Category Archives: Islamism

This is a guest post by Chris Blackburn

There was a marriage this week, a pretty big one, and no it wasn’t anything to do with the legalisation of same sex marriages in New York State. It was the public marriage of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Pakistan’s Jamaat-i-Islami movement. A major event in international Islamism. It’s also going to have a major affect on international relations and security in the future.

It is safe to say that the Egyptian event would have certainly been one of Sayid Qutb’s milestones. Islamist watchers around the world wouldn’t have been surprised; since the 1950s the Muslim Brothers and Jamaat have maintained close relations. They’ve played and flirted with each other for years.

In 1952, Said Ramadan, a leader in the Muslim Brother the father of Tariq Ramadan; the prodigal son and neo- European Islamist, was once dispatched to Karachi, Pakistan to help Jamaat organise their youth and student movements. It really was love at first sight, but cynics have said it was the Cold War which brought them together.

…You have nothing to lose but your ill-fitting suits and your deep-rooted sense of religious supremacism!

From Pakistan Tribune:

LAHORE: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Pakistan and the Ikhwanul Muslimoon (Muslim Brotherhood) of Egypt have decided to make joint efforts to promote Islam and find solutions to issues faced by Muslims.

The top leadership of the two parties met at the Ikhwanul Muslimoon headquarters in Cairo on Wednesday.

Both the parties also decided to strengthen the relations between the Islamic movements in different countries and to negate propaganda against Islam.

A three member JI delegation led by party chief, Syed Munawar Hasan is currently on a four-day visit to Egypt at the invitation of Ikhwanul Muslimoon chief Dr Muhammad Badei.

Formal talks between the two sides were held between Hasan, Secretary General Liaquat Baloch and Foreign Affairs chief Abdul Ghaffar Aziz and Dr Badei, Secretary General Dr Mehmudul Hasan and other central leaders.

More information of Islamist infiltration, this time of the Hizb-ut Tahrir kind, into the top brass of the Pakistani military revealed in the Indy today.

Brigadier Ali Khan, Hizbie

Fears of Islamist infiltration of the Pakistan army’s ranks have been heightened after it was revealed yesterday that a senior officer is being held on suspicions of links with a banned extremist group.

Brigadier Ali Khan, a senior officer at the army’s general headquarters, was detained on 5 May and is being interrogated by military intelligence for suspected links to Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT), an extremist outfit that has been attempting for the past 15 years to infiltrate the army’s ranks to effect a military coup that would precipitate the establishment of a nuclear-armed caliphate.

“We follow a zero per cent tolerance for any breach of discipline or indulgence of any illegal activity,” said Major General Athar Abbas, the military’s chief spokesman.

This is a guest post by Omar Fombo Fostock

The racist, homophobic and supremacist global Islamist group Hizb ut Tahrir are having its 2011 annual event in Tower Hamlets. This event is being held at the Water Lilly Centre on Mile End Road. This is a venue that has Tesco as one of its tenants and is regularly hired out by the local council.

Tower Hamlets has recently been exposed as a hot-bed of extremist activity. Anti-Gay stickers have been plastered on lamp posts, non-Muslim teachers have been beaten up for teaching religion to Muslim students, moderate Muslims have been attacked for not practising their faith a certain way and the local mayor has strong ties to Islamist groups in the area. Is it any wonder that the aforementioned things take place in this borough when local venues are happy to host hate preachers who promote homophobic, anti-Semitic and anti-western views. Preachers who believe in killing gays, eradicating Jews, attacking moderate Muslims and encouraging Muslims to hate western nations.  These venue managers couldn’t care less who is speaking as long as they are getting paid.

Raymond Ibrahim introduces his book The Al-Qaeda Reader in which he analyses the theological and ideological treatises written by Ayman al-Zawahiri and the other one, beloved of “freedom fighters” and “defensive jihadists”.

You can buy Ibrahim’s book from here but not from here.

This is a guest post by Shiraz Maher

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Like the fruit of the medlar, Hizb ut Tahrir turned rotten long before it was ripe.

For years the group has boasted of inspiring a popular revolution on the Arab street and said it was in a position to ‘mould public opinion’ in favour of a Caliphate if only people would rise up against the regimes. Now that it’s finally happening, the party is nowhere to be seen in the Middle East.

Hizb ut Tahrir is failed and failing. But don’t just take my word for it.

For some time now I’ve been hearing of senior members defecting from the party in the UK. I wasn’t sure what to make of it but now I’ve had confirmation about some of the most significant departures over the last two years from a source still inside the party who is also preparing to leave. Recent significant departures include:

Here is Press TV, a Khomeinist propaganda TV station and media outlet, propagandising Khomeini:

American Muslims have assembled at Iran’s interests section in Washington to commemorate the anniversary of the passing of the late leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini.

The mourners honored the life and legacy of the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, a Press TV correspondent reported.

“Imam Khomeini … was not tainted by any Western ideological orientations or Western forms of governance,” Afeef Khan from the Contemporary Islamic Thought told Press TV.

Among the issues discussed at the gathering was the impact that Imam Khomeini had on world affairs and the global shift in power politics in favor of Muslims.

“He showed that one person who motivates a society that may not necessarily have the military prowess [like that of] its adversaries, that, one person … can stand up to the entire world,” said Afeef Khan.

This is a cross-post from Ted Jeory

The Water Lily Centre in Mile End Road has a long (and literally divided) history in Tower Hamlets. Completed in 1927, it was the Wickhams department store until the late 1960s. Architecturally, it was famous for the little house that splits the site (the developers had to build around the house after a family refused to move out).

Last year, after decades of neglect, the site re-opened as the Water Lily Centre. It is owned by Water Lily Properties Ltd, which is owned by a group of 14 businessmen who chose the national flower of Bangladesh, representing peace and love, for their company name.

Sadly, the centre is now becoming a magnet for hate.

Last November, Anjem Choudary tried to stage an event there, but his luck ran out when his cover was blown. I wrote about it here. At the time, the Water Lily told me extremists weren’t welcome.

In its latest press release, the Muslim Council of Britain makes this claim:

Presenting his financial statement, the Treasurer of MCB, Harun Rashid Khan, strongly rebutted the repeatedly wilful misreporting that the MCB was in receipt of PREVENT funding. He also stressed that the MCB does not take any funding from the government for its core work. He thanked the member affiliates and the community for sustaining the MCB to date with their tremendous contributions and support.

But Andrew Stunell, Minister at the DCLG, says otherwise:

Andrew Stunell, Minister at the DCLG said it had provided £2,500 to the Muslim Council of Britain for a guest table at the council leadership dinner held on 22 February 2010. DCLG has not provided any further funding to the Muslim Council of Britain for the organisation to undertake work or projects.