The Islamist
Encyclopedia
The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw Inside and Why I Left, is a book about Ed Husain
's (full name Mohammed Mahbub Hussain) five years as an Islamic fundamentalist. Husain became an Islamist
at the age of sixteen, but rejected fundamentalist teaching and returned to normal life and his family. Husain describes his book as explaining "the appeal of extremist thought, how fanatics penetrate Muslim communities and the truth behind their agenda of subverting the West and moderate Islam." The book has been described as "as much a memoir of personal struggle and inner growth as it is a report on a new type of extremism." It was published in May 2007.
The publication of The Islamist was launched the same week the verdicts of Operation Crevice
, "Britain's longest terror trial", (involving a plan by Islamic extremists to blow up several buildings), were delivered. Less than two years earlier 52 communters had been killed and 700 injured in four coordinated bombings in London
by Islamic extremists.
In the early 1990s Husain goes to Stepney Green, a boys school that was virtually all-Muslim and dominated by immigrants and gangs, and dubbed the "worst school in Britain" by the tabloid press (p. 7). He has few friends and feels himself a "boffin
" misfit, but finds some satisfaction in studying Islam along with a new friend Brother Falik. Their text, Islam: Beliefs and Teachings
, by Ghulam Sarwar
, is "the first book I read about Islam in English."
He had been taught by his father that Islam and politics didn't mix, but Sarwar preached that 'Religion and politics are one and the same in Islam', and this became the "one part of the book has stayed with me." Later, Husain felt misled by Sarwar. "What I did not know at school was that Sarwar was a business management lecturer, not a scholar of religion. And he was an activist in the organisations that he mentioned [ Muslim Brotherhood
and Jamat-e-Islami]. Sarwar's book was not the dispassionate educational treatise it purported to be." and that
At the invitation of Brother Falik he becomes active in the Young Muslims Organisation which had a large following at East London Mosque
and was associated with Jamaat-e-Islami
and Islamist leader Abul Ala Maududi
. His family strongly opposes the political Islam of Jamaat-e-Islami. When his father makes him choose between Islam and the family, Husain runs away, finally coming back when his father backs down and allows him to continue visiting the East London Mosque.
Later he moves on to Hizb ut-Tahrir
, another Islamist group with a more intellectual and international outlook that emphasizes the need to reestablish an Islamic Caliphate unifying the Muslim world, or ummah
, in one unified state. After two years in HT he drops out and attends meetings of the Islamic Society of Britain
, affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Husain writes that in the mid-1990s, he became disillusioned with Islamic groups in the UK and more interested in the relatively nonpolitical Islamic scholars Hamza Yusuf
and Nuh Ha Mim Keller
. After a period working for HSBC
, Husain moves with his wife to Damascus
to study Arabic and teach English at the British Council
. Still teaching for the British Council they move to Jeddah
Saudi Arabia
to be close to Mecca
and Medina
. There he becomes disillusioned by "the naked poverty" and inequality which he feels makes a mockery of his early belief in the solidarity of the ummah.
Also disillusioning was the lack of chaste behavior and respect for women
Husain returns to London
after the 7 July 2005 London bombings
.
Husain criticises Islamism
and argues that the desire for the re-establishment of an Islamic caliphate
is borne out of an alien, Wahhabi or extremist interpretation of Islam. The idea of a pure Islamic state, is 'not the continuation of a political entity set up by the Prophet, maintained by the caliphs down the ages (however debatable)'. The ideas of HT founder Nabhani, 'were not innovatory Muslim thinking but wholly derived from European political thought,' including the anti-liberal democrat Rousseau.
Husain writes in The Islamist of his former association with Inayat Bunglawala
, Dhiren Barot
and Omar Bakri Muhammad
.
Husain finally severs his links with Islamism by "rediscovering what he describes as 'classical, traditional Islam', which includes Sufi mysticism."
According to observers, The Islamist highlights the "paradoxes of political Islam: a movement that is avowedly anti-secular, anti-modern and anti-Western
, it has been profoundly shaped by modern Western secular ideologies."
, European commentators critical of Islam are fearful of being targeted themselves by extremists. Such extremists are often encouraged by the liberal enumeration of fatwas by European Muslim clerics against the lives of those critical of radical Islam.
