The Islamist
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Preface
Chapter 1. - Made in England
Chapter 2. - Teenage Rebellion
Chapter 3. - The Ultimatum
Chapter 4. - Islam Is the Solution
Chapter 5. - We Will Rule the World
Chapter 6. - Inside Hizb ut-Tahrir
Chapter 7. - Targeting Communities
Chapter 8. - Inferior Others
Chapter 9. - Farewell Fanaticism
Chapter 10. - Entering the World: Which Life?
Chapter 11. - Metamorphosis
Chapter 12. - 9/11
Chapter 13. - The Road to Damascus
Chapter 14. - Saudi Arabia: Where is Islam?
Chapter 15. - Return to England
Afterword: What About America?
Acknowledgements
Praise for The Islamist
‘The Islamist could not be more timely . . . Husain’s is a disturbing picture . . . In a wake-up call to monocultural Britain, it takes you into the mind of young fundamentalists’ Observer
‘A courageous memoir... explosive’ Evening Standard
‘The Islamist should be prescribed like medicine.Whatever your prejudices, it will eat into them like acid’ Daily Telegraph
‘A revealing and alarming account’ Guardian
‘Gripping . . . far more than just an arresting testimony of a mind freeing itself from the shackles of extremism. It is an extraordinarily written memoir of growing up in the Eighties and Nineties, with moving family vignettes and lyrical passages . . . compelling’ Mail on Sunday
‘The penetrating insight of a former insider . . . A uniquely well-informed guide to the netherworld of British Islamism . . . a riveting personal narrative’ John Gray, Literary Review
‘Unique . . . openly and frankly discusses life inside radical Islamic organizations and crucially reveals important warnings about the future of Islam . . . It is also a call to ordinary Muslims to reclaim their faith’ Asian Leader
‘Explains the appeal of extremism for an intelligent young mind and is an intensely personal protest against political Islam’ Guardian
‘A shocking exposé of life inside London’s spreading Islamist groups’ London Paper
‘An impassioned plea for tolerance . . . Anyone interested in how extremist Islam has established its grip on this country should read this insider account from a former radical’ Metro
‘Provides telling insight’ Daily Express
PENGUIN BOOKS
THE ISLAMIST
Ed Husain was an Islamist radical for five years in his late teens and early twenties. Having rejected extremism he traveled widely in the Middle East and worked for the British Council in Syria and Saudi Arabia. Husain received wide and various acclaim for The Islamist, which was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for political writing and the PEN / Ackerley Prize for literary autobiography, among others. He is a co-founder of the Quillium Foundation, Britain’s first Muslim counter-extremism think tank. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.
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First published in Penguin Books (UK) 2007
This edition with a new afterword first published in Penguin Books (USA) 2009
Copyright © Ed Husain, 2007, 2009
All rights reserved
All quotations of Rumi are taken from Rumi: A Spiritual Treasury,
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Husain, Ed.
The Islamist : why I became an Islamic fundamentalist, what I saw inside,
and why I left / Ed Husain.—2009 ed., with a new afterword
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-05040-8
1. Husain, Ed. 2. Muslims—Great Britain—Biography.
3. Islamic fundamentalism—Great Britain. 4. Radicalism—Great Britain.
5. Extremists—Great Britain—Biography. I.Title.
BP65.G7H87 2009
320.5’57092—dc22 [B] 2009004575
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for al-Rasul al-Karim The Generous Prophet
Beware of extremism in religion; for it was extremism in religion that destroyed those who went before you.
The Prophet Mohammed (570-632)
Preface
During the course of our lives we all change our views and direction; some of us do so more radically than others. For me, the alteration of my worldview is a troubling tale. The person I now am finds it difficult to recognize the person I once was. Yet, with time and experience, I evolved. As John Maynard Keynes famously quipped, ‘When the facts change, I change my mind.’
At times we are victims of our own milieu. Pope Benedict XVI, for a host of reasons, found himself a member of the Hitler Youth. St Paul, a Pharisaic persecutor of Christians, became a believer in Christ and spread the faith into Rome and beyond. Tony Blair, once an ardent activist in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, ended up with his finger on Britain’s nuclear trigger.
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’. The Koran commands Muslims to ‘speak the truth, even if it be against your own selves’. It is my hope that this book will fulfil this obligation.
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.
Mohamed M. Husain
London, 2007
1.
