The Islamist

by Ed Husain

  I now thought I was at peace with the world, had dispensed with my Islamist tendencies, and was fully focused on my Koranic studies. I met Hizb ut-Tahrir activists on the streets of London, occasionally at mosque doors distributing their propaganda of separation and disengagement from British life, but I was now beyond that. I ignored them, rejected the leaflets they pressed upon me, and saw them for what they were: misguided, deluded, and dated.

  Faye, my parents, and a small circle of new, Sufi-oriented friends encouraged me to concentrate on my studies. During this insular period of my life I had no interest in interacting with people or spending much time with my friends. I was most peaceful when I was with the Koran, melodiously chanting and memorizing the words that the Prophet had pronounced more than a millennium ago. Out of joy, my father would buy me small bottles of Arabian musk or sandalwood perfume to apply when I sat to study. ‘This will remind you of the Prophet,’ he would say. ‘He loved perfume.’

  While I was at Hizb ut-Tahrir, the leader, or mushrif, of my weekly cell meeting would often say that ‘the concepts of the Hizb stay with you for ever. You will always carry the ideas of the Hizb.’ Not me, I thought. I was almost gleeful at having been able not only to leave the Hizb, but to discover authentic religion and to reject the politicization of it. I no longer shared the Hizb’s vision of a cataclysmic Islamic state which would right all the wrongs of the Muslim world.

  On the morning of 11 September 2001 I had woken up early to stand in solace in the divine presence, memorized and revised sections of the Koran, and then gone to work. Sometime in the afternoon, my mobile phone’s news alert from the BBC notified me that an aeroplane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. Initially, I thought nothing much of it, beyond sadness at such a terrible accident. Then several other alerts followed: this was no accident but part of a larger terrorist attack on New York and the Pentagon which had left thousands dead.

  From my desk, I could see London’s Canary Wharf. Instinctively, I looked up to see if it was still standing. To my amazement, I noticed other colleagues doing the same thing. People were gathering in groups to discuss what was happening.

  I found it difficult to accept that an attack on the United States was an altogether negative development. Moreover, the bandying about of the term ‘Muslim terrorists’ made me feel very uncomfortable, as though the two words were in some way equivalent. I was quick to remind my colleagues that when Timothy McVeigh, a Christian fundamentalist, had carried out attacks on Oklahoma in 1995, the front page of the British newspaper Today had said that he had done so ‘In the Name of Islam’. That turned out to be wrong. ‘We should hold our horses,’ I counselled. ‘This could be another McVeigh.’ Besides, an attack on America would not only elicit approval from some Arab and Muslim quarters; Latin America and parts of Europe would applaud it too.

  Despite my professed Sufi spirituality, a part of me was joyful. Worse, the spiritual Muslim in me failed to detect the remnants of the arrogant sleeper Islamist still residing within. I never asked myself why I found the term ‘terrorism’ objectionable. Islamists believed that the West used ‘terrorist’ as shorthand for Muslim resistance fighters in Palestine, Chechnya, and other conflict-ridden parts of the world. As far as they were concerned, there was no such thing as a ‘Muslim terrorist’, only resistance fighters with legitimate struggles. It was the duty of all Muslims to support their cause in Palestine, Kashmir, the Philippines. There was never any condemnation of their killing innocent people, of using suicide bombings to cause mass devastation. The Palestinian suicide bombings were considered by all Islamists of all persuasions as legitimate, and endorsed by their skewed and unscholarly reading of Islamic law.

  Even though I had accepted Sufi Islam, and consciously tried to decontaminate my mind, there were still aspects of Islamist political strategies that I thought of as ‘normal’: an acceptance of terrorism, an unconscious belief that those who ‘opposed Islam’ were somehow less than human and thus expendable in the Islamist pursuit of political dominion over palm and pine.

  I had not heard a single Muslim scholar of any repute speak out against either suicide bombings in Palestine or the hijacking of aeroplanes. In Muslim political discussion, dominated by Islamists across the globe, killing Jews in Israel was considered to be a means to an end: the annihilation of Israel.

