Hebrew Voices #126 – The Masked Shiite Muslim

Hebrew Voices #126 – The Masked Shiite Muslim

You are listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon's Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

Nehemia: Shalom, this is Nehemia Gordon, and I am here at Speakers' Corner in London. This is a place where anybody can come and get up on a soapbox and preach. And one of the things I love about this is this really is an embodiment of free speech, and it also takes me back to the biblical period where the Prophets would stand up on a soapbox, and they would preach the word of God. And I think of Isaiah 56 where the Prophet says, “Ko amar Yehovah. Shimru mishpat va'asu tzedaka, ki kerova yeshu'ati lavo vetzidkati lehigalot.” And he was standing in a corner in a public square on the side, preaching the way that I'm preaching right now. We're going to go in now to Speakers' Corner and see what are some things that people are speaking about and hear the speakers and engage with them.

Nehemia: I am here with... What is your name?

Isa: Isa the blacktelect. There you go.

Nehemia: The what?

Isa: Blacktelect.

Nehemia: What's a telect?

Isa: Intellect.

Nehemia: Oh, intellect.

Isa: No, I'm saying I shortened the word "intellect" and put "black.” The basic principle is, there is a global perspective that black people are only good at basketball, and singing, and so on. But my point is, we also are very intelligent.

Nehemia: Who has that perspective?

Isa: Well, that's another story, if you want to get into that. If you look across the world, in the media, etc., is that not the thing that's portrayed?

Nehemia: That's not my perspective.

Isa: As an individual, but I'm saying the general perspective. If I said to you intelligent people, a nation of intelligent people, what would you say? Off the top of your head, the first thing that comes to mind. Come on, be honest, the first thing.

Nehemia: Honestly, I would think of Israel, because the universities in Israel have probably more Nobel Prizes than any other country of equivalent size in the world. So, I would think of Israel, but I think there's intelligent people all over the world.

Isa: I agree.

Nehemia: I mean, Neil deGrasse Tyson is a really smart guy.

Isa: Right, and it's interesting. I'm saying to you very simply, as a collective group, how are black people portrayed, in general?

Nehemia: Tell me.

Isa: You don't know. You really don't know? Do you not see that blacks are portrayed as intellectually inferior? We're supposed to be good in bed, all the animalistic... I'm just saying what we're portrayed as.

Nehemia: That is not my perception, but you know what? This could be me just being colorblind. I don't know.

Isa: You know what I'm saying, we're supposed to be good in bed, good at basketball, football, all kinds of physical things that animals could do, basically. Coming from the days where…

Nehemia: I take exception to that. I'm from Chicago. There is no animal in the world who could do what Michael Jordan did.

Isa: That’s fine.

Nehemia: That is art, what he did.

Isa: No, no, my point is, it's still physical. And there’s things that animals...

Nehemia: But Neil deGrasse Tyson can't dribble, as far as I know.

Isa: But that's my whole point. I'm saying the collective of... For instance, do you believe that ancient Egypt was a black civilization?

Nehemia: I'm not an expert on the ethnicity of the ancient Egyptians. I was recently at the museum in Berlin and saw Nefertiti, and she looked decidedly light-skinned to me. I don't know if that represents it.

Isa: No, no, no, that’s fine.

Nehemia: I did find it interesting that you weren't allowed to take photos of Nefertiti. You're allowed to take photos of everything else in the museum, but not Nefertiti. I don't know why that is.

Isa: I think they've redone a lot of the stuff in the museum, anyway.

Nehemia: I’ve no idea.

Isa: I think they keep the original downstairs. Anyway, I don't know if you know, they're repainting the ones in Egypt themselves.

Nehemia: What do you mean?

Isa: The images, in Egypt.

Nehemia: Really? I didn't know that. Anyway, let's get back to the basics here. We talked before we started this and you mentioned that you are a Shiite Muslim.

Isa: Not quite.

Nehemia: A twelver Muslim.

