This is a guest post by Ibn Al-Waleed
Yusuf al-Qaradawi is regularly featured on Harry’s Place. And for good reason. Qaradawi is the wife-beatin’, clitoris-choppin’, Jew-hatin’ Islamist bigot who is the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.
What kind of person can honestly look up to Qaradawi as being some sort of guide or role model for the Muslim world?
And what kind of nutcase would run a non-ironic ‘appreciation society’ on Facebook for such a vile individual?
Please step-foward, the head of the ‘Dialogue and Education’ division of the Scottish Islamic Foundation, Sohaib Saeed!
Sohaib Saeed, in addition to being a leading member of SIF, is also the chief administrator of the ‘Qardawi appreciation society’ facebook group which describes Qaradawi as being “one of the most influential and smart scholars of our time.”
When the group was first set up, Saeed was the second person to join, enthusiastically writing on the forum:
“Proud to be the second member… [sic] so many millions have benefited from this man’s work and continue to be inspired by him. May God preserve him and reward him.”
Saeed has some form in this area. In 2004, he wrote a perennially entertaining article in The Guardian, entitled ‘If Qaradawi’s an extremist, who’s left’, in which he wrote that:
“When most Muslims look to Mr Qaradawi, they see a shining example of moderation: in its Islamic meaning. To us, being a moderate Muslim means to practise the religion faithfully, according to its letter and its spirit … The real moderates are those who tell it like it is, even though aspects of Islam may be hard for western secular mindsets to fathom. “
Saeed, not surprisingly for a former spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood front-group the Muslim Association of Britain, is an Islamist; when he writes in support of Qaradawi it is because he believes that Islam is not a diverse, pluralistic faith, but rather a narrow intolerant ideology.
Of course, one could argue that Saeed, as a bona fide philosophy student, has grown up since writing this article in 2004 – as well as renouncing his previous associations with the Muslim Brotherhood. Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that this is not the case. Sohaib is presently an administrator on the facebook pages of the Muslim Association of Britain and the group’s Edinburgh branch (where he last posted on 17th February 2009 to advert a SIF-related event) – as well as still being the admin for the ‘Qaradawi Appreciation Society’.
Why is Sohaib Saeed still openly working on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood while also being employed by the Scottish Islamic Foundation, an organisation funded almost entirely by the Scottish taxpayer?
And why is his brother, Osama Saeed, another former Muslim Association of Britain spokesman, being lined by the Scottish National Party as their parliamentary candidate for Glasgow Central?
What on earth is going on in Scotland?
