article says he is british. He was 3 when he came to britain.
birmingham is full of muslims like London, and this guy was Imam in birmingham central mosque!
His paragraph on opera is a classic. Second from the bottom. He didn't have much to complain about!
The sermons
Extracts from the preachings of Riyadh ul-Haq
On Jews “They’re all the same. The Jews don’t have to be in Israel to be like this. It doesn’t matter whether they’re in New York, Houston, St Louis, London, Birmingham, Bradford, Manchester. They’re all the same. They’ve monopolised everything: the Holocaust, God, money, interest, usury, the world economy, the media, political institutions . . . they monopolised tyranny and oppression as well. And injustice”
On New York “Jew York . . . sorry, New York . . . a slip of the tongue.”
On the Taleban “The only group of people upon the earth who are establishing the Sharia and the law of Allah” [In 2000]
“What crime has the Government of Afghanistan committed? All they have done is they have refused to hand over a person (Osama bin Laden) whose guilt is yet to be proven. Because of that crime, the entire nation is being punished. And as a result, because they strive to represent Islam, the whole of Islam is being demonised. And as a result, Muslims all over the globe are being discriminated against” [In late 2001]
On Europe “Europe has made it clear: they will not tolerate a Muslim force or power in Europe. And if it means massacring Muslims, if it means genocide, if it means a holocaust in Europe again, so be it. For this time, the target is Muslims”
On Muslims in Britain “It’s become insane that as Muslims in this country we are more concerned about the frequency of our bins being emptied than we are about Muslim women being raped, children being massacred, old men being put to death and buried alive, and entire populations being subjugated and being made victims of genocide in other parts of the world”
On Britain’s antiterror laws “Muslims are being maligned, our religious ideals and values . . . are under threat and it is naive to suggest otherwise. Read between the lines, peer beyond the spin. Laws are being introduced which . . . are targeted at Muslims. We are being discriminated against. Muslims in this country are being picked up one by one, control orders, imprisonment without trial, imprisonment on the flimsiest of excuses”
On integration “Allah has warned us in the Koran, do not befriend the kuffar [unbelievers], do not align yourselves with the kuffar”
On the threat faced by British Muslims “Winston Churchill made a very insightful comment. He said: ‘Appeasement is the policy of feeding the crocodile in the hope that it will eat you last’. As Muslims today, we think it’s OK, things can happen to Muslims elsewhere, but what will happen when there is no one else to devour? We will be the next meal”
On jihad “The moment we say something, we are branded fanatics, terrorists, extremists. And no one dare utter the J-word. The J-word has become taboo. The J-word can never be mentioned and if someone mentions it even Muslims look at one another. So much is happening and yet we are expected to remain silent”
On Islam’s ultimate triumph “Allah has promised. It is he who has sent his Messenger [Muhammad] with the religion of truth so that it may prevail over all other religions, even though the disbelievers may dislike it, even though the mushrikin [the idolaters] may dislike it. Allah has promised that victory will be for the believers. But we will be tested in the meantime”
On Israel “Oh Allah, do not let us die until our eyes are cooled with the sight of banu Israel [the children of Israel] being punished for their crimes”
On sacrifice “Trust in Allah, trust in the Prophet’s promises and his words. But not just rely on him and sit back, carrying on with our nine-to-five lives and our rat race. No, but be willing to sacrifice anything that may be required of us in the way of Allah”
On culture “Today, the culture of Coke and the Big Mac, the culture of the Americans, the culture of the Europeans, these cultures are dominant and they are all pervasive. We stand in awe of their culture and we are imitating them in everything. This culture, this evil influence, this imitation of the kuffar . . .”
On opera “In some Muslim countries . . . they have built opera houses at a cost of hundreds of millions of pounds. For what and for who? Muslims, Arabs, going to the opera to listen to a Frenchman singing in Italian? That’s the level to which we have stooped”
On Christmas “Muslims celebrating Christmas! It’s amazing. We think that it's innocent. It’s not innocent. The Christmas Eve masses held in their churches. What do they do? They take bread and they take wine in a very formal, customary way . . . They believe they are eating the flesh of Issa [Jesus]. When they drink the wine, they believe they are consuming the blood of Issa, ie the flesh and the blood of his sacrifice. Of course, it’s all mumbo-jumbo.”