Written evidence by the East London Mosque

Since its establishment in 1910, the East London Mosque (ELM) has grown into one of the busiest mosques in the UK. With its adjoining centres, the London Muslim Centre and the Maryam Centre, it provides religious, education, social welfare and training services to its congregation and to the wider communities of London.

The East London Mosque enjoys active engagement with a wide range of UK public institutions, universities and the private sector, including substantial interfaith commitments. ELM has worked hard to build effective community relations and promote community cohesion, especially in the wake of atrocities such as the London 7/7 bombings. It encourages its congregation to draw on Islamic teachings to help make Britain a better place for all.

1. Normative Islam & Counter Narrative

1.1.  Normative Islamic teachings clearly prohibits terrorism in general and specifically prohibits any form of violence against civilians. It also forbids hate speech against other persons or communities, civil strife and anarchy. Normative Islam positively reinforces engagement with community on common ground issues and encourages speech that promotes the best manners and promotes civic humanity. The overwhelming majority of Muslims in the UK and throughout the world reject the ideology of al-Qaeda and ISIS.[1] [2] This has been publicly and repeatedly articulated by hundreds of Muslim scholars in the UK and internationally and is backed by both open and classified research by the Home Office itself.[3] [4] [5]

1.2.  In our experience, a balanced and comprehensive teaching of Islam encourages members of the Muslim community to steer clear of extremism, and equips them with the tools to challenge extremists and their violent ideologies. A report by the security service’s Behavioural Science Unit, as disclosed by The Guardian[6], confirms that:

“Far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could actually be regarded as religious novices… MI5 says there is evidence that a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalisation.”

The orthodox, or ‘socially conservative’, Islamic teachings adhered to by a majority of Muslims have sometimes been misinterpreted as ‘extremist’ by those who either lack understanding of Islamic teachings, or who deliberately do so in pursuit of their particular agendas.

1.3.  Research on causes of radicalisation identifies ideology as only one possible risk factor amongst a plethora of others, leading to recruitment to extremist terrorist organisations.[7] The ideology of ISIS is at total odds with normative Islam. However, we believe that exacerbation with UK foreign policy, lack of Islamic knowledge and troubled backgrounds are far greater factors to radicalisation.

1.4.  The Muslim community, arguably, are more eager than the Government to counter terrorist narratives because ultimately it is the Muslim community who suffer the fallout from such attacks in the form of Islamophobia, alienation and counter attacks in the long run. Therefore, it is disappointing that the Government’s current attempts at community engagement are inadequate and unsupportive.  Although a practical evidence based strategy of how to do this must be developed in true partnership with Muslim communities and not just enforced on it through a security framework.

1.5.  Rather than using core Islamic teachings as a resource to counter the narrative that feeds extremism and terrorism those very teachings and their practitioners as individuals and institutes are being labelled as extremist thereby alienating the very faith and community that can actually be of the most significant help in counter terrorism.[8]

1.6.  Terrorism should be treated for what it is; a crime, albeit a heinous one. Complete elimination of any crime has proven to be impossible in our society and therefore extremist terrorism should not be treated as a special case with false expectations of its total eradication. Research shows that the causes of crime are complex and cut across social, economic, and political factors and therefore demand comprehensive solutions. Specific communities in the UK are not singly held responsible for any particular type of crime neither are they alone burdened with eradicating a particular crime, that is the job of the police and related authorities; extremist terrorism should not be any different.

2. Comments on Prevent Strategy

2.1.  The term “extremist”, as it is currently defined, is unhelpful as it attempts to erroneously articulate an ideologically complex issue into a single and inaccurate soundbite. The term is deliberately vague, remains ambiguous and has the effect of labelling the vast majority of peaceable orthodox Muslims as belonging to the same camp as the tiny minority of proponents of violence.  

