Quilliam Responds

By Michael Jacobson

In July, Maajid Nawaz, the co-director of the London-based Quilliam Foundation, was in Washington, testifying before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, and speaking at a number of DC think tanks, including the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Mr. Nawaz and his colleague Ed Husain -- the author of the fascinating book The Islamist -- formed Quilliam as a "a counter extremism think tank” and are now actively attempting to take on the ideology they previously espoused. A summary of Mr. Nawaz's speech at the Washington Institute is available here.

In a July 16 posting, Jeffrey Imm took issue with some of Quilliam's stances, including their support for the grand mufti of Egypt.

Mr. Nawaz has written a response to this post and to other criticisms which have been directed at Quilliam. I am posting it on Quilliam's behalf.

"The Right and Wrong Voices," Response by Maajid Nawaz, Co-Director of the Quilliam Foundation

Since being invited to Washington in July 2008, the Quilliam Foundation has received an overwhelming response from supportive voices across the political spectrum. As a result of this work, both Ed Husain and I have been invited to return this September. Our forthcoming trip coincides with Ed Husain’s American launch of his book The Islamist, published by Penguin.

Naturally, and after observing the level of publicity our foundation has enjoyed, some voices have asked more detailed questions about our policies. I have been asked to outline our view on a number of issues ranging from our praise of the Mufti of Egypt, Ali Goma; our stance on a British religious leader Dr. Usama Hassan; our stance on Shari’ah “law” and our selection of Quilliam as a name.

The Quilliam Foundation has no formal links with Mufti Ali Goma of Egypt. However, we have named him on our website as a scholastic giant. Some have asked us whether we know of Mufti Ali Goma’s stance on suicide bombings. Firstly, let me clarify that our view on suicide bombings is on the record. We have explicitly condemned the deliberate targeting of non-combatants, in Israel or anywhere else in the world. Ed Husain directly criticised Qardawi’s fatwa justifying suicide bombings whilst in Qatar for the Doha Debates. Furthermore, I personally challenged Azzam Tamimi - Hamas representative in the UK - on this matter in a studio debate on BBC’s flagship Newsnight with Jeremy Paxman (video).

It follows, therefore, that we would naturally be concerned if figures we have named as ‘scholastic giants’ were to be discovered as supporting such actions. On July 30th 2008 a letter was sent to Secretary of State Condaleezza Rice by two prominent and respected Senators, Tom Coburn and Jon Kyl. In this letter, the Senators referred to a 2003 article in Egypt’s “Al-Haqiqa” newspaper quoting Ali Goma defending terrorist acts in Israel. The respected Senators have cited Rabinowitz, Beila and William Mayer from their paper entitled “State Department Funding ISNA’s Propagation of Islam via citizen exchange program” (Pipe Line News, 25 April 2008) as a reference for this allegation against Ali Goma.

Since these questions were raised I did my own research. I have found this source referred to by Rabinowitz, Beila and William Mayer. It is a secondary source that does not quote Ali Goma directly. Rather surprisingly, it is also a Wahabite-Islamist source, being a newspaper that explicitly promotes a Shari’ah-law based Caliphate and attacks Shi’ah Muslims as heretics. I felt, therefore, that it would be helpful for people to know who they are being asked to rely on for evidence. The following extract is taken from an article stating that by far the biggest ‘danger to Islam’ in Egypt is the modernising agenda of Mufti Ali Goma, due to his articulate, learned and popular approach to reform issues:

ليس كسابقه الذي كان دينه هو دين الحكومة إذا أحلت أحل وإن حرمت حرم !! فهو يحاول أن يكتسب مصداقية بمخالفة الرأي الرسمي للحكومة والدولة مثل رأيه في العمليات الاستشهادية مثلاً واعتبار من يقول بحرمتها أنه حمار ـ أعزكم الله ـ وذلك بعد تصريح شيخ الأزهر بأنها انتحار محرم بأقل من أسبوع, في تحدي واضح لرأس المؤسسة الدينية في مصر

He (Ali Goma) is not like his predecessor, whose religion was simply the religion of the government of the day. If such a government made something permissible (Halal), he too would make it permissible. If they were to deem something forbidden (Haram), so would he. Consequently, he (Ali Goma) tries to win over credibility by conflicting with the official state and government opinion on matters. An example of this is his opinion on martyrdom [sic] operations, and his view that those who consider them prohibited are like donkeys - may God dignify you. As a clear challenge to the head of Egypt’s theological institution, Ali Goma’s proclamation came after the statement made by the Mufti of Azhar, by less than a week, holding that such operations are to be considered prohibited suicide (Haram).

