The mayor of the town Oldham by Manchester in northern England is a Muslim, and he recently opened a council meeting with a request to an imam to lead the room in prayer.

Just for the moment, let’s forget about what would happen to a Christian in England who wanted to open an official meeting with a prayer. Assuming, of course, that you could find a believing Christian elected to public office. Even in USA, Christians who want to include prayers in public meetings are increasingly under siege from militant atheists.

The English-language portions of the imam’s prayer included the usual abrogated verses that are a taqiyya staple in “interfaith” circles. But what about the Arabic parts? As we have reported in the past, Islamic prayers typically include a recitation of Koran 1:7, the final verse of The Fatiha. 1:7 mentions two groups of people who have failed to win the favor of Allah: those who have incurred his wrath, and those who have “gone astray” or are “misguided”. Authentic hadith quote Mohammed as saying that the former are the Jews, and the latter are the Christians.

Did the imam in Oldham by Manchester recite Koran 1:7, or something similar? In any case, you can actually hear an English paraphrase of that verse in part of his prayer!

If you understand Arabic and can make out what he says, please leave a summary in the comments.

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading this video: