by Ed Husain
While the argument raged, I began to feel dizzy. I had committed myself to Islamism because I wanted to be a better Muslim, a complete Muslim, not in order to divide Muslims. I had served the Islamic Society, raised its profile beyond that of any other college in Britain, in order to make Islam superior, not to instigate infighting. At that moment, for the first time in months, if not years, I remembered Grandpa. Abjol stood up and continued to shout, yell, and hurl abuse. Brother Falik sat beside me in stunned silence, not knowing what had happened to his old friend. I wondered the same.
I remembered Grandpa had once warned an imam that if the congregation was unhappy, then it was always better to resign rather than taint the congregation’s religious experience with bitterness. I, to all intents and purposes, was the imam of the young Muslims at Tower Hamlets College. I announced my immediate resignation and walked out of the meeting. As I left, I felt pain in my heart, for only a year ago I had recruited many of those who were now unthinking sheep for YMO, da’wah fodder for Jamat-e-Islami, and bodyguards for visiting Islamist politicians from Bangladesh. My purpose, I thought, was greater than that.
On the bus home that day, for the first time in years, I cried. We were a few weeks away from the end of my second year at Tower Hamlets, and they could have waited to see me out. But they chose instead this form of brutal confrontation. Where was all the brotherhood we spoke about? Perhaps it had been instigated from outside, by those who had asked me to use the Islamic Society as a recruiting agency for YMO? I would never know. Oddly, the Islamic Society’s ten-member committee which I had founded called me to a meeting and told me they had passed a motion of no confidence in me. Rather than simply accept my resignation, YMO had to have the last word by kicking me out.
Soon Hizb ut-Tahrir activists at Tower Hamlets College outraged the established, prestigious, all-dominating Islamic Society by launching a rival One Nation Society. I still recall the joy with which the college management welcomed this split. Instinctively I avoided the limelight and put forward others to lead One Nation while I operated from behind the scenes. Farid called me a ‘real politician’. In Hizb circles, that was the highest accolade one could wish for. Being ‘sharp’ was laudable, but being a ‘politician’, as defined by the Hizb, was better by far.
7.
Targeting Communities
The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and thence to the heart of the broad masses.
Adolf Hitler
As the summer of 1993 approached, the Hizb was determined to ensure that Hizb activities did not cease when the students returned to their homes but that the concepts would be taken into the Muslim communities. A busy, event-packed summer was to follow.
Almost all the shabab who were recruited in Britain were rooted in Muslim communities in various parts of the country. Some were foreign, Arabs who were sent back to their home countries to put out feelers to determine whether the Hizb would be tolerated there. British university campuses had been fertile ground, not only to fire British Muslims with our concepts, but to send fresh blood into several Arab dictatorial regimes. Slowly, through contacts made in the UK, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Malaysia were now on the Hizb radar. While Farid taught us, Omar Bakri was busy teaching Arab students and other ‘secret’ shabab. Many were said to be members of Arab ruling families, military personnel, or civil servants. At one stage Omar Bakri was delivering as many as twenty-nine lectures a week, both in private and in public.
While the British state fed Omar, he sowed the seeds of terror in British Muslim minds. Farid was delivering at least fifteen lectures a week. Similarly, Waj, Bernie, Jamal, and others all had their own bookings on the Hizb’s lecture circuit. Our level of activity was considerably higher than all the Islamist groups combined. And where their events were often celebratory, ours had a distinct purpose: to inject the ummah with radical ideas.
From 1992, in mosques and community centres across the UK, Hizb ut-Tahrir appeared as a force to be reckoned with: young, articulate British Muslims whose parents had sent them to university for an education returned as dogmatic zealots linked to a network of speakers and brothers across Britain. Most of the shabab were given areas to canvass, in which we worked tirelessly to convey our ideas, attract new contacts, and initiate new events. I was placed in Tower Hamlets, which we always called Whitechapel, probably because our activities were focused around Brick Lane and East London mosques.
