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Islamism (political Islam) 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. In 2011, 2.7 million Muslims (4.8% of total population) lived in the UK (mostly in England), more than quintupling over a 30-year period (550,000 in 1981), with a continued tendency of rapid growth. [1]
Radical Islam has been present in Great Britain since the 1970s, but has 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 recognized and studied.[ citation needed ]
Dawatul Islam is an Islamist organisation based in London, founded in 1978 [2] [ unreliable source? ] 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.[ citation needed ]
Syrian Islamist Omar Bakri Muhammad moved to the United Kingdom in 1986, and established a chapter of Hizb ut-Tahrir, and later Al-Muhajiroun ("The Emigrants"), which was proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000 on 14 January 2010. Social disturbance began in the Muslim community in England in 1988 with the publication of the satirical novel The Satanic Verses in London.[ citation needed ] The book was condemned with a fatwa the following year. [3]
In 1989, an Islamic Party of Britain was founded by a Sheffield-born convert.[ citation needed ]
The Islamic Forum of Europe was founded in 1990. It was reportedly founded 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" [4] resulting in "two High Court injunctions" in 1990 in "response to violence" at the mosque. [5]
The Islamic Society of Britain (ISB) was set up in 1990 to promote Islamic values. [6] [7] The Young Muslims UK, established in 1984, was incorporated into ISB as its youth wing. In 1997, some supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood "broke off" from ISB to form the Muslim Association of Britain.[ relevant? ]
The Saved Sect operated from 2005 but was banned in 2006. The extent of the phenomenon was illustrated during the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy of 2006, when Al Ghurabaa, successor organisation to the disbanded Al-Muhajiroun, called Muslims to "Kill those who insult the Prophet Muhammad", resulting in extensive protests in London.[ citation needed ]
Following the 2005 terror attacks, the phenomenon of Islamism within the resident Muslim population in Britain receive wider interest. An early publication was Londonistan: How Britain is Creating a Terror State Within (2006). Undercover Mosque aired in 2007 (with a 2008 sequel). Islam4UK led by Anjem Choudary (a British Pakistani born in the UK 1967) had been active from 2009. It has also been banned under the Terrorism Act 2000 on 14 January 2010.
Since 2006, the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) has been under scrutiny as fostering Islamist politics among Bangladeshi immigrants. [8] IFE and the East London Mosque, have hosted extremist preachers including Anwar al-Awlaki. [9] 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. [10] 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". [11] 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. [12] 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. [13]
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 in 2005. [14]
The Finsbury Park Mosque, also known as the North London Central Mosque, is a five-storey mosque located next to Finsbury Park station close to Arsenal Football Club's Emirates Stadium, in the London Borough of Islington. It serves the local community in Islington and the surrounding boroughs of North London, and it is registered as a charity in England.
The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) is a non-profit organisation based in London. Its stated mission is to "champion the rights & duties revealed for human beings" and to "promote a new social [and] international order, based on truth, justice, righteousness [and] generosity, rather than selfish interest." The group was established in 1997. The organisation, since 2007, has held consultative status with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
Omar Bakri Muhammad is a Syrian Islamist militant leader born in Aleppo. He was instrumental in developing Hizb ut-Tahrir in the United Kingdom before leaving the group and heading to another Islamist organisation, Al-Muhajiroun, until its disbandment in 2004.
Al-Muhajiroun is a proscribed terrorist network based and banned in Saudi Arabia and active for many years in the United Kingdom. The founder of the group was Omar Bakri Muhammad, a Syrian who previously belonged to Hizb ut-Tahrir; he was not permitted to re-enter Britain after 2005. According to The Times, the organisation has been linked to international terrorism, homophobia, and antisemitism. The group became notorious for its September 2002 conference "The Magnificent 19", praising the September 11, 2001 attacks. The network mutates periodically so as to evade the law; it operates under many different aliases.
Anjem Choudary is a British Islamist who has been described as "the face" of militant Islamism or the "best known" Islamic extremist in Britain. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2024 after being found guilty of directing a terror organisation.
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) is an umbrella body of Muslim organisations in the United Kingdom, with over 500 affiliated mosques and organisations. It was formed in 1994 in response to British government's expressed wish for a single representative body of Muslims it could talk to. It has been called the best known and most powerful of the Muslim organisations founded since 1990.
