After the Terror

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THE REACTION among British Muslims to the July 7 attacks on London's transport system, which left 52 people dead and hundreds more injured was swift and seemingly unanimous. These killings had absolutely no sanction in Islam, said a conference of imams convened at the London Central Mosque. Meanwhile the British Muslim Forum delivered a fatwa that classified the London bombings as hiraba, an Islamic legal term denoting aggravated violence against the innocent. All implicated in the crimes were to be excluded from the Muslim community and places of worship until their repentance has become manifest.

Middle East linkage

What cannot be denied is the connection between these terror attacks and radical Islam. Canon Andrew White, the Archbishop of Canterbury's special representative to the Middle East, is the director of the Foundation for Reconciliation in the Middle East, which aims to promote conflict resolution, particularly in areas where religion risks becoming a vehicle of incitement and exclusivity, rather than a medium for tolerance and understanding. To deny the linkage between what conflicts in the Middle East and the atrocities on the streets of London, he argues, is to prevent the possibility of dealing with this highly complex issue. Those who deny the linkage have clearly not spoken with the terrorists themselves. Sadly, too often I have. In Israel, Palestine, Iraq and London, White talks of meeting these terrorists, They were all young men, all Muslims, and all of them were certain that the 'immoral West' was waging a war on the 'Islamic East'. When asked why, the answer was always the same: it was the atrocities that the Palestinians and Iraqis were suffering; a few mentioned Afghanistan and Chechnya. These atrocities were always seen as being caused by the West and Western imperialism.
He argues that because the two issues of Iraq and Palestine are paramount in the minds of young potential suicide bombers, our efforts must be focused on resolving the issues. To do this, he says, we need to engage not just with the 'good guys', but also the radicals who have the respect of the instigators of terrorism. The majority of moderate Islamic leaders need to listen to the demands of the young in their communities, and often have a proper channel to their governments to allow these voices to be heard. Only if all of these issues are taken seriously will there be a chance for us to win the battle against an abstract noun called terrorism. White's approach does not justify or excuse terrorism, but rather attempts to explain its roots in order to neutralize them.
Whether we like it or not these are profoundly religious acts of destruction, carried out by religious people often against religious people, he says. If we as religious people continue to deny the role of religion in conflict we will prevent ourselves from dealing with the root cause of such violence.
If we are to make progress in peace making we must take seriously the religious issue at a political, diplomatic, academic and religious level. If Religion is in part responsible for the instigation of violence it has to be part of the cure.

Role of religion

White quotes theologian Hans Küng who once said, If there is no peace among religions there will be no peace amongst nations. Religion can and must play a crucial role in peacemaking, says White. Not just in the Middle East but throughout the world. We need our Government to take it more seriously so that it is not just seen as a nice sideline to peace-keeping, but one of the core issues. The reality is that the governments to date have been scared of religion and its role in conflict. They have almost avoided it as if to pretend that these issues will go away if they are not confronted. They will continue to increase; 9/11 was the day that changed the world. Its root was not just sociological and political; at its heart it was religious.
If faith is going to play a positive rather than just a destructive role, he argues, the international community must fund religious peace-making and not treat it as a fringe activity. Western governments need to engage with some of the more extremist faith leaders; and they have to realise that this is long term and not short term work. The cost of making peace is indeed very great, he says. But we must be as willing to be as radical in our quest for peace as the terrorists are in their quest for war.
Canon White argues that he can only do the work he does because I'm a religious man. He adds, Most of the bad guys in life are religious. Often the Government tries to see things in a secular light, but nowadays most terrorist activity is at the hands of the religious.
He cites the July attacks on London's transport infrastructure as a prime example. Whether we like it or not these are profoundly religious acts of destruction, carried out by religious people often against religious people, he says. If we as religious people continue to deny the role of religion in conflict we will prevent ourselves from dealing with the root cause of such violence.

