Islamophobia: does Labour measure up?

By Bob Pitt

Labour Briefing, February 2011

"The Islamophobia Myth" was the title of an influential article by Kenan Malik published in the February 2005 issue of Prospect magazine. It argued that violence, hatred and discrimination against Muslims were at a very low level and that the threat of Islamophobia had been invented or at least greatly exaggerated, mainly by religious leaders hoping to suppress legitimate criticisms of their beliefs and to enhance their own status as community representatives. Malik's thesis was welcomed in some quarters at the time, including among sections of the left.

Six years on, far fewer people would buy that argument. Hostility towards Muslims and their faith has reached such a pitch that to deny this represents a major threat is simply untenable. When the racist hooligans of the English Defence League take to the streets in towns and cities across the UK brandishing placards with slogans such as "We will never submit to Islam", chanting "Burn a mosque down" and on occasion breaking through police lines to rampage through Muslim areas smashing shop windows and assaulting passers-by, who could seriously claim that Islamophobia is a myth?

The EDL and its ideology did not emerge in a political vacuum. When its leaders claim that Britain is undergoing a process of "Islamification", that the existing legal system is being supplanted by sharia courts or that mosques are potential organising centres for terrorism, they haven't thought up these ideas by themselves. These are themes constantly promoted by papers like the Express, the Mail, the Sun and the Daily Star, and it is this mainstream right wing Islamophobia that inspires and legitimises the more thuggish forms of anti-Muslim bigotry practised by the EDL and other far-right groups. Indeed, Nick Griffin has openly stated that the BNP aims to "take advantage for our own political ends of the growing wave of public hostility to Islam currently being whipped up by the mass media".

While Islamophobia is predominantly a right wing political phenomenon, but by no means exclusively so. Because this campaign against a minority community is framed as an attack on their culture rather than their ethnicity, it has been able to win the backing of people with otherwise progressive political views who would recoil in horror from traditional racism based on skin colour. Liberal and leftist Islamophobia is typically couched in terms of a defence of Enlightenment values, secularism, feminism or gay rights, but the effect is to reinforce the right wing narrative of British Muslims as an alien presence and internal threat.

Islamophobes of left and right will often claim that they are not attacking Islam as such but rather "Islamism" – a term that is applied so broadly as to cover almost all Muslim organisations which involve themselves in political action, the aim being to blur the difference between those groups promoting peaceful change through engagement with mainstream politics and those advocating violence.

Some of the fiercest critics of political Islam have been supporters of the Iraq war like Observer journalist Nick Cohen, who suddenly discovered that Islamism posed an existential threat to western civilisation after the Muslim Association of Britain emerged as a leading force in the organisation of mass anti-war protests. For others, hostility towards Islamism stems primarily from the fact that politically engaged Muslims are vocal critics of the Palestinian people's oppression by the Israeli state. Here Islamophobia is harnessed to the Zionist agenda of delegitimising political support for the Palestinian resistance.

The result of all this is a mood of resentment and antagonism towards Muslims, their beliefs and their organisations that extends across the political spectrum and through all sections of society. There are clear and very worrying parallels with the rise of antisemitism in the early decades of the last century.

What has the Labour Party's response been to this rising tide of Islamophobia? "Mixed" is the best you can say. In some cases Labour has shamefully adapted to the prevailing anti-Muslim mood.

One example of this was the disgraceful propaganda put out by Phil Woolas in Oldham East and Saddleworth during the 2010 General Election, the purpose of which was to "get the white vote angry" by claiming that the Lib Dem candidate was in an alliance with Muslim extremists. A Labour campaign leaflet featured headlines such as "Straight talking Woolas too fair for militant Muslims" and "Lib Dems in mosque planning permission stitch-up". Woolas's election agent suggested privately that traditional Conservative voters who were unhappy about backing the Tories' Muslim candidate might be persuaded to support Labour rather than the Lib Dems "if we can convince them that they are being used by the Moslems".

During the by-election that followed the court decision to disqualify Woolas, Jack Straw made a further pitch for the white racist vote by endorsing the myth of Asian grooming. His accusation that some men of Pakistani heritage regard young white women as "easy meat" won him the admiration of the Daily Mail's Melanie Phillips who hailed his stand against "Muslim sexual predators". This was nothing new for Straw. In October 2006 he condemned the Muslim face-veil as a "visible statement of separation" and revealed that whenever a constituent visited his surgery wearing one he asked her to remove it. Predictably, Straw's remarks unleashed a vicious media campaign against veil-wearing Muslim women, with "Ban the burkha" headlines splashed across the front pages of the right wing press.