Whitechapel was vital to the Hizb, and our masul, or area leader, there was Farid himself. Gone were the days when he and Jamal Harwood distributed a few leaflets outside East London mosque. Now the Hizb had a core group of about twenty shabab who knew the area and the people well. Our duty was to move the masses, challenge Western values, support our brothers in Arab countries, demand khilafah in Muslim countries, set up contacts in the military. However, before any of this happened, we had to change public opinion. On campus it had been easy to stage debates, and we had had a ready-made audience of curious individuals. Mobilizing whole communities proved a more difficult task.
Unlike other groups, we deliberately avoided taking over mosques and setting up institutions. Nabhani had warned even against holding frequent conferences because this would create a false sense that something had been achieved. The only achievement we wanted was a radical shift in perception, to politicize Muslim public opinion, to connect it as an ummah, as One Nation. Then we could destroy the existing political order in Muslim countries and engage in the conversion or coercion of the rest. The unfinished business of Vienna in 1683, when the Ottomans tried and failed to conquer Europe, had to be completed.
And we were buoyed by media interest, with homophobic and anti-Jewish statements in our party literature. We took our ideas to the wider Muslim community for the first time. Just as we had done on campus, we avoided the name Hizb ut-Tahrir, instead calling ourselves the Muslim Unity Organization as we launched a series of local demonstrations across Britain.
We whipped up Muslim fear: ‘Bosnia today, Britain tomorrow’, we declared. Our leaflets, however, were always more than just flyers. We used them to ‘pass the concepts’, always including several lines about the dire need for the Islamic state and how it would solve the problems of the Muslim world alongside the place, date, and time of the meetings they were advertising. The leadership of the Hizb ensured that there was consistency in all our leaflets across the country - either Farid Kasim or Jamal Harwood vetted every one of them. In many ways, what we were trying to do was inculcate a feeling of ummah among Britain’s relatively well-off Muslims, who saw themselves as remote from the problems of the Arab and Muslim world.
Moreover, as Patrick repeatedly told us, we were preparing an army of support for the future Islamic state. When the caliph emerged, we believed that the Islamic state would come under immediate attack from kafir countries, particularly Britain, France, Russia, and America. For these countries we had particular loathing.
In anticipation of this global conflict we were, in all earnest, trying to ensure that the caliph had plenty of support among Britain’s Muslims, who would swear bai’a, or allegiance, to him and accept his orders. A home front would open up in the coming jihad.
Jihad, we believed, could be of two types: defensive and offensive. When Muslims came under attack they were permitted to conduct a jihad on defensive grounds. But to declare war on states, and fight national armies, was the responsibility of the Islamic state. As such, a real offensive jihad would emerge when the caliphate was established. Naturally, allegiance to the caliph was wajib for all Muslims. Moreover, the caliph’s orders were God’s orders. The man-made law of the land had no meaning for us.
For the jihad to succeed against the crusader countries (we were talking of crusades long before George W. Bush), Muslims in those countries had an ideological duty to unite behind the Islamic state and be prepared to launch attacks on Br
itain from within.
During the first Gulf war, there were rumours that Hizb members were planning to attack British army barracks outside London.
In the meantime Bernie, Abdullah, and other visiting members of the Hizb who lived in Chicksand House struck up friendships with the gangs of Muslim youths who hung out on street corners in the evenings. These contacts, along with the many we had built up at Tower Hamlets College, had now to be channelled. Many were attending circles at Chicksand House, but Patrick wanted a public gathering place to which we could invite as many people as possible. His own venue, London Hospital Medical College, was now coming under increasing scrutiny; we suspected that the YMO and East London mosque had lodged a complaint in an attempt to shut us down.
So we moved to the public hall of the Davenant Centre on Whitechapel High Road for several weeks, directly opposite the East London mosque. After our events, we went there en masse to ‘drop our prayers’. (The Hizb bred a culture that prayers were a burden, to be ‘dropped’.)
