This is the Letter, the Article and the Apology which the Evening Standard refused to print :

The Letter

Dear Editor,

Re: Formal Complaint concerning articles by Robert Mendick; ‘Terror and hatred for sale just yards from Baker St’ (Evening Standard afternoon edition, 28th July 2005) and ‘Terror and hatred for sale in the heart of capital’ (Evening Standard late edition, 28th July 2005)

I write to express my shock and outrage at reading the above named articles. I do not propose to comment on all aspects of the article. I believe it is only proper that I comment on those parts of the article that concern Dar Al Taqwa. I would like to begin by emphasising that Dar Al Taqwa has been selling a wide range of books on Islam for the last 21 years. We have always been sure to stock the works of reliable and balanced authors, whose efforts are concerned with accurately transmitting the essential teachings of Islam which are concerned primarily with knowledge of and worship of the Creator of the Universe. The five pillars of Islam are concerned entirely with worship of the Divine : the double affirmation that there is no god except God and that Muhammad is the messenger of God, blessings and peace be on him; the five daily prayers; the fast of Ramadan; the payment of the Zakat tax on surplus wealth (for re-distribution amongst the poor); the pilgrimage to Makka – these are all acts of worship which result in a heart at peace in this world and Paradise in the next world. We have always promoted literature which encourages people to be law-abiding citizens from whose hands and whose tongues everyone is safe. As regards your articles, I would like to make the following points: Title of article, picture of Dar Al Taqwa and Books / DVDs / publications The caption next to the publications you have depicted states ‘Uncomfortable reading: Books and DVDs advocating terrorism in the name of Islam are available in West end bookshops such as Dar Al Taqwa above.’

1. Dar Al Taqwa has never sold or retained any of the depicted publications in its shop. Your statement therefore is factually incorrect and at the very best is grossly misleading. You failed to mention in your caption quoted above what shop these publications were actually bought from, yet you have clearly stated that such publications are available from Dar Al Taqwa knowing this statement to be completely false. You know your statement was false, as your reporter, Mr Mendick, personally attended our premises prior to writing his article.

2. Not only has Dar Al Taqwa never stocked these depicted publications, but also to the best of my knowledge, the speaker whose image appears under the title ‘Terrorism in the Name of Islam’, Dr Zakir Naik, has always spoken out against acts of terrorism, not in favour of them.

3. Your headline ‘Terror and hatred for sale’ is not only false but has in fact incited ‘hatred’ against employees of Dar Al Taqwa in particular and undoubtedly Muslims in general. This irresponsible and ill-considered choice of words, especially in the context of recent events, has resulted in the Evening Standard selling and inciting terror and hatred. Since the time your newspaper was put out for sale we have continuously received a barrage of abusive, racist and threatening telephone calls. This is not surprising given that you lied in your article and given the fact that you have displayed our telephone number clearly in the photograph next to the caption starting with the words ‘Terror and hatred for sale.’

4. As a result of the false statements, portrayal of Dar Al Taqwa with the heading ‘Terror and hatred…’ and the portrayal of publications wrongly said to be available at Dar Al Taqwa, I and my employees are now in fear of verbal and physical abuse, to the extent that we invited the Metropolitan Police yesterday to attend our premises to discuss this matter further. The police officers who attended were no less shocked and appalled than us with the contents and tone of your article. Your articles have made their job more difficult.

5. We do not know if you timed your article to coincide with the weekend BNP march which is due to take place over the weekend and which will pass by Baker Street. However the police have promised us extra security and protection during this time.

6. One further point to note is that both your sensationalist journalist Mr. Mendick and your photographer intentionally failed to observe the numerous posters we have in our shop window which unreservedly condemn terrorism, including the ‘Not in our Name’ posters. The posters can clearly be seen in the photograph although they only appear as plain white sheets of paper with pink highlight markings. The pink highlighted parts were the ‘Not in our Name’ captions, highlighted by us, to reinforce the ‘Not in our Name’ statement. It would have been interesting to see what response you would have received from the public had you taken an accurate photograph displaying our posters and published this photo as opposed to the one you have, together with your false caption ‘Terror and hatred…’. No doubt the public would then have been in a better position to question the veracity of the allegations made in your article in the light of the obvious contradiction between what we have been doing and what you allege. I have enclosed a copy of one of our posters for your information.

7. It is very clear that you have not only lied in your article thereby slandering and libelling the reputation of Dar Al Taqwa, but you have also incited racial hatred against both its staff and Muslims in general. Specific reference to Dar Al Taqwa in the body of the article You have stated: ‘The evening standard bought two pamphlets on jihad from the Dar Al Taqwa bookshop in Melcombe Street, close to Baker Street. One, simply called Jihad and written by a Pakistani scholar, seemingly sanctions the killing of women and children. “Those women, old men or children who spy (for the enemy) in the war or take part in the war in some other way, may be killed during the war to protect Muslims from their mischief,” says the pamphlet’. In other words the author of the pamphlet has stated that it is permissible to kill spies during a time of war.

