First of all, let me clearly define my terms – Islamism is essentially synonymous with terrorism in my mind, because their goals are the same. Islamism is the political element of Islam which seeks to establish a global caliphate that sees everyone living under sharia. Sharia, as we know, in spite of the lies that are continually told by the Muslim darlings of the UK’s media, does not take kindly to gays, women, and people of other faiths.
Maajid Nawaz was once part of Hizb ut-Tahrir, which I consider to be a terrorist organization for the reasons given above. Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned in all Arab Muslim countries, with the exception of Yemen, the UAE, and Lebanon. It is also banned in some other countries, too: Germany, China, Russia, Egypt, Turkey, etc. Yet Hizb ut-Tahrir still holds demonstrations in Central London to this day. This is a terrorist organization that Mr. Nawaz was part of, promoted, and helped grow to its size today. Nawaz also allegedly spent time in jail because of his participation with Hizb ut-Tahrir and his other Islamist activities.
Today Maajid is the darling of the UK’s media. Apparently being an ex-member of a terrorist organization makes one an expert on how best to spread Islam peacefully across the UK. Maajid is still a fierce promoter of Islam. He is still looking to spread it worldwide, but he’s hoping that he can reform Islam and give us the soft version, the version without all the calls to violence and the need to establish a caliphate. To that I say, good luck, and, further, you can keep it, because I’m not buying into it. I do not want Islam in any of its guises.
Why are people such as Maajid Nawaz, Mo Ansar (who was involved in a controversy over an unpaid bank loan and an alleged degree in theology), and Medhi Hasan (the HuffPo and Al Jazeera journalist who is noted for having been caught on hidden camera in a mosque telling the audience that non-Muslims are “animals”), and Fiyaz Mughal of TellMama (who has twice lied about Islamophobic hate crimes in order to keep getting funded by the government, and who now advises the London Met Police’s CPS unit about what constitutes Islamophobic hate crimes, and who should be punished for them) so celebrated in the media? All four of these men have very questionable pasts.
Maajid seems to be the most intelligent of these four, and that is why I think of him as a snake-oil salesman. He claims to be a literary man, well-read, and yet he remains a practicing Muslim (so far as I am aware) and stands by the Quran. Any well-read person would surely be aware of all of the tropes that go into the compilation of a text. Texts are like machines — they have component parts and are built and structured in particular and different ways, depending on the nature of the text. The Old Testament, for example, is a wonderful example of virtually every form of literature there is. It also makes use of every kind of trope. In the Old Testament we see the use of parable, allegory, symbolism, metaphor, diary, epic, poetry, romance, genealogy, authorial intent and so forth. Students of the Bible take classes in The Bible As Literature, and with this academic study comes the linguistic task of deciphering the meaning of a disputed word (at which point the author will put a footnote as to historical context, and also include a couple of other potentially different meanings for the reader to make up his own mind). We pore over these texts in order to get at any underlying truths. We dispute the authenticity of a text, or the authenticity of the inclusion of a paragraph or sentence. We look at the literacy levels of the days in which these texts were written and of all the mistakes that the one and only semi-literate person in the village might have made when recording them. We also look at the social and political climates of the eras in which these books were written. We don’t, as Muslims generally do when they read the Quran, read them literally and without investigation.
Multiple scholars have pored over the Quran, in all of its versions, and the consensus seems to be that it is unimaginative, boring, and unintelligible in some instances. Why would a literary person such as Maajid overlook all of the irregularities in relation to the Quran and Muhammad? A German university professor and convert to Islam publicly states that it’s very unlikely that Muhammad as a real historical person ever existed. The Quran and Islam could not exist without Judaism and Christianity. As a text, the Quran is bad and lazy. The Quran is nothing more than an intertextual theft of Jewish and Christian writings. Any literary person would be aware of this. Islam took Jewish laws and locations and Christian characters and mixed them together into an incredibly unimaginative new ideology, and then told us all that everyone else had gotten it wrong and that Muhammad had finally got it right. I would have more respect for Islam if it had been able to come up with something, anything unique. Instead, it takes Lent, a period in which historically Christians abstained from meat, alcohol, etc., and during which now we generally give up one thing – chocolate or cigarettes, for example – and it gives us Ramadan, a period in which people are doing nothing more than binge-eating. They starve all day, putting us all at risk (especially on the roads or if they’re operating dangerous machinery) because Muslims are light-headed, dehydrated, and their blood-sugar levels are dropping. Then, when the sun goes down, the fast suddenly ends and a Muslim can thrown any and all things down his throat.
