In Defence Of British Muslims

In Defence of British Muslims:

A response to BNP racist propaganda Lucy James

Quilliam is the world’s first counter-extremism think tank. Located in London, our founders are former leading ideologues of UK-based extremist Islamist organizations. Quilliam aims to generate new thinking through informed and inclusive discussion to counter the Islamist ideology behind terrorism, whilst simultaneously providing evidence-based recommendations to governments for related policy measures. Our strategic communications work involves research projects, public events, specialist roundtables and media campaigns to empower civil society to work towards improved national cohesion, Muslim integration through respect for scriptural diversity, and encouragement of political pluralism. For further information contact: Quilliam Email: [email protected] Tel: +44 (0)207 182 7280 www.quilliamfoundation.org

In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda Quilliam, August 2009 © Quilliam 2009 – All rights reserved

ISBN nu mb er: 978-1-906603-08-3

Disclaimer: The views of individuals and organizations used in this report do not

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In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda

Contents Forewords

4

Part 1 Extremism Needs Extremism

11

Introduction

6

Part 2 The BNP’s Accusations

17

Conclusion

37

“Islam... is a cancer eating away at our freedoms and our democracy and rights for our women, and something needs to be done about it” Nick Griffin, Channel 4 News, 9th July 2009.1 “[Islam is] a wicked, vicious faith” Nick Griffin, The Secret Agent, BBC, 15th July 2004.2

1 Video available on iengage, ‘BNP’s Nick Griffin: ‘Islam is a cancer’’, 10 July 2009, , [accessed 6 August 2009].

2 Nick Griffin was secretly recorded by the BBC for a documentary, The Secret Agent, defaming Islam at a BNP party meeting in January 2004. He was charged for incitement to racial hatred on the basis of this and other statements in July 2006 but was cleared. Paul Stokes, ‘Islam is a wicked, vicious faith, BNP leader tells court’, The Telegraph, 26 January 2006, , [accessed 10 August 2009].

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In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda

Forewords This is a very important piece of work. The political class has recoiled in shock and indignation following the BNP's recent electoral successes, yet has failed to confront the way they demonise British Muslims. Until now there has been no systematic response to the propaganda and myth-making perpetuated by the BNP in its treatment of all Muslims. Because of this vacuum the BNP have been able to focus on an extremist Islamism as being representative of the views of all Muslims. In this sense, extremism breeds extremism. This document rigorously confronts BNP allegations against British Muslims. The ten key charges made by Griffin and the BNP against 'Islam' are exposed for what they are— a product of an extreme literalist Islamist tradition. By exposing the way they cynically demonise all Muslims, this document gives us the materials to thoroughly confront the myths, lies and distortions of the BNP. I thoroughly commend this document to all those repelled by the British National Party. Jon Cruddas, Labour MP for Dagenham The increasing threat posed to British society by the rise of the far right has become tangible: arson attacks on mosques in Luton, Greenwich, Stortford and a Muslim charity in Glasgow; violent protests in British cities; and a seizure of bomb-making equipment and munitions from houses of Whitesupremacists in the north of England. These are devastating warnings. Ideas, that stem from the racist rhetoric of the BNP, should not— and must not— be allowed to simmer quietly among sections of our society who have been disenchanted with mainstream politics in this country. As we have learnt with Islamists, those with the loudest voices get their ideas heard. But we have to be smarter. British Muslim communities, and society as a whole, need to unite against the accusations levied by the BNP, loudly projecting the moderate alternative, so that these hateful messages of segregation do not gain ground. This paper equips us with the arguments and facts to undermine the far-right’s 4

In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda

intellectually vacuous pronouncements against Islam. As we have done before, Britain will defeat fascism. We’re all in this together. Patrick Mercer, OBE, MBE, Conservative MP for Newark and Chair of the Counter-Terrorism Parliamentary Sub-Committee The threat of the BNP and the far right is something that has been with our country for decades. The military boots and camouflaged trousers underneath hate-filled t-shirts of the National Front in the 1970s and early 1980s have given way to the slick suits and well-groomed hate-mongers of the BNP who choose to call themselves the defenders of liberty in our country today. Defenders of our liberties, they clearly are not! This much needed document by Quilliam outlines the new tactic that the BNP are now taking. Using perceptions and fears around Islam that exist in some areas of the UK, they have targeted Muslims as being inherently alien to our country. They do not mention the vast positive narrative of how Muslims have worked within this country to support its development as proud citizens, or the narrative of those hundreds of thousands of Muslims who laid down their lives and sacrificed their freedoms for King and Country in the First and Second World Wars. Yet the BNP is trying to wash off its racist label by using divide and rule tactics, taking the approach that ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend.’ They are attempting to ‘advocate’ for other Black and Minority Ethnic communities against Muslims and Poles, yet their corrosive and factually inaccurate words of hate make them one of the greatest threats to cohesion in our country today. The future of Islam and Muslims is intertwined with the mutual respect and empathy with other faiths, and which is inherent in Islam. That future should not be hijacked by the BNP who will lead all who follow down the path of misery, pain and violence. Fiyaz Mughal OBE, Liberal Democrat Adviser on Interfaith, Preventing Radicalization and Extremism

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In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda

Introduction Around 2005, the British National Party (BNP) initiated a conscious shift in rhetoric away from a more general racism to something specific. Previously they had been known for their anti-Semitic as well as anti-Black and anti-Asian sentiments. Now there was a change in tactic. Feeding on the general atmosphere of suspicion post 7/7, fed by the relentless tabloid press, the BNP initiated a vicious, targeted attack against Britain’s Muslim communities. Nor was their call on the British public to join the ‘BNP Crusade’ a tactic that they were ashamed to admit.3 In 2006 Nick Griffin, Chairman of the BNP since 1999, boldly stated that ‘the British National Party is positioned very firmly to benefit politically from ever-growing popular concern about the rise of Islam’.4 Perhaps this was an attempt to avoid prosecution for inciting racial hatred; under British law, Muslims do not exist as an ethnic group, and so cannot be the victims of racial discrimination on the basis of their faith. In any case, the BNP had officially replaced the term ‘Asian’ for ‘Muslim’: “To go anywhere near inciting racial hatred is grotesquely unfair because no one can change how they are born. On the other hand, to criticise a religion in much stronger terms— even if it does cross the line imposed by a law— I think is entirely justifiable because everybody has the choice to change a religion if it’s bad” (Nick Griffin, 8 November 2006).5 “I used to think this [social unrest in towns in northern England] was an Asian problem, a racial problem, so perhaps that makes me a racist. Over the last few years I have come to the conclusion that since Sikhs and Hindus and West Indians generally don’t do this then there is some

3 This symbolism is widely used, for example their leaflet ‘Islam: It’s not just about terrorism— it’s about our way of life’, BNP (Herts: BNP), , [accessed 10 August 2009]. 4 Nick Griffin, ‘By their fruits (or lack of them) shall you know them’, Chairman’s Column, 21 March 2006, , [accessed 17 July 2009]. 5 Nick Griffin, interviewed by Nick Martin for Channel 4 News, uncut version, 8 November 2006, (1:45), , [accessed 15 July 2009].

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In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda

other factor here, so that makes me... a religionist” (Nick Griffin, 8 November 2006).6 Three years ago the BNP were still a fringe party who were struggling to get public platforms and whom few took seriously on a political level. This has now changed. Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons secured two seats in the European Parliament in June 2009 for the North West and Yorkshire and Humber respectively. These were seats that were gained on the basis of nearly one million votes from the British public— 6.2% of the entire votes cast.7 Although the figures were actually down on 2004 (the slump in Labour party support meant the BNP’s proportion of the vote increased), the BNP have now gained official recognition in European politics. They also gained three seats in the county council and unitary authority elections (at February 2009 the BNP held 55 councillor positions8). Whereas previously they had been excluded from public platforms, Griffin is now given frequent airtime on mainstream media channels and primetime programmes. The BNP have also said that they intend to spend taxpayers’ money, allocated via the European Union (EU), on funding social projects aligned to their agenda.9 Yet despite this unprecedented access to the British media and European public funds, mainstream politicians have failed to respond adequately. One could be forgiven for thinking that their reaction has been one of political compromise. Gordon Brown, for example, called for ‘British jobs for British workers’ in January 2009, and ‘local homes for local people’ in July 2009— policies that ring of far-right rhetoric and which, according to various sources, may be illegal

6 Nick Griffin, interviewed by Nick Martin for Channel 4 News, (4:45). 7 Martin Wainwright, ‘EU Elections: BNP’s Nick Griffin wins seat in European parliament’, The Guardian, 8 June

2009, , [accessed 10

8

August 2009].

‘BNP takes two MEP seats’, Hope Not Hate campaign, 8 June 2009, , [accessed 12 August 2009].

9 Jon Swaine & Holly Watt, ‘BNP to use EU taxpayers’ money to fund chosen causes’, The Daily Telegraph, 20 July 2009, , [accessed 20 July 2009].

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In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda

on the basis of discrimination.10 Several MPs have lamented the BNP’s European victory— from David Cameron saying he was ‘sickened’, to Nick Clegg’s assertion that they were ‘a party of thugs’11 — but this hardly equates to a systematic challenge of their fascist ideology. Even The BNP and the Online Fascist Network by the right-wing Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC), the most recent systematic analysis of BNP ideology, significantly sidelined the BNP’s hate-filled propaganda campaign against British Muslims.12 Nor are mainstream politicians and affiliated research institutes the only ones guilty of passivity. ‘The BNP election win affects Muslims more than any other community’, writes Dr. Anthony McRoy, a researcher and religious journalist, ‘so Muslims cannot leave it to others to answer BNP campaigns targeting their community’.13 Yet there is a distinct lack of a systematic and Muslim-led campaign. A handful of Muslim individuals and groups have issued condemnations: the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and Salma Yaqoob, among a few others.14 Yet these do not provide detailed retorts and are insufficient to combat the BNP’s public onslaught. Without answering the charges being raised against them, Muslims leave these views unchallenged and the door even wider for further hate-filled propaganda. What is more, despite a change in rhetoric, the BNP have not suddenly left behind their previous convictions against Blacks, Asians and Jews. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), for example, are currently investigating complaints against the BNP’s membership criteria that restrict membership to those from

10 Various MPs, including David Cameron, queried the legality of the former comment. Deborah Summers, ‘Gordon Brown’s ‘British jobs’ pledge has caused controversy before’, The Guardian, 30 January 2009, , [accessed 3 August 2009]. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) questioned the legality of the latter, see Jamie Doward, ‘Brown’s policy of ‘local homes for local people’, The Observer, 5 July 2009, , [accessed 17 July 2009].

11

BBC, ‘BNP secures two European seats’, BBC News, 8 June 2009, , [accessed 10 August 2009].

12 Edmund Standing, The BNP and the Online Fascist Network (London: Centre for Social Cohesion, 2009).

13 Dr. Anthony McRoy, ‘The BNP Win: What it means for Muslims’, Muslim Weekly, 2009, , [accessed 10 August 2009].

14 Salma Yaqoob, ‘Tackling the ‘cancer’ of BNP fascism’, The Asian News, 16 July 2009, , [accessed 10 August 2009]; The Muslim Council of Britain, ‘MCB alarmed over neo-Nazi victory’, 8 June 2009, , [accessed 30 July 2009].

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In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda

particular ethnic groups and those who are White.15 Despite the work of the group Unite Against Fascism, the Hope Not Hate campaign and the Searchlight publication (among others), a more united effort is desperately needed from society as a whole to ideologically challenge the BNP. The alternative is to allow racist rhetoric to become more dominant in the mainstream. This is an alternative that is already having dire consequences for British society. The second quarter of 2009 has seen a dramatic increase in the reporting of anti-Muslim attacks. It has also witnessed anti-Muslim protests for example, among others, those in Luton in early June and Birmingham in early August. In July 2009, The Sunday Times reported ‘England’s largest seizure of a suspected terrorist arsenal since the IRA mainland bombings of the early 1990s’ from the homes of White-supremacists in the north of England, along with maps of British mosques.16 Extremism only breeds extremism. A recent Community Security Trust (CST) report revealed an unprecedented number of anti-Semitic attacks in the first half of 2009, due to the Israeli offensive in Gaza at the beginning of the year.17 Just as Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) and other Islamist groups promote ideology which leads some to commit acts of terrorism, the BNP publicly raising the temperature for far-right ideas can help explain the increase in White-supremacist attacks. This paper, then, has been written in order to address a considerable deficit in the public arena. It is not a call on the BNP to change their rhetoric— such an intention would be futile. They will continue this anti-Muslim tactic for as long as it continues to win them votes. Instead, its aims are two-fold: firstly it is to highlight the weak nature of the arguments behind the BNP’s anti-Muslim campaign by taking Griffin up on his challenge: “If you are confident that I am utterly wrong, that Sheikh Abu Hamza is totally wrong, and you are utterly right then what is the problem? 15 Equality & Human Rights Commission, ‘BNP: Commission takes action over potential breach of race discrimination law’, 23 June 2009, , [accessed 6 August 2009]. Despite considerably sidelining the BNP’s anti-Muslim stance, the CSC report does illustrate that the BNP membership still hold radical anti-Jewish and anti-Black sentiments. Standing, The BNP and the Online Fascist Network.

16 David Leppard, ‘Bomb seizures spark far-right terror plot fear’, The Sunday Times, 5 July 2009, , [accessed 29 July 2009].

17 The Community Security Trust, ‘Anti-Semitic Incidents: January-June 2009’ (London; Manchester: The Community Security Trust, 2009).

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In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda

Let us on air and demolish us. Not by talking over us but by letting us make fools of ourselves, let us state our case and then tear it to shreds, but let us state our case and it will be more effective” (Nick Griffin, 2002).18 It is important to highlight that (contrary to Islamist notions) Islam is not a united religion with a monolithic viewpoint. The counter-arguments put forward here in response to the BNP’s accusations are by no means exhaustive. Rather they are intended to provide a response and to set the ball in motion for others to proceed. Secondly, this paper is a call on the media, mainstream politicians, Muslim communities and the British public at large to arm themselves with these— and other— counter-arguments in order to increase the public response and drastically shift the debate. The propaganda of the Islamists should not be taken to be representative of the vast majority of Muslims in this country. We must not allow the far-right BNP and the Islamist minority to bolster each other and monopolize the debate. In staying silent, we are letting the extremist fringe groups win. We therefore welcome others to use these arguments. Moreover, we call on the media to use them, as, whilst positively already condemning the BNP, they will be more effective if they intellectually undermine the BNP’s arguments rather than run smear campaigns against them.19 It is not race or religion that matters, but what type of person someone is; individual qualities rather than to what ‘faith’ or ‘ethnic’ category they belong. In the final analysis it is only those who seek to uphold— rather than to destroy— the British values of liberty, freedom, equality and democracy that should be considered part of the British mainstream.

18 Nick Griffin, ‘Nick Griffin Abu Hamza’, Radio Academy, Part 2, 2002, (2:30).

19 In so doing, the media only stoops to the BNP’s level. For example, the Daily Mail recently ran an article accusing a senior BNP member of having ‘Nazi’ written on his car number plate. Daily Mail Reporter, ‘The BNP councillor who drives a car with ‘Nazi’ number plate’, The Daily Mail, 10 August 2009, , [accessed 11 August 2009].

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In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda

Part 1 Extremism Needs Extremism The BNP’s general accusation against Muslims and Islam is this: Muslims are systematically going to Islamize Europe (destroying indigenous European culture and replacing it with “Islamic” culture), after which they will establish an Islamic state that will implement a literalist interpretation of scripture. In itself, this general argument is evidently made on the basis of a very specific version of Islam; the precise allegations (see Part 2) only cement this fact. From what they’ve said about the pernicious aspects of Islam, this appears to be a militant form of Islamism that blends with Saudi-Wahhabi doctrine. Islamism is the belief that Islam is a political ideology. It claims that political sovereignty belongs to God rather than the people, that their reading of shari`ah is state law, and that it is the religious duty of all Muslims to create and pledge allegiance to an Islamic state that reflects these principles. Despite its claim that up until the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1924 Islam had always existed as a political system, Islamism is in fact a modernist movement influenced by products of modernity such as socialism. Wahhabism is a conservative revisionist Sunni movement, which was founded by Muhammad bin Abdul-Wahhab in the eighteenth century. It is common in Saudi Arabia and retains a non-ideological, socially conservative, austere and literalist interpretation of Islam. Wahhabis are not necessarily Islamists. But when the Wahhabi literalist mindset combines with Islamism, this can lead to the creation of jihadist readings of scripture that can result in militant Islamism. The BNP appear to have not only adopted Wahhabi literalism alongside Islamist principles of an Islamic state, but to have generalized them as representative of Islam as a whole. Interestingly, on occasion, the BNP distinguish between what they refer to as ‘radical Islam’ or ‘militant Islam’ and Islam. At points the BNP have actually differentiated between what they refer to as the different “strands of radical Islam”.20 Of these— in line with their portrayal of Islam— the most frequent reference is to Wahhabism, which 20 Nick Griffin, Islamization of Europe, Clemson University, 24 October 2007, Part 2, , [accessed 20 July 2009], (09:40).

