Abdullah el-Faisal, a 39-year-old imam, addressed thousands of young Muslims across the country on their “pressing duty” to learn how to fire guns, fly planes and use missiles in their mission to “kill all unbelievers”.

The Old Bailey was told that Sheikh el-Faisal instructed his followers on ways to murder non-Muslims, a “wonderful” act that would ensure their immediate entry into paradise.

The cleric sold his recorded lectures in specialist Islamic bookshops under titles such as Jihad, No Peace with the Jews, Them and Us and Treachery from Within.

David Perry, for the prosecution, told the court that on Declaration of War and Rules of Jihad, two tapes recorded before September 11, 2001, the sheikh called on his audience to support bin Laden and Mullah Omar, then the leader of Afghanistan, in their jihad against the West.

Mr Perry said that in the first of the two tapes, believed to have been made in 1998, Sheikh el-Faisal had translated a speech by bin Laden which urged his listeners to act against Britain, “the greatest enemy of Islam and Muslims”.

Sheikh el-Faisal, of Stratford, East London, denies five charges of soliciting to commit murder and inciting racial hatred under the Offences Against the Person Act, a rarely used Victorian law which carries a maximum term of life imprisonment.

He faces two further charges of using threatening, abusive words or behaviour, one charge of distributing recordings, and one count of possession of material with the intent to incite racial hatred.

The court was told that the softly spoken cleric encouraged his audiences, which often numbered up to 150 people, to join him in debate.

In Jihad, a tape recovered by police after the unrelated arrest of a motorist in Dorset, the sheikh is alleged to have instructed Muslim women to raise their children “with the jihad mentality” by giving them toy guns.

Reminding the jury that the tape had been made shortly after September 11, Mr Perry added that the defendant had stated that “assassination was lawful” and that a Muslim’s primary task was “to lessen the population of the unbelievers”.

In another tape he is alleged to have described the rewards of such an action, saying: “This is how wonderful it is to kill a kuffar (an unbeliever). You crawl on his back and while you are pushing him down into the hellfire, you are going into paradise.”

Asked about the use of nuclear weapons by one young Muslim, Sheikh el-Faisal allegedly replies: “You are not allowed to use nuclear weapons when a country is not 100 per cent disbeliever”, adding that collateral damage, such as to women and children, was permitted “as long as soldiers die too”. The court was told that he cited India as a country deserving of nuclear attack.

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