Why do these four people with highly dubious pasts get to be the darlings of the UK’s media while Tommy Robinson languishes in jail for reporting on Muslim misdeeds? Tommy isn’t hosting LBC radio; nor is he writing weekly and regularly for high profile newspapers. He isn’t doing the worldwide debating tours either. He’s being silenced. After the Lee Rigby killing, Fiyaz Mughal was brought out by the media as being the voice of the British community, if you can believe that. The one thing that unites these people is that they are brown-skinned and Muslim. Untouchable, in other words, in the UK today.
Maajid claims that he turned to a terrorist group because he had been called some mean words when he was younger. That terrorist organization still shuts down Central London’s traffic today whenever they want to hold a demonstration. Tommy Robinson’s crime was that his cousin was gang-raped by Muslim men, and he saw his town being taken over by not only the radical element of Islam who spit on our soldiers, but also by the everyday “peaceful” Muslims who would set up religious divides in his town, and who would not integrate. Mr. Robinson’s crime was simply wanting everyone to get along and live in peace, and for Muslim grooming gangs to be brought to justice. He also wanted our armed forces to be respected, and for this he has been and continues to be punished.
When will non-Muslim men and women who speak out against atrocities be afforded the same media platforms that their Muslim counterparts enjoy? The EDL is no more. Any EDL members who exist today are on the outskirts of society. At the last EDL rally in London, there were no more than perhaps 20 members in attendance, and none of the speakers had anything noteworthy to say. Tommy’s baby is dead. Maajid’s former group Hizb ut-Tahrir, however, is very much still alive and growing.
pat mott says
He sounds like a really nice man on LBC radio, never seems to promote Islam & takes on the Muslim hardliners! Should we be suspicious?
Antony says
It’s not what he says in the media, those things are tailor made for the infidel. It’s what he doesn’t say, it’s what he leaves out in his answers. His sins of omission run deep.
https://vkchatterjee.wordpress.com/2016/09/04/exposed-the-lies-of-maajid-nawaz/
Krishna says
majid is genuine person he talkes bold on Muslim fundamentalist like anjem choudary but problem is he fantasies reforming Islam which is hard thing
RichardL says
Agreed.
Ray Jarman says
There is only one way to reform islam; by destroying it.
“Apparently being an ex-member of a terrorist organization makes one an expert on how best to spread Islam peacefully across the UK. Maajid is still a fierce promoter of Islam. He is still looking to spread it worldwide.” Until he completely renounces islam, and not like Muhammad who supposedly bowed down to Baal and other Arabian gods, i.e., the Satanic Versus, this man has no validity.
mortimer says
Agree with Krishna. Magic thinks there is a unicorn and that Islam can be reformed.
BUT WHY REFORM THIS PACK OF VICIOUS NONSENSE? Islam has brought NO BENEFITS to the world.
Why not simple ABANDON ISLAM as a violent, irrational, MISOGYNISTIC DEATH CULT and throw it away?
Islam has not helped the world in any way.
Cicero says
Yes yes and yes!
LeftisruiningCanada says
Watch some debates of his, especially the ones with Hersi Ali and Douglas Murray.
Do not trust Maajid Nawaz an inch. He’s crafty and smart and a liar to the core.
J D S says
He could fluff Islam up with whip cream, banana pudding, Every kind of ice cream in the world, douse it with the most expensive cologne there is and Islam would still be Islam calling for a caliphate, sharia law and world domination…..and that’s fact not fiction, if not prove me wrong…….
LeftisruiningCanada says
There is no doubt Maajid Nawaz advocates for such a state of affairs.
