Debating political Islam in Qatar

Peter Townson of the Gulf Times reports on a debate held recently in Doha, Qatar on the motion "This house believes that political Islam is a threat to the West." More interesting than the fact that this debate was held, however, was one of the participants:

Speaking for the motion was former member [of] Hizb-ut-Tahrir and current director of the UK-based Quilliam Foundation which works to counter extremism, Maajid Nawaz.

[...]

Nawaz was first to speak and he emphasised the need to distinguish between “Muslims involved in politics,” and “political Islam.”

“We are not arguing that Muslims should not participate in the political process – far from it, as we are all Muslims who are politically involved, but we are arguing that Islamism, which has a fixed agenda and uses scripture to justify its political aims, is a threat to the West,” he said.

That last quote certainly got our attention. We've heard very few Muslims put things so bluntly. So we did a little research on this Quilliam Foundation.

According to their home page, the foundation "aims to generate creative thought paradigms through informed and inclusive discussion to counter the Islamist ideology behind terrorism." The group seemed to be a model moderate Muslim organization, until we discovered that they invited CAIR's former national legal director, Arsalan Iftikhar, to speak at their launch event last April. Nevertheless, the formation of the group is definitely a step in the right direction, and something to keep an eye on.

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