Islam: Tenets

Lord Ahmed Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmed (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, in the name of God, most gracious and most merciful, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, for giving me this opportunity. For the last 10 years, I have had discussions with him on TV channels, as well as in this House; I do not agree with him, but I thank him for the opportunity to speak. I want to correct him on a few things. I wish that he would respect the Prophet Muhammad as I respect the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ.

There are a number of things that I need to clarify: first, the caliphate. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, is very knowledgeable; I do not wish to disagree with him, but in cases of the Ottoman Empire, Mogul Empire and North African empire, the caliphate did not exist after Sayedna Umar, Uthman and Ali—that is it. The deliberate concept of mischievous Muslims who can have four wives in the United Kingdom is nonsense. British law is the superior law in this country. Nobody is allowed to have four wives. Saying that Muslims are breeding more children and will take over is using the same language that Nazis used against Jewish communities before the Second World War. It is done deliberately when there is hatred against Muslims for their birth rate. As for someone killing someone who leaves their religion—in this country, nobody can do anything above the law. I am a Muslim; I am British. My law is the British law, which is for everyone. To be mischievous and say, “These Muslims have some other laws in this country, they will breed children, they will take over this country”, is a deliberate attempt to frighten people.

On the secular rule that Muslims are told after Al Hijra to leave|, I hosted Christian communities from Ethiopia here last night because of the human rights situation there. Abyssinia was a place where the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, asked his companions to go and live under a Christian ruler because he allowed them to live in peace, just like the majority of the 20 million to 30 million of us who are living here in the United Kingdom, in Europe and in the United States.

Looking at some of the figures, in America the Internal Revenue Service is quoted as saying that $200 million was spent by the Islamophobia industry last year, most of it by groups designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate crime groups. We need to put things into context.

I do not have to preach to anyone what the Holy Bible, which I respect, says in the Books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, Joshua and both Books of Kings. They talk about slaughter and genocide. If these fanatics—ISIS or Daesh—picked up the Bible and said, “This is why they invaded Iraq and kill Muslims. because this is the teaching of the Bible”, it would be complete nonsense. Whatever the religion, whether Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism—one of the most peaceful religions on earth, but we see what is happening in Myanmar to the Rohingya communities—Islam, Judaism or Christianity, it is the individuals who abuse the texts and the religion for their own violent, political purposes.

This is a great country. Frankly, we do not need Islamophobes, because every time we see people from Britain First and other groups create this hatred, attacks on Muslim, European and ethnic minority communities go up. When the Minister replies, will she tell us the figures on how much hatred and hate crime goes up when these groups use this bad language? Only last week a Muslim woman was refused service in McDonald’s because she was wearing a hijab. Visible Muslims with beards, or even those in the Sikh community with turbans, are attacked. People who speak European languages are abused on buses. We have seen the videos.

In this wonderful, democratic place, we should be talking about the great contribution communities have made. When my father came here after the Blitz this country’s industry had disintegrated. In the steel industry, the textile industry, the infrastructure, the health service and the transport industry, ethnic minorities, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs from Europe and the Commonwealth came here and made this country the Great Britain that it is today. During the Labour Government we had the third largest economy; I used to go around the world proudly telling people that. Even today Britain is the fifth largest economy in the world. Yes, we have criminals, but if we start pointing the finger at all the Muslims first, then it may be the Jewish communities after, then maybe the Sikh communities after that. Then we might say, “All these coloured people, different people who do not look like us, do not have green eyes like us, are responsible for our social deprivation, unemployment and economic crisis”. That is what the Nazis did. That is what Hitler’s people did.

I just hope that we come to our senses and talk about the great contribution. This is a great country—Muslims and non-Muslims, all of us, stand together. Terrorists murdered 37 of our citizens.