Abu Usamah at-Thahabi is an

Imam Imam (; , '; : , ') is an Islamic leadership position. For Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslims, Imam is most commonly used as the title of a prayer leader of a mosque. In this context, imams may lead Salah, Islamic prayers, serve as community leaders, ...

at Green Lane Masjid in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

, England. An American national, he converted to

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

and studied at the Salafi-oriented

University of Madinah The Islamic University of Madinah () is a public Islamic university in Medina, Saudi Arabia. Established by King Saud bin Abdulaziz in 1961, Sayy’id Abul Ala Maududi had played a significant role of establishing and running of Islamic Univers ...

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

, an Islamic school popular with converts and international students.

Controversies

The Undercover Mosque

During Abu Usamah's tenure at Green Lane Masjid, he was among a group of preachers whom were the focus of the

Undercover Mosque ''Undercover Mosque'' is a documentary programme produced by the British independent television company Hardcash Productions for the Channel 4 series ''Dispatches (TV series), Dispatches'' that was first broadcast on 15 January 2007 in the UK. ...

program which was first aired on 15 January 2007 by

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

. In the program, Abu Usamah was quoted, among other things, to have said that "Christians and Jews are enemies to Muslims", to have taught that "jihad is coming against the unbelievers", and to have referred to non-Muslims by use of the term "kuffar" which translates to "unbelievers" or people who reject Islam. The story caused backlash that resulted in 364 viewer complaints to

Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, internet, telecommunications and mail, postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-rang ...

. In addition to this, on 10 August 2007 the

West Midlands Police West Midlands Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. The force covers an area of with 2.93million inhabitants, which includes the cities of ...

also raised a formal complaint to

regarding what it considered to be a "completely distorted" view of the intended message by Abu Usamah and the other preachers. However, upon investigation of the matter Ofcom ruled in favour of Channel 4. The West Midlands Police also later apologised for their initial accusation, and offered £100,000 in compensation to Channel 4.

Other Controversies

According to a report by the

Centre for Social Cohesion The Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC) was a right-wing British think tank with its headquarters in London. Founded in 2007 as part of another London think tank, Civitas, it became independent in 2008 and was eventually subsumed into a separate Lon ...

, Usamah "advocates holy war in an Islamic state; preaches hatred against non-Muslims; that apostasy and homosexuality are punishable by death; and that women are inferior to men", following an undercover recording of him preaching to his congregation which featured in a

'' Dispatches'' episode on radical Islam at British universities. During the documentary, Usamah also praised

Osama bin Laden Osama bin Laden (10 March 19572 May 2011) was a militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, Bin Laden participated in the Afghan ''mujahideen'' against the Soviet Union, and support ...

, and defended his right to freedom of expression, saying: "If I were to call homosexuals perverted, dirty, filthy dogs who should be murdered, that's my freedom of speech, isn't it?" Usamah also stated that "He (

) is better than a million George Bushs, he's better than a thousand Tony Blairs." Usamah was invited to speak at events held by

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

's Islamic Society on 1 February 2008 and 6 September 2009. He was invited to speak at the same venue on 30 November 2009, but the event was cancelled due to pressure from gay rights and anti-extremism campaign groups. In February 2013, he was invited to speak at the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public research university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as the University Extension College, Reading, an extension college of Christchurch College, Oxford, and became University College, ...

, but the event was cancelled by the university after threats of violence. In 2012, Usamah was accused of sexually harassing Muslim women, but a mosque spokesman 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.”

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Usamah, Abu Living people American imams Islamic University of Madinah alumni American expatriates in England Converts to Islam 1964 births