islamozionism

These are good times to be in the "moderate Muslim" business. If you press the right buttons on integration and "radicalisation" and hold your tongue on western foreign policy, there are rich pickings to be had - from both private and government coffers.

Latest in the ring is the "counter-extremism thinktank", the Quilliam Foundation, due to be launched tomorrow in the British Museum by Ed Husain (much-feted author of The Islamist), Jemima Khan and former Lib Dem leader and Bosnian proconsul Lord Ashdown.

The foundation - named after a 19th century British Muslim - is the creature of Husain and a couple of other one-time members of the radical, non-violent Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. All three are straight out of the cold war defectors' mould described in Saturday's Guardian by the playwright David Edgar, trading heavily on their former associations and travelling rapidly in a conservative direction.

Given the enthusiasm with which Husain's book was greeted last year by British neoconservatives such as Tory frontbencher Michael Gove and Mail columnist Melanie Phillips, it's no surprise that he has recruited people like Gove and David Green, director of the rightwing thinktank Civitas, as advisers. But there are also a couple of more liberal figures on board like Guardian columnist Timothy Garton Ash and the vicar of Putney, Giles Fraser - though it seems not everybody realised quite what they were signing up to.

In any case, to judge by what Husain and his friends (such as fellow defector Shiraz Maher) have been saying, the aim seems to be a campaign to redefine what is acceptable within the Muslim community under the banner of reviving "western Islam".

In particular, they want to put Islamism - an extremely broad political trend that stretches from the Turkey's ruling Justice and Development party to al-Qaida - beyond the political pale.

"I wouldn't call them Muslim," Husain said recently of Islamists in a bizarre inversion of takfiri jihadists' excommunications of supposed apostates.

The nature of Husain's own politics were on unmistakeable display during a recent edition of Radio 4's Any Questions, when he attacked multiculturalism and declared there were too many immigrants in the country. He also says he supported the invasion of Iraq to overthrow Saddam, but not what took place thereafter.

Husain has, meanwhile, compared Hamas to the BNP, described the Arab "psyche" as irredeemably racist, criticised the director of MI5 for "pussyfooting around" with extremists, poured cold water on the idea that western policy in the Muslim world makes terror attacks in Britain and elsewhere more likely, dismissed the idea of Islamophobia and defended the government's decision to ban the leading Muslim cleric Sheikh Yusef al-Qaradawi from Britain because he had defended Palestinian suicide attacks. Whatever else that amounts to, it's scarcely a voice of moderation.

Interestingly, Husain and the Quilliam Foundation hail another Egyptian cleric, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, as a "scholastic giant" making a brave stand against extremism. Last year, David Cameron also went out of his way to praise Gomaa and the Times called him "the wise mufti".

But as it turns out, Gomaa is also on record as defending Palestinian suicide bombings, including against Israeli civilians (as well as endorsing wife-beating in some cultures). The crucial difference between Gomaa and Qaradawi is not their religious rulings on Palestine or other social questions - or their shared hostility to terror attacks in the west - but that Qaradawi is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, the most popular opposition movement in the Arab world, while Gomaa is appointed by the pro-western Mubarak dictatorship.

When asked about the rule of an Egyptian man illegally entering Palestine and carrying out a 'martyrdom' operation without the express permission of the head of state he replied that "he is a Shahid [martyr], because Palestine is a special case and not the ordinary case existing in the world... This is because in Palestine there is an enemy that rules the land. This rule is considered a crime by international conventions and resolutions... The world has let the Jews spread corruption throughout the land and they have succeeded in obtaining international legitimacy to territories that were conquered after 1967...Israel is a special case that does not exist [anywhere else] on the face of the earth. We are facing a criminal occupation that is the source of terror."

When asked about the explicit ruling on "martyrdom" operations he replied that "The one who carries out Fedaii [martyrdom] operations against the Zionists and blows himself up is, without a doubt, a Shahid [martyr] because he is defending his homeland against the occupying enemy who is supported by superpowers such as the U.S. and Britain."

The Mufti's opinion of Israeli Civilians In the same interview, referenced above, he was then asked regarding the rule regarding differentiating between civilian and non civilian targets replying that

"The Zionists themselves do not differentiate between civilian and military personnel. They have set the entire people to military service. The civilian settler who occupies land in a state of war is a Harbi [that is, a non-Muslim living in an area regarded as 'Dar Al-harb,' the 'domain of war,' in which Islam does not dominate]. Besides, everyone in Israel, civilians and military personnel, bear arms. That is, they are 'Ahl Al-Qital'[that is, those who deserve to be fought]."

