The Quilliam Foundation
Susannah Tarbush Al-Hayat - 26/05/08//
The launch in London of the Quilliam Foundation, described as "Britain's first Muslim counter-extremism think tank", has aroused very mixed reactions - from praise and admiration to speculation, suspicion and vilification.
The two main founders of the Foundation, the director Maajid Nawaz and co-director Ed Husain, are former members of Hizb Ut-Tahrir who have turned their back on and denounced the party and all Islamist trends.
They claim that their experiences as former Islamists mean that they understand the mindset and methods of extremist groups from the inside, and that this makes them the ideal people to fight the ideology of extremism, both through "deradicalisation" of Islamists, and through trying to prevent future radicalisation.
One of their main proposals is that "deradicalisation centres" should immediately be set up in key British cities at which mainstream Muslim scholars would "counter Islamist ideology with traditional, pluralistic Islam." To help in the process of deradicalisation in these centres, and among Muslim prisoners in British jails, they suggest mobilising links with scholars and former jihadists in certain Arab countries, particularly Egypt, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
The Foundation is named after Abdullah Quilliam, a British Muslim convert who in 1889 established Britain's first mosque and Islamic institute (see box). The Foundation's website says: "Now under the guidance of mainstream Muslim scholars, we believe that Western Muslims should revive Western Islam, our Andalusian heritage of pluralism and respect, and thereby find harmony in West-Islam relations." Western Muslims "should be free from the cultural baggage of the Indian subcontinent or the political burdens of the Arab world".
There have been allegations that by focusing on Islamist ideology, the Foundation is aligning itself with government policy and diverting attention from Muslim anger over foreign policy, which many consider to be a major factor in the radicalisation of young British Muslims. The Foundation's first publication, "Pulling Together to Defeat Terror: Recommendations for Uprooting Islamic Extremism", says that if Muslim leaders wish to remain relevant to the national debate surrounding Islam and Muslims, and to have the best interests of Britain's Muslims at heart, they "must realise that the foreign policy of the British government will not be held hostage by any one community, though Muslims, like any other group in a free society, reserve the right to criticize government policies."
The Foundation's launch was a high-profile event at the British Museum, amidst conditions of high security. It was attended by hundreds of people, including Muslim personalities from Britain and around the world, academics and politicians, and it received much media coverage.
There were speeches by some of the 17 advisors listed on the Foundation's website, among them a number of Muslim scholars, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats and former High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina Lord Paddy Ashdown (who was unable to be present but whose speech had been recorded on video), and Professor Timothy Garton Ash of Oxford and Stanford Universities.
There was a moving address by Rachel North, a survivor of one of the four suicide bombings on three London underground trains and a bus on 7 July 2005, in which 52 innocent people were killed. Three of the four suicide bombers were British-born Muslims. Jemima Khan, the ex-wife of Pakistani politician and former cricketer Imran Khan, who converted to Islam at the time of her marriage, spoke of the challenges of bringing up her two sons as Muslims between British and Pakistani culture.
The many recommendations in "Pulling Together to Defeat Terrorism: Recommendations for Uprooting Islamic Extremism" amount to a highly interventionist and challenging programme. They are divided into eight main sections: reaching out to extremists through rehabilitation centres; Muslim communities and groups; Muslim scholars and leaders; Muslim educational establishments; colleges and universities; tackling radicalisation in prison; responsible media, and "joined-up government".
The document says the British broadcast and print media have a "duty" to help mainstream Muslims in their fight against extremism and should not give air space to Islamist extremists. The editors of "liberal newspapers" should "think twice before allowing column space to Hamas and its supporters while they remain committed to the destruction of Israel".
The Foundation's hardline position on Hamas contradicts the view of some British politicians and experts that Hamas should be engaged in dialogue.
The recommendations on Muslim educational establishment advise that to ensure that English-speaking Imams do not become mouthpieces for Al-Qaeda ideology, Muslim seminaries should" re-evaluate t heir syllabi to ensure that these are in line with the expectations of lives for citizens in a 21st century liberal democracy, not British India in the 1850s."
In addition, the seminaries should "encourage students and imams to wear clothes that ensure belonging to mainstream society, and not Pakistani ethnic attire designed for a different climate. Islam requires modesty, not Arab or Pakistani clothing."
One question mark over Quilliam is that it is not fully transparent about its sources of financing, although Ed Husain saying it is receiving private Kuwait funding. A spokesman for Quilliam says: "We believe in respecting the wishes of our donors - who have requested this privacy for obvious reason not excluding security concerns for their own safety and that of their family members some of whom have already been threatened."
On the BBC TV current affairs programme Newsnight on the day of the launch, Nawaz said: "We have absolutely not received government money ,despite being offered it by the Preventing Violent Extremism Pathfinder Fund, and we have said that it is not appropriate for us at the moment - although I would emphasise that I don't have a problem in principle in receiving taxpayers' money for a good cause, as long as it comes with no strings attached."
Even if the Quilliam Foundation is not directly funded by the government, it enjoys considerable influence with government and with certain sections of what some see as liberal circles, but others depict as "neoconservative".
Some critics see it as the latest in a series of Muslim bodies that the government has tried to encourage as a counter to the Muslim Council of Britain, starting with the Sufi Muslim Council and the British Muslim Forum, neither of which made much impact in practice. In a remark clearly aimed at the Muslim Council of Britain and certain other groups, "Pulling Together to Defeat Terror" says: "Matters are made worse by the fact that organizations that claim to represent British Muslims have at their helm men who believe in foreign political ideologies that seek to usurp Islam for political purposes."