That same month the then Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly announced on behalf of the Labour Government that there would be a "fundamental rebalancing of our relations with Muslim organisations", which involved sidelining the Muslim Council of Britain with its 500 affiliates in favour of an obscure outfit called the Sufi Muslim Council that barely had five members. In 2009 Kelly's successor Hazel Blears took the opportunity to break relations with the MCB entirely, on the basis of an accusation that one of its leading figures, Daud Abdullah, had signed a document "advocating attacks on Jewish communities all around the world" – an accusation that was completely untrue.

The severing of links between the Labour Government and the MCB was partly due to the latter's refusal to remain silent about the role of British foreign policy in enabling advocates of violent extremism to get a hearing among disaffected Muslim youth. The Sufi Muslim Council by contrast was viewed favourably because it placed the blame on Islamist ideology and let the Government off the hook. (The same reasoning lay behind the decision to funnel large sums of public money into another divisive and unrepresentative organisation, the Quilliam Foundation.)

In repudiating the country's largest Muslim organisation the Labour leadership was also succumbing to pressure from an anti-MCB campaign conducted by John Ware in his 2005 Panorama documentary A Question of Leadership and Martin Bright in his 2006 Policy Exchange pamphlet When Progressives Treat with Reactionaries: The British State's flirtation with radical Islamism, both of which portrayed the MCB as a nest of Islamist extremists.

Last year we saw a similar capitulation by the party leadership to an anti-Islamist witch-hunt when the NEC blocked Lutfur Rahman from standing as Labour's mayoral candidate in Tower Hamlets. The decision followed a campaign by Telegraph journalist Andrew Gilligan to expose Lutfur as an ally of "Islamic fundamentalists" at the East London Mosque who had supposedly infiltrated the Labour Party as part of a plot to transform Tower Hamlets into an Islamic state. The people of Tower Hamlets delivered their verdict on the NEC's acceptance of Gilligan's paranoid fantasies by electing Lutfur as an independent mayor with a massive majority.

In the interests of balance, it should be added that the Labour leadership's record on Islamophobia has not been all bad. To its credit, the last Government did introduce the religious hatred bill in an attempt to provide Muslims and other multi-ethnic faith communities with the same legal protection as Jews and Sikhs (who are defined as mono-ethnic and covered by the law against incitement to racial hatred) – only to see the legislation sabotaged by an amendment drawn up by Lib Dem peer Lord Lester.

However, it is prominent figures on the Labour left who have set an example to the rest of the Party in taking a firm and principled stand against the upsurge in anti-Muslim bigotry. Jeremy Corbyn, for example, has established warm relations with the North London Central Mosque in Finsbury Park since Abu Hamza and his gang were ousted in 2005 and has rejected attempts by the likes of Gilligan and the Quilliam Foundation to smear the present management as dangerous extremists.

During his eight years as Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone worked closely with organisations like the MCB and the British Muslim Initiative in defending the capital's Muslim communities and he was uncompromising in his refusal to bend to the forces of Islamophobia, notably in resisting the hysterical attacks that followed the welcome he gave to Yusuf al-Qaradawi during his visit to London in 2004. The struggle to get the Labour Party to purge itself of Islamophobia and adopt a more sensitive approach towards representative Muslim organisations will be greatly strengthened if Ken is returned to City Hall in 2012.

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Tunisian women fear Islamist return

TUNISIAN women are watching warily should the uprising that ousted the authoritarian president also unravel women's rights bolstered by his secular regime in this predominantly Muslim country.

"I'm scared of the return of the Islamists," said Sonia, a 35-year-old government official who declined to give her last name, as the long-banned Islamist movement Ennahdha (Awakening) prepares to re-enter the political scene.

"They'll impose a new culture that is totally alien to us, like the fundamentalist dress code," she said, referring to the Muslim headscarf worn by some women in the north African state.

Ennahdha has said it will respect the country's laws.

Yet Mabrouka, 29, a journalist who also did not give her last name, was watchful. "I saw a lot of bearded men today. I was really afraid. I don't think the laws on women's rights will change, but the Islamists are going to be even more forceful than before."

