To all National, Ethnic and Muslim press and institutions
PRESS RELEASE: 1 April, 2001

From a group of Muslims who believes in TRUTH and wish to follow the Islamic requirement to speak out against bad deeds...

We have had a close association with the Wembley-based 'Q-News: The Muslim Fortnightly'. There are various things that Q- News' advertisers and other Islamic organisations should know about the magazine. It is not well and good for an Islamic organisation to engage in deception because it claims to lack resources.

(i) Q-News employees are told to quote a print run of 20 or 30,000 to advertisers. The actual print run is 5,000 per issue, except for the annual special Ramadan issue when it is more. If you are in doubt of the 5,000 figure, ask Q- News to show you the figures from the magazine's printers.

This is why local government and other established organisations do not advertise with Q-News. It does not have certified figures for its print-run and those people who do advertise report very poor response rates.

Of the 5,000 printed, over 50% are not distributed. Q-News has only approx. 500 paid subscribers, and a few hundred more are sold through bookshops and other outlets. If the Q- News' offices are visited, you will see thousands of copies of each back-issue lying around.

Because of this exaggeration of print-run, advertisers' inserts in the magazine are dumped en-masse.

(ii) Q-News claims to advertisers that it is available in mainstream newsagents up and down the country. Do this: go to ten newsagents in your area. Does a single one stock the magazine? Q-News is only sold in a handful of newsagents in the entire country.

(iii) Many of the articles in the middle and end section of the publication are stolen - yes stolen - from the web, magazines and books e.g. a series of recipes from the Muslim world was copied from cookery books.... e.g. article in issue around November 1999 by Edward Said lifted in its entirety from the web. The editor, Fuad Nahdi, is particularly adept at stealing whole articles from foreign sources on the internet.

(iv) Mr Nahdi also has a cruel joke he plays on young and impressionable Muslim reporters who work there. He beckons them to his computer stating that he has something extremely important to say. When there, they are faced with pornographic pictures and a smirk on Mr Nahdi's face.

(v) Mr Nahdi has also actively campaigned in support of the view that it is not obligatory for Muslim women to wear hijab by publishing letters to this effect.

(vi) Mr Faisal Bodi, the 32 year old unmarried news editor (and only writer on the magazine) has many 'outside' interests. One of these is to participate in evening mixed-sex massage classes. He strides into the office the next morning boasting about how many 'fit' women he got the chance to give a back-massage to.

(vii) Faisal Bodi's crude comments have made life in the office unbearable for the few sisters who have worked there. Ask any Muslim sister who has worked in Q-News.

(viii) This includes photographs. Except the ones taken by Q- News reporters themselves, all the others are scanned in from other newspapers and magazines. In contravention of the law, no copyright permission or payment is made for any of them.

(v) Why is much of the material in the magazine copied from other sources? Because Q-News only has ONE journalist working for it. Despite the image it tries to put across - through deception - the whole magazine is run by three people.

(vi) The owner of Q-News, Fuad Nahdi, has had numerous county court judgements issued against him. He is regular visitor to the courts in his area. He has such a bad record of paying debts that he is blacklisted. This may be verified from the relevant authorities.

(vii) Q-News 'employees' do not have contracts of any type and most are fraudulently claiming social security. Tax or National Insurance is not paid for them. They use pseudonyms in Q-News to be not caught out by the authorities.

(viii) Reader's are made fools of in the magazine (about which jokes fly around the office). Quotations are sometimes made up. e.g. Issue No. 272-3, July 1997 back page. Q-News is so desperate to flog it's books 'The Opening to the Quran' and 'Lasting Prayers' that it conjures up false quotations to praise them (long time readers of the magazine wll note that an advert for their books has been placed in Q-News for over two years) :

'"A must for every Muslim" Prof. Abdul Jamal, Beirut Islamic Institute'. This professor and this insitution do not exist! Check it out!

'"The most indepth appraisal thus far" The American Muslim Magazine'. This magazine has never existed.

Another example: the Diana special issue in September 1997 had a memorial article to Dodi. A certain Imam Abdul Aziz of Stoke-on-Trent mosque is quoted as saying Dodi was a wonderful person. Neither the Imam nor the mosque exists! Look it up!

There are numerous other examples of quotations being attributed to sources that do not exist. The magazine is full of shoddy, inaccurate journalism. Q-News can get away with it because Muslims believe the magazine - after all the editor has got a beard hasn't he?

There is a tendency in the 'Muslim' community of turning a blind- eye to fraud and deception as conducted by the likes of Q- News (though we'll see how Allah handles these 'Muslims' who overlook illegal activities conducted by their pals on the Day of Judgement).

British 'Muslims' know about law-breaking in many spheres of their lives, yet they stay silent - hence colluding with it. This is despite the fact that the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) urged Muslims to, at the very least, speak out against criminality.

We must ask ourselves: how would Allah swt perceive these activities? Are they illegal or does it not matter because the ends (of publishing a 'Muslim' magazine) justify the means, because the people who perpetrate them are Muslims and have long beards?

Being an Islamic magazine which is supposedly short of resources (remember: the editor enjoys a life of amazing ostentation) does not permit one to engage in illegality. Being an Islamic magazine doesn't justify telling lies and defrauding the social security and tax systems. It does not justify the theft of articles and photographs from other sources. The whole magazine operation is a scam from start to finish. Most of the facts made above are verifiable in case you are sceptical of their accuracy.

May we live our lives along a righteous path and may Allah swt enable all of us to earn our livelihoods in a halal manner. Ameen.

All Praise to Allah, Lord of the Worlds. His angels take note of every single deed we do and every word we utter. We ask Allah's forgiveness if what we have done does not please him.

If you would like more information regarding this press release then please call Sister Shagufta on 020 8903 0819 during office hours. Thank you.