“He Who Pays The Piper Calls The Tune”: Official Islam In Britain
13-06-2008
[First published in Crescent International (June 2008)]
First there was the Muslim Council of Britain, then the Radical Middle Way,
followed shortly after by the stillborn Muslim Council, and now British Muslims
have the Quilliam Foundation. Describing itself as “a counter-extremism
thinktank” that has been “[c]reated by former activists of radical Islamist
organisations, who are familiar with the mindset and methods of extremist
groups”, the Quilliam Foundation is the British government’s new tool in its
campaign to engineer its own brand of Islam. Whereas previous clients busied
themselves with promoting “moderate Islam” and “Sufism”, QF has taken it upon
itself to go one step further and advance the cause of secularism as the “true
face of Islam”.
As a counter-extremism think-tank, much of what QF will be engaged in will
depend on how it defines “extremism”. In its launch publication, Pulling
Together to Defeat Terror, it defines as extremist “Wahhabites who declare
takfir other [sic.] Muslims” and “those who uphold the ideas in Syed Qutb’s
Milestones or Mawdudi’s books on jihad and believe in an Islamist state with an
expansionist army”: in other words, essentially our Salafi brothers and sisters
and any Muslims with any political aspirations based on Islam. Interestingly, Ed
Husain, co-director of QF, himself has pronounced takfir on these people: “Call
them jihadists, Islamists, but I wouldn’t call them Muslim,” said Husain in an
interview with a leading Qatari newspaper in April 2008.
In its agenda for change, among other things QF calls for the establishment of
well-resourced “deradicalisation centres” staffed by “mainstream” Muslim
scholars who counter “Islamist ideology” with “traditional, pluralistic Islam”,
the refutation of the arguments of influential Islamic thinkers such as al-Banna,
Qutb and Nabhani, the application of pressure on Islamist groups to jettison
publicly and privately the ideas of these thinkers, the encouragement of
ordinary Muslims to hand over extremists to the authorities, the encouragement
of students and imams to wear clothes that ensure they belong to mainstream
society, the monitoring of Islamic societies and prayer-rooms on campuses, and
the establishment of a ‘no platform’ policy for these alleged extremists.
The primary agenda of QF, however, is the promotion of ‘Islamic secularism’, an
oxymoron if ever there was one. Recent statements by its founders, Ed Husain and
Maajid Nawaz, are so controversial as to bring them outside the fold of Islam in
the eyes of many ordinary Muslims, let alone scholars. For example, in an
address to City Circle in November 2007, Nawaz made statements such as that
“Islamism is an ideology that believes sovereignty belongs to God, that
legislation belongs to God…Those notions are alien to Islam” and “I don’t think
God revealed Islam to tell me how to run a state”. Husain has repeatedly
criticised elements of the shari‘ah regarding inheritance and the hudood as
“barbaric”, “inhumane” and “outmoded.” A brief examination of these ex-Islamist
founders of QF is helpful for trying to understand the motivations that drive
them.
Ed Husain
Ed (“short for Muhammad”) Husain, virtually unknown until last year, came to
prominence after the publication of his book, The Islamist, his tale of how he
embraced political Islam as a teenager and became what he calls a
“fundamentalist”, before he saw the error of his ways and renounced Islamism for
“moderate, traditional” Islam. Husain lays the blame for extremism at the door
of political groups around the Muslim world such as the Ikhwan al-Muslimeen, the
Jama‘at-e Islami and Hizb ut-Tahrir and their British wings, as well as the ‘Wahhabis’,
with whom he claims these groups have developed a close relationship. That the
book has drawn accolades from such “friends of Islam” as Melanie Philips, David
Aaronovitch, Michael Gove, Martin Amis and Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks is
telling.
Husain is nothing more than a deluded individual, desperately seeking a sense of
belonging and embracing every new ideology he finds with uncontrollable zeal and
passion. From the Young Muslims Organisation to the Islamic Society of Britain
to HT to government mouthpiece for secularism, Husain needs to feel loved. He is
a confused individual with no credibility, except with his neo-conservative
financiers. Without credibility, QF is destined to die in its infancy.
Enter Maajid Nawaz.
Maajid Nawaz
The current director of the QF joined Hizb ut-Tahrir when he was 16 years old.
After imprisonment in Egypt in 2002, Nawaz returned to Britain in March 2006 and
joined HT’s National Executive Committee, becoming a leading spokesman and
proponent of Khilafah. In May 2007, Nawaz resigned from HT and rumours began to
circulate that he had been seen with Ed Husain at a Radical Middle Way event. In
an interview with altmuslim.com on 3 June 2007, Husain claimed that he had
influenced Nawaz’s decision to leave HT. While Nawaz initially remained silent
and many within the community gave him the benefit of the doubt, in September of
last year he began publicly condemning the political element of Islam (or
‘Islamism’), singling out HT in particular for criticism.
