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''The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw Inside and Why I Left'' is a 2007 book about Ed Husain's five years as an Islamist. The book has been described as "as much a memoir of personal struggle and inner growth as it is a report on a new type of extremism."〔(''Literary Review'', "The Pathology of Faith" by John Gray )〕 The son of pious Muslim parents from South Asia, living in East London, Husain joins the Islamist group Young Muslim Organization at the age of sixteen, before moving on to be active in Hizb ut-Tahrir while in college. After disheartening experiences with factional infighting and sectarian violence at his college, and unIslamic behavior while living in Saudi Arabia as an English teacher, Husain rejects political Islam and returns to "normal" life and his family. Husain describes his book as explaining "the appeal of extremist thought, how fanatics penetrate Muslim communities and the truth behind their agenda of subverting the West and moderate Islam." ==Synopsis== The son of Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh and India, living in East London, Husain describes himself as close to his family and their Bengali spiritual guide (pir) he calls 'Grandpa' as a child,〔Shaikh Abd al-Latif (Fultholy Saheb) (p.9)〕〔("A true Islamic voice" ) by Anushka Asthana The Observer, May 6, 2007〕 but a boffin misfit at the innercity Stepney Green boys secondary school. There he finds some belonging in studying Islam with a friend, Brother Faileek. Their text, ''Islam: Beliefs and Teachings,'' by Ghulam Sarwar -- "the first book I read about Islam in English" 〔''The Islamist'', pp 20-22〕—tells him that, contrary to his father's teaching, 'religion and politics are one and the same in Islam'.〔〔This becomes the "one part of the book has stayed with me." (''The Islamist'', pp 20-22)〕 He learns of organizations and people that are dedicated to the creation of `truly Islamic states` -- Jamaat-e-Islami and its founder Abul Ala Maududi. At the invitation of Faileek, Husain becomes active in the Young Muslim Organization (YMO) whose parent organization (Islamic Forum Europe) ran the big East London Mosque and was aligned with Jamaat-e-Islami. As an "isolated schoolboy" he is flattered by their attention and impressed with the "dynamism" and "discipline" of the group,〔at Brick Lane mosque "I was a young boy, in my father's shadow; here the place was buzzing with young, trim-bearded, English-speaking activists ... a sense of organization and discipline; everyone seemed to know their place." (p.27) "I respected them for their seniority, dynamism and commitment to Islam. They seemed like worthy role models: English-speaking, educated, and rooted in faith." (p.28)〕 but his parents are furious, demanding that he choose between political Islam and the family. Husain runs away from home, coming back only after his father backs down. Husain goes on to college at the Tower Hamlets where he is elected president of the Islamic Society—the dominant student organisation on the predominantly South Asian Muslim campus.〔"With my parents defeated, there was no stopping me. At Tower Hamlets College I became active in the college's Islamic Society, managed by members of YMO. By secret ballot I was elected president. (p.46-7)〕 The Society studies Sayyid Qutb's ''Milestones'',〔"In YMO ''Milestones'', along with Qutb's personal commentary on the Koran, was mandatory reading." (p.49)〕 clashes with the secular college administration over the Society's anti-gay stance, its slogan "Islam: the Final Solution", 〔"... a series of provocative posters, all of which ended with the `What is Islam?` punchline. The revelation came in our final poster, again plastered all across the college and even on lamp posts in the street outside: Islam: the Final Solution" "There was uproar on campus. The entire teaching community was outraged. Time and again the principal's assistant came to see us in the prayer hall ... to remind us that the college was a secular institution. For most of us the word secular had no meaning." (p.54)〕〔"In the prayer room, we suspected that the college management was dominated not only by Jews, but by homosexuals too. How else could they possibly reprimand us and condemn our imam for standing up to homosexuality?" (p.55)〕 and its demands for a bigger prayer room. 〔"At prayer times, the small prayer room provided by the college management so generously the previous year no longer sufficed. ... In the event, management backed down, provided us with a larger room" (p.61-2)〕 The society organizes a successful boycott of the college disco〔p.63-4〕 and a Socialist Workers Party speech.