Abdur Raheem Green
Abdur Raheem Green (born: Anthony Waclaw Gavin Green; 1964), is a British convert to Islam Muslims
know him in some Muslim communities for his work in Dawah, both in televised formal settings
and informal contexts such as Hyde Park’s Speakers Corner. He is the chairman of IERA, the Islamic Education and Research Academy.
Early life
Initially, Green was born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Previously, his father was a colonial administrator in the British Empire and his mother is Polish. His father was agnostic and his mother a devout Roman Catholic. Therefore, Green grew up in the Roman Catholic faith from a young age.
Basically, Green attended a Monastic Roman Catholic boarding school, St Martin’s Ampleforth at Gilling Castle, and then Ampleforth College. When he was 11, his father took a job in Cairo, and so Green would travel to stay there during
his school holidays.
He studied history at the University of London, but did not complete his degree because of a
growing disillusionment with what he regarded as the Eurocentric teaching of the British educational system.prevc
Conversion to Islam
At a young age, Green began to question his Roman Catholic upbringing. However, at the age of 19, he stated that
he would “vigorously defend” the faith, even though he did not actually believe in it. He also practiced Buddhism for nearly three years, though never formally embraced it. In 1987, Green first became interested in Islam, picking up his first copy of the Qur’an. He embraced Islam in 1988.
Personl life
Green has ten children. Whilst claiming two wives, Green was asked in the interview whether British law prohibits bigamy. Green responded: “It does. Yet several Britishers are bigamists.” He mistakenly claimed “But those who practice bigamy can protect the second marriage under the provisions of ‘common law wives’. Under this, children out of such marriages are legitimate and wives inherit property.”
controversies
In 2005, the authorities banned Green from boarding a flight with a stopover in Brisbane because he appeared on
the Australian government’s “movement alert list”. This was for extreme views, “including that Muslims and
westerners cannot live peaceably together and that dying while fighting jihad is one of the surest ways to paradise
and Allah’s good pleasure.” Some Australian Muslims argued that the Government had gone too far by stopping
a man whose views they claim are now moderate. In February 2009, the BBC current affairs programme Panorama reported that the Metropolitan Police had asked Green for advice. Green said that he was “part of the solution” to extremism,
and that “participating in terrorist activities, violent revolution – is not something that I have ever thought
was part of the religion of Islam.” the press reported in 2010 that Green had given a two hour lecture
at University College London’s Islamic Society on 23 November 2005, in which Green said that though
Osama Bin Laden’s terrorist strategy was rational, Islam did not support it. In October 2011, the authorities
banned Green from giving a scheduled lecture at Concordia University in Canada after concerns were over
statements that he allegedly made about how men may treat their wives. In July 2012, the authorities banned Green from the Emirates stadium of Arsenal F.C. In May 2014, the Telegraph reported that the IERA chairs were investigating Green by the Charity
Commission “amid allegations that its leaders promote anti-Semitism and have called for stoning homosexuals and female adulterers to death.” The Telegraph reported that they have caught Green “on camera preaching at Hyde Park Corner, calling for
removing a Jewish man to from his sight. ‘Why don’t you take the Yahoudi [Jew] over there, far away so his
stench doesn’t disturb us?’ They can hear him say.” In 2015, They asked him to withdraw from speaking at an
event Against Racism, Against Hatred held at St James’ Park, Newcastle.
