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The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw Inside and Why I Left by Ed Husain
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Saw the author on “The Doha Debates” last year. During the program he was very articulate and dedicated to combating extremism.
This book is Ed Husain’s story of his personal journey into and out of the Islamist movement in the UK. As Husain depicts it, Islamism is the idea that the Islamic faith requires an Islamic political state–that political power and religion are one. Husain’s family, from India/Bangladesh, practiced a Sufi Islam which focused on spiritual connection to God and to other humans and he sees this as a more “mainstream” Islam. Living in Jordan, a moderate Islamic state, I’m not sure that his Sufi brand of Islam would necessarily be accepted–though most of the Muslims I know here do support secular governance.
The first few chapters, relating his time in the islamist movement, including Jamaati-e Islamia and Hizb tTahrir, were distanced, written almost dispassionately. It is like he can’t even relate to the boy he once was. This was frustrating for me, as I’d hoped the book would help me grasp the emotional and intellectual pull of such movements for the young people raised in the West. However, as he related the incidents which brought him out of the movement, including the violence, hypocracy, and time spent, ironically, in Syria and Saudi Arabia, his passion in delivery grew. By the end, he was writing eloquently and passionately against Islamism.
I learned quite a bit from the book:
1–Husain related how the Islamists gained power in Britain (and similarly in the US) until the British authorities believed them to be speaking for and representing the views of all Muslims. This gave them legitimacy–whereas most of these groups were outlawed in the Middle East.
2–Husain argues that Islamists must be countered, fought, and challenged. I realized that in all my studies of Arabic and Islamic culture, we never talk about the extremists: Islamists, Wahabis or others. I had never heard of most of the groups Husain mentioned tho they are well-known here in Jordan and elsewhere (especially Hisb Tahrir which has many factions and is involved in violence in Palestine, Bagladesh, and I believe India among other places). Husain implies, and I agree, that the refusal to talk about such groups in mainstream education means that we don’t understand the movement and can’t launch effective opposition to it. Our courses should not ignore such groups–nor suggest that “all” Muslims belong to them. Acknowledging and debating their merits would be much more effective.
3–Husain traveled to Saudi Arabia (where I have never been and have NO desire to go) where much of the desires of the Islamist movement are fulfilled and was appalled at what he saw there. He strongly denounces the Wahabi form of Islam (a very repressive one) which funds a great deal of the Islamist movements and seeks converts around the globe. Husain reported that it is a country where the more women are wrapped and hidden away (women must wear full-face veils and long, loose black robes in public, must only go out with close male relations, only recently gained the right to drive, etc.) the more Saudi men objectify them. He said that his wife, dressed appropriately, was often leered at, insulted, and propositioned even while he accompanied her. Others I know in Jordan who’ve lived in Saudi report conflicting stories–that on the compound everything is fine and there’s no reason to “go out”, that Saudi men are very respectful during the Hajj, etc. I don’t know from personal experience, but from the public behaviors of Saudi men in Morocco and here, I can’t believe it is a place I would ever want to go.
4–Husain described all the ways the groups in which he participated manipulated the laws, freedoms, and rights of British citizens. The police seem, from his telling, to be naive in their treatment of Islamist youth groups; universities and other moderates completely incapable of countering their methods. We need to teach our youth how to think critically about what they see and experience around them, to look beyond what such people say and see clearly what they do, believe, and propagate.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning more about the inside of the Islamist movement, particularly as an introduction for one mostly unfamiliar with the phenomenon.
FYI Ed Husain co-founder and co-director of The Quilliam Foundation, a think-tank devoted to combating Muslim (and I assume other forms of) extremism.
Ok, so CNN is making a big deal about Swine flu, but is anyone else? The answer, for me, is YES! Many, many of the families, friends, and non-Christian Jordanians I know ask me about it all the time. Do I know anyone with Swine Flu? Is there Swine Flu in Michigan? These are the questions I get very frequently.
So here’s my problem: The ones who ask me also warn me about hanging out with Christians because they eat pork and thus have (or may get) Swine Flu. Boy am I irritated with whoever decided to call it Swine Flu! Strangely, while most were very tolerant of my “christian” status last year, Swine Flu seems to be a perfect opportunity for EVERYONE to tell me now that Christianity is wrong, Islam right, and that God told us not to eat pork because it’s bad and now he’s punishing the Christians.
So, in my bad Arabic, I can explain that people don’t get Swine Flu from eating pork, but they don’t believe me. I can’t imagine what the news is saying over here that everyone (except my Christian friends of course) seems to believe you get it from eating pork.
