Radical: My Journey out of Islamist Extremism

by Maajid Nawaz, Tom Bromley (With)

Overview

Maajid Nawaz spent his teenage years listening to American hip-hop and learning about the radical Islamist movement spreading throughout Europe and Asia in the 1980s and 90s. At 16, he was already a ranking member in Hizb ut-Tahrir, a London-based Islamist group. He quickly rose through the ranks to become a top recruiter, a charismatic spokesman for the cause of uniting Islam’s political power across the world. Nawaz was setting up satellite groups in Pakistan, Denmark, and Egypt when he was rounded up in the aftermath of 9/11 along with many other radical Muslims.

He was sent to an Egyptian prison where he was, fortuitously, jailed along with the assassins of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. The 20 years in prison had changed the assassins’ views on Islam and violence; Maajid went into prison preaching to them about the Islamist cause, but the lessons ended up going the other way. He came out of prison four years later completely changed, convinced that his entire belief system had been wrong, and determined to do something about it.

He met with activists and heads of state, built a network, and started a foundation, Quilliam, funded by the British government, to combat the rising Islamist tide in Europe and elsewhere, using his intimate knowledge of recruitment tactics in order to reverse extremism and persuade Muslims that the ‘narrative’ used to recruit them (that the West is evil and the cause of all of Muslim suffering), is false. Radical, first published in the UK, is a fascinating and important look into one man's journey out of extremism and into something else entirely.

This U.S. edition contains a "Preface for US readers" and a new, updated epilogue.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780762795529
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	10/15/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	821,252
File size:	588 KB

About the Author

Maajid Nawaz is the co-founder of Quilliam. He holds a BA in Arabic and Law and an MSc in Political Theory. Maajid has addressed the U.S. Senate, been interviewed by 60 Minutes and the New York Times, and has written for The London Times, The Wall Street Journal, and others.

Table of Contents

Prologue ix

On the Paris Attacks of November 13, 2015 xvii

Preface to the US Edition xix

Foreword Kate Allen, Director, Amnesty International UK xxix

Part 1 B-Boy

1 Memories of the Ghost Train 3

2 This Game's Not for Palds 13

3 The Doctor Who Said "Fuck tha Police" 19

5 The Stranger Stabbed for Me 27

5 The Green Backpack with No Bomb 37

6 When Babri Mosque Fell in India 45

7 A Land Where Fetuses Are Cut from Wombs 55

Part 2 Islamist

8 An Islamist Takeover 65

9 12,000 Muslims Screaming "Khilafah" 69

10 Servant of the Compeller 75

11 The Womb That Bore Me 81

12 A Show of Hands to Harden the Heart 87

13 The Romanticism of Struggle 91

14 Dreams of a Nuclear Caliphate 97

15 Caliphs in Copenhagen 107

16 The Polemic 113

17 Welcome to Egypt: We Do As We Please 127

18 The Ghimarnah Has No Rules 135

19 Number Forty-Two 145

20 Assalaamu Alaykum, You've Just Come out of Hell 151

21 The Luxury of an Audience 157

22 The Penguin Is Hit by Slippers 163

23 "Monocracy" 171

Part 3 Radical

24 Where the Heart Leads, the Mind Can Follow 181

25 No Right to Silence 193

26 How Many Years Did You Fail? 199

27 Civil-Democratic Intimidation 209

28 The Decade-Late Apology 215

29 Monkeys in a Zoo 225

30 Visiting No. 10 231

31 Khudi Pakistan 235

32 I Will See Your Day When It Comes 243

Postscript 249

Epilogue: Ideas Are Bulletproof (2013) 257

Glossary of Arabic Terms 267

Resources 269

Acknowledgments 273

Editorial Reviews

"[Maajid] brings the insight of an insider to Radical – an absorbing story of the making and unmaking of a young, radicalized Muslim. The book is candid, dynamic, important…and brave." - Lesley Stahl, 60 Minutes

“Maajid Nawaz’s Radical is fascinating, and essential if you want to understand in a visceral way why some young Muslims embrace extremist ideology. Nawaz went from being a hip-hop loving youngster to a radical Islamist before finally renouncing extremism. He now works to prevent others from choosing such a dangerous path and his is a voice I urge you to hear.” - Anderson Cooper

“This is a book for our times. It should be read by anyone who wants to understand how the extremism that stalks our world is created and how it can be overcome. It could only be written by someone who has lived this story. And Maajid has.” - Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair

"One of the essential books to understanding the path to radicalism...[it] will fill one with hope that others can find their way back as Maajid Nawaz relates so movingly." - Tina Brown, editor-in-chief of Newsweek and The Daily Beast

"Maajid Nawaz has an extraordinary personal story about his journey out of Islamist extremism which reads like a novel. It's a coming of age story for our post-9/11 world that is pacy, well written and thoughtful." - Peter Bergen, author of Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad

"Riveting" - Christian Science Monitor

"A British Muslim reveals a harrowing tale of violence, imprisonment and torture...A lively and convincing antidote to hatred." - Kirkus Reviews

"This book is the account of a redemptive journey through innocence, bigotry, hardline radicalism and beyond to a passionate advocacy of human rights and all that this can mean ... I was moved beyond measure." --Kate Allen, Director, Amnesty International UK

From the Publisher

2013-09-01
A British Muslim reveals a harrowing tale of violence, imprisonment and torture. Meeting racism head-on as a teenager in Southend in Essex, Southeast England, in the early 1990s meant that Nawaz, whose family was from Pakistan, had to fight off British thugs and began to identify with the shock value of American hip-hop music. Radicalized by the events in Bosnia and Palestine, Nawaz and his brother, Osman, were steered by a British Bangladeshi Muslim named Nasim Ghani toward the revolutionary Islamist group Hizb al-Tahrir, which aimed to unify all Muslim countries under an Islamic state. From attending meetings, which indoctrinated the young men into a fervently anti-Western, anti-Israel militancy and appealed to their anger and resentment, Nawaz grew more provocative in his overt, aggressive Islamist views; he was expelled from Newham College, alarming his parents. While studying Arabic at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, he became a leader of HT, volunteering to go to Pakistan and help with recruitment, among other places, and to Egypt, where he was tasked with secretly reviving the HT organization that had been banned by the autocratic Egyptian regime. In the aftermath of 9/11, this was perilous work: The noose was soon tightened around Nawaz and his colleagues, who were rounded up and thrown into Cairo's notorious Mazra Tora prison at a time when "such niceties as the Geneva Convention" didn't matter. Enduring years as a political prisoner challenged his righteous views, and bit-by-bit, he recognized the errors of his ways, supported in his legal battles by Amnesty International. Nawaz became a celebrity and a darling of the media circuit, galvanizing a new movement of Muslim tolerance and moderation. A lively and convincing antidote to hatred.

Kirkus Reviews