〔"Soon the SWP even stopped selling their newspaper outside" p.64-5〕 In 1992, the atrocities against fellow Muslims in Bosnia disenchant Husain with YMO and its "parochial" concentration on South Asians.〔"I was disgruntled with YMO's obsession with the Bangladeshi community, lack of intellectual vigour, and complete failure to provide an answer to the Bosnia issue." (p.76) "The YMO appeared more and more parochial. They concentrated only on maintaining complete control over East London educational events, youth activities and fundraising with a view to recruitment. ... we had to seek permission from YMO leaders if we wanted to attend meetings of other organizations." (p.77)〕 He takes up with a rival group, Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), impressed with its focus on the international Muslim ''ummah'' (community) and its `methodology for changing the world.`〔"members of Hizb ut-Tahrir noticed my restlessness and asked me questions about my commitment to YMO, particularly about our `methodology for changing the world.`" (p.76)〕 Along with YMO and HT, other groups -- Islamic Forum Europe, Dawatul Islam, the Wahhabi JIMAS, Hizb ut-tahrir—are all actively preaching in 1990s London that Islam is not just a religion but a complete code of behavior, politics, economics, etc. Not all agree, however, on the exact details of the complete code, or at least who should be in charge, and factional infighting results. In the 1980s, Husain writes, police were called to break up fights between Islamic Forum Europe and Dawatul Islam at East London Mosque.〔"There were accusations of embezzlement which in 1990 resulted in High Court injunctions against the then imam of the mosque, Abu Syed, and other key Jamat-e-Islami figues. Several organizers at the mosque were imprisoned following violent clashes. (p.25, see also p.279)〕 Husain is forced from the Islamic Society presidency by YMO in an acrimonious shouting match, and later forcibly evicted from a mosque while aggressively preaching HT's "concepts". He laments, "I had committed myself to Islamism because I wanted to be a better Muslim, ... not in order to divide Muslims. ... Where was all the brotherhood we spoke about?" 〔(p.109). He also wonders if "a fellow Islamist, was prepared to fight us in a mosque, what were Islamists capable of doing when in power?" (p.128)〕 Hizb ut-tahri disrupts Muslim events it can't control〔"We attended and tried to control everybody's events. If we failed, we ensured that there was sufficient heckling to effect maximum disruption. There was nothing Muslim about our conduct." (p.121-2)〕 and in debate would "deny, lie, and deflect" to out-argue its opponents 〔"In political discussions our Muslim opponents were never able to defeat us. We knew how to deny, lie, and deflect." (p.101)〕 in aggressive style -- "never defend, always offend".〔"There was an inbuilt culture of aggressive argumentation, dogged debate, and inherent ability to cause offence that helped us thrive. We were taught `Never defend, always offend.`" (p.100)〕 Looking back, Husain also complains of feeling Islamists often misrepresented themselves or important facts. Ghulam Sarwar, was not a scholar of religion but a business management lecturer, and never mentioned in his book his activism in the organization -- Jamaat-e-Islami—he praised.〔"... he was an activist in the organisations that he mentioned did not know how to pray. I witnessed at least four new converts to Islam at different university campuses, convinced of the superiority of the `Islamic political ideology` ... but lacking basic knowledge of worship." (p.146)〕 In his college history studies Husain learns that the idea of a pure Islamic state, is 'not the continuation of a political entity set up by the Prophet, maintained by the caliphs down the ages (however debatable)', but (according to Husain) borne out of an `alien`, Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. HT founder Taqiuddin al-Nabhani's vision of a state to re-established Islamic caliphate was `not innovatory Muslim thinking but wholly derived (according to Husain) from European political thought` of Hegel, Rousseau, Antonio Gramsci, and others.〔〔page=162|quote=I also discovered that many of the criticisms of democracy I had heard in the Hizb were not new and original, but based on writings of Rousseau and others. Rousseau called for God to legislate, because man is incapable of legislation.