  If there were Muslim scholars and organizations who rejected terrorism, then their voices were silenced by the domination of the public sphere by Islamists. To question acts labelled by the West as ‘terrorist’ was a sign of betrayal of the ummah. Even among Western liberals there were those who ‘understood’ how and why suicide bombings occurred. As long as it was in Palestine and Israel, we could intellectualize the problem, philosophize about the psychology of suicide bombers. Even many non-Islamist Muslims called such crimes ‘martyrdom operations’. The barbaric events of 11 September 2001 changed all that. The global political climate altered irrevocably.

  I went home, washed, and immediately left for a gathering. As was my practice at the time, I had not watched any television, nor had I updated myself on developments. Any attack on the bullyboy of the world, ardent supporter of Israel, puppet-master of Arab dictators, and exporter of McDonald’s-style globaliz ation was certainly good news for the rest of us. Perhaps Americans would now ask themselves why they had been given a bloody nose.

  In Sufi circles we rarely ever discussed politics. There was no distinct political culture, no clarity on the conflicts of the world, and certainly no condemnation of Islamist terrorism. There was a vague hope that somehow these crises would solve themselves and we would all return to our spiritual orbits to work for the betterment of our souls. Religion and politics were genuinely separate. This created two problems: most Sufis I knew had little or no political awareness. They somehow believed that it was not something they needed to engage with, and on one level they were right. There are millions of citizens in Britain who do not vote. However, the acuteness of the problem lies in the second issue: in the absence of traditional Muslim guidance on politics, many Sufis accepted Islamist paradigms of political engagement. Consequently a loathing of Muslim rulers, a desire to see the overthrow of regimes and their replacement with ‘Islamic’ governments, and enmity towards Israel, the USA, and Britain became unquestioned. The political void was not always filled with participatory, democratic politics, but the ubiquitous speechifying of Islamists at colleges, universities, and mosque entrances. Looking back, I am astounded at the depth of the psychological damage caused by Islamism.

  That evening, at a Sufi gathering I asked what we were doing to celebrate.

  A group of young Muslims, waiting before a shaikh arrived and we started our dhikr session, looked up at me.

  ‘Celebrate what?’ asked Adam, a well-connected Sufi Muslim.

  ‘America has been hit today. Shouldn’t Muslims be happy?’ I replied.

  ‘Astaghfirullah,’ he said in Arabic. ‘Seek refuge in Allah. This is not our way. The media are already suggesting that Muslims are behind this. By Allah I hope we are not, for this is terrible.’

  ‘Why is it terrible?’ said another young Muslim, seated on my left. ‘The Americans kill Muslims through Israel in Palestine, have their military bases in Saudi Arabia, and support the dictators of the Arab world. If Americans are killed, we should be happy, because they kill us.’

  ‘My brother,’ said a patient, sombre Adam. ‘We have the political leaders we deserve. It is not our tradition to violently remove those who occupy seats of power. The Americans are not our teachers; if they kill like barbarians, we do not respond like them. Our master, our guide, is the Prophet. Do you think our beloved Prophet would be happy to see so many innocent people massacred in cold blood? Tell me, do you? Have you forgotten his honouring of life, even animal life? I hope Muslims were not behind the carnage and killing in New York today.’

  At that moment I thought the skies had landed on my head. For all my self-belief that I had lef
t Islamism, and cleansed my mind, it dawned on me that I was a long, long way from travelling on the Sufi path. Adam was miles ahead of me. I was silent, looking down in shame at the floor.

  Adam had correctly realized the spirit of the Prophet. Even in moments of calamity, the true lover of the Prophet drew lessons from his beloved. In this instance I had failed to do so.

  It was time for me to turn to God, speak with the Prophet, and seek forgiveness. I remained silent for the rest of that evening, pondering the enormity of my mental crime which had found external expression in my comments. I had endorsed mass murder.

  Lost in my thoughts, I barely registered a debate raging between Adam and another young Muslim, Gamal.

  ‘The Prophet engaged in jihad! The Americans have been killing Muslims all across the world. Why shouldn’t we kill them? I hope it was Muslims who were behind today’s attack.’

