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It鈥檚 rare to get a real insight into the inner workings of radical Islamist groups like Hizb-Ut Tahrir.听

Maajid Nawaz was a leading light in the party and his decision to leave has revealed that the group is in political freefall.听

Here Kurt Barling writes about one man鈥檚 flight from extremism and suggests it鈥檚 another reassuring sign that robust debate in the Muslim community is challenging the political dogma of the extremists.

A call in early 2002 alerted me to the plight of three British men held on charges of belonging to an outlawed political party Hizb-Ut Tahrir in Egypt.听

Ian Nisbet, Reza Pankhurst and Maajid Nawaz were all in Egypt to study Arabic and deepen their knowledge of Islam.听听 Whatever the injustices of the case against them (the trial was shambolic and the evidence weak) it was ultimately their membership of HT in Britain that landed them in prison for four years.

torture

It was difficult for the families whilst the men were serving their sentences to get a clear picture of what was happening to them.听 It had been clear through the trial process that they had already been subjected to physical and psychological torture.

Last week I gained some insight into the affair when I interviewed Maajid Nawaz.听听 He had returned to Britain in March 2006 with his co-defendants and immediately thrown himself back into HT activities.听听

Now he says for nine months he remained in denial of his change of heart and mind; he was nevertheless harbouring serious doubts about the political message he was espousing.

Finally he recently left HT deeply disillusioned with a discourse which he now believes runs counter to his faith and is not compatible with living in a democratic society.听 He described his departure as coming to his senses.

Nawaz says whilst the experience did nothing to dampen his religious faith, it did sow the seeds of doubt in his mind about Islamist political ideology.听

His flirtation with extremism began when he was 16 growing up in Southend-on-Sea in Essex.听听 He followed American hip-hop music and as a young Muslim boy was searching hard for an identity in a predominantly white seaside town.听听 He chose radical Islam because it gave him, he says, a sense of identity.

muslim identity

Britain, despite its diversity, is still not a place where it is easy to flaunt a mixed heritage.听 Young people often feel they have to take sides.

This new Muslim identity was built on an anti-colonial rhetoric which said being a Muslim meant reclaiming his ancestrally heritage as a Muslim and rejecting the British tag which was an accident not of birth but historical oppression.

Nawaz like his former student colleague Ed Hussain (The Islamist) used his time at Newham College in East London in the late 1990s to spread the message of Hizb-Ut Tahrir of separate development.听听

As leader of the student union he was actively recruiting for Hizb and the key message was being British and Muslim was incompatible.

He says that Hizb no longer argues this publicly although privately it is often a different matter.听 As far as Nawaz is concerned he regrets having abandoned his Britishness.听 His time in prison made it perfectly obvious to him he had strong roots in Essex (albeit not his only roots).

Nawaz now claims that evidence of the murderous climate he was helping to generate was already clear to see when a fellow radical traveller murdered a young African student outside the college in 1995.听 By his own admission these were the consequences of his active recruitment of young Muslims and radicalising them.听听 Of course he may have not seen it then; plenty of others did.

He says the reason for his devotion to the cause was the cell like structure of HT.听听 In effect this meant within the organisation there was no ability to challenge the process of indoctrination or the ideas that were central to their cause.

Amongst other ideals they preached; the establishment of a Caliphate state for all Muslims through political means.听听 Once this is established the violent overthrow of other neighbouring regimes using the Caliphate army.听 This would involve the killing of millions on non-Muslims and resistant Muslims.

Democratic notions of government are a falsehood because the word of Allah is all-encompassing.听 Importantly in the context of young London Muslims: a Muslim鈥檚 loyalty should be to the Ummah or (Muslim nation) not the apostate (unbelieving) country of abode.

Nawaz told me last week that coming to his senses means he believes HT鈥檚 political philosophy is a sham.听听 He says he owes it to those he has spent 12 years indoctrinating and to his fellow British citizens to challenge this dogma which he says led not only the murder in East London but indirectly to the London bombings on July 7th 2005 and the attempted attacks two weeks later.

There has been quite a lot of doubt expressed over the past few years on whether it is possible to unlock the mindset of those bent on extremism.听 Nawaz believes it is possible to challenge that mindset but that banning HT is not the answer because that would only drive their ideas 鈥渦nderground鈥�.

regrets

He estimates the group now numbers in the few hundreds and his apparent defection away from the group suggests that it is in trouble.听听 In any case their appeal has waned dramatically in recent years on the college campuses where he used to recruit many young people.听 He believes banning them would re-invigorate their anti-establishment credentials and persecution rhetoric.

Perhaps the most significant element of his defection is that he confirms the concerns so many people have been expressing about Hizb-Ut Tahrir鈥檚 brand of extremism.听听

Maajid has many regrets about his twelve years as a Hizb activist, but he also expresses sadness that many of his old friends and colleagues see his public denunciation as a betrayal.听听 It has affected his relationship with the two men he spent nearly four years in an Egyptian prison with.听听

Yet he firmly believes that the danger of Hizb lies not in it being a terrorist organisation (he clearly believes it is not) but in the psyche the political ideology creates.听 In short this former lead member of Hizb says the party is Extremist and creates extremists who present a real danger; 鈥渨e stoked the fires and when you keep boiling water, it bubbles over鈥�.

He now plans to start post-graduate work at the London School of Economics as well as writing a series of articles (perhaps even a PhD thesis) which he says will debunk what he now views as the mythology of Hizb鈥檚 political ideology.听听

This latest defection shows that there is a growing challenge to the extremist discourse that has led a significant number of young British Muslims to consider acts of terror including suicide bombings and has ultimately sullied the reputation of the majority of honest British Muslims.