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In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda

Griffin describes as comparable to “the most extreme and extraordinarily intolerant Christian sect and then put it on acid”.21 In fact, they seem to be most affronted by Wahhabism, the threat in the UK apparently coming from “Islamic fifth columnists who are funded by rich fundamentalist Wahhabi Arabs waging a jihad against Britain from the Middle East”.22 Griffin has also made fleeting references to Deobandism, and even Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and the UK’s al-Muhajiroun as such ‘radical strands’.23 Given these passing recognitions that Islam has ‘radical’ forms, one can assume a more silent recognition that Islam has more mainstream forms. Whether or not the BNP rank and file are aware, Griffin is a History and Law graduate from Cambridge and he, at least, is more than conscious of Islam’s diversity. He refers, for example, to Wahhabis as “an extraordinarily extreme, radical and confident form of Islam” (emphasis author’s own).24 BNP propaganda, then, intentionally ignores this by, in most instances, portraying Islamic extremists as representative of all Muslims— a deliberate and calculated policy to ride the wave of suspicion against Muslim extremist in the UK. Where the distinction of ‘radical Islam’ is made, it is emphasized that Britain is witnessing the impending takeover by ‘radical Islam’, not only of Islam, but of Europe itself. One BNP news article describes a BNP meeting saying ‘The main thrust of [the speaker’s] talk, however, centred on the way Muslims become radicalised’ (emphasis author’s own), as if radicalization is a predetermined conclusion.25 Griffin therefore on occasion admits that there are moderate forms but concludes that “certainly, the kind of Islam that we are seeing taking over Europe now is of the harsher variety”.26 Luckily for him, this is just the variety of Islam that will most bolster his anti-Muslim propaganda campaign. Specific examples of the extremist nature of the accusations fired against Islam by the BNP are the focus in Part 2. However, direct examples can also be found 21 Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 2, (07:30).

22 BNP, Video: Islamification of Britain, , [accessed 20 July 2009], (2:40).

23 Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 2; BNP, ‘Northants BNP April Meeting Told of the Dangers of Radical Islam’, BNP News, 19 April 2009, , [accessed 4 August 2009]. 24 Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 2, (9:45); (6:30).

25 BNP, ‘Northants BNP April Meeting Told of the Dangers of Radical Islam’. 26 Nick Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 1, (5:30).

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In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda

where the BNP have shared platforms with, or directly used, well-known Islamist groups and/or Wahhabis as representatives of Islam: - Video footage of The Saviour Sect, al-Ghurabaa and al-Muhajiroun is used in a BNP publicity video.27 - Extremist events, such as one put on by Islam4UK, are monitored and exploited for the BNP’s agenda.28 - Images of Islamists are used for news articles on Islam, i.e. as the ‘average’ Muslim. For example, a photograph of an Islamist group at Finsbury Park mosque was attached to an article on the rate of Muslim population growth in the UK.29 - Nick Griffin shared a platform with the Islamist extremist Abu Hamza in 2002 on the topic of freedom of speech. Both were prosecuted for inciting racial hatred.30 - Wahhabis, such as Sheikh Muhammad Munajid, have been quoted as examples of typical Muslims clerics, without qualification of their hard-line views.31 This all provides clear evidence that extremism needs—indeed breeds— extremism. Islamists bolster the message of organizations like the BNP; the BNP bolster the message of the Islamists. The BNP and Islamists do actually share many commonalities in terms of tactics and the ways in which they operate. They both, for example, share the same binary and divisive world views, denigrating cultures that they feel are opposed to their own: the Muslims versus the kufr (‘unbelievers’, often the West) and the indigenous

27 BNP, Video: Islamification of Britain, (1:40); (1:52); (2:25).

28 Lee Hancock, ‘Islam4UK: Hate on our streets’, BNP News, 5 October 2008, , [accessed 4 August 2009]. 29 Lee Hancock, ‘Muslim population rising ten times faster than rest of the UK’, BNP News, 1 February 2009, , [accessed 5 August 2009]. 30 Griffin, ‘Nick Griffin Abu Hamza’.

31 Lee Hancock, ‘Mickey Mouse should be killed says Muslim cleric’, BNP News, 16 September 2008, , [accessed 4 August 2009].

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In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda

White-British versus immigrant invaders.32 Along with such a worldview necessarily comes a reliance on generalizations and a deliberate dismissal of nuance: for Islamists all non-Muslims are in a conspiracy against Muslims, and for the BNP all Muslims are in a conspiracy against the White-British. Bolstering this worldview, both Islamists and the BNP are constantly monitoring the press: highlighting prejudices, misinformation and ‘conspiracies’ against them.33 In addition, they both seek to boost support by manipulating fears and frustrations to promote their own ideas. The BNP’s tactical change to attack Muslims rather than Asians, Blacks or Jews relies on two main grievances that have grown in British society in recent years: a suspicion of Islam particularly following 7/7, and a resentment of immigrants that has grown since the recession. Conversely, Islamists have jumped on the resultant grievances that the BNP have encouraged: a clear growth in anti-Islamic attacks and support for White supremacy. Furthermore, just as various Islamist movements have been called ‘conveyor belts’ to terrorism, there is evidence supporting similar incidents within farright movements such as the BNP. Just as suicide bombers have been linked to HT, BNP membership cards have been found in the houses of violent Whitesupremacists.34 Moreover, Britain Awake, a blog run by a self-confessed BNP member, is ridden with violent rhetoric calling for a physical attack, for example, on a Muslim woman.35 Martyn Gilleard, a White-supremacist from East Yorkshire, was convicted in June 2008 for planning terror attacks against Muslims. A note found at his home said: "I am sick and tired of hearing nationalists talking of killing Muslims, blowing up mosques and fighting back only to see these acts of resistance fail. The time has come to stop the talking and start to act." Here we have a chilling resemblance to jihadis who, despite 32 The perfect example of this is the books that are available on Islam in the online BNP bookshop. They are overwhelmingly focused on the common theme of ‘us verses them’: the Crusades, the battle of Christianity verses Islam, the invasion of Muslim empires etc. See , [accessed 7 August 2009].

33 For an example of the BNP’s use of this see BNP, ‘Daily Mail turns itself into a laughing stock yet again!’, BNP Newsletter, 27 July 2009. For an Islamist example see HT’s section that is entirely devoted to denunciations of negative media reports called ‘News Watch’ available on .

34 A BNP membership card was found in the house of a White-supremacist in July 2009. Leppard, ‘Bomb seizures spark far-right terror plot fear’; for HT’s links to terrorism see Michael Whine, ‘Is Hizb ut-Tahrir changing strategy or tactics’, Center for Eurasian Policy Occasional Research Paper, Series 1 (Hizb ut-Tahrir), No. 1 (Washington DC: The Hudson Institute, 2006), pp.5-7. 35 See Standing, ‘The BNP and the online fascist network’, pp.33-35.