Various other questions and answers from the same interview include:

Question: "Do you differentiate between operations carried out within the 1948 borders and operations carried out within the 1967 borders?" Sheikh Gum'a: "Even Zionists do not differentiate. They occupied the entire territory. We differentiate when there is a difference, [but] there is no difference between Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Hebron."

Question: "Is it permitted to kill an Israeli travelling outside the borders of his land?" Sheikh Gum'a: "Yes, it is permitted to kill him, because he is a Harbi and the Harbi spreads corruption throughout the face of the earth."

Question: "Even if he is wearing a diplomatic uniform, for example?" Sheikh Gum'a: "He can wear a diplomatic uniform as much as he likes, but his blood is permitted. But permitting his blood does not mean that he must be killed; it only permits his killing."

Egypt's mufti, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, also said Hizbullah resistance group was defending Lebanon against Israeli injustice. "The attacks, killing and destruction that are taking place in Lebanon now by Israeli forces are injustice itself," Mufti Ali Gomaa told a meeting in southern Egypt. "This gives the Lebanese the right to defend themselves. Hizbullah is defending its country and what it is doing is not terrorism," he added.

The Quilliam Foundation's leading lights could not be less representative of mainstream Muslim opinion in Britain. But the signs are that the government is nevertheless throwing its weight behind the organisation - after the failure of earlier efforts to build up the Sufi Muslim Council and British Muslim Forum as an alternative to the umbrella Muslim Council of Britain. Officials from Hazel Blears' communities department recently made clear to a Muslim organisation involved in youth work that it would need to line up with the Quilliam Foundation if it wanted government funding.

The Quilliam Foundation itself is being funded by Kuwaiti businessmen, Husain told me yesterday, but could not reveal their identities. He added that he would be happy to take government funds if there were no strings attached.

This is a perilous game. Those like Quilliam and its friends who claim that terror attacks are all about a rejection of our way of life rather than western war-making and support for dictatorships in the Muslim world may help get the government off the hook of its own responsibility.

But if we want to stop such attacks in Britain, rather than indulge in shadow boxing with an elastically-defined extremism, there needs to be engagement with - not ostracism of - credible Islamist groups, as the former head of Scotland Yard Special Branch's Muslim contact unit has argued.

Earlier this month, the chairman of the National Association of Muslim Police, Zaheer Ahmad, warned in Jane's Police Review Community that while Husain had "few supporters within the Muslim community", some senior officers had been "seduced" by his "celebrity status" and "taken in by the stereotypical image of Islam he portrays". The dangers of trying to impose the voices you want to hear on the Muslim community should be obvious.

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But even a cursory glance at Quilliam’s life immediately reveals a more complicated personality than the simpler invocations of British Muslim patriotism will allow.

For instance, Quilliam’s community called the adhan out aloud, which would surely have fallen foul of the Bishop of Rochester, who is not a fan of the amplified call to prayer. We can hear the echoes of the Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali in the complaint of the Liverpool Review of 1891:

To hear the muezzin here it is most incongruous, unusual, silly and unwelcome, and the man who stands howling on the first floor of a balcony in such a fashion is certain to collect a ribald crowd, anxious to offer a copper or two to go into the next street, or even ready to respond to his invitation with something more than jeers. [1]

Quilliam lived during the high noon of European colonialism, and, in particular, of the British Empire. In 1900, eleven (mostly) European empires had 160 million Muslim subjects (or 80% of the umma); the British Empire itself had 100 million Muslims stretching from northern Ghana to Kelantan in SE Asia (so half of all Muslims were subjects of the Crown). By contrast, the independent Muslim states — the Ottoman Empire, Persia, the Arabian Peninsula, Morocco and Afghanistan — had a mere 41 million Muslims. [2] After 1870, the European denial of “progress” in Muslim terms (for “progress” could only truly be European in character) fed the growth of the Salafiyya movement, which advocated a return to the ways of the earliest generations of Islam. In some ways, Salafiyya was an analogue of nineteenth-century European classicism, and it tended, at this time, towards nationalism and was critical of what it saw as Ottoman despotism. This general pessimism towards the Ottoman Empire grew with the Balkan Crisis of the 1870s and the loss of Tunisia to the French and Egypt to the British in the 1880s, and much Muslim public opinion turned against it. The idea of the sultanate was still promoted in the independent Muslims states while stressing the religious dimensions of the role as amir al-mu’minin (in some ways close to the European idea of ‘defender of the faith’), while British royalty was also known to invoke caliphal authority at the same time. But generally, Muslim political elites began to detach the idea of sovereignty from the sultan (or empire), and to invest it in the nation-state, expressed in the constitutional movements of the early twentieth century.

