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Home > fundamentalism / shrinking secular space > UK: The Islamic Education and Research Academy - Islamic far-Right and Hate (...)

UK: The Islamic Education and Research Academy - Islamic far-Right and Hate Group not Charity

Tuesday 3 June 2014, by siawi3



May 23 2014
iERA: Islamic far-Right and Hate Group not Charity

by Maryam Namazie

The Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA) has responded to the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britainâ€™s (CEMB) new report â€œEvangelising Hateâ€ .

Rather than address the numerous documented facts of hate speech by those associated with the organisation against ex-Muslims, Jews, gays, women, Muslims and others who donâ€™t agree with their values the iERA uses predictable and standard responses in order to circumvent the main issue at hand: that it is a hate group which should have its charitable status revoked.

The iERAâ€™s tactics include the usual deception, obfuscation, irrelevant arguments about context, false accusations of bigotry and denial in order to evade scrutiny.


The iERA says the CEMB report is â€œfilled with spin and statements deliberately taken out of contextâ€ . It is unclear how exact quotes, including from video footage, justifying everything from domestic violence, stoning to death, execution for apostates, hatred against Jews, non Muslims, and Muslims who oppose iERAâ€™s views, to FGM and jihad can be taken out of context. How can the below quote by Abdurraheem Green, a founding member and chairman of iERA, for example, be taken in any way other than it is intended? He says:

â€œWe want to create an environment where it is encouraging people to be good, otherwise what is the point in the hudood? [Hudood laws are the bounds of acceptable behaviour and the punishments for serious crimes.] What is the hudood? Why you chop the hand off the thief? Why you stone the adulterer and the adulteress to death? Why do you chop the hand and the leg of the one who commits highway robbery and leave them to bleed to death or crucify them? All of this is to deter the people from being evil and committing evil. Why is the person who drinks alcohol, who is a drunk, whipped eighty times in public? All of this is to deter the people from being evilâ€ .

The out of context argument is a bogus one that aims to portray critics as deceptive in order to move attention away from iERAâ€™s hate speech.

On the issue of â€œclarificationâ€

The iERA statement says the CEMB report â€œquotes out of context, outdated or clarified statements from iERA speakersâ€ giving as an example clarifications provided by iERAâ€™s head of research teams and lectures Hamza Tzortzis. One example will suffice to reveal iERAâ€™s dishonesty. In his supposed clarification, Hamza says with regards gender segregation:


This is clearly untrue since Hamza was himself a speaker at an iERA organised debate entitled â€œIslam or Atheism: Which Makes More Sense?â€ at UCL with US scientist Lawrence Krauss on March 9, 2013 where segregation was enforced. Separate entrances were put in place for males and females and audience members were separated into male and female only queues by the organisersâ€™ security staff. Security guards tried to forcibly remove those who refused to comply with segregated seating. The students were only allowed back after Krauss threatened to leave the debate.

Abdurraheem Green, a founding member and chairman of iERA, has made very clear why gender segregation is a necessity:

â€œLet us also bear in mind that Muslim societies take every precaution to avoid the means that can lead to adultery. Public nudity is forbidden. In fact a strict dress code is observed. This is part of the wisdom behind the hijab. It is an act of social responsibility that helps towards a harmonious society. Also free mixing between sexes is avoided, men and women should not have physical contact and men and women should not even be alone together (unless they are husband and wife, or from close relatives who are permanently forbidden in marriage). Again in this context adultery is inexcusable, and justly punished with severityâ€ .

Denying links to Jihadis

The iERA states that the CEMB report â€œunscrupulouslyâ€ tries â€œto link other individuals who are not at all connected with the charityâ€ , namely Ifthekar Jaman and Hassan Farooq.

Despite iERAâ€™s supposed lack of affiliation with Hassan Farooq and Ifthekar Jaman, iERA has provided Dawah teams, including theirs, with T-shirts and materials. In one video by Young Dawah, founding member and iERA chairman Abdurraheem Green is seen giving the Dawah group his support. In another Tweet, the Newham Dawah Team says: â€œHad a call conference meeting with abdur raheem green, the iera team and hundreds of daâ€™ee emirs all over UK, mashAllah the dawah movement is massive, and we have massive plans for 2013, our focus will be on Newham, by the permission of Allah this borough shall change, for those who wish to help us get in contact asapâ€ .


The iERA is clearly linked to the dawah teams but makes contrary assertions to aid in deniability when suitable, particularly if jihadis are involved.

Hassan Farooq can be seen in a picture posted on 14 April 2013 participating in a dawah mission with Ifthekar Jaman on Jamanâ€™s Twitter account. In the picture, both are standing in a group of men, wearing yellow iERA T-shirts with the slogan â€˜Is Life Just a Game?â€™ He comments under the picture â€œUs Portsmouth Dawah group & brothers from Newham dawah joined today. Alhamdullilah for shahadahs! Allahu Akbarâ€ . Several months later, Jaman was killed in Syria whilst fighting for a Jihadi group called the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham in December 2013. ISIS has engaged in beheadings, amputations and public executions, including the execution of a secular Syrian activist for â€œapostasyâ€ . Iftekhar was also friends with another Portsmouth man Mashudur Choudhury, the first Briton to be convicted of terrorism charges for travelling to Syria to train for jihadâ€¦

Accusations of bigotry

The iERA assert that the CEMB has â€œbigoted views about Islam and mainstream Islamic speakersâ€ and that it espouses â€œhatredâ€ . Clearly, though, it is not bigotry to expose the bigotry of the Islamic far-Right. It is also not espousing hatred to expose the hate speech propounded by iERA speakers.

More importantly â€“ and despite claims about the CEMBâ€™s deception and misrepresentation â€“ iERA stands by their â€œmainstream Islamic speakersâ€ . The very use of the term â€œmainstreamâ€ is an attempt to neutralise criticism and portray it as an attack on religion rather than legitimate opposition to Islamism. In this way, the promoters of hatred depict themselves as victims of those who expose their hatred.

As always, despite the mountains of evidence, iERA hopes to carry on doing what they do best: normalising Islamist values and norms as â€œmainstreamâ€ and creating a climate where extremism and hate can flourish.

The iERA has been able to evade scrutiny for so long by using many of the tactics mentioned above. The iERAâ€™s role in propagating Islamism here and even abroad has been largely missing from the public debate on this issue. The iERAâ€™s modus operandi has been to take advantage of multiculturalism (as a social policy that segregates â€œcommunitiesâ€ ) and cultural relativism as well as the language of diversity, rights, tolerance and inter-faith dialogue to increase influence and access.

It is high time that they are recognised for what they truly are: the Islamic far-Right and a hate group not a charity.