Mosque funding madness
Why is the official body representing Britain’s Churches funding the activities of a radical mosque?
Some projects at British mosques are funded by churches
Ihsan Mosque in Norwich posts some pretty strong stuff on its website, including an anonymous blog that sneers at “democracy’s decomposing entrails” and calls on Muslims to “anticipate and pursue the demons in our midst”.
But those demons presumably do not include the Churches’ Commission for Racial Justice, whose Racial Justice Fund subsidises children’s holiday activities run by the Ihsan Mosque.
I discovered this when I read the fine print of the risibly politically correct media pack produced for the Churches’ Racial Justice Sunday on September 9. This describes Ihsan Community Project as “a vibrant voluntary project started by a group of Muslim women… who wanted to make a positive contribution to the wider community both as Muslims as well as Black people. Ihsan provide holiday projects for local young people, theatre workshops, education outreach in local schools…”.
Outreach? I bet it reaches out, given the vigorously proselytising nature of some of the mosque’s material. As for education, I wonder if that will include the claim, posted on Ihsan’s site, that non-Muslims who insult Mohammed are guilty of a crime or that Tony Blair is a “major prima facie war criminal”.
Ihsan, I should add, is not an Islamist mosque: its members are mostly British-born converts to Islam who condemn terrorism. (I think they are Sufis, though they do not say so on the site; also, the pictures suggest that a majority of converts are white, so I’m not sure where “racial justice” comes into it.)
Whether that makes Ihsan “moderate” is another matter. Under the “resources” section of the website, the mosque advertises a book showing “how the Muslim community alone can identify the enemy of Islam and life itself, indicating the bankers as the force to be stripped of their power and their magical usury expropriation of our wealth.” Doesn’t sound terribly moderate to me.
What I don’t understand is why the Churches' Commission for Racial Justice, funded by the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church and the Free Churches, should be offering financial support to Ihsan’s holiday camps. Any ideas?