According to a disturbing report in today’s Times, British Muslims currently studying to become imams at a Muslim college in London have voiced disquiet- understandably anonymously -- about the disparaging way in which some of their set texts describe non-Muslims. They study them on their eight-year programme of study the last three of which are spent in the Iranian city of Qom, described by the report as ‘the power base of Iran’s religious leaders’.
Study of the text in question forms part of their introductory course on Islamic jurisprudence, and, apparently, it likens non-Muslims to filth, as well as offering a literalist interpretation of jihad.
The seminary in question, Hawza Ilmiyya, shares its premises and staff with a second Muslim institute, the ‘Islamic College for Advanced Studies’, that offers a BA in Islamic Studies validated by a British university. That BA forms the first three years of their eight year programme of studies.
From the report in the Times, it is unclear whether the course-unit which includes study of the text students on it commendably find offensive forms part of the BA or their later studies. By describing the course-unit in question as an introduction to Islamic law, the report suggests students are made to study this text as part of their BA programme.
The Times quotes a representative of the course who teaches at both institutions as denying the text is taught as true doctrine. ‘We just read the text and translate for them… The idea is that they would be able to read classical texts and that is all.’
However, if the text in question forms part of the BA programme, one wonders how any British University could have validated that degree without requiring that text be subjected in class to critical exegesis that calls into question the legitimacy of any literal reading of it. After all, the British state funds that validating body and, to put it mildly, there is a legitimate public interest that all home-grown imams be strictly moderate ones.
Both institutions that deliver this training programme for British imams receive their funding from the same body, the Irshad trust. One of its managing trustees is an Iranian imam named Abdolhossein Moezi who is also director of a mosque-cum-community-centre, the Islamic Centre of England, located just down the road from these two imam training colleges in Maida Vale.
Both the Irshad trust and the Islamic Centre of England are reported to have been founded at the same time as each other, through generous endowments the Centre at least continues to receive, in part, from overseas donors who, according to the Times report, the Centre declines to confirm or deny were from Iran.
Nonetheless, Iran appears to be closely linked to the Centre and by implication, therefore, with the two Muslim colleges as well, given their close links with the Centre’s director. Under the founding terms of the Centre, it is reported ‘at all times … one of [its] trustees shall be a representative of the Supreme Spiritual Leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Centre’s director is reported as having been the personal representative of Ayatollah Khameni since 2004 ‘when he also became director of the Islamic Centre and a trustee of the Irshad trust'.
It is gratifying that the students on this programme were alarmed by the contents of some of what they were being made to study. That they were suggests it might not be necessary for them to be expressly informed by their course that they are not compelled by their religion to regard non-Muslims as filth or to take up jihad in any but a metaphorical sense as a struggle with their own evil inclinations.
However, eight years of study is a long time, especially when the last three are spent at the hotbed of Iranian fundamentalism.
To get a taste of what they might be exposed to when there or even before they go, consider this extract from a message to Haj pilgrims throughout the world from Ayatollah Khameni reproduced on the web-site of the Islamic Centre:
‘The Islamic World does not need the flawed and frequently violated prescription of the West for democracy and human rights; democracy is inherent in the Islamic teachings and human rights is [sic] among the most outstanding themes of Islam….‘The Western values that have led to the … legalisation of homosexuality and other such fiascos in their countries, cannot be followed’.
While not wishing to suggest or deny that any religion, let alone Islam, should commend or even condone homosexuality, it does stretch belief beyond the bounds of possibility to suppose that its legal proscription can be consistent with any doctrine of human rights worth speaking of. This being so, it does raise the question whether any British university should be validating a degree programme that looks as if it must regard as authoritative the rulings of someone who does think this.
'Who validates the validators?' is the question that I should like to be asking at this hour.
Comments (1)
You're right. We should ban the text. We should also burn all texts by St. Thomas Aquinas (written at about the same time)...these things are disgraceful...
We must also ban the Anglican Church, which is an organisation whose head is appointed by the British Prime Minister, but which dares to proscribe many actions in foreign countries, amongst which homosexual priests, all forms of paedophilia, zoophilia and polygamy? How can any ethical system really judge people who are naturally inclined in this manner?
Posted by chas | April 27, 2006 12:21 PM
Posted on April 27, 2006 12:21