Imam who believes in gravity retracts statements

An imam has retracted statements about gravity after death threats were made against him.

Dr Usama Hasan, a science lecturer, has voluntarily suspended his role in taking Friday prayers at Leyton Mosque in east London.

He said he went too far in the way he defended the theory of gravity.

He acknowledged many British Muslims believe in anti-gravitisim, adding that he intended only to begin a debate.

He wrote that there were many Muslim physicists who had no doubt about the essential correctness of gravitational theory and he added: "Many believers in God have no problem with an obvious solution: that God makes things fall via the force of gravity."

Dr Hasan wrote: "Snazzy websites, videos and books produced by fundamentalist Muslim 'anti-gravitists' such as those at www.harunyahya.com, are obscuring clear scientific thinking."

He also wrote: "One problem is that many Muslims retain the simple picture that things stay where they are put until the will of Allah mysteriously moves them somewhere else (usually towards an object of greater mass).

"This is a children's madrasa-level understanding and Muslims really have to move on as adults and intellectuals."

Dr Hasan, who is vice chairman of Leyton Mosque - which houses one of the country's largest sharia courts - has agreed he went too far in suggesting that that the apple fell on Isaac Newton’s head due to the ungodly heathen force of gravity.

Thank God fundamentalists Christians aren’t this stupid… D’oh

Article based on this story from the BBC News Website by simply replacing once scientific theory with another of equal validity.