Interview With Fuad Nahdi The Radical Middle Way was launched in London in
2005, following the recommendations of a Muslim task force set up after the
London transport bombings in July 2005. In this interview, Fuad Nahdi, director
of the Radical Middle Way and founding editor of the progressive Muslim
magazine Q-News, talks about the organization's aim to bring a back-to-basics
theology to Islam and how to counter an "estimated $15 billion" global
investment in spreading extremist ideology. This is an edited transcript of an
interview that took place in October 2006.
According to intelligence reports during the last 30 years, investment has
been put into this extremist ideology. We are talking estimates of over US$15
billion. To the best of our knowledge, there is no ideology in the history of
mankind that had such massive resources put into it on a global level.
Q: Linden MacIntyre: Take me past the obvious contradiction in terms. How can
there be a radical middle?
A: Fuad Nahdi: The radical middle way is based on the premise that most of
the discussion about Islam is held in a context of extremism on both sides. So
actually to be moderate, to be in the middle, is radical because it's different
from the perceived notion around us.
Q: How did this extremist thinking become so prevalent in a faith and culture
that tends not to be extremist?
A: It's not something that happened overnight. It has taken decades to
develop. According to intelligence reports during the last 30 years, investment
has been put into this extremist ideology. We are talking estimates of over
US$15 billion. To the best of our knowledge, there is no ideology in the
history of mankind that had such massive resources put into it on a global
level.
Q: Where has that money been spent?
A lot of the money has been spent on creating the intellectual framework -
books; university departments producing thousands of graduates and sending them
across the world to promote this thing; building centers, some of them here in
the West; paying imams and local leaders. If an imam gets a hefty salary, he is
free from any local consideration. And if he is well educated, he's given the
kind of intellectual tools to become influential in society. Then vulnerable
young people, who have been rejected by the system, swarm around these people.
Even now, if you look, some of the most dynamic professional Web sites belong
to these kinds of people who run the extremist shop.
Q: What label do you put on this extremism?
A: Some people call them jihadist; some would call them salafist, which I
think is a misnomer. The idea is not to identify them by names but by the
issues they are raising.
Q: What are these issues?
A: Very simple. It's that the world is black and white, divided into them and
us -- a very George Bush understanding. Anybody who is not like us, who does
not think like us, is wrong. It's a very powerful message because it makes
people look inward and stop exploring things. You start getting all the wrong
kind of messages once you stop asking questions.
Q: What's the root of this investment in an essentially destructive process?
A: With the squashing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the late '50s and
'60s, suddenly political Islam was found to be convenient to be exported all
over the world, but not to be practiced in Egypt. Egypt had the ideas but did
not have the money to take it abroad. Then in the early '70s, with the oil
price explosion in the Middle East, suddenly the Gulf countries, particularly
Saudi Arabia, had the money but didn't have the ideas.
Q: Again, why not spend the money on better things?
A: If you're looking for a rational explanation, you're not going to get it.
The crux of the matter is the theology. Islam is a belief system. It's a series
of mistakes, one after another -- of bad analyses, reactionary negative
responses and just total misunderstanding. To counter, we're trying to sustain
and nurture a mainstream form of Islam that has been lost for decades now. We
want to define Islam, not by the terms given it by the extremist and the
radical elements.
It's nice to have political analysis, to have sociological analysis, economic
analysis, why people are becoming radicalized or turning to extremism. But at
the end of the day, the real issue lies with the theology because this is the
real source of all that is happening.
Q: So, you're basically saying that the central message of Islam has been
hijacked by extremists?
A: Yes.
Q: And that the theology of Islam has no room for this violent jihadist
culture?
Exactly. Everybody is trying to find a reason by saying more people are angry
because of foreign policy. They're angry because of economic deprivation;
they're angry because they're alienated. Young people are marginalized because
of the racism in society. All are legitimate, tangible factors. But the real
issue is the theology. The issue is, "Does Islam justify violence and
terrorism?"
Q: And does it?
A: It doesn't matter. If you answer all the requests: take the foreign troops
out of Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere; change foreign policy; provide
economic equality; institute massive programs of inclusion -- still, at the
back of the mind, people think that Islam justifies terrorism and extremism.
Next, the problem they have is [that] they don't like Jews. So, they'll go back
to terrorism and violence. They don't like gays, so, they'll go back to
terrorism and violence. They don't like their neighbours
and so on. It's
critical that we close this loophole in theological terms and say there is
categorically no room in Islam for violence and terrorism as a way to bring
change.
You're speaking into the face of a hurricane here. How do you expect to be
heard with such a radical message?
That's why it's the radical middle way. In this environment of extremism, you
become radical. One of the issues we face is, how do we negotiate within this
extremism without compromising? I'll give you a good example. When we talk
about modern societies, we talk about ideas of citizenship. And people will
tell you, "Islam has the answer to everything." We say, "Fine." But the idea of
citizenship is totally alien to the Muslim mind because, historically, we have
never been citizens. We have either been loyal subjects to the caliph or the
sultan, or we are part of the spiritual brotherhood. But the idea of
citizenship engagement is totally alien.
