One thing you can say about Chaudary: he is honest, where some of his slicker coreligionists who share his goals dissemble about them. “British Islamist Anjem Choudary: Freedom and Democracy Are Idols That Must Be Destroyed and Replaced with Obedience to Allah,” from MEMRITV, February 3 (that is the date of the clip; this was just posted at MEMRI), with thanks to all who sent this in:
Following are excerpts from an interview with Anjem Choudary, head of Islam4UK, which aired on Press TV on February 3, 2010. The interview was held in English.
Anjem Choudary: Our main objectives are to invite the societies in which we live to think about Islam as an alternative way of life, to command good and forbid evil wherever we are, and ultimately, as well, to establish the shari’a on state level – which is the caliphate system of governance – in order to be a beacon again in the world, an example of how people should live their lives.
[…]
Interviewer: Let’s talk about some of the statements coming out from your Islam4UK website. They were very incendiary, they’ve inflamed a big debate in the United Kingdom. One of the photos that you released showed, for example, the Buckingham Palace – the home of the British royal family – converted into a mosque. Is that your aim, and how did you expect the British public to react, by releasing photos like that?
Anjem Choudary: One of our campaigns, in fact, was to invite Britain to adopt the shari’a as a alternative. Part and parcel of that was to give them an example of how Britain may look, had the shari’a been implemented. For example, under the shari’a, there is no monarchy system, so Buckingham Palace certainly would not be the home for the monarch who is in existence today, which is Queen Elizabeth II….
Muhammad said: “When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them….If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them. (Sahih Muslim 4294)
So what might be coming next, after Chaudary’s invitation?
I do believe, and as Muslims, we do believe, that there is a clash between two civilizations today. One civilization is based upon Man – that believes that Man is sovereign, and they believe they have the right to legislate – and one civilization that believes that sovereignty and supremacy belongs to God.
[…]
The people in the past used to worship the idols which they used to make with their hands. Nowadays, people worship idols which are more intellectual – like democracy, liberalism, freedom, and so on. So these need to be destroyed as well, and replaced with worshipping and obeying Allah.…