WHAT SORT of mind could believe that the Holocaust, the industrialised murder of six million civilians, was an act of God to punish Jews? And what sort of people would promote him? Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian scholar, wrote in his essay Our struggle with the Jews that Jews have been punished for their “unprecedented abominations”, but “then the Jews again returned to evildoing and consequently Allah sent against them others of His servants, until the modern period. Then Allah sent Hitler to rule over them.”

Qutb, born in 1906, dedicated his life to making the world a fundamentalist Islamic state, and is seen as the spiritual inspiration of al-Qaeda. He is also promoted by the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), our most active Islamic political group. The MAB has on its website a glowing account of Qutb’s life, concluding that he died smiling “showing his conviction of the beautiful life to come in paradise — a life he definitely and rightfully deserved”.

The MAB says that it is opposed to anti-Semitism, but this is as convincing as the British National Party’s saying it is opposed to racism. The MAB published an article calling Jews “vampires”, claiming that it was written by Benjamin Franklin; in fact it was a forgery. The MAB’s high-profile spokesman, Azzam Tamimi, a Palestinian academic, wrote: “If they want to be as human as anybody else, Jews must wake up before it is too late.”

On its website, MAB has equated Israel with Nazi Germany. The Internet Watch Foundation (a partnership between the Government and service providers) has referred the website — along with that of the BNP — to the Home Office for containing allegedly criminally racist material.

The MAB was founded in 1997 by Kamal el-Helbawy, then the London-based spokesman in Europe for the Muslim Brotherhood, a pro-terrorism group that has been largely responsible for the rise of militant Islam in recent decades, and claims to have taken part in most pro-Islamic conflicts including Afghanistan and Kashmir. The brotherhood’s objective is: “Mastering the World with Islam”, and its motto concludes: “Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” Anas al-Tikriti, a past president of the MAB, is the son of Osama al-Tikriti, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Iraq.

It has branches in 70 countries, often under different names. In Palestine it is Hamas, which pioneered the use of suicide bombers, and whose aim is to destroy Israel. Hamas is banned as a terrorist organisation in both the UK and the US, but Dr Tamimi has said he not only supports it, but has also advised it on its public relations strategy.

The MAB was more than just founded by the Muslim Brotherhood’s European spokesman, according to the Labour MP Louise Ellman, who told Parliament last year: “The Muslim Association of Britain itself is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Ahmed Sheikh, MAB’s president, says they are “not ashamed” to admit that they share some of the teachings of the Muslim Brotherhood, but insists: “We have no link with any international organisation outside this country.”

It was the MAB that invited the controversial cleric Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader, to London last month. Dr al-Qaradawi is editor-in-chief of Islamonline.net, which insists that it is the duty of Muslims to “achieve supremacy on earth and put their enemies to rout” and “the means for doing so is taking up arms in addition to preparation, financing and planning strategies”.

The MAB says it wants to help Muslims to integrate in the West, but it doesn’t believe in liberal democracy. Dr Tamimi wrote this month in a Lebanese newspaper that it is “a futile effort to try and reformulate Islam in order to espouse liberalism; this would simply be the end of Islam as a divine revelation”. Dr Tamimi, who shocked a Cambridge University debate by saying that many Arab women ask for domestic violence, insisted that the punishment for thieves must be amputation because the Koran “tells us in the clearest possible terms faqtau aydiyahuma (cut off their hands)”.

THE MAB rose to national prominence in co-organising the Stop the War Coalition, and launched the pro-hijab campaign to oppose the banning of the Islamic veil in schools. Many leftwingers have joined the campaign on the ground of women’s right to choose, even though they are joining forces with Dr al-Qaradawi, who insists women must be forced to wear the hijab.

Like the BNP, the MAB presents a moderate face to hide its extremism. Just as the BNP says it represents mainstream Britain, MAB says it represents mainstream British Muslims. But there the similarity ends. Unlike the BNP, which is rightly tackled at every turn, the MAB is uncritically accepted by the liberal Left, including the BBC, The Guardian and The Independent.

When I debated on the BBC with MAB last week, I briefed the producer on MAB, but I was told not to bring it up. When I did the presenter silenced me.

The liberal Left need to ask themselves what they hope to achieve by giving such uncritical support to Islamic extremism. They may believe, in their naivety, that they are helping to combat Islamophobia, which is indeed a real problem. But instead they are encouraging it. The hijacking of legitimate Muslim political activity by extremists will not reduce community tensions in Britain, but exacerbate them.

Islam has contributed a lot to the world, Britain’s Muslim community has contributed a lot to Britain and Muslims should definitely get involved politically. But the rise of Islamic extremism in the UK is one of the biggest challenges Britain faces, and it is Britain’s moderate Muslims who have most to lose.

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