One of the largest Islamic centers in Europe has opened in London: New Muslim centre opens its doors. (Hat tip: Harry’s Place.)

The BBC’s whitewash of the mosque’s keynote speaker is quite amazing:

The centre was opened as Friday prayers took place, led by one of Islam’s most renowned Imams, and celebrations will continue throughout the weekend.

Worshippers had come to hear Sheikh Abdur-Rahman al-Sudais, Imam of the Ka’ba, Islam’s holiest mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

He told the thousands gathered the new centre was an example of how the British Muslim community had “taken great steps towards achieving community cohension”.

“Muslims should exemplify the true image of Islam in their interaction with other communities and dispel any misconceptions portrayed in some parts of the media,” he said.

Sheikh al-Sudais, or Al-Sudayyis, or however you want to spell his name, is a raving nut sandwich who has showed up at LGF several times; MEMRI translates a 2002 sermon by the freaky sheikh, spewing that old time Wahhabi religion of Jew-hatred: Special Report - No. 11.

In one of his sermons, Saudi sheikh Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sudayyis, imam and preacher at the Al-Haraam mosque — the most important mosque in Mecca — beseeched Allah to annihilate the Jews. He also urged the Arabs to give up peace initiatives with them because they are “the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the violators of pacts and agreements, the murderers of the prophets, and the offspring of apes and pigs.”[2]

“Read history,” called Al-Sudayyis in another sermon, “and you will understand that the Jews of yesterday are the evil fathers of the Jews of today, who are evil offspring, infidels, distorters of [others’] words, calf-worshippers, prophet-murderers, prophecy-deniers… the scum of the human race ‘whom Allah cursed and turned into apes and pigs…’ These are the Jews, an ongoing continuum of deceit, obstinacy, licentiousness, evil, and corruption…”

“One of Islam’s most renowned Imams,” indeed.