The Muslim community in the UK does I’m afraid contain more than a few nutjobs. We need to be honest about that fact. In the UK, since the cessation of the Northern Ireland Troubles, Islam inspired terrorism and extremism has been the prime terrorist threat to lives and property. But the extremists are a danger not only to the general population, they are also a danger to the moderate or cultural, liberal or secular Muslims who are hated and despised by the extremists. As I’ve often said, the first and primary victims of Islamic extremism and violence are Muslims themselves. It is Muslims who are blown to smithereens in Mosques in the Islamic world by explosions created by other Muslims.
Granted that there are severe issues with Islamic theology and its use in supporting violence which the extremists support, but there are also a great many other Muslims who just want to keep their heads down and get on with life. Whilst the ordinary Joe Mohammed down the car spares shop might have little and want little to do with the extremist nutters or the religious fundamentalists, when it comes down to which current within Islam that the government and its agencies listen to and indeed pander to, then it is not ordinary Joe Mohammed that the government is treating as representative of his community, it’s the nutters.
This point about the government listening to and catering to the wrong sort of Muslim is made better than I could make by Wasiq Wasiq from the Henry Jackson Society. Commenting on the subject of listening to the wrong sort of Muslim in connection to the Wakefield Koran Scandal where an autistic boy and his family was subjected to something akin to a kangaroo court at which a local police inspector attended and where the ‘offence’ taken by the local Muslims was prioritised by the police over the death treats to the young boy. Wasiq said:
The response of the local authorities to this incident was appalling. Rather than condemning the death threats, the authorities blamed the schoolboys for supposedly offending the sensibilities of Muslims. Four boys were suspended, and the police labelled it a ‘hate incident’.
A meeting at a local mosque was soon held in an apparent attempt to calm tensions. Yet when local imam Hafiz Anwar declared that ‘we will stand and defend the honour of the Koran no matter what it takes’, representatives from Kettlethorpe High School and the local police – including chief inspector Andy Thornton and inspector Glen Costello – simply nodded along. Anwar even said, ‘We will sacrifice our lives for it’.
This shows just how willing the authorities are to appease Muslim ‘community leaders’, even if they are threatening other British citizens.
Wasiq added that the police might merely have thought that they were being nice to the local Muslims by pandering to local mosque worthies, but the reality was, as Wasiq says, the police were pandering a bunch of fringe extremists.
Wasiq said that the majority of Britain’s Muslims are not like the extremist loony tunes of Wakefield some of whom have a penchant for forbidding Muslims from wishing non Muslims ‘happy Christmas’ and hating on Shia Muslims. Wasiq said that :’….most British Muslims are just as tolerant as other members of British society. They certainly wouldn’t want some schoolboys punished for scuffing a copy of the Koran. But regrettably, whenever there is a case of alleged blasphemy against Islam in Britain, all too often, the authorities treat a minority of fundamentalists as representative of the majority of British Muslims.’
This is poisoning public life. It is time Britain’s cringing authorities stopped giving in to intolerant extremists.
Wasiq makes some very good points. Whilst I may disagree with the theology of Islam and am quite willing to criticise it or the extremists who come from Islam, it’s clear that most Muslims are not mentalist extremists and are also quite worried about the damage that these extremists do to any society that they operate in. It’s also pretty obvious that there are too many in positions of authority in the state who treat the more fundamentalist and therefore potentially extreme Muslims as being ‘authentic’ Muslims, whilst ignoring the views, which are likely to be much more nuanced and moderate of Joe Mohammed on the Clapham Omnibus. Wasiq is correct. We as a nation need to stop cringing to the extremists and start talking to the normal Muslim. To give an analogy it would mightily piss off followers of the Church of England if the state only dealt with Christianity’s more extreme outliers such as the Plymouth Brethren or the Strict Ebenezer Baptists, therefore those Muslims who are moderate, reasonable, nuanced and critical in how they approach their scripture need to get a bit more pissed off about the State only treating the nutters as ‘proper Muslims’.
Thanks again for your post Fahrenheit! I can only report that I have been watching some of Wasiq Wasiq’s videos and I am attempting to educate myself. No conclusions either way yet.
Wasiq is right of course.
Britain’s Muslims are as varied as any other group in their observances.
But here’s the question: whilst (for example) Judaism has synagogues and groupings run by everyone from the very orthodox to the very liberal, why do we not see this amongst mosques?