〕 Husain's breaking point with HT comes when a Nigerian-British Christian student is stabbed and killed at Husain's college in connection with an earlier Muslim-Christian confrontation. Husain feels "guilt" as the college HT representative who, he says, "had encouraged Muslim fervour, a sense of separation from others, a belief that Muslims were worthier than other humans." 〔(p.152)〕 In a press release HT itself denies it had ever operated on the campus (falsely, according to Husain),〔"The murder was now all over the local press. I felt unremitting guilt at what had happened. As Hizb's representatives, Majid and I had met Saeed (killer ) when he had come to college that first day and asked for Hizb ut-Tahrir. However, now, under police and media pressure, the Hizb leadership put out press releases that it had never operated on the campus." (p.152-3)〕 and misleadingly asserts it is a "nonviolent" group.〔Instead of standing beside the college's Muslims and stating the killing was in self-defence as Majid asks them to, "the Hizb leadership issued a condemnation of what had happened, saying that it was a non-violent party."(p.153)〕 After quitting HT, Husain finishes college, finds but then quits a lucrative but soul deadening job in the City, and marries. Only gradually severing his psychologically links with Islamism, he begins to discover 'classical, traditional Islam', which includes Sufi mysticism.〔 He and his wife move to Damascus, Syria and then to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, close to Mecca, to study Arabic and teach English at the British Council. There he is outraged by the enthusiasm of many of his students for the 7/7 jihadi killing of British civilians,〔"Two weeks after the terrorist attacks in London Zafir, a young Saudi student, raised his hand and asked, `Teacher, how can I go to London?` `Much depends on your reason for going to Britain. Do you want to study or just be a tourist` `Teacher, I want to go London next month. I want bomb big boom in London, again. I want make jihad!` 'What?' I exclaimed. Another student raised both hands and shouted, `Me too! Me too' Other students applauded those who had just articulated what many of them were thinking. I was incandescent. In protest, I walked out of the classroom to a chorus of jeering and catcalls." (p.260) 〕 but also startled by the casual racism of the Saudis, and the "misery and squalor" of a Muslim African shantytown in Jeddah amid the wealth and luxury of the Kingdom. He contrasts it to the public housing and benefits provided to poor immigrants in the non-Muslim UK.〔"At that moment it dawned on me that Britain, my home, had given refuge to thousands of black Africans from Somalia and Sudan: I had seen them in their droves in Whitechapel. They prayed, had their own mosques, were free, and were given government housing. How could it be that Saudi Arabia had condemned African Muslims to misery and squalor? It was a harrowing experience. As far as I was concerned, Muslims enjoyed a better lifestyle in Britain than they did in Muslim Saudi Arabia." (p.240-1)〕 As far as I was concerned, Muslims enjoyed a better lifestyle in non-Muslim Britain than they did in Muslim Saudi Arabia. ... Despite Saudi separation of the genders, the lack of respect for women is far worse than in the UK or "secular" Muslim Syria (according to Husain),
In 2005, Husain returns to London, dismayed to discover what he calls "a sophisticated, entrenched form of Islamism and Wahhabism on the rise"〔p.283〕 despite the post-7/7 "intense media scrutiny of extremism in Britain."〔(p.270)〕 He ends with a call for the "normal" or "mainstream" Islam of "most" British Muslims,〔p.284-5〕 rejecting both the Islamist tenants of "subordination of women" and "hatred of Jews, Hindus, Americans, gays",〔Among Islamists I was a `brother`. I was not to dispute our unquestioned perceptions: hatred of Jews, Hindus, Americans, gays, subordination of women." (p.172)〕 and the Muslim "integration" into non-Muslim British culture with its binge drinking, gambling, and `Big Brother` and Ladettes lifestyle.〔"In mosques, after prayers, many of my Muslim friends rightly ask what we are supposed to integrate into. `Big Brother` lifestyle? Ladette culture? Binge drinking? Gambling? Most Muslims are already upright Britons, contributing to their country as much as any other British citizen." (p.284)〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Islamist」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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