Martin Amis wrote that "Ed Husain has written a persuasive and stimulating book."
The Times
columnist David Aaronovitch
argued that "Husain's account is not sensationalist, tending more to understatement than to hyperbole."
Anushka Asthana of The Observer
wrote, "This captivating, and terrifyingly honest, book is his attempt to make amends for some of the wrongs he committed. In a wake-up call to monocultural Britain, it takes you into the mind of young fundamentalists, exposing places in which the old notion of being British is defunct."
The Daily Mail
columnist and author of Londonistan
, Melanie Phillips
says Husain "should be applauded for his courage" and displayed "intellectual honesty and guts".
According to John Gray of the London School of Economics
, "The Islamist is first and foremost a riveting personal narrative, but it also carries a powerful and—for some—unfashionable message. Particularly among the new army of evangelical atheists, there will be those who see his story as another proof of the evils of faith schools and of religion in general. Yet Husain did not finally sever his links with Islamism by becoming a militant atheist and converting to an Enlightenment faith in humanity—as secular fundamentalists urge. He did so by rediscovering what he describes as 'classical, traditional Islam', which includes Sufi mysticism"
A review from The Age
commented that the book "is an important artefact of our age, carrying a valuable testimony. The challenge - likely to be unmet by ideologues - is to reflect upon its totality, rather than appropriate it selectively for some narrow, predetermined cause."
Ed Husain
Mohammed Mahbub Husain is the author of The Islamist, a book about Islamic fundamentalism, and an account of his five years as an Islamist activist. Husain also helped to create, with Maajid Nawaz, the counter-extremism organisation the Quilliam Foundation. He is currently at senior fellow at the...
's (full name Mohammed Mahbub Hussain) five years as an Islamic fundamentalist. Husain became an Islamist
Islamism
Islamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...
at the age of sixteen, but rejected fundamentalist teaching and returned to normal life and his family. Husain describes his book as explaining "the appeal of extremist thought, how fanatics penetrate Muslim communities and the truth behind their agenda of subverting the West and moderate Islam." The book has been described as "as much a memoir of personal struggle and inner growth as it is a report on a new type of extremism." It was published in May 2007.
Context
According to one observer,In the two years since four suicide bombings7 July 2005 London bombingsThe 7 July 2005 London bombings were a series of co-ordinated suicide attacks in the United Kingdom, targeting civilians using London's public transport system during the morning rush hour....
on the London transport system killed 52 innocent people and injured 700 others, many reports, essays and books on British Muslims have appeared. But none has created anything like the furore that has surrounded publication of "The Islamist" by Ed Husain ...
The publication of The Islamist was launched the same week the verdicts of Operation Crevice
Operation Crevice
Operation Crevice was a raid launched by Metropolitan and local police in England on the morning of 30 March 2004. It was in response to a report indicating cells of terrorists of Pakistani origin were operating in the Thames Valley, Sussex, Surrey and Bedfordshire areas, the source of which was...
, "Britain's longest terror trial", (involving a plan by Islamic extremists to blow up several buildings), were delivered. Less than two years earlier 52 communters had been killed and 700 injured in four coordinated bombings in London
7 July 2005 London bombings
The 7 July 2005 London bombings were a series of co-ordinated suicide attacks in the United Kingdom, targeting civilians using London's public transport system during the morning rush hour....
by Islamic extremists.
Synopsis
Husain fondly describes his early years at William Burrough primary school in the 1980s, where he plays with 'Jane, Lisa, Andrew, Mark, Alia, Zak' and learns about Islam from his family and his family's Bengali spiritual guide Shaikh Abd al-Latif (Fultholy Saheb) (p. 9) he called 'Grandpa'.In the early 1990s Husain goes to Stepney Green, a boys school that was virtually all-Muslim and dominated by immigrants and gangs, and dubbed the "worst school in Britain" by the tabloid press (p. 7). He has few friends and feels himself a "boffin
Boffin
In the slang of the United Kingdom, boffins are scientists, medical doctors, engineers, and other people engaged in technical or scientific research.-Origin:...
