A Birmingham Imam has said that Muslims should not fight in the British armed forces on conscientious grounds due to their presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Shaykh Asrar Rashid, a visiting cleric at the city’s mosques, also told the BBC the Queen was “a disgusting woman” for knighting author Salman Rushdie.
In 1989 Iran’s leaders called for the death of Mr Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses, deemed “blasphemous”. The Muslim Council of Britain said the Imam’s views were not representative.