All the main-stream Muslim groups (by which I primarily mean Sunni groups) seem to be linked to one or another “radical” (orthodox) groups, often linking back to the Muslim Brotherhood or Saudi-backed groups.
AFAIK there are no groupings, affiliations etc. amongst the Sunnis (at least of significance) for a “modernised” (not ‘reform’ which – if the word is used correctly – is highly orthodox) Islam.
Why are the “moderates” not in charge if the fundamentalists are such a “tiny minority”?
It could be apathy on the part of the moderates, not being really that interested in their religion. (The Koran classes such Muslims as hypocrites) and thus being content to let the orthodox run Islam in this Country provided it does not impact their lives (too) much.
It could be that the moderates are frightened of the orthodox because if they speak out they, the moderates, will be denounced as hypocrites or (worse) apostates. And we all know (or should know) to what that accusation leads.
The orthodox already have a “lock” on the big (or at least vocal) organisations (MCB, MPACUK) so the moderates can’t get a look in – but that goes back to my first point, why do the moderates not organise and start a new modernised organisation to more accurately reflect the views of the majority? (Cases where moderates have been expelled from mosque leadership have hit the news a few times.)
It’s all very well to criticise the authorities for interacting with the “extremist fringe”, but who else are they to interact with when the moderates are so noticeable by their absence from the public sphere?
In addition we also have to remember that a large number of mosques, Imams and organisations are very good at saying one thing when “facing west” and something utterly different when “facing East”, i.e. employing Taqqiya, Kitman and Tawriya in their dealings with the “najjis Kuffar”.
We’ve seen this multiple times when mosques and individuals who were declared as “beacons of moderation, tolerance [etc.]” turned out to be something else entirely.
On this particular case: I wonder just which mosque Wasiq Wasiq would have recommended that the Police, mother of “koranboy” etc. went to for this meeting?
The one chosen was, sensibly, a local mosque, to which – one presumes – the local Muslims, and thus the parents of the Muslim children “koranboy” was at school with, may well have attended.
What, if anything, does that say about the local Muslim community?
And let’s not forget the outrageously inflammatory tweets of a local Labour Councillor on this issue. Does that tell us something about the local Muslim community who, presumably, voted for this individual? (And I find no evidence Usman Ali is being disciplined by the local Labour party).
When you deal with individual Muslims you encounter a wide variety of views and levels of observance, just as you find in followers of other rule based religions such as Judaism. But as you say there is a very wide spectrum of theological views in Judaism and established synagogues ranging from the very very liberal to the very very illiberal such as those run by the Haredim. However the Govt doesn’t only listen to the Haredim when talking tothe Jewish community it talks to those from every synagogal movement.
The problem is as you say that the major organs of the British Islamic community are too often closely linked to nutcases and this gives the nutcases immense political power. Personally I’d prefer the government to deal more and treat more seriously groups like the Ahmediyya and the Ismailis rather than the Sunni and Shia nutters. There are mosques associated with these two movements (there’s been an Ismaili one in central London for about forty years at least) but they’ve never as far as I can find out been associated with extremism. If 66% of British Muslims (figure from Dr Rakib Eshan I think) are as concerned as the rest of us about Islamic extremism then why are not the govt talking to these Muslims and not the nutters?
I must admit that the prospects for Reformed Islamic groups in the style of Reform Judaism are not good. They don’t get proper backing or are taken that seriously and too often those who try to start such groups end up being harassed by the nutters.
One problem with the Ahmediyya or Ismailis is that in the case of the Ahmediyya they are considered apostates by both Sunni and Shia Islam as well as being a tiny, tiny group (they also have the dubious ‘honour’ of being the most persecuted minority in Pakistan).
The Ismailis are a small sect within Shia Islam.
Thus by definition those groups are unrepresentative of Islam in general. It should not be forgotten that Sunni Islam accounts for ~85% of Muslims worldwide, so if you want to know (in general) what Islam believes, thinks, etc. it is reasonable to look to Sunni Islam for a (general) answer and that brings us right back to the nutters as you call them.
I would also point out that what we in the west often think of as “extreme” viewpoints within Islam are in fact normative within the broader Muslim world.
From the Jewish perspective you only have to think how widespread Jew-hatred is within the Muslim world to realise that whilst we in the West might frown upon such attitudes (except in woke ‘progressive’ circles perhaps) within the Muslim world such an attitude is normative.
I agree with you on the depressing reality that the most intellectually and morally advanced forms of Islam are minorities and in the case of the Ahmadiyya persecuted ones at that. I agree with you on the Sunnis and their dominance and that it does contain appalling misogyny and Jew hatred but why do so on this path follow the nutters but others take a more nuanced view of their religion and don’t follow the nutters?
“… it would mightily piss off followers of the Church of England if the state only dealt with Christianity’s more extreme outliers such as the Plymouth Brethren or the Strict Ebenezer Baptists,…”
It might well do so.
But given that the CoE has become the Church of “anything goes” and “woke” at least by consulting more traditional groups the State might views that are more authentically and Biblically Christian.
(Recall that much of the Anglican communion has disavowed Welby. It’s only the more “woke” elements of the group that accept him as “primus inter pares)
So interesting, and I appreciate your angle Jon. However this story has been largely clouded by the MSM as a potential ‘fundamentalist via Islamic reform’ issue when in reality it is purely pragmatic and nothing of the sort. A vulnerable but high functioning autistic 14 year old boy brought a Quran into school as apparently a dare and a forfeit for having failed at an online game (red flags and potential bullying questions raised here) for whatever motives we don’t fully know, but it got slightly damaged to the extent that a ‘desecration’ rumour spread but it was all calmed down by a public meeting in the local mosque. As far as the local community is concerned, it was resolved, and over, through peaceful and respectful discussion, end of. But the media want to go on and on with it….
This issue was not ‘calmed down by a meeting at the local mosque’. This poor woman ended up having to beg for her son’s life. This matter has not been ‘resolved’ as you put it. The family had to move because of death threats from Muslim extremists and those who have issued these death threats are not being treated as the criminals they are by the local police.
I mean the Wakefield story Jon of course not your second post about the controversies within the CofE.
“it was all calmed down by a public meeting in the local mosque.”
Well, that’s one way of putting it.
I watched the video and seeing that mother (having donned the obligatory hijab of course) begging the Muslim community not to harm her son whilst saying “I don’t want any action taken over the *death threats* (?!!) [to her son]” looks to me much more like what happens in Pakistan or Egypt when Muslims get upset by Kaffirs.
What makes this resonate even more with the habitual treatment of non-Muslims in Muslim-majority Countries is that (according to the Mail on Sunday) the family have been forced from their home due to arson threats (which are also a form of death threat).
So, I’m not quite sure that I would regard that as the ‘situation’ being “resolved, … through peaceful and respectful discussion.” It might have been so from the Mother’s side, but from the Muslim side? I don’t think that death and arson threats are what I’d call peaceful or respectful.
Now I also disagree that this is a ‘fundamentalist via Islamic reform’ issue. In the first place (if we are to use English properly) then a reformist movement in Islam gets you Wahhabism, ISIL etc. – i.e. fundamentalist / orthodox / Islamist Islam.
Secondly can you name any effective modernist movement in Sunni or Shia Islam?
All too often people claim a false dichotomy between Islam and Islamism. There is no dichotomy, so-called Islamism (for which I use the historically accurate and non-pejorative term “orthodox Islam”) is simply at one end of a spectrum of belief that ranges from the “mumin” (true-believer) to the “munafiq” (lit. hypocrite; or half-hearted, “pick-n-mix”, cultural etc.) Muslim. And it is a sliding scale in that people can move along it without religious dislocation and in both directions.
Finally, may I respectfully suggest that if you really want to inform yourself about Islam that you should read its sources rather than listen to videos by a Muslim (no matter how well meaning)? I realise that that is a major undertaking, you will need copies of the Koran and also Tafseer (which are the explanations for the Koran) and you also need to read the Koran and Tafseers in the order of recitation to work out what it really says due to the principle of abrogation (which basically says a chronologically later recitation overrides an earlier one, though there are nuances to this). Thus Suras (chapters) 5 and 9 of the Koran are actually (just about) the final recitations and thus the most important (and especially in terms of what they say re relations with kaffirs).
The point here is that to understand what Islam actually teaches you need to know its source material, rather than the belief of a particular, or even several, Muslim(s).
Putting that another way: can any Muslim claim to speak for 1.4 billion Muslims? Clearly not, but the Islamic “canon” of scripture should speak for, and to, them all.
I would be happy to recommend free and online sources for any all of those things.