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July 29, 2024 - 11:55am
Scots have been left perturbed by news that a radical Islamist preacher is fundraising to buy the remote Scottish island of Torsa. His aim: to create a global Islamic “homeland” there. Sheikh Yasser al-Habib, originally from Kuwait, claimed asylum in the UK 20 years ago after being jailed in his home country for inciting sectarianism. He now conducts “military-style” training camps, and broadcasts Arabic-language Islamist extremism on “Fadak TV” from a private compound in Fulmer in Buckinghamshire.
Now al-Habib is calling on his followers to donate toward a £3.5 million target to buy the low-lying 270-acre island of Torsa, around 20 miles off the coast of Oban and currently on the market for £1.5 million. Uninhabited at present, Torsa is mostly covered by pasture and is only accessible by private boat, while its only building is a three-bedroom farmhouse currently used as a holiday let. Al-Habib wants to build a hospital, military training centre and religious school there, and create a “homeland” for Islamists from all over the world.
This has some hallmarks of a “silly season” story. The jarring prospect of an anti-Western sect seeking a foothold in Scotland’s Western Isles makes unbeatable outrage clickbait, further enriched by the Four Lions-style comic prospect of weekend jihadis playing toy soldiers amid a cloud of that coastline’s infamous midges. That’s not to mention an unforgiving climate of 16-hour winter nights and summers that barely crack 20 degrees even at their hottest.
And that’s if they manage to get anything built, between local opposition and their own human capital. The bulk of Al-Habib’s 400,000 followers are British Muslims, a demographic that, according to ONS data, is the most likely minority in the UK to rent their home, to be on benefits, and to live in social housing — that is, to be reliant on state welfare. None of these statistics suggest a group brimful of the self-starting pioneer mindset or practical competencies required to succeed at a project of this nature.
In any case, having stirred up the headlines, the Daily Mail has since reported that the island’s current owner is unlikely to sell to anyone who is “a bad fit with the local community”. That probably rules out a fanatical Islamist with a would-be private army. Even so, we might reasonably wonder why all the outrage at this point, given how easy it already is to buy chunks of Scotland as a non-resident, an offshore company, or even a foreign state.
Scotland has long suffered from “absentee landlords” with little local interest or engagement, and today many of these now have few ties to the nation at all. The biggest landowner is Anders Povslen, a Danish billionaire, with some 220,000 acres of the Scottish Highlands. Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, owns a further 63,000 acres. Almost half of recent Highland estate sales went to absentee owners, often for carbon offsetting; some are financial vehicles or offshore entities. Even the Chinese government owns Scottish land. Selling a mere 270 acres to some Islamists is small beer by comparison.
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SubscribeGreat read, thanks Mary.
Thanks for the great writing as always, Mary, and for the context. (Writing as an American here.)
Reminds me of the Jewish blessing from Former on the Roof “May God bless and keep the czar…far away from us.”
Why is he not allowed to buy an island?
There is a farmer near where I live in Scotland that has been waiting 40 years for permission to build on his land.
First rule of getting anything done: don’t ask for permission. Forgiveness, if necessary.
This sounds like a reality show: “Thirty wannabe jihadists, ten kilos of Semtex, one island: Britain’s Got Terror, this fall on ITV!”
The UK is sleepwalking into a nightmare. This is the choice it actively made by recognising Islamists as victims and providing them shelter.
Well they asked for it. What’s amusing are all the secularists and atheist whackjobs who continually defend Islam while attacking actual peaceful religions like Christianity.
Never understood it. The former is responsible for terrorist attacks and much violence whereas, the later, at worst simply upsets someone by telling them that they’re a sinner.
Sorry… what!?
Sorry… WHAT!?
Mostly on benefits?
That’s really annoying.
Religion of benefits
By all means. Sell him the island, encourage his followers to join him there, with subsidised passage for a tenner. Then scrap the ferry service without warning.
And then followed by some precision target practice by the RAF. Only joking!
Sorry, but I don’t see any downsides to this. We get a bunch of bonkers Islamists going to a remote and hostile location away from our communities where they’ll probably suffer greatly and live in their own little world. What’s not to like?
I’m assuming this must be some kind of early (or late) macabre April’s Fools joke article?
The internet troll in me says “yeah, sell him the island then cut off the ferry service.” But we know some NGO goons would turn up to ferry the back and forth.
The serious part of me despairs that he is even here.
I’m sure the RNLI would be happy to help.
Why not just give them Gruinard Island ? Just don’t tell them it’s other name.
“So why not do it?”
Ok, Deal!
But there are conditions we have to insist on.
Sheikh Yasser al-Habib can have the island of Torsa, but anyone who visits the island cannot thereafter be allowed to cross the Scottish borders outbound, as long as they shall live.
You might think this would create a problem if Torsa becomes a holy site and huge numbers come to visit, but I’m sure Scotland could do with some inflows given the depopulation that has been happening there for years now.
Torsa is indeed about 20 miles from Oban but it is not that far “off the coast”; it lies about a quarter of a mile from the mainland in secluded inshore waters.
If a community is started here, surely they’ll become known as Torsas?
If the choice has gotta come down to them Habibs, personally speaking, I very much prefer Ben to Al.
Why does he need an island to promote his agenda when he could just join the SNP and sit in Holyrood or Glasgow City Council Chambers?
Islam rose and mainly persists in hot, dry countries. Maybe that’s just a coincidence. But I can’t picture Islamist fervour lasting on a Scottish Island. Their Burkahs will be quickly soaked.
Not if they were made from good, stout, Harris tweed
Don’t be surprised if Ahmer Anwar does his conveyancing.
Why is he still in the UK?
Not bad as click-bait. So perhaps Scotland, or the SNP at any rate, would sell everything and even it’s soul – provided no buyers were “english” (the definition aways being murky: what origin, historical cut-off point and perceived extent of past oppression of innocent scots defines english these days?). Perhaps the silly season story has legs, in spirit at least: uniting the clans with the rest of the world – China, Iran, and anyone else with a grudge – against the enemy south of the border?
The basis of this article is in a piece in TheMail online. Is it really credible?
I am so glad to live in a country where we have freedom of religion or are free to have none. It would be shameful for someone with no authority to change this.