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In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda

sharing the same ideology as Islamists, get impatient and tactically believe that it is time to act through violence as is necessary. The particular concern regarding any extremist ideology is its capacity to motivate violence, particularly as its adherents become increasingly angry and/or frustrated. This is not to say that the movements in themselves are violent or directly espouse violence, but rather their divisive ideology provides the ideational springboard for acts of physical aggression. Violent attacks by White-supremacists have increased since the European elections—since the public profile of the BNP has been raised— resulting in campaigns and death-threats against their opponents.36 The similarities to the growth in violent Islamist extremism are obvious. It is not being argued here that Islamists and the BNP are two sides of the same coin. Sadiq Khan, Labour MP for Tooting, has referred to Islamist extremists as ‘the mirror of the BNP’,37 which, though understandable, is inaccurate. Although they clearly share common methodological preferences, their historical and ideological variances are so different as to make them incomparable. Members of the BNP, for example, do not adopt their political beliefs with a view to entering paradise. The brutal fact is instead, given the method of ‘grievances’ that both ends adopt, that the popularity of one relies heavily on the successful survival of the other. And this, it seems, is something the BNP are only too aware of. Sharing a platform with Abu Hamza in 2002, Griffin exclaimed, “Demonizing individuals such as myself and the sheikh [Abu Hamza]... doesn’t just create hate against us, it creates hate amongst particularly the young men who follow us... and it tends to create hate amongst lots of working class whites ‘well all Muslims are really like the demonized Abu Hamza’... The more you demonize us, the more you create tensions which you don’t want”.38

36 Matthew Taylor, ‘Far right launch campaign of violence and intimidation against opponents’, The Guardian, , [accessed 3 August 2009].

37 Eleanor Harding, ‘BNP mirror’ Islamic extremists spotted in Tooting’, Your Local Guardian, 22 July 2009, , [accessed 3 August 2009]. 38 Griffin, ‘Nick Griffin Abu Hamza’, Part 1, (8:00).

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In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda

This is utterly disingenuous given the BNP’s systematic demonizing campaign that deliberately creates, manipulates and fuels the tensions which we apparently ‘don’t want’. Moreover, Griffin’s use of language here is telling. He speaks of Abu Hamza, an extreme Islamist, in deferential terms, referring to an uneducated ex-nightclub bouncer as ‘the sheikh’ (he is not), thus elevating his status and legitimizing extremists to talk for ‘Islam’.

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In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda

Part 2 The BNP’s Allegations The BNP’s basic argument is this: Muslims will Islamize Europe, and will then install an Islamic state which will be run under a literalist interpretation of shari`ah. The initial accusations (2.1-2.2) address the apparent process of Islamization—the takeover of Britain by Muslims. The majority of accusations (2.3-2.9) are what will happen under the resultant Islamic state. The final accusation (2.10) is what the BNP believe is already happening in European societies because of a Muslim presence. 2.1 The “Islamification” of Europe “Britain is being relentlessly pushed towards the acceptance of Islam as a dominant force...”39 “Europe is going to become Islamic, virtually without a fight”.40 “[We ask to what extent] there is a concerted effort— a jihad— by Islamic fifth columnists to change the nature of British society and Western democratic values to conform to Islam”.41 The BNP’s principal opposition to Islam, given the vehement anti-immigration stance of the party as a whole, is that it is obliterating the ‘indigenous’ culture of the UK (the White- English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish) and replacing it with something that is foreign— a ‘barbaric desert religion’.42 The slogan the BNP uses is ‘the Islamification of Europe’. Such an accusation particularly plays on the concerns in local level areas where there is a relative majority of Muslims, for example in Leicester. This theme— an impending Islamic takeover of European indigenous culture— therefore serves as an undercurrent to, and a justification for, all other accusations. Griffin has made the claim that before 7/7, the British Government were estimating that the Muslim population in 39 BNP, Video: Islamification of Britain, (1:12).

40 Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 1, (6:15). 41 BNP, Video: Islamification of Britain, (3:00).

42 BNP, ‘Nationalism and Islam’, 28 July 2006, , [accessed 16 July 2009].

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In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda

the UK was as high as four million, but that straight after the bombings they reduced this to around 1.6 million.43 This seems highly unlikely given that the last official estimate in the 2001 Census was 1.6 million and, although the latest Whitehall estimate in April 2008 was two million,44 this is still a far cry from four million in 2005. Constituting just 3.3% of the UK’s population, despite the higher birth rate among Muslims, it seems incredibly unlikely that the UK is going to witness an ‘Islamic’ takeover. Nor does the situation change across the Channel. France’s Muslim population, which is by far the largest in Europe, is estimated at between five and six million (8-9.6%);45 Germany, the second largest, is estimated at only three million (3.6%). The BNP are not alone in such allegations. Elements of the right have been compounding such ideas of ‘Eurabia’ and condemning European tolerance that has enabled mass immigration without serious challenge.46 However, it is the far-right who is guilty of manipulating the figures and adopting scaremongering tactics for political gain. For example a YouTube video, Muslim Demographics, is a sensationalist account of the impending Islamization of Europe that has since been ‘debunked’ by the BBC for using false statistics and manipulating its sources.47 Other sources have started responding to such accusations.48 According to one political analyst, the hype surrounding this demographic time bomb is all ‘speculation based on speculation’; population projections are an inherently inexact science. Furthermore, ‘For the number of Muslims to outnumber non-Muslims by mid-century, it would require either 43 Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 2, (02:20).

44 Alan Travis, ‘Officials think UK’s Muslim population has risen to 2m’, The Guardian, 8 April 2008, , [accessed 16 July 2009].

45 Given a law dating back to 1872, France does not categorize their census according to religion and consequently figures are hard to determine. BBC, ‘Muslims in Europe, Country Guide’, BBC News, 23 December 2005, , [accessed 16 July 2009].

46 The most academically sound account is Christopher Caldwell, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West (London: Penguin, 2009). However, others have also alluded to this including Niall Ferguson, Bernard Lewis and Melanie Phillips.

47 For the video see ‘Muslim Demographics’, YouTube, , [accessed 16 July]. For the BBC’s rebuttal see Richard Knight, ‘Debunking a YouTube hit’, BBC News Magazine, 7 August 2009, , [accessed 11 August 2009].

48 Jason Burke, ‘Fears of an Islamic revolt in Europe begin to fade’, The Observer, 26 July 2009, , [accessed 29 July 2009]; William Underhill, ‘Why fears of a Muslim takeover are all wrong’, Newsweek, 11 July 2009, , [accessed 21 July 2009].

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breeding on a scale rarely seen in history or for immigration to continue at a pace that's now politically unacceptable’.49 An ‘Islamic’ takeover also assumes a united Islamic front which, given the diversity of Muslim communities and interpretations is not just unlikely, the in-fighting makes it impossible. Even, hypothetically, if Muslim European citizens did become a majority, if they interact in public life as secular democrats, the values of society will not be replaced. This fear assumes that Muslims are incapable of interacting in public life as secular democrats— something only Islamists argue. No doubt, then, that the Muslim population will continue to steadily rise, but this is hardly the impending obliteration of European indigenous culture by a host of Islamic invaders. Moreover, Muslims have been a part of the original fabric of Europe for many centuries. In Eastern Europe, particularly, places like Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and Albania have seen significant Muslim communities living there since the Ottoman expansion into the Balkans in the fourteenth century. Small Muslim communities in Serbia and Macedonia have also established themselves since then. In Western Europe, the Umayyad’s conquered what was then Hispania (now modern day Spain and Portugal) in the early eighth century. Muslims first settled in Germany and Britain in the eighteenth century through economic and diplomatic migration. Britain’s first communities settled as sailors who were recruited to work for the East India Company. The next wave came in the nineteenth century given the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. Muslim communities have therefore been resident in Europe as far back as the eighth century. Whether or not these original Muslims arrived through trade, invasion or on the back of imperialism (particularly the case of Britain), Islam has been a component of European and British culture for centuries. Indeed, a 2009 Gallup poll found that 77% of British Muslims felt that they identified ‘very strongly’ or ‘extremely strongly’ with their country; higher, in fact, than the British public as a whole at 50%.50

49 Underhill, ‘Why fears of a Muslim takeover are all wrong’.

50 Gallup & The Coexist Foundation (2009), ‘The Gallup Coexist Index 2009: A Global Study of Interfaith Relations’, Muslim West Facts Project: What the People Really Think (Gallup Press: Washington), p.19.

