Harry’s Place

It’s true, Hamas are not nice people. Whether the SWP thinks they are nice people or not is irrelevant. Ephraim Halevy, former head of Mossad, says they are unpleasant people. At the same time he advises Israel to negotiate with them. He is correct. It may even be true that ultimately Hamas can be a better partner for peace than Fatah.

Wight has taken to referring to Foreign Secretary David Miliband as an “arch Zionist”

That of course is nothing to do with his political beliefs.

What was Ralph Miliband’s position on Israel and Zionism, just out of interest? Anyone know?

all this is going on when hundreds of children are being murdered in Gaza…but hey, who cares

For anyone in doubt as to Hamas’ agenda, read Tim Sebastian’s 2004 Hardtalk interview with Khaled Meshaal:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/3639093.stm

saeed: I am glad that you have voluntarized yourself to come to Sderot and put a smile on the faces of our children. Call me when you get to Ben Gurion’s airport.

And an aplause for him, please!

The mindset of some of the people commenting there is quite disturbing. “Ray” in particular seems to be quite paranoid and slightly unhinged.

I was pleased to read some criticism of Hamas though.

Ups, I forgot. Silly me. For you, Saeed, giborenu!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUl7roR863s

Yasser Arafat was “murdered by poisoning.”

That’s one way of putting it; a parsimonious approach perhaps gives some indication as to the probable culpable pathogen..

“This has to be the end of socialist integrity in this country.”
Wow… Reality dawns on a socialist…

Richard

Who says the post is genuine

Saeed, why are you cross-posting the same comment?

Gev, agreed.

meh

I’m with you re: Ray
He really is a suitable case for treatment.

I also get the impression that some of the Left ( a minority, of course) are not happy with Hamas.
It’s possible that some of the older left, brought up on a ‘no religion’ marxism, also have an understanding of jihad.

However, some of the posters say that Hamas’ politics are irrelevant.
This is incredible from socialists, who continually claim that politics is the driving force of the past and present.

From that standpoint, you would have to support the Nazis when US troops moved into Berlin. Nazi politics are not important but you are have to be against the US, and US weapons are disproprtionate.

On the subject of Nazis and weapons, I noticed on one of the history forums, that the number of rockets that Hamas has landed on Israel is SIX times the number of V2 rockets landed in southern England in WW2.

Well - Hitler was working class - he was a vegetarian - he liked animals - and there was a socialist wing to the Nazis (the SA Sturmabteilung )

Gene, this would be a great post about certain Socialists and their Islamist allies were it not for your apparent endorsement of the position that “Islam has bloody borders but it has bloody innards too.” You’re championing as “The beginning of wisdom” the views of somebody who clearly conflates Hamas with Islam as a whole. I assume this is not what you intended?

(And of course, now I’ve said this, the resident HP bigots are going to wade in with their views on Islam. Apologies in advance for the damage this is probably going to do to your thread.)

I want the left to run a kind of birthright program for all their followers. spend 2 months in Gaza for free as guests of the Hamas.

Gene, this would be a great post about certain Socialists and their Islamist allies were it not for your apparent endorsement of the position that “Islam has bloody borders but it has bloody innards too.” You’re championing as “The beginning of wisdom” the views of somebody who clearly conflates Hamas with Islam as a whole. I assume this is not what you intended?

Gsirrah, you make an excellent point. I didn’t like that part of the comment either, which is why I titled the post “The beginning of wisdom,” implying that the commenter still had a ways to go. But you’re right, I should have specifically disagreed with that part of his comment, and I’ll add an update.

Gene. Thanks for clearing that up.

Martin. Hitler probably was not a vegetarian, although he certainly recommended avoiding meat and eating lots of veg : his favourite dish was 4-week old pigeon. Goebbels devised the idea of portraying Hitler as vegetarian (and teetotal) as it added somewhat to the image of Hitler as ascetic which he aimed to create.

Gsirrah

Fair enough point, however it is the specifically Islamist (rather than the general Muslim) character of Hamas that does need to be expressed, particularly in a socialist forum where Hamas is seen as some kind of resistance movement aspiring to national self determination for Palestinians

If you were to refer to ‘Christianity’s bloody crimes’ for instance, it could be meaningless generalisation or an expression of prejudice, if you were clearly talking of the inquisiton in a specific context then it would be far less objectional.

It is very important to emphasise the eschatological Islamist, Jihadi and Kalifist nature of Hamas, which reveals its theo-political opposition not only to the state of Israel but also towards any possible Palestinian state.

This is crucial to keep in mind when considering any negotiations (which ultimately would aspire to a two state solution) with Hamas, or any elements within it, where any modus operandi could only be to negotiate with elements that eschew such a theo-politics in favour of far more worldy, and negotiable, matters such as , weapons, militia/police, land, governance, economics, social institutions etc.

Mettaculture. I was making a specific point about the conflation of Islam and Hamas, but you are right that people should not forget the deeply unpleasant nature of Hamas: it is not “just a resistance movement” as some would have us believe.

What exactly did you intend by the term “Kalifist” though? I’m thinking either a typo for Salafist or a reference to the Khilafa/Caliphate but I’d like to be sure. I would suggest that neither term should be applied to Hamas as a whole (although Salafist could be applied to certain factions within Hamas). But I don’t really want to enter into that discussion without being clear about what you originally meant.

Gsirrah (& Gene),

While a clarification from Gene regarding the dangers of conflating Islamism with Islam is appropriate for the purposes of clarification, I am not sure that the phrase in question is essentially problematic.

Islam has bloody borders but it has bloody innards too.

In the context of the comment, the author might have been making reference to the notion - prominent among many on the revolutionary Left - that the violence seen on the borders of the Islamic world is entirely due to Western imperialism. It is possible (and I feel probable) that the author meant to convey that the current crisis in Gaza demonstrates that there are factors other than Western imperialism at play. Factors like the influence of Islamism over the socio-political discourse of the region. While the phrasing may have been poor I don’t think the author meant that Islam is the problem.

Regarding what I believe the author’s point to have been, which I agree with in general, the current crisis is probably not the best example given that the Israel/Palestine issue is usually cast - by those who favour that type of analysis - as part of the Western imperialist project.

Gsirrah

Not Salafist as hamas is a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood although since the 1960s and the asylum in Saudi Arabia of many Egyptian MB radicals (and SA support to Islamist movements worldwide) there has been a steady merging of Islamist modernism with Salafi/Wahabi neo-traditionalism.

Khilafism or Caliphism is a term I intend to make more of to show that the theo-political ideaology of Islamism does have geo-political neo-imperialist aims, that of restoring (and extending) the territorial boundaries of the Muslim world to its greatest extent and beyond.

Of course we may have debates as to how Islamist, MB, Mawdudist, Salafist, Jihadist, or Caliphist any particular grouping is but if the complaint is that people too often conflate the Muslim faith with particular extremist theo-political doctrines that claim to be the legitimate expression of that faith then it would be perverse to criticise the use of neologisms that seek to capture these distinctions.

—————————————
You may notice that I have not used the term Islam once in the above 3 paragraphs.

I notice a tendancy in your posts to label anyone you disagree with you about the political mainfestation of the Muslim faith as bigots, while claiming the personal right of authentic knowledge, to defend an idealised Muslim faith that includes all the strands of genuine historical pluralism in its social manifestations while ignoring or down playing th extent to which a contemporary pluralism is denounced and squeezed to the margins by the preponderance of extremist ideologues and their heavyweight financial and political backers from the very different but very meddlesome regimes Iran, and Saudi Arabia.

Good Morning

Well, in fifteen years in the Labour Party I have never ever heard anyone voice anything but contempt for Hamas and Hezbollah and the like - including the Ba’ath in all its stripes.

Criticism of Israel is always directed at Israeli policy rather then its citizens.

