Christians Told to Unite with Moderate Muslims Against Mega-Mosque

July 17, 2007

Author: Maria Mackay

Source: Christian Today

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/christians.told.to.unite.with.moderate.muslims.against.megamosque/11622.htm

Christians gathered for this year’s Keswick Convention have been urged to unite with the “fair-minded” Muslim community of East London in opposing plans to build a mega-mosque there.

This was the call of Steve Bell of Urban Vision, one of the main speakers at the three-week event that got underway in the Lake District last Saturday.

“I would stand with the Muslim community in the East End who have protested,” he said. “Three thousand Muslims, at the last count, have actually signed a petition against the mosque. The sentiment seems to be, ‘If we have such a huge mosque in our locality, we want it to be for the whole of our community.’”

The proposed mosque has been linked to the fundamentalist Tablighi Jamaat movement, which Bell said “are struggling to prove they are not directly linked to terrorism”, as the FBI and MI5 continue to monitor its members and activities.

The group's theology, meanwhile, is rooted in a branch of Saudi Arabian Islam known as Wahhabism not widely supported in the Muslim communities of the UK.

A petition to oppose the mega-mosque on the Downing Street website has accumulated more than 45,000 signatures.