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2.2 A religion of immigration “People who emigrate in order to spread the cause of Islam and Allah are particularly blessed. This religion has, right at its heart, a divinely ordained push to emigrate to other people’s countries in order to convert them to Islam”.51 “It’s a religion at one level. It’s a very efficient imperialistic machine for taking over other people’s countries and territories on the other. So it just does what it always has done... A conscious and deliberate plan...”52 ‘the Crescent Horde – the endless wave of Islamics who are flocking to our shores to bring our island nation into the embrace of their barbaric desert religion’. 53 According to the BNP, the looming ‘Islamification of Europe’ owes a great deal to the inherent nature of Islam as a religion— one that encourages emigration with the intention of mass conversion. Griffin bases this argument on the migrations of the Prophet referred to by Muslims as hijrah (‘migration’). (Griffin, as far as can be found, is unaware of the term itself despite adopting the argument.) In the Qur’an it is mentioned in the form of haajaru meaning ‘those who immigrated’ in nine separate verses. In all nine verses immigration is mentioned in the context of struggling to maintain your faith and fleeing from harm that might be inflicted upon you because of your beliefs. Therefore, the Islamic concept of hijrah, derived from the Qur’an, has no connection with any form of systematic conversion. The first migration in Islam took place when the Prophet ordered a group of his followers to leave Mecca and migrate to Abyssinia, due to the persecution they were facing. The Prophet himself did not migrate until there was a real threat to the lives of all Muslims in Mecca, after which he was the last to leave Mecca for Medina. Moreover, when the early Arab Muslims conquered what is now Syria, the Umayyads did not proselytise or accept new Muslims. They much preferred the economic advantages of the medieval jizyah (see 2.8) from a Christian population, than

51 Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 1, (7:10). 52 Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 2, (5:05). 53 BNP, ‘Nationalism and Islam’.

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propagating or enforcing Islam as a religion. And these are the first generation of believers, whom many Muslims try to emulate. Furthermore, mainstream Muslims do not advocate forced conversion. The Qur’an in fact states that ‘There is no compulsion in religion’.54 Such sentiments are repeated: ‘But if they turn back, then on you devolves only the clear deliverance (of the message)’.55 The BNP go further than accusations of rigorous proselytising— they repeatedly label Islam as ‘a very efficient imperialistic machine’. Certainly, Islam had spread as far as Spain within a century of the death of the Prophet by a mixture of preaching and ‘the sword’. However, ‘imperialistic’ cannot be so whimsically ascribed. As well as through invasion, Islam was also spread as a natural result of expanding trade routes. The largest Muslim-majority country today, Indonesia, converted on the basis of trade links with Yemeni traders— not forced conversions. Other historical examples also render such a label extravagant. The Mughals, for example, were a Muslim dynasty that ruled the princely states of India for over three hundred years. If, as the BNP claim, Islam is inherently imperialistic, the question remains as to why they didn’t actively convert all of the Hindus under their dominion to Islam. One can also ask why a systematic policy of forced conversions did not take place under the Moors in Spain. Those religiously justified conquests of the medieval period that did take place need to be contextualised to all religions, not just attributed to Islam. This was the politics of many religions in the medieval period; the politics of today is different. 2.3 Incompatible with secular democracy “[the] basic principles of Islam... are incompatible with Western secular democracy”. 56 “It [democracy] is most definitely not a fundamental of Islam... If you have a democracy, the people make the rules. Under Islam, Allah and the Qur’an are the rules”.57 54 The Qur’an, trans. by M. H. Shakir (Qum; Iran: Ansarian Publications, 1993), 2:256. 55 The Qur’an, trans. by Shakir, 16:82.

56 BNP, Video: Islamization of Britain, (1:22).

57 Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 1, (2:25).

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“As far as any good Muslim is concerned the only law you need is contained in the Qur’an”.58 The BNP base this accusation on the notion that Muslims believe that only God can be sovereign, hence rendering the power of the people redundant. The political sovereignty of God is an Islamist, not a strictly Islamic notion. The BNP have therefore taken a specific ideology (an Islamist ideology authored specifically by Egyptian and Pakistani political writers under Soviet influences) and applied it to the religion as a whole. To begin with, there is no mention of statehood in the Qur’an. The contemporary understanding of statehood (as a sovereign, authoritative system) was, in fact, only first put forward in the fifteenth century and is therefore a modern concept. So there is no legal precedent in the Qur’an that Muslims must establish a ‘sovereign’ state. Although all Muslims believe that they should abide by various readings of shari`ah, it is a (very vocal) minority for whom shari`ah must become state law. Historically, under traditional Muslim Caliphates, shari`ah was not adopted as ‘official’ law and was always left to people to follow. In fact, the Ottomans had a legally pluralistic system (the Millet system). ‘An Islamic Europe’ declared Griffin ‘would be a Europe ruled— as are all full Islamic states— by the Qur’an, shari`ah law’.59 This is a gross manipulation of Islam based on the premise of a minority of Muslims who have adopted their faith as the basis for a political ideology, and plays entirely into the hands of al-Qaeda and its affiliated groups. Instead, mainstream interpretations of Islam believe that Muslims can live anywhere where they are given the human right to fully practise their religion; a right that is protected by provisions under democratic regimes. Khaled Abou El Fadl, one of the world’s leading Muslim scholars, says Muslims believe that ‘not only are Islam and democracy and human rights reconcilable, but that Islam mandates and demands a democratic system of government’ (emphasis author’s own).60 Arab and Persian Muslim scholars were particularly influential in the development of medieval science and philosophy (see 2.9) some of which, it can be argued, helped to lay the groundwork for the European 58 Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 1, (1:40).

59 Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 1, (1:35).

60 Khaled Abou El Fadl, The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists (New York: Harper Collins, 2007), p. 183.

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Enlightenment— a period in which key ideas such as freedom, democracy and reason originated. Al-Farabi, for example, was a Muslim scholar at the turn of the first millennium who is accredited as one of the rationalists inspired by Aristotle; one of the greatest Muslim scholars of all time believed that a working democracy was the ideal state. Before the emergence of modern Islamism, historically Muslim scholars never believed that ‘Allah and the Qur’an are the rules’. For example, Imam Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1350) said that whoever cited any ruling was ‘God’s rule’ was from outside the fold of Islam.61 The claim for ‘God’s rule’ was a Kharijite seditious call from hypocrites in early Islam, and 1,400 years of Islamic history has illustrated that the Khajarites have been rejected. Historical and present-day examples support the fact that Islam is not inherently anti-democratic. The Tanzimat Reforms set in motion under the Ottoman Empire, for example, attempted to reorganize the civil, criminal and financial legal systems according to the French model. Today, elections take place in Muslim-majority countries around the world: Bangladesh, Indonesia, Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey to name a few. Although some can barely be deemed democracies by contemporary standards— for example, the controversy surrounding Iran’s recent elections— others have been notably successful. Indonesia, for example, the country with the largest Muslim population in the world has, over the past decade, seen the increasing rise of secular Muslim parties at the expense of the Islamists.62 A contemporary thinker and one of the Arab world’s best-selling author, Alaa al-Aswany, succinctly summarizes the issue: ‘the retrograde Wahhabi reading of Islam that is now widespread helps to entrench an unfair and mistaken image. It is our [Muslims’] duty to start with ourselves. We must save Islam from all the nonsense, falsehoods and retrograde ideas that have attached themselves to it. Democracy is the solution’.63

61 The Independent, ‘Ed Husain: You ask the questions’, The Independent, 14 April 2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/ed-husain-you-ask-the-questions-808652.html, [accessed 11 August 2009]. 62

Williamson, ‘Democrats win Indonesia election’, BBC News, 9 May 2009, , [accessed 20 July 2009].

63 Alaa al-Aswany, ‘Western hostility to Islam is stoked by double standards and distortion’, The Guardian Comment is Free, 20 July 2009, , [accessed 21 July 2009].

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2.4 Terrorism [one] characteristic of immigrant Muslim populations in all nations has been their widespread support for terrorism.64 Here is another flagrant example of the BNP’s appropriation of Islamist extremists— in fact, specifically jihadis (those who use violence in the name of Islam for political ends)— as representative of Muslims as a whole. In one particularly snide piece of reporting on an Islamist terror cell, the BNP concludes sarcastically that ‘there appear to be an unusually large number of people from this community [Muslims] who are unrepresentative of that community [terrorists]’.65 This is a considerable accusation, for which they fail to provide statistics. Having sourced the survey on which they base this assertion, their claim of ‘widespread support’ seems to be a little less astounding than the phrase might suggest. The 2006 survey by NOP, ‘Attitudes to Living in Britain: A Survey of Muslim Opinion’, which they cited, characterised only 9% of their respondents as ‘hardcore Islamists’— i.e. those who support terrorism. In fact, 85% of respondents believed that it was unacceptable for religious or political groups to use violence (6% were unsure). The BNP are therefore basing this bold accusation of ‘widespread support’ on a 9% figure.66 It certainly seems more than a little misguided given the report’s executive summary, which concluded from the statistical data that ‘while a small minority of Muslims sympathise with extremism and Islamist terror, the vast majority do not’.67 Finally, some statistics appear to be just wrongly cited: they claim that 75% said that Britain was not their country, when the actual survey says that 61% in fact do. It is little wonder, then, that their statistics were referred to vaguely as ‘NOP Research in 2006’. The reality is that the vast majority of Muslims condemn terrorism in no uncertain terms. Hamza Yusuf, an American Muslim who is one of the West’s 64 BNP, ‘Updated with Video: Islam is a cancer eating away at our freedoms, says Nick Griffin’, BNP News, 10 July 2009.