Made in England
It is a mark of self-confidence: the English have not spent a great deal of time defining themselves because they haven’t needed to. Is it necessary to do so now?
Jeremy Paxman, British author and broadcaster
My earliest memories are fond recollections of school trips to the green, serene English countryside. I remember the uninhibited joy of walking along the coast in Upnor, being invited aboard cheerful anglers’ small boats, and devouring fish and soggy chips together. I recall a visit to the New Forest, removin
g mud from our Wellington boots at streams, swimming in rivers, and drinking hot chocolate together at night around the hearth of an old, creaky floor-boarded hut. Our teachers would read from Roald Dahl’s Big Friendly Giant or Kipling’s Jungle Book and then send us off to sleep for the night in rows of bunk beds inside large wooden dormitories set in a forest clearing. Often Susie Powlesland, our elegant head teacher complete with a disciplinarian streak and half-moon reading glasses, would come to tuck us in, dispensing goodnight kisses as required.
Sir William Burrough primary school in Limehouse was almost an extension of my home. The teachers would often visit my parents and I remember going to Ms Powlesland’s house to pick cherries in her garden. She loved her pupils so much that even her social life revolved around us. At weekends she often took us to theatres in the West End, where many of the stories we read in class came alive on stage. My particular favourite was Peter Pan. I liked his ability to do the undoable: to fly.
Growing up in Britain in the 1980s was not easy. Looking back, I think Ms Powlesland was trying to create her own little world of goodwill and kindness for the children in her care. We grew up oblivious of the fact that large numbers of us were somehow different - we were ‘Asian’. The warmth of the English fishermen in Upnor did not exist in the streets of east London.
‘Pakis! Pakis! F—off back home!’ the hoodlums would shout. The National Front was at its peak in the 1980s. I can still see a gang of shaven-headed tattooed thugs standing tall above us, hurling abuse as we walked to the local library to return our books. Ms Powlesland and the other teachers raced to us, held our hands firmly, and roared at the hate-filled bigots.
‘Go away! Leave us alone,’ they would bellow to taunts of ‘Paki lovers’ from the thugs. Little did I know then that one day I, too, would be filled with abhorrence of others.
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.
I was the eldest of four, with a younger brother and twin sisters. My father was born in British India, my mother in East Pakistan,1 and we children in Mile End. My father arrived in England as a young man in 1961 and spent his early days as a restaurateur in Chertsey, Surrey. In ethnic terms I consider myself Indian, lamenting the hasty post-colonial blunder of creating two Pakistans. Somewhere in my family line there is also Arab ancestry; some say from Yemen and others the Hijaz, a mountainous tract of land along the Red Sea coast in Arabia. This mixed heritage of being British by birth, Asian by descent, and Muslim by conviction was set to tear me apart in later life.
I remember my father used to buy us fresh cakes from a Jewish baker in Brick Lane. Our Koran school building had inherited mezuzahs on the door panels, which our Muslim teachers forbade us from removing out of respect for Judaism. My birthday, a family event at our home, is on Christmas Day. My mother would take us to see Santa Claus every year after the school Christmas party. We made a snowman in our garden, lending it my mother’s scarf. Opposite our childhood home in Limehouse, a three-storey Victorian terrace, stood Our Lady Immaculate Catholic church with a convent attached. We were friends of the sisters; our car was parked beside the nunnery every night. We helped out in the church’s annual jumble sale. There was never any question of religious tension, no animosity between people of differing faiths. My mother still speaks fondly of her own childhood friends, many of whom were Hindu. But as I grew older, all that changed. The live-and-let-live world of my childhood was snatched away.
School was the centre of my life. Our days were filled with painting, drawing, reading, writing practice, physical exercise, mathematics, setting the tables for lunch, playing. To instil confidence in us to stand up to the National Front bullies Ms Powlesland had even organized martial arts classes three evenings a week.
Personally, I did not particularly enjoy sparring with others, nor was I particularly good at making hum-hoo noises before landing a punch on my opponent’s hardened stomach. Still, every two months we entered karate competitions in Soho, where masters from Japan tested our combat skills against other, mostly British, candidates. Thanks to Ms Powlesland and my parents’ insistence, I progressed through the ranks and obtained a brown belt.
The Sir William Burrough was a magnet for middle-class liberals who wanted to teach in London’s East End. They came to give us a helping hand in life and, judging by the enthusiasm they exhibited, I think they rather enjoyed being with us. But all was not well all of the time.