The new Foundation has already attracted praise from across the Atlantic. The top terrorism expert at the White House Juan Carlos Zarate, deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism, speaking recently of the need to show that it is Al-Qaeda and not the West that is at war with Islam, said that former extremists in London had begun a campaign to discredit violent extremism through the Quilliam Foundation.
Ed Husain first leapt to fame a year ago when Penguin published his book "The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw Inside and Why I Left." It told of the radicalisation of a British Muslim of Bengali origin, and of his experiences in various Muslim groups and within Hizb Ut-Tahrir.
After the publication of "The Islamist", some other former members of Hizb Ut-Tahrir also defected publicly. The most high-profile defection of all was that of Maajid Nawaz, a top party leader who had spent more than 12 years in the party after being recruited at the age of 16. He appeared on Newsnight on 11 September 2007 to denounce Hizb Ut-Tahrir and to warn that the party he had spent so many years publicly defending as "peaceful" actually had a violent and separatist agenda and created a mindset that could pave the way to terrorism. He added that it supported suicide bombings in Israel, something that he is now against. Nawaz said: "I think that what I taught has not only damaged British society, and British-Muslim relations, and damaged the position of Muslims in this society as British citizens; I think it has damaged the world."
Nawaz was in 2004 released from jail in Egypt after serving four years of a five year sentence for Hizb Ut-Tahrir membership. He had been arrested while studying Arabic in Egypt as part of his course at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London University.
He claims to have been tortured in jail, and says that through being away from his Hizb Ut-Tahrir comrades during his imprisonment, and reading the traditional Islamic texts, he reconsidered everything he had believed in. Nevertheless, he not only continued to work for the Hizb for another year on his release, but rose further within its ranks.
The presence of Michael Gove as one of the Foundation's 17 advisers has attracted some negative comment. Gove, a journalist and conservative MP shadow minister for housing, is an ardent supporter of Israel and is regarded by many as a neoconservative. His book "Celsius 7/7" about the 2005 suicide attacks in London is hailed by the Quilliam Foundation website as "a courageous indictment of Islamism in Britain".
The attitude towards the Egyptian scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi has become to some a test of whether certain Muslims are moderate or not. Qaradawi's supporters insist that he is moderate, but his support for Palestinian suicide bombings and stance on some other issues have led others to label him an extremist and the former London mayor Ken Livingstone was criticised for welcoming him to London. Ed Husain has welcomed the recent decision of Prime Minister Gordon Brown to refuse Qaradawi a medical visa to Britain, a country he has visited several times in the past.
Whatever people's views of the Quilliam Foundation, it looks certain to have considerable influence on the discourse in Britain concerning Islam and Muslims. Its ideas are likely to be taken into account by the government when it is deciding how to distribute of funds at the community grassroots level in the fight against extremism. In 2006 the then secretary of communities and local government Ruth Kelly made it clear that government funding to Muslim groups would in future only be channelled to those considered "moderate" and as promoting shared values.
In April 2007 the government announced its Preventing Violent Extremism Pathfinder scheme, which allows for local authorities to distribute £6 million to support community-led projects. By October, 200 projects had been agreed, nearly 80 of them in London alone. Under Kelly's successor Hazel Blears the government is increasing funding, and is to provide £45 million over the next three years to local partnerships. By 2010-11, funding will rise to £18 million a year. Blears has said it is not only a question of the size of resources but about using them better and "getting smarter at what we do."
QUILLIAM
William Henry Quilliam (1856-1932) was a colourful and eccentric character who converted to Islam at the age of 31 during a visit to Morocco and changed his name to Adbullah. In 1889 he established Britain's first Mosque and Islamic Institute in a terrace house, No 8 Brougham Terrace, in his home city of Liverpool in the north of England. He then bought the four adjacent houses in which he set up a boarding school, lecture rooms, museum and science laboratory. Quilliam was a lawyer, and is reputed to have worn Turkish ceremonial dress when working in the courts. He always carried a marmoset monkey with him- even having a little tarbush made for it - and is said to have ridden a white horse through the streets of Liverpool.
Abdullah Quilliam involved himself deeply in matters involving Muslims in foreign territories that were part of the then British Empire, and his fame spread throughout the Muslim world. In 1894 Sultan Abdul Hamid II conferred on him the title "Shaikh al-Islam of the Britain Isles and the Dominians". The Sultan of Afghanistan gave him £2,500 towards his good works and the Shah of Persia made him a consul. In 1908 he went to live in Turkey where he remained until not long before his death in 1932.
Some British Muslim commentators have pointed out that Quilliam was closer to what is today considered Islamism than to the Quilliam Foundation's concept of Western Islam. Yahya Birt (son of the former BBC director general John Birt) wrote an article on his internet blog recently entitled: "Abdullah Quilliam: Britain's first Islamist?" Birt writes that Quilliam was "unashamedly pro-Ottoman and a supporter of the Emirate of Afghanistan." He was "an anti-imperial agitator" at a time when the British Empire included 100 million Muslims. In the 1890s he wrote pan-Islamic tracts in favour of defensive jihad and he called on fellow Muslims not to fight on behalf of the British Empire against fellow Muslims.
Brougham Terrace currently belongs to Liverpool City Council, but the Abdullah Quilliam Society (founded in 1996 and a completely separate organisation from the Quilliam Foundation) is hoping to raise money to buy Nos 8-19 Broughton Terrace and to renovate them as the Abdullah Quilliam Heritage Centre.
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