Paul Salahuddin Armstrong - a debate on Islam

Paul Salahuddin Armstrong - a debate on Islam

Paul Salahuddin Armstrong

I met Paul Salahuddin Armstrong, a Muslim community leader, during a debate on Islam hosted by VOX AFRICA television channel in Battersea, London. Paul represents the Association of British Muslims

During the said debate, I also met Abdullah Al-Andalusi  - co-founder of Muslim Debate Initiative - and Tommy Robinson, English Defense League Leader.

The debate conducted by Akintayo of Vox Africa was a mix of political issues, social issues and theology so somewhow we travelled in time from the very beginnings of Islam to the present day, back and forth, trying to establish parallels between religion and what happens in today's world.

As soon as we distanced ourselves from the purely theological issues, we discovered that we shared many views in terms of foreign policy and in terms of what constitutes acceptable human behaviour.

Therefore, without forgetting about disagreements, we had an extremely fluid dialogue and, rather than shouting and screaming abuse, all participants shook hands at the end of a debate that took place in an atmosphere of absolute respect for each other.

If we could promote on the streets the same kind of respectful approach towards each other, despite having opposite views, the world would feel like a different world and would be a different world.