Virgin Mary Wore a Hijab, Council Staff Told

The Virgin Mary “wore a hijab”, showing Islam’s attitude to women does not conflict with Western values, council staff who handle anti-terror work have been told in a talk about Islamophobia. The Telegraph has more.

In a talk about Islamophobia, North Yorkshire council staff who handle anti-terror work were taught that Islam’s attitude to women did not conflict with Western values.

An example used was that “Mother Mary wore a hijab”.

The lecture was part of a publicly funded training programme titled Project Unity, which the Telegraph understands has also been presented to students, police officers and civil servants responsible for the counter-extremism Prevent programme.

The presentation also said that “Jesus grew a beard”, as Muslim men are instructed to, and stated that “the hijab was prevalent in the UK only 100 years ago”, with images showing shawls common in early 20th-century Britain. These have no relation to Islam.

No images of either Mary or Jesus were made for centuries after their lifetimes, and Jesus was initially depicted as a beardless youth.

As a Jewish woman in the 1st century, it is likely that Mary wore a head covering, and she is often depicted in later artworks with some kind of shawl or veil. She lived 600 years before the advent of Islam and the codification of rules around the hijab, which today refers to a scarf that covers the hair.

The Project Unity training was delivered by Abbas Najib, a former police officer and now the Chief Executive of the Better Communities Bradford charity.

Since 2019, the charity has received £490,000 in public funding from the National Lottery Communities Fund, including a £35,000 grant to roll out Project Unity, a series of lectures designed to tackle Islamophobia and concerns that Muslim beliefs are antithetical to British values.

Material includes defences of Sharia, which is said to be no different to Christian doctrine, with slides stating: “Sharia is not a foreign threat. It is a moral tradition – like any other – shaped by faith, reason and a commitment to human dignity.”

It adds that one element of Islamic jurisprudence requires that “children cannot be struck on the face, cannot be marked, and must freely consent to marriage”.

Slides also defend pro-Palestinian marches, which are said in the talks to be “protesting genocide”.

On Tuesday, the Telegraph revealed that an institutional talk based on this Project Unity material was delivered to North Yorkshire Police officers at a hate crime conference last year.

In footage of the talk, Najib lectured attendees about Nigel Farage, comparing the Reform UK leader’s opinions – specifically his doubts about the compatibility of Islam with British values – to a racially aggravated offence.

Well, as long as the children are freely consenting to marriage, that’s alright then…

Worth reading in full.