What’s worse, is that I don’t have the Arabic to engage in a theological discussion with them, so I end up sitting through interminable lecturs on the Quran and Mohammed–usually telling me things I already know (historically) and arguing points of “truth” that I am incapable of rebutting. Great huh?
My best response (because it seems to stop the discussions and discontinue further ones) is that in the US, we don’t talk about religion openly, that our belief is between us and God. This is good, because I can then talk about the separation of church and state, and how that is different than in Jordan (which is a Muslim state).
So why am I venting about it here? Well, I guess because the thing that makes me so irritated is that I, of all people, have to DEFEND Christianity. In the US, I would hardly even call myself a “Christian” with a capital C: I have serious doubts about the divinity of Christ (tho I really love most of what he might have said–hence I tend to think of myself as a “christian with a small c”), and am even more dubious about religious “Christian” institutions. Yet, here, I am a Christian ethnically rather than theocratically by virtue of being American, which is highly-influenced by Judeo-Christianity and thus differs from Muslim Jordan.
I thought that some of you might be interested in these musings. Feel free to comment!
Some random pictures of Jordan this summer. Enjoy.
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| Amman July 2009 |
The Middle East: A Cultural Psychology by Gary S. Gregg
Very interesting, insightful, yet easy-to-read, this is a great overview of Middle Eastern society in the first 3 chapters, then of the development of the people who live in them for the final 7 chapters. I especially enjoyed that the author used many Arabic sources, and used ethnographies and sociological studies rather than purely “psychological” literature to understand the complexity of this culture.
Best points:
1) Gregg takes a big-picture view and notices that cultural structures and value systems are created in an ecological context. Hence shifting alliances evident in Middle Eastern and North African societies respond to the dynamic availabilities of food, forage, and environment in the region.
2) Gregg spent a whole chapter delving into the different value systems of the honor/modesty code and Islam. They are not one and the same (even if many tie them together), sometimes Islam supports, sometimes conflicts with, the honor-modesty code. Also, the whole male-protector (machismo) and female-secluded and protected aspects of the region (the honor part of the honor-modesty code) are prevalent throughout the Mediterranean area–which is why southern Italy treats women very similarly to Jordan. It is NOT simply a part of Islam–Italians, Greeks, and Spaniards tie it to Christianity. I think it’s really important not to assume that such things are tied to the religious beliefs or dogma when they may be socio-cultural (or even ecological) in origin.
3) Terrorism/Violence/Authoritarianism is NOT part of “traditional” society. Rather, they are a result of underdevelopment where powerful interests control the benefits of modernization and the majority are excluded from them. This is something I’ve been trying to articulate to people in the U.S. for ages–it’s not inherent in people, it’s tied to the oppression they face every day. According to Gregg, the authoritarianism especially is a result of both tradition and modernity failing.
In brief: if you’re interested in Middle Eastern and North African societies cultures and value systems, read chapters 1-3. If you REALLY want to understand how these people develop over a lifetime, or are a psychology buff, go beyond to chapters 4-10.
For the last two weeks, I’ve been living with a family in a rural part of the Jordan Valley. Rural, of course, is relative. We are 2 mini-busses from Amman, but that’s still only about 1.5 hours travel time at the most. Jordan is a small country and crowded, so rural doesn’t look like what Americans expect. Basically, where I live was once a small, coherent settlement of two main tribes separated by large fields. However, the poor tribe was moved by the government from their land in order to build a large new mosque. They were relocated to the upper hills of my village. That, plus constantly increasing population, slow immigration from Palestine, and migrant workers means my village is now part of the long stretch of humanity clinging to the borders of the arable Jordan River’s East Bank. The borders between villages now seem like random lines on a map—the residential areas have spread into each other like suburbs in the U.S.
My village is about 200 m below sea level (and still above the level of the Dead Sea, which is shrinking by about 1m/year and is currently about 408 m below), and we face directly west to Palestine/Israel. We have beautiful sunsets thanks to the dense air, but it is muggy and stagnant this low. It’s also hot. I believe most of this week it’s 40 deg Celsius, which is about 104 Fahrenheit. Amman is at an altitude of 1000m above sea level, so it tends to be cooler during the summer, right now it’s in the low 90s. When I take the bus from Amman, there is a point where we drop over the edge of the valley (keep in mind, the Jordan Valley is the northern tip of the Great Rift, so there is a pretty steep drop off—the continent is being pulled apart here—like a wide and shallower Grand Canyon sometimes) and you can feel the heat press in on you like a stagnant blanket. It feels equally refreshing on the return trip to ascend that drop and suddenly feel cool breezes on your face. My timing was not good, no one spends the summer in the Valley (called the Ghor here), they spend winter here, which is mild and nice compared to the chill of Amman. When I tell people in Amman that I’m going to the Ghor, they look horrified and beg me to stay in Amman! 