Contrary to this secondary, hostile and extremist Wahhabist-Islamist source above, we have Mufti Ali Goma’s own words. Below, he explicitly condemns suicide bombings as quoted by him directly in a reliable and professional American news magazine, Newsweek:

"As for suicide bombing, Islam forbids suicide; it forbids the taking of one’s own life. In addition, Islam forbids aggression against others. Attacking civilians, women, children, and the elderly by blowing oneself up is absolutely forbidden in Islam. No excuse can be made for the crimes committed in New York, Spain, and London, and anyone who tries to make excuses for these acts is ignorant of Islamic law (shari’ah), and their excuses are a result of extremism and ignorance."

To clarify, my claim is not that Mufti Ali Goma categorically did not support suicide bombings. In the citation above, for example, he did not explicitly mention Israel. My claim is, rather, that the evidence available and cited is definitely insufficient to popularise such a serious accusation at this moment. Mufti Ali Goma must stand innocent until proven guilty. If proven to have endorsed such a tactic, the Quilliam Foundation will be the first to concede his serious and grave error, but we will not accept it based upon Wahhabite-Islamists’ say so, and consequently Goma’s own and general condemnation in Newsweek still stands.

On the matter of support for Ali Goma, it seems rather ironic that right-wing critics share their worries over our stance, probably to their horror, with Marxists on the far-left such as the UK Guardian’s Seamus Milne, who cites the same concern in a scathing attack on our Foundation’s work.

Moving on, another question raised has been that of our gratitude for having Dr. Usama Hassan as one of our official advisors. Dr. Usama Hassan has also travelled the same path of extremism in his youth, only to mature into a progressive and enlightened voice for moderation today. He recently participated alongside Ed Hussain in an official Foreign Office delegation to Egypt to represent a more British understanding of our faith, and is now one of the leading theological voices for British Islam.

Concerns have been raised about Dr Usama’s father, Shaikh Shu’aib Hassan, who is a very conservative voice amongst Britain’s Muslim communities. Suffice to say that Dr Usama is not his father, and Shaikh Shu’aib is not Dr Usama. Dr Usama respectfully disagrees with his father on many of the problematic issues of our day. On the Caliphate, Dr Usama Hassan has stated clearly, and without reservation, in his Quilliam Foundation launch speech - only 10 minutes long and on our website - that he believes in Secularism, and that secularism was indeed always a part of traditional Islam.

Consequently, Dr Usama believes in using the name Caliphate to reclaim Muslim secularism through it, as he believes that past Caliphates always were secular in nature. The Quilliam Foundation is concerned with substantively challenging those who wish to adopt Shari’ah as state law, not with those who merely use the word Caliphate to mean a secular state; for that would be an exercise in semantics. On this note, it is perhaps pertinent to state that the Quilliam Foundation has time and time again criticised and challenged those who call for ‘Islamist Supremacism’, or the belief that the Shari’ah must be dominant as state law.

Another question raised by some quarters is the concern that William Quilliam, after whom we named our foundation, was an Islamist. Right-wing commentators may again be horrified to learn that this claim was first made by the far-left in the UK alongside Hizb ut-Tahrir UK activists in their desperate claim to traditional legitimacy.

Such an anachronistic allegation has already been dealt with on our website. We believe that William Quilliam was a political activist who had no ideological agenda, and no ideology. He hailed from a time of empire and thus spoke and behaved in accordance to the imperial politics of his day. In a typically British manner, he engaged in localised charity and localised politics, challenging his government where necessary. The Quilliam Foundation is not interested in making Muslims apolitical. We are solely interested in encouraging Muslims to engage politically as citizens, challenging where necessary, but with no ideological baggage. I am sure that readers can differentiate between the need for genuine checks and balances and between avoiding an ideologically driven fifth columnist approach. Naturally, like all, William Quilliam was a prisoner to the discourse of the era in which he was born. At no stage, however, did he make the Islamist claim that Islam was a political ideology, unlike the later founders of Islamism; Banna, Nabhani and Qutb. A rebuttal of the anachronistic claim that he was an Islamist is found on our website here.

In conclusion, we ask that people on the left and right join with us in our commitment to encourage true pluralism in Muslim political discourse, to support non-Islamist voices, to challenge the ideology and discourse of Islamism and to engender normal politics as alternatives to Islamism. As far as practicable, the right people must be encouraged and the wrong ones must be criticised. We caution that this work, vital though it is, must be tempered with a jealous protection of our liberties, especially freedom of religion and thought, rigorous academic standards and a deep understanding of the theological, ideological and social states of Islam and Muslims today. If we fail in these lofty standards we risk tarnishing the liberal alternative and losing the authority to speak as well as the moral high-ground from which to invite others.

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