The Religious Policeman

I often find myelf being accused of being "anti-Muslim"; an irony for someone who is himself a Muslim. However, it is true that I get very angry with the extreme zealots and fanatics who have hijacked much of my religion and used it for their own evil purposes, and are causing trouble all around the world. I also get very frustrated with the "silent majority" of Muslims who allow this to happen.

So I was therefore pleased to read this small piece of news from a small town in the North of England, and incidentally home to one of the 7/7 London bombers.

Jihad videos left in mosques in tube bomber's town

The headline, of course, is bad news. Some vermin had scuttled into a mosque and left its droppings, with Jihadi propaganda tapes and DVD's placed alongside the genuine religious material.

The tape is understood to show scenes of violence against Muslims, including footage of funeral processions and burials from Iraq overlaid by verses from the Qur'an. Along with others, it was left with genuine religious material at the mosque's reception area in sleeves allegedly disguised to suggest that the contents were celebratory sermons and texts

However, the good news is that worshippers at the mosque, instead of "keeping it to themselves" or "keeping it within the community", showed that they rejected its message, didn't want their young people polluted by it, felt themselves to be responsible members of the wider community, and handed the material into the police.

Detectives from the West Yorkshire force are examining a videotape handed in by worshippers in Dewsbury, who were concerned that young people were being targeted by the anonymous drop at two mosques in the Savile Town area.

Now I appreciate that this is an extremely small step, a very small act of common sense and decency. It's going to take hundreds of thousands of such steps in thousands of places, world-wide, before things really improve. But, as someone once said, "The longest journey starts with a single step".