Ali Dawah - AMERICAN JOURNALIST INTERVIEWS ALI DAWAH

00:00:00.000 yeah thank you for having me on your show cj yeah mate you're welcome but you're a giant 0.97

00:00:08.180 pain in the butt to tommy robinson the former founder of the edl um now i wanted to talk about 0.90

00:00:15.140 all your good stuff i love the way that you uh you banter him um and troll him for for it to use 0.94

00:00:21.240 an internet parlance but uh make tell it tell my audience a little bit about who ali is first

00:00:26.540 okay well to be honest me i'm a revert to islam it's been about five years since i came to islam

00:00:32.580 um i've researched the religion for about good good three four years before i accepted it

00:00:37.680 um so i'm from a kurdish background i'm kurdish from turkey um my family are not muslim um and

00:00:44.800 yeah i got involved into the dawah scene dawah is basically you know telling people about islam

00:00:48.920 what islam really is about instead of what uh people think it is so basically yeah that's that's

00:00:55.240 that's what it is just a bit i mean i'm 28 years old yeah and whereabouts in london are you

00:01:01.980 uh london uh oh whereabouts in london northeast and the northeast cool and so um so were you a

00:01:09.560 a non-believer before you reverted back to islam or did you start off as a as a muslim and then left

00:01:14.420 the faith and come back to it well to be honest well in islam we believe everybody's born a muslim

00:01:19.300 and then their parents change them to whatever faith they belong to uh but the question that

00:01:25.200 you're asking is not that so basically no i i only believed in god i never had no religion before

00:01:29.300 uh i didn't believe in islam i didn't believe in anything i don't have a religion i just believed

00:01:33.960 in like a high intelligence right but yeah one of the things i like about you uh on twitter is um

00:01:39.920 uh is you're very combative against these islamophobes but you know you do it in a polite

00:01:45.300 way in a very reasonable and rational way and you try and point out the you know the the flaws and

00:01:50.960 the folly in uh in some of the typical kind of stereotypes and tropes that guys like tommy

00:01:55.860 robertson try to uh to disseminate uh about muslims um so how did you how you know tell me how it began

00:02:02.900 with you and tommy i know that he accused you of being involved with the manchester bombing is that

00:02:06.860 right yeah yeah that's to be honest i wouldn't say that's where it began but to be honest he's been

00:02:12.800 somebody who i've been keen to um have a dialogue with to be honest you know i i don't have any

00:02:19.040 because i see videos where certain muslims go and try to be physical with them i don't agree

00:02:23.360 to this behavior you know it's not the right thing to do to be honest because you know it just shows

00:02:28.300 our weakness you know in a way it's like we can't answer his arguments and we're resorting

00:02:33.140 resorting to violence and that's contrary to what i want to do i just want a discussion man this is

00:02:37.900 what i want to do i like talking i like i meet all kinds of people i i have uh i know people that are

00:02:42.340 jewish christian atheist all kinds of backgrounds yes we differ but we have a dialogue so to be honest

00:02:47.880 i've been seeing his videos that he does and he picks on these people that don't know much

00:02:51.500 and it annoys me because i'm like look you're picking on somebody maybe the guy doesn't know

00:02:55.480 his religion much you know and you're making it seem like you know what you're talking about

00:02:59.160 not only that you're hate preaching but on twitter it all started i think last year

00:03:03.640 uh a good year ago i think where he the the manchester bombings happened um and it was it was a tragedy

00:03:10.080 you know it's like any tragedy that happens around the world you've got people in iraq that have

00:03:14.340 been uh blown up into pieces millions you've got people in burma you've got people all over the

00:03:19.440 world you can't be muslim or not so these things are happening why sadly because some people are

00:03:24.780 after money oil and then you've got other people who are hate preaching to put extra money in their

00:03:28.660 pocket like tommy robinson said he's made 60 000 pounds off his book so you can see he's there

00:03:33.680 to make money out of this now i think it's that's not only the fact i think he's

00:03:37.540 also um i think he has something personal with islam i think where he grew up maybe he got

00:03:42.080 bullied by muslims or whatever it may be and now he's expressing that hatred by attacking the religion

00:03:47.260 itself so therefore he made the tweet saying that jihadi ali me jihadi ali down me that i did a video

00:03:54.540 asking muslims brothers and sisters to not go to the drake concert because it's a place where in our

