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."^[1] It was published in May 2007.

Context[link]

According to one observer,

In the two years since four suicide bombings 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 ...^[2]

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.

Synopsis[link]

Ed Husain

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'.^[3]

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." ^[4]

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',^[3] and this became the "one part of the book has stayed with me."^[4] 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

"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." ^[4]

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.

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.^[5]

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?^[5]

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.^[1]

Husain writes in The Islamist of his former association with Inayat Bunglawala, Dhiren Barot^{[citation needed]} and Omar Bakri Muhammad.

Husain finally severs his links with Islamism by "rediscovering what he describes as 'classical, traditional Islam', which includes Sufi mysticism."^[1]

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." ^[1]

Reception[link]

The book has been "much-praised,"^[6] 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 Gogh, 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[link]

The Sunday Times described the book as "insightful and gripping".^[7]

Martin Amis wrote that "Ed Husain has written a persuasive and stimulating book."^[8]

The Times columnist David Aaronovitch argued that "Husain's account is not sensationalist, tending more to understatement than to hyperbole." ^[9]

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." ^[10]

The Daily Mail columnist and author of Londonistan, Melanie Phillips says Husain "should be applauded for his courage" and displayed "intellectual honesty and guts".^[11]

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"^[12]

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."^[13]

Mixed[link]

• Brian Whitaker, who was Middle East editor of The Guardian 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."^[14]

Critical[link]

• In The Independent, Ziauddin Sardar, complains of what he sees as Husain's "reductive extremist" activity, first embracing "the extremist cleric Omar Bakri Muhammad, 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."^[15]

• Writing in The Guardian, Madeleine Bunting, 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-Tahrir 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."^[16].

See also[link]

• Ed Husain
• Islamism
• Extremism
• East London Mosque
• Islamism in London
• Undercover Mosque
• Londonistan: How Britain is Creating a Terror State Within
• Muslim Brotherhood
• Islamic terrorism

References[link]

External links[link]

• 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