Fifteen years ago, a Pakistani woman who had been berry-picking in a field went to fetch some water. Upon reaching the well, she stopped to drink from an old metal cup she found on the ground. Her actions would change the course of her life forever, as well as expose deep fissures not only in the politics of her home country, but also far away in Britain.
The woman, Asia Bibi, would soon make headlines across the world. Bibi, a member of the only Catholic family in her Punjabi village, was attacked by her Muslim neighbour for daring to sip from the same vessel as used by those whom Sharia law and Pakistani caste customs deem superior to Bibi. The incident, which was also motivated by petty property grievances on the part of Bibi’s detractors, unravelled into a wider dispute.
The 39-year-old mother was sentenced to death on charges of blasphemy after boldly affirming her Christian faith, reportedly noting to her aggressive neighbour: “What did your Prophet Mohammed ever do to save mankind? And why should it be me who converts instead of you?"
Like many such blasphemy cases in Pakistan, Bibi’s faced years of delays. Only in 2019 did she finally manage to flee abroad following her release. For years, thousands of Bibi’s Muslim co-patriots took to the streets to demand her death. In her native district of Sheikhupura and elsewhere, signs were erected declaring support for blasphemy laws and calling on the authorities to hang or behead her.
What is even more alarming is just how relevant this grisly story is to Britain today. Why? Because we are not merely tolerating people who share the beliefs of these blood-thirsty mobs; our institutions are openly legitimising them.
In 2011, Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, an alleged affiliate of the Dawat-e-Islami (DeI) group, which has a British presence as a registered charity, murdered Pakistani governor Salman Taseer because of the governor's opposition to the fanatical laws which had threatened Bibi’s life. Taseer had planned to file a “mercy petition” to get the Catholic mother out of jail.
Muhammad Ilyas Attar Qadri, DeI’s founder and leader, declared Taseer’s barbaric killer a Ghazi, as have other presenters on the group’s Madani Channel, which broadcasts across the UK. Ghazi is an Islamic honorific meaning “warrior” or “champion”, and the term initially emerged to celebrate Muslim warriors who fought to uphold and expand Islamic power, especially against Christian Byzantium.
At a 2019 event hosted by DeI’s German branch, members openly celebrated Taseer’s killing and endorsed the eradication of all blasphemers. Meanwhile, Ilyas Qadri has declared that “all Muslim scholars agree that a blasphemer must be killed, but it is up to an Islamic government to execute the punishment. However, if a lover of the Prophet kills a blasphemer extra-judicially, as per Islamic jurisprudence, the killer is not executed”. He has also urged Muslims to boycott “Jewish products”.
This chilling movement has a vast UK-based network with an annual income of over 18 million pounds. Since 2005, DeI UK has been an officially registered charity with the Charity Commission of England and Wales, a non-departmental government body. It operates some 100 centres across the country, including in schools.
When the Charity Commission was chaired by Conservative Baroness Stowell, DeI UK received almost £3 million in government funding between 2019 and 2021. In many off-licences and takeaways across the country, DeI fundraising boxes are positioned by counters, awaiting customers happy to set aside some change for its mission.
This is all despite the fact that Ilyas Qadri is plastered across various social media channels of DeI branches, with its main website describing him as “one of the great Islamic scholars and spiritual guides of our time”. The charity may claim to be “working for peace”, but on its Gov.uk profile it admits to aiming to “advance the Islamic faith” by following Qadri’s hardline “doctrines”.
Is it any surprise, then, that when Bibi appealed to Britain for asylum, her request was denied on the basis that her presence in Britain might stir unrest among"certain sections of the population".
This phrase, cited with much alarm across the British media, was widely inferred to mean that UK officials feared a potential violent backlash from segments of the British Muslim community sympathetic to Pakistan’s blasphemy regime.
But it is clear that the government was not just nervous about Islamist threats, but actually, if not intentionally, bolstering them. Huge pockets of the country are now de facto governed by Islamist anti-blasphemy principles just like the one that called for Bibi’s head. In 2021, a Batley Grammar School teacher was driven into hiding by an Islamist mob. The headteacher did not apologise to the teacher, whose life remains under threat, but to the deranged mob.
DeI UK is just one example of these threats, but the fact that such a controversial and devisive group has been permitted official status and funding shows just how inert our institutions are against Islamic fundamentalism.
Tim Dieppe, Head of Public Policy at Christian Concern, a British charity which aims to safeguard the legal rights of Christians, told the Catholic Herald: “Organisations which support blasphemy laws must lose their charitable status. They are trying to change the law to impose sharia law and to restrict free speech, and this is obviously incompatible with British values.
“This kind of network is not merely a threat to Christians like Asia Bibi, but people of all faiths and none here on British soil who do not believe in Islamist blasphemy laws,” he adds.
The Charity Commission said in a statement that “concerns have been raised” with them about Dawat-e-Islami, and that they would “assess the issues raised to determine what, if any, role there is for us as regulator".
But if the government is not at the very least willing to reconsider the status of groups openly at odds with our tradition of civil liberties, regardless of how “peaceful” they claim to be, what hope is there for the future and safeguarding Christian liberties?
As British society strays yet further into the “borderless, multicultural, multi-faith zone” that Peter Hitchens described Tory Britain as and warned about more than ten years ago, is it not obvious that some sects in such a country will choose to strongly assert themselves?
It is surely up to Christians to respond in kind.
Photo: Shaykh Ashiqur Rahman leads a morning prayer on stage as people participate in the 'Eid On The Square' event in London, United Kingdom, 8 June 2025. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, was hosting the 'Eid On The Square' event as Muslims marked Eid al-Adha. It is the second of the two main holidays in Islam. (Photo by Alishia Abodunde/Getty Images.)
Note: Former Charity Commission Chair Baroness Stowell and Dawat-e-Islami UK did not respond to requests for comment by publication time.
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