Antony says
” ‘Islamists’. If only they would follow the tolerant doctrine that that other group ‘Muslims’ follow. They really are making them look bad.”
It’s a shame the author of this otherwise decent article has fallen into the trap Maajid has set for him, by willingly using the very same obfuscating terms the “snake oil salesman” has pushed on we the kuffar (his main targets) endlessly in the media and everywhere else he goes.
“Islam is clean as a whistle, it’s that damned “islamism” we have to watch out for.”
isaac says
Maajid has set no traps, and ‘snake-oil salesman’ is one example, you state there are many but can’t name them. You really should think before commenting.
Antony says
The trap is using obfuscating language when referring to the one and only islam. I mentioned “snake oil salesman” because the OP did. Can you not read? Nothing else to say in your support for this man?
Islam_Is_Islam says
You have identified the trap of Da’wa. Joshua Winston, the author, weakens his strong article by using obfuscating language. Unlike Tommy Robinson (who Winston rightfully praises in the article), Mr. Winston does not say, “Islam is the problem.” Early on Tommy did differentiate between “Islamism” and Islam but not any more. In his interview by Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain as well as his most recent appearances anywhere, Robinson no longer minces words. As you recognize, Antony, Islam must be clearly identified as THE problem in order to defeat it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8Z7RIzTKLU&list=PLgIvb9MrZqsMHKHkMMjMHPXYmDhwhzCMo
Cicero says
“ This man ?” “This man?” (A la Oscar Wilde ).. To whom do you refer Sir ? Certainly not Mr Winston
LB says
I was about to comment the same thing. The author seems to believe that terrorists are “islamists” that follow “islamism”, not realizing that those same terrorists are actually the most pious and devout followers of islam — the teachings of the quran and example of muhammad, “the perfect man”. No sir, islamists are actually MUSLIMS that follow pure ISLAM to the letter!
The author also talks about the context and time period in which old texts (such as Old Testament) were written in. But the quran has one context and one context only that is timeless to all muslims — islam will be spread by the sword to the whole world until it is the only practiced religion on Earth, and until all unbelievers are either killed, enslaved or dhimmified.
If the author wishes to talk about fringe off-shoots of islam (which is what he implies “islamism” is), I’d say that the peaceful muslims who do not wage violent (or stealth) jihad upon infidels are the ones who are not muslim enough. I’d call them islamites, and there are 2 kinds:
1) Domestic islamites who even though they do not actively kill or deceive infidels, but are in secret support of those true muslims who do. They will awaken to become true muslims when/if the caliphate comes.
2) Westernized islamites who truly do not wish to harm the infidels and do not practice anything that quran preaches (praying 5 times a day, covering from head to toe with a black tent if they are female, fasting for ramadan, not consuming pork, alcohol, cigarettes and other vices, etc…) because they have probably never even read it in full, which makes them muslim in name only. The reason they identify as muslims is either for victimhood prestige that goes with it or they cannot leave islam in fear of their (and their family’s) well-being.
isaac says
You ‘believe’ wrong. the author is very well aware of the differences.
isaac says
Islam_is_Islam pretty sure the author is addressing maajid nawaz and the article is more about how these muslims are getting praised when they should be exiled. I’d also wager a bet that you don’t know how the author feels about Islam or how he would best describe it. Have you asked him?
George says
OH wrong on last point, TOMMY’s baby IS NOT DEAD, it has grown up very quickly + is VERY angry, and VERY BIG, with 15 countries world wide having marches for Tommy, politicians from several countries are coming to England to protest, 600,000 have signed a petition to free Tommy in 10 days, THE WORLD IS WATCHING.
isaac says
Pretty sure the EDL is dead. Tommy is doing something new now. If you can’t see that, it’s not my problem.
Cicero says
Use of such puerile and insulting language detracts from the validity of your arguments/stance against Islam and degrades this website which Mr Spencer has worked so hard to build
Please try and use more well balanced vocabulary.
Thank you
gravenimage says
How is Islam not filth? I can actually think of some stronger language…
Felix Quigley says
“Pretty sure the EDL is dead. Tommy is doing something new now. If you can’t see that, it’s not my problem.”
