The Islamist: Why I became an Islamic Fundamentalist, What I Saw Inside, and Why I Left, Ed Husain
Preface
This book is a protest against political Islam, based on my own experience as a British Muslim who grew up in London, became an extremist ? an Islamist ? and saw the error of his ways. Having undertaken this journey, I feel it is my human duty to speak out against what I see masquerading in Britain as ?Islam?.
This is the story of my journey from the inside, in the fullest sense of the word: inside today?s Islam, inside Britain?s Muslim communities, inside my own heart.
Chapter 1. – Made in England
The colour-blind humanity of most of my teachers, strength in the face of tyranny, taught us lessons for the rest of our lives. Britain was our home, we were children of this soil, and no amount of intimidation would change that ? we belonged here. And yet, lurking in the background were forces that were preparing to seize the hearts and minds of Britain?s Muslim children.
Whenever Grandpa visited Britain to teach Muslims about spirituality, my father accompanied him to as many places as he was able. My father believed that spiritual seekers did not gain knowledge from books alone, but learnt from what he called suhbah, or companionship. True mastery of spirituality required being at the service, or at least in the presence, of a noble guide. Grandpa was one such guide.
All of this was teaching me about a mainstream, moderate Muslim ethos rooted not in Britain but in the eastern Muslim tradition of seeking guidance and religious advice from an elderly sage. I was learning to be an erudite Muslim; Grandpa and his disciples instilled in me a certain way of being gentle and God-revering. We prayed five times a day, kept the company of a holy man who healed people?s hearts, and moved among the Muslim masses teaching spirituality and devotional growth. I had not only learnt my religion from books, but seen it in action in a man who took his faith from nineteenth-century Indian sages, who had taken it from those who preceded them, and so on back to the prophet Mohammed.
Chapter 2. ? Teenage Rebellion
The first book I read about Islam in English was Islam: Beliefs and Teachings by Gulam Sarwar… At school, Sarwar?s was the main textbook for those studying RE. I set out not only to read it but to ensure that I understood it thoroughly. Whether I succeeded or not, one part of the book has stayed with me.
The first lines of Sarwar?s chapter read: ?Religion and politics are one and the same in Islam. They are intertwined. We already know that Islam is a complete system of life…Just as Islam teaches us how to pray, fast, pay charity and perform the Haj, it also teaches us how to run a state, form a government, elect councilors and members of parliament, make treaties and conduct business and commerce.?
Today, in British schools, Sarwar?s book continues to be used in RE classrooms. In mosques and Muslim homes across Britain it is promoted as an introductory text for young Muslims. What I did not know at school was that Sarwar was a business management lecturer, not a scholar of religion. He was an activist in the organizations that he mentioned. Sarwar?s book was not the dispassionate educational treatise it purported to be.
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. The spiritual Islam of my parents? generation was slowly giving way to something new.
The Islamic Foundation was committed to propagating the ideas of the Islamist movement, and translated and published the writings of Mawdudi. Let Us Be Muslims was prominent among them. I started to read the book with keen interest. Sarwar?s Islam: Beliefs and Teachings had already got me thinking about the need for an Islamic state, and a political system of Islam. It was the summer of 1991. My evenings were filled with YMO events and meetings, my time at school in organizing and leading prayer meetings, encouraging others to join the YMO. I was sixteen years old and I had no white friends. My world was entirely Asian, fully Muslim. This was my Britain. Against this backdrop, the writings of Sarwar?s guru, Mawdudi, took me to a radically new level.
Chapter 3. ? The Ultimatum
?Islam is a revolutionary doctrine and system that overthrows governments. It seeks to overturn the whole universal social order.? Abul Ala Mawdudi, Islamist ideologue and founder of Jamat-e-Islami.
My parents were becoming seriously concerned about my sudden outburst of religious fervour. Even in a pious family like ours my behaviour was at odds with my parents? faith.
Unable to accept two authorities, one night, late in the summer, I wrote a farewell note to my parents, left it on my pillow and crept out of our house while they slept. I left home for the Islamic movement without a penny in my pocket and with only the clothes I was wearing.
Chapter 4. Islam Is the Solution
The Koran repeatedly reminds us that the vast majority of the world?s population will not become believers, in the Muslim sense. It accepts religious diversity, creedal plurality. Koranic verses include such Prophetic declarations as ?to you your religion, and to me mine?. However, to Qutb, this was unacceptable. ?Islam is not merely ?believe?,? he wrote. ?Islam is a declaration of the freedom of man from the servitude to other men. Thus it strives from the beginning to abolish all these systems and governments which are based on the rule of man over man.?
Now I was convinced that Grandpa and the majority of the world?s traditional Muslims were on the wrong path. How could they coexist with jahiliyyah, the ignorants, as the Koran called the pagan Arabs of pre-Islamic Arabia?
Islam was the solution for all the world?s ills. As Islamists, our contention was that the world had been failed by capitalism and communism, as Qutb had so eloquently put it in Milestones. Islam?s era had now arrived. But we knew that it would not come to pass peacefully.
Chapter 5. We Will Rule the World
The social ethos among Britain?s young Muslims was such that the more extrovert we became in our perceived expression of Islam, the more highly valued we were among our peers.
Britishness and the British values of democracy, tolerance, respect, compromise, and pluralism had no meaning for us. Like me, most of the students at college had no real bond with mainstream Britain. Yes, we attended a British educational institution in London, but there was nothing particularly British about it. It might as well have been in Cairo or Karachi. Cut off from Britain, isolated from the Eastern culture of our parents, Islamism provided us with a? purpose and a place in life. More importantly, we felt as though we were the pioneers, at the cutting edge of this new global development of confronting the West in its own backyard.
It was in this heightened state that I met members of an international organization dedicated to the overthrow of Muslim regimes and the re-establishment of the Islamic state ? the khilafah or caliphate: Hizb ut-Tahrir. Mawdudi?s literature had trained us to want to create an Islamic state, not a khilafah. To Hizb ut-Tahrir, the khilafah and the Islamic state were one and the same.
?The Hizb has a clear methodology for dealing with all of the problems of the world. From Bosnia to the Gulf War, from poverty in Africa to high crime rates in the West, we have solutions. Islam is God?s system of Government. Jamat-e-Islami and other groups may say the same, but we are the only group in the world who really will implement it. Our members in different Muslim countries have penetrated Muslim armies and soon we will establish our own government. Not through democracy or parliament ? all that belongs to the kafir system. We will deliver the Islamic state through a military coup.?
Chapter 6. Inside Hizb ut-Tahrir
To me, it became crucial that we explain to Muslims at college that they had an important role to play in the world. We were not little Tower Hamletters, as YMO had made us, with links only to the Indian subcontinent. The Muslim nation was a global nation, and we all had a religious obligation to establish a global state that would rival the United States and Europe. This was not fantasy. Not all that long ago the Ottoman Empire had roared at the gates of Europe; we would not only repeat history, we would make it.
The concept of the ?Muslim nation?, as opposed to a number of disparate ethnic communities, was key. To the Hizb, Indians, Malaysians, Turks, Indonesians, Arabs, Africans were all part of a single, global Muslim nation, the ummah. We were weak because we were divided.
The acceptance of that principle, that radical politics was the same as prayer, meant that whereas traditional scholars provided guidance in prayer, we provided leadership in political matters. And we knew it.
First was the ?secret stage? of building a political party with a core group of activist, then the ?open stage? in which the dominant paradigm of political and social constructs would be attacked in an attempt to substitute an alternative worldview. Once this was in place, the Hizb would seek what we called the nasrah, or assistance from powerful sources, to take political power. This would, in all likelihood, be a military coup, the third stage.
Chapter 7. Targeting Communities
From 1992, in mosques and community centres across the UK, Hizb ut-Tahrir appeared as a force to be reckoned with: young, articulate British Muslims whose parents had sent them to university for an education returned as dogmatic zealots linked to a network of speakers and brothers across Britain.
We were preparing an army of support for the future Islamic state. When the caliph emerged, we believed that the Islamic state would come under immediate attack from kafir countries, particularly Britain, France, Russia, and America. For these countries we had particular loathing.
Today the call to jihad is heard more or less daily by large segments of British Muslim youth, but at the time this was extreme rhetoric. More than any other group, Hizb ut-Tahrir introduced the notion of jihad ot the streets of Britain. Home-grown British suicide bombers are a direct result of Hizb ut-Tahrir disseminating ideas of jihad, martyrdom, confrontation, and anti-Americanism, and nurturing a sense of separation among Britain?s Muslims.
Chapter 8. Inferior Others
On a personal level, my relationship with God had deteriorated. If we were working to establish God?s rule on earth, as we claimed, then Hizb ut-Tahrir activists were the most unlikely candidates God could have chosen. My comrades were heady and headstrong young people. Yet as I had become more active in the Hizb, my inner consciousness of God had hit an all-time low. The presence of God in my life, a gift from my parents to me, was lost. Externally I portrayed signs of piety to maintain a standing among my target audience, but I was no longer an observant Muslim.
Despite huge political success, I despised myself for appearing pious and upright in Muslim eyes when all the while I knew that there was a vacuum in my soul where God should be.
My life was consumed by fury, inner confusion, a desire to dominate everything, and my abject failure to be a good Muslim. I had started out on this journey ?wanting more Islam? and ended up losing its essence.
Majid had seen the whole thing. Apparently the boy, a Christian student of Nigerian extraction, had been throwing his weight around and being generally offensive towards Muslims and about their attitudes. Someone had phoned Saeed, who, as he had done previously, burned up within fifteen minutes. The pair confronted each other outside. The black boy drew a knife. Exactly what happened next is unclear, but within seconds Saeed had pulled out Abdul Jabbar and thrust it into the boy?s chest. This was murder.
The murder was now all over the local press. I felt unremitting guilt at what had happened. That murder, the direct result of Hizb ut-Tahrir?s ideas, served as a wake-up call for me. Now, every time I saw a leaflet with Hizb?s flag and masthead posted above photos of the globe I felt naseous.
Chapter 9. Farewell Fanaticism
Just as I had become a member of the Hizb over a period of time, my departure from the organization did not occur on a specific date. Attraction and commitment to extremism have always been part of a gradual process. My first move away was to dissociate myself from the halaqah, a move prompted by the taking of an innocent life, Omar Bakri?s subsequent deceit and my horror when I realized how poisonous was the atmosphere I had helped create. Most important of these was the murder ? the Hizb?s ideas had led to the belief that the life of a kafir was of little consequence in attaining Muslim dominance. I could not bear to be associated with such ideas any longer.
Now I began to wonder whether Islam had anything at all to offer. I had completely confused Islamism with Islam: to me they were the same. Did God really want government in the name of religion? If God was on the Muslim side then why had we failed to establish the Islamic state? Why were the ?enemies of God?, as we viewed the West, politically dominant?
Chapter 10. Entering the World: Which Life?
I assesed my choices: I could continue to live in isolation, away from all Muslim organizations with Islam playing a very small role in my life, or I could draw closer to a transparent Muslim organization, and thus try to live as a better Muslim among Muslim friends.
So now I wanted to lead a ?normal life?, but had no clear idea what I wanted to do.
Islamism was a distant memory. I was busy building my career and had no time for the underwold of mosques and marches, shouting and sabotage. Bosnia seemed irrelevant. That was then; this is now. Why shouldn?t integration be possible in Britain?
But I was fooling myself as well as my loved ones. Really I was a sleeper Islamist, anti-American, anti-Israeli, just so busy building a career and enjoying life that I couldn?t be bothered to pursue the convictions still festering in my subconscious. I did not feel the least bit guilty. As far as I was concerned, I had done my fair share. I had recruited scores of Muslims to the Islamist cause, many of whom were still active in YMO and the Hizb. I had distributed thousands of leaflets. I had no desire to return to active Islamism of any sort, whether it was the Mawdudian YMO, the Nabhanian Hizb, or the Hamas-inspired ISB. I wanted to be alone with the ones I love, my family.
I became increasingly disenchanted with the artificiality of it all. My snappy silk tie began to feel like a corporate noose. That year I didn?t even bother attending the office Christmas party, though it kept the office in gossip for a week. Was this really how I intended to spend my life? I needed to take stock. Where was I heading.
Chapter 11. Metamorphosis
On the eve of the new millennium, six days after my twenty-fifth birthday, I lay on the floor of my local mosque as the celebrations started and the others who were in retreat ran to the open roof to see the fireworks. Those days in spiritual retreat did me the world of good. Tired of materialism, disillusioned with fanaticism, I had lost my anchor in life. Still, deep down there was a spiritual craving, a yearning for something beyond the immediacy of daily existence.
At some point during that retreat I vowed to commit genuinely to the Koran. But there was one problem, unfinished business from my Islamist days: I still did not know Arabic. I wanted to feel the original language of the Koran.
I began to listen to Imam Hanson again, and so to realize that I had been stuck at the preliminary level of Islam for over a decade, all the while confident that I was at its apex: the Islamic state. It never occurred to me that if Islamic governance was of such importance, why did not one classical Muslim text have a chapter dedicated to this? The entire notion of the ?Islamic state? is a modern phenomenon.
By the middle of 2001 I was committed to spiritual Islam. I was determined to leave Britain and study Arabic and traditional Islam in the Middle East. I had nothing to do with Islamist, kept my distance from all forms of Muslim politicking, and simply concentrated on memorizing the Koran and observing the divine presence that is God, trying always to grow in love and veneration of the Prophet.
Chapter 12. 9/11
On the morning of 11 September 2001 I had woken up early to stand in solace in the divine presence, memorized and revised sections of the Koran, and then gone to work. Sometime in the afternoon, my mobile phone?s news alert from the BBC notified me that an aeroplane had crashed into the WorldTradeCenter in New York.
I found it difficult to accept that an attack on the United States was an altogether negative development. Despite my professed Sufi spirituality, a part of me was joyful. Worse, the spiritual Muslim in me failed to detect the remnants of the arrogant sleeper Islamist still residing within. Even though I had accepted Sufi Islam, and consciously tried to decontaminate my mind, there were still aspects of Islamist political strategies that I thought of as ?normal?: an acceptance of terrorism, an unconscious belief that those who ?opposed Islam? were somehow less than human and thus expendable.
Chapter 13. The Road to Damascus
After 9/11 I knew that my time of trying to live an isolated existence, enjoying the company of the Sufis, was over. The world?s media were now discussing my religion, something I had considered extremely precious and personal. More than ever I needed to learn Arabic to help me understand my faith at its core.
After months of discussion, Faye and I decided that Damascus in Syria would best suit our needs.
My time in Damascus changed my perception of the Christian faith for ever. Arab Christians of all denominations freely and with no qualms used the word Allah for God. At first this was extremely difficult for me to digest. Allah, I thought, was the preserve of the Muslims. Granted, I knew that it was a translation of God, but did not realize that ?allah? was an intimate part of the lives of millions of Arab Christians. There was no sense of religious zealotry or grandstanding in the name of God. The mutual recognition and respect between Christians and Muslims in Damascus had a lot to teach Muslims and Christians in Britain.
Two years in Syria, away from Islamism in Britain and in the company of amiable believers of many religions in Damascus, had, I knew, decontaminated my mind. Now, more than ever, I felt free.
Chapter 14. Saudi Arabia: Where is Islam?
Faye was not immodest in her dress. Out of respect for local custom, she wore the long black abaya and covered her hair in a black scarf. In all the years I had known my wife, never had I seen her appear so dull. Yet on two occasions she was accosted by passing Saudi youths from their cars. On another occasion a man pulled up beside our car and offered her his phone number. In supermarkets I only had to be away from Faye for five minutes and Saudi men would hiss or whisper obscenities as they walked past. When Faye discussed her experiences with local women at the British Council they said, ?Welcome to Saudi Arabia.?
After a month in Jeddah, I was becoming seriously worried for Faye?s wellbeing. I heard from an Asian taxi driver about a Filipino worker who had brought his new bride to live with him in Jeddah. After visiting the prominent Balad shopping district, the couple caught a taxi home. Some way through their journey, the Saudi driver complained that the car was not working properly and perhaps the man could help push it. The passenger obliged. Within seconds the Saudi driver had sped off with the man?s wife in his car and, months later, there was still no clue to her whereabouts.
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.
Saudi newspapers editorialized about these worrying trends, though with reference to Saudi women?s invention of temporary marriage contracts known as misyaf ? ?a summer marriage?. These allowed women to escape Sauid Arabia with a male partner, usually to a European capital. After the ?summer?, the marriage was annulled. Such arrangements were traditionally the preserve of wealthy Saudi men, but now women were finding ways of overcoming the tyranny of the monstrous mutawwa?een.
Our experiences in Saudi Arabia scotched the myth, widely held among Muslims, that Muslim countries are somehow morally superior to the decadent West. After hearing personal stories from my students about incidents of paedophilia, rape, and abuse in their families I was convinced that the West is no more decadent than the East. The difference is that in the West we are open about these issues and try to handle them as and when they arise. In comparison, in the Muslim world, such matters are swept under the carpet in an attempt to pretend that all is well.
Chapter 15. Return to England
For me, being a Muslim is not a political identity ? Islam does not teach us a monolithic approach to life. The prophet did not create new systems of government, but adopted existing paradigms from seventh-century Arabia. His was not a radical break with the past. When the Muslims of Indonesia, India, China, Pwersia, and Africa embraced Islam they did not disavow their own native cultures; their architecture and customs testify to that fact. In Mecca I met Muslims who were unalike in their background and culture but united in their belief. For me that is the true ummah ? a spiritual community, not a political bloc.
I returned to Britain because I believe it is my home. I want my children to grow up here. I do not want them to consider Islamism as an option, as I once did. So I worry when I see young girls, many below the age of eight, wearing hijab to primary schools. If hijab is a mechanism for modesty and an indication of sexual propriety, however debatable, then it belongs firmly in the wardrobe of adulthood. When Muslim parents send their young children to school thus attired it tells me that? the hijab is losing its spiritual significance and is instead becoming a marker of separatist identity politics.
Without doubt, a British Islam is emerging. It remains to be seen whether it will be in harmony with the world in which it finds itself, or if it rejects and repels it. The direction we take at this critical juncture will determine the type of Islam we bequeath to future generations. The future of Islam is being shaped now.
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