Ditto the activities of the Islamists - ordinary muslims are not the problem.

It is a shame that some of the wingnuts that infest the comments section - and bring shame to HP as it happens - don’t make those types of distinction.

Mettaculture. I think you may have misunderstood where I am coming from.

Not Salafist as hamas is a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood although since the 1960s and the asylum in Saudi Arabia of many Egyptian MB radicals (and SA support to Islamist movements worldwide) there has been a steady merging of Islamist modernism with Salafi/Wahabi neo-traditionalism.

I agree entirely, which is why I suggested it is better to apply the term Salafist to factions within Hamas rather than the whole movement.

Khilafism or Caliphism is a term I intend to make more of to show that the theo-political ideaology of Islamism does have geo-political neo-imperialist aims, that of restoring (and extending) the territorial boundaries of the Muslim world to its greatest extent and beyond.

Your attempt to coin/encourage usage of the term Khilafism/Caliphism is an interesting one. I have often been struck before by the absence of a term to describe the phenomenon of HT type groups which place their emphasis on bringing back the Caliph and it would probably be a very useful term if it became widespread in discourse about certain Islamist groups.

Even though you coined the term, I’m now going to disagree with your application of it to Hamas. From what I know of their covenant and what they’ve said - Hamas want an Islamic state with their vision of Islamic law in Palestine and, indeed, in all lands conquered by Islam in the past and they will pursue this through force.
Article 11 of the covenant states:
The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day. This being so, who could claim to have the right to represent Moslem generations till Judgement Day?

This is the law governing the land of Palestine in the Islamic Sharia (law) and the same goes for any land the Moslems have conquered by force, because during the times of (Islamic) conquests, the Moslems consecrated these lands to Moslem generations till the Day of Judgement.

This is expansionist, jihadi, Islamist and various other things but I think it would be misleading to suggest that the concept of Khilafa was particularly important here.

Of course we may have debates as to how Islamist, MB, Mawdudist, Salafist, Jihadist, or Caliphist any particular grouping is but if the complaint is that people too often conflate the Muslim faith with particular extremist theo-political doctrines that claim to be the legitimate expression of that faith then it would be perverse to criticise the use of neologisms that seek to capture these distinctions.

I agree with you entirely again and I really wish debate about certain groups took place with the level of nuance which you suggest - distinguishing between the Mawdudist, Salafi, MB, JI, Turabi, (Rashid) Ghannoushi, whoever/whatever inclinations of various groups.

It is not helpful to talk about Islamic terrorism because this would cover such a broad range of groups and would be making a claim about an authentic version of Islam which includes terrorism - this does not mean that these groups do not consider themselves to represent the true expression of Islam. And to ignore this would also be deeply unhelpful. Nor is it particularly helpful just to talk of Islamist terrorism because Islamism is such a broad concept.

You may notice that I have not used the term Islam once in the above 3 paragraphs.

Noted and appreciated.

I notice a tendancy in your posts to label anyone you disagree with you about the political mainfestation of the Muslim faith as bigots, while claiming the personal right of authentic knowledge, to defend an idealised Muslim faith

I think you have misunderstood me again. If I have not made myself clear then I apologise for any confusion.
What I disagree with is specifically such claims of “authentic knowledge” about Islam, idealised or not. On HP posters tend to claim “authentic knowledge” not of “an idealised Muslim faith” but of a very demonised and even bigoted version of the Muslim faith.

However, I would criticise somebody who claimed, for example, that “true Islam could not lead to violence” because the Islam of bin Laden is as true to him as the Islam of my many Muslim friends is to them. That kind of peaceful claim about Islam is very rarely made on HP which is why you will not have seen me make that criticism before.

