Attacked by a peace-loving Hizb ut-Tahrir member!
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Quilliam director attacked
Tayyab Muqeem sitting pretty in Pakistan
Maajid Nawaz, director of the Quilliam Foundation has been attacked in Pakistan by a British member of the Islamist group Hizb ut Tahrir – an organisation to which Nawaz previously belonged. Nawaz is currently touring Pakistan as part of an anti-extremist initiative on a trip that will take him to over 30 universities.
He’s clearly riled a few of his ex-associaties.
Quilliam says the attacker – identified as Tayyab Muqeem (a Hizb member from Stoke) – had to physically restrained and warned Maajid:
‘this is only a slap compared with what I am going to do to you’.
Muqeem runs a company in Pakistan called ‘University Connections’ which helps local students study abroad – including at British universities. According to his biography he has provided:
training to Members of Parliament, Councillors and various government officials on community development.
and
taught at the British Council as an English Language Teacher and Corporate Trainer…[and] was also Education Exhibition Officer at the British Council where he hosted various UK University delegations in Pakistan.
Hizb ut Tahrir claims to be a non-violent, intellectual organisation. It’s an image the group cultivated with some success a few years ago but, more recently, that mask has slipped. Reports in the Mail and Telegraph last month revealed how Dr Imran Waheed, a member of Hizb ut Tahrir and NHS doctor in Birmingham, had openly called for Jihad during a rally in Marble Arch during the Gaza War.
He told the crowd
‘There will be no peace and no negotiations with the illegitimate entity of Israel which has usurped the Muslim lands.
‘There is only one solution to the occupation of Muslim lands, one solution to the cries of the widows and the orphans, one solution to avenge the deaths of the elderly and the children. Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you! Al-Jihad!”
What a lovely man. There’s more of Dr Evil in the video below:
Ed Husain responded to the attack saying
“Maajid is a brave, sincere Muslim who will not be cowed by Islamist violence – this latest attack on Maajid only illustrates the power and impact of his work. Hizb ut-Tahrir’s global leader, Ata Abu Rishta, has forbidden his members from speaking to Maajid Nawaz and others. It appears that some HT members have now taken the decision to carry out physical attacks.
Again, we challenge Abu Rishta and his party’s members to an open debate and call on them to abandon violence. Islamism is a bankrupt ideology, and Islamists’ adoption of violence is proof of their failure to win the battle of ideas. ”
I wonder if they’ll take him up on the offer of a debate now?
UPDATE:
Tayyib Muqeem puts forward his (long and paranoid) version of events over at the Traditional Islamism blog – which actually seems to be little more than an obsessive anti-Quilliam outfit run by HT boys and girls (no ‘girls’, freemixing is haram, don’t you know? – Editor).
Interestingly, Muqeem doesn’t dispute the central point which is that he hit Maajid.
I then attempted to merely push him away from me, but in his cowardly reaction he moved towards me and one of my hands intended to push him away slightly pushed the side of his head, which made him loose balance and he fell onto a nearby sofa.
Whether it was a ‘punch’ or a ’shove’ or a ‘push’ – Muqeem admits that used physical force. That, to me, seems like the central allegation of Quilliam’s press release, and now we have proof direct from the horse’s mouth.
I wonder if this means HT are violent extremists?
The Hizb ut-Tahrir Watch 