Whilst war looms, mosques have been asked to “close for Islamic politics”
On Wednesday the 20th February, church leaders, both Protestants and Catholics, made a rare joint declaration in which they expressed misgivings about the moral legitimacy of a war in Iraq. This is not the first time that church leaders have voiced concerns about the looming war; throughout the military build up, church leaders in Britain have sought to break with secular norms and some have used their sermons to make strong political statements against military action in Iraq.
In marked contrast, mosque leaders in Britain have been asked to retreat behind secularism and to prevent the mosques from being used by the community to voice their condemnation of the Anglo-American war efforts and to express solidarity with their Iraqi brothers and sisters. Sermons have been censored, Islamic circles closed down and CCTV installed in some mosques to help police monitor worshippers. By behaving in this manner a very dangerous precedence is set, ensuring that the correct political culturing of the ummah does not take place. In fact, today the only political action undertaken in our mosques is when Western politicians line up to give this ummah the Western agenda.
When mosques were run according to the rules of Islam, great statesmen and politicians were produced who went on to protect the interest of the ummah by exposing the evil plots and plans of the kuffar. Today the mosques are run to please the authorities, who use them to silence the ummah and to make her ignorant of the plans of the kuffar. Therefore, it is paramount for the Muslim community to resist attempts to secularise the mosques and oppose restrictions on criticising the impending war on Iraq. The community must demand that the sermons deliver a clear message that the war on Iraq with or without the UN authorisation is completely unacceptable to Muslims; and that the only way to avert war is for the rulers of the Muslim world to withdraw all assistance to the Western war machine.