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Madrassa Tells Girls to Have Babies, Not Careers, Sparking Fury at UK Academy

A madrassa has had its contract terminated by Langley Academy in Slough after lecturers told Muslim girls to have children rather than careers, prompting backlash in the UK.
Sputnik

Netizens found the recording on social media which showed an IslamHood class with Shaykh Shams ad-Duha Muhammad making the comments, where he told an audience of young girls that "smart career women give it up to have children".

He also told Slough and Eton School in early 2015 that working women should "say sorry because you're not a mum, because you're delaying that one thing that you would actually take fulfilment from." The video was recently deleted from the organisation's YouTube page.

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The news on Al-Miftah Institute's 'IslamHood' Sunday school class follows complaints made from the general public and National Secular Society that the curriculum kept controversial views on homosexuality, in addition to calling non-Muslims "pigs".

IslamHood also hosted Yusuf Chambers, who in 2013 said that homosexuality was a "sin" and Muslims "ponder that issue with the gay gene".

Mr. Chambers spoke alongside Imram Ibn Mansur, or Dawah Man, at an event in 2015. Mr. Mansur infamously posted a video to Facebook in 2017 calling YouTubers without hijabs "sinful" and non-Muslims "pigs", as well as "kafir" or "infidels".

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Shams Ad-Duha Muhammad, who also attended the 2015 event, called homosexuality "a vice among vices" in 2013 and insinuated that the HIV and AIDS epidemic were due to "general moral decline".

Who Has Responded?

"We fully support the government's Prevent Strategy," a Langley Academy spokesperson said.

"Therefore we take any allegations that extremist views or ideology might be being promoted on our premises extremely seriously. We were deeply concerned when a complaint was first raised with the Trust about Islamhood's Weekend School in December."

"We have carried out an in-depth investigation and the lettings agreement with Islamhood has been terminated with immediate effect."

Al-Miftah Institute and IslamHood founder Moshin Ashraf said as quoted by the Telegraph that his organisations supported freedom of speech "by and large". But he slammed Langley Academy for not probing "the circumstances surrounding how the speakers in question were invited" in depth.

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"A number of inconsistent and malicious claims have been made against the speakers invited by IslamHood and by extension, against IslamHood itself," he said.

But Stephen Evans, CEO of the National Secular Society said in a press release that he welcomed Langley Academy's decision to terminate Al-Miftah's contract, adding that schools "shouldn't be providing a platform for groups seeking to indoctrinate impressionable young minds with extremist ideology".

"IslamHood has a history of hosting lectures for young people with well-known extremist speakers. In some of these lectures, speakers have said disbelievers and Muslims who have non-Muslim friends will burn in Hell, criticised Muslims who let their children go to university, and condemned the fundamental values of liberty and equality.

"It is inappropriate and potentially harmful to allow a group that endorses these messages to use an academy for hosting weekend classes for children," Mr. Evans continued.

He added that schools working with third parties "must be aware that some groups may have an agenda that contradicts the school's ethos, and develop a strategy to prevent themselves from being exploited", adding that schools needed support in resisting pressure from religious groups, and should uphold "their own values and ethos".

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