Birmingham mosque cleric accused of sexual
harassment
Aug 12 2012 by Amardeep Bassey, Sunday Mercury
A CONTROVERSIAL Muslim cleric who was secretly recorded labelling women as “deficient” is being accused of sexual harassment at the Birmingham mosque where he preaches.
Abu Usamah At Thahabi, an imam at the Green Lane mosque in Sparkbrook is named in a website which claims to expose “sexual deviant preachers who prey on our Muslim sisters.”
The site alleges that it has been contacted by at least two female victims of the US-born black convert.
And the Sunday Mercury has learned that Abu Usamah, 48, and born in New Jersey, has been banned from preaching at a mosque in Reading after the allegations came to light.
The website claims that officials at Green Lane mosque have been informed of the serious allegations but have failed to respond.
However last night a spokesman for the mosque, which was the subject of an undercover Channel 4 documentary in 2008, said they were aware of the site but had not been contacted by any alleged victims.
He said: “We have not been contacted by anybody regarding allegations of harassment, sexual or otherwise, against Abu Usamah who remains an employee of the mosque.
“However we have been made aware of the website and note that it appears unable to back up these serious allegations with any proper proof.”
He added Abu Usamah was a regular preacher at Green Lane and that he would not be commenting on the accusations.
In 2007 Abu Usamah was unwittingly filmed airing homophobic, misogynistic views, as well as fostering communal division.
He declared that “we hate the people of the kufr (non-Muslims). We hate the kuffar”.
As well as this he said that the punishment for homosexuality was death, asking “do you practice homosexuality with men? Take that homosexual man and throw him off the mountain”.
He also advocated the oppression of women, saying of young girls that “she should start hijab from the age of seven, by the age of ten it becomes an obligation on us to force her to wear hijab and if she doesn’t wear hijab, we hit her”.
He justified these views with his opinion that “Allah has created the women, even if she gets a PhD, deficient. Her intellect is incomplete, deficient”.