  Adam was steeped in classical Muslim tradition. He had taken classes from Imam Hanson and Dr Winter directly. In private, Imam Hanson had taught his students what he had not yet stated in public: suicide bombings, plane hijackings, terrorism, were haram, forbidden in the scriptures of Islam and against the letter and spirit of the Prophet’s teachings. How I wished Imam Hanson, Dr Winter, or Shaikh Keller had put this on record before 11 September. That way, at least, I would have been able to face my contradictions sooner. But I understood their concerns: they would have been condemned by angry Islamists in the Muslim community as American stooges.

  ‘My brother,’ replied Adam. ‘The Prophet took up arms after thirteen years of torture, persecution, and killing of his companions by pagans. His jihad was to bring peace. Do you think what happened today, or what so-called jihadis are doing in the world, will bring any peace? Read the sira, the biography of the Prophet. Have you forgotten how he redirected an entire army when he saw a bitch was giving birth to her puppies? In a valid jihad, the Prophet forbade killing priests, women, children, or non-combatants, and burning trees and livestock. As believers in the Prophet we must adhere to those rules in a jihad for peace . . .’

  On television that night I watched the horror of the day’s events unfold. Filled with remorse, I turned to God for forgiveness and prayed for world peace. That night I vowed to play my part to bring it about. In the months that followed 9/11 I found myself in the uncharacteristic position of confronting fellow Muslims in support of non-Muslims. I drew inspiration from the fact that I was not alone. The Prophet’s companions sided with non-Muslims against Muslims in settling civil disputes on many occasions. For me, Islam was about truth, humanity, and compassion. It was not about supporting Muslims regardless of whether they were right or wrong. The dominant outlook among Muslims in my local community, however, was that Muslims were always right, especially when confronting the United States.

  In discussions in mosques, prayer halls, Muslim bookshops, and between Muslim colleagues at work, there was no topic of conversation more pertinent than 9/11. There was a ridiculous rumour circulating that over 2,000 Jewish people had been tipped off by the Israeli embassy not to attend work on that day.

  In an attempt to atone for the damage I had done previously, I took on Muslim pessimists and deniers. All sorts of conspiracy theories were advanced by my fellow believers that 9/11 was not the work of Muslims.

  ‘Why not?’ I asked a fellow worshipper at a mosque.

  ‘Because Muslims are not sophisticated enough to do something like this.’

  ‘So, in principle, you’re not against killing Americans en masse. You’re just not convinced that Muslims were behind it.’

  That type of double thinking, in denial and yet proud at the same time, was ubiquitous. On Green Street, in a large Islamist bookshop, I stood one evening and watched a Channel 4 News analysis. The elderly father of the shop owner, an acquaintance of mine from my YMO days and a figurehead in Jamat-e-Islami, told me, ‘There is no such thing as al-Qaeda. What is this new thing? It is all American games.’ Anyone speaking out against bin Laden, terrorism, and al-Qaeda was immediately sidelined. In those heady days it was left to an American to rise and defend his country, and with it, our faith.

  Within weeks of 9/11 Imam Hanson was on the White House lawn with leaders of other faiths condemning Islamist terrorism. Watching Shaikh Hanson on television, singing ‘God Bless America’ with the US President, forced many of us to question if it was Islam we were interested in or the forces of political Islam. Imam Hanson declared, ‘Islam was hijacked as an innocent victim on that plane on September 11th 2001.’

  In October Imam Hanson visited Britain and gave interviews to the BBC and the Guardian newspaper outlining the Koran’s condemnation of terrorism. In unequivocal terms, and sensing a current of Muslim support for 9/11 and attacks on the West, he stated: ‘If you hate the West, emigrate to a Muslim country.’7 In a post-9/11 climate, that was a powerful message to Muslims in the West.

