TEHRAN - A self-proclaimed Imam of Iraqi origin, born in Iran, currently based in Australia, his only claim to fame is Islam-bashing. His ticket to stardom in the West has been blatant hate speech and toxic sectarian rhetoric. He has become a darling of Islamophobes, New Atheists and right-leaning hate preachers who seek to sow seeds of discord among Muslims.

Imam Tawhidi, who has not been recognized by the Australian National Imams Council nor is he affiliated with any Australian mosque (according to ABC investigation), is again in news.

The white-turbaned trouble-monger masquerading as a cleric is visiting India to attend a cultural festival organized by a prominent television group close to radical Hindu organizations.

Over the past few days, social media has been abuzz over Tawhidis much-publicized visit to India. While he has been ecstatically welcomed by the ideological right (RSS and ilk), including some leaders of the ruling party, Muslim organizations and peace activists have strongly denounced his agenda-based visit.

Tawhidi banks heavily on his aggressive PR machinery, dishing out inflammatory statements that stoke the flames of sectarianism and malign the image of Islam. Thats precisely why he is idolized by right-leaning ideologues from America to Israel to India. He makes their job easier.

Over the last few days, his interviews have appeared in leading newspapers of India, in which he spews venom against Muslims, against Islam, against Pakistan, against Iran, against the Islamic revolution. He makes no secret of his surreptitious love affair with Zionists in Israel and Hindutva brigade in India.

In an interview with Times of India, Tawhidi described himself as a peace advocate working for healthy interfaith dialogue. In the same breath, he denounced Pakistans version of Islam, which he said is amended to fit the narrative of the government and to justify all of its wrongdoings. Exactly the kind of rhetoric Hindu fanatics in India want to hear from their foreign guests.

He went on to label Irans revolutionary guards and Lebanons Hezbollah movement as Shia terrorist organizations, in line with what his masters in Tel Aviv and Washington have suckled him.

Tawhidis association with Iran is old. He was born in the holy city of Qom and had his elementary and secondary education in the religious seminaries of the city. Owing to his suspicious activities, he was expelled from the Qom seminary after which he traveled to Australia and unveiled his real face there.

He has toured many countries in the West in recent years promoting his warped worldview and distorted image of Islam, thereby bringing bad name to the religion he falsely claims to profess. The latest being India, where he has overt and covert association with Hindu militant organisations that have been accused of mob lynching of Muslims in recent past.

Some of the people he has met in India over the past few days based on his Twitter feed include the infamously famous hate-mongers BJP politician Subramanian Swamy and writer Tarek Fateh. Both Swamy and Fateh are master conspiracy theorists whose job is to polarize communities in India for vote bank politics.

In May 2018, Swamy, who is known for whipping communal passions, said Muslims of India were the descendants of Hindus, so if any Muslim citizen of India identifies with or glorifies Islamic rule in India, he should be declared a defeated alien. Fateh, a Pakistan-born and India-based writer, in September 2018 said Muslims owe Ram Mandir to Hindus and it would be constructed in Ayodhya, a disputed site in northern India where a historic mosque was demolished by radical Hindus on December 6, 1992.

Tawhidis camaraderie with these people is based on their common hatred for Islam and Muslims. Their meetings are part of the larger plot to demean the great religion of Islam and its great adherents.

He not only hates Muslims, but he also promotes the views that fit the narrative of Hindu fanatics in India. For instance, in an interview with right-wing portal OpIndia last year, he said Pakistan is an illegitimate country founded upon hate and blood, and added that Kashmir is a Hindu land and it belonged to India before Pakistan was created.

To please his friends in New Delhi, Tawhidi even jumped in defense of India forces and legitimized the cold-blooded killing of Kashmiri youth Qaiser Amin in Kashmir earlier this year.

While he has been praised by far-right ideologues including American Hindu author David Frawley, anti-Islamophobia and peace activists like Middle East Eye columnist CJ Werleman have criticized him in unequivocal terms.

In a November 2017 article titled The Islamophobia Industrys favourite Imam is a fake, Werleman brilliantly exposed the fake Imam and the darling of New Atheists. His cartoonish and paradoxical efforts to portray himself as the sum of all xenophobic fears, while at the same time echoing xenophobic narratives made him an irresistible magnet to Australian media outlets and racist hate groups, he wrote.

While the radical Hindu groups in India rolled red carpet for him, Muslim organisations strongly protested against his visit. Majlis Ulama-e-Hind, a body of Muslim clerics in India, expressed its strong disapproval over Tawhidis visit by writing a letter to Indias Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

Maulana Kalbe Jawad, general secretary Majlis Ulama-i-Hind and top Shia cleric, said the man was masquerading as a scholar while he was not related to Shiism or Islam, because his preaching and books are against the teachings of Islam and Shiite faith.

Shujaat Ali Quadri, National President of Muslim Students Organisation of India, also opposed his visit to India, terming him a puppet of the West and Israel.

Alt News founder Pratik Sinha accused him of spreading fake news. He was soon blocked on Twitter.

To protest against Tawhidis visit to India and denounce his hate-filled rhetoric, hashtags like #GoBackTawhidi, #NoToTawhidi, #ImamOfFitna have been trending on Twitter in India.

He is a fraud, a big fraud, wrote on Twitter user. His only agenda is to humiliate Muslims and show disrespect to Islam, which is also the agenda of Zionists and Hindutva groups.