Beneath a basketball net in a freezing sports hall, a Muslim cleric is waging war on Islamic extremism. According to a report in The Observer, Imam Shaheed Satardien is taking a stand against those Muslims in Ireland whom he claims are too sympathetic to Osama Bin Laden and the cult of the suicide bomber. At Friday prayers in the sports hall in northwest Dublin, the South African-born former anti-apartheid activist warns his multinational congregation against blaming other religions and the West in general for all Muslims’ ills. Cast out by the majority Islamic community in Dublin for his outspokenness, the 50-year-old preacher says he has received death threats. “I am standing firm in my beliefs,” Satardien says. “The truth is more important than being popular or living a quiet life. Extremism has infected Islam in Ireland. It’s time to get back to the spiritual aspect of my religion and stop it being used as a political weapon.”
The imam from Cape Town fled his native country following death threats, he says, from Islamic extremists in South Africa. His younger brother, Ibrahim, was shot dead in 1998 after a row with Islamic radicals in the city. When Satardien was told he would be next, he travelled to Ireland and pleaded for asylum, the report said.