I can’t begin to imagine how many people live here, there are houses crowded into nooks and crannies. Moreover, not only has population increased through natural growth (they love the kids here) but also through immigration. Most of the commercial farms (and many of the family farms) use cheap Egyptian laborers who live in shacks in the fields. Also, a smattering of wealthy Amman residents have purchased or built vacation properties down here. The program I’m studying didn’t compile population statistics, but they did provide data that the local unemployment rate is 78%! Many of the families are supported (as is the one I live with) by a son (or rarely a daughter) in the Army, though some work as farm labor (or profit from farm holdings), or even breed cattle (I haven’t seen any of this, but that’s what the people here tell me).
Being back is great, other than the heat. My family got an air conditioner (which is really more like a humidifier—a fan pulls air through a wet sponge to cool it) which is a life-saver. Even so, most afternoons are only good for sleeping or sitting quietly. Just the heat of my laptop becomes too much for my poor body to support. It’s also hard to eat, so we tend to drink a lot of water and sugary Tang-like juices. Meals are finished with cold melon, usually water melon, which is incredibly refreshing. We generally eat a breakfast of bread, oil and spices, maybe eggs or hummous or some other protein, and one of my granola bars (the kids love ‘em) around 9 am. I try to work while my hostess cleans and the kids run around like crazy. As the day heats up, we get lazier and spend more time in front of the TV and A/C napping or (me) cross-stitching. Lunch is the big meal, around 2 or 3. It’s usually meat and sauce over rice and bread, salad veggies (sliced tomatoes and cucumbers most commonly) and maybe yoghurt. This is what we follow with melon and occasionally ice cream if the local store has any. The house is so hot that by 6pm we lounge on the porch to get the evening cooling breezes. We eat a dinner meal after sunset, usually around 9pm. This is usually smaller and often fried potatoes, squash, eggplant, etc. Then we collapse on thin mattresses on the roof to sleep. It is lovely to sleep on the roof in spite of the mosquitoes (nothing compared to Minnesota), but the sun comes up early and by 6:30 I am usually awake and heading for a shady spot. It’s actually good for me as I do tend to be a morning person and I can get some work done before the kids get up and bug me.
The kids have gotten bigger, the baby is now a full-fledged toddler, but still adores me. The mom, Fatima, is pregnant with her fifth, she’s 32. I got to meet her whole family last week. Her brother came back from Army service in Afghanistan (where he got a nice certificate from the US Army which we all had to inspect) and her parents were heading to Saudi Arabia for a mini-pilgrimage called the Omrah the next day. It was a big party event with everyone coming in and out. Lots of fun but incredibly hot! Fatima is one of 3 girls and 10 boys. All but one of the sons is married and they all live in the same complex as their parents, like extra little apartments/houses build one on top of the other in a maze of connecting walls and halls. Fatima’s mother voiced the common feeling that “boys are better than girls” because your sons stay around you and take care of you while your daughters marry and leave you. Generally they think my family is nuts to have only had one kid, and the fact that I live far from my mom is equally perplexing for them.
I have to say, I enjoy the time I spend here with them all, but I also really value my alone time and enjoy getting back to Amman where I can work in solitude!
The other big difference is the pace of life here in the village. In Amman, many people follow a more western pace, with 8-5 workdays and such. Here, however, we are still moving at the pace of rural life. Which means up early to work before the heat of the day, lots of rest during the day, naps, etc., and the evenings filled with visits—either the neighbors come to us or we go to them! It’s good for me, because I am using my Arabic and able to meet lots of people to learn about their water consumption. It’s not so good for productivity because I can’t just sit at my computer for more than a couple of hours. The kids and the adults get antsy if I’m not hanging out with them.
I guess that’s all I wanted to say about the valley and the family right now. All is well.
Lina, Zaid, Nuha and I went to Al-Jubaiha Theme Park yesterday. Think permanent carnival and you’ve got the picture. It was surprisingly inexpensive (usually 1-2 JD/ride) and not crowded at all.
We went on a small version of a looping pirate ship (which didn’t go all the way upside-down) and a 4-seater small roller coaster–like the mousetrap that is common at most US parks. It was a hoot! Lina and Zaid also went on one that flipped completely upside down, but I was too hot to do that one. No caramel corn–but open roasted chickpeas and other Arab delights. We didn’t eat though. Lina and I also enjoyed the mirror house (with silly mirrors that made us look funny). We finished the evening with a pleasant ride on the Ferris wheel, which gave us a nice view of the area. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite high enough to see over the hill to Amman proper, but still a nice night view.
Will post pics if I can get them from Lina…
