A DVD showing coalition vehicles and aircraft being destroyed by Iraqi guerrillas is among provocative items being sold in some religious stores.

A leading imam told The Times that the propaganda contradicted mainstream Islam and he urged Muslim bookshops to sell literature that promoted understanding between faiths.

Concerns about religious bookshops grew when police sealed off and searched a learning centre in Leeds where two of the July 7 bombers met.

A selection of disturbing literature is available from the Maktabah bookshop in Birmingham. One book, by a British Mujahid describing his guerrilla warfare in Kashmir, says that “terror works and that is why the believers are commanded to enforce it by Allah”.

The Maktabah shop owner, who declined to be named, said: “The books you have highlighted are easily available at 90 per cent of Islamic bookshops around the country. We have a duty to sell books that express a variety of viewpoints. All of the publications are legal and have been checked by our barrister and our media specialists.” The Mujahid’s book was sold on amazon.co.uk, he added.

He sells a DVD, 21st Century CrUSAders, which shows injured and dead children in Iraq and the Palestinian territories, describes Britain as a “police state” and distorts Tony Blair’s face into Satan’s.

Footage of the 9/11 attacks is shown with a poem that says: “Suddenly their storms arise to demolish their fortresses and proclaim to them we shall not stop our raids until you abandon our lands.” Al-Qaeda leaders are shown speaking from a cave. Pictures of Jews praying are subtitled: “Brothers of pigs and monkeys”.

A sequence of “recent war footage from Iraq” shows vehicles and aircraft being bombed, some with dead bodies. It ends with a gleeful Iraqi rebel declaring: “We love death just as they love life”.

The Maktabah shop owner said: “I cannot see why anyone would have a problem with the sale of this DVD. Yes it contains disturbing footage of the Iraq war but so do Fahrenheit 9/11 and news shows like Panorama. It is a documentary about what happened in Iraq, about America’s crusades. The film is biased but when you see footage of children who have died in war it is hard not to be.”

A religious edict promoting suicide bombing features in Defence of the Muslim Lands, a book sold at the Imaan shop in Luton. The 25-page argument concludes: “Martyrdom operations are permissible, and in fact the Mujahid who is killed in them is better than one who is killed fighting in the ranks.” The book opens with a quotation from Osama bin Laden praising the author.

Abu Syed Jahingis, the proprietor, said that he had not read the book because of his poor English but would now check it. “Bombing in the UK is not the Islamic way,” he said.

The Dar al-Taqwa bookshop near Baker Street in Central London sells some extremist tracts including The Methodology of Hizb ut-Tahrir for Change, which proposes “carrying Islam to the rest of the world by invitation and Jihad”. The shop’s manager, who declined to be named, said: “If it’s something that incites any hatred, it’s not desirable to sell, it’s not wise.”

The Jewish conspiracy is a common thread. 1066: How Islamophobia Came To The British Isles is a mad history, emphasising the role of Jews, up to “Jacob Stavinsky [Jack Straw]” and Peter Mandelson, “a homosexual Zionist known as The Prince of Darkness”.

Ibrahim Mogra, an imam from Leicester who attended Tony Blair’s Muslim meeting at Downing Street on Tuesday, said that authors were interpreting Islamic texts for their convenience. He urged shops to stock “books that will open up the minds of some Muslims that are very blinkered”.

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