2.2.  Incidents of Islamophobia have seen exponential growth since 9/11.  However, the Government’s systematic choice of phrases and its use of inaccurate terminology, e.g. moderate Muslims, radical Islamists, fundamentalists, etc. This terminology attempts to paint Islam and followers of Islam as a conundrum which requires a solution.  These terms are used sometimes interchangeably, and often as a label to describe simply a practising Muslim.  This systematic and deliberate approach contributes towards a narrative which demonises an entire global faith.  Furthermore, it alienates UK faith-based communities and it significantly impacts decades worth of intra community-based work. Work which has effectively underpinned core British values and successfully upheld traditions of tolerance, fair treatment and integration.

2.3.  Despite these challenges, the ELM successfully piloted a Prevent-funded workshop in 2009,[9] in partnership with the Tower Hamlets Interfaith Forum. The objective was to share multi-faith experiences in Tower Hamlets with people in Bosnia, and learn from Bosnian experiences for the benefit of our own diverse communities in the UK. However, at the time the Home Office insisted we provide the list of names of all participants who had taken part in the programme. After consulting with our inter-faith partners, we mutually agreed that this was entirely inappropriate, as this limb of the Prevent objective had not been mentioned to us at the outset.

2.4.  As a result of engaging with the Prevent programme, the East London Mosque risked reputational damage with members of its own congregation and wider community. On reflection, it is clear that the manner in which the programme was handled, resulted in tarring members of an entire faith as suspect.  In addition, academic institutions were being asked to ‘spy’ on Muslims.[10]

2.5.  The prevailing view amongst the community remains that Prevent is a ‘poisonous’[11] and indeed ‘radioactive’ brand which targets all Muslims, not just extremists. Therefore, it has been counterproductive to its own stated purpose.

2.6.  In an open letter, hundreds of senior academics have opposed the statutory duty to engage with Prevent saying:

“The best response to acts of terror against UK civilians is to maintain and defend an open, democratic society.”[12]

2.7.  In our view, the most significant problems with the UK counter terrorism strategy, which includes Prevent and the Channel programmes are as follows:

• Prevent’s focus on ideology alone to counter extremism and terrorism is flawed. We know there are other particular drivers such a socio-economic and political factors that push an individual towards radicalisation.
• The Prevent strategy conflates fringe extremist ideology with normative Islam, which leads to indiscriminate targeting of almost any normative Muslim beliefs or practices as either extremist behaviour or potentially extremist behaviour.
• Error in the Prevent methodology and its subsequent implementation coupled with the context of hysterical tabloid press coverage of Muslims, inflammatory statements by politicians and increase in visible Islamophobia has led to the complete alienation of the UK Muslim communities.
• The most recent Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 makes Prevent a statutory duty for public organisations to report extremists or those at risk from radicalisation.  However, there are grave concerns as to how a doctor, teacher or a social worker can reliably assess without prejudice whether someone is at risk from radicalisation. There have already been many instances of even children being stigmatised due to wholly inappropriate reporting, and in all cases they have been Muslim children.
• We know that a significant number of referrals made to the Channel Programme are done so by schools and local authorities, because of a lack of understanding of Islam and Muslims, henceforth the referral rate is high although the actual cases emanating as a result are very low.

3. Conclusion

3.1.  The East London Mosque welcomes the UK Parliamentary Home Affairs Committee’s current dialogue on the Government’s Prevent Strategy.  This has been long overdue.  It affords the Government with an opportunity to reflect on its current thinking on the Prevent Strategy; provides it with the chance to review current entrenched positions; and to rebuild UK community faith-based relations.

3.2.  The broad consensus within the UK Muslim community is that the Government’s Prevent Strategy is flawed.  We have succinctly set out the reasons why the current approach is failing to engage with the community.

3.3.  We believe that it is only through independent scrutiny of current legislation and by maintaining independent oversight of government initiatives that citizen’s rights are protected and faith-based communities safeguarded. We look forward to continuing engagement with the Home Affairs Committee on this and future endeavours.