Sadek Hamid - Sufis, Salafis and Islamists: The Contested Ground of British Islamic Activism

Sadek Hamid is currently a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Lecturer in Islamic Studies at Liverpool Hope University. He has written widely about British Muslims, young people and religious activism and is the editor of Young British Muslims: Between Rhetoric and Real Lives (2016) and co-editor of Youth Work and Islam: a Leap of Faith for Young People (2011).

It is a pleasure to commend this book by one of the leading scholars of Islam in Britain. Sadek Hamid has the perfect combination of personal biography and experience, allied to academic rigour and attention to detail that makes this a nuanced, timely, well-informed contribution to the debate about Islam in Britain today.

Sophie Gilliat-Ray, Professor in Religious and Theological Studies at Cardiff University and author of Muslims in Britain: An Introduction

Sadek Hamid's book is absolutely essential reading for anyone who wishes to further their knowledge of the dynamics of Islamic activism in Britain. It rescues Islamism from the rhetoric of terrorism and highlights the essential differences between islamicisation and radicalisation.

Ron Geaves, Professor of Theology, Philosophy and Religious Studies at Liverpool Hope University and author of Islam in Victorian Britain: The Life and Times of Abdullah Quilliam

Quite simply breathtaking. A real tour-de-force in every sense of the word. Sadek Hamid painstakingly charts and navigates with precision the landscape of British Islam by identifying the major intellectual trends competing, and at times vying, with one another for authority among second- and third-generation Muslim Britons. In so doing, he also introduces the key individuals who have shaped or contributed to the religious currents in what is an engaging tale of religious activism and often inter-group rivalry across Great Britain. This surely will become a primer for understanding the richness, complexities, challenges and fault-lines of Islam in Britain today, and hence, essential reading for policy-makers, students and general readers alike.

Aftab A. Malik, Global Expert on Muslim Affairs, UN Alliance of Civilizations

Sadek Hamid has written an invaluable study illuminating and evaluating the changing landscape of Islamic activism in Britain over the last thirty years. He devotes a chapter each to four faces of activism: reformist Islamist, radical pan-Islamist, Salafi and neo-Sufi. Their transnational origins, history, evolution and mutual rivalries are mapped and assessed in a measured, non-sensational and accessible manner. He also explores the extent to which they are positioned to respond appropriately to the experiences and questions of a new, media savvy generation of British Muslims. Indispensable for policy makers, academics, students and the general reader.

Philip Lewis, author of Young, Muslim and British and Islamic Britain (I.B.Tauris, 2002)

This well-researched study provides an alternative, altogether insightful perspective of socio-religious trends that continue to influence and shape the landscape of Islamic activism in twenty-first-century Britain. It is unique in that it provides a comprehensive, insider-based account regarding movements that competed to promulgate often similar reforms but from differing standpoints.

Abdul Haqq Baker, author of Extremists in Our Midst: Confronting Terror and former Chairman of the Brixton Mosque, London

SUFIS, SALAFIS
AND ISLAMISTS

The Contested Ground of British
Islamic Activism

S ADEK H AMID

Published in 2016 by

I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd

London New York

www.ibtauris.com

Copyright 2016 Sadek Hamid

The right of Sadek Hamid to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

References to websites were correct at the time of writing.

Library of Modern Religion 46

ISBN: 978 1 78453 231 4

eISBN: 978 0 85772 915 6

ePDF: 978 0 85772 710 7

A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available

For Hena, Adam, Emaani, Tahani and Muhammad

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The partial inspiration for this book came from a newsletter article written by pioneering British Muslim journalist Faisal Bodi while he was a student at Manchester University in 1993. Entitled The Players, it made an amusing comparison of the characteristics of Islamic activist groups competing for the attention of Muslims in campuses across the UK. The following pages are an attempt to understand how these groups emerged to mobilise second- and third-generation British Muslims into faith-based collective action. I am grateful to Ron Geaves for enabling the doctoral research which this text draws upon; he is an inspiration and a generous mentor. A number of individuals have directly and indirectly helped influenced this book through engaging in discussions with me and providing invitations to share my research at various stages over the years in different publications and at conferences in Britain and abroad. I would like to thank Faisal Bodi for his encouragement, Yahya Birt for the inspiration and collaboration, Tahir Abbas for the opportunities, Sophie Gilliat-Ray for her advice and support and Philip Lewis for his recommendations. Many people have shaped this work by sharing their recollections, especially Aftab Malik, Fuad Nahdi, Abdul-Rehman Malik, Usama Hasan and Atif Imtiaz, who were generous with their time and contributions through many conversations. I also appreciate the input and assistance of a number of academics along the way, in particular Roel Meijer, Malik Badri, Rebekah Tromble, Mazen Hashem, Linda Woodhead, Abdulkader Tayob and Tariq Ramadan. I would also like to express my gratitude to all the people who shared their experiences of Islamic activism: Qassim Afzal, Saddaf Alam, Mansoor Hussain, Jahangeer Akhtar, Abdul Haqq Baker, Abdurraheem Green, Noman Hanif, Jai Byron, Yasir Rahman, Wakkas Khan, Afzal Khan, Robina Shah, Balal Siddique, Hamid Rashid, Robina Ahmed, Dilwar Hussain, Inayat Bunglawala, Ahtesham Ali, Ibrahim Osi-Efa, Tim Winter, Humera Khan, Abaas Choudury, Luqman Ali, Jahan Mahmood, Sajjid Miah, Laura McDonald, Tahir Haqq and the many other anonymous respondents.

I am grateful to Alex Wright at I.B.Tauris for his enthusiasm in publishing this book, Baillie Card for the helpful editorial support and Keith Devereux, Dan Shutt and the anonymous reviewers for their input. Early versions of Chapters 2, 3 and 4 have appeared in Islamic Political Radicalism in Britain: The Case of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, in Tahir Abbas (ed.), Islamic Political Radicalism: A European Comparative, (Edinburgh University Press, 2007), The Attraction of Authentic Islam: Salafism and British Muslim Youth, in Roel Meijer (ed.), Global Salafism: Islam's New Religious Movement (Hurst Publishers, 2009) and The Rise of the Traditional Islam Network: Neo-Sufism and British Muslim Youth in Ron Geaves and Theodore Gabriel (eds), Sufism in Britain (Bloomsbury, 2013). Needless to say that any misrepresentations or shortcomings are entirely my own.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS