From The Daily Mail

As a throng of Muslim families crowd around him, Abu Izzadeen speaks in a quiet voice of his plans for the future of Britain. The tall, bearded 36-year-old — who was recently freed from prison after serving a term for funding terrorism — is telling, in chilling detail, how he wants to impose Islam’s strict Sharia law on this country.

At a shopping mall in Waltham Forest, North London, Muslim passers-by listen intently . . . Fathers push forward their young sons (wearing skull caps for prayers at the local mosque) so they can get a good view of the man who is plainly viewed by many as a hero.

Today, Izzadeen, the self-styled ‘Director for Waltham Forest Muslims’, will march with his supporters — many of them new young recruits to Islam — as part of their campaign to make the suburban borough into Britain’s first Sharia-law zone.

Izzadeen says: “This is the first step towards turning Britain into an Islamic state. There are nearly three million Muslims in this country. Islam is a sleeping giant that is waking. We have moved on from the debate about the provision of halal meat to more political issues. Twenty-five areas around Britain have large Muslim populations, including Bradford, Dewsbury, Leicester and Luton. We want to turn them all into Islamic Emirates, where the excesses of Western civilisation are not tolerated”.

. . . the huge influx of Muslims into such areas has turned his campaign into a potentially explosive issue. One in seven of those living in the borough of Waltham Forest is a practising Muslim. Nearby Newham and Tower Hamlets, where leaflets are also being distributed, have populations where, respectively, one in four and one in three follows the Muslim faith.

(Although) . . .Abu Izzadeen’s followers remain on the fringe, some of their hard-line policies have started to take root.According to the Association of Chief Police Officers, every year 17,000 Muslim women in Britain become victims of forced marriages, are raped by their husbands or subjected to female genital mutilation — all condoned by more extreme Islamists.

The (Muslims against Crusades) website says Sharia law zones have ‘momentous’ support from Muslim businessmen, lawyers and community leaders, who are ‘sickened by the alcohol, pornography and downright secular culture of Britain’. One letter posted on the site yesterday, and said to be from a local man, says (in non-perfect English): ‘Brothers, it is about time we open our eyes to the reality where our own community is being corrupted by the Kaffar (disbeliever) and their so-called freedom’.

Promoting the introduction of Sharia law, MAC explains: ‘In the past 50 years, the United Kingdom has transformed beyond recognition.  What was once a predominantly Christian country has now been overwhelmed by a rising Muslim population, which seeks to preserve its Islamic identity and protect itself from the satanic values of the Britain. There are now more than 2.8 million Muslims living in the U.K., which is 5 per cent of the population . . . Mosques, Islamic schools, Sharia courts, Muslim-owned businesses and banks have now become an integral part of the British landscape.’

Baroness Cox, a crossbench peer and campaigner for Muslim women, has highlighted the dangers of the increasing influence of extreme factions within Islamic culture.  She says: ‘As the Muslim population has grown, and the state-sponsored creed of multiculturalism has become ever more powerful, so Sharia law has strengthened its grip on our society. This is a recipe for disaster. . .’

Equally worried about the growth of the pro-Sharia campaign is Alan Craig, a former Newham councillor who has lived in East London for 30 years. He says: ‘This is the public tip of a hidden iceberg. . . Islam in Britain is now a political force, and not just a religion. Society in this part of London is slowing being changed.’

Mr Craig says he believes the campaign for Sharia zones has more widespread support among Muslims than the authorities are prepared to admit. ‘I would like to think that the campaign is orchestrated by extremists, and is only supported by a small group of their followers; but I fear that it is not the case.’

But as he (Abu Izzadeen and his pro-Sharia zealots) marches through London’s streets today, waving the banners of Muslims Against Crusades, the great irony will undoubtedly be lost on him that if Sharia law really ever took hold in this country, such public demonstrations would almost certainly be prohibited.