It may have been the estate agent’s blurb that started it, gushing enthusiastically about a rare opportunity to buy ‘an idyllic island with complete tranquillity’.
But given that Torsa – a largely uninhabited dot in the Inner Hebrides – was named after the Norse god of thunder, perhaps it was inevitable that plans to sell it would run into a storm.
Boasting castle ruins, a three-bedroom farmhouse converted into a holiday home and two miles of pristine coastline, the £1.5million price tag was meant to attract the kind of wealthy clients keen to escape from the pressures of the world.
Instead of the quiet life, however, this unspoilt shard of rock and rough grass has become the unlikeliest of settings for religious tension.
A thousand years since it lived in fear of Viking raids, Torsa – barely half-a-mile wide and 1.2miles long – is being fought over once more.
Whose idea of heaven? Island idyll of Torsa coveted by Catholic and Muslim rivals
This time, the combatants are a Muslim cleric, who has sworn to turn it into an autonomous Islamic state, and a Right-wing Catholic preacher, who is hell-bent on stopping him.
If it sounds like the script for some edgy comedy, then the island’s present owners are not laughing.
They have already had to fend off suggestions that Sheikh Yasser al-Habib, a mullah accused of stirring up sectarian hatred in Britain and in the Arab world between Shias and rival Sunni Muslims, was in advanced talks to buy the island.
In videos released last month to widespread consternation, al-Habib, 45, disclosed plans to convert Torsa – one of the Slate Islands off the coast of Oban, in Argyll – into a private Islamic state in the UK, run by Shia Muslims intent on imposing strict Sharia law.
Al-Habib is the founder and leader of the Mahdi Servants Union (MSU), which runs the Fadak Shia Islam TV channel and military-style training camps from his ‘global headquarters’, a private compound in the picturesque village of Fulmer, in Buckinghamshire. The MSU has been accused by critics of fomenting dissent in the UK between Sunni and Shia Muslims and funding Shia militia groups in Syria and Iraq.
‘It certainly worried a lot of locals here’
Footage posted to Fadak TV shows al-Habib describing Torsa as an ‘irreplaceable opportunity’ to create a ‘homeland’, promising to negotiate with the UK Government to allow Muslims from ‘all over the world’ to be given a visa to visit.
Torsa, which has been on the market for a year, is accessible only by private boat from neighbouring Luing – itself reached via a five-minute ferry ride from the island of Seil, which in turn connects to the mainland via a bridge.
Yet, in one video, one of his followers has already explored the island, pointing out where he might build a mosque. Al-Habib also said he wants to build a school, hospital and hawsa (Shia seminary) on Torsa, where strict Islamic law could be applied, out of sight of the meddling authorities on the mainland. What is more, he claimed, he had raised nearly £3million of a £3.5million target to realise his dream.
His followers say their new homeland will be a staging ground for the coming of their messiah, known as Mahdi, who they believe will rid the world of evil and injustice. Pretty strong stuff, particularly for the quiet communities of the Slate Islands more used to their routine of cattle-rearing and sheep-grazing than the heady world of geopolitics and religious fervour.
Retired science teacher Alastair Fleming, who lives on the neighbouring island of Luing, arched an eyebrow at al-Habib’s elaborate proposals, suggesting they would spark objections at the planning stage. Mr Fleming, 85, told the Mail: ‘It is not an easy island to set up a community on and I am perplexed as to why he has chosen Torsa.
The only way you can access it is by ferry and boat and it is not big enough to cater for a large number of people.
‘Even if he did buy the island I do not think he would be able to carry out the works he is proposing. There would be far too many objections.’
Another Luing resident, who declined to be named, added: ‘I’m not sure the Women’s Institute are going to stand for this. We’d welcome just about anyone, but this doesn’t seem appropriate’, adding that locals had been joking that singer Taylor Swift might buy Torsa.
Al-Habib’s move has sparked others to act after outspoken Catholic cleric Calvin Robinson launched a counter-offensive to ‘claim the land for Christendom’ and turn it into a Catholic retreat.
He said: ‘Why are we letting these Muhammedans take over our land, over our country? Why not claim it for Christendom? So I figured… let’s launch a crowdfund. Let’s buy it for Christendom.’
‘The Women’s Institute won’t stand for this’
In a ten-minute video posted on X, Robinson said he hoped to build a chapel on the island and possibly establish a monastery there where monks would grow local produce and create alcoholic drinks such as mead, beer and whisky, ‘for Britons, as in times gone by’.
He added: ‘I have 350,000 followers on Twitter. If every single one of my followers donated £5, we’d raise that £1.5million – and then some. We’d be able to buy this land for Christ, for Britain.’
Robinson added that Torsa would need ‘a more Christian name than Thor’s Island. That’s very pagan, but this is what Christianity does – take over the pagan lands and return them to the true God.’
Unfortunately, the true God may have to wait a little longer to receive these lands as, a week after launching his GoFundMe page, the total stood at £95,194. Robinson stressed that while ‘money is helpful, prayer is necessary’ and has promised to return all monies raised should he fail to hit his improbable target.
Of course, even if he does get there, there are no guarantees his bid will prove any more palatable with the present owners than al-Habib’s, a man Robinson describes as ‘not a good man by any measure’.
But Robinson, too, is no stranger to controversy. Having split from the mainstream Church of England, the conservative commentator has hit the headlines over hard-line stances on issues like the ordination of women, gay marriage and women’s reproductive rights.
