Introduction
With over 420,000 subscribers and videos about Muslim celebrities, Islamic reactions to Hollywood films, and a Twitch channel for live-streaming videogames, Smile 2 Jannah seems like a very modern Islamic YouTuber.
However, amongst the highly professional videos are more unusual titles; in the last month alone he has made videos about '“Hindu feeding COW P*SS to a Covid patient”, “Hindus throwing poop & New Indian variant?”, and even “HINDU EXTREMIST PREACHES “LOVING” MUSLIM GIRLS” (itself a spin on “Love Jihad”, the claim by Hindu nationalists that Muslims in India are deliberately seducing Hindu girls).
Another frequent target are the Ahmadiyya Muslims, with one supposedly “FUNNY” video about an Ahmadi accidentally calling his group’s founder a “Kafir” (unbeliever) or a YouTube debate titled “Ahmadiyya/Qadiani vs Muslim” (which suggests that the Ahmadiyya aren’t actually Muslims, a claim which is often used to justify persecuting them). Other videos on the channel feature titles like “JEW AVI YEMINI EXPOSES HIMSELF” and “4 CHRISTIAN BROS RAPE 12 Y/O SISTER”.
What is it about?
An interview with the founder of the channel reveals that his name is Zeeshan Ali and that he created the channel in order to perform Dawah (proselytising) to young people more effectively. The interviewer is Imran Hussein, whose Twitter profile shows that he is associated with iERA, which was banned from debates at UCL, after attempts to segregate the audience by sex for a debate they were involved in.
These aren’t the channel’s only links to controversial Islamic groups. Smile 2 Jannah has also hosted interviews with Moazzem Begg and Asim Qureshi of CAGE, which has been accused of acting like “apologists for terrorists” and which admitted to making mistakes in the way it operated over the revelation that ISIS executioner “Jihadi John” had been in contact with them before he left for the Middle East; with Qureshi calling him as a “beautiful young man” at a press conference called to discuss this.
Indeed, discussing the so-called War on Terror takes up a large part of the channel. In “EVERYONE MUST KNOW THIS TWISTED TRUTH” he tries to portray ISIS as a product of the West, claiming that the USA and Britain had “supported ISIS in terms of weapons, in terms of money, in terms of training - indirectly and possibly directly”. Similarly in “WHAT YOU DIDN'T HEAR ABOUT LONDON BRIDGE ATTACK” he questions the accepted narrative, saying that it is suspicious that there had been two attacks there - one in 2017 and one in 2019 - and that in both cases a BBC journalist had been nearby to report on the story. He concludes that there is a “possibility” that it was a false flag attack, giving an Israeli example of such an attack, but adds that he is “not sure”.
This obsession with state conspiracies can also be seen in “WHAT I SAW AT THE STREATHAM ATTACK”, where he claims that the early release from prison of an Islamist extremist “caused some people to speculate if they let some crazies out at regular intervals”. Once again he is ambivalent about what exactly his own view is but the only view expressed is the conspiratorial one. He also takes the time to complain about the attacker being described as Islamist, arguing that the term is inappropriate as the attacker had a girlfriend and therefore wasn’t a “model Muslim”.
This concern with accuracy doesn’t extent to others. In “HE WAS A CHRISTIAN #CHURCHTERRORIST” he complains that in the case of Luis Vasquez, who was killed by police whilst waving a gun around on the steps of a Manhattan church, “the guy has all the hallmarks of of a terrorist but yet the label is not there”. In actuality, the note found in Vasquez’s pocket afterwards accused the US of “robbing Latin America” and demanded aid be given to the region. Although he had a Bible in his backpack, there is no proof of a religious motive or connection to a Christian extremist group. On the contrary, the ex-con shouted “kill me” at police and was said to be in a bad mental state after being released from prison.
On another occasion he called the media “spineless” for not calling a stabbing attack in an Albanian mosque a terrorist attack. It turned out that although the attacker had a Christian father, his mother was Muslim; furthermore, the attacker was described as having mental problems and had been a Muslim since birth.
Perhaps the most obvious example of this double-standard comes from 2019 when he released videos within around a month on the bombings in Sri Lanka, committed by Islamists, and the mosque gun-massacre in New Zealand, committed by a far-right extremist. When it comes to the killing of Muslims he says of the far-right killer that “I don’t think I can even call him a man or a human being” and of the killings that “I cannot find words to do it justice”. He adds that Western “media and politicians” have “created an atmosphere of fear and hate that has allowed far-right groups to flourish”. Finally, he attacks those people who “feel the need in the same breath as condemning these attacks to condemn Muslim attacks, as if they’re trying to water down what’s happened. No, how about we deal with this ordeal first”.
Many of those are understandable feelings but only a month later when it comes to the Sri Lanka attacks he begins by admiring his beard on camera for comedic effect before dismissing the Islamist motives of the ISIS attackers because “killing people is not from Islam”, adding that “more Muslims are killed by ISIS than non-Muslims”. Then he complains that the death toll of 359 was reduced to 253 (it eventually turned out to be 269, not including the bombers), which shows that you need to “verify first and hold your horses”. After that he goes onto discuss other stories, culminating in a discussion of Amazon’s Lord of the Rings television show.
The contrast between the two is telling: when it comes to attacks on Muslims the tone is sombre, the culture which supposedly produced the attacker is critiqued, emotive language is used, and the centrality of the victims is respected. By contrast, when it is Islamists committing the attacks then his tone is immediately defensive, with Islam to be protected, Muslims positioned as the greater victims, and an attempt to play down the severity of the attacks is made.
His own views on jihad are never fully set out but in one tweet he praises a video about jihad as “amazing”. The video compares Islam to the United Nations, with the Islamic invasions depicted as a superior form of international intervention because they make places good and just. The example given is medieval Baghdad, although the events of the Zanj Rebellion, when East African slaves working plantations near Basra rose up against the Abbasid Caliphate and nearly attacked Baghdad, are omitted. Similarly the video argues that there is no forced conversion in Islam, which might be theologically true but is historically false, as the Janissaries can attest.
Unsurprisingly, he is also critical about Israel and Jewish issues. In a video on Wiley, the grime star who was banned from Twitter after he compared Jews to the KKK, he complains that there was a disparity in how the media reacted to these “allegedly anti-semitic” comments compared to how they react to Islamophobia, that this constitutes “favouritism” towards Jews, that this would “further ostracise the Jewish community”, and to prove all this quotes from YouTube commentators with usernames like Shapiro Shekelberg.
He has also complained that “our Jewish brethren have been hijacked by the Zionist cause” and intimated that the death of George Floyd and the protests which followed were the “fruits” of Israeli police teaching US police to kneel on suspects. When Keir Starmer said that repairing relations with the Jewish community was his priority for the Labour Party, he asked whether others would say “well there are other religions too”. Indeed, he seems to have supported Corbyn, producing a video titled “THE WAR AGAINST CORBYN” which called Corbyn a “glimmer of hope” and said of charges of anti-semitism levelled against Corbyn that “let’s face it, most of it is untrue”.
Comment
Although Smile 2 Jannah describes itself as “good clean fun” its clear that, in-between videos on gaming or comedy, there is a more worrying side to its coverage of current affairs. It frequently resorts to conspiracy theory, is often bigoted about other sects or faiths, and platforms controversial people or groups. This has proved to be a successful combination, with nearly 58 million views of his videos since the channel started in 2013. However, there is a danger that many of the viewers lured in by the promise of contemporary entertainment with no “swearing, nudity, and haraam” are instead being exposed to dubious conspiracy theories and sectarian framing of current events.