The first time I entered the East London mosque with Omar Bakri, YMO members gathered quickly to see what we would do. I had planned simply to enter, pray, and leave; Omar, however, was uncontrollable. When he started to address the congregation the mosque caretaker ordered him to stop.
‘But we are worshipping God! We are speaking about Islam, in a mosque. This is not your personal property. Let the ummah discuss these vital issues. Bosnia is being massacred, Palestine is under occupation, and you stop us from discussing those issues. Fear Allah, brother. Fear Allah . . .’
The caretaker was unmoved. Several members of the mosque management committee now came to his aid. He said he would call the police, and I knew this was no idle threat: the people at East London mosque had been my own family, giving me shelter when I ran away from home - I knew how far they were prepared to go to protect their personal fiefdom.
I turned to Bernie. ‘We must get out, now!’ I said. ‘Otherwise we’ll have the police in here, arrests, and chaos. These guys will fight to get us out, I tell you. Come on, get Omar.’
Bernie got the message to Omar and, luckily, Omar listened, though he had to have the last word. He got up, but he didn’t shut up. ‘Shame on you Muslims!’ he shouted at the committee members. ‘You go to the kafir police against your own brothers. Shame on you.’
Omar was the first Muslim cleric in Britain to drive a wedge between Muslims and the law. Within a decade his policy of non-cooperation with kafir legislation would set many Islamists against the British police force.
As we left the mosque I saw my old mentor Siraj Salekin. Not surprisingly, the old warmth had gone. Bernie and I headed back to Chicksand Street to discuss what to do next. On the way we discussed how wise it had been for Omar to confront the East London mosque authorities so directly.
‘I’m glad he did it,’ said Bernie. ‘The ummah can see how corrupt these people are. They have no right to stop us from speaking in the mosque.’
I agreed. We dominated Muslim groupings on campuses up and down the country; nobody threw us out. We always found an alternative way to enter, to regroup, rename ourselves, and find a different pretext. But we were also concerned about Omar’s application for political asylum. I worried that the Hizb’s high profile in Britain might jeopardize the chances of him staying in Britain. I raised this with Bernie too.
‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘On the contrary. The British are like snakes; they manoeuvre carefully. They need Omar in Britain. Most likely Omar will be the ambassador for the khilafah here or leave to reside in the Islamic state. The kuffar know that - allowing Omar to stay in Britain will give them a good start, a diplomatic advantage, when they have to deal with the Islamic state. Having Omar serves them well for the future. MI5 know exactly what we’re doing, what we’re about, and yet they have, in effect, given us the green light to operate in Britain.’
Bernie’s words about the intelligence service proved to be correct. It was not until the events of 7 July 2005 that British intelligence admitted it had been a mistake to allow Islamists of all shades to put down serious ideological roots among Britain’s Muslims.
Farid, now acting as area leader in Whitechapel, had instructed us to organize an area-wide demonstration to protest against the massacres in Bosnia. Our rally was headlined ‘Bosnia Today - Brick Lane Tomorrow’. I helped distribute over 30,000 leaflets in houses, markets, and mosques publicizing a protest march along Brick Lane, Whitechapel High Road, and Cannon Street Road which would be followed by a meeting in the local park.
Similar events were being organized in Slough, Birmingham, Oldham, Manchester, and several other parts of London, including Newham and Southall. While the mosque authorities sat and looked on in amazement we generated widespread euphoria on the streets of Tower Hamlets.
This was our largest event yet, and we worked day and night to publicize it. Our target was not to draw a huge crowd - if that happened it would be a bonus. Nor did we seek to raise the profile of Hizb ut-Tahrir. Indeed, we organized the rally under the banner of ‘Concerned Muslims Living in Tower Hamlets’. In Newham, where I now lived, shabab there did the same: ‘Organized by Concerned Muslims Living in Newham’.
Patrick and I met with local police officers in Leman Street to discuss the rally. Initially, the police were reluctant to allow it, for we had arranged everything without informing them. In the end, though, they had little choice and grudgingly agreed to police our rally.
