1 The UMO’s objectives, according to its website, are: to promote unity amongst Muslims in the UK and Ireland; to safeguard Islamic values and heritage; to facilitate the upbringing of Muslim children in accordance with the holy Qur’an and Sunnah; to operate as a spokesman on behalf of all Muslims in the UK and Ireland on all matters relating to their religious, cultural, social, educational and economic issues; to strengthen the bonds of brotherhood between Muslims throughout the world; to promote Dawah Islamiya. See: http://www.umouk.org/index.html.
2 UMO press release, 26 June 1989.
3 Aspects of the bill are considered here: http://www.wynnechambers.co.uk/pdf/UMO060304.pdf.
4 T. an-Nabhani, The Islamic State (London: Al Khilafah Publications, 1953), available at: http://www.hizb-ut-tahrir.org/PDF/EN/en_books_pdf/IslamicState.pdf.
5 It was during this golden era that the MCB’s first secretary general, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, rose to prominence and was decorated with honours including a knighthood in 2005. Interestingly Sir Iqbal and others had felt the need to pull away from the UMO because of the authoritarian leadership; the founder, Dr Pasha, was still at the helm some twenty-five years on, and yet Sir Iqbal went on to serve as secretary general for nearly a decade and continues to wield power today. There is rarely a high-level meeting of the MCB where Sir Iqbal is not present, if anyone who matters is present. Despite changes in secretary generals, Sir Iqbal continued to be the face of the MCB long after his tenure, appearing to take more of a back seat when the MCB was relegated by the government, through its process of disengagement, to the second and then third division and eventually not even considered to be professional players.
6 Speech by former communities and local government secretary Ruth Kelly, ‘Britain: Our Values, Our Responsibilities’, at Local Government House, London, on 11 October 2006. The speech was widely seen as heralding a break with the MCB and offering conditional funding to Muslim organizations the government felt were more effective in tackling extremism. Kelly said: ‘In future, I am clear that our strategy of funding and engagement must shift significantly towards those organisations that are taking a proactive leadership role in tackling extremism and defending our shared values.’ The MCB refused to be cowed and issued a statement saying: ‘The MCB will not be deflected from its duty or commitment to speak out on issues where we believe the government’s actions domestically and overseas have contributed to undermining our national security.’ (‘MCB Responds to Ruth Kelly’s Speech’, 15 October 2006, available at: http://www.mcb.org.uk/mcb-responds-to-ruth-kellys-speech/.)
7 P. Goodman ‘After the Bomb Plots’, Conservative Home, 9 July 2007, available at: http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2007/07/paul-goodman-mp-5.html.
8 The BMF focused on Islam and the community: ‘Islam strictly, strongly and severely condemns the use of violence and the destruction of innocent lives. There is neither place nor justification in Islam for extremism, fanaticism or terrorism. Suicide bombings, which killed and injured innocent people in London, are haram – vehemently prohibited in Islam – and those who committed these barbaric acts in London are criminals not martyrs. We pray for the defeat of extremism and terrorism in the world. We pray for peace, security and harmony to triumph in multicultural Great Britain’. (‘Full Text: Fatwa Issued after London Bombs’, BBC News, 19 July 2005, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4697365.stm). A statement drafted and signed by over forty scholars and imams from around the country presented by the MCB focused on the root causes of terrorism: ‘The tragedy of 7th July 2005 demands that all of us, both in public life and in civil and religious society, confront together the problems of Islamophobia, racism, unemployment, economic deprivation and social exclusion – factors that may be alienating some of our children and driving them towards the path of anger and desperation … youth need understanding, not bashing … we urge the media to refrain from character assassinations of our reputable scholars and denigration of the community … We also call on the international community to work towards just and lasting peace settlements in the world’s areas of conflict and help eliminate the grievances that seem to nurture a spiral of violence.’ (‘Full Text: Muslim Leaders’ Declaration on Bombs’, BBC News, 19 July 2005, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4696969.stm.)
9 ‘UK’s Top Muslim Backs 42 days’, Islamophobia Watch, 10 June 2008, available at: http://www.islamophobiawatch.co.uk/uks-top-muslim-backs-42-days/.
