About this item
Maajid Nawaz spent his teenage years listening to American hip-hop and learning about the radical Islamist movement spreading throughout Europe and Asia in the 1980s and 90s. At 16, he was already a ranking member in Hizb ut-Tahrir, a London-based Islamist group. He quickly rose through the ranks to become a top recruiter, a charismatic spokesman for the cause of uniting Islams political power across the world. Nawaz was setting up satellite groups in Pakistan, Denmark, and Egypt when he was rounded up in the aftermath of 911 along with many other radical Muslims. He was sent to an Egyptian prison where he was, fortuitously, jailed along with the assassins of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. The 20 years in prison had changed the assassins views on Islam and violence Maajid went into prison preaching to them about the Islamist cause, but the lessons ended up going the other way.
About the Author
Maajid Nawaz is an author and Founding Chairman of Quilliam - a globally active think tank focusing on matters of integration, citizenship & identity, religious freedom, extremism and immigration.
He encourages the reform of Islam today, inclusive citizenship-based participation of Muslims in their respective countries, and seeks to synergize a respect for human rights with the civic liberal imperative to defend those in danger of being stigmatized by extremists of all stripes due to their personal choices.
Maajid's autobiographical account of his life story 'RADICAL' has been released in the UK and US.
Maajid is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and has been listed as one of the most influential people in the UK Sunday Times' Debretts 500 index. Maajid is also a Daily Beast columnist, and provides occasional columns for the London Times, New York Times and Wall Street Journal among others. Maajid was the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate for the May 2015 British General Election.
A British-Pakistani born in Essex, Maajid speaks English, Arabic and Urdu, holds a BA (Hons) from SOAS in Arabic and Law and an MSc in Political Theory from the London School of Economics (LSE) . He is personally interested in Arabic grammar & morphology, Muslim Medieval jurisprudence and scholastics and emerging modern political thought and trends.
Maajid can be contacted on Twitter: @maajidnawaz
or on: https://www.facebook.com/MaajidNawazFanPage