Isa: No, no. What I said was…

Nehemia: You were raised a Christian. Give it to me.

Isa: Raised a Christian, converted to Sunniism, which I believed was Islam, then converted to so-called “Shia,” which is the true Islam, a Twelver. That's my point, the so-called Shia.

Nehemia: Can you explain this to me, could you explain this to me. Just for the audience... And what was your name again?

Isa: Isa.

Nehemia: Isa, which is Jesus, right? Okay, so your name is “Jesus,” okay, that’s cool, in Arabic. Why is your face covered? Who is this masked man? I think that'll be the name of the episode.

Isa: Okay, basically, I've been coming here for years before the cameras came in.

Nehemia: And just for those who don't know, we're at Speakers' Corner.

Isa: Speakers’ Corner, London, yes. I was coming here before the cameras started to arrive, and especially YouTube and stuff, was showing what goes down at Speakers' Corner and I've been so used to debating without having cameras in your face. And I found those people that were putting videos of themselves, it becomes a thing of YouTube fame. And then, they start to seem to lose sight of the sincerity to whatever it is they're on, and now have become some celebrity and doing stuff to get fame and views, and all those kinds of things. And I think it's a natural thing, that when you continually see yourself as famous, and so on, I think you want to do stuff to please the audience. Whereas me, I've got a message, as I've told you...

Nehemia: If I wanted to please the audience, I wouldn't be talking to you.

Isa: No, I'm not talking about you, I was talking about…

Nehemia: No, I'm just saying, and I'm gonna get a lot of hate for doing this, but you had an interesting story and I wanted to hear it. The idea of me doing Hebrew Voices was I had done something like 100 hours, I think, of a podcast, and I decided, you know what? The audience has heard enough of me, now it's time to hear other Hebrew Voices out there. And this is a little bit more expansive, right? You're not exactly Hebrew.

Isa: I am.

Nehemia: You are Hebrew? Even better, now it's justified.

Isa: That's another story.

Nehemia: Tell me about you being a Hebrew.

Isa: I knew you'd come to that, and there is somebody that's promoting that, that's his main objective here. And he would be the better one to speak on that.

Nehemia: So, tell me, how did you go from being a Christian to a Sunni?

Isa: Sunni.

Nehemia: From a Sunni to a…

Isa: The majority is Sunni, and then I found out that the majority are actually wrong, and far from Islam.

Nehemia: So, from your understanding, true Islam is what's commonly called “Shia Islam.”

Isa: Yeah, that's the truth.

Nehemia: So, tell us really briefly, what is true Islam?

Isa: Okay, so true Islam, basically, is that the Quran as we know it is a book that comes from Allah to Prophet Muhammad, and that he appointed a successor, divinely appointed. So, Allah told the Prophet, the Prophet told the people, and the Sunnis basically usurped that position.

Nehemia: And who is this successor?

Isa: Imam Ali, his first cousin. His first cousin who married his daughter, Fatima, and then they had the children and the bloodline that comes from Prophet Muhammad. So, there was 12 people from Imam Ali, there's another 11 that we call the “12 Imams.”

Nehemia: Okay. And help me out here. I learned a little bit of Muslim history, but it's not my expertise. So, the Sunnis, instead of following Ali, they followed... Was it Abu Bakr?

Isa: Yeah, Abu Bakr backstabbed the Prophet. You know, I'm quite blunt. He… when the Prophet, peace be upon him, had died, the same day he died, he wasn't even buried yet, Abu Bakr and Omar, the suppose best friends of the Prophet, went to a place called Saqifah, and they debated with another group called the Ansar about who should be the khalif, and they were arguing. And Omar just grabbed Abu Bakr's hand and said, “You be the khalif,” basically, and then that was it. So, the Prophet is over here, he isn’t buried yet, but Abu Bakr, supposedly the best friend over here, is arguing about the leadership. Now, the fact that the Sunnis say he was the best one for it, then why would he need to go elsewhere and argue for it? If he was the best friend of the Prophet, why wouldn't you be with him anyway, his body, you know what I mean?