Quilliam, based in the colonial metropole, was seen to be an anti-imperial agitator. He was unashamedly pro-Ottoman and a supporter of the Emirate of Afghanistan, a fact naturally reflected in the string of scholarly, religious and diplomatic titles and honours he had acquired by 1908:

His Excellency Abdullah Quilliam Bey Effendi, Faziletlu Hazratlaree, B.A., F.G.S., LL.D., Sheikh-ul-Islam of the British Isles and Dominions, Turkish Consul and Persian Vice-Consul [3]

He opened the pages of his publications to George Rule, the Honourary Ottoman Consul in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and to Enver Bey, the Ottoman Consul in Liverpool. His interventions on foreign policy were generally regarded as “un-British” by the press of the day. He questioned the virtue of Muslim imperial subjects fighting on behalf of the Empire against their fellow brethren in the Sudan (see the original text below). He defended the Ottomans from criticisms he regarded as unbalanced or unfair over the Armenian uprisings in 1895. And as British foreign policy began to move away from support of the Ottomans at the beginning of the twentieth century, Quilliam was seen to be out of step.

After Quilliam left Britain in 1908 for Istanbul, it would have been impossible for him to return to Britain as Sheikh-ul-Islam particularly during the First World War (when the Turks sided with Germany). Yet there is some evidence that he did return under the pseudonym of H. Mustapha Leon or Henri M. Leon, some dating the return as early as December 1914 while others place it after the war in 1922. [4] Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, the famous translator of the Qur’an, before and after his conversion to Islam in 1917, was seen as “a security risk” in official circles. [5] Indeed, in this whole period, according to the leading historian of British Islam,

British Muslims were greatly affected by the First World War. Turkey’s involvement on the side of Germany caused immediate doubts about the loyalties of all classes of Muslims within the empire, which reinforced perceptions that Muslims were essentially “un-British”. [6]

How contemporary that predicament sounds! And it indicates that Quilliam’s experiences are more poignantly pertinent a hundred years later than hasty patriotic appropriations would crudely suggest.

From Liverpool, Quilliam worked alongside Joosub Moulvi Hamid Gool of Cape Town and Hassan Musa Khan of Perth to unite together the diasporic Indian Muslim communities in places as far afield as Australia and South Africa, on the basis of a strong rhetoric of international brotherhood mobilised in support of the Caliphate. His strongest support came from the NW part of the British Raj in Gujrat, the Punjab and the NW Frontier Province, and particularly from the Afghans. However, the elite of the Indian Muslim diaspora couched their pan-Islamism in Anglophilia, claiming their Britishness as they sought to claim their equal status and worth. (And it is the Anglophilia rather than the context or the substance that seems of utility to hasty appropriators.)

In the high tide of Empire, Quilliam wrote his subversive pan-Islamist tracts in favour of defensive jihad, ummatic solidarity and the support and defence of the beleaguered caliphate. At least in the mid-1890s, he seemed to be a staunch Islamist, to use the current terminology, and thus seems an unlikely candidate for the latest fashion in Britslam-makeovers.

Despite the context, Quilliam was certainly unabashed and unapologetic about his loyalties. Here, in the two texts from 1896, he calls upon Muslims not to fight on behalf of the British Empire against fellow Muslims, and argues that supporting the caliphate is the mark of the mu’min (believer) and the only guarantor of Muslim unity. Given the current climate, it seems more than likely that his writing of the period would have fallen foul of current anti-terrorism laws on incitement and propagandising. The Daily Mail might even have seen him as one of those “preachers of hate”!

*****

Text One: Quilliam on Jihad

In the name of God, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful!

Peace be to all True-Believers to whom this shall come!

Know ye, O Muslims, that the British Government has decided to commence military and warlike operations against the Muslims of the Soudan, who have taken up arms to defend their country and their faith. And it is in contemplation to employ Muslim soldiers to fight against these Muslims of the Soudan.

For any True Believer to take up arms and fight against another Muslim is contrary to the Shariat, and against the law of God and his holy prophet.

I warn every True-Believer that if he gives the slightest assistance in this projected expedition against the Muslims of the Soudan, even to the extent of carrying a parcel, or giving a bite of bread to eat or a drink of water to any person taking part in the expedition against these Muslims that he thereby helps the Giaour against the Muslim, and his name will be unworthy to be continued upon the roll of the faithful.

