An “academic jihad” against the UK education system is now needed to save children from LGBT indoctrination, an Islamist scholar has claimed amid an ongoing government investigation into a London mosque.
Authorities in the UK are reportedly investigating the Islamic Centre of England, a London mosque and non-profit with links to the Iranian government over “serious concerns” regarding the content of its governance.
Officials are also reportedly investigating the content of the group’s website and events, with a piece published by The Times on Monday detailing numerous statements made by guest speakers at the Shiite Islamic centre.
According to the report, many of these events revolved around the issue of gay and LGBT lifestyles and activism in Britain, with one cleric who has spoken at the NGO’s events being said to have previously advocated for the death penalty for homosexuals.
Sheikh Farrokh Sekaleshfar, a cleric born in Manchester and educated at Imperial College London, argued that executing homosexuals is the best course of action as it would both prevent them from hurting the rest of society and also potentially save their souls.
“Islam protects the souls of people primarily,” the cleric is previously said to have remarked. “We want the best even for that [gay] person. If you are to die, you will sin less, and with this sentence, you will be forgiven and you won’t be accountable for it in the hereafter.”
Not all of the clerics that are said to have spoken at the Islamic centre are accused of advocating for any form of violence or judicial execution, however. Sheikh Ahmed Haneef allegedly said that an “academic jihad” needed to be undertaken to save children from LGBT propaganda.
“We are facing right now a kind of social engineering programme where they are trying to indoctrinate children from the ages of three and four years old into the alphabet movement,” he said. “Academia is all about indoctrinating people, yes, even on the University level, and so we have to be able to resist that.”
Speaking on the report, officials in the UK appear particularly focused on the mosque’s alleged Iranian links, with Alicia Kearns — the chairwoman of the Commons foreign affairs committee — describing it as “Iran’s main cut-out and recruitment centre in the UK”.
However, the report by The Times also highlights an increasing disquiet between Progressivism and Muslims in the West on the issue of LGBT and transgenderism, with the last number of weeks seeing the two groups engaging in a growing number of skirmishes over the issues.
For example, one of the UK’s largest online Islamic influencers, Mohammed Hijab, was de-platformed from speaking at an Irish University earlier this month after progressives took issue with his stance on homosexuality.
Titled “Hedonism and the Ultimate Purpose of Life”, the event in Trinity College Dublin which was due to be headlined by the Muslim philosopher was eventually cancelled over security concerns after a coalition of “Marxists and Anarchists” denounced him as being “homophobic and misogynistic“.
Progressive students within the institution appeared to be particularly offended by one of Hijab’s past comments in particular, with the Islamic philosopher suggesting that “LGBTQ” was a “really powerful way” for the West to “destroy their own civilisation”.
“College must support all of its students unapologetically, and it’s shocking that such figures would even be considered to speak at a college that prides itself on inclusion,” said the student union’s transgender Gender Equality Officer regarding the incident.
“Actions speak louder than words, and College must do better,” they went on to say.