00:04:00.440 religion it's not permissible to be in such a place where there's alcohol music and he twisted that

00:04:05.340 and insinuated that i had prior knowledge therefore i was asking muslims to not attend it

00:04:11.500 because they might get hurt this is what he was insinuating so when he did that that's where it all

00:04:15.800 began so i was like okay hold on a second i'm going to get the police involved because now you put my

00:04:19.860 life in danger you've claimed that i'm a jihadi who has prior knowledge to these attacks you've actually

00:04:24.400 put my life in danger the danger and the irony is that yesterday he was the guy who ran over muslims 0.98

00:04:32.300 in frinsbury park mosque in court he claimed that he had direct messages from tommy robinson

00:04:36.860 and britain first and he was basically kind of radicalized even if i'm not mistaken they did say

00:04:42.740 that he had some statements written the words like um tommy robinson uttered he wrote a letter and left it

00:04:48.600 in the van so you can see that here that he is actually this is a true story that's happened he's

00:04:54.340 radicalized somebody he's been involved partially at an event that's happened a terror event

00:04:59.900 but now if you what he did with me was a lie an absolute false story that i had prior knowledge

00:05:06.560 the manchester bombings i found that disgusting so my journey of exposing this guy really started

00:05:11.840 there because he just showed that this guy is careless he doesn't care he just utters nonsense

00:05:16.760 just so his followers can clap and say yay hooray tommy now he does works i'm not going to come and

00:05:23.460 deny because you see allah says to us in the quran speak the truth even if it's against yourself

00:05:27.900 he does stuff about grooming gangs and terrorism etc that's okay i can say you know what you're

00:05:34.020 doing something there it's i'm not going to say what you're doing there is bad the problem is why

00:05:38.340 is it only why are you it's asian men that you're after okay no problem we should hate grooming gangs 0.99

00:05:45.180 be they're white or not i mean muslim or non-muslim we should hate terrorists be they muslim or not muslim 1.00

00:05:51.460 i find it very sickening that the approach is taken is like no i only hate the muslims that do it and 1.00

00:05:58.660 i'm like look we should hate the act whoever is done by so he has that approach and i just believe 0.90

00:06:05.560 he's a hate preacher and because of him and his life like britain first and isis and other extremist

00:06:12.100 groups they are all on one side you know i don't know if you can see on the screen yeah you can see

00:06:17.140 the screen there's a there's a thin white line yeah yeah that departs the you know there's me and

00:06:21.860 then there's uh there's another screen yeah see as the the left hand side i don't know on your screen

00:06:28.120 maybe i'm on the left hand side yeah for example there's a thin line you've got these extremists be

00:06:34.180 it uh britain first isis tommy robinson these hate preachers put them all onto one side then you

00:06:40.920 have the british public we are all on the other side be it muslim or non-muslim yeah now they are

00:06:46.520 preaching hate and uh british public for example the the uh those terrorist attacks that happen in

00:06:53.400 in london they are suffering why because isis and their light are preaching hate that kind of 0.99

00:06:59.700 i'm sorry i believe he's a hate preacher he's preaching hate and you've got um emotional young

00:07:05.760 muslim men who are seeing when this guy's coming and saying look they're blowing our brothers and 0.99

00:07:09.980 sisters up in iraq they're blowing doing this they're doing that now this emotional person is

00:07:14.100 thinking okay how what can i do to combat this i know i'm emotional i can't express myself with my

00:07:20.520 words i only know violence i'm going to express that by doing the same thing they do to us and i'm

00:07:26.420 saying hold on a second our religion doesn't teach that you're a hate preacher and because of you 0.98

00:07:30.440 you're not carrying the act out but your silly followers are going out there and doing that now 0.95

00:07:35.620 the same thing's happening with tom robinson britain first these guys are preaching hate and who is 0.97

00:07:39.960 doing the dirty work young young and old men like that guy mr osborne where darren osborne i don't

00:07:45.920 i think and their likes are doing the saving and thinking you know what look at these people who are

00:07:51.580 running um our people are blowing up our kids we need to do something and then when they see

00:07:56.840 tommy robinson on a video saying you know we need to take action we need to tackle this uh islamic 1.00

00:08:03.980 problem when you've got people like katie hopkins saying uh we need we need a final solution to