On the Intermarriage thread, on the other hand, I criticised somebody’s characterisation of a man in Islam as being equal to two women - which is based on an over-simplification to the point of error of the rules governing inheritance and testimony to be found in the Qur’an and then developed in the fiqh of the various schools. I hope that we can agree that pointing out factual, doctrinal or historical errors of this type in other people’s posts is not “claiming the personal right of authentic knowledge” but suggesting that knowledge of actual details is useful when discussing a subject.

while ignoring or down playing th extent to which a contemporary pluralism is denounced and squeezed to the margins by the preponderance of extremist ideologues and their heavyweight financial and political backers from the very different but very meddlesome regimes Iran, and Saudi Arabia.

Unfortunately, as I have said before, there are very few good statistics about what Muslims around the world believe. Esposito in his book “What do Muslims believe” comes up with a figure of 7% of all Muslims being extremists. But this is defined as thinking that the 9/11 attacks were fully justified - which is a clearly limited definition of extremism. Certainly, the malign influence of Saudi and Iran must be countered but to talk about the moderates being marginalised would suggest that the vast majority of the 1.5 billion Muslims do not go about their daily lives in a perfectly peaceful manner.

Let’s not fall all over ourselves in the drive to see who is most moderate and reasonable.

Islam has bloody borders but it has bloody innards too. That statement isn’t bigoted, it is true.

Everywhere Islam comes into contact with the non-muslim world there is violence and bloodshed, and because we will not recognise that reality, we have now been sucked into becomming one of the front lines against this fascism.

An overview of islam’s bloodied borders:

The southern Phillippines has been wracked by islamist violence for decades.

Southern Thailand is regularly attacked by islamists based in ‘moderate’ Malaysia.

East timor was all about Jihad. A divided Cyprus likewise.

The violence and tensions between Northern and Southern Nigeria is another islamist fault-line, as is Southern Sudan, The Balkans, The Caucasaus, Kashmir, Israel, and so on and so on and so on.

I’m talking about a swath of territory, 12,000 miles long, containing a myriad of different cultures and languages all of which have, as their only point in common, Islam’s core texts.

But yet, we are never, ever to say that any of this has anything to do with Islam, and that any attempt to do so is indiciative of a complete misunderstanding of the faith.

At the same time, though, millions of jihadists from The Phillippines, to Thailand, to Indonesia, to The Sudan, to Nigeria, to The Balkans passing by Algeria and Kashmir and the ‘occupied’ territories, among others, are free to “misunderstand” islam any time they fucking well feel like it, and any well-deserved denunciations of these multiple “misunderstandings” are squelched by labelling them bigoted islamopbobia.

Cute set-up, eh?

Gene and Mettaculture are as foolish and as duped as Annie Lennox at a Hamas rally.

And believe me, some rabid islamist apologist like Gsirrah calling me bigoted is to be taken as a joke.

Gsirrah

Thank you for your detailed and nuanced reply. I owe you an apology as I do appear to have mis-characterised your position.

I do remember the thread about marriage and Sharia law which became as so many a tangled thread.

However the formal equality of women as theological beings before Allah’s grace and through him the possibility of eternal trascendance in paradise is quite distinct from a woman’s socio-legal position in all extant schools of islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) and in practice before Sharia courts.

I accept that these distinctions are often difficult to parse in limited comments boxes and it is over time that I shall enjoy reading your comments and getting to know your views.

On the specific geo-political and theo-political claims of Hamas that may translate into action over actual territory, I would draw your attention to the ‘Hamas Hydra’ thread below.

Specifically I urge you to read the full article by Amir Taheri via the link or

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5477420.ece

He describes the non-Palestinian territorial/religious ambitions of Hamas thus;

‘Although officially created in 1987, Hamas’s roots go back to the 1930s when Haj Amin al-Hussaini, the Grand Mufti of Palestine under the British Mandate, allied himself with Hitler and dreamt of reviving the Islamic Caliphate with himself as Caliph.
That Hamas cares little about Palestine as a would-be nation state is clear from its name and charter. Hamas is the Arab acronym for “Islamic Resistance Movement”, making it clear that the movement regards Palestine not as a nation in its own right but as a small part of the ummah, the community of believers. Hamas is the only significant party in Palestine whose name does not include the words Palestine or Palestinian.
To Hamas ideologues, such as the late Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, love of Palestine as a nation is a form of sherk, that is to say false worship or idolatry. Hamas sees Palestinian nationalists such as Abu Mazen as traitors to Islam.’