The 23-year rule of president Zine El Abedine Ben Ali was somewhat repressive, but observers say laws put in place by his regime had improved conditions for women. His widely loathed wife, Leila, was a prominent campaigner on women's rights.

The new transitional national unity government has emphasised it will defend these rights, but many women are concerned by its promises to legalise the Ennahdha as a political party.

Ennahdha's exiled leader, Rached Ghannouchi, has said he will return "very soon". He has embraced moderate goals similar to Turkey's ruling Islamist Justice and Development party.

The worry is mainly over changes to the Personal Status Code, a law approved after independence from France in 1956 that bans polygamy and gives equal rights in a family to husbands and wives.

It also says divorced women and their children should receive alimony.

With continuing protests seeking to wipe out all trace of the ancien regime, women's rights groups are unconvinced by the assurances of the new government. Some commentators in recent days have used the new freedom of expression on Tunisian television to advocate conservative values.

One has said allowing multiple wives would help right a demographic imbalance, while another has called for women to stay at home to solve the unemployment problem.

"Women should wear veils to prevent sexual harassment. That is what one hears now on Tunisia's streets," an article in La Presse newspaper said.

It spoke of "a new era in which questions that we thought were dead and gone are resurfacing and threatening the rights we thought were irreversible".

Dorra Bouzid, a well-known journalist and feminist, said women had to be prepared to fight to keep the rights they had won.

"We have to be careful and multiply our efforts to protect women," she said.

Her concerns were illustrated this weekend in Tunis when a group of youths shouted crude insults at a female AFP reporter, jeering and mocking her.

"Women's rights are over after the revolution!" one shouted.

Ms Bouzid has called on the government, which is preparing the country's first democratic elections, to set up a committee to monitor women's rights and to increase the number of women in the executive and the parliament.

ElBaradei: Muslim Brotherhood threat is a myth pushed by dictatorial regime

Banned scholar Zakir Naik to address Oxford Union by satellite

An Indian Muslim scholar who is banned from entering Britain is to address the Oxford Union via satellite link, in a direct challenge to the home secretary, Theresa May.

Zakir Naik, who was placed under an exclusion order last summer, has been invited by the debating society to take part in a discussion in two weeks' time on the theme of religious tolerance.

The invitation has angered May and could provide an awkward dilemma for the Conservative party. The former shadow home secretary Chris Grayling promised to ban the use of satellite technology to broadcast the views of excluded Islamist preachers based abroad.

Naik, who founded the global satellite channel Peace TV, was the first Muslim preacher to be banned by the coalition government when he was stopped from entering the country in June.

The Mumbai-based television evangelist was invited weeks ago to take part in the debate with academics and students. Thames Valley police have been advising the union on how to conduct the meeting.

Naik told the Guardian he was delighted by the invitation. "This gives me the perfect opportunity to show the British people my true views rather than the distorted and false grounds cited by the home secretary," he said.

He has argued that he is a moderate and is currently involved in an appeal court action to have the order lifted.

Peace TV has a huge following in the Muslim districts of Mumbai, Naik's native city. Naik has been named as the third most popular spiritual guru in India.

In a letter highlighting the reasons for his exclusion, May quoted Naik's assertion that "all Muslims should be terrorists" as one example of his unreasonable behaviour. He claims the statement was taken out of context and that he was referring about the right to "terrorise" thieves.

Another passage quoted by the home secretary is said to come from a 2006 lecture, in which Naik said of Osama bin Laden: "If he is fighting the enemies of Islam, I am for him." Naik claims the lecture was given in 1998, before the September 11 attacks.

Naik, who has also been accused of holding antisemitic and sexist views, claims to be "non-violent and an enemy of extremism".

His ban provoked a row in Whitehall over whether it was right to exclude Islamic preachers who pledged to help the government halt the spread of violent ideologies. In October, court papers revealed that Charles Farr, director general of the office for security and counter-terrorism, backed Naik's fight to stay in Britain. One of Farr's senior officials, Sabin Khan, was suspended from duty for criticising the exclusion as a "huge error of judgment".

The Oxford Union is regarded as one of the most prestigious debating chambers in the world and was once described by Harold Macmillan as "the last bastion of free speech in the western world". Founded in 1823, it has played host to the likes of US presidents Reagan, Nixon and Carter, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and the Queen.