Nehemia: The difference between the Sunni and the Shia is that you follow Ali and they follow Abu Bakr and his successors, is that fair to say?

Isa: No, no. We follow Islam and the Quran. So, what I'm saying is, the Quran proves that the concept of divinely appointed leadership is part of Islam. The Sunnis do not say that Abu Bakr was divinely appointed. They say there was what they call “ashura,” or consultation. But if you read the story, there's no consultation. There's an argument.

Nehemia: Now, this is important, because I think a lot of people, if they've even heard of the Shiites, they'll say they've heard the Sunnis are like the Catholics and the Shiites are like the Protestants. And that's not really true, because you're saying that the Shiites are following what you believe to be divinely appointed leadership, versus the Sunnis, which you called the usurpers, who say that the leader was appointed, or he was chosen...

Isa: Abu Bakr. They say he was chosen in ashura, meaning it's supposed to be a consultation. But when you read the story, he's there with... I don't know, probably no more than 50 people, and they're arguing. You read what they say, there's an argument. And then Omar just says, “Give me your hand,” and that's it. And he comes back, and after Abu Bakr came into power, he started killing other Muslims who didn't agree with him.

Nehemia: So, tell us about the Plains of Karbala and that incident.

Isa: Oh, so you do know of it, huh?

Nehemia: I try to pull this out of you so the audience can hear it. They don't want to hear it from me.

Isa: I personally do not talk about the subject of Karbala, because it's very... To me, I'm already emotional enough in regard to Sunnis...

Nehemia: Give me some practical... Just for the audience ‘cause they don't know and they're not going to Google it. Give me the cliff notes version, I don’t know what you call it in English, the very short version.

Isa: Basically, what it was, after the Sunnis usurped power, you had Abu Bakr, the first usurper, Omar the second usurper…

Nehemia: What was his name, Omar?

Isa: Omar. They called him “Omar” in English.

Nehemia: Omar. Omar Ibn El Khattab, we have a street named after him in Jerusalem.

Isa: Okay, there you go. Well, he was another, what we call “shaitan.”

Nehemia: Satan?

Isa: Yes, of course. He backstabbed the Prophet; how would he not be a devil?

Nehemia: So, you had Abu Bakr, Omar, and who was after that?

Isa: Uthman.

Nehemia: Uthman.

Isa: Uthman is the one that put his family all over the place, and then they ended up killing him somehow, whatever.

Nehemia: And who is the fourth one?

Isa: Ali. So, they now run back… After there's all these problems in politics, they ran to Ali.

Nehemia: The same Ali?

Isa: They did. He actually refused it, right? But then, ‘cause they persisted, he accepted it.

Nehemia: And this is the cousin of...

Isa: The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. Okay, so after he was martyred, Muawiyah... During the life of Ali, Mu’awiyah fought against...

Nehemia: Who is Mu’awiyah?

Isa: He’s a relation to Uthman. Uthman gave him the governorship of Syria, or something like that. So, Muawiyah fought against Imam Ali. Imam Ali appointed his son, Hassan, who's the first grandson of the Prophet.

Nehemia: Okay, in English we say “Hussein,” don't we?

Isa: No, no, that's the other son.

Nehemia: Oh, the other son, the one who got killed is Hussein, right, where they wrestled with the swords?

Isa: Yeah. That is the situation, yes.

Nehemia: Is that wrong, or...

Isa: I would say drawing blood is not the best thing to do. That’s what I said, it’s very emotional. If you hear the story, it's very emotional.

Nehemia: So, what's the story that’s emotional?

Isa: Let me go into it as much as I can.

Nehemia: Here's why it's important. In Christianity, they have an emotional story. God sent his son and his son was killed, murdered by people who rejected him. That's an emotional story, whether you accept it or not.

Isa: It’s very difficult.