Isaac is right in above and it is a vital point. The English Defence league was based on spontaneity and opposed to theory.
It was inevitable that an intelligent leader like Robinson would quite quickly move beyond the EDL.
I am not attacking the EDL here as reactionary or anything like that, the opposite in my opinion, it was very progressive. It showed that there was an instinctive hatred for Islam inside of the English working class.
But theory was needed.
Robinson to his credit did move in this direction of THEORY (Spencer is another) and his book on the Koran with McLoughlin is the result, and is a REAL GAIN
Thanks Isaac for this clear point.
Carol the 1st says
Robinson shows real growth (check out his last interview before being incarcerated).
I find Naawaz a disgusting, two-faced distraction who only slows people from getting on with the business of making England sane again. Who could give credence to a man who looks intelligent and well-read but deliberately muddies the water and supports a creed that can’t be bleached clean? Ezra Levant has recently shown some signs of falling for Naawaz (most curious).
gravenimage says
Felix is really hoping that Tommy will become a Trotskyite…
LeftisruiningCanada says
Islam is filth though, right?
Jay Boo has a way of cutting to the quick of the issue. I for one like what he has to say.
kuriakose says
Why cannot one call a spade a spade?
Karen Curtis says
Not wrong, the author of the article said the EDL is dead- Tommy’s supporters are not the EDL
Felix Quigley says
Karen please see my answer to Isaac. I believe or would put it like this. The EDL is dead but the memory lives on and in one sense it is a good memory, for many reasons which I will go into another time. But the lessons must be drawn from that memory. Mainly that it was a spontaneous movement, which was good, but theory also is needed and here this is the traditional weakness of working class spontaneity. Tommy to his great credit moved in the direction of thought and his book on the Koran is very good and even though he is in jail and in danger that book is very useful and very much alive. In that way the EDL lives. Hope this is not too confusing but is a very vital issue. To sum up Tommy did not move to conflict with Quillian by marching but by thinking and turning to study as expressed in his key book on the Koran, which should become a standard, and should be promoted by Robert along with his August launch of his Jihad historical book.
isaac says
Tommy turned to Quilliam for money. Let him explain it for himself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vmkSwZhqAw
Michael Copeland says
Reform of Islam is both a wild goose chase and a red herring.
Allah says “this day I have perfected your religion for you” – Koran 5:3.
Allah says it is perfect.
No man may change it: that would be blasphemy, bringing the death penalty.
jack cade says
Binge eating? The Islamically kosher term is “pig out”!
Krishna says
I don’t agree with authors views majid is genuine person he talkes bold on Muslim fundamentalist like anjem choudary but problem is he fantasies reforming Islam which is hard and another wrong thing about this article is muhammad is real person he existed he was not fantasy guy
Cicero says
Krishna you are being misled into believing Nawaz is genuinely seeking reform of Islam and battling “ Islamists” . With a name like “Krishna” I am surprised you are not familiar with Dawa and jihad it’s subtlest guises.
I have listened to Nawaaz and having some familiarity with the tenets of Islam and it’s duplicitous strategies Inwould say that Nawaaz is advancing Islam by pen and word. Listen closely and follow his language . Listen to what he says @nd what he omits.
You will soon rumble this guy.
LeftisruiningCanada says
+1
gravenimage says
More on the very iffy Maajid Nawaz here:
https://www.jihadwatch.org/tag/maajid-nawaz
Islam_Is_Islam says
Off topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tL5exJg4ms
Powerful speech by an Englishman originally from 2001. Come on, Britain, Free Tommy Robinson!
Lydia Church says
That is right!
gravenimage says
The Strange Case of Maajid Nawaz and the Hypocrisy of the UK Media
………………………
Good piece by Joshua Winston.
