It was Good Friday, and Anjem Choudary was holding a demonstration/gathering outside of the London Central Mosque, commonly known as the Regent’s Park Mosque, in London. I asked a police officer why an extremist would be allowed to hold an event on this particular day that is so dear to Christians. The officer (who was of Indian descent and of a religion unknown to me) proceeded to tell me how Jesus is also a prophet in Islam. At that point I had to stop him. I said, “I’m not asking you for a theology lesson, I’m asking you why a terrorist recruiter is allowed to spew his hatred on the UK streets on a day that is special to Christians. We both know ‘Andy Choudary’ is not here to build bridges and sow the seeds of peace and love and brotherhood. He’s here to get in people’s faces and cause mayhem.”
The officer replied, “There’s no laws to stop him.”
“Fine,” I said to him, “that’s what you should have said at the start instead of trying to educate me on world religions.”
When the Friday prayers ended inside Regent’s Park Mosque, the Muslims standing with Anjem Choudary leaped in number from about 20 to 1,000 – virtually all of the male Muslims who had been inside the mosque praying.
I emailed the mosque’s director to ask him why the mosque hadn’t banned Anjem from their premises. He replied to say that under UK law, they can’t stop people accessing public places of worship. Not even terrorist recruiters, I asked?
I then asked the director why they were unable to ban Anjem from holding talks and gatherings at their gates. He told me that since Anjem was holding these gatherings on public space, then there was nothing the mosque could do about it.
This all had me wondering what kind of power imams are able to exert over their followers. It would appear to be none, but this is symptomatic of every Muslim and imam I’ve encountered. I went to a mosque open day in Tottenham Hale in North London, and they were distributing pamphlets on how to be a good Muslim that were written by the extremist Zakir Naik, who is banned from entering the UK. When I pointed this out to them, they claimed they had never heard of the man and that they would remove the booklets if I was “offended” by them.
“I’m not offended. Only children get offended, not grown men,” I told the imam, “I’m perplexed that you’re handing out booklets that are written by an extremist and claiming to have no knowledge of who he is or what he preaches. Have you even read these books yourself?”
You have to wonder why so many Muslim men got behind Anjem Choudary every time he put on a demonstration at Regent’s Park Mosque. It’s a large mosque, one of the largest in London, and so he was guaranteed numbers to back him up. Of course, Muslims in the mosque looking out the window were looking at a small gathering of EDL supporters who were there to oppose and confront Anjem Choudary, no one else. They weren’t there to attack or protest against any of the worshipers inside. Common sense would have told me, if I had been a Muslim looking out at the two opposing sides – Anjem on one side, the EDL on the other – that I would leave them to it. I wouldn’t affiliate with any of the two groups, neither Anjem nor the EDL. Any imam with half a brain cell, recognizing the potential for violence and trouble and a bad reputation outside, would have said to the worshipers prior to leaving the mosque to simply ignore what was going on outside and to safely make their way home. None of that happened. Instead, the Friday prayers ended, and virtually every adult Muslim male in Regent’s park mosque came out to stand side by side with Anjem Choudary. This belied the media narrative about Choudary being an “extremist” rejected by mainstream Muslims, but of course the media took no notice.