Mehdi Hasan is the Reza Aslan of Britain: all style and no substance, supremely arrogant and surpassingly obnoxious, a contemptuous unwillingness to engage in debate or discussion hiding an abject inability to do so, an apologist for the Iranian regime, puffed up beyond all proportion by an uncritically adoring Leftist media. Here is a fine takedown of him by “cultural Muslim” Saif Rahman. And here is my response to his argument that Islam is a religion of peace. Here also is an example of how he dissembles about the Qur’an and Islam to the mainstream media.
“Mehdi Hasan, The Great Pretender. Why we need to be careful before selecting Muslim role models.” by Saif Rahman, the Telegraph, June 6, 2014:
He is the UK’s political director of the Huffington Post, appears regularly on BBC’s Question Time, has 122,000 followers on Twitter and a monthly Al-Jazeera TV slot (a channel that boasts broadcasting to 40-60 million people daily in the Arab world).
And anyone who knows me will be aware that I’ve always been keen to expose poor role models within the Muslim community. Recently we delivered the coup de grace to Muhammad Ansar, the media’s favourite Muslim “public commentator” resulting in the viral #MoCV hashtag, after he had been falsifying claims of being a lawyer, lecturer, community leader, an imam etc. Although he’s not quite in the same league, I would argue Mehdi is more harmful & pernicious. Unlike MoAnsar’s scrappiness which led to his ultimate demise, Mehdi is wary about the spats he chooses to engage in and his slicker performance lends him a free pass from our generally forgiving public. It’s about reading between the lines.
I tried to find a journalist to unravel Mehdi and despite offering to help in this endeavour, not a single journalist was willing to take it on. Journalists are a tighter knit community than I first expected. Few are willing to poop on their own doorstep and even fewer are willing to take on an influential media man with a large following. I came to the conclusion Mehdi was untouchable. Or almost, until i decided to write it myself.
At first I was reluctant to do so. I knew it would alienate much of my traditional centre-left humanist and cultural Muslim following. Our Facebook group has 17,000 members and is a regular fixture for many who flock to it to make a daily pilgrimage; there one member from a Muslim background wrote:
“Good stuff, more exposure needed on spurious moderates who wear one hat for a Muslim audience and another one around non-Muslims”
and another lamented:
“What I honestly don’t get is why so many people on the “progressive” left go for people like him. He’s a closet Islamic supremacist who tried to wh*re himself to the Daily Mail and whose only brush with consistency is his hypocrisy. Why does anyone still listen to him?”
..Spurred on, I also felt somebody from the same socio-cultural background ought to write it. I knew I would take flak from the Left but at least accusations of victimhood and “targeting of a powerless, brown-skinned minority” couldn’t surface. Which is something Mehdi is only too quick to do to shut-up any detractor, like last month when he accused novelist Jeremy Duns of racism here (and then after much opposition to retract). It wouldn’t be the first time anyone would encounter such low-balled propaganda. Mehdi commonly uses identity politics and accusations of Islamophobia & racism to obfuscate, divert or silence debate, in fact it was one of the first responses I received from his conspiratorial Islamist supporters. I’d like to think the only thing left in their arsenal would be to neatly categorise this under the umbrella of Islamophobia, a subject covered in my earlier blog but then again I’m not that naive. I knew it would take up a lot of spare time and I don’t get paid for this, but the intention behind my activism has never been about this, or my profile, nor has my goal ever been to needlessly upset people; it’s always been about exposing the truth to help make our society a better one.
So I reached out to almost everyone i knew who also knew Mehdi. They’re a mixed array of people (I tend to support centre-left politics or so the political compass tells me) – some from the left, some from the centre and some from the right. I got emotional blackmail by some from the left, the centrists tended to sit on the fence and the right wanted me to go for the jugular as well as his beliefs as a whole. But this piece isn’t about his Islamic beliefs nor anyone else’s. It’s about a person who broadcasts to hundreds of thousands of Muslims on Al-Jazeera, interviewing influential opinion-formers on the subject of Islam.
He has a tendency to mock and deride moderates and reformers, revealing a more conservative mindset of his own. He asks progressive Muslims like Mona Eltahawy “Are you a practising Muslim?” and sneers at the “crusades” lead by Muslim reformists like Irshad Manji. In the UK he labels other modernisers like Maajid Nawaz as “Islamophobes”, sternly berating him whilst he sat alongside MoAnsar on BBC Newsnight for an “offensive” stick cartoon of Muhammad saying Hi. The one Maajid Nawaz got death threats for posting.