Nehemia: And Shi’ism has an emotional story. Let's hear that story.

Isa: Okay, let me see what I can do. Basically, you had the situation where Mu’awiya… It won’t take long. After Imam Hassan was appointed, so that there wouldn't be any more wars and more people killed, Imam Hassan made a contract with Mu’awiya. He said, “Listen, you can have the leadership, just to rule, not divinely, just rule. That's what you want, take it. The majority of the people want you to be the leader because they want to conquer other lands.” That's what Sunniism’s about, conquering and greed, and so on. So, he had a contract with Mu’awiya that after him he will give the leadership to Hussein. He didn't. When he was on his deathbed, it basically went to his son, Yazid.

Nehemia: Okay, so there's some big betrayal, Yazid and Hussein.

Isa: Right, so Yazid was given the power after Mu’awiya. Imam Hussein refused to give him allegiance. The people in Kufa invited him and said, “Come, we'll support you.” He was in the middle of the desert, and the people apparently betrayed him, and so on. And Yazid appointed some army generals and whatever, and they basically killed 70 or more of the family and followers of the Prophet Muhammad in the most hideous way. So, imagine you've got thousands of people. I mean, he held up his baby and he was showing that the baby has no water.

Nehemia: No water?

Isa: No, there’s no water. They shot an arrow through the baby.

Nehemia: And this was Yazid's people?

Isa: Yazid's people. They were Sunnis, these wicked devils. So, don't be surprised by ISIS, they're just normal Sunnis. If you go on YouTube, in fact, the Mufti of Mecca, the previous one, the black one, he said, “ISIS and the Salafis have the same scholars,” which means ISIS is a general thing, it's just some come up and kill people and some don't. But they've got the same mentality, which will breed the same thing. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Nehemia: Well, I think there are Salafis and Salafi Jihadis.

Isa: My point is, if a guy has 10 children and he's a Salafi, how many of those Salafi children are going to end up being Jihadis? Do you get my point? You carry on the Jihadi mentality.

Nehemia: Some Salafis are pacifists, that's what I've been told. I don't know if that's true. And then other ones are Jihadis, it's two polar opposites.

Isa: But they're all damn hypocrites, ‘cause they all follow this usurper called Abu Bakr and Omar and Uthman. That's the whole point. They follow terrorists. Abu Bakr, when he got into power, his first move was to lie on the Prophet, to steal the property of the Prophet…

Nehemia: Lie on the Prophet?

Isa: Lie, and say the Prophet said…

Nehemia: Oh, lie about the Prophet?

Isa: Sorry, to say that the Prophet said something he didn't, to fabricate information. To say the Prophet said something.

Nehemia: Oh, is this the Hadith?

Isa: Hadith, yeah.

Nehemia: Not all the Hadiths, right? Some Hadeeths are accepted by Sunna, right?

Isa: Correct. But I'm saying specifically, he claims that the Prophet said, “We, the Prophets, do not have any inheritors, what we leave goes to charity.”

Nehemia: That seems like a very convenient thing for him to say.

Isa: Well, there you go. When you take the daughter of the Prophet's property… But the question is, why wouldn't the Prophet have told her, then? Because Abu Bakr wasn't due to inherit anything.

Nehemia: Give my audience just some, I don't know, off the top of your head, five things that are a practical difference between what you do and Sunnis do.

Isa: Practical difference?

Nehemia: Yeah.

Isa: We try to tell the truth. We try to make peace. We try to be practical.

Nehemia: No, like in ritual observance, maybe. But no, telling the truth, that's important. You think that…

Isa: In regards to religion, not everyday life.

Nehemia: Sunnis don't try to tell the truth about their religion?

Isa: Oh, hell no. We might do Taqiya to save our lives.

Nehemia: Tell us what Taqiya is.