The Saved Sect, formerly and more generally known as The Saviour Sect, is an Islamist organization that operated in the United Kingdom from its formation in November 2005 until the British government proscribed it on 17 July 2006. It is widely believed, along with Al Ghurabaa, to be the reformed Al-Muhajiroun, which Omar Bakri Muhammad disbanded in 2004. It is believed that Omar Bakri today still heads this organisation.
Al Ghurabaa is a Muslim organization based in United Kingdom which, along with The Saviour Sect, Islam4UK and others, is widely believed to be the reformed Al-Muhajiroun after it disbanded in 2004 by order of Omar Bakri Muhammad. Other members include Abu Izzadeen and Abu Uzair.
"Londonistan" is a sobriquet referring to the British capital of London and the growing Muslim population of late-20th- and early-21st-century London.
Islamic extremism, Islamist extremism or radical Islam refers to a set of extremist beliefs, behaviors and ideologies within Islam. These terms remain contentious, encompassing a spectrum of definitions, ranging from academic interpretations of Islamic supremacy to the notion that all ideologies other than Islam have failed and are inferior.
Undercover Mosque is a documentary programme produced by the British independent television company Hardcash Productions for the Channel 4 series Dispatches that was first broadcast on 15 January 2007 in the UK. The documentary presents video footage gathered from 12 months of secret investigation into mosques throughout Britain. The documentary caused a furore in Britain and the world press due to the extremist content of the released footage. West Midlands Police investigated whether criminal offences had been committed by those teaching or preaching at the Mosques and other establishments.
The Islamic Society of Britain (ISB) was set up in 1990 for British Muslims to promote Islamic values. Its youth wing is The Young Muslims UK (YMUK).
Ed Husain is a British author and a professor in the Walsh School of Foreign Service in Georgetown University. As a political advisor he has worked with leaders and governments across the world. Husain is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) focused on U.S. foreign policy towards the Middle East generally, and specifically at the intersection of Arab-Israeli relations after the Abraham Accords, the geopolitical interplay of Arab Gulf states, China-Muslim world dynamics, and Islamist terrorism. As a professor at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, he teaches classes on global security, Arab-Israeli peace, and the shared intellectual roots of the West and Islam.
The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw Inside and Why I Left is a 2007 book about Ed Husain's five years as an Islamist. The book has been described as "as much a memoir of personal struggle and inner growth as it is a report on a new type of extremism." Husain describes his book as explaining "the appeal of extremist thought, how fanatics penetrate Muslim communities and the truth behind their agenda of subverting the West and moderate Islam."
Dirty Kuffar is an Islamic extremist 2004 Jihad Islamist extremist rap video produced by Muslim British rappers Sheikh Terra and the Soul Salah Crew.
Hassan Butt is a British Pakistani former spokesman of the radical Islamic group al-Muhajiroun who now calls on Muslims to "renounce terror".
Quilliam was a British think tank co-founded in 2008 by Maajid Nawaz that focused on counter-extremism, specifically against Islamism, which it argued represents a desire to impose a given interpretation of Islam on society. Founded as The Quilliam Foundation and based in London, it claimed to lobby government and public institutions for more nuanced policies regarding Islam and on the need for greater democracy in the Muslim world whilst empowering "moderate Muslim" voices. The organisation opposed any Islamist ideology and championed freedom of expression. The critique of Islamist ideology by its founders―Nawaz, Rashad Zaman Ali and Ed Husain―was based, in part, on their personal experiences. Quilliam went into liquidation in 2021.
The Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) is an Islamic organisation based in the United Kingdom with affiliates in Europe. Its charitable arm is the Islamic Forum Trust.
Azad Ali is a British Muslim activist and a spokesman for the Islamic Forum of Europe. He was founding chair of the Muslim Safety Forum, is Vice-Chair of Unite Against Fascism (UAF), and former director of engagement at Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND). He has also been employed as an IT worker and civil servant for the Treasury.
The Muslim Safety Forum (MSF) is a British-based organisation set up to challenge the "unfair focus on the Muslim community when it came to policing activities and enforcement of anti-terror policing legislation". It was founded in 2001 and comprised a number of Muslim organisations, including the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), the Islamic Forum Europe (IFE), and others. It was described in 2010 by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) as "a non-governmental umbrella group that represents over 40 Muslim organisations in the UK". The MSF has been described by Shiraz Maher in The Jewish Chronicle as "an extremist group dominated by Islamists who support Hamas".