65 BNP, ‘”Not representative of the community”: Islamist terror cell used British charity money and dole payments to supply Taliban’, 11 March 2009, , [accessed 10 August 2009].

66 NOP (2006), ‘Attitudes to Living in Britain: A Survey of Muslim Opinion’, p.35.

67 Anthony Wells, ‘NOP of British Muslims’, 8 August 2006, , [accessed 22 July 2009].

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most influential Muslim scholars, regularly denounces terrorism in the name of Islam. “We must in one voice condemn and completely reject the concept of indiscriminate killing in this religion”, Yusuf declared in 2004. “It is neither from the religion, nor is it sanctioned by the religion in any reading of our premodern tradition. It is a modern phenomenon”.68 Moreover, ‘Islam was hijacked on that [sic] September 11 2001, on that plane as an innocent victim’,69 Yusuf notoriously declared. Other polls can be used to support the views of individuals such as Yusuf. Most recently, the 2009 Gallup poll found that only 6% of British Muslims believed that the use of violence for a noble cause was completely justifiable and only 0.5% that attacks on civilian targets were completely justifiable.70 Nor have these numbers recently increased. "The numbers have been pretty steady over a number of years," said one of the authors of the Gallup poll. "It is important to separate the mainstream views from the actions of the fringe groups, who often receive disproportionate attention".71 The BNP’s claims are therefore greatly— and dangerously— exaggerated. And it’s not just that Muslims say they don’t support terrorism, there is proof in their actions. The convicted terrorist Andrew Ibrahim, for example, was identified and handed over to the police by Muslims at a mosque in Bristol.72 Another example, in May 2009, was where Muslims in Luton organized demonstrations against the members of al-Muhajiroun (an extremist group who had caused outrage at the Royal Anglican Regiment’s homecoming). Qadeer Baksh, the organizer of the demonstration declared that ‘a small minority are giving us a bad name and allowing the British National Party to capitalise’.73 He is entirely correct— extremist Muslims are exactly what the BNP are feeding off— and the UK needs more mainstream Muslims to condemn the BNP and counter the extremists in both speech and actions.

68 Hamza Yusuf, A Message to Humanity (Alhambra Productions, 2004).

69 Scott Kugle, Rebel Between Spirit and Law. Ahmad Zarruq, Sainthood and Authority in Islam, (US: Indiana University press, 2006), p.19.

70 Gallup (2009), ‘The Gallup Coexist Index 2009’, pp. 39-40.

71 Magali Rheault, quoted in Burke, ‘Fears of an Islamic revolt in Europe begin to fade’.

72 BBC, ‘Teenager facing terrorism charges’, BBC News, 29 April 2008, , [accessed 4 August 2009].

73 The Times, ‘Moderate Muslims ‘drive extremists off Luton streets’, The Times, 30 May 2009, , [accessed 22 July 2009].

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2.5 No freedom of speech “Freedom of speech is haram [‘forbidden’]. It is all there in the Qur’an. You don’t need to think for yourself. Follow the Qur’an; follow the Hadiths... that’s all you need”.74 Within every society there are ‘taboo’ subjects that face limitations on their expression in a public arena. Most interpretations of Islam, however, do not simply forbid freedom of speech. To say that everything Muslims need is in the Qur’an and requires no freedom of thought or discussion is a falsehood, as centuries of diverse Islamic theological debates, literature, and wealth of hadiths (oral traditions relating to the words and deeds of the Prophet) attest to. Mohammed Hashim Kamali, an Afghani Muslim scholar, has written extensively on the subject concluding that ‘without freedom of speech it would be inconceivable to command good or forbid evil’.75 That said, freedom of speech is usually subjected to restrictions depending on interpretation. Many Muslim scholars apply the principle that one’s freedoms end when they encroach on another’s. Under such an interpretation, believers are not allowed to insult others’ prophets, holy books or other aspects of religion. The Qur’an declares: ‘And do not abuse those whom they call upon besides Allah, lest exceeding the limits they should abuse Allah out of ignorance.76 Kamali defines the restricted subjects as ‘slanderous accusation[s]’, ‘blasphemy, sedition and insult’.77 That said, religious permissions and restrictions have nothing to do with how society is organized politically, and whether free speech is granted or not. Religious injunctions that command Muslims as to what they can and cannot say are not the same as the political idea of a legally protected right to freedom of speech. Blasphemy, for example, is haram (forbidden), but nowhere are Muslims commanded to make it illegal (via criminal punishment). Hence, again, the BNP’s argument makes the common Islamist (not Islamic) assumption that a religious prohibition automatically equates to a political proscription. Haram is a religious value; freedom of speech is a political value. Muslims are free to choose freely whether or not they wish to do what is haram (blaspheme) and it is God who will hold them to account, not the law. 74 Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 1, (1:35).

75 Mohammed Hashim Kamali, Freedom of Expression in Islam (Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1997), p.28.

76 The Qur’an, Shakir 6: 108

77 Kamali, Freedom of Expression, p.117.

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As it is religiously haram to insult religion for Muslims, at times they can react violently to it, at odds with Western secular attitudes. Significant examples include the murder of film director Theo Van Gogh, the banning of The Jewel of Medina, the Danish Cartoons controversy and, ultimately, the Rushdie Affair. As with anything, though, responses naturally differ according to the individual. Zaki Badawi, for example, who was a leading voice for Muslims in Britain, defended freedom of speech by declaring that as much as he disliked The Satanic Verses, he would give sanctuary to Salman Rushdie were he to knock on his door.78 Suppressive responses will occur, but are made on an individual and/or extremist group basis, rather than because they reflect the ‘official’ Islamic response. Verse after verse of the Qur’an calls on individuals to think, reflect, and consider the meaning and purpose of human existence: ‘Do they not reflect in their own minds? Not but for just ends and for a term appointed, did Allah create the heavens and the earth, and all between them’.79 To claim that the Qur’an is not given to intellectual reflection is to deny the encouragement of the Qur’an to early Muslim scientists who acted on these instructions and advanced in science, medicine and philosophical thought (see 2.9). Extremists cannot be allowed to manipulate these issues. Whilst Islamists are manufacturing the fervour around ‘offensive’ depictions of Islam, far-right extremists like the BNP are taking advantage of the tensions. In 2006, for example, they were accused of increasing tensions with the launch of a leaflet campaign that included controversial depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.80 Hence, although Islamic attitudes towards freedom of speech raise issues of how compatible Muslim cultural sensitivities are with Western principles, it does not justify the BNP’s accusation that Muslims are forbidden from free speech. The question should be why today’s Muslims are not responding more fervently to the Qur’anic injunction of thought and contemplation, rather than having to pacify accusations that freedom of speech in its entirety is haram for all Muslims. 78 ‘Obituaries: Zaki Bawdawi’, The Times, 25 January 2006, , [accessed 23 July 2009].

79 The Holy Qur’an, trans. by Abdullah Yusuf Ali (Birmingham: Islamic Propagation Centre International, 1990), 30:8.

80 Matthew Taylor, ‘BNP accused of exploiting cartoons row with Muslim leaflet’, The Guardian, 5 October 2006, , [23 July 2009].