Isa: Taqiya is, what you would say is, if somebody’s trying to kill you, so this is the Quran, then you can say, “Okay, I believe in your gods, or I don't believe…” so that you save your life. The Shias have done that because Sunnis were trying to hunt them and kill them, wipe them off the planet. But Sunnis do it so you don't know the truth about their agenda and religion.

Nehemia: Give me an example of how they lie.

Isa: They will say that the Sahaba are the best of mankind.

Nehemia: They'll say the who?

Isa: Oh, “Sahaba” means “companions of the Prophet,” the people that came after. But then they won't tell you that in their own books it says that they catapulted the Kaaba in the second generation after the Prophet. They had wars and they smashed the Kaaba to pieces, and they were kidnapping each other and doing all kinds of crazy stuff. Why don't they tell the world this?

Nehemia: Maybe they think that's a good thing.

Isa: Well, no, because they keep hiding it. It takes people like me to come out and say it, or other people on YouTube are telling you.

Nehemia: I see. And so those people, the Saba…

Isa: Sahaba.

Nehemia: Sahaba. So, those Sahaba are people who the Shia consider to be heretics?

Isa: The majority. Not all of them, because there were obviously some that supported Imam Ali, but there were so few.

Nehemia: Some of them turned against Ali?

Isa: The majority. It wasn't even turned against, it's just they didn't do anything and they preferred Abu Bakr, because they knew behind Abu Bakr, they could get the wealth of other nations. The concept of Sunniism is to conquer and steal other people's land and property.

Nehemia: And that's not a principle in Shia?

Isa: Hell no. Shia is more of a spiritual thing of you mind your business, unless there's some real oppression.

Nehemia: Tell me about Iran.

Isa: Iran, I mean, I haven't been there. I know what the media says. And my position on Iran is that the country seems to be surrounded by enemies left, right and center, so I can't really take anything that they do in a non-biased way. Whatever they do, there's so many different problems and people trying to attack the country.

Nehemia: Hizballah and Israel.

Isa: I have no idea about Hizballah. I always hear about it. I've heard Tommy Robinson speak of it, but I don't know much.

Nehemia: I don't know the first thing about what Tommy Robinson says.

Isa: I'll be honest, I don't know much.

Nehemia: I lived for 20 years in Israel, and Hizballah, we had a war where they fired rockets at us. That's what I know.

Isa: I used to, when I was a Sunni specifically, talk a lot about Israel being this, and this Palestinian warfare, and so on. And then, I spoke to several Israelis and several Palestinians, and I realized that as a person who's neither, it seems to be a big problem maybe created by people outside and it just is a mishmash. I’m kind of like that. What's that, if Arafat had followed the two-state solution or something, maybe there would have been peace. But if I say that to a Palestinian, he's gonna argue against me and say... And what do I say? So, I will focus on, you know what? I'm not from there. I'll focus on my community. Do you get them what I'm saying? And the Afro-Caribbean community has got their own problems.

Nehemia: Are you Afro-Caribbean?

Isa: Yeah, yeah.

Nehemia: Did you know that Israel used to have Shiite allies? Were you aware of that? We had an area in southern Lebanon that Israel "occupied", but we didn't actually occupy it, we provided artillery and air support to groups on the ground that didn't want to be governed by the central government in Beirut. And some of those groups were Shiite. Some were Christians, and some were Shiites. People assume oh, it's the Jews against the Muslims. It's not that simple. There are Muslims that are on the side of Israel…

Isa: This is my whole point.

Nehemia: Even Shiites.

Isa: This is my whole point. I've met Orthodox Jews that have told me Israel is illegitimate, it shouldn't be there, they have to wait for the Messiah to come around. And I've seen Jews argue that point. So, it's kind of like me telling them anything, is like a Jew coming to me and telling me about Sunni and Shia.

Nehemia: That's fair.

Isa: Do you get what I'm saying? So, I just stay out of it and I listen.

Nehemia: I can't take a side on who is right, the Sunnis or the Shiites.

