Double
Games Of The UK Muslim Brotherhood
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Last December, the British government published a summary of the
findings of a classified Review of the Brotherhood both in Britain and
abroad. The Review was ordered by Prime Minister David Cameron and was
conducted by two of Britain's most expert civil servants in the Arab world
and Islamist ideology. They concluded that the Brotherhood was secretive,
that its claim to have officially disowned violence was not credible and
that aspects of its ideology and tactics both in the UK and abroad were
"contrary to our values and have been contrary to our national
interests and our national security." UK Brotherhood associates
identified in the Review have responded angrily, denying they are "in
any way linked to the Muslim Brotherhood." British journalist John
Ware examines their response in the latest edition of the British magazine
Standpoint which describes as its core mission the "celebration of
western civilisation."
John Ware is a British journalist who was a senior correspondent
for the BBC's flagship investigative current affairs programme, Panorama,
from 1986 to 2012. He has written extensively about the origins, growth and
influence of the Muslim Brotherhood network in the UK which he says closely
parallels its American counterpart.
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Anas Altikriti (right)
with Jeremy Corbyn at an anti-war event in 2003: Altikriti has said that
Iraqis had the right to expel the "occupation" (©Sean
Dempsey/PA Archive/Press Association Images)
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The tone was plaintive, almost bewildered. "We work tirelessly for
the good of British society on several fronts," Anas Altikriti
protested before calling a press conference to refute the government's
charge that he and other like-minded Muslim leaders are doing the opposite.
A classified government review by two of Britain's leading civil
servants, expert in the Arab world and Islamist ideology, has concluded
that organisations like the one Altikriti heads are, in effect, fronts for
the Muslim Brotherhood — a charge they categorically deny.
The Ikhwan al-Muslimeen, as it is known in Arabic, was established in
1928 in Egypt and its goal was — and remains — the step-by-step
Islamisation of Muslim communities with the ultimate aim of creating a
global Caliphate ruled by holy law. "Allah is our objective" is
the Brotherhood's motto, "The Prophet is our leader. The Koran is our
constitution. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest
hope."
With Altikriti on the platform was Omer El-Hamdoon, president of the
Muslim Association of Britain, and Mohammed Kozbar, chairman of the
Finsbury Park Mosque, North London, where the press conference was held.
"We are not enemies of the state," said the gently-spoken
Hamdoon. All three say they "totally reject the allegation" that
they are "in any way linked to the Muslim Brotherhood".
Altikriti, in particular, has emphasised that he has "absolutely no
links" and on its face his denial would seem to be consistent with the
values of "tolerance" and "positive co-existence" which
he says he is devoted to promoting. It's certainly a vision a world away
from the Brotherhood's founder, Hassan al-Banna, who sought the moral
purification of Muslims, because he regarded them as having been infected
by Western decadence. That and his belief that Jews were a major source of
the infection help explain why he was an admirer of Hitler and why he
translated Mein Kampf into Arabic, calling it My Jihad.
Al-Banna's legacy has bequeathed a virulent strain of anti-Semitism,
homophobia, and disdain for the West and its pluralist values within the
Brotherhood that survives to the present day. But no hint of that is to be
found in the estimable "Vision" and "Values" section of
Altikriti's think-tank, the Cordoba Foundation, which he established so
that Muslims and non-Muslims can "strive" to "understand
each other."
The Cordoba Foundation says it promotes "intercultural dialogue and
positive coexistence among civilisations"; it puts a premium on
"compassion, peace, justice" and is a "strong voice of
tolerance and reason". It asserts that its "independent"
research is underpinned by "sound" academic authorities. What
could be more in tune with those British values which the Prime Minister
has done so much to promote over the last year as part of his
counter-extremism strategy?
Nothing, according to Mohammed Kozbar, sitting alongside Altikriti. With
the help of the Metropolitan Police, the Finsbury Park mosque was
"liberated" in 2005 by Kozbar and his fellow trustees from the
hook-handed demagogue Abu Hamza, now serving life in an American jail.
Today, says Kozbar, the mosque serves as a "role model to other
mosques and community centres". In fact, he says, his mosque, together
with the Muslim Association of Britain and "similar Muslim organisations",
could "teach" David Cameron "a thing or two about British
values".
Really? It is true the Finsbury Park mosque does good by offering hot
meals to the homeless. But since its "liberation" it might also
benefit from a few lessons in British values. It has hosted speakers who
are on the record as having said they were inspired by the books of Hassan
al-Banna and by the Brotherhood's spiritual leader, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi,
who in 2009 thanked Hitler for having "managed to put Jews in their
place". Another speaker hosted by the mosque has described Jews as
having "no conscience" and "having all the bad qualities:
lies, jealousy, treachery, cowardice, aggression"; another has argued
that apostates from Islam must be killed; and yet another has said,
"We don't need to go to the Christians, or the Jews, debating with
them about the filth which they believe."
You only have to imagine what — rightly — would be the reaction had
Cameron ever shared a platform with people who spoke of Muslims in such a
venomous way.
The mosque's trustees are also happy to be photographed with Hamas
leaders in Gaza. Indeed, one of the trustees is himself a fugitive Hamas
commander. Like some other Muslim Brothers, he appears to use London as a
base from which to travel to the Middle East to promote the movement — even
though Hamas's military wing has been designated a terrorist organisation
here and elsewhere because it has deliberately targeted unarmed civilians.
Hamas is, of course, the Palestinian branch of the Brotherhood.
The government review of the Muslim Brotherhood was conducted by Sir
John Jenkins, until recently ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and Charles Farr,
a former MI6 officer and Director General of the Office for Security and
Counter-Terrorism in the Home Office. He now chairs the Joint Intelligence
Committee. Jenkins examined the development, ideology and structures of the
Muslim Brotherhood around the world, from when it was established to the
present day. Farr investigated the Brotherhood's network in the UK.
The Brotherhood is now banned in Egypt, the Emirates and Saudi Arabia,
and in commissioning his review, Cameron has been accused by Altikriti,
Kozbar and el-Hamdoon of bowing to those states under threat of losing
defence contracts. In truth, the Prime Minister had become increasingly
concerned that the Brotherhood's network here, whilst not engaging in
violent extremism, was helping to create the conditions that allowed it to
flourish.
Altikriti and his colleagues say the opposite is true and that Jenkins and
Farr's work is "filled with mistakes". Is it? What about their
categorical denial that they are not linked "in any way" to the
Brotherhood?
The published summary of the classified review finds that much about the
Brotherhood's UK network of associates and affiliates "remains
secretive, including membership, fundraising and educational
programmes". Perhaps that is why Jenkins and Farr are careful to refer
to "organisations associated (my emphasis) with the Muslim
Brotherhood".
Judged by this criteria the associations are numerous. The Egyptian
Brotherhood has morphed into a global movement of like-minded
organisations, often interconnected. Hence Mohammed Kozbar's Finsbury Park
Mosque is identified by a Muslim directory as being "Salafai Ikhwan"
(Brotherhood) and he is also a vice-president of the Muslim Association of
Britain (MAB). Altikriti was MAB president (2003-04), and he and Mohammed
Kozbar were directors (2000-2007).
MAB was established in 1997, its founding president having previously
been the Brotherhood's official spokesman in the West. In September 2002,
MAB published a paper called "Inspire" which explained how MAB
had indeed been Brotherhood-inspired. Virtually all of the modern
influences quoted were Muslim Brotherhood leaders and ideologues. In 2002,
MAB paid its condolences on the death of the "General Guide to Muslim
Brotherhood", Mustafa Mashoor, and did so again in 2004 on the death
of his successor, Mamun al-Hudaybi.
An archived link from MAB's 2004 website identified some of the
"links" that Altikriti today insists do not exist. MAB said then
that "amongst its members are those who back in their original
countries were members of the Muslim Brotherhood."
In 2005, Altikriti himself told me: "My family is Muslim
Brotherhood." His family are from Iraq and his father, a consultant
radiologist, was head of the Muslim Brotherhood there. "When I was in
the Arab Emirates, I was extremely closely linked with the Muslim
Brotherhood," he explained. "I used to go to some of their (study)
circles." At a conference in Doha in 2010, Altikriti was listed as
representing the Islamic party in Iraq which he himself has described as a
Muslim Brotherhood "offshoot".
I count at least 30 Islamic organisations in Britain that are closely
associated with the Brotherhood. Broadly, they seek to popularise a more
"ideologised" version of Islam (as the theologian Malise Ruthven
puts it) by monopolising political representation of Muslims in Britain.
They want the government to adopt a more Islamist-friendly foreign policy,
and of course to expand politicised sacred space. Even though
Brotherhood-associated organisations actually control only a handful of
mosques, their political activism has exerted an influence over Muslims
disproportionate to their size.
Here, for example, is "Jemal", MAB's delegate to a Stop the
War Coalition conference, who told the British Communist Party journal Weekly
Worker in 2003 that many Muslim organisations here had been "set
up under the influence of the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood . . . we
have gone from strength to strength." A decade later, Altikriti was
asked in an interview published by his own Cordoba Foundation to identify
the "most important Muslim Brotherhood institutions that had an
influence on the Muslim community in Britain".
Altikriti responded by naming ten organisations, including six mentioned
in the government review — another "mistake" by Messrs. Jenkins
and Farr: UK Islamic Mission (UKIM); Federation of Student Islamic
Societies (FOSIS); Islamic Society of Britain (ISB); Islamic Forum of
Europe (IFE); Muslim Association of Britain (MAB); and Muslim Council of
Britain (MCB). As the review says, the ISB has been inching away from its
Brotherhood birthright and seems to be focused on promoting an identity
that's closer to the mainstream. Its activist erstwhile brothers meanwhile
claim it is they who represent "normative" Islam. If they are
right, we're in trouble.
Take UKIM which runs some 50 mosques. Jenkins and Farr say UKIM
"still explicitly argues that it is not possible for an observant
Muslim to live under a non-Islamic system of government whilst also
anticipating the forthcoming 'victory' of Islam over Communism, capitalist
democracy and secular materialism". UKIM was established by supporters
of the Brotherhood's south-east Asia counterpart, the Pakistani Islamist
party, Jamaat-e-Islami, whose members sheltered some notable al-Qaeda
terrorists, including the 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. UKIM
insists it has "strongly condemned all forms of extremism" but it
is clear, if only in terms of UKIM's worldview, that its definition of
"extreme" cannot be reconciled with mainstream Britain's.
What about the influence of the Islamic Forum for Europe (IFE)? It
dominates the East London Mosque in Tower Hamlets. Like the Finsbury Park
Mosque, its volunteers do good community work offering advice on marriages,
families, women's services, pro-bono legal support, and ex-offender
support, though why such services for Muslims have to be provided by
Muslims is unclear if, as the mosque says, promoting community cohesion is
its "mission". Under the IFE's influence, the mosque has also
transformed large parts of the East End into communities that are so
conservative in lifestyle and attire that they have effectively segregated themselves
from any meaningful social interaction with the mainstream. IFE members
have privately advocated sharia law and it was also the IFE which propelled
Britain's first directly-elected Asian mayor, Lutfur Rahman, into power in
Tower Hamlets, only for one court to find that he was corrupt, a liar, a
politician who played the race and religious card, and an election cheat
and now for another court to find he has been a long-standing tax cheat.
Yet Altikriti is on record as having said that since its arrival in the UK
the Brotherhood has cultivated a "comparatively progressive
narrative" here, and is "amongst the most progressive . . .
religious- based movements in general".
Again, the government review finds otherwise, concluding that MAB — and
other Brotherhood associated organisations — have yet to "clearly and
publicly promote a vision of Muslims living in this country as integrated
British citizens".
What is stopping this vision from materialising? The review found the
Brotherhood was more focused on trying to Islamise individuals and the
Muslim community than the state. Yet that was also Brotherhood founder
Hassan al-Banna's strategy as he sought to change Islam, the faith, into a
political ideology by Islamising individuals as a first step towards creating
Islamised communities with the ultimate political goal of building a
caliphate with laws, customs and lifestyles organised entirely around
Islam.
However fantastical this might seem, many observant Muslims dream that
one day, albeit in the far-distant future, not just Britain, but the entire
world will became a caliphate. Altikriti is no exception, as he explained
to me in 2005:
JW: You have this
firm conviction that one day there . . . will be an Islamic state here in
Britain?
AA: The Prophecy of the Prophet Muhammad is quite clear of that: and that
is that the world will embrace Islam . . .
JW: How will this happen?
AA: I have no idea.
JW: I don't mean this pejoratively but is this something you are working
for?
AA: No, I would be absolutely lying if I said, "Yes, in my daily
activities and when I work for MAB [Muslim Association of Britain] . . . I
had in mind that I'm trying to bring forth the conversion of Europe to
Islam," I would be lying if I said so. But at the same time I would also
lying if I said I'm not convinced in my heart of hearts that it will happen
. . . I know for a fact that this will happen in spite of me whether I work
for it or not.