00:08:08.420 this muslim problem what do you think is going to happen when a young white man is watching us and

00:08:12.380 thinking yes these people are doing this this we how are they expressing their feelings they're 0.58

00:08:17.640 expressing it by violence some of them you know and this is why i say they're on one side and the

00:08:23.600 british probably being a non-muslim or muslim on one side and we are getting the uh the bad things

00:08:30.560 that are happening to us you know we're getting we're suffering we're the ones where we go out

00:08:33.980 thinking okay who's going to kill me who's going to attack me and they're there just pocketing in

00:08:38.000 money and cashing in and their agenda whatever it may be we're the ones that's suffering yeah i mean

00:08:43.700 there are people like uh well groups like britain first and edl and and individuals like tommy

00:08:49.500 they use the same kind of propaganda framework as groups like isis they they portray an in group

00:08:55.400 that's under threat from an out group uh and then by separating the two entities they're encouraging

00:09:00.420 and inciting violence against the out group i mean we saw tommy robinson as you you know well you

00:09:05.400 retweeted one of my tweets a video of tommy robinson uh giving a subtle wink to people

00:09:10.700 like darren osmond to to young edl thugs on the street to say we need to clean out the islamic 1.00

00:09:15.860 problem yes i mean when when you when you're a 22 year old and you're drunk in a pub and you 0.85

00:09:21.540 you you see an islamist you know use that inverted commas uh a terrorist attack in london and then

00:09:27.320 you hear somebody like tommy robinson you think she's i'm gonna take matters into my own hands

00:09:30.960 and that's what salafi jihadists uh similarly do who subscribe to the the isis ideology

00:09:36.320 yeah did you say so can you repeat that did you say what jihadis i said salafi jihadis and i use

00:09:42.860 that term loosely you know because you know guys groups like isis aren't salafis uh they think they

00:09:48.720 are and salafis don't encourage violence but yeah to be honest i would say the creed of salafism

00:09:54.740 is basically it's it's actually totally against this like um these people are called actually

00:09:59.880 they're called khawarij i don't know have you heard the word khawarij yes of course

00:10:03.780 so basically what i was saying was um khawarij if you heard my discussion with tommy robinson

00:10:09.600 um basically you could see there that i i said to him do you know about uh khawarij and he was like

00:10:16.420 um he was like no i don't um i don't know and khawarij are a certain uh group i do they have an

00:10:24.220 ideology and this is this started at the time of the prophet peace be upon him you know they're

00:10:28.020 an extremist group these this group is there to cause like violence from day one if you look at

00:10:33.880 who killed the four um rightly guided khalifas like um uh for example umar ibn qatar not umar

00:10:41.200 qatar not abu bakar uthman and ali and they even attempted to kill muawiyah these people

00:10:46.960 they are enemies of islam do you get what i'm trying to say they are are enemies greater enemies why 0.93

00:10:53.680 because they look like us and they talk like us you know and maybe they look like us therefore

00:10:58.860 they are a greater enemy to us do you get what i'm trying to say yeah so this is who they are and

00:11:04.140 these are the people who are isis you know they are known for their traits there are certain traits

00:11:07.780 about them where you know about them they will take people out the fold of islam they will come 1.00

00:11:11.740 to me and be like you are just uh you know west you still um you know you're you you you know you're

00:11:17.760 like um and not a real muslim do you get what i'm trying to say yeah they are our enemies um 1.00

00:11:22.660 ourselves do you get what i'm trying to say so this is what tommy he doesn't even know who

00:11:26.100 hawaii just and i was i was very shocked which is which is incredible this is a guy that's written

00:11:30.600 a book on islam and he still he doesn't know a basic term you know in islamic culture

00:11:36.260 i believe it's his friend's book i when i talked to him i said your friend's book because i will eat

00:11:41.600 my socks if this guy's written that book like literally i'm ready to eat my socks if if this

00:11:46.720 guy's written the book that's why he's avoiding me because he knows he has two problems yeah

00:11:51.180 he can't structure 140 character tweet so let alone write a book exactly all he's done is copy

00:11:57.720 and pasted the whole quran and then added these commentaries of he's got this weird if you read

00:12:02.400 the quran back to front and i'm gonna figure where'd you get this from you know and he's in big

00:12:07.120 trouble because i'm gonna ask him a question did you read did you write the book if you did you have