Isa: It's different with that, because it's on paper. If you're deciding about Sunni and Shia, you can read which one's more logical, which one's consistent. This is about land and people. Do you see what I'm saying? So, the claim is more to do with the people themselves.

Nehemia: And there certainly is a certain amount of outsiders who are instigating. For example, the United Nations has a special exemption for the definition of “refugee” that keeps Palestinians in a state of refugee status perpetually, even their descendants. There's no other refugee situation in the world where somebody's great-grandson is considered a refugee. And therefore, Palestinians in Lebanon aren't allowed to work.

So, give me some other examples of your daily life, how you observe your faith and your religion, that's different for Sunnis. It's very similar, you're saying?

Isa: It's more the principle of why you do it and how you do it. We both pray five times a day. However, we have a habit of joining the second and the third prayer, and the fourth and the fifth.

Nehemia: So, you in practice have three...

Isa: Periods of time. Three times, but five prayers. And that’s in the books, as well.

Nehemia: That’s interesting, ‘cause there are Jewish prayers, for example, on Shabbat morning, where there's two different prayers, but they're during the same service. So, there's a point where you end the prayer, and then you immediately start the next prayer. They'll say we pray three times a day, and it's four on Shabbat, and the second and third are combined.

Isa: Even the Sunnis have that, but they say that's when you're traveling, or in fear, if you're in a rush in fear of your life. It says the Prophet was doing this, joining the prayers, and he wasn't in fear, and he wasn't traveling. So, he was asked why, and he said he wanted to make things easier on the Muslims. So, we're actually following the way of the Prophet, still.

Nehemia: You were born here in London?

Isa: In England.

Nehemia: In England. Tell me what your view is, as you understand it, of a true Muslim, is. Like what is your role in the United Kingdom, in England, as a citizen, as...

Isa: That's interesting. What do you mean, as a citizen? Explain.

Nehemia: I don't know. You're a citizen, right?

Isa: Yeah, I was born here. But I mean, what is my role? What does that mean exactly?

Nehemia: Do you view your role as to change society to make it Muslim?

Isa: Muslim? No, no, no. My goal is to make people understand that Sunniism has nothing to do with Islam. Separate religion, the whole purpose of it is conquest, slavery, thievery. Everything that's bad you can associate with Sunniism. You just need to read the history of the people who they claim to follow. And they've actually re-written the life of Muhammad here and there to justify what they're doing. My point is to make that clear distinction. In regard to Britain, it's not a Muslim country, so it's for the people to choose what they want. Do you get what I’m saying? I'm not really a person that goes around trying to convert people, either. Especially now that you’ve got the Internet, if you're interested, go and research it. It's simple as that.

Nehemia: I'll explain what I mean. For example, the Prophet Jeremiah, he has this instruction that comes from, we believe, the God of Israel, that says, “When you go into exile, pray for the place where you go and settle, build gardens, be industrious, and contribute to society, because you're guests in their country.”

Isa: Oh, I see what you mean.

Nehemia: That's the Jewish perspective, I don't know about the Shiite perspective.

Isa: Yes, we're supposed to be model citizens of society, but I just thought that was normal.

Nehemia: I wouldn’t assume it’s normal. Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not an expert, but I've read about some, probably Sunnis, I'm guessing, who believe that Britain is an evil country that needs to be destroyed. Tell me if this is wrong. I read that there were at one point, more Muslim British, and again, Muslim is Sunni...

Isa: Because it’s ISIS, Sunni.

Nehemia: So, there were more Sunnis in ISIS than there were in the British military. I don't know if that was true, but I read that, like about in 2015.

Isa: The percent is right, yeah, yeah.

Nehemia: In sheer numbers…

Isa: So, you're saying if there's 2,000 British Sunnis in ISIS, there's only 1,000 in the British army?

Nehemia: I don't know the numbers, but that's what I read, I don't know if it's true.