Interestingly, Nawaz says that his time spent in an Egyptian prison meant that
he started wondering whether there was a better way “than just meeting
oppression and anger with more anger and more oppression”. He says that he
developed serious doubts, leading to a decision to leave the organisation. In
interviews with several newspapers including the Sunday Times (‘Why I joined the
British jihad – and why I rejected it’, 16 September 2007) and the New York
Times (‘From Finding Radical Islam to Losing an Ideology’, 12 September 2007),
Nawaz described how his time in prison caused him to grow doubtful of
‘Islamism’, which he claims was sold to him in the name of Islam. This raises
the question of, if Nawaz was having a crisis of conscience about his beliefs,
why, upon returning from Egypt, he became one of HT’s leading members, and spend
a year speaking at conferences, demonstrations and in interviews about the need
for Khilafah.
On his return from captivity, Nawaz appeared on BBC’s Hardtalk but, rather than
discuss his newfound doubts about Islamism, Nawaz assertively claimed that Hizb
ut-Tahrir’s ideas were peaceful and that they prevented him from becoming
violent or aggressive despite the oppression he had faced. In fact he argued
that his time in prison had “convinced me even more...that there is a need to
establish this Caliphate as soon as possible”.
Later that year, on 22 October 2006, at the annual al-Quds day march in London,
Nawaz clearly expressed the fruitlessness of the Middle East peace process,
claiming that the only solution to the problem was the end of Israel and its
replacement with the Khilafah. He stated:
“We want to replace the state of Israel. We want to change the status quo, we
want to bring in a solution which is universal, which accepts the right of man
to live like human beings. And this state has been tried and tested in history,
we have seen historically that Muslims, Jews and Christians have lived side by
side in the middle-east in a state which recognised their rights to be who they
are, it did not call for their elimination or annihilation but recognised who
they were. This state that existed in history, it brought a golden era to Spain,
it brought a golden era to Baghdad. This is the Islamic State!”
By means of frequent appearances on television, at conferences and in
demonstrations, Nawaz became a household name in the Muslim community, admired
for his intelligence, his articulateness and, most of all, for his ability to
rebuild his life after years of imprisonment, and also continue the call to
Allah. Then, just over a year later, Nawaz came out of the closet and confessed
to becoming what Imam Anwar al-Awlaki has recently dubbed a “RAND Muslim” (based
on a US neo-conservative think tank that has produced several reports promoting
the characteristics of the West’s ideal Muslim). Had Nawaz made such a
confession shortly after being released from prison, one could conclude that it
had been a result of the trials he had undergone and, while not condoning it, at
least understand the change in mentality.
However, what Nawaz did was far more sinister – in promoting himself as a
leading HT member and building up a grassroots following before deciding he had
indeed found his calling, Nawaz became the first of these “ex-Islamists” to have
any sort of credibility.
The Advisers
To bolster its credibility, QF initially put a list of its advisers on its
website: these included respected Muslim leaders such as Shaikh BaBikr Ahmed
BaBikr and Imam Dr Musharraf Hussain al-Azhari. Most surprising of all its
advisers was the presence of Dr Usama Hasan, a Salafi imam at Masjid al-Tauhid
in East London, and son of Sheykh Suhaib Hasan. Whereas many listed as advisers
asked for their names to be withdrawn, such as Professor Yahya Michot and Mufti
Abu Laith al-Maliki, Dr Hasan has come out in full support of his comrades,
speaking at the launch of QF, where he promoted “Islamic secularism.” He has
refused to distance himself from his comments and defends his involvement with
QF, believing that he can “be a good influence there.”
In this belief, Dr Hasan displays a worrying naivety. The other advisers and
associates of QF include open enemies of Islam such as Michael Gove, Dr David
Green (Civitas) and Douglas Murray (Centre for Social Cohesion), who in 2006
said that “All immigration into Europe from Muslim countries must stop ...
Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board: Europe
must look like a less attractive proposition. We in Europe owe—after all—no
special dues to Islam. We owe them no religious holidays, special rights or
privileges.” In addition, QF’s advisers include several dubious and discredited
figures within the Muslim community, such as Ghayasuddin Siddiqui (British
Muslims for Secular Democracy) and Ali al-Saleh al-Najafi (imam of Milltown
Islamic Centre in Dublin). Dr Hasan’s belief that his association and
involvement with these individuals can produce anything positive suggests of his
own political immaturity. That he himself has begun to promote “Islamic
secularism” raises the question of who is really influencing whom. The sooner Dr
Hasan realises that his only role in QF is to give it some credibility and
legitimacy, the better for all concerned. QF will ultimately die a painful
death, as its predecessors have, but Dr Hasan, who has dedicated his life to
calling to Allah, should realise that it is not something worth going down with.
In mid-May, just over two weeks after its official launch, QF removed its list
of advisers from its website. At the time Dr Usama Hasan and other advisers were
themselves being sincerely advised by members of the Muslim community to
distance themselves from QF. One can only speculate about whether the removal
was due to these advisers having disassociated themselves from QF or whether it
is, as QF states, that the advisers have asked to continue to advise them in
private “so as to save them the indignity of constant Islamist-Wahhabite
harassment.”
Refutation
Despite all of the above, QF will fail. Similar and more sinister plots against
Islam and Muslims have been attempted throughout our history. All have
dissipated and have been consigned to the past, with only the Truth prevailing,
clearer than ever. Ed, Maajid and co. are being regularly exposed for their
inconsistencies, not only by Muslims, but also by non- Muslim commentators. For
example, Seamus Milne wrote an excellent piece in the Guardian Comment is Free
section last month about it being a good time “to be in the ‘moderate Muslim’
business”, stating that QF’s leaders “could not be less representative of
mainstream Muslim opinion in Britain” (‘All mod cons’, 21 April 2008). Even
Dominic Casciani at the BBC has asked whether QF is “just another group with
some kind of official pat on the head - but no credibility on the street.”
The British government will eventually realise this and transfer its funding to
yet another puppet body. Like previous groups supported by the government, QF
has explicitly denied that it receives any government funding. Similar denials
were previously most strenuously made by the Muslim Council of Britain and the
Radical Middle Way, yet as the years passed, details of their funding have
emerged, compelling these groups to admit their receipt of such moneys. One does
wonder, though, how two virtually unknown individuals have been able to fly
around the globe (Qatar, Vienna, Athens, Dublin, Copenhagen, etc) and speak to
audiences of senior civil servants, diplomats and other senior people, without
governments supporting them More persuasive is the revelation by Inayat
Banglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, that
“some representatives of various UK Islamic groups were invited to see senior
officials at the Department of Communities and Local Government recently to
discuss the work they were doing with young people ... Strong hints were dropped
that they could obtain financial support from the government, but only if they
were prepared to work with ... [the] Quilliam Foundation” (Comment is Free, 17
April).
From moderation to Sufism and secularism, this has been the trend which the
British government has followed in its efforts to socially engineer its own
trademark “acceptable” face of Islam. The stronger it perceives the Islamic
awakening to be, the more diluted a version of Islam it attempts to create. As
the idiom goes, he who pays the piper calls the tune. The tune today is “Islamic
secularism”.
Sheikh ul-Islam Abdullah Quilliam (1856-1932)
This piece cannot be complete without mention of the great Muslim leader after
whom QF is named. Although QF are using his name “to help foster a genuine
British Islam, native to these islands, free from the bitter politics of the
Arab and Muslim world”, a more detailed study of Quilliam’s life will show that
he was the very antithesis of what QF stands for. Yahya Birt (‘Abdullah Quilliam:
Britain’s First Islamist?’) writes that “in the high tide of Empire, Quilliam
wrote his subversive pan-Islamist tracts in favour of defensive jihad, ummatic
[sic.] solidarity and the support and defence of the beleaguered caliphate.”
His words, written more than a hundred years ago, constitute excellent advice
that those who are abusing his name should reflect upon today:
“O Muslims, do not be deceived by this hypocrisy. Unite yourselves as one man.
Let us no longer be separated. The rendezvous of Islam is under the shadow of
the Khalifate. The Khebla [qibla] of the True Believer who desires happiness for
himself and prosperity to Islam is the holy seat of the Khalifate.
“It is with the deepest regret that we see some persons seeking to disseminate
disunion among Muslims by publications issued in Egypt, Paris and London.
‘Verily, they are in a manifest error.’
“If their object – as they allege it – be the welfare of Islam, then let them
reconsider their action and they will perceive that instead of bringing a
blessing to Islam their actions will have a contrary effect, and only further
disseminate disunion where it is – alas that it should be said – only too
apparent.
“We fraternally invite these brethren to return their allegiance, and call them
to the sacred name of Islam to re-unite with the Faithful.”
By: Fahad Ansari
Submitted by a Mujahid