  I monitored Imam Hanson’s media interviews closely and went to see him at a mosque in Maida Vale, where he addressed a large Muslim crowd at a Q-News event. Personally I was delighted that President Bush had made the right choice and met a sane Muslim scholar rather than one of the closet extremists who usually represent Muslims in America, though he made a grave mistake in not heeding the advice of religious scholars and instead forcing the world into a ‘with us or against us’ polarization. Hitherto Imam Hanson had been phenomenally popular among British Muslims, particularly those with a Sufi orientation. However, in a post-9/11 climate, even his closest enthusiasts began to express doubts about the great imam. How could he meet Bush? Why had he sung ‘God Bless America’? How did he know for sure that Muslims were behind 9/11?

  Imam Hanson’s personal safety was at risk. It was clear to me that he was an intelligent scholar who had realized that remaining silent in the face of extremism, in the name of ‘Muslim unity’, had deprived moderate Muslims of a voice. Nearly every Muslim representative body, mosque, and publishing house was under Islamist control. If now Imam Hanson’s own students questioned him even after 9/11, what anger would his speaking out against extremism have provoked before then?

  At that meeting Imam Hanson categorically condemned suicide bombings and plane hijackings to a lukewarm crowd. The murmurs of disapproval could be heard from two rows behind me. Imam Hanson had been fortunate that no one from Hizb ut-Tahrir had stood up to heckle him, but others were waiting in the wings. After Imam Hanson delivered his passionate plea for an end to extremism in Muslim discourse, and his clear condemnation of taking innocent lives, whether in New York or Tel Aviv, he sat down on stage, took out his rosary beads from his pocket, and remembered his Lord.

  Then a recently returned Taliban-captive, the British journalist Yvonne Ridley, stood up and crudely contradicted a Muslim scholar of the highest repute. Herein lay the problem. She called suicide bombers ‘martyrs’ and seemed to encourage support for violence and terror. Scholarly maturity and erudition were being challenged by an aspiring amateur Islamist. Soon Ridley converted to what she thought was Islam, though it seems to me she accepted not the religion but the political ideology.

  As an Islamist I had dismissed the expertise of scholars on Muslim affairs and taken my religion from amateurs. I was not alone; my mentors had done the same. Mawdudi, Qutb, and Nabhani all despised the ulama, traditional Muslim scholars. Our Friday prayers on campus, for example, were not led by ulama, or even by trainee ulama, but by young activists who had no knowledge of the basics of theology or Arabic. A town planner taught us in my halaqah, a charity worker trained us in my usrah. Almost without exception, Islamism is detached from the ulama. Yet Muslims believe that God’s first command to the Prophet was iqra, or ‘read’. Islam was preserved in book form, the Koran, and the Prophet valued erudition and knowledge, making it obligatory for his followers to learn as much as possible. The Prophet had taught those who accompanied him, the sahabah, who in turn taught others and thus the time-honoured tradition of teaching and learning survived among the ulama to presen
t times. Genuine Muslim scholars see themselves as bearers of a trust that they inherited from their teachers, who took it from theirs, all the way back to the Prophet in a verifiable transmission known as isnad. It is this isnad which firmly grounds traditional scholarship, as opposed to activist Islamism, to the source of Islam: the Prophet.

  In early 2002 Faye and I registered for part-time Saturday-morning Arabic classes at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies. The classes were full and the cohort was varied. September 11 had created a new curiosity about Muslims, Arabs, and Arabic.

  Faye and I were in different classes. In my class, I was extremely focused and not there to make new friends. However, my cap and beard, grown in imitation of the Prophet, drew attention to the fact that I was an observant Muslim. As we introduced ourselves before the first class began, a young lady sitting at the front was the first to speak.

  ‘Hi! My name is Kelly and this is my second term of learning Arabic.’

  From her accent and self-assurance I assumed she was American. However, our teacher, an Egyptian Arab, obviously required confirmation.

  ‘Where are you from?’ he asked.

  ‘The United States,’ she said, almost blushing. And then immediately, ‘No, I am not an American spy. My last teacher thought I was from the CIA! I am an ordinary American who wants to learn more about the Arabic language and culture.’

  There was an open mind, a curiosity to learn behind those remarks, and a determination not to be pigeon-holed. Most of the Americans I had known had been Muslims. Kelly was to become my first non-Muslim American friend. The Arabic teacher’s line of questioning annoyed me: why did he care where she came from? He did not ask that question of anyone else.