" misfit, but finds some satisfaction in studying Islam along with a new friend Brother Falik. Their text, Islam: Beliefs and Teachings
Islam: Beliefs and Teachings
Islam: Beliefs and Teachings is an internationally recognised book by Ghulam Sarwar of the Muslim Educational Trust. It was published by Sarwar as the first English textbook for madrasa students in Britain .-Publication details:...
, by Ghulam Sarwar
Ghulam Sarwar
Professor Ghulam Sarwar, born 1945 in Bangladesh, director of the Muslim Educational Trust based at Stroud Green Road in London. He is also a highly respected and recognised writer on Islam in English. -Background:...
, is "the first book I read about Islam in English."
He had been taught by his father that Islam and politics didn't mix, but Sarwar preached that 'Religion and politics are one and the same in Islam', and this became the "one part of the book has stayed with me." Later, Husain felt misled by Sarwar. "What I did not know at school was that Sarwar was a business management lecturer, not a scholar of religion. And he was an activist in the organisations that he mentioned [ Muslim Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers is the world's oldest and one of the largest Islamist parties, and is the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states. It was founded in 1928 in Egypt by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna and by the late 1940s had an...
and Jamat-e-Islami]. Sarwar's book was not the dispassionate educational treatise it purported to be." and that
"he was also the brains behind the separation of Muslim children from school assemblies into what we called 'Muslim assembly', managed by the Muslim Educational Trust (MET) [of which Sarwar is the Director]. What seemed like an innocuous body was, in fact, an organisation with an agenda. In my school, a Jamat-e-Islamic activist named Abdul Rabb represented the MET and awarded us trophies and medals for our performance in MET exams. Ostensibly it all seemed harmless, but the personnel all belonged to Jamat-e-Islami front organisations in Britain. Their key message was that Islam was not merely a religion but also an ideology that sought political power and was beginning to make headway."
At the invitation of Brother Falik he becomes active in the Young Muslims Organisation which had a large following at East London Mosque
East London Mosque
The East London Mosque, situated in the inner London Borough of Tower Hamlets between Whitechapel and Aldgate, serves one of the UK's largest Muslim communities. It lies near the edge of the City of London, the capital's busy business area, and just a couple of miles from the fast-expanding London...
and was associated with Jamaat-e-Islami
Jamaat-e-Islami
This article is about Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan. For other organizations of similar name see Jamaat-e-Islami The Jamaat-e-Islami , is a Pro-Muslim political party in Pakistan...
and Islamist leader Abul Ala Maududi
Abul Ala Maududi
Syed Abul A'ala Maududi , also known as Molana or Shaikh Syed Abul A'ala Mawdudi, was a Sunni Pakistani journalist, theologian, Muslim revivalist leader and political philosopher, and a major 20th century Islamist thinker. He was also a prominent political figure in Pakistan and was the first...
. His family strongly opposes the political Islam of Jamaat-e-Islami. When his father makes him choose between Islam and the family, Husain runs away, finally coming back when his father backs down and allows him to continue visiting the East London Mosque.
Later he moves on to Hizb ut-Tahrir
Hizb ut-Tahrir
Hizb ut-Tahrir is an international Sunni. pan-Islamic political organisation but keeps it open for all including shias,some of its beliefs are against sunni school of thought, whose goal is for all Muslim countries to unify as an Islamic state or caliphate ruled by Islamic law and with a caliph...
, another Islamist group with a more intellectual and international outlook that emphasizes the need to reestablish an Islamic Caliphate unifying the Muslim world, or ummah
Ummah
Ummah is an Arabic word meaning "community" or "nation." It is commonly used to mean either the collective nation of states, or the whole Arab world...
, in one unified state. After two years in HT he drops out and attends meetings of the Islamic Society of Britain
Islamic Society of Britain
The Islamic Society of Britain was set up in 1990 for British Muslims to promote Islamic values.Its youth wing is The Young Muslims UK .-Methods of working:The Islamic Society of Britain directs its work into the following areas:...
, affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Husain writes that in the mid-1990s, he became disillusioned with Islamic groups in the UK and more interested in the relatively nonpolitical Islamic scholars Hamza Yusuf
Hamza Yusuf
Hamza Yusuf Hanson is an Islamic scholar of the Sunni tradition, and co-founder of Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California, United States. He is an American convert to Islam, and is one of the signatories of A Common Word Between Us and You, an open letter by Islamic scholars to Christian leaders,...
and Nuh Ha Mim Keller
Nuh Ha Mim Keller
Nuh Ha Mim Keller is an American Muslim translator of Islamic books and a specialist in Islamic law, as well as being authorised by Abd al-Rahman al-Shaghouri as a sheikh in sufism in the Shadhili Order...
. After a period working for HSBC
HSBC
HSBC Holdings plc is a global banking and financial services company headquartered in Canary Wharf, London, United Kingdom. it is the world's second-largest banking and financial services group and second-largest public company according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine...
, Husain moves with his wife to Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
to study Arabic and teach English at the British Council
British Council
The British Council is a United Kingdom-based organisation specialising in international educational and cultural opportunities. It is registered as a charity both in England and Wales, and in Scotland...
. Still teaching for the British Council they move to Jeddah
Jeddah
Jeddah, Jiddah, Jidda, or Jedda is a city located on the coast of the Red Sea and is the major urban center of western Saudi Arabia. It is the largest city in Makkah Province, the largest sea port on the Red Sea, and the second largest city in Saudi Arabia after the capital city, Riyadh. The...
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
to be close to Mecca
Mecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
and Medina
Medina
Medina , or ; also transliterated as Madinah, or madinat al-nabi "the city of the prophet") is a city in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, and serves as the capital of the Al Madinah Province. It is the second holiest city in Islam, and the burial place of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and...
. There he becomes disillusioned by "the naked poverty" and inequality which he feels makes a mockery of his early belief in the solidarity of the ummah.
All my talk of ummah seemed so juvenile now. .... Racism was an integral part of Saudi society. My students often used the word “nigger” to describe black people. Even dark-skinned Arabs were considered inferior to their lighter-skinned cousins. I was living in the world’s most avowedly Muslim country, yet I found it anything but. I was appalled by the imposition of Wahhabism in the public realm, something I had implicitly sought as an Islamist.
Also disillusioning was the lack of chaste behavior and respect for women
In supermarkets I only had to be away from Faye [his wife] for five minutes and Saudi men would hiss or whisper obscenities as they walked past. ....
We had heard stories of the abduction of women from taxis by sex-deprived Saudi youths. At a Saudi friend’s wedding at a luxurious hotel in Jeddah, women dared not step out of their hotel rooms and walk to the banqueting hall for fear of abduction by the bodyguards of a Saudi prince who also happened to be staying there. ....
Why had the veil and segregation not prevented such behaviour?
Husain returns to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
after the 7 July 2005 London bombings
7 July 2005 London bombings
The 7 July 2005 London bombings were a series of co-ordinated suicide attacks in the United Kingdom, targeting civilians using London's public transport system during the morning rush hour....
.
Husain criticises Islamism
Islamism
Islamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...
and argues that the desire for the re-establishment of an Islamic caliphate
Caliphate
The term caliphate, "dominion of a caliph " , refers to the first system of government established in Islam and represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah...
is borne out of an alien, Wahhabi or extremist interpretation of Islam. The idea of a pure Islamic state, is 'not the continuation of a political entity set up by the Prophet, maintained by the caliphs down the ages (however debatable)'. The ideas of HT founder Nabhani, 'were not innovatory Muslim thinking but wholly derived from European political thought,' including the anti-liberal democrat Rousseau.
Husain writes in The Islamist of his former association with Inayat Bunglawala
Inayat Bunglawala
Inayat Bunglawala is media secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain.He has written articles for The Times, Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Daily Express, The Observer and The Sun focusing on Islam and current affairs. He is an activist for Islamist concerns and joined The Young Muslims UK in 1987...
, Dhiren Barot
Dhiren Barot
Dhiren Barot is a convicted terrorist from the United Kingdom.-Background:...
and Omar Bakri Muhammad
Omar Bakri Muhammad
Omar Bakri Muhammad is an Islamist militant leader who was instrumental in developing Hizb ut-Tahrir into a major organization in the United Kingdom before leaving the group and heading another Islamist organisation, Al-Muhajiroun, until its disbandment in 2004.For several years Bakri was one of...
.
Husain finally severs his links with Islamism by "rediscovering what he describes as 'classical, traditional Islam', which includes Sufi mysticism."
According to observers, The Islamist highlights the "paradoxes of political Islam: a movement that is avowedly anti-secular, anti-modern and anti-Western
Anti-Western sentiment
Anti-Western sentiment refers to broad opposition or hostility to the people, policies, or governments in the western world. In many cases the United States, Israël and the United Kingdom are the subject of discussion or hostility...
, it has been profoundly shaped by modern Western secular ideologies."
Reception
The book has been "much-praised," although the praise has not been unanimous. Husain's life has been threatened by British Islamic fundamentalists and many book reviewers in Britain have been hesitant to review the book. As was the case with the murder of Theo Van GoghTheo van Gogh (film director)
Theodoor "Theo" van Gogh was a Dutch film director, film producer, columnist, author and actor.Van Gogh worked with the Somali-born writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali to produce the film Submission, which criticized the treatment of women in Islam and aroused controversy among Muslims...
, European commentators critical of Islam are fearful of being targeted themselves by extremists. Such extremists are often encouraged by the liberal enumeration of fatwas by European Muslim clerics against the lives of those critical of radical Islam.
Positive
The Sunday Times described the book as "insightful and gripping".Martin Amis wrote that "Ed Husain has written a persuasive and stimulating book."
The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
columnist David Aaronovitch
David Aaronovitch
David Aaronovitch is a British author, broadcaster, and journalist. He is a regular columnist for The Times, and author of Paddling to Jerusalem: An Aquatic Tour of Our Small Country and Voodoo Histories: the role of Conspiracy Theory in Modern History...
argued that "Husain's account is not sensationalist, tending more to understatement than to hyperbole."
Anushka Asthana of The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
wrote, "This captivating, and terrifyingly honest, book is his attempt to make amends for some of the wrongs he committed. In a wake-up call to monocultural Britain, it takes you into the mind of young fundamentalists, exposing places in which the old notion of being British is defunct."
The Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
columnist and author of Londonistan
Londonistan (book)
Londonistan: How Britain is creating a terror state within is the best-seller by British journalist Melanie Phillips about the spread of Islamism in the United Kingdom over the past twenty years...
, Melanie Phillips
Melanie Phillips
Melanie Phillips is a British journalist and author. She began her career on the left of the political spectrum, writing for such publications as The Guardian and New Statesman. In the 1990s she moved to the right, and she now writes for the Daily Mail newspaper, covering political and social...
says Husain "should be applauded for his courage" and displayed "intellectual honesty and guts".
According to John Gray of the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
, "The Islamist is first and foremost a riveting personal narrative, but it also carries a powerful and—for some—unfashionable message. Particularly among the new army of evangelical atheists, there will be those who see his story as another proof of the evils of faith schools and of religion in general. Yet Husain did not finally sever his links with Islamism by becoming a militant atheist and converting to an Enlightenment faith in humanity—as secular fundamentalists urge. He did so by rediscovering what he describes as 'classical, traditional Islam', which includes Sufi mysticism"
A review from The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
commented that the book "is an important artefact of our age, carrying a valuable testimony. The challenge - likely to be unmet by ideologues - is to reflect upon its totality, rather than appropriate it selectively for some narrow, predetermined cause."
Mixed
- Brian WhitakerBrian WhitakerBrian Whitaker has been a journalist for the British newspaper The Guardian since 1987 and its Middle East editor from 2000-2007. He is currently an editor on the paper's "Comment Is Free". He also writes articles for Guardian Unlimited, the internet edition of the paper...
, who was Middle EastMiddle EastThe Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
editor of The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
for seven years, concludes his review by writing that, "The tricky question is what, in the hothouse of youthful politics—whether at Oxford, in Liverpool or east London—leads some to violence while others, like Ed Husain, end up writing books about it. Ed doesn't seem to have an answer, and I doubt that anyone else really knows either."
Critical
- In The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, Ziauddin SardarZiauddin SardarZiauddin Sardar is a London-based scholar, writer and cultural-critic who specialises in Muslim thought, the future of Islam, futures studies and science and cultural relations...
