Hassan Butt - Current Views

Current Views

In a 180 degree about turn, Butt now argues that, "The fact is that Muslims in Britain are citizens of this country. We are no longer migrants in a Land of Unbelief. For my generation, we were born here, raised here, schooled here, we work here and we'll stay here. But more than that, on a historically unprecedented scale, Muslims in Britain have been allowed to assert their religious identity through clothing, the construction of mosques, the building of cemeteries and equal rights in law."

Butt now warns that thousands of young Muslims are preparing to unleash fresh "terror atrocities" on Britain's streets. In May 2007, Butt told the News of the World that, "It's sad but we WILL have more atrocities like 7/7 because there are tens of thousands of Muslims who still support violence." Following the 2007 Glasgow International Airport attack, Butt appeared on Newsnight where he alleged that "most Muslims" believed that terrorist activity attracts divine pleasure and admission to paradise and that "anything that is not an Islamic way of life" is a legitimate target for attack.

Butt now calls on the West to take on radicals and violent extremists, arguing that, "Muslim scholars must go back to the books and come forward with a refashioned set of rules and a revised understanding of the rights and responsibilities of Muslims whose homes and souls are firmly planted in what I'd like to term the Land of Co-existence."