10 Haris Rafiq, a wannabe Conservative politician, and Azhar Ali, a wannabe Labour politician, were the men behind the group. I first came across Rafiq during a 2005 post-7/7 appearance on The Politics Show, where he struck me as both articulate and ambitious. This was a man who could both speak well and was prepared to say whatever it took to further his political career. Ali, on the other hand, was less eloquent. Meeting the two together left me with visions of George and Lennie from Of Mice and Men. Rafiq tried and failed in later years to become the Conservative candidate for police and crime commissioner in Lancashire, and Ali stood and failed as a Labour parliamentary candidate in Pendle, Lancashire. The SMC’s links with the neo-conservatives Hudson Institute in the US and the lack of any substance to Ali and Rafiq’s new found Sufism resulted in the group lacking credibility and simply being seen as a tool to further personal careers and earn a crust. See: http://sufimuslimcouncil.blogspot.co.uk/2006/08/neoconservative-sufi-muslim-council.html. The SMC has its advocates, Paul Goodman, who also championed the British Muslim Forum, was one of them. Support from across the Atlantic came from the Hudson Institute’s Zeyno Baran, who approvingly cites the SMC as a ‘non-Islamist’ organisation and an example of instrumentalizing Sufism to serve policy objectives. Baran herself contributed to the SMC’s website and its magazine, Spirit. Baran’s connections to neo-conservative bodies in the US, such as the Hudson Institute, present important contextual detail on the intersection of Cold War strategies, neo-con bodies and Sufi Muslim organizations decrying ‘Islamist’ influence in politics. It is deeply ironic that, while they presented an ‘apolitical’ stance, the SMC published the work of Baran, whose ‘Understanding Sufism and Its Potential Role in US Policy’ would suggest anything but an apolitical orientation.
11 Mark Sedgwick, ‘The Support of Sufism as a Counterweight to Radicalization: An Assessment’, in Marco Lombardi et al., Countering Radicalisation and Violent Extremism Among Youth to Prevent Terrorism (IOS Press, 2015), pp. 113–19.
12 In my first official meeting with Husain and Nawaz was in 2008, I saw two very different individuals. Husain struck me as thoughtful, measured and in some ways still on a journey. He seems to have stopped being starkly black and white and accepted that most positions are nuanced and most areas are grey. His early statement to me that not all Wahhabis were terrorists but all terrorists were Wahhabi now sounds childlike, but his more recent statements around the development of democracies in Muslim countries are more thoughtful. Nawaz is in many ways the same today as he was when in HT. He is charming, dapper and attentive until he disagrees, when he can quickly switch to being confrontational, antagonistic and argumentative.
13 Nafeez Ahmed, How Violent Extremists Hijacked London-based ‘Counter-Extremism’ Think Tank, AlterNet, 28 April 2015, available at: http://www.alternet.org/world/how-violent-extremists-hijacked-london-based-counter-extremism-think-tank.
14 Nafeez Ahmed and Max Blumenthal, The Self-Invention of Maajid Nawaz: Fact and Fiction in the Life of the Counter-Terror Celebrity, AlterNet, 5 February 2016, available at: http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/self-invention-maajid-nawaz-fact-and-fiction-life-counter-terror-celebrity.
15 https://www.splcenter.org/20161025/journalists-manual-field-guide-anti-muslim-extremists.
16 See also Appendix 3 and http://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2011/02/robert-halfon-raises-engage-case-in-commons.html.
17 ‘Muslim Hate Monitor to Lose Backing’, Daily Telegraph, 9 June 2013, available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/andrew-gilligan/10108098/Muslim-hate-monitor-to-lose-backing.html.
18 ‘Islamic “Radicals” at the Heart of Whitehall’, Daily Telegraph, 22 February 2015, available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11427370/Islamic-radicals-at-the-heart-of-Whitehall.html.
19 Metropolitan Police Service Crime Figures, Rolling 12 month, December 2016.
20 It claims 2009, though in the evidence and counter-evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee there is some confusion about whether it was 2008 (when they appeared to have done some work that was publicly funded) or 2009 (which is the date it claims it was set up).
21 Home Affairs Committee Oral Evidence: Countering Extremism, HC 428, 17 November 2015, available at: http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/home-affairs-committee/countering-extremism/oral/24795.pdf.