A spokesman for the union said Naik should be allowed to speak because of his influence in the debate on Islamic fundamentalism.

"The Oxford Union exists to discuss and debate ideas, even those considered unorthodox or controversial by society at large. Members of the union will be given the opportunity to challenge Dr Naik on any aspect of his views.

"Dr Naik will be speaking via video link, rather than appearing in person. We have no desire to challenge Dr Naik's ban on entry to the UK. However, we do wish to give our members the chance to discuss and challenge his views on terrorism and the Home Office's recent decision to ban him," he said.

In opposition, David Cameron was highly critical of Labour's failure to ban hardline preachers. After a number of news stories highlighted the way banned preachers were circumventing the law, he and the opposition pledged to stop it.

In a speech delivered to a US audience in December 2009, Chris Grayling, the then shadow home secretary, promised to stop banned preachers from circumventing exclusion orders by broadcasting their words by satellite link or video.

"We have seen numerous examples of banned preachers propagating their views to British audiences by video or audio link from the countries where they now live. If we are in government, we will take further steps to outlaw such activity – and to prosecute those who organise the propagation of banned ideologies via video and satellite links in public places," he said in a speech, which is still on the party's website.

The Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, former chairman of the Commons counter-terrorism committee, called for the government to halt the broadcast. "The coalition government should pursue this with vigour. Naik is a subversive pest and his words not be allowed to reach the vulnerable and the impressionable," he said.

The Home Office said: "The government makes no apologies for refusing people access to the UK if we believe they represent a threat to our society. Coming here is a privilege that we refuse to extend to those who seek to subvert our shared values."

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HADITH OF THE DAY: WHEN HONESTY IS LOST

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: "When honesty is lost, then wait for the Hour (of Judgment Day)." He was then asked: "How will honesty be lost?" The Prophet replied: "When authority is given to those who do not deserve it."

Sahih Al-Bukhari, Volume 8, Hadith 503

Dramatic footage of Egypt clashes

Give to others....

"As for the person who gives (to others) and is conscious of God, and believes in the truth of the ultimate good -- for him shall We make easy the path towards (ultimate) ease. But as for the person who is a greedy miser, and thinks that he is self-sufficient, and calls the ultimate good a lie -- for him shall We make easy the path towards hardship."

The Holy Quran, 92:5-10

Killings of newborn babies on the rise in Pakistan

The lifeless bodies of two tiny babies are being given their final bath before burial in Karachi, after they were left to die in the southern Pakistani city's garbage dumps.

"They can only have been one or two days old," says volunteer worker Mohammad Saleem, pointing at the two small corpses being gently washed by his colleagues at a charity's morgue.
In the conservative Muslim nation, where the birth of children outside of marriage is condemned and adultery is a crime punishable by death under strict interpretations of Islamic law, infanticide is a crime on the rise.
More than 1,000 infants -- most of them girls -- were killed or abandoned to die in Pakistan last year according to conservative estimates by the Edhi Foundation, a charity working to reverse the grim trend.
The infanticide figures are collected only from Pakistan's main cities, leaving out huge swathes of the largely rural nation, and the charity says that in December alone it found 40 dead babies left in garbage dumps and sewers.
The number of dead infants found last year -- 1,210 -- was up from 890 in 2008 and 999 in 2009, says the Edhi Foundation manager in Karachi, Anwar Kazmi.

Tragic tales abound.

Kazmi recounts the discovery of the burnt body of a six-day-old infant who had been strangled. Another child was found on the steps of a mosque having been stoned to death on the orders of an extremist imam who has since disappeared, he says.
"Do not murder, lay them here," reads a sign hanging outside the charity's Karachi base where it has left cradles in the hope that parents will abandon their unwanted children there, instead of leaving them to die.
"People leave these children mostly because they think they are illegitimate, but they are as innocent and loveable as all human beings," says the charity's founder, well-known humanitarian Abdul Sattar Edhi.
Most children found are less than a week old.
Khair Mohammad, 65, works as a watchman in the charity's vast graveyard in the city outskirts. It is dotted with tiny unnamed graves.
"We acquired this land to bury children after another plot was filled with hundreds of bodies," he says.

The death toll is far worse among girls, says manager Kazmi, with nine out of ten dead babies the charity finds being female.
"The number of infanticides of girls has substantially increased," Kazmi says, a rise attributed to increased poverty across the country.
Girls are seen by many Pakistanis as a greater economic burden as most women are not permitted to work and are considered to be the financial responsibilty of their fathers, and later their husbands.
A Pakistani family can be forced to raise more than one million rupees (11,700 dollars) to marry their daughter off.

Edhi says that up to 200 babies are left in its 400 cradles nationwide each year and that it handles thousands of requests for adoption by childless couples.
Abortion is prohibited in Pakistan, except when the mother's life is at risk from her pregnancy, but advocates say that legalisation would reduce infanticide and save mothers from potentially fatal back-street terminations.
According to Pakistani law, anyone found to have abandoned an infant can be jailed for seven years, while anyone guilty of secretly burying a child can be imprisoned for two years. Murder is punishable with life imprisonment.
But crimes of infanticide are rarely prosecuted.
"The majority of police stations do not register cases of infanticide, let alone launch investigations into them," said lawyer Abdul Rasheed.

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Viewpoints: Anti-Muslim prejudice in Europe

Baroness Warsi, the chairman of the main party in Britain's governing coalition, has said that anti-Muslim prejudice has "passed the dinner table test" and become socially acceptable in the UK.
Here are the views of Muslims from around Europe on whether they think anti-Muslim attitudes are now considered acceptable in their countries.

Sweden
Prof Anne-Sofie Roald, professor of religious studies at Malmo University and a Muslim convert
I would say in Sweden there is much more sensitivity around this than, for example, in Denmark. Even when there was a suicide bombing in Stockholm, there was much in the media saying we should not blame Muslims and terrorists. Many were talking about him as one lonely person who was fed up with life and wanted to commit suicide.
In Sweden, there is this negative idea that we haven't integrated immigrants in a proper way, which I think is not accurate. It becomes self-fulfilling, it makes Muslims feel there is no good in integrating.
I used to wear a headscarf but I found that my work was not being accepted or taken seriously. I had put myself in a situation where I isolated myself, whereas when I took my headscarf away and became very secular, I suddenly became part of society in a different way - I let myself be accepted.
Muslims feel accused and stigmatised - that's why they creep into their own minority thinking: that we are discriminated against, they don't like us. It is not only the majority discriminating against the minority, it is the minority isolating themselves from the majority. It's not a coincidence that the [anti-Islam party] Swedish Democrats came about now - they are playing on this anti-Muslim sentiment.

Belgium
Sami Zemni, professor of political science at the University of Ghent
There is nothing new there. This kind of anti-Islamic sentiment has been going here for years with the [anti-immigration party] Vlaams Blok.
They suddenly realised that going on about anti-Islamic sentiment is easier than talking about racism. "We criticise a religion," they say, "not the people themselves." The argument they use has become widespread, and it has spread to all political parties.
There was a study in Flanders a year ago on anti-Islamic views - more than half of the Flemish population said they had no problem with anti-Islamic views. "It's the Muslims' fault because they are uncritical of their religion, which is backward," they say.
"Muslims are anti-'people who think differently'," they say. "It's because of their Islam, it's not adapted to modernity."

Germany
Kubra Yucel Gumusay, freelance journalist and columnist
Ever since Thilo Sarrazin's book [which said Muslim immigrants were a drain on German society], people began to think that a group like Muslims are genetically incapable of being successful and integrating. He was trying to prove scientifically that having prejudice against Muslims was OK. Before this, people could not say those thoughts openly, but now it looks like there's scientific proof for what they think.
My friends have stories of people shouting at them, being spat at, not getting seats in restaurants. A year ago people would have said this is not OK, but these days people just tolerate these situations. This for me is proof that being anti-Muslim is becoming OK in society, even in academic circles.
It does not matter if you are a practising Muslim or not, you just have to look like you're from a country where Muslims are from.
We say racism has now become "salonfahig", meaning it is acceptable in polite society.
I personally do not get upset, because it's my work, even though I received a death threat a couple of days ago. But other Muslims - they feel personally affected. Many of my friends feel like leaving for the UK or Canada where things are better.
Italy
Mario Scialoja, retired Italian diplomat to the UN who converted to Islam, currently with the Islamic Cultural Central in Rome
Apart from in northern Italy, there is very little anti-Islamic feeling and there have been no acts of Islamophobia; it is not socially acceptable. Personally, I have no experience of such acts, but it might be different for immigrants from North Africa.
The absence of anti-Islamic feeling may be because, up to now, there has not been the kind of massive immigration seen in other large European countries such as France. It started much later in Italy than it did in other European countries, and this might explain the situation.
In northern Italy, where the right-wing Northern League is prevalent and they don't like immigrants in general, there may be some anti-Islamic feeling. There have been some isolated incidents, such as when some stones were thrown at the mosque in Treviso, or when someone brought a pig before the mosque in Pisa.

The Netherlands
Laila al-Zwaini, Dutch-Iraqi lawyer specialising in Islamic law
Many of the problems in our society that are related to Muslims and Islam are more often immigration problems, not about Islam as a religion.


At a political level, and with the presence of the Freedom Party (FP), the language on this issue has become very negative and confrontational. The FP speak first and everyone has to react to them. They're looking for guinea pigs, not solutions. Muslims are not treated as individual people - they are treated as a group.
The media don't chose to speak to scholarly Muslims, who speak on behalf of these issues. But also, there are not as many Muslims in Holland as in England who are highly educated and willing to speak on these issues.

The Dutch history of a "pillarisation" of society - where if you are Catholic you vote for one party, if Protestant for another - is the way they now treat Islam, as if it's a pillarisation with a church-like hierarchy, which is not the case.
Dutch society has changed how it looks at me - it didn't used to care if I was Muslim, Catholic, Jewish - but now it matters. Before, I was a Dutch native with an exotic background, but now my identity has changed without me changing at all, putting Islam as my primary identity. It's not a problem, but it is different.
The political language has certainly changed for the worse, with the Freedom Party at the forefront, but still the majority of the public do not accept this language.
It's the minority that is negative, but it's the minority that gets the attention.

Denmark

Naser Khader, MP in the Danish Conservative Party and founder of Democratic Islam Organisation
I do not agreed that we have anti-Muslim sentiment in Denmark. We have it among a few but it is not the general option.
To be anti-political Islam is not the same as being anti-Muslim. Our challenge is to underline that, as a Muslim, you have to accept that your religion is challenged, that any religion should be challenged. Any religion that does not accept criticism is, in my opinion, weak. It becomes stronger if you criticise it.
One of the most positive results of the cartoon crisis in Denmark is that we no longer say "the Muslims". The Danish people discovered that there are different kinds of Muslims - and that the majority supported Denmark.
A well-known Danish company owner told me that before the cartoon crisis, he didn't want to hire any Muslims - it was the same as accepting trouble, he said. The crisis was an eye-opener for him, it showed him that Muslims were Danish and were democrats. It made him more tolerant - before, we were a heterogonous group that only wanted trouble.

I and my friends established the Democratic Muslims Organisation for those Muslims in Denmark who are successful, who are educated, who are loyal to Denmark. Before they cartoon crisis they didn't have a platform, they were not well-organised. But the Islamist groups were, so when the media went to speak to Muslims, they spoke to Islamists who only represented the minority.
I think you need a cartoon crisis in the UK!

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The British hippy who became an imam

Forty years after following the hippy trail to South Asia, John Butt is still living in the region, and still spreading a message of peace and love - though now as an Islamic scholar.

As our car turned around the bumpy Indian road, a gleaming white marble minaret came into view. My fellow passenger, John Mohammed Butt, could barely contain his excitement.

"Can you see it?" he asks. "It's like the Oxford University of Islamic learning. For me these minarets and domes are just like the spires and towers of Oxford.

"It's been almost 30 years since I was last here and I am still getting the same thrill. This is my alma mater."

The alma mater in question is Darul-Uloom Deoband, South Asia's largest madrassa, or Islamic school.

Driving through the madrassa gates, we entered a world rarely seen by Western eyes.

Deoband was built in 1866 by Indian Muslims opposed to the then British rule. Little has changed since - winding streets and tiny courtyards lined with stalls selling fragrant chai, bubbling pots of rice and paintings of Mecca.

Everywhere are the Talibs, religious students, young men with dark-eyed fervent expressions carrying books or quietly reciting the Koran.

And in another scene reminiscent of Oxford, students riding bicycles.

A chai seller recognises John and runs towards him. "John Sahib, John Sahib."