(BTW Amir Taheri’s book The Persian Night: Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution: Encounter Books seems like a must read)

Now I am sure it is arguable that Hamas’ ambitions today are theo-politically pan-Islamist rather than specifically Caliphist particularly as it falls more heavily under the influence of Shiite modernist pan-Islamism.

However I am often concerned that the term pan-Islamism is just seen as a brotherhood of the Ummah than as a territorial state subject to theocratic rule. Without creating terms for the sake of it I feel that both you and I and others here are keen to develop a robust terminology for discussing these issues clearly.

Perhaps a useful distinction between Islamist nationalism and pan islamist nationalism and Caliphist nationalism can be made when appropriate.

After all it is not that Islamist nationallism does not have real world territorial ambitions, rather it is that these ambitions can not be met by any state or supra-national agency, based on the concept of state sovereignty, that actually comprises the political reality of todays world.

A large number of territorial conflicts in todays world are the product of islamist nationalisms that seek seperatist, or unifcationist re-creations of the current global political Atlas of the world based solely on a perceived Islamic right to sovereignty over those lands.

After decades of decolonisation we are witnessing a pan-Islamist recolonisation movement that has to bee seen clearly for what it is to be confronted.

John P. How good to see you. I was waiting for you to turn up. I hope you are very well today.

JLM. Apologies for failing to notice your comment before.

While the phrasing may have been poor I don’t think the author meant that Islam is the problem.

Maybe you are right. But all we really have to go on is the juxtaposition of Hamas, Islam (NB, not Islamism/any of the other possible descriptions for extremist groups but Islam the monolith) and blood:

We make out Hamas is some kind of heroic resistance but close our eyes and ears to its horrors.
Islam has bloody borders but it has bloody innards too.

It seems pretty clear to me, but unless the author feels like clarifying for us this discussion will probably not get very far. That said, later on in that same thread he/she is accused of being an agent provocateur from HP so perhaps a clarification would be easy to obtain.

Oh I posted this before seeing John P’s comments.

Well John P you are wrong generally I am nothing like Annie Lennox (though I once bleached my hair in the 80’s) and am far from duped.

You are wrong in the specifics East Timor was nothing to do with Jihad but good old pancasila Indonesian (Suharto style) nationalism.

Indonesian islamism is all about Aceh seperatism not a pan-Islamist reconstituted Indonesia (though there is a future danger towards that direction Bali being the ‘people not of the book’ principle target)

Now I am sure it is arguable that Hamas’ ambitions today are theo-politically pan-Islamist rather than specifically Caliphist particularly as it falls more heavily under the influence of Shiite modernist pan-Islamism.

Dressing up the vulgar in silk and lace terminology does not change anything.

Caliphist, pan-islamist, shiite modernist, pan-islamism…all of that is irrelevant. You are enabling islamist apologists to muddy the waters and to sow confusion by allowing them to introduce a language and vocabulary that denotes nothing, and which is, thus, virtually meaningless and worthless. The maintenance of an almost complete ambiguity regarding Islam’s true nature AND aims is one of the central strategies of islamist apologists. If you cannot clearly and concisely describe and define your enemy, then you cannot effectively combat it.

Keep it simple and clear.

Islam was, is, and probably always will be nothing more than just an elaborate protection racket. A racket that moves into a territory, claims it as its turf, and then demands payment, on threat of violence, from the inhabitants of that territory.

You are drowning in a sea of worthless vocabulary, while at the same time inadvertently gracing and legitimising a primitive, tribal, mafioso-ridden culture, which is long past its best-before, by assigning it the status and imperial airs of August Ancient Rome.