The word ‘seemingly’ is used by Mr Mendick because he must have been aware that he was intentionally quoting out of context. The pamphlet makes it clear that jihad is to be waged when a community is attacked. This principle of acting in self-defence is common to all systems of law. For example, the police are presently waging war on would-be suicide bombers as an act of self defence following the cowardly and totally unacceptable bombings on the 7th July 2005. They are operating a shoot to kill policy where the lives of others are endangered by a suspect. This quote is one ruling taken from a chapter of fifteen rulings regarding warfare. What Mr. Mendick failed to include was the second half of this ruling, written in the paragraph that followed. I shall include it for your own reading: “However, if children are arrested then it is not allowed to kill them after their arrest even if they may have participated openly in the war because once they are arrested no danger is expected from them. And if they were put to death that would have been for their past deeds while Shari’ah does not permit punishment of children.” The ruling for the category of people who do not participate in war, that is innocent people, can clearly be found on the 2 pages following the page from which Mr Mendick quoted, where it states that it is forbidden to kill innocent people who are not involved in warfare (in today’s terminology, referred to as ‘collateral damage’): “Even during the heat of fighting, it is not allowed to kill those disbelievers who do not take part in the war, like young children, women, old people, the handicapped, the blind, lunatics and those occupied in worship in temples or other places of worship provided they are not taking part in war. When the Prophet (peace be upon him) saw a woman’s body killed in a battle, he expressed immense sorrow and said, “She was not the one who fights. Why was she killed?” This ruling applies to the murder of innocent non-combatants anywhere, whether it be the London underground, or the streets of Baghdad, or a wedding party in the hills of Afghanistan. This pamphlet also explains how it is forbidden to mutilate the bodies of those killed in battle: “It is not allowed to mutilate bodies of even those persons whom it is allowed to kill in jihad. The Prophet (peace be upon him) disallowed this.” It even explains that a prisoner of war may not be subjugated to hunger or thirst by Muslims: “It is not allowed to subject war prisoners who come to Muslim hands to hunger and thirst.” This pamphlet does not incite ‘terror or hatred’. It simply outlines rules of engagement in times of war. It was highly irresponsible of Mr Mendick to twist and distort a few words from the pamphlet out of context in order to add fuel to a fire of his own making – and even more irresponsible of you to publish this article without first checking its accuracy and veracity. Retraction Your article has not only slandered and libelled an innocent company but it has caused distress to several persons who are all British citizens as well as inciting racial and religious hatred generally. It is your legal and social responsibility to make it clear that Dar Al Taqwa does not sell publications urging Muslims to wage holy war with bombs, that Dar Al Taqwa does not and has never sold the publications depicted in your article, and lastly that the quote you used from the pamphlet ‘Jihad’ was taken completely out of context.

I accordingly request that you publish this letter in its entirety in all the Monday editions of the Evening Standard as well as publishing an unreserved apology both to the staff of Dar Al Taqwa and to the Metropolitan Police for all the trouble which you have caused. The Evening Standard has a wide readership. It has the power to do great good or great harm. I invite you to avoid publishing poisonous articles and to promote good community relations. Insofar as your articles are designed to assist in bringing murderers or would be murderers to justice, whether they be Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs or atheists, you have my unqualified support - but if you wish to tar the very many law abiding Muslims of this country with the brush of the extremism of the very few, then I condemn this just as much as I condemn the labelling of all Christians as terrorists because of the actions of the IRA or Timothy McVeigh.

Yours Sincerely Mr. Samir El-Attar Managing Director cc. PS Paul McIntyre, The Metropolitan Police

The Article

Sweetness and Light in Melcombe Street

Some media organisations have established a reputation for mis-representing the teachings of Islam and the Muslims who seek to embody them and have predictably taken advantage of the justifiable outrage caused by the recent July bombings in London to tar the very many law abiding Muslims of this country with the brush of the extremism of the very few (even though they had never gone so far before in the past as to label all Christians as terrorists because of the bombings of the IRA or Timothy McVeigh) – but I was nevertheless amazed and shocked to read an article in the Thursday 28th July 2005 edition of the Evening Standard which accused Dar Al Taqwa of peddling terror and hatred “just yards from Baker Street” and of “urging Muslims to wage a holy war by arming themselves with bombs and guns”. As well as displaying a photograph of the Dar Al Taqwa shop front including its telephone and fax numbers, the article printed photos of three book or video covers directly below which it claimed are “advocating terrorism in the name of Islam” and are “available in West End bookshops such as Dar Al Taqwa above”. Now I had been visiting Dar Al Taqwa regularly ever since it opened some 21 years ago and in my experience it had always stocked a wide selection of good quality books, including its own publications, on the teachings of Islam. More often than not whenever I visited, I would be plied with greetings and glasses of sweet tea, but no one had ever invited me to take up arms against a sea of troubles and end them with bombs and guns – and none of the books I had leafed through or purchased at Dar Al Taqwa advocated such extreme measures, measures which are usually justified by cowardly politicians who assert that it is necessary to kill tens of thousands of civilians overseas in order to enforce peace. I had certainly never seen any of the three book or video covers pictured in the article on sale at Dar Al Taqwa, although I did recognize the photograph of Dr Zakir Naik on one of them as being a man who has always spoken out against acts of terrorism, whoever the perpetrators, and I have no doubt that this in fact is the message of this video.