So if Altikriti is not working towards this global transformation, what
exactly is he doing? "The only obligation that I have is what I call Da'wah,"
he explained, which is the Arabic term for proselytising, or inviting
people to Islam. And, according to the scholar often referred to as the
Brotherhood's spiritual leader, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, Da'wah is
what will lead to Islam coming "back to Europe for the third time,
after it was expelled from it twice . . . Conquest through Da'wah
that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America!
Not through sword but through Da'wah." It's a point the Sheikh
has made many times.
One thing seems clear: whether the Brotherhood is actively seeking to
lay the groundwork for a caliphate, the amount of politicised sacred space
has expanded rapidly here in Britain as in much of the world since the Egyptian
Brotherhood's influence has gone global. It is why this
"ideologised" version of Islam is someties referred to as
history's latest big idea since the fall of Communism and fascism. So where
does the Brotherhood stand on violence?
The Egyptian Brotherhood told Sir John Jenkins it had "consistently
adhered to peaceful means of opposition, renouncing all forms of violence
throughout its existence." Again, he finds otherwise. While engaging
politically where possible, Sir John says the Brotherhood has "also
selectively used violence and sometimes terror in pursuit of their
institutional goals". Brotherhood-linked media platforms "seem to
have deliberately incited violence" after the ousting in 2013 by a
military coup of the Brotherhood's first Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi
because he failed to deliver his commitment to democracy, notwithstanding
Altikriti's claim that the Brotherhood is the world's "most important
Islamic democratic force". The review also found that the Brotherhood
has "deliberately, wittingly and openly incubated and sustained"
Hamas, the Brotherhood's Palestinian branch.
Altikriti, his two colleagues on the press platform and other
Brotherhood-associated organisations have roundly condemned terrorist
attacks on the UK and terrorism by al-Qaeda and so called Islamic State
abroad.
But some of Altikriti's associates here have also openly applauded
attacks by Hamas against unarmed Israeli civilians, including suicide
bombings. Nor has Altikriti publicly disowned Hamas, which he does not regard
as a terrorist organisation anyway, although he has said he does not
consider Israeli civilians to be legitimate targets.
However, when interviewed by the BBC in 2014, Altikriti denied that the
Brotherhood's spiritual leader Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi supported suicide
bombing, insisting he knew of no evidence that Qaradawi did, even though
the cleric has been very widely publicised as saying he considers them to
be "heroic acts. We should hail those who carry out these acts and
bless them and call on God to take them to live in Paradise."
Altikriti's claim to have been ignorant of Qaradawi's blessing is
especially bewildering because it was his organisation, MAB, in 2004 — the
year he was also MAB president — that invited Qaradawi to London amid a storm
of protest in the newspapers and on the BBC about this very issue.
Moreover, Altikriti was photographed sitting next to Qaradawi at a
reception at City Hall, London, hosted by the then mayor, Ken Livingstone.
Usama Hasan, now senior researcher at the Quilliam Foundation, says he was
present at the reception and heard Qaradawi asked about women and children
as targets. According to Hasan, Qaradawi replied in Arabic that there was
no such thing as civilian targets in Israel because "Israeli women are
not like our women. They are living in a militarised society."
Altikriti is fluent in Arabic.
What about Altikriti's approach to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars? He is
an Iraqi-born British citizen, having been given sanctuary here when he was
just two, after his father fled from Ba'athist persecution in Iraq.
Some 630 of Altikriti's fellow citizens — British soldiers — have fought
and died in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002. Like many Muslims and
non-Muslims he was opposed to both wars. He said he preferred political
rather than violent "resistance" because he didn't want to see
"any spillage of blood — coalition forces or the Iraqis". Yet he
also affirmed the right of Iraqis to use "any means and methods"
to expel the "occupation". Those, like him, who were opposed to
the invasion had "made a decision to fight for what is true and
pure".(That word "pure" again.) Is it really so difficult
for Altikriti and the thousands of other Brotherhood followers in this
country to understand that it is one thing to see the invasion through the
eyes of Iraqis resisting it, but quite another to publicly support them
when the lives of your fellow citizens are at stake — especially when those
fellow citizens belong to a country that protected your family from Iraqi
oppression in the first place?
