An extremist preacher from Birmingham, who has a record of uttering what British law defines as “hate speech,” has encouraged Muslims to engage in proactive jihad to prevent being wiped out by white people.
Asrar Rashid’s comments are disgraceful. He plays on identity politics and a deep sense of victimhood. No sensible person should really listen to what he has to say.
In a lecture at the Nottingham Islamic Center, Shaykh Asrar Rashid tells his audience to engage in “offensive jihad” by taking up arms, defending themselves, and carrying out “preemptive strikes” wherever such attacks are needed.
Rashid posted the video of his talk to his X and YouTube pages on September 24. The preacher’s discourse triggered outrage in early October after social media users posted inflammatory clips from the video, questioning the authorities’ failure to arrest Rashid.
“U.K. police are refusing to arrest a Nottingham imam after he called for Muslims in the U.K. and other white nations to take up arms in jihad to carry out preemptive strikes against white people and white nations,” British Sikh activist Harman Singh Kapoor posted on X.
Preacher Justifies Jihad Against ‘White Man’
Rashid defined jihad as “removing oppression” in his video. “Wherever there is oppression, what people like Tommy Robinson have to realize is that Muslims do not want to be exterminated like the Aborigines in Australia,” he declaimed, referencing the British activist who reported on the “grooming gangs” involving predominantly Pakistani Muslim men.
“Why is this caveman addressing me and calling for jihad from a mosque in Nottingham?” Robinson asked, posting a clip from Rashid’s video on X. Robinson’s tweet has received 1.4 million views to date.
The Islamist preacher, who has authored several books currently sold on Amazon, including Intellectual Intifada: Blueprint for Restoring the Caliphate, warned that “Muslims do not want to be wiped out” like the Maori in New Zealand or the Aborigines in Australia.
It was the “white man” who “carried out massacres and genocides” not only against the Maori and Aborigines but also against indigenous peoples in Canada and the U.S., and “attempts to carry out these genocides today in Gaza,” he asserted.
Rashid explained that “the deen [way of life] of Islam has legislated jihad [so] that wherever anyone attempts to carry out genocide, then Allah Subhanahu has commanded the Muslims, do not permit them to carry out genocide,” but proactively strike wherever needed.
Cleric’s Record of Call for Jihad
The preacher, who later claimed that Robinson took his words out of context, has made similar statements on other occasions.
“We take up armed struggle and we are not ashamed of it,” he said at a pro-Palestinian march in Birmingham on July 12, using an antisemitic trope to refer to Israel as the “bankers’ state.” The “deep state” created “terrorist organizations” to defame jihad, he added.
“We have jihad in our Qur’an, and jihad is standing up against oppression,” he argued. “When real jihad is carried out, people malign the real jihad because they will equate those real jihad groups with terrorist groups.”
“Asrar Rashid’s comments are disgraceful. He plays on identity politics and a deep sense of victimhood. No sensible person should really listen to what he has to say,” Fiyaz Mughal OBE, founder of Tell MAMA, told Focus on Western Islamism (FWI).
Mughal elaborated:
One of the problems is that anyone who takes on the role of an ‘imam’ does not necessarily possess the life skills or the ability to bring people together, yet they often hold influential positions in education. My view is that imams should stick to what they know—giving religious sermons and serving congregations. They should stay out of politics because some of them, like Rashid, make things worse.
Hate Speech Against Jews
The Islamist cleric has a history of antisemitic speech and even showcases clips of Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson on his Telegram channel to reinforce his discourse.
Muslims may call the Jews “monkeys and pigs,” Rashid insisted in a July 24 workshop on Palestine for imams and activists: “So if a Muslim is at war with Benjamin Netanyahu, and he says: ‘You monkey, you pig, you worshipper of false gods’—that would be permitted.”
“If you ever travel to Tel Aviv, and you call them ‘monkeys and pigs,’ you’re allowed. It is not antisemitism. You are referring to them as monkeys and pigs because they are occupying the land, and they need to leave the land, or remain and pay the jizya [tax on Jews and Christians],” he stated, noting that the context of the derogatory terms is “when the Prophet Muhammad invades one of their fortresses and addressed (sic) them as such.”
A day after a jihadi attacked a synagogue in Manchester and killed two Jews, Rashid posted a video condemning ulema (Muslim scholars) who called for dua (prayer) for British Jews. “Have some shame,” he said. “We want to smash Zionism. We call for a one-state solution, which is a Palestinian state.”
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism told FWI:
The Manchester terrorist attack has yet again shone a light on Islamist radicalization in Britain. Many mosques are charities or owned by charities regulated by the Charity Commission. It’s time the Commission severely sanctions any mosque that employs or hosts radical preachers who promote antisemitic Islamism.
Police Fail to Act Against Hate Preacher
Nottinghamshire Police did not respond to a query from FWI asking if they had investigated the video for “hate speech.” Rashid has issued a fresh video claiming that “the Nottingham Police found nothing wrong in that lecture.”
In a statement to FWI, the Crown Prosecution Service said: “We can only prosecute cases once a full file has been sent to us by an investigative police force for a charging decision. It is not our role to simply ‘bring cases’ against people; it must be done through the proper channels.”
In July, the Charity Commission issued an order disqualifying Harun Abdur Rashid Holmes, a trustee of the Nottingham Islam Information Point, for an inflammatory sermon containing language such as: “The hour will not begin until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims will kill them until a Jew hides behind a rock or a tree.”
The order prohibits Holmes from serving as a trustee or holding any senior management position in a charity in England or Wales for three years.
Nottinghamshire Police did not confirm if they have opened an investigation into Holmes, despite complaints from Jewish groups and the Charity Commission confirming they had reported him to the authorities, Jewish News reported. FWI has reached out to Nottingham Islamic Center for comment and will publish its response when and if it is received.
