Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary has sent the following letter to over a thousand Muslim community ‘leaders’.

We strongly support the request from the Communities Secretary to these Muslim leaders asking them to denounce violence and to say that they are proud to be British and uphold and promote values such as democracy, freedom of expression without insulting or offending others, respect for all religions and religious leaders, and equality of opportunity for all communities regardless of colour, creed or nationality.

It is unfortunate that most Muslim leaders failed to positively respond to his message. It is even more unfortunate that, except for this Islamic organisation, all others teach their members and the children under their care that Muslims are superior to all other humans and that jihad means forcible conversion of non-Muslims to Islam or to kill them.

The government has promoted faith schools which promote such deplorable values and continues to finance them. Although TV channels have been fined for broadcasting extremist programmes from overseas, this is not enough. More effective measures need to be taken against all organisations, which poison our society by promoting hate and bigotry.

From the printing of the book The British Government and Jihad published 125 years ago by the founder of this organisation, to the book Islam Peace and Tolerance recently published by us, we have continued to preach a message of respect and harmony between the communities.

Shahid Aziz, President of the UK branch of the worldwide Ahmadiyya Associations for propagation of Islam, said:

It is high time we developed a world vision of Islam for this age. We need pure Islam that is free from cultural and historical baggage, based on the Holy Quran and actions of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (s). A vision that is not founded on the interpretations of some well meaning jurists who appeared hundreds of years ago. They developed a vision of Islam for their time and country. Let us now do so for our time and our country and be proud to be British.