Ed Husain

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Ed Husain
Born	Mohammed Mahbub Hussain December 25, 1975 (1975-12-25) (age 33) Mile End, London, UK
Residence	Essex, England
Occupation	Writer
Known for	Author of The Islamist
Religious beliefs	Sufi Islam
Website Quilliam Foundation

Mohammed Mahbub Hussain (Bengali: মুহাম্মদ মাহবুব হুসেইন; born 25 December, 1975), better known as Ed Husain, is the author of The Islamist, a book about Islamic fundamentalism, and an account of his five years as an Islamist activist. Husain who is of Bangladeshi origin, was a member, or at least active in,^[1] the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir (however Hizb ut-Tahrir's UK spokesman denies he was ever a formal member),^[2] and helped to create a counter-extremism organisation called the Quilliam Foundation with Majid Nawaz.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Islamism and Sufism 1.3 Personal life 2 The Islamist 3 Views 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Husain was born and brought up in the East End of London, in a Bangladeshi family.^[3] Husain's father was born in British India and his mother was born in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh),^[4] from the region of Sylhet.^[5] His father arrived to the United Kingdom in 1961, and started a small Indian takeaway business in Limehouse.^[6] Husain's parents followed a spiritual form of Islam based on Sufi traditions,^[7] led by Sheikh Abdul Latif Fultoli (whom he called 'Grandpa'),^[8] a renowned Islamic spiritual guru from Sylhet.^[9]

In his early years, Husain was brought up in Limehouse and attended a local primary school called the Sir William Borough School, and he attended a predominantly Bangladeshi and Muslim secondary school called Stepney Green School.^[10] During his years in secondary school Husain was an outsider, he rejected the Bengali gang culture present in the school, and was sometimes oppressed by other students.^[11] Husain attended the Brick Lane Mosque in his early years (the mosque follows a movement belonging to a Sufi order). He later drifted away from his parents teachings, and, at the age of sixteen, was encouraged by a student to attend classes at the East London Mosque, and later joined the Young Muslim Organisation (YMO) part of the Islamic Forum Europe.

[edit] Islamism and Sufism

A few months later he was influenced to join the Hizb ut-Tahrir — an Islamic group which calls for the Caliphate, of which activities he participated for around five years.^[12] Husain attended Tower Hamlets College in Poplar, and it was during his studies at Newham College in 1995 when he decided to leave the group. ^[12] Later he joined the Islamic Society of Britain (ISB), he attended a family camp in Worcester in 1996, it was there when he was influenced again with the spiritual form of Islam and later by scholars which he left the Islamist groups. He was further influenced by Sufism while visiting mosques in Turkey, exploring Sufis of the Naqshbandi order in Istanbul. He met an American convert to Islam who was a former Salafi studying in Saudi Arabia, he took Husain to Bursa to learn more about Sufism. After returning to London, he spent most of his time learning and memorizing the Qur'an.^[13]

Husain now strongly criticizes these groups, although Hizb ut-Tahrir categorically denied that he had ever been a member.^[14] A few years later, he created an organisation together with Maajid Nawaz and Rashad Ali called the Quilliam Foundation, the first counter-extremism organisation to be formed by former radical Islamists. The aim of this organisation is to confront groups which promote what is alleged to be dangerous and extremist interpretations of Islam, and in particular to confront Hizb ut-Tahrir.^[15] The Quilliam Foundation describes itself as "a specialist think tank and campaign group that believes that Western Muslims should revive Western Islam, our Andalusian heritage of pluralism and respect, and thereby find harmony in West-Islam relations."^[16] He is also a visiting fellow at the think-tank Civitas.^[17]

[edit] Personal life

Husain studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, where he completed an MA in Middle Eastern Studies. He later joined the Labour Party. He is married to a British Bengali woman, Faye (Fatima) since August 2000^[13][18] and together they have a daughter, Camilla.^[19][20] Both moved to Syria to study Arabic at the University of Damascus, however, later they moved to Saudi Arabia, there he has worked for HSBC and the British Council, while living there he dressed as a Saudi Sheikh to avoid racism. During his studies he was nicknamed as Ed Husain, because students did not prefer to call him Mohammed or Mahbub so took the last two words of his first name, 'Ed'. A few months later, they both moved back to Britain due to being homesick.^[18] He moved outside Tower Hamlets living in Redbridge,^[12] and then currently in Essex.^[19]

[edit] The Islamist

In The Islamist, Husain describes how he became an Islamic fundamentalist at the age of 16. He explains that,

Five years later, after much emotional turmoil, I rejected fundamentalist teachings and returned to normal life and my family.

Husain says that his book explains

the appeal of extremist thought, how fanatics penetrate Muslim communities and the truth behind their agenda of subverting the West and moderate Islam.

The book was shortlisted for the 2008 Orwell Prize for political writing.^[21]

Husain's book has been called "highly acclaimed" and received positive reviews from The Guardian,^[22][23] The Times^[8]—which found it worth to run extracts from it for two weeks^[24]—and the International Herald Tribune.^[25] Other sources such as the Islamist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir,^[26] the Salafimanhaj.com website,^[27] and the Muslim Council of Britain^[28] have made strong criticism, alleging inaccuracy and flawed analysis by Husain. The text has been supported by former Islamists such as Maajid Nawaz and others, however.

The Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips has described Husain as a "brave Muslim".^[29] Guardian columnist Seamus Milne has called Husain a "British neocon pinup boy". ^[30] Another Guardian contributor, Denis MacShane, calls him and the new Quilliam Foundation "precisely the kind of witness to truth about evil that the left should embrace, not reject".^[31]

The journalist Ziauddin Sardar has called Husain's "critical faculties ... conspicuously absent", arguing that his case is far more atypical than Husain claims, as "young Muslims are no more likely to join Hizb ut-Tahrir than young Christians are to join the Moonies." Sardar "suspects" Husain "wants everyone" in Muslim organisations "locked up, leaving the terrain open for his brand of neocons to run amok."^[32]

The Muslim writer Andrew Booso "salutes" Husain for spending "so much of his time and energy" on the problem of "extremism" in the Muslim community, but criticizes Husain for showing "a serious inadequacy of knowledge regarding theology and Sacred Law as expounded by the masters through the ages."^[33] He has also been criticized by the Muslim Council of Britain for saying that "Saddam Hussein effectively invited the US army to invade Iraq by playing cat-and-mouse games with United Nations arms inspectors." ^[34]

He has also been criticized for declining the opportunity to challenge a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir live on air, on BBC's World Have Your Say programme saying that he did not want to give a platform to Islamists.^[35]

[edit] Views

Husain's views have been very controversial. His book "has caused a ruckus in the newspapers, on television, on talks shows and in blogs" in Britain. He has been called a "traitor" by some Muslims, criticized by some on the left, while "others, mostly on the right, have hailed him as brave." ^[1]

Husain supports a liberal interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence, telling a journalist

In traditional circles, Muslim women are not allowed to marry non-Muslim men...But in a pluralistic world in 2007, where non-Muslim men and Muslim women are marrying, you can't say, 'You can’t do that.'^[1]

In this regard he follows scholars such as Shaykh Abdullah bin Bayyah,^{[citation needed]} who gave the Islamic verdict that women who converted to Islam should be allowed to stay married to their non Muslim husbands in preference to forming relationships outside of marriage.

Husain also questions teachings relating to an Islamic state or Caliphate, arguing

... a dawlah ([a state] not 'the' state) can and should preserve and protect the religion. But 'the state' is not a rukn [pillar] of the deen (religion i.e. Islam) and without it the deen is not lost. And individual can remain a firm believer, a mutadayyin, without the imam and the jama'ah. ^[36]

Husain has also explained that he believes Muslim society is in need of change. In an interview with Time Out, he said:

As I left extremism I realised that if you are born here and grow up here, then you belong here. The Islam that was preached 2,000 years ago isn’t going to work here in modern London. Muslims need to alter their lifestyles to a Western lifestyle. To criticise is not Islamaphobic. It's about opposing certain ideas.^[37]

Husain supports a two-state solution to end the Israel-Palestinian conflict. He has condemned the suicide bombing of Israeli civilians as well as the the killing of Palestinian civilians by the Hamas-led Gazan government.^[38]

[edit] See also

• The Islamist
• Islamism
• Extremism
• East London Mosque
• Brick Lane Mosque
• Islamic Forum Europe
• Hizb ut-Tahrir
• Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The Islamist - Penguin Books
• The Quilliam Foundation website
• Hizb ut-Tahrir website
• BBC World Have Your Say with Ed Husain
• The Charade of Ed Husain
• CNN Interview with Ed Husain (Video)
• All mod cons
• CNN Interview Transcripts
• To lionise former extremists feeds anti-Muslim prejudice
• "The 'Islamist' bogeyman" by Taji Mustafa, executive committee of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain
• Satire of Ed Husain
• Does Saudi Arabia Preach Intolerance in the UK?
• The Quilliam take on Islam: fascinating but flawed
• Promotion of clients and stooges will get us nowhere
• Ed Husain and Maajid Nawaz in the Quilliam Foundation
• ED HUSAIN’S RESPONSE TO MUSLIM CONCERNS

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