Maajid Nawaz Speaks at the Center for National Policy Washington

9th of July

Maajid Nawaz was hosted by the Center for National Policy and Rep Tim Roemer in Washington, where he delivered an address explaining the process of radicalization and how to begin to counter the ideology of Islamism and Islamist terrorism. He explained the process of radicalization - the adoption of an ideology which reprograms the mind-set of people and shapes the way they look at the world and how and what they define as problems.

He explained how the ideology shaped the way he viewed his own personal experiences, shaping his attitude and making him view all conflicts as an Ideological conflict between Islamism and "Kufr" - disbelief. How he viewed all the world as a zone of conflict until the caliphate or rather the Islamist expansionist "Islamic State" was re-established, that could forcefully unify all countries with a Muslim populous and then by a Jihadist foreign policy annex other countries to its state under one supreme leader.

It was this ideology therefore that laid down the foundations of terrorism in all of its modern forms - and this must be distinguished from traditional forms of Islam, which did not espouse the doctrines of an Islamist State, Sovereignty to the Shariah, constitutions had to be "Islamic" and Shariah should be the 'Law' of the State. In fact these notions of states, laws, constitutions, sovereignty were modern political ideas which had developed with the notion of the nation state, and had nothing to do with traditional Islam. Islam did not espouse these ideas nor did it reject such ideas, but rather Islam as a faith and way of living could adapt within whichever political system or climate it faced - as it has done historically.

It is only the modernists Ideological mindset, which had been taken and borrowed from Communist ideology that had created this radical ideological mind-set, and created this conflict mindset based on its religious-ideological political creed Islamism - as opposed to Islam as a religion.

It was an engaged and knowledgeable crowd, that discussed these issues in an open and interactive manner in the question and answers session.