To convince sceptics that the Brotherhood alligned movement here is
"working tirelessly for the good of British society on several
fronts" Anas Altikriti and Kozbar will need to reconcile their
admirable rhetoric — how they strive for positive coexistence, tolerance,
peace, compassion and justice, etc — with the words and actions of the
organisation they led between 2000 and 2007: the Muslim Association of
Britain. While condemning al-Qaeda attacks like 9/11 and 7/7, some of MAB's
actions and rhetoric directed at the Israel-Palestine conflict were
particularly inflammatory and contributed to keeping young British Muslims
angry.
On April 13, 2002, MAB organised a pro-Palestinian rally in London. The
MAB email advertising this rally was headlined "Muslim Brotherhood
launch biggest Palestine rally in the UK", clearly indicating the
MAB/Muslim Brotherhood connection that Altikriti has denied. At the rally
itself, demonstrators dressed as suicide bombers and carried placards,
downloaded from the MAB website, equating Israel with Nazi Germany.
In 2003, a MAB spokesman, Azzam Tamimi (whom Altikriti told me was
almost certainly a Muslim Brother), wrote an article titled
"Anti-Semitism or Just Jews Behaving Badly?" So carried away was
Tamimi by his accusations of racism against Israelis, that his own language
descended into racism, going well beyond legitimate criticism of Israel and
its policies.
Israeli Jews were described as "invaders" that came from afar
"out of greed . . . justifying their aggression by . . . claiming
themselves to be the chosen people of God who are given a divine licence to
dehumanise, kill and rob and [sic] entire nation of a decent living".
The article concluded: "Few humans may accept the racist claim of
other humans of being God's chosen ones who may kill others because they
are less divine . . . Until when will the world be able to put up with
their arrogance and aggression? If they want to be as human as anybody
else, Jews must wake up before it is too late."
No doubt Tamimi would say that his hostility to Israelis was not because
they are Jews. The same defence was made by the Brotherhood's ex-President
of Egypt Mohamed Morsi in 2013 to six American senators who questioned him
about a ranting speech in which he urged Egyptians to "nurse our
children and our grandchildren on hatred" for Jews and Zionists. In a
later interview Morsi described Zionists as "these bloodsuckers who
attack the Palestinians, these warmongers, the descendants of apes and
pigs". While confining his comments to "Zionists" and never
explicitly mentioning Jews, his tirade nonetheless invoked an anti-Semitic
theme common in the Middle East about malevolent Jews exercising demonic
power: "They have been fanning the flames of civil strife wherever
they were throughout their history. They are hostile by nature."
As the government review found, senior members of the Brotherhood
"routinely use virulent, anti-Semitic language", which is a core
motivator of violent extremism. And the truth is their language goes well
beyond Israel. The view that Jews are intrinsically evil was developed in
prose reminiscent of the Nazis by a Muslim Brother revered on MAB's website
as the "doyen" of the Brotherhood, Sayyid Qutb. Echoing al-Banna,
Qutb extolled the Islamic virtue of extreme purity defiled by Jewish
"filth" just a few years after the Holocaust. In an essay
entitled "Our Struggle With the Jews" he wrote:
Free the sensual
desires from their restraints and they destroy the moral foundation on
which the pure Creed rests, in order that the Creed should fall into the
filth which they spread so widely on the earth. They mutilate the whole of
history and falsify it. . . . From such creatures who kill, massacre and
defame prophets one can only expect the spilling of human blood and dirty
means which would further their machinations and evil.
MAB's attempt to mitigate Qutb's diatribe because he wrote it during
Israel's 1948 War of Independence with the Arabs doesn't wash. He said
Islam's struggle with Jews had raged for 1400 years and described them as
"ungrateful" by nature, "narrowly selfish" and
"fanatical". Their disposition prevented them from feeling
"the larger human connection which binds humanity together".
This is just a flavour of Qutb's mendacity. Yet it was under Altikriti's
presidency of MAB with Kozbar serving as MAB director that Qutb was
lionised on MAB's website as the "doyen" of the Muslim
Brotherhood. I don't suggest Qutb reflects either man's views of Jews for I
know of no Qutb-like reference by them to Jews. But when a journalist
challenged MAB in 2004 about its reverence for Qutb, the best MAB could do
was to suggest that his "Zionist ex Mossad friends" had misled
him.
