Emel is a Muslim lifestyle magazine, distributed nationally. I get mine, every two or three issues or so, from Sainsbury's in Dalston.
Each issue contains a two page feature, Migrant Memories, where a senior Muslim reflects on their life here in Britain. November's, headed 'Serving the Society' features Dr Mohammad Naseem, Chairman of Birmingham Central Mosque, former (?) financier of the Respect Party and owner of one of the best syrup and figs in the West Midlands.
Dr Naseem is of course well known to visitors to this blog for his prominent role as a 7/7 conspiracy theorist, indeed shortly after the London Bombings he was using public platforms in the West Midlands to insist it was impossible any Muslims could be involved in the attacks. This bizarre position continued even after the first suicide video - that of ringleader Mohammad Sidique Khan - surfaced. Since then he has popped up in the BBC's Conspiracy Files programme working with leading 9/11 'truther' Tony Gosling, and distributing a DVD around his mosque which argues Israel was responsible for the 7/7 attacks.
More recently Birmingham Central Mosque has threatened to sue Prime Minister David Cameron, after he mentioned it in connection to conspiracy theories about terrorist attacks. Oddly eight months on there is no news of a writ landing on the doormat at number ten, and Dr Naseem does not take the opportunity to update Emel's readership on this important case. So what do we get from the great man?
Well in terms of controversy, very little. He tells us about his belief in inter-faith dialogue and the Rabbi he worked with after 9/11 - sadly we are not told if the mosques 'Jewish Comrades' have received one of their copies of 7/7 Ripple Effect. Things look as if they might get interesting when Dr Naseem tells us that some of his 'decisions in the public arena have sparked controversy' but there follows merely an unremarkable passage about appointing women to public posts. How the good Doctor views himself is interesting, saying he is a "strong critic of the political establishment when it enfringes on our rights as citizens of a democratic country" - it is hard to place 7/7 or 9/11 'truth' activism in this context.
So - no mention of Respect, nothing about suing the Prime Minister, and of course nothing about 7/7 suicide videos being created by the security services to frame Muslims. On balance, we are left with the conclusion that Emel - rather like secular lifestyle magazines - prefers the anodoyne and the uncontroversial, to the dramatic and downright odd. Still, they have achieved the near impossible - they have provided a platform where Mohammad Naseem comes across as rational.
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