Mona Eltahawy may be a “progressive Muslim,” but she is also a fascist who believes in (and practices) the forcible suppression of the free speech of those who say things she doesn’t like. Irshad Manji may be a “Muslim reformist,” but she glosses over rather than confronting much of what actually needs reform. Maajid Nawaz may be a “moderniser,” but he slips all too easily into Islamic supremacist rhetorical tropes of “Islamophobia” to smear those who really stand exactly where he claims to stand. A sorry trio of “reformers,” indeed, and no, I do not feel it incumbent upon me to support them just because there is no one better.
Yet one of the facts he rarely highlights nor writes about is the fact that he’s a Shia Muslim, despite it influencing where much of his opinion & politics derives from. Anyone who has grown up as a Muslim, either Sunni or Shia, will know that it’s not just some insignificant detail. For the last 1200 years there’s been an internal civil war within Islam, ever since Ali, the prophet’s cousin, was not appointed to the position of Caliph. This led to the first and most important schism in Islam, between those that went on to support Abu Bakr, the Prophet’s father-in-law, to become Muhammad’s successor and leader of the Muslims; and those who supported Ali. Shias’ currently account for around 15% of the Muslim population. As a result of being a minority and going against the grain, they are often persecuted around the globe. So it becomes highly relevant if you are going to go around telling Muslims what Islam is and isn’t, particularly if they’re a large portion of your support base (a quick scan through his followers shows that about 50% of them are Muslim).
This is the same man who on the face of it supports Sunni Muslims but after starting as a researcher for Jonathan Dimbleby he moved onto Channel 4 Dispatches “Undercover Mosques: The Return” documentary where I’m told he executed covert surveillance programmes inside Sunni mosques.
Here he talks about the sixth Caliph of Sunni Islam , Caliph Yazid:
“All of these Ulema unanimously agree that, at the very minimum, if Yazid was not a kaffir then – at the very minimum – he was a fasiq, a transgressor, a breaker of Islamic laws, a corrupt individual, a tyrant, a killer, a drunkard, a dog lover, a music-lover, a…. a homosexual, a paedophile, a sexual deviant.. someone who slept with his own mother! These are their views, these Ulema, in their books. Not mine, not Imam Hussein’s view, not Ali al-Sistani’s view! This is their view of al-Yazid, all there in black and white. Yet Allah should be pleased with him? Allah should be pleased with him? Indeed, the fact is that Yazid was not simply a fasiq, he was an out and out kaffir!”
If you are unsure what he means by kuffir/kuffar, he defines it for us here.
For those who have grown up with this culture it’s easier to see through the double-speak. His Shia sectarianism informs his apologism for the Iranian regime, but he is prepared to set this aside when attacking the West more broadly here and to become an apologist for Sunni Islamism too. Even his target fan base is now beginning to see through his divisive stage act and cotton onto his hypocrisy, as shown by this Muslimah who angrily reprimands him in the midst of one of his lectures and the blogger at British Secular Muslims says:-
“British secular Muslims reject Mehdi Hasan’s obfuscation of Wahhabi and Deobandi Islamist terrorism against Muslims and non-Muslims”
The 2nd half of his traditional support comes predominantly from the Left. Leftist sympathisers in his defence say he stands up against Islamists like Tariq Ramadan, which he did robustly in this head-to-head interview. But whilst this is welcomed, he does more damage when he stands up against those who stand-up against Islamism, as he more often does. And unfortunately any stance he takes against Islamism is mostly limited to Sunni Islamists, after all they persecute Shias too. Very rarely will we see him take a stand against Shia Islamists. In fact he supports the Iranian theocracy and is even empathetic towards its nuclear programme.
But it’s not just about his sophistry and fineprint, it’s about analysing what he does. In April/May this year, I’m told he went on a trip to the USA with his expenses paid by CAIR (a group labelled by the U.S. Justice Department as a Muslim Brotherhood entity and an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorism-financing trial) and whilst there, he visited members affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood. Last week he tweeted about the Iranian Happy Muslims being released, but not the more important news the day before when they were arrested.
In fact he shares much in common with Islamists. By his own admission he “struggles with homosexuality” and his timeline is filled with anti-Israeli propaganda. He’s anti-UK, anti-West, pro-Iran, anti-interventionist (but not in Syria obviously where he wants interventionism to protect the Shias). And he is quick to censor his timeline from his detractors who don’t support his stance. A champagne socialist who left the institutional New Statesman for a golden handshake from the American e-rag, the Huffington Post.
