Mick Hartley

Abu Usamah at-Thahabi, an imam at Birmingham's Green Lane Mosque:

Nevermind the stuff about Shimon Peres – which of course is outrageous enough, but frankly to be expected. What's all this about music being "one of the biggest weapons of Satan"? 

The man is trying to show his love for the woman. He's trying to show that he loves this woman – not even his wife – so he says "Heaven must be missing an angel, because you are down here with me, right now." Can heaven miss an angel? That is a statement of heresy.

Phew.

Here are Tavares – for it is indeed they who are the heretics – in action. They're dressed in red too – the colour of the devil. It all starts to make sense…

Yes, that is an American accent:

An American national, he converted to Islam and studied at the University of Madinah in Saudi Arabia, an Islamic school popular with converts and international students.

According to a report by the Centre for Social Cohesion, Usamah "advocates holy war in an Islamic state; preaches hatred against non-Muslims; that apostasy and homosexuality are punishable by death; and that women are inferior to men", following an undercover recording of him preaching to his congregation which featured in a Channel 4 Dispatches episode on radical Islam at British universities. During the documentary, Usamah also expressed his support for Osama bin Laden, and defended his right to freedom of expression, saying: "If I were to call homosexuals perverted, dirty, filthy dogs who should be murdered, that's my freedom of speech, isn't it?" Usamah also stated that "He (Osama bin Laden) is better than a million George Bushs, he's better than a thousand Tony Blairs.

Usamah was invited to speak at events held by University College London's Islamic Society on 1 February 2008 and 6 September 2009. He was invited to speak at the same venue on 30 November 2009, but the event was cancelled due to pressure from gay rights and anti-extremism campaign groups. In February 2013, he was invited to speak at the University of Reading, but the event was cancelled by the university after threats of violence.

In 2012, Usamah was accused of sexually harassing Muslim women but a mosque spokesman said: “We have not been contacted by anybody regarding allegations of harassment, sexual or otherwise, against Abu Usamah who remains an employee of the mosque. However we have been made aware of the website and note that it appears unable to back up these serious allegations with any proper proof.”

So he's still there, at Green Lanes Mosque.

From the Birmingham Mail:

In 2007 Abu Usamah was unwittingly filmed airing homophobic, misogynistic views, as well as fostering communal division.

He declared that “we hate the people of the kufr (non-Muslims). We hate the kuffar”.

As well as this he said that the punishment for homosexuality was death, asking “do you practice homosexuality with men? Take that homosexual man and throw him off the mountain”.

He also advocated the oppression of women, saying of young girls that “she should start hijab from the age of seven, by the age of ten it becomes an obligation on us to force her to wear hijab and if she doesn’t wear hijab, we hit her”.

He justified these views with his opinion that “Allah has created the women, even if she gets a PhD, deficient. Her intellect is incomplete, deficient”.