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2.6 The second-class status of women “by our standards of complete equality with women, [Islam is] a religion which treats women as second class citizens automatically”.81 In one particularly scathing attack, Griffin condemns Islam’s treatment of women by utilizing the examples of testimony and inheritance. In both instances he resorts to highly conservative Islamic interpretations of women’s rights along the lines of notoriously Wahhabi ideals. For the issue of inheritance, such conservative interpretations would take quite literally the Qur’anic injunctions that give a man twice the amount of a woman’s inheritance. This was made on the basis that a woman’s wealth was hers alone, whereas the responsibility of maintenance, housing and other financial responsibilities was placed upon the man, and he was therefore compensated for his expected expenditure. For the testimony of women, such conservative interpretations would take the following Qur’anic verses quite literally: ‘and call in to witness from among your men two witnesses; but if there are not two men, then one man and two women from among those whom you choose to be witnesses, so that if one of the two errs, the second of the two may remind the other’.82 Fatima Mernissi, a Moroccan Muslim feminist, wrote ‘If women’s rights are a problem for some modern Muslim men, it is neither because of the Koran [Qur’an] nor the Prophet, nor the Islamic tradition, but simply because those rights conflict with the interests of the male elite’.83 Literalistic interpretations of the above verses are regarded as outdated by many Muslims. As El Fadl argues, rulings were written for a particular time and place: ‘At the time these rulings were revealed, they were sought to achieve particular moral objectives such as justice, equity, equality, mercy, compassion, benevolence, and so on. Therefore, it is imperative that Muslims study the moral objectives of the Qur’an and treat the specific rulings as demonstrative examples of how Muslims should attempt to realize and achieve the Qur’anic morality in their

81 Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 1, (3:15). 82 The Qur’an, trans. by Shakir, 2:282.

83 Fatima Mernissi, Women and Islam: an historical and theological enquiry, trans. by Mary Jo Lak (New Delhi: Women Unlimited, 2004), p.ix.

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lives’.84 One must bear in mind, for example, that in seventh century Arabia women had to bear the burden of domestic work and often worked between 12 and 16 hours a day, so it was perhaps feared that they may forget certain details when giving testimony. At the time, the Prophet was progressive in his attitude to women. When women were regarded as little more than possessions like cattle or camels, the Prophet provided women with status and rights before the law. Even Griffin acknowledges this: “at least Muhammad in the Qur’an gave a degree of codification and a degree of protection [to women]”.85 Unfortunately, under many regimes— notably in the Arab world and particularly under the influence of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia— women are still being treated as they were in the seventh century rather than by modern day standards of equality. British Muslims, however, are not responsible for Saudi practices. British Muslim women play an important role in the civic, political and economic life of the UK (although there is still unquestionably some way to go). Modern Muslims need to subvert this stereotype, move in the spirit of the Prophet and award today’s Muslim women full status in inheritance, divorce and marital matters. After all, if Christians were to abide literally by the rulings of St Paul on women, as found in the New Testament, Christianity would also face allegations of inequality and sexism as well. Mernissi writes, ‘That his [the Prophet’s] egalitarian message today sounds so foreign to many in our Muslim societies that they claim it to be imported is indeed one of the great enigmas of our times. It is our duty as good Muslims to refresh their memories’. 86 2.7 Crime and Punishment “The idea that a young child should have their hand cut off for stealing because when starving they stole a loaf of bread, as happens in Islamic countries, is to us absolutely barbaric. But it’s what you get”.87

84 El Fadl, The Great Theft, p. 156.

85 Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 1, (3:00). 86 Mernissi, Women and Islam, p.ix.

87 Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 1, (4:30).

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The BNP are here referring to the hudud— punishments that have been prescribed according to the type of crime committed. Unfortunately, they have been given prominence in recent times given their application in countries like Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Sudan. However, these are either Islamist or Wahhabi states that attempt to implement a literalistic interpretation of the Qur’an and so, once again, the BNP have portrayed extremist notions as ‘the’ interpretation of Islam. The last caliphate (the Ottomans) explicitly repealed the hudud as a legal and theological reform in the nineteenth century, doing so with the full co-operation of the Mufti of the Ottoman state. Yayha Birt, a British Muslim convert, explains the general suspicion of Western societies towards shari`ah and clarifies the position on hudud. ‘The main reason for the adverse and fearful reaction’, Birt writes, ‘is that Shari’ah is popularly used as a synonym for penal law with its fixed penalties that can involve capital punishment. However, there is no Muslim representative body advocating Islamic penal law in Britain’.88 Rather than being ‘what you get’, the hudud have in fact been rarely practised as they literally appear in the Qur’an, given that it is an archaic system out of line with current scholarly theological interpretations and modern day principles of human rights. Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia— and many more besides— are Muslim-majority countries that do not abide by such a penal code. Nor were they always practised under past Muslim regimes, for example, they were rarely enforced under the Ottoman Empire. In fact there is an Arabic concept— maslahah— which states that laws are allowed to be withdrawn at any time if they are not in the public interest. Abdal-Hakim Murad, a British Muslim scholar and lecturer (also known as T J Winter), refers to the hudud as ‘parameters’ rather than ‘a complete blueprint’.89 For the vast majority of Muslims the hudud, like the traditional Christian practice of stoning adulterers, are archaic and un-Islamic forms of modern justice that should not be applied in their society. As Murad writes, ‘our din [religion] is not, ultimately, a manual of rules which, when meticulously followed, becomes a passport to

88 Yahya Birt, ‘The Trouble with Shari’ah’, , [accessed 10 August 2009].

89 Abdal-Hakim Murad, ‘British and Muslim?’, September 1997, , [accessed 5 August 2009].

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paradise. Instead, it is a package of social, intellectual and spiritual technology whose purpose is to cleanse the human heart’.90 2.8 Persecution of non-Muslims “[Under an Islamic state] there would be no freedom of worship or freedom of unbelief”.91 “In a traditional Islamic society, everyone who is not a Muslim is compelled to second class status... they must get out of the road when Muslims come...” 92 “It’s [dhimmi status] a form of perpetual religious and cultural apartheid whereby the non-Muslim population is ground down”.93 Here the BNP are again endorsing extremist Wahhabi notions of intolerance and inequality as representative of Islam in its entirety. The Prophet gave nonMuslims entitlement to protection by law, referred to as dhimmi status, given that they paid a tax called the jizya. The Charter of Privileges, one of many examples, was granted to the monks of St Catherine’s Monastery by the Prophet in 628 CE. It protected the Christians, and prevented discrimination on the basis of their religion. It defended their jobs, their churches, and their right to remain and not to fight in wars for the Muslims, as well as offering military protection on their behalf. It also explicitly stated that were a Christian woman to marry a Muslim man, she may still visit her church to pray.94 Examples can also be found of the protection of non-Muslim’s rights in Islamic history. The Ottomans, for example, created the Millet System that allowed each faith community access to its own courts and judges. Their Tanzimat Reforms rendered members of all faiths and no faith equal in the eyes of Ottoman law.95 And both the Ottomans and Mughals commissioned the 90 Abdal-Hakim Murad, ‘Islamic Spirituality: The forgotten revolution: The poverty of fanaticism’, , [accessed 5 August 2009]. 91 Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 1, (2:45).

92 Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 1, (5:15).

93 Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 1, (5:30).

94 A. Zahoor & Z. Haq, 'Muslim History: 570 – 1950 C.E.' (Gaithersburg, MD: ZMD Corporation, 2000), p.167.

95 Ernest Edmondson Jr. Ramsaur, The Young Turks. Prelude to the Revolution of 1908, 2nd ed. (İstanbul: 1982), pp. 40–1.

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building of churches, synagogues and temples. At a time when European states were persecuting their religious minorities and burning dissidents at the stake, many Muslim civilisations were welcoming the persecuted and offering them protection under their law. That is not to say that the concept of jizyah should be revived. As El Fadl argued previously, the historical context of given verses must be considered. The idea of jizyah, therefore, needs to be firmly contextualised to the medieval period when countries generally organized themselves along the lines of religion— the wars of Catholicism and the reformation in Europe, for example. As politics is no longer based on religion, but citizenship, the ultimate Islamic aim of freedom of religion has been attained and so it is no longer needed to ‘protect’ minority status with the jizyah. The majority of Muslims would recognise this. For contemporary Muslims the challenge is to get beyond the comfort of Muslim history and adapt to the modern world, where citizens have full rights and equal status before the law, regardless of religion, race, gender, culture, or sexuality. Kamali, for example, confirms that ‘All are equal in the eyes of God regardless of race, colour and religion. No man has a claim to superiority over another, and there is no recognition in Islam of a class or caste system, a superior race, a chosen people or any related concept’.96 As the Prophet was a leading reformist of human rights in his day, so must today’s Muslims take a leading role and emulate this. The BNP’s adoption of such narrow-minded repression is illustrative, once again, of their promotion of Islamist ideology: a highly polarized worldview, misrepresentative of the majority of Muslims. 2.9 No belief in scientific enquiry “[Under an Islamic state] there would be no scientific enquiry”.97 This accusation is baseless. No mainstream Muslim, Islamist or Wahhabi rejects scientific advancement. The Westaphobic nature of Wahhabism may prevent adherents from studying the social sciences, but they believe in the exploitation of scientific advancements in order to empower them towards their utopian vision of a return to the ‘golden age’ of Islam; what El Fadl refers to as ‘the 96 Mohammed Hashim Kamali, The Dignity of Man: An Islamic perspective (Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 2002), p.45. 97 Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 1, (2:40).

