Ed Husain
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Ed Husain (born 25th December 1975 in London) is the pen name of the British writer Mohammed Mahbub Hussain who is the author of The Islamist, shortlisted for the 2008 Orwell Prize for political writing.^[1]

Personal life, education, and career

Husain's father and mother were born in India. He grew up in the Limehouse area of London where there is a large Bengali community. Hussain attended Sir William Borough School, Stepney Green School, Tower Hamlets College and Newham College of Further Education. He later worked for HSBC and the British Council in Saudi Arabia and Syria before enrolling at the School of Oriental and African Studies. He later joined the Labour Party.

Husain studied Arabic at the University of Damascus and has completed an MA in Middle Eastern Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is currently enrolled at the School’s Ph. D programme in Political Science. Husain is also a visiting fellow at the think-tank Civitas.

Husain is Deputy Director of the Quilliam Foundation^[2] which 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." ^[3]

Husain states that he was associated with Jamaat-e-Islami, East London Mosque, Young Muslims Organisation, Hizb ut-Tahrir and the Islamic Society of Britain, in the early 1990s, when in his teens. Husain now strongly criticizes these groups. Hizb-ut-Tahrir has denied that he was a member. ^[4]

Views

Husain supports a liberal interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence, following in this regard scholars such as Shaykh Abdullah bin Bayyah, who gave the Islamic verdict that Muslim women should be allowed to marry non-Muslim men in preference to forming relationships outside of marriage citation needed. In an interview^[5] in the New York Times, Husain said,

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.'

Husain also questions Islamist teaching in relation to the Caliphate, arguing

But 'the state' is not a rukn of the deen (as stated also by Shaykh Abdullah bin Bayyah and Mufti Ali Goma, who stated there are other forms of government that Muslims can accept). An individual can remain a firm believer, a mutadayyin, without the imam and the jama'ah.^[6]

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.^[7]

Husain is a member of the Labour Party.

The Islamist

Main article: 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.

Praise and criticism

Husain's book has been "highly acclaimed" and received positive reviews from The Guardian,^[8][9] The Times^[10]—which ran run two weeks’ worth of extracts^[11]—and the International Herald Tribune.^[12] Other sources such as the Islamist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir,^[13] the Salafimanhaj.com website,^[14] and the Muslim Council of Britain^[15] 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".^[16] Guardian columnist Seamus Milne has called Husain a "British neocon pinup boy". ^[17] Another Guardian columnist, 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." ^[18]

The journalist Ziauddin Sardar has criticized Husain's "critical faculties", 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."^[19] 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."^[20] He has also been criticized by the Muslim Council of Britain for supporting the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. ^[21]

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.^[22]

Works

• The Islamist (2007)

See also

• Quilliam Foundation
• The Islamist
• Islamism
• Extremism
• East London Mosque

References

External links

• The Islamist - Penguin Books
• Ed Husain and Maajid Nawaz in the Quilliam Foundation
• 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