Last year, he was suspended and later sacked by GB News, where he presented a show called Calvin’s Common Sense Crusade, after he voiced support for former colleague Laurence Fox, who was dropped from the network for making sexist remarks about the female journalist Ava Evans.
He currently serves as a priest in the small, ultra-traditional Nordic Catholic Church, based in Harlesden, north-west London, having previously been a deacon in the Free Church of England.
Al-Habib’s history of provocation stretches back further. From Kuwait, he sought asylum in the UK in 2004, after being jailed in his homeland for inciting sectarianism by making insulting remarks about the Sunni branch of Islam.
He was released on Kuwait’s National Day, reportedly because of a clerical error, and hotfooted it to the UK.
Six years later, his Kuwaiti citizenship was revoked when he said Aisha, the wife of the Prophet Mohammed, was an ‘enemy of God’. In 2011, he launched Fadak TV, where he posts rambling videos exclusively in Arabic.
Sheikh Yasser al-Habib is accused of stirring up sectarian hatred in Britain and in the Arab world between Shias and rival Sunni Muslims
Critics have accused the cleric of fuelling religious conflict, both in the UK and overseas. In 2018, MSU members scaled the Iranian embassy to protest against the arrest of a Shia cleric; in 2022 they protested at the Azeri embassy in Holland Park, which led to eight of them being arrested.
Al-Habib has had previous run-ins with British authorities with calls for Fadak to be shut down for its repeated attacks on the Sunni population. In 2012, Fadak was investigated by Ofcom for a broadcast in which he questioned the sexuality of one of Mohammed’s Sunni successors.
Ofcom cleared them of violating the broadcasting code but issued ‘strong guidance that they should take great care when dealing with such matters’.
His headquarters is the Al-Muhassin Mosque, a £2million converted church hall in Fulmer, where a sign at the entrance welcomes visitors, in English and Arabic, to the ‘minor land of Fadak’.
‘He wants to develop this idyllic isle into an extreme theocracy’
Videos have been released purportedly showing military-style training camps being carried out in nearby Buckinghamshire car parks. Although only around 5 per cent of Britain’s Muslim population is Shia, totalling approximately 200,000 people, al-Habib has built a wide following across the Middle East through Fadak TV, which he has developed into a fundraising machine.
When funds were needed to build the Fulmer mosque, he raised more than £1.2million in a single week – pulling power that Robinson can only dream of.
For now, they are facing off over a nugget of an island, which was once occupied as a defensive stronghold, going through various clan ownerships before the Highland Clearances, when it is thought its indigenous population was forced out. Farmed until the 1960s, today it is run as a holiday let, where a week in September will set you back £1,800.
This is the first time it has been up for sale in 85 years. If al-Habib’s claim to be buying Torsa was taken more seriously than it might have been, perhaps that is because it is not unknown for Scottish islands to be bought as religious havens: Buddhist and Christian groups have a long-established presence here.
On that basis, Paul Stott, head of security and extremism at think tank Policy Exchange, described the cleric’s bid to buy a Scottish base as ‘bizarre, but not totally bizarre’.
He told The Telegraph: ‘I can’t remember a Muslim group doing so before. If you look at al-Habib, he is a contentious figure.
‘This would involve a part of UK territory becoming the land of a contentious religious grouping. I think that requires public debate before it can go ahead.’
In the end, any likelihood of it succeeding appeared to be dashed when a source close to Torsa’s owners, who are thought to want to remain anonymous due to fear of reprisals, told the Press the plans were ‘conjured-up b******t’.
They suggested al-Habib was touting the idea to his international audience in a bid to solicit donations, adding: ‘There has been no contact since last autumn.
‘The island is absolutely not being sold to this cleric. This appears to be a fundraising effort rather than anything based in reality.’
Al-Habib did not directly reply to requests for comment, but the MSU has publicly thanked the ‘British media for the free advertising’ in light of recent coverage of the group: further evidence, perhaps, that they were just looking to make some noise.
Alastair Redman, a councillor for the Kintyre and Islands ward, said it was unthinkable that Torsa could become an outpost for extremism. ‘The fact that he wants to develop this idyllic setting into an extreme theocracy is simply unacceptable,’ he said. ‘It certainly worried a lot of locals as there is no place for that.
‘People here are very welcoming and inclusive and we should all be able to get on.’
Mr Redman said he was ‘less bothered’ by plans for a Catholic retreat, but doubted Robinson would be able to raise enough money.
‘I don’t speak for the landowner, but they will not sell for £95,000,’ he said. ‘I don’t personally have an issue with building churches on rural Scottish islands but I don’t see it as likely on Torsa, purely from the logistics of it.
Outspoken Catholic cleric Calvin Robinson wants to turn Torsa into a Catholic retreat
‘You’d have to not only raise enough money to purchase the island but to do all the work, on a far-flung island where you’ve got to bring all the men and materials over and house them.
‘If this gentleman wants to build an Anglican church, there are probably more suitable sites in mainland Argyll that aren’t on the same island where this cleric wants to purchase land.’
Except, of course, that’s rather the point of the exercise as far as Robinson is concerned.
Selling agent Savills played down the possibility of pretty little Torsa turning her face to Islam.
It said: ‘Contrary to recent press articles regarding Torsa, this sale is not at an advanced stage with any buyer.
‘Rather the island remains for sale and continues to attract widespread attention.
‘Who ultimately buys will be a decision for the owners who have always said they hope to find the right buyer who will continue to enjoy this haven as their family have done for generations.’
And so, Thor’s Island continues to repel modern-day intruders. For now, the pagan gods still hold sway.