In public he put his anti-abortion stance down to his socialism not his religion, but in private endorsed the opposite in a leaked letter to the Daily Mail, where he put it down to his religious beliefs.
This leaked letter was a speculative job application for an Editorial slot with the Daily Mail, sealed with sycophantic adulation for the right-wing paper. I hear they pay good sums for that gig. A paper he claims as the “immigrant-bashing, woman-hating, Muslim-smearing, NHS-undermining, gay-baiting Daily Mail” on BBC’s Question Time. Well Mehdi, I find you a kuffar-bashing, homo-hating, west-smearing, hate-monger. But I admire your stance. Givsa job, will ya?
One critic points out:
“I’ve never taken to Mehdi Hasan. He talks too fast, making one specious point after another and moving on before you can spot the flaw, relying on the tongue being quicker than the mind.”
Sadly well-meaning members of the left are hoodwinked and duped by his gameplay and duplicity. As with previous exposés, it’s always the left who are the last to catch-on, and sadly not before the damage is done. Motives are important in politics and dangerous if reactionaries from the left jump into bed with closet reactionaries from the Islamic right – we then have the perfect recipe for disaster. The same problem is replicated on a national scale, as my ex-Shia colleague notes,
“I ask my Shia Friends would they condemn Iran and Ayatollah when they kill Minorities there?”
Rarely will Mehdi share anything that casts his Supreme Spiritual Leader Ayatollah Khomeini or Iran’s human-rights violating regime in a bad light; yet he’s happy to wax-lyrical about Britain’s foreign policy abroad. He won’t mention Ofsted inspectors saying some Muslim schools are failing “to keep students safe from the risks associated with extremist views”, but will compare counter attempts by Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, to those of Breivik. He’ll rave on about Islamophobia in Britain, but retweet someone with a broad brush calling all atheists “stupid”. Imagine if someone in the public eye said the same about Muslims? I am sure Mehdi would be at the forefront of the ensuing outrage.
It was at that point that I started haranguing him for answers. But teflon Mehdi has an uncanny ability to go deaf ad hoc, and when he realised the questions wouldn’t stop, it didn’t take long before I was conveniently blocked. One organiser described his desire to exert control when he attended one of their events:-
”…his shameless self-importance and puffed-up arrogance, wanting to run the event his own way despite only being invited as a guest”
So who are you Mehdi? Most of your supporters would probably say you’re a liberal Muslim from the left. Whilst I would fall short of calling you a hardened Islamist, I would prefer to call you a politically-expedient and opportunistic cynic; an Islamic supremacist and apologist for Shia imperialism; an Islamist facilitator and enabler who sadly does a disservice to both Muslims and the Left.
Before I forget, there’s also your infamous lecture to your Shia congregation about non-believers, you know the one where you tell them non-believers = cattle. The comment you’re yet to retract or apologise for despite maligning 95% of the UK who ought to be offended by it. Well you claim the subject is now over that you’ve written an article redressing it as “out of context”. Well you might have done so to your satisfaction, but not to mine. I don’t want apologetics, nor condescending articles attempting to brush the matter off: I’d appreciate an apology with a sprinkle of humility. Yes, it’s the same article you won’t take questions on now that you believe you’ve “refuted” what you said, and any suggestion to the contrary is a “slur”….


JIMJFOXt says
A prime example of Islamic slime, our Mehdi; Master of Taqiyya, boastful, vacuous, racist supremacist. All-round asshole.
umbra says
The taint of islam is very poisonous and has the capacity to reprogram the mindset of individuals according to that of the perfect islamic prophet.
Judi says
Saif Rahman has summed up this little worm – ‘nuf said!!
Joseph says
I was disgusted by him when I watched his debate on is “Islam a Religion of Peace” and his interrogation of Tariq Ramadan. He talks fast, says absolute bollucks, but moves on too fast to be called on it. A worm of a man, if there ever was one.
Jay Boo says
By his own admission he “struggles with homosexuality”
Wow! The over eager Islam pleaser Huff Post must be truly impressed by this liberal credential.
As long as he operates as an Islamic supremacist and apologist for Shia imperialism he can visit Iran and kiss the Ayatollah Khamenei on the cheek and not swing at the end of a rope.
Mirren10 says
”By his own admission he “struggles with homosexuality”
Wow! The over eager Islam pleaser Huff Post must be truly impressed by this liberal credential.”