The two had not seen each other in decades, yet the man remembers him instantly. "John Sahib was the only student I ever saw who used to go jogging.

"There was only one John Mohammed - unique," he laughs.

That is perhaps not so surprising, when you learn that John Butt remains the first and only Western man ever to have graduated from Deoband.

He showed me his old dormitory room, a windowless cell where he spent eight years in a life of virtual seclusion, living under a regime of prayer and Koranic study.

Imposing figure

But that is just one facet of this man's extraordinary life.

Aside from his time at Deoband, he has spent most of the past 40 years living among the fierce Pashtun tribes, who inhabit the lawless hinterland between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He went there in 1969, he says, as a dope-smoking young hippy and never came home.

He laughs. "When people call me an ageing ex-hippy, I always reply that I am ageing maybe, but I'm certainly not ex. I'm still a hippy."

John Butt cuts an imposing figure.

At 6ft 5ins (1.9m) tall, he sports a long white beard and alabaster skin that is almost translucent.

Dressed in flowing white ethnic robes, he reminds me of a Benedictine hermit monk or a Victorian explorer, swashbuckling straight out of the pages of an historical novel.

He tells me he adores the Queen, Stilton is his favourite cheese and that football is his passion.

Yet among the border tribes, he is regarded as a native Pashtun and revered as an Islamic scholar.


Home for him, until recently, was a tiny village in Pakistan's Swat valley.

Swat was once a popular tourist destination but is now the scene of regular battles between the Pakistani military and the Taliban.

But back in 1969, the young John was hooked from the moment he saw Swat, describing to me snow-capped mountains, rivers like flowing jewels, forests and alpine pastures.

It was, he says, "like Tolkien's Middle-earth, magical and other worldly" inhabited by tribal people who were "very pleasant, big-hearted, tolerant, easy-going and welcoming".

When his fellow hippies grew up and went home to become accountants and lawyers, John stayed on - becoming fluent in the Pashto language and studying Islam.

But John's world changed in the late 1980s, with the arrival of jihadists, who came to the border areas from all over the world to fight the war against the Russians in Afghanistan.

"I saw the rural, religious Pashtun way of life I had come to love so much being diluted, contaminated and poisoned, in particular by Arabs from the Middle East," he says.

"The way they practise Islam is very different to the tribal areas, but they used money and influence to impose their own set of values."

So he decided to fight for his adopted culture.

Peaceful Islam

In the early 1990s, he joined the BBC World Service Pashtu service and helped to set up New Home New Life, a now Iconic Afghan radio soap opera, known as The Archers of Afghanistan.

“ I've hired some of the best Islamic scholars in the region - pious, good and brave men ”
Six years ago, he set up a radio station which broadcasts across the Afghan-Pakistan border and which tries to promote tribal traditions along with peace and reconciliation.

More recently, John has switched his attentions back to Afghanistan and is spearheading the formation of a new Islamic university in the predominantly Pashtun city of Jalalabad.

"It makes perfect sense. There is currently nowhere in Afghanistan where a young man can do higher Islamic studies. They go to Pakistan, where as we know some of them have become radicalised," he says, emphasising that his university will give a platform to moderates.

But this promotion of peaceful Islam by the English former hippy has set him on a collision course with militants. His beloved Pakistan has now become too unsafe for him.

"Swat is a militarised zone and people I see as foreigners there now treat me like I'm the foreigner, even though I lived there for 40 years.

"It's hard to work out who is who any more - who is Taliban, who is criminal. The waters are very muddy."

Last year, waters of another kind finally put paid to his idyll, when his house was washed away in the floods which devastated the area and killed thousands.

"It was a relief in some ways. When I lost the house, I knew I'd never go back there."

Afghanistan has also become increasingly perilous after Taliban death threats.

The Taliban have delivered so-called night letters - notes hand-delivered in secret and at night for maximum impact - warning students not to study at the university and denouncing John as a Christian missionary or an "orientalist".

Death threats have also been made to his teachers and staff.

"I've hired some of the best Islamic scholars in the region - pious, good and brave men," he says. "They know this is for the benefit of Afghanistan and they insist they will stay working with me despite the dangers."

As I said goodbye, he was planning to travel to Jalalabad on the local bus. We talked about the possibility of him being attacked and he admitted he could easily be killed.

But when I asked if he was scared, he brushed me off with a shrug. "You only die once. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow."

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