You mischaracterisation of East timor is remarkable. Indonesia is 85% Muslim and east timor 95% Catholic, and those Catholics refused to comply with, or to conform to, the protection racket Indonesia was attempting to impose. East timor would not fold and become Indonesia’s bitch.

I repeat:I’m talking about a swath of territory, 12,000 miles long, containing a myriad of different cultures and languages all of which have, as their only point in common, Islam’s core texts.

All along that swath of territory there is bloodshed and violence as islam (and pretty much every strain of it) attempts to impose its protection-racket and as free people resist that imposition.

Mettaculture:

Thank you for your detailed and nuanced reply. I owe you an apology as I do appear to have mis-characterised your position.

Not a problem. Such confusions are inherent to debates on blogs. Thank you for your interesting comments and reminder about the Times article, it treats the topic of Hamas with a level of nuance I didn’t think was possible in the British press these days. I would be very interested to read more of his tracing Hamas back to the Mufti.

I am often concerned that the term pan-Islamism is just seen as a brotherhood of the Ummah than as a territorial state subject to theocratic rule. Without creating terms for the sake of it I feel that both you and I and others here are keen to develop a robust terminology for discussing these issues clearly.

Perhaps a useful distinction between Islamist nationalism and pan islamist nationalism and Caliphist nationalism can be made when appropriate.

Pan-Islamism is a very limited term. Not least because the increasing currency of Islamism with generally negative implications significantly changes the connotations of pan-Islamism. Also, as you rightly observe, it fails to distinguish between the ethereal concept of a global Umma uniting Muslims around the world in belief only and the very temporal and earthly concept of uniting Muslims in one state run along somebody or other’s vision of Islamic law.

We need to have terminology for each of these groups:
1) Those who want an Islamic state in their own country - where Islamic state means one with modern/western infrastructure but laws and a certain amount of practice derived from an interpretation of the sources of Islamic law. Roughly speaking JI would fit into this category I suspect.
2) Those who want an Islamic state along the same lines but comprised of all countries where the majority are Muslims/which had been ruled by Islamic rulers in the past. The obvious example being Hamas.
3) Those who want a Caliphate with the meaning of a single individual as Caliph ruling over all Muslim majority countries. HT.
4) Those who want a Caliphate with that meaning but ruling over the whole world. Obviously an extreme minority position - al-Muhajiroun types only really.

I would tentatively suggest:
1) Domestic Islamism or Nationalist Islamism
2) Pan-Islamic Islamism or Internationalist Islamism
3) Caliphism
4) Globalist Caliphism
Other terms could then be added for an accurate definition of any one group.

It really is a shame that discourse about Islam and phenomena related with Islam is generally at such a dire level that a comprehensive set of terms in not already in common usage.

John P. Thank you for making me smile.

You mischaracterisation of East timor is remarkable. Indonesia is 85% Muslim and east timor 95% Catholic, and those Catholics refused to comply with, or to conform to, the protection racket Indonesia was attempting to impose. East timor would not fold and become Indonesia’s bitch.

Mettaculture observed that this violence was not to do with Islamism but with “good old pancasila Indonesian (Suharto style) nationalism“.
Your response is to point out that Muslims are involved. Such perspicuity.

Gsirrah

You or I could use such terms and perhaps they could gain a wider currency as long as we always described clearly what we were talking about.

Whether we alwatys know what we are talking about is another matter.

I do not wish to be deliberately obscure, please let me explain.

We have a problem of cultural relativism obviously but not of the obvious or usually understood kind.

When a Guardian journalist, let us use the most wretched example of the kind Madeleine Bunting, says for instance (implying Islamophobia and racist attitudes among those who disagree) that the veil, or rather the niqab, is an expression of intense piety, and an expression of social status among Gulf arabs, she may in a culturally specific but rather meaningless way be right.

The fact that she does not explore the domestic uk Islamist/jihadi political overtones in its adoption among third generation young British women of families of pakistani or bangladeshi origin, who put on the veil as a political act claiming a ‘born again’ ethnic authenticity as a ‘religious’ right, is typical of such a shallow hectoring style of demanding that we understand cultural difference whilst singularly failing to do so.

The problem I see is not so much of cultural relativism as cultural incommensurability, an inability to describe Islamist theo-political meanings and behaviours in terms that actually capture the real, crucial fundamental differences from the meanings we attach to our vocabulary.

The reason for this is basically centuries of secularisation, for centuries through the vehicle of the Holy Roman Church itself as it secularised through the middle ages (hence secular priest as opposed to a monk) way before the reformation or the enlightenment.

So even when Bunting tries to capture what she sees as the theological orthodoxy of intense piety she sees this through her catholic faith which is as far away in relevant meaning from the orthopraxy of veiling in many Muslim communities as it is possible to get.

We must understand the modernist political nature of Islamism as well as understanding the socially embedded religious mind.

I have had several extremely thoughtful discussions here with Yossi UK who as an orthodox jew is far better located t understand the nature of the religious mind lived through an experience of all enveloping religion.

it is interesting that you say the term islamism has become problematised by becoming to be seen as increasingly a negative term.

I do not see this as a problem, as I see that the negativity is inherent to its theopolitical totalitarianism.

When I first encountered the term during the Iranian revolution islamists used the word to describe their very clear and well articulated version of a revolutionary state Islam.

I have noticed that British islamists are getting more antsy about the term, which just a short while ago they were happy to use because they could pretend that it was a simple extension of their faith into the public arena, and as religious belief in English culture is protected from rude discussion or enquiry, this was a very cosy term.

Just a short time ago even using the term Islamist could get one labelled as an islamophobe as it seemed to question a faith in a culturally unacceptable way.

I have allways used the term (along with many qualifiers) and refused to accept the term Islamophobia as it defines itself as including both of anti-Muslim discrimination, and criticism of islam as a belief system and criticism of the theo-political beliefs of Islamists.

The fact that anti-Muslim bigots may wish to see islam as equivalent to Islamism should not blind us to the fact that islamist ideologues claim that islam is the religion and islamism is the practice (to borrow a formulation from radical lesbian feminism).

I think this is all rather good and it shows that some of us who have persisted with a degree of distinction and subtlety have got the Islamists on the run.

Now perhaps I differ from you here, because while I am prepared to discuss different forms of Islamism and the very different state forms they might seek or eventually produce I have not seen anything other than a theocracy as the objective of this political Islamic revivalist movement.

If I were to see anywhere in the world a good news islam of a 19thC Revivalist Tent kind or an English civic Methodism or even a Catholic Christian Democracy in the current streams of Islamist political theology then I would worry that islamism was harshly seen as entirely negative but I don’t.

Perhaps, perhaps, one day in Turkey or even in Iran such a transformation to a democratic Islamic political theology will occur.

Perhaps Sufism will enter a counterbalancing revivalism and become that Islamic methodism (it is entirely culturally commensurate with Sufi social orders), but it will be very visible when it does, until that time we are left with a militant theocratic rival to liberal plural democracies and we have to keep on calling it what it is.

The problem I see is not so much of cultural relativism as cultural incommensurability, an inability to describe Islamist theo-political meanings and behaviours in terms that actually capture the real, crucial fundamental differences from the meanings we attach to our vocabulary.

This is a very interesting point. It is probably very valid when applied to attempts to fully understand what lies behind a Hamas militant, less so I feel when talking about British youth being radicalised. Even though we are often talking about groups with global reach, their UK franchises are British phenomena which know very well how to operate in this predominantly secular milieu.

Which is why I feel that the hopes which are so often pinned on Sufism are rather misguided as it is often tied to a regionally and culturally specific tariqa.

Shiv Malik’s article in Prospect makes a similar observation:

Gultasab told me that his brother had found that the traditional, community-run mosque on Hardy Street had nothing to offer him. The people who ran the mosque had no idea how to connect with the second generation, said Gultasab. They spoke and wrote in Urdu, and the only time they interacted with the younger Muslims was when they taught them to recite the Koran by rote—in Arabic.