Signed at the Mosque in Liverpool, England, this 10th day of Shawwal, 1313 (which Christians erroneously in their ignorance call the 24th day of March, 1896),

W.H. ABDULLAH QUILLIAM, Sheikh-ul-Islam of the British Isles.

[Source: The Crescent, March 25th 1896, Vol. VII, No. 167, p. 617; original punctuation and spelling retained.]

*****

Text Two: Quilliam on the Caliphate

[681] In the name of God, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful!

Peace be to all the faithful everywhere!

“O True-Believers, fear God with His true fear; and die not unless ye also be True-Believers. And cleave all of you unto the covenant of God, and depart not from it; and remember the favour of God towards you.” Sura 3, “The Family of Imran,” Ayat, 103

All praise be to God Who, in His unlimited goodness, has favoured us with the gift of the True religion of Islam, and Who has ordered the brethren to be united, and declared this to be His law in the before-quoted Ayat of the Holy and Imperishable Koran!

Among Muslims none should be known as Turks, Arabs, Kurds, Ajem, Afghans, Indians or English. They are all Muslims, and verily the True-Believers are brethren. Islam is erected on the Unity of God, the unity of His religion, and the unity of the Muslims. History demonstrates that the True-Believers were never defeated while they remained united, but only when disunion crept into their ranks.

At the present time, union is more than ever necessary among Muslims. The Christian powers are preparing a new crusade in order to shatter the Muslim powers, under the pretext that they desire to civilise the world.

This is nothing but hypocrisy, but armed as they are with the resources of Western civilisation it will be impossible to resist them unless the Muslims stand united in one solid phalanx.

O Muslims, do not be deceived by this hypocrisy. Unite yourselves as one man. Let us no longer be separated. The rendevous of Islam is under the shadow of the Khalifate. The Khebla 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 [682] 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.

Muslims all! Arsh is under the standard of the Khalifate. Let us unite there, one and all, and at once!

Given at the Mosque at Liverpool, this 5th day of Dhulkada, 1313, which Christians in their error call the 20th day of April, 1896

W.H. ABDULLAH QUILLIAM, Sheikh-ul-Islam of the British Isles.

[Source: The Crescent, Vol. VII, No. 171, April 22nd 1896, pp. 681-682, original punctuation and spelling retained, pagination indicated in square brackets in the text.]

*****

Far from being “free” of the “bitter politics” of the Muslim world, Quilliam seemed fully engaged, working not only against the British Empire but also the tide of opinion in the Muslim world that had become anti-Ottoman, rallying the Muslims of the diaspora to a defiant defence of the caliphate. In a way, his mixture of local public service and global political concern makes Quilliam an oddly resonant figure for young British Muslims today — a marionette for our anachronistic fears and hopes.

Notes

[1] H. Ansari, The Infidel Within (London: Hurst, 2004), 83.
[2] R. Schulze, A Modern History of the Islamic World (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000), 25.
[3] E. Germain, ‘Southern Hemisphere Diasporic Communities in the Building of International Muslim Public Opinion at the Turn of the Twentieth Century’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 27/1, 2007, 126-138, citation at 130, n. 30.
[4] Germain, 134, notes an attestation to 1922, but there is the Islamic Review, January 1915, pp. 4-7, that records a speech by Prof. H. Mustafa Leon in London in December 1914, which was in fact the inaugural address to the newly-formd British Muslim Society, based in London. The speech is reproduced here online: http://www.wokingmuslim.org/work/bm-soc1.htm. Quilliam’s vision for the new Society sounds very similar to how he had envisaged the role of the Liverpool Muslim Institute in the previous decade: “The Society will, I trust, keep us in touch with each, though separated by miles of land; bind us together into one great brotherhood; help us along the Islamic pathway; and strengthen each and all of us to play our part in the battle of life and the defence and exposition of those eternal principles of human conduct and Islamic religion and doctrine for which we are fighting. It. will, I hope, also serve to keep us in touch with the other parts of our world-wide brotherhood. Union is strength. May it be a uniting link not only between every British Muslim but between us and the Muslims everywhere, consolidating and binding the whole into one unbroken and unbreakable chain, stretching through the Orient and Occident, Africa, and the South and North American States. We have now planted the banner of Islam in the heart of the British Empire, its silken folds are fluttering on the breeze, good and noble men and true and gentle women are rallying beneath it. Let us keep it flying on the winds unstained, untarnished, as spotless as when it was first unfurled on Arabia’s burning sands over fourteen hundreds years ago.”

[5] P. Clarke, Marmaduke Pickthall (London: Quartet, 1986), 31.
[6] H. Ansari, 89.