00:12:11.100 to answer my questions if you didn't you've been lying that it's your book yeah yeah no doubt um

00:12:18.020 so how much have you received for it i mean his followers are quite rabid um and you know so what

00:12:26.800 have you received any sort of threatening um notices from his followers i get i get a lot like

00:12:33.040 you know you're this calling me names i'm gonna do this when i see you this that uh tell me where you

00:12:38.400 live you know all these kind of nonsense you know to be honest they don't they don't mean

00:12:41.740 nothing to me you know but i do get threats i do get threats yeah right and what about just in your

00:12:45.860 daily day-to-day life you know offline when uh you know in the streets of uh of of northeast

00:12:51.780 london um have you noticed that the hostility towards muslims has you know have you felt the

00:12:56.620 increase uh in in the last 12 months the last 24 months yeah of course not definitely like you hear

00:13:02.820 stories even if it's not myself i can hear these stories that are taking place you know and not

00:13:08.180 definitely man you know there is a hostility increase and you see that's the reason why i'm

00:13:12.360 so passionate about what i do because the thing is we need to education is you know it's very key

00:13:17.580 you know to educate oneself because if you don't what happens is this is what happens you know you're

00:13:23.620 just going to get people thinking okay what can we resort to violence so therefore we need to

00:13:28.720 educate these people and say hold on a second mate you're being taken for a big right you know

00:13:32.920 you're being actually taken advantage of it's the same with the muslims that i'm not just 1.00

00:13:36.500 saying it's just tommy robinson look i'm telling you if i knew where these islamic hate preachers are 0.69

00:13:41.380 yeah like it's hard if i if i knew where they are i would personally go and question them the way i do

00:13:47.920 with tommy robinson you know but most of them are locked up abu halima and jim chowdhury these people are

00:13:52.120 locked up you know and that's what now what i see is it's just tackling and combating because

00:13:57.560 to educate people and say look this is what islam really teaches and you're not going to agree with 0.73

00:14:02.200 everything i'm not going to agree with your way of life but you need to understand that we are not 0.99

00:14:06.560 here to be like yes we had to take over the country and we want all the non-muslims dead like where'd 1.00

00:14:12.440 you get this from these are the fairy tales yeah absolutely i mean it's incredible i mean i speak to 0.98

00:14:17.040 obviously with for this podcast for my journalism um you know i'm close to a lot of muslim

00:14:21.980 organizations i speak to muslims on a daily basis and every single muslim i know uh will you know

00:14:28.580 strongly distance themselves from any of the rubbish ramblings that someone like annum chowdhury

00:14:33.360 uh will say so therefore i can i can't understand why islamophobes don't see that muslims are on the

00:14:40.440 same side as them in being against extremism um but unfortunately the media and groups like edl and

00:14:48.520 people like tommy robinson they portray an individual like annum chowdhury to be emblematic

00:14:53.900 of muslims writ large yeah and ignore the voices of someone like you 0.98

00:14:59.720 well that's the thing you see what it is is they both feed off each other so it supports their

00:15:04.600 narrative yeah so anjum chowdhury or you know people like that might look at tommy robinson brim first

00:15:10.460 and look see look at this these disbelievers look what they're doing look what they want and then 0.97

00:15:14.680 you'll have brim first and tommy robinson be looking at andrew chowdhury and be like look see look what

00:15:18.940 they're doing so they both feed off each other you know it's just they both are like okay good

00:15:22.520 like i genuinely believe i genuinely believe this year that tommy robinson and brim first on their

00:15:28.120 light i believe that when they hear of a terrorist attack they are actually this is disgusting i genuinely

00:15:34.740 believe this and i'm really i'm i know what you're gonna say i agree with you

00:15:40.080 i believe they are like yes like they're like yes this is exactly this is going to help our cause

00:15:46.760 and i think this is sickening you know the fact that they are cashing in on this and the same with 0.54

00:15:52.400 these islamic extremists they're probably when they see iraq and muslims being attacked left right 0.98

00:15:56.920 and they're like good this helps a narrative yeah when when i see someone like darren osborne drive 0.92

00:16:02.140 his van into finsbury park mosque they're celebrating it because it reinforces the narrative that white 0.93

00:16:07.540 people that muslims aren't welcome in the west exactly there you go and then that's why these 1.00

