Maajid Nawaz
Maajid Nawaz
Maajid Usman Nawazis a British activist, author, columnist and politician. He was the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for London's Hampstead and Kilburn constituency in the 2015 general election. He is also the founding chairman of Quilliam, a counter-extremism think tank that seeks to challenge the narratives of Islamist extremists...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionActivist
egypt leader looks
If we look at Abdel Nasser in Egypt as an Arab leader, he was secular.
men egypt leader
I had the assassins of the former president of Egypt, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood was with me in prison, the leaders of my own former group Hizb ut-Tahrir were with me in prison and so by the time I was released at the age of 28, I wasn't the man who went in at 24.
believe trying stopping
I believe that preventing radicalisation is far more efficient than de-radicalisation, meaning stopping someone joining is a lot easier than trying to pull someone out once they've joined.
heart opening-up amnesty-international
Amnesty International adopted me as a prisoner of conscience, and that led to my - it touched me in a way that really led to me opening up my heart, I've called it the re-humanisation process.
opportunity people prison
In prison I had the opportunity to debate and discuss people that had subscribed to all forms of Islamism.
kingdoms found united-kingdom
When I returned to the United Kingdom, I found that I could no longer justify Islamist extremism as the antidote.
cases has-beens
It's not always the case that Muslims have been theocrats.
today unattractive communism
We have to render Islamist extremism as unattractive as communism has become today.
gay mainstream-society rights
I'm a progressive. What I find is that a subsection within the left that instead of standing for consistency in progressive values, so feminism as applied to mainstream society, as well as within minority communities, gay rights to mainstream society as well as within minority communities.
teenage black-and-white years
There was a genocide unfolding against Bosnian Muslims and we, in the United Kingdom, were incredibly angered - a teenager at the time, 15 years old, so my young teenage mind processed that in a way typical to the very passionate and angry and black-and-white way that teenagers often can do.
groups theocracy form
I'm yet to discover any form of theocracy that isn't homophobic, that isn't bigoted to the out group.
jobs gay voice
If we are true small 'l' liberals, it's our job to seek out feminist Muslims, ex-Muslims, liberal Muslims, dissenting voices within Muslim communities, gay Muslims - we should promote those voices and in doing so, we demonstrate Islam is not a monolith, Muslims are not homogenous, and that Muslims are truly internally diverse.
giving freedom-of-speech speech
Does freedom of speech give the right to offend?
religious community remember
Within our lifetime, we can remember a time when Islamism wasn't the dominant form of discourse or the aim should be to minimise the absolutists within any religious community and contain them.