Isa: I mean, it probably is true because you have to remember, as I said, the Sunni ideology is about conquest, and clearly by any means, yes? That would make sense. Our agenda has never been that, to conquer and go into people's lands. At the end of the day, for me, Britain is practicing a lot of Islam. Do you get what I’m saying? We have a lot of freedoms here. It encourages the use of the intellect. It encourages science, which is all, basically, what Islam is about.

Nehemia: Would you rather live in Britain, or in Iran, or let's say Pakistan?

Isa: I appreciate, yeah. Damn right. I mean, I mentioned that I consider myself English. Not just British, English. And a white dude, we had a long conversation afterwards, he said, “I'm English.” “No, you're British.” I go, “No, no. I’m English.” And growing up, you know, you're sort of like made to feel you're British, but you're not English. So, you have to be white to be English.

Nehemia: Really?

Isa: Yeah. Generally, that’s the kind of people…

Nehemia: Interesting. I was raised in a very isolated Jewish community, which was ultra-Orthodox. But when we were told about Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims, it was never, “They did it.” It was, “We did it.” Even though I didn't have a single ancestor in the United States when that happened, that's my history. I was raised from a small child that that was my history.

Isa: But you're still in your memory of your or the British going over there, killing the people, and taking the land. Do you see what I'm saying? It's so close, it's only a couple hundred years, whereas the British will say, “Well, we've been here, and our ancestors have been here for over 1,000 years.”

Nehemia: No, but my point is, I don't have a drop of English blood in my body, yet the English...

Isa: No, but what I'm saying is, if the others are new to the country, then they have just as much right to say they're as American as you.

Nehemia: We would talk about the forefathers. You know, Abraham Lincoln... Well, not Abraham Lincoln, but George Washington, the founding fathers, and those are my founding fathers, not the founding fathers of some other group of people, even though I didn't have ancestors... When you become an American, at least, you become part of that history. Is it like that for you as an Afro-Caribbean and a Muslim?

Isa: Well, the Muslim part I don't think if they changed society even more, it might be a big issue. But I'm saying as an Afro-Caribbean, due to the racism in the ‘70s, with the police and so on, I don't know if you know about the riots...

Nehemia: Well, there was racism against Jews for over 100 years. Ulysses S. Grant passed a law expelling all the Jews from the areas occupied by the Union Army. It's still part of my history.

Isa: Yeah? What I'm saying is black people were very much mistreated, right?

Nehemia: Absolutely.

Isa: What I'm saying is, as an Afro-Caribbean in the UK, us and the white people in Britain, in general, have fought together to remove or try and eliminate as much racism, especially anti-black racism, because it's mainly black people from the society, as we can. And we are getting somewhere until the Sunnis are trying to reverse it.

Nehemia: You think it's the Sunnis who are...

Isa: The only people that walk around talking about how they're gonna hang an Islamic flag... Who says that in Downing Street, who says that?

Nehemia: I have no idea.

Isa: The Sunnis. They wanna take over the country and hang a…

Nehemia: They want to hang an Islamic flag in England?

Isa: Yes, over Downing Street. That's what they've said.

Nehemia: And that's like your White House, right?

Isa: Yeah.

Nehemia: No, ‘cause they don't know what Downing Street is.

Isa: When I compare the two, it’s not that.

Nehemia: It's your seat of government.

Isa: Yes, yes, it's the main place. Yeah.

Nehemia: And so, the Sunnis say they want to hang an Islamic flag there?

Isa: I'll be fair. Not all Sunnis, but a group of Sunnis. But my point is, they all praise the same people as their example in the interpretations of the religion.

Nehemia: And who's that example?

Isa: The Sahaba, starting with Abu Bakr, who was a usurper, and a conqueror, and a thief.

Nehemia: Let's do a lightning round here and wrap it up. What would you say to people who say that Muhammad was like a warlord who married a nine-year-old girl? What would you say to that criticism?

Isa: So, obviously a lot of people know that the Shias don't believe that.

Nehemia: I have no idea what the Shiites believe. Other than that, I don’t know.