, complains of what he sees as Husain's "reductive extremist" activity, first embracing "the extremist cleric Omar Bakri MuhammadOmar Bakri MuhammadOmar Bakri Muhammad is an Islamist militant leader who was instrumental in developing Hizb ut-Tahrir into a major organization in the United Kingdom before leaving the group and heading another Islamist organisation, Al-Muhajiroun, until its disbandment in 2004.For several years Bakri was one of...
, and ... the atrocious Hizb ut-Tahir", and then going in the opposite direction blaming multiculturalism "for the radicalisation of Muslim youth". He goes on to dismiss Husain's book, saying "The Islamist seems to have been drafted by a Whitehall mandarin as a PR job for the Blair government."
- Writing in The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, Madeleine BuntingMadeleine BuntingMadeleine Bunting is an English journalist and writer who is an Associate Editor and columnist on The Guardian.Born in Oswaldkirk, North Yorkshire, Bunting was educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where she read History, and won a Knox postgraduate fellowship to study Politics and teach...
, argues that "Husain's book will be used in many debates—the future of multiculturalism, whether infringements of civil liberties are necessary to combat terrorism, what parts of Islamist histories from Asia and the Middle East a British Muslim community needs to jettison. One suspects the naivety which took him into Hizb-ut Tahrir has blinded him as to how his story will be used to buttress positions hostile to many things he holds dear—his own faith and racial tolerance, for example. A glance at the blog response to a Husain piece in the Telegraph reveals how rightwing racism and anti-Islamic sentiment are feasting on his testimony."
- A commentary page piece in the Guardian by Riazat Butt accused Husain of having been a peripheral character whose association with Islamic groups in Britain occurred over a decade ago. "He is happy to reinforce stereotypes and justifies this by saying he knows what inspires terrorists—the likely inference being that his book is an educational tool. But Husain was not a terrorist and his account is dated and misleading. The groups he mentions, and their modus operandi, are more fluid and sophisticated now. Husain provides no new answers and no fresh information. The activities of Hizb ut-TahrirHizb ut-TahrirHizb ut-Tahrir is an international Sunni. pan-Islamic political organisation but keeps it open for all including shias,some of its beliefs are against sunni school of thought, whose goal is for all Muslim countries to unify as an Islamic state or caliphate ruled by Islamic law and with a caliph...
and their ilk have been well documented already. I have to ask why, when his experiences are firmly based in the 1990s, this book is being published now and is being greeted with an adulation that is both embarrassing and unwarranted.".
See also
- Ed HusainEd HusainMohammed Mahbub Husain is the author of The Islamist, a book about Islamic fundamentalism, and an account of his five years as an Islamist activist. Husain also helped to create, with Maajid Nawaz, the counter-extremism organisation the Quilliam Foundation. He is currently at senior fellow at the...
- IslamismIslamismIslamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...
- ExtremismExtremismExtremism is any ideology or political act far outside the perceived political center of a society; or otherwise claimed to violate common moral standards...
- East London MosqueEast London MosqueThe East London Mosque, situated in the inner London Borough of Tower Hamlets between Whitechapel and Aldgate, serves one of the UK's largest Muslim communities. It lies near the edge of the City of London, the capital's busy business area, and just a couple of miles from the fast-expanding London...
- Islamism in London
- Undercover MosqueUndercover MosqueUndercover Mosque is a documentary programme produced by the independent television company hardcash productions for the Channel 4 series Dispatches which first aired on 15 January 2007 in the UK. The film caused a furore in Britain and the world press due to the content of the released footage...
- Londonistan: How Britain is Creating a Terror State Within
- Muslim BrotherhoodMuslim BrotherhoodThe Society of the Muslim Brothers is the world's oldest and one of the largest Islamist parties, and is the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states. It was founded in 1928 in Egypt by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna and by the late 1940s had an...
- Islamic terrorism
External links
- The Islamist - Penguin Books
- Review of the Islamist by The Guardian
- CNN Interview with Ed Husain (Video)
- CNN Interview Transcript
- "The 'Islamist' bogeyman" by Taji Mustafa, executive committee of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain
- Review of the Islamist by Ziauddin Sardar, The Independent
- Review of the Islamist by Inayat Bunglawala, The Muslim Council of Britain
- April 21, 2007 How a British jihadi saw the light