00:16:12.540 young uh muslims for example some of them they get radical they're thinking yeah you know they see 1.00

00:16:18.060 these emotional things and they show them pictures look what's happening to abrams but i see this i get

00:16:22.180 upset when i see like be it kids in manchester being you know blown up into pieces be in iraq wherever

00:16:27.520 it is it's it's sad you know it's sickening but then again it's just like you know these people just

00:16:34.000 using that to their advantage is even more sickening um do you think that are you uh optimistic or

00:16:40.740 hopeful that one day he'll accept your request to debate him well to be honest like i'll put it

00:16:46.420 like this i don't he doesn't have a thing of like with me it's just like i don't give him a thing of

00:16:52.820 okay please accept it look i'm gonna find tommy robertson one way or another i'm just saying

00:16:57.220 you know just make it my life a little bit easier that's what i'm saying to be honest

00:17:00.420 you know i'm just gonna it's gonna happen it's not even like okay meet me uh please it's not that

00:17:05.760 it's just like okay i'm gonna find you eventually and i'm gonna ask you this i'm gonna ask you just

00:17:10.240 save yourself embarrassment at least you know what he was man enough to have a discussion which he's

00:17:16.820 not so it's a loser situation to him to me it's a win-win situation when he says no i'm like there you 1.00

00:17:21.460 go you're just you're a liar you're a coward and eventually when i find you i'm gonna it's another 0.99

00:17:24.960 win situation for me um what i mean there's two schools of logic um there's that one one one 1.00

00:17:32.480 part of that would say that what you're doing is fantastic you're you're trying to debunk his

00:17:37.620 narratives um he's uh he's islamic fabric tropes and then there might be another group of people that

00:17:42.620 say come on ali what you're doing is you're just elevating him by giving him attention what would you

00:17:47.740 say to people who fall into that latter group yeah to be honest like let me put it like this

00:17:53.000 tommy robinson is someone who's been invited to um many you know um uh media channels you know

00:18:01.520 and to be honest and the thing is he's not invited like he's some special guest he's just invited just

00:18:06.060 to so show what kind of a stammer for what kind of a bigot he is so the thing is he's he's already out

00:18:11.560 there yeah so it's not like something small where you can say you know well okay you're giving him a

00:18:15.620 platform no the guy's out there he's brainwashing people you know you can see you can see with this

00:18:19.680 guy darren osborne you know this this is the byproduct of tommy robinson you know and britain

00:18:24.980 first so you can see the danger he's causing so to be honest it's like you know we can't just turn

00:18:31.460 a blind eye to it you know we can't just say okay just put it under the carpet and wait for it to

00:18:35.280 stink no we have to deal with it head on i believe we have to deal with it head on and we have to

00:18:38.920 challenge these people and tell them that they can't just carry on like that and it's the same with 0.98

00:18:43.200 these extremists like islamic extremists yeah we have to do the same with them you know if we just 1.00

00:18:48.860 put it brush it under the carpet it's not going to solve the problem we have to deal with it as 0.86

00:18:52.840 muslims and non-muslims you know we have to deal with these situations um and fix it you know otherwise 1.00

00:18:58.500 you know i'm just going to carry on you know these people are just going to you know people just

00:19:03.120 these people are going to be hurt agree and i think you do it in a very rational and reasonable

00:19:07.080 manner and so i'm one of those people that falls into the former camp i think that you're doing a

00:19:10.940 a good service and uh ali where can my listeners find you if they want to find out more about you

00:19:17.300 well to be honest it's if you just type ali dao on youtube um or facebook instagram snapchat

00:19:23.380 wherever you like to be honest yeah then you can just follow me find uh find me yeah me on youtube

00:19:27.940 i'm on youtube great mate i really appreciate your time ali where can my followers find your works

00:19:34.000 yeah uh once i publish the uh the the episode um uh i'll send you the link and um yeah they'll see

00:19:39.920 the podcast details there okay no problem thank you it was a lovely uh conversation i had yep

00:19:44.680 thanks ali look forward to talking thank you for tuning in

00:19:47.040 hey give me one

00:19:53.880 thanks ali subscribe

00:19:58.680 woohoo

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Ali Dawah - January 25, 2018

AMERICAN JOURNALIST INTERVIEWS ALI DAWAH

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