This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/4928
April 27, 2011
Maajid Nawaz a self proclaimed "ex radical" member of Hizb ut Tahrir is scheduled to speak at the 9/11 Memorial Preview Site on April 28th. The program is entitled "9/11,Today and Tomorrow". http://blog.national911memorial.org/?tag=maajid-nawaz
Nawaz is the director and co-founder of the Quilliam Foundation a "anti extremist think tank" based in the UK.
Nawaz has metamophised from a violent jihadist to stealth jihadist and his foundation is being funded to the tune of 1 million pounds by the British government. http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3825
It also receives funding from a group "of shady Kuwaiti businessmen" In addition to lauding the suicide bombing condoning Egyptian cleric Ali Gomaa as "a scholastic giant" the Quilliam Foundation has ties to The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) a Saudi funded front group for Hamas.
Arsalan Iftikar, the head of CAIR's legal Department was one of the speakers at the opening celebration for Quilliam held at the British Museum.
Quilliam's website also links [source, http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/links.html] to such Islamist groups as the Radical Middle Way [see, http://www.radicalmiddleway.co.uk/], City Circle [see, http://www.thecitycircle.com/] as well that of leftist financier George Soros' Open Society Institute along with the socialist Fabian Society [see, http://fabians.org.uk/].
In an article entitled "Why Is Anyone Listening to Maajid Nawaz? Ex - Terrorist trades violent for stealth jihad" written by William Mayer and this author we noted that:
"Given the nature of Hizb ut-Tahrir and mindful of just how recent was Nawaz' supposed "conversion," it seems reasonable to question his sincerity. The following, published first in the June 2008 issue of Crescent International's magazine [reprinted here, http://prisonerofjoy.blogspot.com/2008/06/he-who-pays-piper-calls-tune-official.html] quotes from a speech that Nawaz made in October 2006, at the yearly anti-Israel Islamist celebration "al-Quds day."
"We want to replace the state of Israel. We want to change the status quo, we want to bring in a solution which is universal, which accepts the right of man to live like human beings. And this state has been tried and tested in history, we have seen historically that Muslims, Jews and Christians have lived side by side in the middle-east in a state which recognised their rights to be who they are, it did not call for their elimination or annihilation but recognised who they were. This state that existed in history, it brought a golden era to Spain, it brought a golden era to Baghdad. This is the Islamic State!" http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3570
The Quilliam Foundation is in synch with the Hizb Ut Tahrir's playbook which calls for exploiting non Muslims and their institutions by working within the system to bring about an Islamist Caliphate world wide and has provided a forum for self proclaimed ex jihadist Maajid Nawaz to cynically promote his Islamist agenda under the guise of "anti extremism". The inclusion of Nawaz as a speaker at at an event entitled "9/11, Today and Tomorrow" is a travesty and outrage to the memory of the victims.
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MIM: Maajid Nawaz' biography on the Quilliam Foundation website.
From violent jihadist to stealth jihadist. Nawaz "recanted" Islamism in 2007. Within a year he morphed into a "counter terrorism expert" who was brought to the United States to testify in Senate hearings on Capitol Hill.
Maajid Nawaz – Director
Maajid's experience in the field of Islamism stretches back to being 16-years-old, when he was recruited to Hizb ut-Tahrir (The Liberation Party). Maajid very quickly became a national speaker and an international recruiter for the Party, traveling first to Pakistan and then to Denmark to export the Party's ideology and set up cells from London. He was also in Egypt, where in 2002 he was detained, subjected to witnessing of torture, and then convicted to five years imprisonment for belonging to Hizb ut-Tahrir. After Amnesty International's adoption as a prisoner of conscience and a global campaign for his release, Maajid returned to the UK in March 2006 to join Hizb ut-Tahrir's national leadership committee. Maajid became one of only two members who joined Hizb ut-Tahrir's external Executive Committee and its then secret internal leadership, known as the Wilayah committee. In May 2007 Maajid unilaterally resigned his membership from the Party and in September 2007 he recanted Islamism on BBC's flagship current affairs programme, Newsnight.
Maajid's grasp and insight into Islamist thought is unique, due to years spent debating the intricacies of Islamist ideology with fellow prisoners at Mazra Tora, Cairo — the same prison complex as Sayyid Qutb. It was there that he met with leading and founding members of Egypt's most violent groups, including the surviving assassins of the late Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadaat. During his time in the same prison he spoke at length with the Muslim Brotherhood leadership such as Mohammed al-Badee' - who in his youth personally smuggled Qutb's Milestones out from prison - and their spokesman Dr Essam el-Erian. Maajid also befriended Dr Sa'ad al-Din Ibrahim and the imprisoned runner-up to Egypt's 2006 presidential elections, the liberal head of the Tomorrow Party, Ayman Nur. Throughout this time, Maajid continued his studies, sitting with graduates of Cairo's al-Azhar University and Dar al-'Ulum. He specialised in the Arabic language whilst studying historical Muslim scholastics, sources of Islamic jurisprudence, Hadith historiography, the art of Qur'an recitation and committing half of the Qur'an to memory.
As a result of time spent in the Middle East, and sustained discussions with a wide range of personalities, Maajid has gained rare political insight into the complexities of Middle-East politics, religion, and the contemporary Muslim political mindset.
Maajid has featured heavily, both before and after leaving Hizb ut-Tahrir, on the British and global media. He has appeared, for example, on BBC's Hardtalk with Sarah Montague and BBC's Newsnight with Jeremy Paxman, Channel 4 news, BBC World, Danish television and in Arabic on al-Jazeera among others.
Maajid regularly presents seminars and lectures on Islamism and Muslim political thought both in the UK and abroad. Upon leaving Hizb ut-Tahrir, he authored a booklet, Towards Political Engagement, detailing his ideological objections to Hizb ut-Tahrir in particular, and Islamism in general. He has also written for national newspapers, including The Times, and The Independent. He was cited by the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, in parliament when being asked about government policy towards dealing with extreme Islamist groups.
Maajid was born and raised in Essex, England. He is a graduate of Law and Arabic from the prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He also pursued post-graduate studies at the London School of Economics (LSE) in Political Theory, with modules in, ‘Conflict, Violence and Terrorism', ‘Religion and Politics', and ‘Multiculturalism, Citizenship and Identity'
http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/index.php/component/content/article/184
MIM: The Quilliam Foundation has changed their website. Below is the new revised biography of Maajid Nawaz.
Maajid Nawaz, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Quilliam and Founder of Khudi, was formerly on the UK national leadership for the global Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT). Maajid was involved in HT for almost 14 years. He was a founding member of HT in Denmark and Pakistan and eventually served four years in an Egyptian prison as an Amnesty International ‘prisoner of conscience'. In prison, Maajid gradually began changing his views until finally renouncing the Islamist ideology while remaining Muslim.
Maajid now engages in counter-Islamist thought-generating, social-activism, writing, debating and media appearances. He encourages inclusive citizenship-based political participation of Muslims in the West, and aims to synergize a respect for human rights with the civic liberal imperative to defend those in danger of being stigmatized by extremists due to their beliefs and personal choices. Maajid has spoken at various fora internationally, ranging from universities across Pakistan to addressing the US Senate in Washington DC, and regularly comments on national and international news and newspapers.
Maajid holds a BA (Hons) from SOAS in Arabic and Law and an MSc in Political Theory from the London School of Economics (LSE), with modules in ‘Religion and Politics' and ‘Conflict, Violence and Terrorism'. Maajid serves as an ambassador for the global Alliance of Youth Movements (AYM), is a member of the Liberal Democrat party, and a proud father to his young son.
http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/maajid-nawaz.html
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/4928