Radical: My Journey out of Islamist Extremism

156 Pages·2013·0.87 MB·English

by  Maajid Nawaz

R
ADICAL
RADICAL
My Journey out of Islamist Extremism
M N
AAJID AWAZ
T B
WITH OM ROMLEY
Copyright © 2013 by Maajid Nawaz
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and
retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher. Requests for
permission should be addressed to Globe Pequot Press, Attn: Rights and Permissions Department, PO Box
480, Guilford, CT 06437.

Lyons Press is an imprint of Globe Pequot Press.

Project editor: Meredith Dias Layout artist: Melissa Evarts
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nawaz, Maajid.
Radical : my journey out of Islamist extremism / Maajid Nawaz ; with Tom Bromley.
pages cm
E-ISBN 978-0-7627-9551-2
1. Nawaz, Maajid. 2. Muslims—Great Britain—Biography. 3. Extremists—Great Britain—Biography. 4.
Islamic fundamentalism—Great Britain. I. Title.
BP166.14.F85N38 2013
297.092—dc23
[B]
2013017848
For my family, my son, and for all my friends.
And for those with whom I started a movement.
The moving finger writes, and having written moves
on.
Nor all thy piety nor all thy wit, can cancel half a
line of it.
—OMAR KHAYYAM, RUBA’IYAT
C
ONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Preface to the US Edition
Foreword
Prologue
Part One: B-Boy
One: Memories of the Ghost Train
Two: This Game’s Not for Pakis
Three: The Doctor Who Said “Fuck tha Police”
Four: The Stranger Stabbed for Me
Five: The Green Backpack with No Bomb
Six: When Babri Mosque Fell in India
Seven: A Land Where Fetuses Are Cut from Wombs
Part Two: Islamist
Eight: An Islamist Takeover
Nine: 12,000 Muslims Screaming “Khilafah”
Ten: Servant of the Compeller
Eleven: The Womb That Bore Me
Twelve: A Show of Hands to Harden the Heart
Thirteen: The Romanticism of Struggle
Fourteen: Dreams of a Nuclear Caliphate
Fifteen: Caliphs in Copenhagen
Sixteen: The Polemic
Seventeen: Welcome to Egypt: We Do As We Please
Eighteen: The Ghimamah Has No Rules
Nineteen: Number Forty-two
Twenty: Assalaamu Alaykum, You’ve Just Come out of Hell
Twenty-One: The Luxury of an Audience
Twenty-Two: The Penguin Is Hit by Slippers
Twenty-Three: “Monocracy”
Part Three: Radical
Twenty-Four: Where the Heart Leads, the Mind Can Follow
Twenty-Five: No Right to Silence
Twenty-Six: How Many Years Did You Fail?
Twenty-Seven: Civil-Democratic Intimidation
Twenty-Eight: The Decade-Late Apology
Twenty-Nine: Monkeys in a Zoo
Thirty: Visiting No. 10
Thirty-One: Khudi Pakistan
Thirty-Two: I Will See Your Day When It Comes
Postscript
Epilogue: Ideas Are Bulletproof
Glossary of Arabic Terms
Resources
Acknowledgments