Hawzah News Agency - (London - UK) - An Imam paid a passionate tribute to assassinated Iranian general Qassem Soleimani outside the Islamic Centre of England yesterday, describing him as a martyr and saying that people should 'aspire to be like him'.

Dozens of Muslims attended a memorial service held at the religious hub in Maida Vale, London.

The imam, speaking in front of the building, addressed mourners and heaped praise on the slain general. 

The crowds had squeezed into the building and sat beneath a painting of the Islamic Republic's second-in-command and Iraqi military commander Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, as they paid their respects to those massacred in the US airstrikes.

The imam said: 'I would like to give you all my condolences but I would also like to congratulate you.

'We are lucky enough to live in a time where we can see, touch and feel a man like Qassem Soleimani and we hope and we pray and we work hard to make sure that there will be many many more Qassem Soleimanis.

'We aspire to become like him, we are jealous and we want the same thing for ourselves and our loved ones.

'The beauty of Islam is that we can turn around to our enemy and say ''do your worst'' because the worst is the best that can happen to me.'