Our response is, "Look, this is really not part of our history, but it's a
useful thing. It is something that is demanded of us in society. Let's clear
the table and see how we as Muslims can define this idea and how can we
"Islamacize" it? I hate using that term, but how can we make it relevant and
get ownership of it in our own terms?
Q: Are you talking about countering with your own form of jihad?
A: What does jihad mean, really? For me it's about challenging the
environment around you that is not acceptable. Looking after our elderly,
looking after the well-being of our neighbours, making sure that there is
equity in society, there is security -- working for the betterment of everybody
around. Once we achieve that, then we can look abroad. Otherwise, I think it's
arrogant and stupid to worry about agendas if they have nothing to do with you.
Q: What agendas are you talking about?
A: Any agenda in the Muslim world. The issues of Iraq, of Chechnya, of
Palestine. I think some Muslims make a mistake that we are the only ones
worried about these places. But I know many non-Muslims who are equally worried
about these places.
Q: How is the theology of Islam under threat?
A: There is a lot of call for the reformation of Islam. The teaching of Islam
says that, after every hundred years, there will come a transformer who will
transform religion from the inside. Now theologians in Islam see Islam like an
onion, and every transformer who comes adds an extra sheath to protect the
theological discussions about Islam, not to expose it. We are reminded of what
happened in Christianity through the Reformation and how nasty Reformation can
be. A third of Christendom perished under religion. Islam runs away from that
situation of chaos, theological chaos. The genius of Islam over the years has
been to protect this from taking place.
What does jihad mean, really? For me it's about challenging the
environment around you that is not acceptable. Looking after our elderly,
looking after the well-being of our neighbours, making sure that there is
equity in society.
Q: And now it's beginning to unravel.
A: It took only 12 years for the Germans to create the Third Reich after the
Treaty of Versailles. Osama bin Laden and one of his preachers talk about 800
years of Muslim humiliation. That anger has come partly through the teaching of
Islam -- through the idea of reformation, of trying to open it up. The
emergence of the suicide bomber is a very clear manifestation of the
reformation. Think about this: There are roughly 1.3 billion Muslims. If only 1
percent of them took this Islamic reformation to heart, we are talking about,
how many? -- 130 million potential suicide bombers. What kind of world will we
live in? Thanks to Allah, this religion has got its own inside mechanism not to
allow such a situation to develop.
Q: It strikes me that moderates like you and your counterpart, Hamza Yusuf in
the United States, can't do this alone. What help do you need?
A: We need help particularly from the media, so we don't focus our cameras
always on the absurdities of life. Most young, second-generation Western
Muslims don't wake up in the morning thinking how I'm going blow myself up and
kill my neighbours. They're thinking how I'm going to get through today, get my
work done; how I'm going to get my new mortgage, get married.
Western societies need to understand one thing -- the Islam they invest in
today is the Islam they're going to get tomorrow. We want to bring in scholars
who can close the East-West divide, who can speak to Muslims living in the
West. Scholars like Sheik Hamza Yusuf or Abdullah Binbaya, who's based in Saudi
Arabia, a Mauritanian sheik of very high repute. The legitimacy these scholars
bring is that they have made an effort to understand what Islam says, not what
the people are saying in the streets.
Q: In the face of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the continued questioning in the
West of Muslim identity, how do you hope to get the message of moderation
across to impressionable, volatile young people?
A: My message isn't to do with Western occupation of Iraq or what's going on
in Afghanistan or Palestine. I'm working with Islam, the faith. And I can only
argue that this is what Islam teaches me about this situation. You judge a
faith or a religion or an ideology by the way it reacts to adversity. We say
these problems are not permanent. The way we react to adversity, the way we
behave as people of God, that's a permanent thing. We're allowed to be black;
we're allowed to be Asian. But we have never been allowed to be Muslim. And we
have found that, the more liberal a person is, the more they tend to be hostile
to someone whose religion is a source of their identity. So you grow up as a
Muslim in a sense of negativity.
Q: How else do you tackle this well-funded, well organized extremism?
A: We are not going to have even one percent of the resources that the other
party has in terms of developing this moderate form of Islam. But what is on
our side is that we are not reinventing the wheel. The idea is to find within
the genius of Islam -- in 1,400 years of history -- what works. Mainstream
Islam -- based on nonviolence, on a sense of justice, on a sense of honesty, on
a sense of fairness -- is something that has developed over centuries in Islam.
It's up to us to go and find people who know where this is in our history,
bring it into the forefront and share it with others. The worst thing we can do
is to push this radical agenda underground. I wrote an article two or three
years ago to say the war against terrorism and the new antiterrorism laws will
push the whole debate and agenda underground. And then we will not have a clue
what is happening. When 7\7 [the London transport bombings of July7, 2005]
happened, it just blew up in our face. Believe me, the
intelligence people in the West have no clue what is going on.
Q: How do you measure success?
For me, the success will be when somebody sees a Muslim in the street and
identifies him, not with the collapse of the twin towers, but with the beauty
of the Taj Mahal; then I will know that we have succeeded.
saiyed shahbazi
www.shahbazcenter.org