The Wahhabis did things differently. They delivered sermons and printed publications in English. Sidique’s Urdu was poor, so the only things on Islam he could read were Wahhabi-approved publications. Gultasab said that Sidique’s progression to Wahhabism was reinforced by the fact that some of his friends, and future Mullah boys, were converting too.

Whilst HT and other groups are not pleasant - which is intrinsically a problem - their prevalence in the UK and their roles in British Muslim life is a symptom of the absence of a recognisable British Islam (not to suggest that there should be only one - but there should be at least one). The Sufi Muslim Council and others do not seem well placed to cope with this but they’re less bad than certain other groups.

Fortunately for everyone, the vast majority of Muslims in this country have created a personal British Muslim identity for themselves, but there are very few groups out there propagating this and there are many propagating other visions of Islam.

Which is all a very long winded way of saying that we should not underestimate the western nature of the British branches of any of these groups nor downplay out own ability to understand such people who are radicalised by them. Indeed, we may well be better placed to reach an understanding than some of the people who are deemed to be “within their community” but who, in reality, are unfamiliar with the no

The problem I see is not so much of cultural relativism as cultural incommensurability, an inability to describe Islamist theo-political meanings and behaviours in terms that actually capture the real, crucial fundamental differences from the meanings we attach to our vocabulary.

This is a very interesting point. It is probably very valid when applied to attempts to fully understand what lies behind a Hamas militant, less so I feel when talking about British youth being radicalised. Even though we are often talking about groups with global reach, their UK franchises are British phenomena which know very well how to operate in this predominantly secular milieu.

Which is why I feel that the hopes which are so often pinned on Sufism are rather misguided as it is often tied to a regionally and culturally specific tariqa.

Shiv Malik’s article in Prospect makes a similar observation:

Gultasab told me that his brother had found that the traditional, community-run mosque on Hardy Street had nothing to offer him. The people who ran the mosque had no idea how to connect with the second generation, said Gultasab. They spoke and wrote in Urdu, and the only time they interacted with the younger Muslims was when they taught them to recite the Koran by rote—in Arabic.

The Wahhabis did things differently. They delivered sermons and printed publications in English. Sidique’s Urdu was poor, so the only things on Islam he could read were Wahhabi-approved publications. Gultasab said that Sidique’s progression to Wahhabism was reinforced by the fact that some of his friends, and future Mullah boys, were converting too.

Whilst HT and other groups are not pleasant - which is intrinsically a problem - their prevalence in the UK and their roles in British Muslim life is a symptom of the absence of a recognisable British Islam (not to suggest that there should be only one - but there should be at least one). The Sufi Muslim Council and others do not seem well placed to cope with this but they’re less bad than certain other groups.

Fortunately for everyone, the vast majority of Muslims in this country have created a personal British Muslim identity for themselves, but there are very few groups out there propagating this and there are many propagating other visions of Islam.

Which is all a very long winded way of saying that we should not underestimate the western nature of the British branches of any of these groups nor downplay out own ability to understand such people who are radicalised by them. Indeed, we may well be better placed to reach an understanding than some of the people who are deemed to be “within their community” but who, in reality, are unfamiliar with the non-religious mindset and therefore can not give meaningful answers as to why or how it can become radicalised.

it is interesting that you say the term islamism has become problematised by becoming to be seen as increasingly a negative term.

I was concerned here with the term pan-Islamism, which always used to be used in a similar manner to pan-Arabism has become a much less useful term as the term Islamism has become more widespread. That said, Islamism is - as you observe - a very useful term so this change is not to be mourned.

Perhaps, perhaps, one day in Turkey or even in Iran such a transformation to a democratic Islamic political theology will occur.

We may not have that long to wait with Turkey as the AKP and the secularists reach some kind of reconciliation (or quite the opposite - we’ll have to wait and see).

Whilst HT and other groups are not pleasant

Not sure how that “not” got in there. Apologies for any confusion.