There was Mr Fowler, the school caretaker, who clearly loved his on-site accommodation but loathed the increasing number of Asian children who were filling his school. And there was Mr Coppin.
It was a school rule that each term we were divided into dining groups of six; we lunched together and laid the table on a rota system. One day I forgot that it was my turn to help set the cutlery. Mr Coppin, moustachioed and blue-eyed, came into the dining hall and grabbed me by the arm. Taking me aside, he lowered his face to mine and yelled, ‘Why didn’t you set the table?’
‘I forgot, Mr Coppin,’ I whimpered.
‘Forgot? How dare you forget?’ he shouted, his hands resting on his knees. ‘You’re in trouble, young man! Do you understand? ’
‘Yes, Mr Coppin,’ I said.
Then he said something that I have never forgotten. Of me, a nine-year-old, he asked, ‘Where is your Allah now then, eh? Where is he? Can’t he help you?’
What was he talking about? I wondered. What did Allah have to do with it? Besides, I did not even know precisely who Allah was. I knew Allah was something to do with Islam, but then I also wondered if Islam and Aslan from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe were in any way linked. After Mr Coppin’s outburst, I thought it wiser not to ask.
Months before I left Sir William Burrough I had an accident on the school playground. I fell off a bike and cut my chin. Immediately Cherie, a teacher in whose classroom proudly hung a photo of her standing beside a waxwork of Margaret Thatcher at Madame Tussauds, rushed to help me. She drove me to hospital and held my hand throughout the entire ordeal of stitches and aftercare. As we stepped out of the hospital building she asked me if I wanted a piggy back. Thinking it was some sort of boiled sweet, I happily agreed.
Then, to my bewilderment, she went down on all fours and told me to climb on. I still remember her straightening her dungaree straps, and pushing back her glasses before taking off with me, an eleven-year-old Asian boy with a huge plaster on his chin, clinging on for dear life. Cherie drove me home and showered me with love and care in the days that followed.
That experience with Cherie, a white, non-Muslim teacher, and the commitment of Ms Powlesland and her staff to me and other pupils at Sir William Burrough stayed in my mind. It helped me form a belief in Britain, an unspoken appreciation of its values of fairness and equality. It would take me more than a decade to understand what drove Ms Powlesland and Cherie. I was fortunate to have such marvellous teachers at such a young age. For later in life, when I doubted my affinity with Britain, those memories came rushing back.
My parents were strong believers in single-sex education; Ms Powlesland was adamantly opposed to it. She spent hours trying to explain to my parents that I should be sent to a co-educational secondary school. She visited us at home one evening and tried to persuade my parents that attending Stepney Green, the nearest boys’ school, was not right for me.
‘He’s an intelligent boy,’ she said. ‘Send him to a better school.’
‘Stepney Green is a boys-only school. He will be able to study without distractions. The other schools are mixed and I don’t think that is a conducive environment for education,’ my father responded.
They spoke for a long time, and the more Ms Powlesland tried to prevail on my parents, the de
eper they dug in their heels.
Stepney Green school was a twenty-minute walk from my home in Limehouse. In the summer of 1987 my father taught me how to tie a knot for my smart school tie, polish my shoes well, and walk upright in a blazer. He drove me to the school and we went inside the large assembly hall. The sizeable space was filled with hundreds of chairs in straight rows, occupied by young Asian boys in elegant uniforms. I had never seen so many Asian adolescents together in one place.
The white teachers, mostly men, were huddled in a corner waiting to welcome the new intake. Looking around me, I wished I was back at Sir William’s. At Sir William’s my classmates included Jane, Lisa, Andrew, Mark, Alia, Zak. Here everyone was Bangladeshi, Muslim, and male.
A few weeks into term I realized I was hopeless at taking notes from a blackboard. Soon it was discovered that I was short sighted and needed glasses.
I went with my mother to a local optician and she ensured I got a pair I liked and felt confident wearing. I was fond of my new specs, they reminded me of Professor Calculus from the Adventures of Tintin. My self-admiration did not last long.
At school, the boys shouted ‘Glass Man’ at me, and soon, ‘Boffin’. My first year at school was the worst year of my life. Unhappy and with hardly any friends, I became withdrawn and very introverted. I would talk quietly to myself most of the time. When I discovered Kevin Arnold from The Wonder Years, I drew comfort from the fact that here was another kid who always stood out from the crowd and talked to himself. Nevertheless I hated going to school.