Islamism, also known as political Islam, the use of Islam as a source of political identity and action, has existed in the United Kingdom since the 1970s, and has become widely visible and a topic of political discourse since the beginning of the 21st century.
Islam in the United Kingdom has grown rapidly due to immigration since the 1980s. According to the 2021 Census, Muslims make up approximately 6.5% of the population in England and Wales, totaling around 3.9 million people. This reflects an increase from the 2011 Census, which recorded Muslims at 4.9% (2.7 million) (although it is important to remember that the census only measures religious belonging, not political ideology). [1][2]
Early history
Radical Islam has been present in Great Britain since the 1970s, but had not received wider public attention prior to the 7 July 2005 London bombings; terrorism in Britain during the 1970s to 1990s was mostly due to the Northern Ireland conflict, and it was only after the 2005 incidents that the presence of radical political Islam in Britain was widely recognised and studied.[citation needed]
Dawatul Islam is an Islamist organisation based in London, founded in 1978 from the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan-originated UK Islamic Mission to cater to East Bengali Muslims in Britain after the founding of the country of Bangladesh in 1971.[3]
Social disturbance began in the Muslim community in England in 1988 with the publication of the satirical novel The Satanic Verses in London. The book was condemned with a fatwa the following year.[4]
The Islamic Forum of Europe was founded in 1990, reported by former members of the Jamaat-e-Islami-affiliated group Dawatul Islam, with whom it came into conflict over management of the East London Mosque "throughout the late 1980s"[6] resulting in "two High Court injunctions" in 1990 in "response to violence" at the mosque.[7]
Since 2006, the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) has been under scrutiny as fostering Islamist politics among Bangladeshi immigrants.[10] IFE and the East London Mosque, have hosted extremist preachers including Anwar al-Awlaki.[11] A Dispatches documentary aired on 1 March 2010 suggested the IFE are an extremist organization with a hidden agenda that went against Britain's democratic values.[12]Dispatches quoted Azad Ali, the IFE's community affairs coordinator, as saying, "Democracy, if it means at the expense of not implementing the sharia, of course no one agrees with that".[13] Responding in a comment piece in the Guardian newspaper, Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain suggested that many of the people interviewed on the programme had "hidden agendas of their own" suggesting that Jim Fitzpatrick's claim of the Labour Party having been "infiltrated" by IFE was motivated by upcoming elections.[14] The IFE and YMO were featured in the book The Islamist (2007) by Ed Husain, where he explains that the YMO attracts mainly English-speaking Asian youths, providing circles or talks daily at the East London Mosque; while teaching about Islam, it covers the political system of the religion.[15]
The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC, established in 1997) was classified as "a radical Islamist organisation that uses the language and techniques of a human rights lobbying group to promote an extremist agenda" by the Stephen Roth Institute.[16] In the same year, i.e. 1997, the Muslim Council of Britain was created, which is one of the best known and most powerful Muslim organizations in the post-1990's period in the United Kingdom. [17]
The first sharia court, also known as sharia councils, began operating in the United Kingdom in 1982, and the number in operation has grown to 85 by 2024. A Times investigation found that there are a growing number of Muslims from across Europe and North America seeking the services of British sharia courts, with the UK now dubbed as the 'western capital' for sharia courts.[18][19]
2017 saw several major terrorist attacks in the UK, making it a particularly violent year. eight people were killed and forty-eight were injured in the London Bridge Attack, with the preparators being labeled "radical Islamists". The attack was later found to be sponsored by the Islamic State (ISIS). [22] Later, more than 130 imams condemned the attackers, refused them Islamic burials, and said in a statement that the terrorists did not represent Islam.[23] In response, just a few days later, Darren Osborne perpetrated the 2017 Finsbury Park van attack, killing 1 and injuring 11 individuals. While not Islamist (the attack was an Islamophobic terrorist attack), it demonstrated the wider context of religiously motivated violence in the UK. [24] September 2017 saw the Parsons Green train bombing attack which led to 30 injuries. [25] A major development throughout 2017 was that all attacks led to an increased distancing of mainstream Muslim organisations, such as the Muslim Council of Britain, from radical Islamic Ideologies. [26]
2025 witnessed the Manchester synagogue attack, which was widely viewed as an antisemitichate-crime attack. [27] Mainstream British Muslim groups and leaders condemned the violence and expressed their support and solidarity with the Jewish community, stressing that these acts of violence do not in any way represent Islam, which helped to ensure continued Muslim political engagement in interfaith unity and counter extremism, rejecting political Islamist ideology. [28][29]
↑"The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) is a radical Islamist organisation that uses the language and techniques of a human rights lobbying group to promote an extremist agenda. Formed in 1997 by its current chairman, Massoud Shadjareh, the IHRC supports jihad groups around the world, campaigns for the release of convicted terrorists and promotes the notion of a western conspiracy against Islam. Shadjareh and the IHRC subscribe to the radical Islamist belief that Jewish conspiracies are afoot to undermine Muslims, and they liken Jews and Israelis to Nazis. Members of the IHRC's board of advisors have even called on Muslims to kill Jews. They include the Saudi Islamist Muhammad al-Mas‘ari and Muhammad al-‘Asi, an American convert to Islam who was banned from preaching at his mosque in Washington, D.C., and has been a frequent visitor to Britain. Antisemitism And RacismArchived 2013-10-03 at the Wayback Machine , 2005 United Kingdom Report, Stephen Roth Institute. Retrieved July 2, 2007.
↑Morey, Peter; Yaqin, Amina (2011). Framing Muslims: stereotyping and representation after 9/11. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. ISBN978-0-674-04852-2.
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