When I visited Dar Al-Taqwa the next day I was not surprised to receive my customary greetings and cups of tea – nor was I surprised to learn that none of the three said book or video covers had ever been on sale at Dar Al Taqwa, nor was I surprised to learn that ever since the article had been published, there had been a marked decrease in customers entering the shop and a stream of abusive and threatening phone calls which had necessitated the police having to be called in order to ensure extra surveillance and protection of the shop and its staff. Not only was the article defamatory and inaccurate but in the name of being tough on terrorism it had irresponsibly put the staff of Dar Al Taqwa in fear of their own physical safety, damaged its business and incited racial and religious hatred against Muslims in general. It had also put extra demands on a police force whose members already have more than enough to deal with as it is. After receiving a detailed letter of complaint which the paper was unwilling to publish, the general editor of the Evening Standard did agree to publish this article as well as an unreserved apology by way of making amends and in order to help put the record straight. Not only did the seasoned Evening Standard reporter who had visited Dar Al Taqwa before writing his article intentionally misrepresent “the facts”, but also his article did not picture or mention the “Not in Our Name” poster which had been on display in the shop window ever since it was published in the media on the 21st July 2005 and which not only condemns the terrible atrocities of July 7th in London and rejects anyone who “tries to link such brutal acts to the teachings of Islam”, but also urges the media and politicians especially to “maintain the values of our open society, free from prejudice, sustained by tolerance and mutual respect”. Instead his article sought to insinuate the exact opposite – that even mainstream Islamic bookshops such as Dar Al Taqwa encourage terrorism. As regards the kind of books which Dar Al Taqwa actually does stock and has always stocked, these are all concerned with providing accurate accounts by reliable scholars of the teachings of Islam – which are concerned first and foremost with knowledge and worship of the Creator of the Universe. The five obligatory pillars of Islam are concerned entirely with worship of the Divine : the double affirmation that there is no god except God and that Muhammad is the messenger of God, blessings and peace be on him; the five daily prayers; the fast of Ramadan; the payment of the 2.5% Zakat tax on surplus wealth (for re-distribution amongst the poor); and the pilgrimage to Makka – these are all acts of worship which Muslims believe result in a heart at peace in this world and Paradise in the next world. Dar Al Taqwa stocks copies of the Qur’an, the book which was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad by the angel Jibril (Gabriel), in the original Arabic and in translation. In it, for example, God states, “I only created mankind and the jinn to worship Me,” and, “Only in the remembrance of God do hearts find rest.” Many of the books record how the prophet Muhammad lived and what he said, including his words, “The Muslim is the one from whose hand and whose tongue you are safe,” and, “You are not a Muslim until you want for others what you want for your self,” and, “You are not a believer until you prefer for others what you want for your self.” Some of the books are concerned with the history of the Muslims during the last fourteen centuries and others are about Sufism, the inner dimension of Islam, which was defined by one Muslim saint, Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib, as, “Loving God and being kind to all creatures, even the smallest insect.” Other books describe the teachings and lives of the earlier prophets, including Moses and Jesus, blessings and peace be on all of them, whom all practising Muslims accept and respect as the messengers of God who preceded the prophet Muhammad.

In conclusion, if you would genuinely like to learn more about the teachings of Islam, which literally means “submission to the will of God”, you will find a fine and wide selection of books at Dar Al Taqwa. If you want to learn about murder and mayhem, search elsewhere. And in case you’ve been wondering, “Dar” means “house” and “Taqwa” means “awe and wonder” – not because of the terrifying impact of deadly daisy-cutters, bunker busters and napalm bombs exploding all around you with laser precision, nor because of the malignant cancers caused by the haphazard use of armour piercing radioactive depleted uranium tipped shells – but because of the dawning realisation that the One Who created the entire cosmos and everything in it including you is closer to you than your jugular vein. Peace.

By Ahmad Thomson, Author and Barrister, embraced Islam in 1973.

The Suggested Draft Apology