middle aged went there for the counter protest. it seems like you think one particular group was behind it and it really seems that you have hatred for these brothers . maybe you should look at this video which was aken by me to show the more peaceful side to counter demo. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3dtDvgqr40

    Reply

  10. Bilal

    January 26, 2010 at 8:53 PM

    I agree with Br Imran. Sometimes you have to turn up in force and make it plain that if EDL ever think about taking the p, there will be consequences.

    Consequences is the only thing that the Police will understand. They continually allow EDL to hold these type of events because as of yet, there have been no consequences and EDL have become emboldened as a result.

    If Muslims continually become subservient and a pushover then others will take advantage of that. Sometimes you need to show a force of strength. Once the racists get the message, then back off. This is no way contradicts the following of the Prophet (pbuh) who also took action against his enemies yet maintained peaceful relations as well as patience at other times.

    So there is a time to be organised and be patient, but there is also a time to show anger and threaten the racists. So I absolutely applaud the young Muslim men who turned up in force.

    Reply

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