Book Review: ‘Radical’ by Maajid Nawaz

Book: Radical — My Journey Out of Islamist Extremism
Author: Maajid Nawaz
Rating: ****
Year: 2012

There is this person called Maajid Nawaz who I came across first when I watched a debate between him and the reasonably well known Muslim apostate, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. On Ayaan’s side was a British neoconservative, Douglas Murray, whose political ideas I am increasingly in disagreement with. On Maajid’s side was a person called Zeba Khan, who no one had heard of before and few heard of ever again. The topic of the debate was: Is Islam a religion of peace? While Maajid and Zeba took the ‘Yes’ side, Ayaan and Douglas took the ‘No’ side.

I watched the debate about a year and half ago, and the debate itself was from October 2010. I thought that Maajid was playing hide and seek with facts. Though he wasn't denying every critical observation on Islam made by his opposition, he managed to get around it through a combination of historical relativism (“we cannot judge the Prophet by the standards of the 21st century”), playing the victim card, and referencing his Islamist past time and again. The final debater, Zeba Khan, was nearly a non entity. She was a classic case of one who’s brought up in a moderate religious household with little idea of the faith except for what is learnt through family.

But who is Maajid Nawaz really? He is a British-Pakistani, the chairman of Quilliam Foundation, a not-for-profit counter-extremism think tank in the UK, whose goal is to create a discourse that would root out Islamist extremism (or Islamism as Maajid calls it) from society.

Maajid was, once, a recruiter for Hizb ut Tahrir, an extremist Islamist (though not terrorist) organisation whose aim was to bring about a Caliphate across Muslim majority countries, and then throughout the world. Essentially, they were for a Caliphate established through non-violent means. Nawaz was a recruiter for this group, after having joined it at the age of 16. He quickly rose up the ranks, and then went to jail in 2002 while recruiting in Egypt. In 2006, he was released courtesy the efforts of Amnesty International, and later quit HuT in 2007 due to a change of heart. He then formed the Quilliam Foundation with fellow ex-extremist Ed Husain. Husain left the organusation a few years later, but the foundation continued.

‘Radical’ is essentially Maajid’s autobiography. It details, vividly, his lineage and family history, his time as a teenager in Essex, his group of friends, his musical tastes and so on before we come to the point where he joins the Islamist HuT.

The vividness of the content is striking, and the link Maajid makes between facing racism on the streets of Essex from fanatical racist or neo-Nazi groups, and his decision to join Hizb ut Tahrir, is both striking and intellectually honest. Maajid provides a stirring account of how disaffection with society caused by racism and bigotry can drive youth towards extremism. He describes an incident where he was nearly killed by a group of boys, who then viciously attacked a stranger for attempting to save him. Maajid speaks about how creating a bomb hoax with a religious narrative attached helped him and his brother escape another mob killing. Remember this was the early 1990s, when the US was still praising Osama bin Laden and Irish extremism was more well known than Islamic terrorism.

The book, vivid as it is and intellectually agreeable as it is, perhaps makes a few jumps as it walks us through Maajid’s life story. The first, small one is at the point where Maajid joins HuT. Maajid brings us to the event that convinced him to join HuT, but we don’t have much detail of how he actually joined. The second leap Maajid takes is when describing his reformation. In Mazra Tora prison in Egypt, living among prominent political prisoners as well as purported homosexuals under the tyranny of Hosni Mubarak, Maajid says he underwent a transformation. While he mentions discussions with beleaguered former Islamists and the mercy of Amnesty International as prime causes for his transformation (back) into a normal civilian, we do not get much else in the way of cogent reasons for Maajid’s recantation of his earlier ideology. Perhaps he simply changed? Perhaps, after studying Islam and its theology, speaking to other prisoners and reading George Orwell, Maajid simply changed his mind?

However, there is no denying that ‘Radical’ is a compelling account of a man who seems to have experienced more in life than most people may do in several lifetimes. Given the counter-extremism work Maajid has been doing since quitting HuT, his transformation is not just a blessed one — it is an important one for all to know about. The role of ‘peaceniks’ like Amnesty International is also presented in a positive light. Finally, Maajid’s back story provides context to his struggle to reform Islam. It establishes who Maajid Nawaz is and provides him with a basis from which to argue his positions. In the terrifying geopolitical world of today where ISIS is causing unprecedented annihilation, voices like those of Maajid are critical for change.

To be fair to Maajid, his position has significantly changed since the Ayaan debate in 2010, and has become much more accepting of the fact that there are doctrines within Islam that can be clearly interpreted to mean egregious violence.

Get your copy — ‘Radical’ really is worth reading — several times over.