Suliman Gani

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gra­cious, the Most Merciful.

As-salā­mu ‘alaykum wa-rah­mat­ul­lāhi wa-barakā­tuh (Peace, Bless­ings & Mer­cy of Allah be upon You).

This state­ment is being issued on the 23rd of April 2016 and super­sedes all pre­vi­ous state­ments on the subject.

Unequivocal support for Suliman Gani:

We begin with stat­ing our gen­er­al agree­ment with “Mus­lim lead­ers’ state­ment defend­ing Sh Suli­man Gani” issued on the 20th of April 2016.

We acknowl­edge the BBC tweet which cor­rect­ed a state­ment made by a tv pre­sen­ter, but do not feel this was a clear enough apol­o­gy for the dis­tress caused.

We (the British Schol­ars) know Imam Suli­man Gani as a hum­ble man who sub­scribes to plu­ral­ism and peace­ful coex­is­tence. His ser­vices to soci­ety in Britain include bring­ing togeth­er peo­ple with­in the com­mu­ni­ty, a com­mit­ment to inter­faith dia­logue, his track record on this speaks for itself. Imam Gani has worked with peo­ple of all faiths and none, on issues relat­ed to civ­il and civic rights, due to his deeply held con­vic­tions in ensur­ing jus­tice for all.

Daesh (IS) support?

We find it par­tic­u­lar­ly abhor­rent that our Prime Min­is­ter The Right Hon­ourable David Cameron has spo­ken untruths about Suli­man Gani being sup­port­ive of Daesh when the real­i­ty is the oppo­site. Suli­man Gani has con­sis­tent­ly opposed Daesh, par­tic­i­pat­ed in pro­grams clear­ly express­ing his opin­ion and cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly stated:

In actu­al fact I have nev­er and will nev­er sup­port IS/Daesh, in fact I have con­sis­tent­ly like all main­stream Islam­ic schol­ars not only spo­ken out but con­demned IS/Daesh for the mon­stros­i­ty that they are.

The des­per­ate attempts by the spin doc­tors at the Prime Minister’s office at dam­age con­trol, whilst try­ing to con­flate the the­o­ret­i­cal con­cept of an “Islam­ic State” with Daesh are regret­table. Islam­ic schol­ar­ship is a pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sure against extrem­ism. Daesh are in oppo­si­tion to Islam­ic schol­ars like Suli­man, pre­fer­ring their own base­less and dan­ger­ous inter­pre­ta­tion, rather than the tra­di­tion­al schol­ar­ship of Islam.

Dog-whistle Politics!

We appre­ci­ate that the Con­ser­v­a­tive par­ty, want to retain the Lon­don May­oral posi­tion. It is unfor­tu­nate that some with­in the par­ty wish to stoke flames of Islam­o­pho­bia, in order to gar­ner sup­port from spe­cif­ic sec­tions of the population.

We regret that the Con­ser­v­a­tive par­ty have decid­ed to tar­get a main­stream Islam­ic Schol­ar who took the lead in pub­licly denounc­ing and call­ing out Daesh for what it is, a Mon­ster!

We regret that our Prime Min­is­ter The Right Hon­ourable David Cameron has decid­ed to alien­ate and divide peo­ple, by besmirch­ing an estab­lished Islam­ic Schol­ar opposed to Daesh.

We would hope that the leader of the par­ty will cor­rect his false state­ments, and make it clear that the Con­ser­v­a­tive par­ty will not stoop to such low lev­els in attack­ing a com­mu­ni­ty to gar­ner sup­port in future.

We end this state­ment by reit­er­at­ing our sup­port for Suli­man Gani. We sup­port his right to defend his name, hon­our, rep­u­ta­tion and to seek dam­ages and com­pen­sa­tion (where applicable).

Thank You

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David Cameron Apology:

David Cameron has apol­o­gised for “any mis­un­der­stand­ing” after describ­ing a for­mer imam as a sup­port­er of the Islam­ic State group.

Michael Fallon Apology:

Michael Fal­lon has apol­o­gised for sug­gest­ing Mus­lim cler­ic Suli­man Gani was a sup­port­er of Islam­ic State.

BBC Apology: