Ed Husain's New Book : The Islamist
Posted: Tuesday, May 22, 2007
by Aidan Maconachy
Aidan Maconachy
Ed Husain's new book "The Islamist" is well worth a read.
Husain grew up in the UK in a family of devout Sufi Muslims. He got involved with a variety of Muslim youth organizations, and eventually ended up a member of Hizb-ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) - a Sunni pan-Islamist party with the stated aim of creating a caliphate uniting the disparate elements of the Muslim world. He was a recruiter for a period and describes the work of the organization as attempting to "mobilize the Muslim masses" in the UK.
In addition to being an author, Husain is also a PhD student at the School of Oriental and African Studies. A turnaround that isn't as unusual as you may think. Quite a few young Muslims who get caught up with hard line youth organizations, make the transition to a life less defined by radicalism. It's just that unlike Ed, they haven't had the opportunity to share their story with the public.
In the book, Husain confirms the views of Tony Blair, that veins of radicalism are embedded in the Muslim communities in the UK and goes further to state that he believes multiculturalism has acted as a cover for much of the extremist activity. He also criticizes soft government policies that allow extremist organizations a lot of room to operate. I agree with both of these perspectives and have long believed that extremist religious groups that preach hate and advocate violence should be banned outright. That goes for Christian organizations also.
While acknowledging the extremist culture that exists in many communities in the UK, Husain also points out that significant changes have occurred since the 90's. He refers to a new form of Islam, that is more spiritual and less political. Writers such as Tariq Ramadan have spoken of how important it is for Muslims to relate to non-Muslims in their community as citizens, rather than from the sheltered perspective of a defensive minority community. This speaks to an emerging Muslim individualism that defines relationships outside of the traditional norms.
There is a small, but developing trend in Islam to move toward a more private and spiritual expression of the religion. It would be a welcome development if Christian fundamentalists in the USA followed a similar route. Our societies these days are much too complex and sophisticated to be placed under the thumb of narrow religious values - whether those values happen to be Christian or Muslim.
The author also addresses the problem of government and media giving recognition to extremist groups and accrediting them with representing the Muslim community. This is a large problem and adds to the perception distortion that permits many on the outside to get a warped view of immigrant communities. A Guardian review of the new book put it this way - Husain is appalled at the way unelected and unaccountable Islamist groups are portrayed by the media as representative.
Husain's book has irked a few on the left who don't like the nod given to Tony Blair's view of Muslim society in the UK. Nor do they go along with Husain's tendency to dismiss Islamophobia as a ploy on the part of the Islamic leadership to obtain special concessions.
What I like about the book is that while it addresses the problem of extremism, it also points to positive new developments - of which of course, Ed Husain is a living example.
Aidan Maconachy is a freelance writer and artist based in Ontario. You can visit his blog at http://aidanmaconachyblog.blogspot.com/
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Mahbub (Ed) seems to be no more than an opportunist whose account is very dated - questionable why he is coming to the fore now. There are so many anomalies in Ed's story: e.g. HuT supports Saddam Hussain according to Ed - give me a bucket - if he said that Western governments had supported Saddam I would have agreed - as I have mentioned before, the children of HuT members were minced by Saddam's security services in mince meat machines. He says he was a member of HuT - yet like me he was just an ordinary guy who attended some of their circles, put up some posters - and all of this was over 10 years ago. Finally, I saw Ed on Sky News yesterday morning - he denied that Iraq had "radicalised" Muslims - even Blair mentioned the "blowback" from the Iraq warlast week. The truth about Mahbub (Ed) is this - his dad was a big time Sufi pir in East London who hated HuT - Ed got involved in attending HuT circles in the early 1990s - his dad used to chase him on the streets to prevent him from attending them - Ed was in love with Omar Bakri and when Omar Bakri was kicked out, Ed decided to leave - the other factor was his "woman" who he met at Newham college - he was torn between his love for this "woman" and HuT - his father said to him chose between the "woman" and HuT - he chose the "woman".
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