Private school chief linked to Islam Trojan Horse plot says: Stone all adulterers to death

Fees at the school where boys and girls are segregated are £1,800

School chairman claims fornication should be punished with 100 lashes



Ibrahim Hewitt runs the controversial Leicester school with his wife Adeba



A Muslim hardliner who says adulterers should be stoned to death and that gay men and fornicators should be lashed 100 times has set up an Islamic school that has received almost £1million of taxpayers’ money.

Ibrahim Hewitt, one of Britain’s most prominent Islamic firebrands – who also heads a charity branded a ‘terrorist’ organisation by the US – is the founder and chairman of trustees of the Al-Aqsa school in Leicester, which teaches 250 boys and girls aged between three and 11.

He has vilified homosexuals as paedophiles and said a man can take on a second wife if his first fails to satisfy him sexually. Mr Hewitt has published his views in a book on Islam, which he claims has sold more than 50,000 copies in Britain.

A teacher at the Al Aqsa primary school in Leicester

The preacher is the founder of another controversial organisation called the Association of Muslim Schools (AMS), whose leader has been accused of orchestrating a plot in Birmingham called ‘Operation Trojan Horse’ in which Islamic extremists have allegedly taken over 25 state schools in the city.

Last night it was reported that six Birmingham, schools implicated in the plot will be placed in ‘special measures’ by inspectors, meaning their leadership team could be removed. Ofsted is also said to be taking action at a further nine schools where the attempted takeover is less advanced.

That news came as campaigners called for an investigation by the Department for Education (DfE) to be expanded to Mr Hewitt and his Leicester school.

Douglas Murray, of anti-extremist think-tank the Henry Jackson Society, said: ‘I would like to see the investigation widened to other cities as well as Birmingham, and maybe look at private schools in case the welfare of children is at risk.

‘There should be an investigation into Al-Aqsa to see what children are being taught.’

Ibrahim Hewitt, chairman of Al-Aqsa school said that all adulterers should be stoned to death and fornication should be punished with 100 lashes

Mr Hewitt, 57, established the private school in 1998. He runs it with his wife Adeba, 53. The school practises segregated seating for boys and girls from aged seven and does not allow music or dance lessons as they are deemed un-Islamic. Female teachers teach with their faces covered with a veil, according to images on the school’s website.

The school, which charges fees of up to £1,800 per year, has received £747,360 from the Local Education Authority in Leicester as an early years grant for teaching three to five-year-olds since 2007.

The preacher is the author of a book called What Does Islam Say?, which spells out his vision of ‘true Islam’. In it he advocates the killing of adulterers by stoning. The book says: ‘Any act that destabilises marriage will also destabilise society. Hence the Islamic punishments for such acts are severe… Married men and women found guilty of adultery are to be stoned to death.’

The book also advocates 100 lashes for fornication and sodomy with both men and women, and condemns homosexuality as a ‘grave sin’.

Mr Hewitt says in the book: ‘Islam, like most other major faiths of the world, categorically forbids homosexual practices (sexual relations between two men or between two women), regarding them as a great sin. In a society under Islamic law, such would be severely punished.’

He then compares homosexuals to paedophiles or those who commit incest. The book says: ‘If people have such desires [homosexuality], they should keep them to themselves, and control their desires to avoid forbidden practices.

‘The advice would be the same as, say, to someone who had sexual desires for minors or for close family: that having the desires does not legitimise realising them.’

The book also argues that men and women are not equal, and men have a right to assume leadership over women. ‘Islam recognises the leadership of men over women, but it does not recognise the domination of one over the other.’

He adds: ‘If a woman is unable to satisfy the sexual or other needs of her husband he may consider taking another wife, rather than the common Western practice of secretly taking a mistress.’

Mr Hewitt has in the past said that ‘political Zionism is a threat to world peace’ and has objected to the setting up of Holocaust Memorial Day.

He is also the chairman of a charity called Interpal, which the US Treasury has designated a ‘global terrorist entity’ due to accusations it has raised money for the Palestinian terror group Hamas. However, a report by the UK Charity Commission last year found no evidence that it had done so.

When The Mail on Sunday contacted Mr Hewitt, he said he still ‘endorses’ what he wrote in the book. ‘Islamic law states that homosexuals should be lashed and adulterers should be stoned. I believe that is correct if it is an Islamic state. I am a Muslim and if I lived in an Islamic state then I would live by what I wrote in my book. But I am in this country and follow its law,’ he said.

Education Secretary Michael Gove has appointed the Met’s former counter-terrorism chief, Peter Clarke, to head an investigation into the alleged Trojan Horse plot.

Council probes 'music is evil' school posters

By BEN ELLERY

A state-funded Islamic school was at the centre of controversy last night over claims that a poster banning listening to music appeared on its official noticeboard.



The poster, alleged to have been put up at the Madani Schools Federation in Leicester, warned that pupils ‘must stay away from evil acts such as music and encourage others to do the same too’.



A photo of the poster, which is claimed to have been taken by a concerned supply teacher inside the school, has appeared on Facebook.

A Facebook post branding music as 'sinful' is being investigated by council chiefs in Leicester

The poster’s text quoted an apparent saying of the Prophet Mohammed, which said: ‘Music sows hypocrisy in the heart like water causes seeds to grow in soil.’ It also warned: ‘Music is a tool of Shaytan [Satan]’, adding: ‘The messages of today’s music follow a general theme of love, drugs and freedom.’



Leicester assistant mayor Vi Dempster said: ‘Council officers will be visiting the school after Easter to discuss the issue with the headteacher and governors.’



Madani, a faith academy once accused of flouting the Equalities Act by insisting boys and girls were segregated and taught by a member of the same sex, has received £18 million of state funding. Its chairman of governors, Hussein Suleman, said: ‘This poster has not existed in our premises. I don’t know who dreamt this hoax up.’



Inayat Bunglawala of Muslims4UK, a group set up to promote Muslim engagement with British society, said music prohibitions in the Islamic faith related to some disputed sayings attributed to Prophet Mohammed after his death, adding: ‘It would be bizarre if a state-funded school would not give music its due importance in the curriculum.’



The supply teacher said to have taken the photo declined to comment.