--- description: Secrets of the Mosque title: Secrets of the Mosque image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [World](/section/world/) # Secrets of the Mosque by [TIME](/author/time/) May 6, 2002 4:00 AM CUT by [TIME](/author/time/) May 6, 2002 4:00 AM CUT On a cold, wet Friday, afternoon, the Central Mosque in North London is crammed with nearly 1,500 men who fill four floors of prayer halls, spilling over into the corridors. There are more people than the mosque can accommodate. On the third floor, behind a large wooden rostrum flanked by several microphones and facing a television camera tripod, is Abu Hamza al-Masri, 43, wearing a long gray robe and a skullcap. The curtains on the windows are drawn to deter zoom lenses and sniper rifles. The first thing you notice about Abu Hamza is the metal hook on his right arm. The preacher lost both hands and an eye during a raid in Afghanistan eight years ago. Soft-spoken, but with a wry sense of humor, Abu Hamza is delivering his Friday lunchtime khutba (sermon), which is piped to other parts of the mosque — including a basement in an adjoining building where burka-clad women have gathered, segregated from the men. The small, redbrick mosque in the Finsbury Park neighborhood is ground zero for radical Muslims in Britain, and its imam, Abu Hamza, is as radical as they come. His audience — mostly young, Middle Eastern men, with a sprinkling of South Asians and Afro-Caribbeans — sit cross-legged, with their heads down as they listen intently to the sermon. Obstructing the doorway is a bearded middle-aged man with two young sons. Many of the worshippers wear woolen hats or skullcaps. Others improvise with handkerchiefs tied over their heads. Egyptian-born Abu Hamza, who has lived in Britain since 1978, preaches fluently in English even though it isn’t his native language. He laces his sermons with attacks on British foreign policy and Prime Minister Tony Blair, but reserves his most scathing comments for President George W. Bush and his “axis of evil.” I am there to see for myself what is being preached in Britain’s mosques, particularly the ones that promote jihad above everything else. As a Muslim with family in the U.K., I was curious to see how — or if — the religion of my childhood could be interpreted as hateful and bellicose. When I lived in Britain as a student 20 years ago, jihad was something you only read about in history books. But Afghanistan brought jihad to life for all Muslim ummah (people), particularly those who had made Europe or America their home. European mosques and Islamic groups supported the foot soldiers in Afghanistan’s holy war against the Russians. Now they seem unable or unwilling to disentangle themselves from the complex network of al-Qaeda and jihadist icon, Osama bin Laden. While he doesn’t come across as a fiery speaker who can mesmerize a crowd, Abu Hamza’s careful choice of words gives him away. He calls all non-Muslims kuffar (infidels), and repeatedly talks about the necessity and importance of jihad. “It is the duty of Muslims to fight all man-made laws that are being used to subjugate human beings,” he says. Bush and Blair aren’t the only kuffar against whom Abu Hamza wants to wage jihad. He is equally scathing when it comes to the governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen, Pakistan and Jordan. “Many of the rulers of Muslim countries have apostated or become disbelievers because they have made laws that either oppose or cancel the laws of God.” It’s just that sort of talk that makes Abu Hamza the most watched Islamic preacher in Europe — watched not just by Western intelligence operators, but also by intelligence agencies of a half a dozen Muslim nations as well. Several Muslim countries have urged Britain to deny Abu Hamza his platform. When a young Saudi or Egyptian or Yemeni lands in London as a refugee or a student, one of the first things he hears about is Finsbury Park. Though mosques everywhere give temporary refuge to visitors, Abu Hamza’s usually has several dozen men sleeping in the basement. The mosque is “a place of worship. It’s a house of God,” Abu Hamza says. “I welcome anyone from anywhere, especially refugees who have no place to go.” Suspected shoe bomber Richard Reid stayed at Finsbury Park for several nights, as did many others now languishing in prisons around Europe charged with aiding or abetting terrorism. Abu Hamza practices what he preaches. He lost his hands and eye in one holy war and sent his teenage son and stepson on another, to Yemen. He urges his congregation to do the same. “There is a special reward for those who go out to fight, and there is a special place for them in heaven and a lower place for those who receive no hurt and sit at home.” By now the assembled crowd is nodding. At exactly 1:30 p.m. he abruptly ends his sermon and calls for Jumaa (Friday) prayers. Ten minutes later, as the prayer group disperses, I approach two Arab men. They shake my hand but walk away saying “Sorry, sorry,” as I start to talk to them. Many of the men huddle together to chat with each other and light up cigarettes. The only person willing to talk to me is a Bangladeshi shopkeeper who says his name is Basit. I tell him I am a newcomer to the mosque and wonder why people seem so unfriendly. “Since Sept. 11 everyone who has been inside the mosque has been filmed or approached by someone,” Basit says. “We are fed up with being approached by all sorts of people.” He advises me not to talk to anyone, and I walk quietly back to the underground station. At Finsbury Park you get a sense that everybody is watching everybody else. Some in the congregation deliberately lean against a pillar or a wall with their heads buried in their hands, as if they don’t want to be seen. There are others who constantly stare at people as if sizing them up. You stare back, wondering if this guy is Algerian security service or Jordanian security service or somebody connected to the imam or some other independent organization — or maybe just another innocent worshipper. At a dinner with a group of Muslim professionals over the weekend, I asked whether they would want to accompany me to the Finsbury Park mosque on Friday. “Are you crazy?” said an Indian Muslim banker. Author Ziauddin Sardar agrees: “I certainly wouldn’t want to be seen there.” At Finsbury Park, people are still paranoid six months after Sept. 11\. The mosque has a small store that sells Islamic books, radical audio and video tapes (featuring lots of throat slitting), hats, prayer mats, Aab-e-Zamzam (the holy water from Mecca) and other knick-knacks. A big Pakistani man stands guard. Can I ask a few questions about the mosque? “No.” He shows me the door. I relate this to Abu Hamza and ask him for a small favor. Could he please help persuade some of his mosque associates and regulars to talk to me, even if it is off-the-record? He apologizes. “You are free to talk to anyone inside or outside the mosque, but at your own risk. People here are fed up with Muslims being used by secret services to spy on the mosque and their own brothers.” Finsbury Park and other radical mosques are Salafist, or puritanical. About 200-years-old, the Salafist movement is a newer version of what is described by many Muslim scholars as neo-Wahhabism. The main Salafist ideological principle is Takfir, the perception that secular Muslim society is heretical. Saudi Arabia is mostly Wahhabi, while the rest of the Middle East and North Africa has conformed to other branches of Sunni Islam. The new Salafists have brought Wahhabi principles together with the idea of holy struggles against the internal and external enemies of Islam. Saudi-born Osama bin Laden is not only a Wahhabi but also a Salafist. His Salafist credentials have helped him reach out far beyond the Gulf to other disaffected Sunni Muslim believers who hold grudges against the West or their own secular Muslim governments. Salafism is appealing to some, dangerous to many. I also wanted to see what Muslim life was like outside London, so I headed north. In Leicester, where there had been an al-Qaeda cell, the mosques are flourishing. “Young second-generation Muslims who were born here are increasingly turning toward religion because they need an identity, and the faith gives them that,” says Ataullah Siddiqui, a research fellow at the Islamic Foundation in Leicester. Farther north is the town of Oldham, the scene last year of one of Britain’s worst race riots in recent history. Some 12% of Oldham’s 220,000 inhabitants are Muslim, one of the highest percentages of any British city. Three-quarters of Muslim youth in Oldham are estimated to be early school leavers. Low education levels and rising unemployment — about 20% among Muslim youth — has implications for crime, violence and gang culture in Oldham. It is a perfect recruiting ground for radicals. There is a Salafist mosque in Oldham now, and it is growing fast. Shamim Mia, 27, leads a Muslim self-help group, Alternatives. Born and bred in Oldham of Bangladeshi parents, Mia began organizing young people in his community after the riots because, he says, “We didn’t want them to be used by extremists.” He has reason to be concerned. “In Oldham, we not only have racial discrimination, we have low education