Aussie preacher praises sharia law at controversial centre in western Sydney

An Australian cleric has claimed Muslims are being “belittled” without sharia law, while calling down the “wrath of Allah” on Western powers at a fiery sermon in western Sydney.

Brother Abu Ahmad says Muslims suffer when not living under sharia law.

An Australian cleric has ­argued Muslims are being ­“belittled” when not living under sharia law while also taking aim at “infidel” western powers that colonised the Middle East, saying: “May the wrath of Allah be upon them”, during a speech in Sydney.

Brother Abu Ahmad, who is based in Melbourne, recently delivered the blistering sermon at Bankstown’s Al Madina Dawah Centre, which is run by controversial Sydney-based preacher Wissam Haddad.

Mr Haddad was taken to court by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) and found by a judge to have breached the racial discrimination act after a series of speeches including in which he described Jews as “vile”.

In the new speech, Mr Ahmad said Muslims suffer when not living under sharia law: “We forget that there is a sharia of Allah waiting to be established, we forget that every single day that we live without the sharia of Allah we are being dishonoured, we are being belittled, the blood of the Muslims has become cheap”.

Turning to the issue of political division in the Middle East, Mr Ahmad blasted European powers over the Sykes–Picot Agreement, a treaty that divided up land after World War I.

Fellow preacher Wissam Haddad (left) runs the Banstown centre.

“The Syrian hates the Lebanese, the Lebanese hate the Syrian, the Jordanian hates the Palestinian, the Palestinian hates the Jordanian, why? Because of two kafirs (infidels) – Sykes and Picot – may the wrath of Allah be upon them,” Mr Ahmad said. “They divided our lands … they were sitting on a table thinking of us as worthless beings, they were just scribbling on a map.

“The Palestinian flag is under my foot, the Lebanese flag is under my foot, the Syrian flag is under my foot – the only flag that we hold is … the flag of the messenger of Allah … that is the identity that we uphold. We are Muslim first before we are Syrian, before we are Palestinian.”

ECAJ co-chief executive Peter Wertheim said it must be understood what was trying to be conveyed in speeches such as Mr Ahmad’s, which gave the impression of promoting the replacement of government.

“The will of the people would be subordinated to the will of a religious supreme leader – freedom of speech and freedom of association would be abolished, along with the equal rights of all citizens, the democratic right to vote bad governments out of office, and independent courts,” he said.

In court, Federal Court Justice Angus Stewart previously found some of Mr Haddad’s earlier speeches were overly critical of Jewish people.

“The imputations include age-old tropes against Jewish people that are fundamentally racist and anti-Semitic,” Justice Stewart said.