Current Affairs

Muslim radio host Maajid Nawaz slams caller who believes homosexuality should be punished with stoning

Sep 18 2017
Written by Meka Beresford

Symbolic stoning of the devil ceremony in Saudi Arabia

(Photo by KARIM SAHIB/AFP/Getty Images)

Muslim radio host Maajid Nawaz has slammed a caller who insisted that homosexuality should be punished with stoning.

The caller, Aisha, phoned into Nawaz’s LBC show this morning while he was holding a discussion around how to combat terrorism and Islamist ideology.

Aisha told Nawaz that she did not “exactly agree with liberal views” and that she considered “homosexuality to be sinful”.

Nawaz asked the caller if she “aspired to a Sharia state that will criminalise and outlaw homosexuality” to which she agreed that she did.

“You aspire to a caliphate that would criminalise and punish homosexuality. Do you aspire one day to a Shari compliant state that would punish adultery?

“If it the necessary principles were in place then I would agree with that,” Aisha answered. “I think adultery is disgusting.”

Nawaz went on to ask her what she believed the punishment should be for homosexuality or adultery.

However, the caller tries to skirt around the question but Nawaz doesn’t let her avoid answering.

“It’s stoning to death, I’m not trying to avoid your question,” she finally says.

The host clarified: “You believe in stoning people to death?”

“It’s in the Sharia,” Aisha confirmed. “In principle. But I don’t believe it would ever happen.”

Nawaz launched into a rant about why the caller’s belief did nothing but harm public opinion of Muslims.

He began: “You’ve just demonstrated why you and people like you can never be part of the solution.

“That’s worse than the BNP, the BNP don’t believe in murdering people for mistakes or choices they make in their personal lives.

“People like you will never be part of the solution until you abandon those ideas.”

The host went on to explain that he would continue to have a conversation with people who hold the same beliefs as Aisha, but that it could never be “part of the solution”.

“The ideas and values you believe are worse than Tommy Robinson’s. They’re worse than the EDL. They’re definitely worse than the populist right, Trump, the BNP because these people don’t go around advocating by law murdering people for personal choices.

“They may have unpalatable ideas but you idealise murdering people for making personal individual choices that happen not to agree with your definition of God’s law and that can never be part of the solution,” he finished.