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selective logic of the puritans’.98 Muslims have embraced scientific enquiry throughout their history. Medieval Arab and Persian Muslim scholars, between the eighth and sixteenth centuries, helped to lay the basis for modern science, some would argue inspired by the intellectual reflection and reasoning of the Qur’an (see 2.5). At the very least, it is popularly held that the Qur’an encourages the acquisition of scientific knowledge because it helps Muslims understand Allah’s creation: ‘Most surely in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the night and the day there are signs for men who understand’.99 Muslim scholars from Avveroes (Ibn Rushd) to Avvicena (Ibn Sina), from India to Baghdad and Persia to Spain, contributed towards scientific discoveries. Admittedly, compared to these medieval scholars, some present day Muslims particularly in the Arab world have an insufficient understanding of modern science. However, that is not to say that Islam has ‘no belief in scientific enquiry’, rather that Muslims need to reignite their interests in science. New voices, such as Sheikh Usama Hassan who commended Darwin’s Theory of Evolution as not inconsistent with creationism, need to be amplified.100 Citing a Prophetic tradition, El Fadl writes ‘wisdom and knowledge have no nationality and therefore... Muslims are free to learn as long as they use this knowledge to serve God and pursue Godliness on this earth’.101 2.10 Muslims cause social problems: rape and drug cases ‘[one] characteristic of Islamic immigrant populations is large scale social unrest’.102 “You cannot possibly separate out the hard drugs trade from the question of Islam, and particularly Pakistani immigration. That is where

98 El Fadl, The Great Theft, p. 172.

99 The Qur’an, trans. by Shakir, 3:190.

100 For example Usama Hassan, ‘Knowledge Regained’, The Guardian: Comment is Free, 11 September 2008, , [accessed 20 July 2009]. 101 El Fadl, The Great Theft, p. 175.

102 BNP, ‘Updated with Video: Islam is a cancer’.

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In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda

it’s coming from...”103 “Wherever there are large numbers of young Muslim men, groups of them team up to lure girls— often as young as twelve or thirteen— into a nightmare world of sexual abuse, rape, beatings, drug addiction and prostitution”.104 “Gang rape is a phenomenon that comes from the Muslim community.”105 ‘the practice of “grooming”— where young White females are lured in sex abuse traps by Muslim males’.106 ‘The Islamification of the West had partly been done by rape’.107 “Intimidation happens at every level. You find it anywhere— literally anywhere— in Europe where there is a significant Islamic population. You find young school children of any other community picked on, bullied, spat upon, beaten, at school. And you find it at the higher levels”.108

103 Nick Griffin, Newsnight, 2009, (1:30), , [accessed 15 July 2009]. 104 Nick Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 2, (0:05).

105 Nick Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 2, (0:40).

106 ‘Updated with Video: Islam is a cancer eating away at our freedoms, says Nick Griffin’, BNP News, 10 July 2009. 107 Nick Griffin, cited in BBC News, ‘BNP Leader Repeats Islam Attack’, BBC, 16 July 2004, , [accessed 14 July 2009].

108 Nick Griffin, The Islamization of Europe, Part 3, (5:30).

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In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda

BNP leaflet, August 2008, Lancashire109 The BNP have initiated various campaigns that seek to demonize Muslim communities in their entirety for various social ills and crimes that exist in Britain. The first of these is a campaign that took place recently in the north of England, in which they charged Muslim communities with ‘grooming’: where young Muslim men lure White girls into a world of rape, drugs and prostitution. This takes place, apparently, ‘wherever there are large numbers of young Muslim men’. The second of these was a campaign that blamed British Muslims— and Pakistanis in particular— for the hard drugs trade that exists in Britain. A BNP member was in fact charged in August 2009 for incitement to commit religious hatred by distributing the said leaflets.110 Other more general accusations were also fired against Muslims. In one leaflet entitled ‘Racism Cuts Both Ways’ that was put through letterboxes of the general public, Muslims were referred to as ‘Muslim thugs’, ‘Muslim sex gangs’ and ‘Muslim paedophile gangs’, alongside provocative images of women in burqas, radical Islamist campaigners, and abused and murdered members of the White-British public.111

109 Available off http://www.islamophobia-watch.com/islamophobia-watch/2008/8/30/fascists-blame-muslims-forheroin-trade.html [accessed 23 July 2009].

110 North West Evening Mail, ‘Man charged over anti-Muslim leaflets’, North West Evening Mail, 12 August 2009, , [accessed 13 August 2009]. 111 BNP, ‘Racism Cuts Both Ways: The Scandal of Our Age’.

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In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda

These accusations have been included because of the hyperbolic nature of their content, rather than to defend the fact that Islam does not tolerate such actions. Needless to say, alongside a large proportion of civil society in the UK, as well as other religions, Muslims regard both drugs and rape as haram. Criminals in Britain act as individuals, on the basis of their own sinister motivations, not because they belong to a particular group or religion. A senior BNP official had to be sacked in April 2008 because he declared that rape was a myth, saying ‘Rape is simply sex. Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal’.112 Given this episode, you may expect the party to understand that those with abhorrent views do not necessarily represent party ideology, as a Muslim criminal does not represent Islam. No doubt a Muslim who committed a crime would be deemed as un-Islamic as this BNP official was sacked. The drugs trade and rape need to be tackled but they do not require wild accusations against Muslim communities that create fear in the public at large and absolve all other social groups from blame.

112 The Daily Mail, ‘Sacked: The BNP candidate who said ‘some women are like gongs— they need to be struck regularly’, The Daily Mail, 22 April 2008’, , [accessed 24 July 2009].

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In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda

Conclusion The BNP are spreading hate towards British Muslims and feeding the Islamist narrative that Muslims cannot accept secular democratic principles. They repeatedly portray Islamists as representing all Muslims, but consistently fail to provide adequate evidence for their claims. Moreover, the BNP have ridiculously alleged that a demographic take-over of Muslims is imminent, and erroneously claim that all Muslims seek to forcibly convert others in their bid to Islamize Europe. Like true populists, they sensationalize unacceptable practices within Islam (most of which are taken outside of their cultural context from the Middle East and beyond) that crucially, the vast majority of British Muslims do not tolerate. Finally, the BNP have also been propagating falsehoods including the dangerous accusation that most British Muslims support terrorism, playing to their supporters’ post-7/7 fears. Not only does this hatemongering gnaw at the very fabric of our diverse communities, but it has also seen both White and Islamist supremacists channel their hatred into acts of violence. This paper has taken up Griffin’s challenge to take on his ideas and ‘rip them to shreds’. It is now imperative that the British electorate reclaim the ‘British’ from the British National Party, just as we have asked Muslims to reclaim ‘Islam’ from the Islamists. But by not speaking up, both sides continue to feed off each other. ‘If you have any extreme section in one group’, Griffin somewhat pointedly remarked, ‘when the other group constantly gives way to that kind of thing then the extremists grow, not only in confidence, but also in prestige’.113 This is exactly what we need to avoid. However, let’s not leave Griffin with the last word, but rather hand over to one of Britain’s most influential Muslim scholars. ‘Islam is, and will continue to be’, writes Abdal Hakim Murad, ‘even amid the miserable globalisation of modern culture, a faith that celebrates diversity. Our thinking about our own position as British Muslims should focus on that fact, and quietly but firmly ignore the protests both of the totalitarian fringe, and of the importers of other regional cultures... which they regard as the only legitimate Islamic ideal’.114 113 Griffin, Islamization of Europe, Part 3, (07:05).

114 Abdal Hakim Murad, ‘British and Muslim’, (1997), , [accessed 11 August 2009].

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