UNITY

http://www.masjidtawhid.org

Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim

A STATEMENT FROM THE CHAIRMAN OF MASJID & MADRASA AL-TAWHID TRUST

To all those concerned about Masjid al-Tawhid and the wider issues affecting Muslims in Britain,

as-salamu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullah.

I am writing in response to the letter issued by Mr. M. I. Sethi, Secretary of the Trust, dated 24th February 2011 that contained a number of untruths and was circulated via notoriously fanatical websites. I am therefore obliged to address this matter publicly.

I would like to confirm that Dr. Usama Hasan remains Vice-Chairman of the Trust.

The meetings held by some trustees on 26/1/2011 & 23/2/2011 were unconstitutional for several reasons, including the fact that there are 12 members of the trust and the quorum of 7 was not met. Therefore, any decisions made in those meetings are null and void.

The ridiculous attempt by this faction of trustees to remove Dr. Usama as Trustee, despite his clear statement dated 15th February 2011, only shows that they were bent on pursuing their vicious, predetermined agenda.

Mr. Sethi failed to mention that Dr. Usama’s lecture on 22/1/2011 was disrupted repeatedly and he was not allowed to clarify his position, something that he had to do later via his blog. He also failed to mention that most of the people who disrupted the lecture were not from the Masjid Tawhid community, and that some of them clearly incited murder against Dr. Usama, both verbally and by distributing a cowardly, anonymous leaflet. It would therefore appear that Mr. Sethi approves of their behaviour.

Mr. Sethi also failed to mention that the controversy caused by Sheikh Sadlan’s fatwa was hugely inflamed by a website called “Save Masjid Tawhid” and associated petition that was launched around January 3rd 2011, and that spread lies and slander around the world directed against Dr. Usama. This website was fraudulently registered using the name and address of the Masjid without the permission of the Trust, and Mr. Arif Saleem, a trustee, was allegedly involved in the setting up of the website. Rather than addressing this sensitive matter directly via the Masjid Trust, it is extremely unfortunate that Mr. Saleem appears to have chosen to spread fitnah in this way, actions which directly resulted in the attempted disruption of Friday Prayers on 14/1/2011 and in the above-mentioned death threats directed against Dr. Usama. I had repeatedly mentioned to Mr. Sethi and other trustees that this behaviour of Mr. Saleem was to be discussed in the next full meeting of the Masjid Trust, but again they have conveniently ignored this issue.

The “Investigative Report” mentioned by Mr. Sethi contains a number of further untruths. For example, strong statements against Dr. Usama and myself were attributed to Sheikh Wasiyullah al-‘Abbas, a close friend of mine who graduated many years after me from the Islamic universities of Makkah and Madinah. I spoke to him on the morning of Monday 28th February 2011 after Fajr Prayer, and he expressed his astonishment as to how his statements had been totally distorted by a man called Muhammad al-Maliki, upon whose testimony the report depends.

O you who believe! If a wicked person comes to you with any news, ascertain the truth, lest you harm people unwittingly, and afterwards become full of repentance for what you have done. (Qur’an, 49:6)

In any case, none of the people who claim to have authored the “Investigative Report” are qualified religious scholars, are therefore unfit to author such a document. Note also that the report is clearly largely the work of one man, i.e. Mr. Arif Saleem, who is himself accused of fraudulent behaviour as stated above.

Finally, I would like to warn those who engage in clandestine activities to harm our mosque, that their efforts will ultimately fail, in sha’ Allah.

Who is more unjust than he who forbids that in the places for the worship of Allah, Allah’s name should be celebrated, whose zeal is in fact to ruin them? (Qur’an, 2:114)

Verily, Allah will defend those who believe: verily, Allah loves not any that is a traitor to faith, or shows ingratitude. (Qur’an, 22:38)

Dr. Suhaib Hasan
Chairman, Masjid & Madrasa al-Tawhid Trust
26th Rabi’ al-Awwal 1432 / 1st March 2011

This entry was posted on March 3, 2011 at 1:49 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.