Felix Quigley says
Karen please see my answer to Isaac. I believe or would put it like this. The EDL is dead but the memory lives on and in one sense it is a good memory, for many reasons which I will go into another time. But the lessons must be drawn from that memory. Mainly that it was a spontaneous movement, which was good, but theory also is needed and here this is the traditional weakness of working class spontaneity. Tommy to his great credit moved in the direction of thought and his book on the Koran is very good and even though he is in jail and in danger that book is very useful and very much alive. In that way the EDL lives. Hope this is not too confusing but is a very vital issue. To sum up Tommy did not move to conflict with Quillian by marching but by thinking and turning to study as expressed in his key book on the Koran, which should become a standard, and should be promoted by Robert along with his August launch of his Jihad historical book.
Felix Quigley says
Jay Boo such a witty point. You probably know, but the cameraman of Tommy in video with Alec Jones said that they saw from a certain window in the courtroom the Jihadists making the death sign on the throat TO THEM. And from the same window they saw the judge staring down also at them. There was a kind of UNITY inside of that courtroom. A drama being played out. Total freedom and possible camaraderie inside that courtroom.
Terra Nova says
Muslims, even if the Prophet would stand in front of them and would say: This is not what I reached you and how it has to be, pls.
You know what they would do? They would……… kill him and say that was not our prophet or Allah.
Because they can not live without violence, oppressing and conquering. Listen to the video what Muhammad says about that.
I am not wondering about muslims any more, I know !!!
Maria Sederholm says
Maajid Nawaz is indeed a fierce promoter of Islam but very cleverly manages to fool people into believing that he’s not. Despite his apparent megalomania I don’t think for a minute that he really believes that he can reform Islam. He knows Islamic doctrine too well to have any real illusions of that being done. Unless of course he’s had a vision in which Allah spoke to him and gave him the assignment of replacing Mohammed as his last prophet. I have caught Nawaz lying about Islam numerous times, and about other things as well. He is a very skilled manipulator, which I think is partly to do with his personality and partly to do with him being trained in deception by the best, i.e. Hizb ut-Tahrir. As he has said himself: “My time in Hizb ut-Tahrir only enforced in me the power of words”. He has admitted to being a fan of “semantic infiltration” and he has perfected his use of it to an art form. Nawaz is a chameleon. He says the exact thing that is needed in a particular situation, but can contradict himself soon after by saying something completely different to another person/audience. Not many seem to notice. One has o listen very intentively to what he says to be able to pick his narrative apart and analyse it. Very few people do. Nawaz is the typical example of a Muslim who makes use of liberal values and “Human Rights”, in order to push an Islamic agenda in the Western world. It is revealing that he as a “counter-extremist” advised the British government not to prohibit groups like his own Hizb ut-Tahrir and to just leave them alone. If not left alone they risked being radicalized even more, according to his “counter-extremism” organization Quilliam. Furthermore, Nawaz does not want to see a burqua ban in Britain, as he thinks that would be “illiberal” and “un-British”. Tommy Robinson raised the issue of extreme rape gangs, consisting of men of Muslim origin, in an interview with Jeremy Paxman on BBC Newsnight 2011 (available on YouTube). Today Nawaz virtue signals by acting indignant when talking about it being scandalous that people have kept quiet about these gangs so long “for fear of being called racist”. Nawaz knew about these extreme rape gangs at least since 2011, and he would not personally have feared being dismissed as a racist if speaking out about them, yet as a “counter-extremist”, who also advised David Cameron, he did not speak out until 2018 when Quilliam presented their report on the gangs. Isn’t rape jihad exactly the sort of extremism that should be countered if one purports to be a “counter-extremist”? Furthermore, Nawaz has not been open about the fact that the actions of the rapers are supported in Islamic doctrine, something that ex-Muslim and ex Muslim preacher Mufassil Islam pointed out in a very good video. Nawaz has implied that he sees Tommy Robinson as a “nativist” pied piper (who can lead people to commit terrorist acts), and when asked three times if he could deny that this was indeed what he meant by his words, refrained from doing so. Nawaz’s young protégé, Julia Ebner, who writes hit pieces in the Guardian on the “far-right” and on Tommy Robinson and who also advises parliamentary committees on the “far-right threat” has been well trained by him. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a complimentary copy of her book her book “The Rage: The Vicious Circle of Islamist and Far Right Extremism” on Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Marc Rowely’s bedside table when he stated that Tommy Robinson had radicalized Darren Osborne (who drove a van into a group of Muslims outside the Finsbury park Mosque). It is obvious that only people like Nawaz (Muslims, not apostates) will have the freedom to criticize Islam in the future. They and their useful idiots (like Sam Harris, Bill Maher…) whom they can easily manipulate. Very worrying is that the brilliant Douglas Murray seems to have fallen hook, line and sinker for Nawaz and swallowed his obfuscations and spin, as he has stated that he thinks that Nawaz is “doing the Lord’s work”. Nawaz has been consistent in smearing Tommy Robinson in the most insidious ways possible. As the skilled manipulator he is he always does it covertly. He criticizes him openly, but smears him covertly. Very clever. Nawaz has stated that he is not religious which means that it is the political side of Islam that attracts him. Several of the Muslims who work for Quillam are very devout though and Nawaz is a supporter of religious/devout Muslims in politics. He has endorsed Keith Ellison and he has stated that Sadiq Kahn does a “stellar job”. Make no mistake, Nawaz is on a mission to sell Islam to the Western world. With a few spoonfuls of sugar.
isaac says
Very well stated.
Felix Quigley says
Yes very good summary and analysis. Let me add a couple of tangents that come from this. Islam is a vicious and deadly ideology. It is also a bankrupt system as far as the needs of humanity are concerned. The great Sir David Attenborough today is dealing with one of our great problems, the poisoning of our vital oceans by plastic. Contrast this genuine English man and his work…Islam is bankrupt on every level.
I observe though that stupid people I meet often have cunning. Not the cunning of a “fox” because I defend all dumb animals but the cunning which comes from stupidity of anti humans.
This cunning is operating beneath our noses. The alliance of Islam in Ireland is with Adams and the Republicans, specifically with Sinn Fein, but with republicanism in general which takes in Irish history. Islam has been quite successful in Ireland because it slotted in with a vital part of Irish history, that of the mass emigration caused by the famine years of 1845 to 47. In Ireland the Palestinian myth was introduced and strongly sold using the Famine and Emigration. AQnd as we know on this site Palestinianism IS Jihad. Switch to Britain. The key factor in selling Islam in the UK has been from the conservative Jack Philby oil link line, and from the Labour Party Corbyn line to again very aggressively spin the lie of the “Palestinians”. The left in the Labour Party which is characterised by the whole history of Corbyn and Livingstone, now Momentum, is a totally Antisemitic and Left Fascist “Palestinian” movement.
This is why Nawaz can get away with such deception. The ground has already been ploughed and harrowed by the forces I mention above.
Felix Quigley says
Maria writes…
“Furthermore, Nawaz has not been open about the fact that the actions of the rapers are supported in Islamic doctrine, something that ex-Muslim and ex Muslim preacher Mufassil Islam pointed out in a very good video.”
Of great importance. That was what I meant when I said that Tommy was driven into a study of the Koran and his book is of vital importance. (Mohammed’s Koran: Why Muslims Kill For Islam 21 junio 2017
Peter McLoughlin Tommy Robinson)
“Nawaz has implied that he sees Tommy Robinson as a “nativist” pied piper (who can lead people to commit terrorist acts), and when asked three times if he could deny that this was indeed what he meant by his words, refrained from doing so. Nawaz’s young protégé, Julia Ebner, who writes hit pieces in the Guardian on the “far-right” and on Tommy Robinson and who also advises parliamentary committees on the “far-right threat” has been well trained by him.”
Not just Nawaz but the whole of the Sinn Fein, Corbyn, Livingstone, Churches, Momentum have prepared the ground for Islam and for these preachers of Islam. In that they are the key, this whole circle, in the Judge being able to destroy British law and send Tommy Robinson to prison.
It is a very difficult situation because the ideological ground has been prepared in the way I suggest.
But that ideological ground also rests on another very material ground. That is the actual existence of very big numbers of Muslims in Britain.
That cannot be avoided in any solution.