Hamza — banned from preaching his hate-filled sermons at London’s Finsbury Park mosque — said of the tragedy: “This was a divine act, a message for mankind.”
His rant caused outrage across Britain, in the grieving space communities of Houston and Cape Canaveral in the US and in Texan counties littered with wreckage.
Here, angry Muslims led renewed calls for Hamza, who lives in Shepherd’s Bush, West London, to be kicked out of the country.
Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “He does not possess a scrap of human decency. How dare he gloat over a tragedy like this.”
Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, leader of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain, said: “He continues to hurt the cause of Muslims.”
Shadow Home Secretary Oliver Letwin called Hamza’s remarks “monstrous, appalling, despicable and outrageous”.
He added: “All sensible people will be amazed someone can engage in such blatant incitement without anyone laying a finger on him.”
Labour MP Andrew Dismore branded the cleric sick and said: “The sooner we get rid of him the better.”
At Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, shocked Nasa spokeswoman Kandy Warren said: “Oh my God, that is horrible.”
Hamza was blasted by British tourists laying flowers there.
Jonathan Bancroft, 31, from Newport, South Wales, said: “I can’t believe our taxes are keeping this man. He is scum.”
Palestine’s mayor George Foss accused Hamza of spouting “horrific nonsense”.
And local café owner Judi Summerville said: “He is the monster, not the astronauts.”
Vinod Patel, leader of Houston’s Hindu community, said: “I would use his hook to attach him to the next shuttle and blast him into space.”
The American victims in Saturday’s disaste were Rick Husband, 45, William McCool, 41, Michael Anderson, 43, David Brown, 46, and Laurel Clark, 41.
Indian-born Kalpana Chawla, 41, and the first Israeli in space, Ilan Ramon, 48, also died.
Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “He does not possess a scrap of human decency. How dare he gloat over a tragedy like this.”
Ayone care to guess what British Muslims are saying in private about this - away from the BBC microphones?
Or is it the other way around?
All right! Finally! Moslems are getting involved in some of this. It's about time, and welcome.
Yeah, both of them. The other million were handing out candy to celebrate.
These liberal creeps know full well if they sent camera crews into Muslim countries to get reaction, we would be bombing them yesterday.
LOL
This guy is funny, but the hook guy is the poster child for radical Islam.
I have a feeling will be seeing a lot more of him in the future.
Back in 1974 he published a booklet in Arabic, titled The Mobility of the Sun and Moon and the Immobility of the Earth, in which, relying on a verse from the Koran, he stated: "The earth is flat. Whoever claims it is round is an atheist deserving of punishment."
In 1993 the same Shiek, as the highest religious authority of Saudi Arabia (and presumably the world), issued a fatwa explicitly declaring that anyone suggesting that the earth was not flat was a blasphemer and must be punished.
Apart from this Sheik, the Islamic Calendar is pretty fair evidence of the meagre astronomical understanding of the Moslems. It is a lunar calendar - but unlike the Jewish or Chinese calendars it makes no effort to reconcile itself to the solar year - so the year is about 356 days long, each date occurring approximately nine days earlier than in the year before so that, for example, the month of Ramidan churns around the seasons making a complete cycle in about 19 years. Worse than that, although both the Jews and Chinese were able many centuries ago to calculate the lunar cycles with precision, the Islamic date will not be set in advance by mathematical calculation, instead the beginning of the month commences with the actual eyewitness viewing of the first crescent of the moon, without regard to astronomic predictions, and there continue to be lively arguments almost every year among Moslems about whether the first day of the month begins when that crescent is visible in Baghdad or Mecca or Cairo (considering the motion of the moon, it occasionally happens that the moon is not yet lit in its first crescent until after it passes over part of the Arab world, or one of those cities might have bad weather), with the result that, every now and then, those calendars that were printed in advance are put in the wrong.
(PS I would support that mission objective...)