Thousands of Muslims gathered in London on Saturday to celebrate the Islamic holiday of Eid, in an event sponsored by a controversial Islamic charity and arranged by Mayor Sadiq Khan, who described the event as Donald Trump’s “worst nightmare”.
Marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, thousands of Muslims flocked to Trafalgar Square to celebrate ‘Eid in the Square’, featuring performances of traditional music, dance, comedy, and poetry.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan, whose office helped coordinate the event, said that the celebration demonstrated the power of “diversity” in the British capital.
“You and I both know that Islamophobia is on the rise across the West but the key message we send to anyone is that diversity is not a weakness it is a strength. We don’t simply tolerate difference, we embrace it, we respect it and we celebrate it,” Khan claimed in a speech.
After concluding his address, the leftist mayor returned to the stage, sarcastically claiming that they had received a “complaint from America, from a chap called Donald Trump”.
“He says can you quiet down, you’re too loud. True story, I have his mobile phone number. So what I want to do is send a selfie from London and send it to him.”
“This is his worst nightmare,” Khan said in reference to the heavily Islamic crowd.
While in office, President Donald Trump and Khan engaged in several high-profile spats, with the American leader chastising the Labour Party politician as a “stone-cold loser” for his failure to tackle knife crime in the city.
Mayor Khan, for his part, called for the president to be barred from receiving a state visit in Britain.
Khan would go on to accuse Trump of deploying “xenophobia, racism, and ‘otherness’ as an electoral tactic” and said that Trump only cared about “White America”, claiming the America First campaign slogan was code for “White America First”.
The event also saw the Islamic Call to Prayer, or Adhan, echo out across Trafalgar Square.
The ‘Eid in the Square’ celebration was sponsored in part by the largest Muslim charity in Britain, Islamic Relief UK, a subject of the Birmingham-based Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW).
The charity has come under considerable scrutiny over alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been designated a terrorist organisation in Egypt, and anti-Semitic statements made by leaders of the charity.
In 2020, the entire board of Islamic Relief Worldwide resigned after it was reported that in 2015 a former director of the charity, Dr Almoutaz Tayara, had posted an image with the phrases “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.
Dr Tayara was also reported to have praised the Palestinian terrorist organisation Hamas as a group of “great men” who took up the “divine and holy call of the Muslim Brotherhood”.
Following the revelation, the State Department under the Trump administration cut ties with the United Nations-funded organisation. Both the Netherlands and Germany also cut ties with the charity and barred the group from receiving state funding over the alleged connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.
German officials said in a statement they had enough evidence to conclude that Islamic Relief Worldwide and Islamic Relief Germany have “significant personal connections to the Muslim Brotherhood or related organisations.”
Despite allegations of anti-Semitism and connections to terror organisations, however the United Kingdom’s Charity Commission decided that it would not remove Islamic Relief’s charity status, which affords it special tax dispensations.
The regulator said that the charity had done enough to condemn the previous statements from former directors.
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