A British
Jihadist
Hassan Butt, a 25 year old from
Manchester, helped recruit Muslims to fight in Afghanistan. Like
most of the London bombers, he is a British Pakistani who journeyed
from rootlessness to radical Islam
Aatish Taseer, Prospect,
Aug 2005, Prospect
Magazine Website .
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....
Butt: I used to be part of al-Muhajiroun, but we parted because of
differences… They have this idea—derived from the Koran, a valid
Islamic opinion but not one I believe is applicable to British
citizens—of a “covenant of security.” This means Muslims in Britain
are forbidden from any military action in Britain.
....
Taseer: Where do you think the covenant of security idea comes
from? I spoke to an imam who said that you cannot strike against
your host country. If you want to support Iraqis, go there and
support them.
Butt: Most imams, as you know, have come here not as British
citizens. There is a difference between a citizen who is born in a
country and someone who is here on a visa or a permit. Islamically,
I agree that someone who runs from the middle east—where people
like me are persecuted—and says, “Britain, I want you to protect
me” has entered a covenant of security. They say, “Look, protect my
life and as a result I won't do any harm to you.” That I agree with
100 per cent, but most of our people, especially the youth, are
British citizens. They owe nothing to the government. They did not
ask to be born here; neither did they ask to be protected by
Britain.
Taseer: So they've entered no covenant?
Butt: They have no covenant. As far as I'm concerned, the Islamic
hukum (order) that I follow, says that a person has no covenant
whatsoever with the country in which they were born.
Taseer: Do they have an allegiance to the country?
Butt: No, none whatsoever. Even the person who has a covenant has
no allegiance, he just agrees not to threaten the life, honour,
wealth, property, mind, and so on, of the citizens around
him.
Taseer: Your argument is based on these people being “British,” so
don't they necessarily have some loyalty to Britain?
Butt: No, that's what I'm saying. They have no loyalty whatsoever;
they have no allegiance to the government.
Taseer: Perhaps not the government, but to the country?
Butt: To the country, no.
...
Taseer: Who do you have allegiance to?
Butt: My allegiance is to Allah, his Shari’a, his way of life.
Whatever he dictates as good is good, whatever as bad is bad.
...
Taseer: So how did you discover Islam, or rediscover it?
Butt: Well, being Kashmiri, I'm hot-headed by nature, and so are my
brothers. Even before I was a practising Muslim, I was very
hot-headed. That hot-headedness was leading us down a path of
destruction. A lot of the people I grew up among were on drugs,
were involved in crime, prostitution, at very young ages. I
remember when I came across the first Muslim who talked to me about
Islam in a language I understood. He pointed out that I had a lot
of anger and frustration that I should direct in a more productive
manner. It was from there that I got discussing Islam
seriously—even though we were hotheads, me and my brothers always
had brains, we weren't thugs. We were still excelling in our
studies and getting top grades in our exams.
...
Taseer: Was it through a mosque?
...
Butt: My elder brother was in college, I was still at secondary
school. The college being a bit more open to Islamic activities
than high school, we met some members of Hizb ut-Tahrir inside a
masjid (mosque) and got talking. At that time the masjid was full
anyway, since it was Ramadan. They showed me that beyond the
recitation of the Koran, the praying, the fasting, the hajj—that
Islam is a complete system, a complete way of life, and how that
applied to us and our place in society.
Taseer: What is the philosophy of Hizb ut-Tahrir?
Butt: The idea is that Muslims in Britain need to keep to their
Islamic identity and work for the re-establishment of an Islamic
caliphate, or khalifah as they would say, based upon the first four
caliphates of Islam.
Taseer: Where?
Butt: In the Muslim countries. That is one of the differences I had
with them.
Taseer: You would like to see the caliphate here too?
Butt: Absolutely. How could we restrict something that initially
started in Medina but then spread through the entire Muslim
world?
Taseer: Would everyone have to be a Muslim, or would it work within
our existing society?
Butt: No, it’s a structure of law and order…
Taseer: A central authority?
Butt: A central Islamic authority. Whether the people are Muslim or
not is irrelevant. But even orientalist authors like Gilles Keppel
agree that Islam was so powerful that it was the only way of life
that both the conquered and the conqueror embraced. When the
Mongols attacked Islam, they became Muslims; the same happened with
the Turks. Even the people Islam conquered, they themselves
embraced the way of life. People say it was forced by the sword,
but if so, when the sword was removed, why did these people not
revert back? Simply because it was never actually forced upon them.
The inherent beauty of Islam made people want to embrace it.
....
Article can be found at
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=6992
