Mick Hartley

From the Times:

A mosque attended by the Manchester synagogue attacker was previously reported to the Charity Commission over a sermon accused of fuelling antisemitism and division.

Jihad al-Shamie, 35, from Prestwich, Lancashire, began worshipping at Masjid Sunnah Nelson in 2022.

In 2023, Fountains of Knowledge, the charity that opened the mosque in 2021, was reported to the Charity Commission over a sermon in which the imam linked the war in Gaza to the “plotting of the kuffar against Islam”. Kuffar is a derogatory term for non-Muslims.

The National Secular Society (NSS), which filed the complaint, said Masjid Sunnah Nelson was among charities “fuelling antisemitism and division, as well as potential support for Hamas and other anti-western actors”.

Well, this is a huge surprise. Who could have guessed?

In November 2022, he attended a three-day “knowledge conference” at the mosque with his younger brother.

And three years later, after this “knowledge conference”, he killed Jews as a self-proclaimed IIS supporter.

Messages sent by Shamie to one of his three wives, who claims he raped her, said: “I rly love the mosque there.” Footage shared on the mosque’s Instagram page appears to show Shamie sitting in a chair wearing a striped robe.

Naveed quoted a religious text during a sermon last year describing Yahud — Jews — as “treacherous”.

In a sermon last month, Naveed said: “The husband in the house is the one who has the word. He is the man, he has the first and last word. So, this is what they call guardianship. It means that the wife does not do anything except what? Except with his permission.”

The mosque is associated with the Salafi movement, a fundamentalist branch of Sunni Islam.

Was anything done about this? Was the NSS complaint followed up? Of course not. Will anything be done about those spreading hatred under the shield of charitable status? Of course not. Meanwhile the government tinkers with its Islamophobia definition…