I don’t think he meant he struggles because he is homosexual; he hates homosexuality, but won’t say this outright, because it would lose him a lot of leftist support.
On the other hand, you could be right, and I could be wrong !
Jay Boo says
He is just doing his Islamic ‘duty’
Peaceful Place
The Sunni and Shia Muslims had all just expired;
Judgment Day would now reveal which was desired.
“Side by side” they debated by the Paradise gate.
Soon the righteous from the “others” would separate.
Said the gate angel, with a reassuring smile,
“Each name is pending, no need to rile.”
“The unearned gift will answer all you needs.”
Yet, goodwill, none to other, would first concede.
In their hearts they held but a fragile key.
Their only chance each refused to see.
Pious pride demanded sole entry past the gate.
True Believers need enemies to kill or at least disgrace.
The angel promised that all unworthy names would be erased
You see, paradise has no place Muslims lacking grace.
Not teachable are those who always preach.
Their wish was fulfilled for one to each.
The angel turned away alone, murmuring along the way.
“Such a terrible waste,
so much noise, displayed as faith…
Ah… Paradise! It quietly waits,
ever safe beyond self-made gates.”
“IT’S SUCH A PEACEFUL PLACE.”
The “True believers” and “Chosen few” nevertheless together abide,
in that other place, forever trapped, slowly ROASTING “side by side.”
IQ al Rassooli says
ONE word:
SUPERB!
Iq al Rassooli
Jay Boo says
Many thanks IQ al Rassooli for the generous comment
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
I’m not sure it’s smart to have guys like Mehdi Hasan and Reza Aslan around. They could stir controversies that could risk an awakening of the Infidel masses from their slumber. It’s be better for the Cause to just go ahead and let Diana, Bob, Scott, Matt, Dave, Jon, George, George, Ba-Ba, Whoopi, Stephen and the whole gang of Infidels handle reporting and commentary on Moslems.
They do a solid job, so why risk having Moslem pseudo-intellectuals around?
ECAW says
Did you notice this bit:
One critic points out:
“I’ve never taken to Mehdi Hasan. He talks too fast, making one specious point after another and moving on before you can spot the flaw, relying on the tongue being quicker than the mind.”
Here’s the full article:
http://ecawblog.wordpress.com/2014/03/13/deceptiveness-mehdi-hasan/
logdon says
Great article Robert.
Personally I cannot stand this slimy, lying hypocrite who once was a doyen of the left, including the BBC and the slaves to PC meaning the rest.
As such he was untouchable and boy did he know it.
Slowly attitudes here in Britainistan are changing. Islam is not the inviolable entity it once was and people are speaking out.
The Daily Telegraph when it sticks its head over the parapet and allows comment on yet another tale of Islamic iniquity attracts the like minded and there’s an almost universal acceptance that we are lied to and that Islam is not here to share but to dominate.
Three instances spring to mind where despite the frantic attempt by politicians and the msm to either keep under wraps or offer molifying excuse.
They are..
1/ The extent to which halal food has entered the mainstream food chain.
2/ Lee Rigby’s appalling slaughter.
3/ Rape, assault and grooming of minors right across the country by Muslim paedophiles.
The mood is changing as internet based knowledge eases out and the lies exposed.
Right across Europe the genie is out of the bottle and the amazing results in the EU elections are indication that at last that huge slumbering populace is waking to the dire threat which faces us.
It’s a first step, the rest will be ugly and violence on the streets almost a given.
As in 1940 we have a choice and little by little our spirit so evident at that time is returning.
The Levite says
The following is from http://www.juif.org/go-blogs-56918.php
Its in French so I stuck it in translator and its covering a recent conference in France by a muslim society.
“Anti-Semitism: “All evil comes from Jewish and Zionist barbarism” said Hani Ramadan (brother of Tariq) congress UOIF Bourget
April 23, 20145
Anti-Semitism: “All evil comes from Jewish and Zionist barbarism” said Hani Ramadan (brother of Tariq) congress UOIF Bourget
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Islamist antisemitism is expressed openly in the gallery of the UOIF Bourget: “All evil comes from Jewish and Zionist barbarism” said Hani Ramadan, brother of the Islamist Tariq Ramadan.
The UOIF is the great mass of radical Islam. In 2012, we terminated the Al Qaradawi came Islamist preacher preaching anti-Semitic terrorism. The government of the day we heard prohibiting living this sad character.
