British Ultranationalist Warns of Shariah's 'Creeping' Influence, and Twitter Laughs It began when the leader of the English Defence League, an ultranationalist group opposed to the building of mosques in Britain, suggested a hashtag to go with his outraged Twitter post regarding the image of a mosque on the homepage of the social media site. "Welcome to twitter homepage has a picture of a mosque. what a joke," wrote Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the group's leader who goes by the alias Tommy Robinson, on Sunday, appending #creepingsharia as a suggestion for a thread to others who wanted to rail against what his group considers the invasion of Islam into European life. Many on Twitter gleefully pounced on Mr. Yaxley-Lennon, telling him that the image in question was not a mosque but rather the Taj Mahal, according to reports in the British news media, including The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian. The hashtag quickly moved on from the apparent misapprehension to a discussion of the image into a running joke, with hundreds of posts mocking its premise of a stealth campaign by Muslims to replace Western values with a version of Islamic law. While the notion of "creeping Shariah" may have become a joke on Twitter, it retains a serious place in the rhetoric of many groups in Europe as well as in the United States. As The Times reported last year, right-wing activists and some Republican politicians have sounded the alarm against what they described as the menace of Islamic law in the United States. The trial of Anders Behring Breivik, an anti-Islamic militant who admitted killing 77 people in what he said was an effort to stop the rise of multiculturalism in Norway, has brought greater scrutiny on such views. Creeping Sharia, a blog that takes the phrase as its name, has posted about perceived Muslim threats for several years. It says the term describes "a scourge occurring across the free world." We'll define it as "the slow, deliberate, and methodical advance of Islamic law (Shariah) in non-Muslim countries" (literal definitions below). Another frequently used term is "stealth jihad." As for the photo on the homepage of Twitter, Mr. Yaxley-Lennon did not provide a link. He may have been referring to the following image of men playing cricket at sunset before a building that resembles the Taj Mahal. However, several people queried by The Lede differed on whether the photograph was of the famous building or not. You can share your thoughts in the comments below. A Twitter spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking clarification on the site of the photograph.