In the 2013 interview Altikriti granted to his own Cordoba Foundation,
he was asked if he thought "the Muslim Brotherhood, since its arrival
in the UK . . . had an intellectual effect on the Muslim community in
Britain?" He replied: "Undoubtedly so." He is right — but
not in the virtuous way he intended. Brotherhood ideology has also been the
intellectual inspiration behind those violent Islamist groups that have
appealed to thousands of British Muslims. No one more so than Sayyid Qutb.
Qutb drew on the thoughts of another MAB website poster boy, the Indian
Islamist theologian Abul Ala'a Mawdudi, who founded Jamaat-e-Islami, to
promote the doctrine of takfirism. This is the practice used by extremists
to stigmatise other Muslims as "impure" infidels or apostates,
and of Muslim states as "unislamic." Takfir is the war cry
of groups like al-Qaeda and Islamic State to murder other Muslims in Iraq,
Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the most bestial ways imaginable
in pursuit of the perfect Islamic society. Like these groups, Qutb was
viscerally anti-Western, with a psychotic loathing of its
"decadent" and materialistic ways (triggered by sights like
Americans dancing cheek-to-cheek and their neatly mown lawns),
Qutb is now widely recognised as the father of modern jihadism because
he decided it was going to take more than just Da'wah (preaching) to
establish the kingdom of God on earth. He argued that a revolutionary
vanguard should establish an Islamic state and then impose Islamisation,
first on Arabs, then the rest. Ring any bells? It's why Islamic State today
quotes Sayyid Qutb so heavily in its public discourse.
When I listen to the current MAB president Omer El-Hamdoon — who is also
an imam — castigating with such passion and conviction the
"ignorance" and "arrogance" and "warped
mentality" of the "savages" of Islamic State, I wonder if he
links it back to the Brotherhood's ideologue whom his organisation so
publicly admired just a few years ago. It's a fair question because, beyond
MAB's muted qualifier that some scholars disagreed with Qutb "on a
number of issues", British-based Brotherhood organisations and
associates have not openly or consistently refuted the poison he wrote. But
then according to Altikriti, there is no need. "If anything," he
says "the Muslim Brotherhood and their ideas has (sic) constantly,
constantly, without fail, been the very antithesis of the ideology of the
likes of al-Qaeda."
Yet Qutb was held up by MAB as a supremely moral being for having
"opened his eyes to the malaise of the Western culture and non-Islamic
ideologies". He made a "clear distinction between pure faith and
association of partners (shirk)" which bluntly means venerating
anything other than God.
At its most extreme, this obsession with purifying the Islamic faith is
what also drives Islamic State to kill everything it deems to be impure and
is why the mere mention of purity by Islamists sends a Nuremberg-like
shudder down my spine, though not, apparently, the spines of many on the
Left nor even some conservatives. The commentator Peter Oborne considers
the Brotherhood to be "a great political movement — not just in
Egypt". He says he has "seen no evidence of any kind of Muslim
Brotherhood terrorism . . . I've looked into it." But then so have two
of Britain's most senior and expert civil servants with access to Muslim
Brother leaders, British embassies around the world, and intelligence from
MI5 and MI6 that presumably Oborne did not have. Given violent jihadism's
inheritance from Brotherhood ideology, there is nothing "phobic"
about this apprehension. It is rational.
Anas Altikriti and his Cordoba Foundation can talk all the grandiloquent
talk they like about "believing" in a "world full of
hope" where "opposing ideas are working together, enriching our
understanding of each other; strengthening our humanity without seeing its
end in a grand clash".
But until they can reconcile the resounding clash between their
enlightened rhetoric and their blind eye to the Brotherhood's regressive
ways, sceptics will continue to question whether the change is real or
tactical. Clearly Jenkins and Farr have yet to be convinced. Brotherhood
literature here, they say, still casts "Western society" as
"inherently hostile to Muslim faith and interests and that Muslims
must respond by maintaining their distance and autonomy".
British society is not inherently "hostile" to Muslims nor
ever has been. More than three million Muslims have made their home here
and their numbers are growing rapidly. British Muslims are a fact of life.
Non-Muslims are crying out for their fellow Muslim citizens to close that
distance by articulating a set of values around which a meaningful common
life can be built. Until then, the Brotherhood's British network that
claims to speak for "normative" Islam will continue, as the
review says, to be regarded as operating "contrary to our national
interests and our national security."
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