Muslim apartheid

In combating home-grown terror, though, one issue that fast needs to be addressed is the isolation felt within the UK's Muslim community. According to the Revd. George Moffat, an Anglican vicar who has lived in West Yorkshire for 11 years, a kind of apartheid has developed in the area. The English have replaced the class system with a race religious system with demarcation rules as hard and fast as those of the nineteenth century, he argues. There are 10 schools in my parish, and the only one which is integrated is the Roman Catholic one.
With white families moving out rather than into these areas, argues Mr Moffat, and while the secular elite in Britain refuse to take Islam seriously, the situation will remain bleak. What resources have been put into making sure these people can get up to speed with our culture? he asks. Policy makers have failed to think about what it takes to make a country cohesive. 
Another issue is that of the constraints of inter-religious dialogue in the UK. Ishtiaq Ahmed, the general secretary of the Bradford Council of Mosques, who is a Muslim representative in ecumenical activities in the city, believes that so far interfaith dialogue is largely confined to religious leaders. We need to take a step further and encourage links at local neighbourhood level and between mosques and churches, he said. More energy and effort needs to go into that now.

Split within Islam

What is doubtful is whether such efforts at assimilation would make any difference to the fraction of the Muslim population which is not simply uninterested in integration, but positively rebels against it. At its most disaffected, this splinter can produce the kind of men willing to wage holy war. The consensus among those involved in interfaith issues in Bradford is that a very radical change is going to have to happen for these people to be reached. Education might be the key, but Muslims in the city are also insistent that members of their religion have been alienated by such situations as the plight of the Palestinian people, or the conflicts in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Iraq.
Moderate Islamic groups in the UK argue a key to increased Muslim involvement would be a body that all Muslims could agree on to represent them. Many Muslims feel the Muslim Council of Britain fails to fulfil this role because among the majority of Muslims it is perceived as a stooge of the government. As mosques are governed by community leaders, from different ethnic backgrounds, their messages are diverse and can become confused. Many feel an overhaul of the system is required in order to establish a coordinating body with the authority to present a national code of conduct for mosques. What is eminently clear is that while Christian contingents have an important role to play, the real change needs to come from deep within Muslim society.
However, in the UK, it has become clear to the established moderate Islamic leaders that the radicals are not listening to them. Worse still, radical al-Qaida sympathisers regard the traditional Sunni muftis and imams, such as those who denounced the terror attacks on London, not only as politically spineless, but as heretical. Mainstream imams, including those trained in the UK's 16 Muslim seminaries, follow traditional Sunnism, while al-Qaida is rooted in Wahhabism, the eighteenth-century reform movement of central Arabia. Strict Wahhabis consider the theology and piety of mainline Sunnism to be kufr (disbelief). Hence the Wahhabi radicals have not hesitated to kill Muslims, including senior scholars. This has led to a reluctance on the part of moderate imams to denounce the more extreme elements of Islam. In Pakistan or Iraq, it is now possible to be murdered for criticising Wahhabism.
Legislation, and any other form of government interference, are unlikely to put an end to the problem; and may make it worse. It is clear that only Muslims can heal this wound.

THE TOTTENHAM AYATOLLAH
In August, the radical Islamic preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed was excluded from the UK. Home Secretary Charles Clarke used existing powers to exclude Mr Mohammed as his presence was not conducive to the public good.
The self-styled 'sheikh', famous for praising the 9/11 hijackers as the magnificent 19, ran the radical al-Muhajiroun group from Tottenham, north London, until it was disbanded last year.
Since the 1980s Mr Mohammed had received indefinite leave to remain in the UK after gaining political asylum. Mr Clarke decided to cancel that leave.
Inayat Bunglawala, from the Muslim Council of Britain, said, Omar Bakri is unlikely to be missed by the vast majority of British Muslims. He is someone who for 20 years was given shelter by this country, and he has spent almost all that time vilifying this country and its values.
At the start of August, UK prime minister Tony Blair outlined a raft of plans to extend powers to deport or exclude foreigners who encourage terrorism. The UK can already exclude or deport those who pose a threat to security, and Mr Blair said he also wanted to clamp down on those who advocated terror. Mr Blair said he was prepared to amend human rights laws to make deportations more straightforward. His raft of plans included proposals for: deporting any foreigner involved in listed extremist centres and websites; making, justifying or glorifying terrorism anywhere an offence; automatically refusing asylum to anyone with anything to do with terrorism; examining calls for police to be able to hold terror suspects for longer before pressing charges; using more control orders against British terror suspects; creating a list of preachers who will be kept out of the UK.