Omar Faruk is described on the website of the Tory peer, Lord Sheikh, as his “chief of staff“. He is the CEO of an organisation called EcoMuslim, of which his patron, Lord Sheikh is the Chair.
On 9 April, he is moderating an event called Muslim Question Time, at which the participants are as follows:
Ustadh Surkheel Sharif (Abu Aaliyah), Director, Jawziyyah Institute
Mufti Abdul Kadir Barakatulla, Islamic Shari’ah Council
Khola Hasan, Executive Member, East London Three Faith Forum
Maulana Yunus Dhudwala, Chair, Halal Monitoring Committee
Naved Siddiqi, Islamic Society of Britain
Ustadh Yahya Abu Yusuf, Hizb ut-Tahrir UK
Moderator: Omar Faruk, Director, EcoMuslim
Abdul Kadir Barakatulla of the Islamic Sharia Council sits as a ‘judge’ on London’s Islamic Sharia Council, alongside the hate preacher, Haitham al Haddad. Its President is Maulana Abu Sayeed: a man who supports rape in marriage, and was accused by a Channel 4 documentary of having participated in genocide against Bangladeshis, during the War of Liberation. The Sharia Council itself has ruled that to question the wisdom of stoning “constitutes disbelief” in Islam, that women are rightly discriminated against by law, and that sexually abused women who refuse sex to their husband will be “cursed by angels”.
Another panelist is the prominent Hizb ut Tahrir activist, Yahya Abu Yusuf.
I am sure that Omar Faruk appreciates the huge embarrassment which his misjudgment will have caused to his patron, Lord Sheikh – and to the Tory Party – and will take immediate steps either to withdraw from this event, or to ensure that the invitations to these extremists are swiftly withdrawn.
