Maajid Nawaz
Maajid Nawaz is the chairman of the Quilliam Foundation
Contents
Early life
Maajid Nawaz's family was originally from Gujrat in Pakistan. He grew up in Southend, Essex.[1]
Hizb-ut-Tahrir
Nawaz became involved with Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT) in 1992.[2] He subsequently attended Newham College where other HuT members including Ed Husain were already students.[3] He eventually became president of the Student Union and arranged for HuT leader Omar Bakri Muhammed to speak there.[4] Like Husain, was at the College when Nigerian student Ayotunde Obanubi was stabbed to death.[5] In his autobiography Radical, Nawaz claimed to have been present at the scene with a concealed knife, although he states that a withering glance from a student liaison officer ‘pulled me up sharp, and for a crucial split second I had a flash of realisation about what I might be about to do. I slid my knife back into its sheath, clicked it back in place and pulled back, completely back. No one knew what I’d done, no one knew how close I had been.’[6]
Egyptian detention
Nawaz travelled to Egypt in 2001 to study Arabic.[7] In April 2002, he was imprisoned by the Egyptian Government for Hizb ut-Tahir-related activity. He was beaten under interrogation, and witnessed the use of electrocution against a HuT colleague, Reza Pankhurst.[8] After being convicted of HuT membership, Nawaz was sent to Mazra Torah prison where he had access to books, and mixed with a wide range of political prisoners. He would later trace the roots of his rejection of Hizb ut-Tahrir to this period.[9] By his own account, his initial disillusionment was more with a lack of support from the British HuT leadership than with its ideas.[10]
Although Quilliam would later advocate deradicalisation programs in Egyptian prisons as a model for Britain, Nawaz was himself dismissive of some of the groups involved arguing that ‘they remained Salafists in doctrine and nonviolent Islamists in ideology.’[11]
Nawaz was released and returned to Britain in March 2006.[7]
Autobiography
Nawaz's autobiography, Radical, has clear points of similarity with Ed Husain’s The Islamist, though written in a more sensation style. Nawaz describes carrying a knife as party of a local youth culture which involved him in multiple confrontations with gangs linked to Combat 18.[12] Some of those who grew up with him, have reportedly claimed his accounts of the far-right scene at the time were exaggerated.[13] Nawaz has dismissed such criticisms, but even a sympathetic reviewer, the fellow former HuT member Shiraz Maher described Radical as a 'thespian version of his life', noting that 'The book was co-written with Tom Bromley, a professional ghostwriter and editor, who produced the first manuscript which Maajid then built on. It shows.'[14].
Activities
Israel Advocacy
In October 2015, Nawaz signed a letter in The Guardian along with more than 150 people drawn from the arts and politics. The letter launched Culture for Coexistence, an organisation that opposes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.[15]
Counterjihad connections
In January 2015, Nawaz was among the signatories of a statement put together by the Gatestone Institute and published in the New York Times.[16]
Affiliations
- Honorary Associate National Secular Society[17]
- Quilliam Foundation
- Gatestone Institute
Notes
- ↑ Nawaz, Maajid with Tom Bromley, Radical: My journey from Islamist extremism to a democratic awakening. Random House, 2012, p.17.
- ↑ Nawaz, Maajid with Tom Bromley, Radical: My journey from Islamist extremism to a democratic awakening. Random House, 2012, p.80.
- ↑ Nawaz, Maajid with Tom Bromley, Radical: My journey from Islamist extremism to a democratic awakening. Random House, 2012, p.110.
- ↑ Nawaz, Maajid with Tom Bromley, Radical: My journey from Islamist extremism to a democratic awakening. Random House, 2012, p.117.
- ↑ Nawaz, Maajid; I watched a man stabbed in a London street - and felt nothing, Mail Online, 25 May 2013. accessed 11 March 2016.
- ↑ Nawaz, Maajid with Tom Bromley, Radical: My journey from Islamist extremism to a democratic awakening. Random House, 2012, p.130.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Perlez, Jane, From Finding Radical Islam to Losing an Ideology, New York Times, 12 September 2007.
- ↑ Nawaz, Maajid with Tom Bromley, Radical: My journey from Islamist extremism to a democratic awakening. Random House, 2012, p.236.
- ↑ Nawaz, Maajid with Tom Bromley, Radical: My journey from Islamist extremism to a democratic awakening. Random House, 2012, p.276.
- ↑ Nawaz, Maajid with Tom Bromley, Radical: My journey from Islamist extremism to a democratic awakening. Random House, 2012, p.276.
- ↑ Nawaz, Maajid with Tom Bromley, Radical: My journey from Islamist extremism to a democratic awakening. Random House, 2012, p.264.
- ↑ Nawaz, Maajid with Tom Bromley, Radical: My journey from Islamist extremism to a democratic awakening. Random House, 2012, p.54.
- ↑ Nafeez Ahmed; Max Blumenthal, The Self-Invention of Maajid Nawaz: Fact and Fiction in the Life of the Counter-Terror Celebrity, Alternet, 5 February 2016.
- ↑ Shiraz Maher, Memoir of an Islamist, spectator.co.uk, 9 August 2012.
- ↑ Harriet Sherwood, 'Star authors call for Israeli-Palestinian dialogue rather than boycotts', The Guardian, 22 October 2015, accessed 23 October 2015
- ↑ Hilary Aked, One of America's Most Dangerous Think Tanks is Spreading Hate Across the Atlantic, Alternet, 23 November 2015
- ↑ National Secular Society Our Honorary Associates. Accessed 20 September 2015.