This new “raw” Congress UOIF is equally “explosive” because there saw preached jihad in many stand but Islamist antisemitism is expressed in broad daylight!
It is time to permanently prohibit the UOIF and prosecute the organizers condoning hatred.
Things heard at the 31st Congress of the UOIF
FIGAROVOX/TRIBUNE- The demographer Michèle Tribalat listened to the remarks at the 31st Congress of the Union of Islamic Organizations in France. Antisemitism occupied a prominent place, and Jihad in Syria has not been convicted.
Michèle Tribalat has conducted research on issues of immigration in France, in the broad sense, and problems related to the integration and assimilation of immigrants and their children. His latest book, Assimilation: the end of the French model is published by the Toucan.
The Union of Islamic Organizations in France (UOIF) recently held its 31st meeting of Muslims in France at Le Bourget. The subject of the conference was “What values for a changing society? Man, family and community life. ” Debates and interventions were broadcast live on UOIF-tv. So I have followed a few hours of this Congress. There was much talk of family, school and ways to maintain a community of Muslims welded. We talked about the exemplary conduct that should be adults, including parents and children to impregnate good behavior. In this regard, Nuria Addou blasted the behavior of the President of the Republic, who had a wife and children he left for a new companion, he left again for a flirt, behavior after it typical of a society that emphasizes fun attachment. This lack of commitment and privilege to pleasure, she also sees at work in which some prefer young Muslim marriage to civil marriage. She says.
Antisemitism has held a special place with the intervention of Hani Ramadan (brother of Tariq), director of the Islamic Center of Geneva and presented as a “special guest” to the applause of the public
But it was not a question of family. Unfortunately, antisemitism has occupied a prominent place with the intervention of Hani Ramadan (brother of Tariq), director of the Islamic Center of Geneva and presented as a “special guest” to the applause of the public. While France and the world is done to upset Muslims. He said that France was seen a minister “that clearly kippah” will take veiled women then hypocritically condemn the recent attacks. Whether France, the situation in Egypt, war in Syria, Iraq, Rwanda, Central Africa, all from a hand that is in the shade. And what is this hand? Zionist barbarism dixit. All the unhappiness comes from Jews who have one thing in mind, realize the dream of Greater Israel. “Islam is attacked from all sides.” The danger is in Europe with the financial lobbies who practice usury. These lobbies no longer rely only Jews, but also the Arab monarchies, Hani Ramadan apparently “in the nose.” What to occupy these lobbies? To strengthen the financial crisis, poverty. The media also fueling the fear of Islam, are funded by these lobbies. The media is controlled by Zionists he says. But it is not better in policies. United States, no one can be elected president without having been to kowtow to AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), we he says. Same thing in France where it can, according to him, be elected without the approval of the CRIF that, in fact, would lead in the shadows.
Against these international schemes of the Zionist power, one rampart Islam. Whatever the trend, whether it’s tabligh, Salafists or the Muslim Brotherhood. It refutes any and declares as complementary.
Against these international schemes of the Zionist power, one rampart Islam. Whatever the trend, whether it’s tabligh, Salafists or the Muslim Brotherhood. It refutes any and declares as complementary. He finds nothing to say to those who stick to the letter of the Qur’an and Sunnah. Salafis also have their famous scholars, he says. He does not condemn either party youth wage jihad in Syria people – “it is not bad to go to Syria to carry humanitarian aid and the level of person” – even though a few minutes earlier, the Association Free Syria condemned these departures young French in Syria”
RodSerling says
Worth thinking about why Mehdi Hasan, Reza Aslan, et al., never, or almost never, seem to have to answer any difficult questions in the media that they use.
andrew sapia says
I saw his video addressing an audience in Pakistan where he refers to all non-Muslim Kaffirs as Animals. A real Taqiya artist piece of shit. I would love to just have 2 or 3 minutes with him alone so I could smack that smirk of his snotty little homo face. I’m gay so I can say homo like that. Sort of like the blacks can say nigga. What a jerk off he is.
citycat says
They’ve sent a monkey. It would look bad if a top imam was defeated in debate.
It is all a trolling across the path of truth.
“why aren’t the rest doing it?”
They are, silent terrorism, i.e. breeding and creeping, getting attention. The common muslim won’t absorb the erroneous complexities in Hassan’s arguments.
He is a typical narcissist. Right and wrong means nothing to him. The propagation of Islam is all. They think that they have more street wisdom than one who has been mollycoddled in an educational institution. But communication and intelligence is becoming their target along with everything else that threatens their war machine.