So easily bending the police to our will made us feel immensely strong. Patrick now wanted to organize a demonstration every month. My immediate concern, however, was to ensure that this first one went well. Patrick’s enthusiasm was typical of most Hizb activists, nearly all of whom were born-again Muslims. Being surrounded by so many Muslims in Tower Hamlets was, after his upbringing in white, working-class Southend, almost like living in an Islamic state. I was different. My sobriety came from the fact that Tower Hamlets was my area: I knew it well. More importantly, I appreciated the sensitivities of the people in the area, the families, and the successes of other Islamist organizations. I had worked with YMO and knew what it meant to organize a successful event, and how to avoid failure.
We had to be inventive.
Unlike the YMO, we did not have access to a regular Friday crowd at the East London mosque. I considered approaching the mosque at Brick Lane, trying to capitalize on my childhood relations with the imams there, but the son of the mosque president, Zitu Zaman, whom I had recruited from Tower Hamlets College to the Hizb, advised me against it.
‘They still haven’t forgiven you for joining YMO. Leave them out of our calculations,’ he said.
With the two largest local mosques out of our reach, how could we convey our concepts and invite the Muslims of Tower Hamlets, the largest concentration of Muslims in Britain, to join us in our protest meeting?
I drew on my childhood experiences and remembered that the local MP, Peter Shore, used to canvass us for Labour inside and outside the Brick Lane mosque during and after Friday prayers, using a megaphone. In the Hizb, the idea of non-Muslims entering mosques was anathema to us: how dare they lecture us?
But I did learn some things from Peter Shore. I suggested we fit a car with megaphones to announce our forthcoming demonstration. We started our megaphone canvassing on Friday afternoon, when over 20,000 worshippers would be at one or other of the major mosques in Tower Hamlets. We placed shabab outside each one to distribute leaflets and we created an ambience of activity and radicalism by flooding the streets around them with our supporters.
Patrick and I took it in turns to shout into the microphone. Amjad, an easygoing medical student from St Bartholomew’s, drove us around in his mother’s red Volkswagen Polo. We chose his car because it had two distinct advantages: it ran on diesel and, most importantly, it was insured by his mother. We knew that the police, as representatives of the kufr system, would stop us, so we had to take every precaution.
As we had expected, the police pulled us
over. The car was briefly searched, but white lab coats and innocent-looking medical students helped allay any fears the police might have had. Besides, we told them, their man at Leman Street knew all about it.
Everywhere we went we drew a crowd, and we publicized the demonstration every evening in the week preceding it.
‘O ummah of Islam,’ I would shout. ‘Your sisters and mothers are being raped in Bosnia, and yet you simply pray. You have a duty to protect your brothers in Bosnia. Come! Demonstrate! The only solution for Bosnia is khilafah! Jihad for Bosnia! Jihad for Palestine! This Saturday, one o’clock, at Altab Ali Park. Jihad for Bosnia! Come and join us!’
We didn’t pray at that time; the call to jihad was more important.
Today the call to jihad is heard more or less daily by large segments of British Muslim youth, but at the time this was extreme rhetoric. More than any other group, Hizb ut-Tahrir introduced the notion of jihad to the streets of Britain. Our call for one in Bosnia was not limited to east London but heard all across the UK. As we predicted, the ummah, once given the idea, delivered. Home-grown British suicide bombers are a direct result of Hizb ut-Tahrir disseminating ideas of jihad, martyrdom, confrontation, and anti-Americanism, and nurturing a sense of separation among Britain’s Muslims.
I attended other demonstrations in Slough, central London, and Newham. At each the format was identical: the black flag of the Hizb with a truck to lead the crowd, stirring speeches, and stewards to direct the people and lead the chanting.
Key individuals attended most of the demonstrations and whipped up the crowd with slogans:
‘Crusader, Invader! Saladin is coming back!’
