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A Muslim for Scotland

Who thinks Jews should join the party

by
Allison Hoffman
July 01, 2009

Nationalist political parties tend, for the most part, not to be the sort of organizations that embrace diversity. But one of the leading lights of the Scottish National Party, whose platform is based on local governance rather than on notions of racial purity, is Osama Saeed, the Glasgow-born founder of the Scottish Islamic Foundation.

Saeed is expected to run in the next general election for a parliamentary seat previously held by Mohammed Sarwar, Britain’s first Muslim MP. He has come in for criticism as a kind of Trojan Muslim who conceals his support for a restored Islamic caliphate behind his neatly trimmed beard and natty ties. But in an interview with London-based altmuslim, he says all he wanted was the freedom to have state-supported parochial schools—something Orthodox Jews, as it happens, also enthusiastically support, along, he noted, with people who speak Gaelic.

Allison Hoffman is a senior editor at Tablet Magazine. Her Twitter feed is @allisont_dc.