levels, low income levels and now, since Sept. 11, we have Islamophobia,” he says. “Before, we were just Asians who were victimized. After Sept. 11, we suddenly became part of the same bunch of Islamic terrorists.” Mia, a moderate, believes that young Muslims in Oldham haven’t yet been “radicalized” by Salafists or other groups, but he concedes that the attraction of extremism is always present in a community that sees itself as under siege. Another group making waves in Britain and around Europe is Hizb ut-Tahrir (Islamic Liberation Party). In a makeshift hall atop a factory in the North London district of Tottenham, Sheikh Omar Bakri, 44, a large man with a flowing beard, is surrounded by computers connected to websites of dissident groups across the Middle East. Syrian-born Bakri revels in publicity. As head of Al-Muhajiroon (the Migrant’s Movement) and of Hizb ut-Tahrir, he organizes demonstrations against dictatorial regimes in the Arab world and has supported fringe anti-gay, anti-pornography and anti-Semitic groups. “I am no friend of jihadist Imams like Abu Hamza,” he says. Bakri’s Al-Muhajiroun and other groups have been banned from British campuses, but his new group — Hizb ut-Tahrir — is not yet restricted. “I have kept one step ahead of the law,” he says. Bakri’s groups champion the return of a Caliphate — which ruled Muslims for either three decades or 600 years after the Prophet Muhammad’s death, depending on which caliphs are being counted — for the 1.2-billion-strong global Muslim ummah. Though Hizb ut-Tahrir has not caught on among mainstream Muslims in the Middle East, it is fairly influential in Central Asia. Omar Bakri keeps a large red plastic tumbler on his table labeled Donations for jihad. When I ask him where he was going to send his jihadis, he nervously turns it over and says he doesn’t have any money to send anyone anywhere. Not everyone is convinced that Britain’s mosques are important recruiting grounds for extremists. “I don’t believe \[Finsbury Park\] played any role in making these guys radical,” says Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the pan-Arabic newspaper Al-Quds. The terror suspects “were radical before they got to the mosque.” The majority of Muslims are not radicals, he points out. They don’t go to Finsbury Park every Friday, and they are not calling for jihad. There is a growing middle-class, educated professional group of Muslims who want both to be good British citizens and to transform society. Then there are the working class, unemployed and often uneducated Muslims, who are dissatisfied, haven’t integrated well into British society and see Islam as the only alternative to the despair and racism they confront every day. They are prime targets for Abu Hamza or Omar Bakri. “They question their own identity: who they are, where they are and why everyone else is not like them,” says Ziauddin Sardar. “For them, moderate Islam is a problem because Britain is a problem.” In becoming radicals, he says, the young Muslims are rebelling against British society. “Our problem as Muslims is that only when we are at ease with ourselves will we be at ease with society in general.” So what now? “Ignore these radicals,” Sardar says. “As the Muslim community in Britain moves to the next generation, the radicals will be increasingly marginalized. The problem is, there are too many people trying to demonize them. As they get more attention, they will only grow bigger.” I wish it were so simple. One evening I watched a steady stream of young Muslim men enter the Finsbury Park mosque to spend the night. Even if they were just looking for a roof over their heads or a place to pray, they would find more than that: fellow Muslims of similar backgrounds with extreme views and eager to proselytize. Lacking education, encouragement or a feeling of belonging, these young men will continue the holy war, in Afghanistan, Europe, the U.S. — or in their own back yard. It could be said, for them jihad is not a means to an end, but an end in itself. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6644881/secrets-of-the-mosque/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6644881/secrets-of-the-mosque/"},"headline":"Secrets of the Mosque","datePublished":"2002-05-06T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-26T16:42:05.363Z","description":"Secrets of the Mosque","url":"https://time.com/archive/6644881/secrets-of-the-mosque/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/author/time/"}],"articleSection":"World","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6644881/secrets-of-the-mosque/","name":"Secrets of the Mosque"}}]}] ```