Mystery was surrounding the discovery of 150 Islamic books today… in the Limehouse Cut, a canal which runs through Tower Hamlets. The Metropolitan Police attended and rescued the books from the water – not so much an exercise in rescuing the books as not clogging up the canal.
No one has yet come forward to claim the books. Local speculation is that the religious texts were probably not thrown in the water by islamophobes but may been put there by Muslims who had to dispose of the books and were trying to follow religious procedures. Islamic books should not be thrown away with general rubbish: religious rules require the books to be steeped in water till the text disappears or that they are burned, with the ashes then being immersed in water. Could the books have been put in the canal as a giant exercise in dissolving the text?
Although religious rules may have been observed, secular laws were not. The dumping of the books in this way would have been interpreted as fly tipping – which may act as a deterrent to the perpetrator coming forward.
The Metropolitan Police were asking anyone with any information to contact them on @MPSTowerHam police or via 101.
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