Letter from Manazir Ahsan

Islamic Foundation and Markfield Institute

Your T2 series, “Life in Muslim Britain - Special Investigation”, which you concluded last Friday (The Times, 30 August 2004) was a piece of constructive journalism, ‘warts and all’. Burhan Wazir took us to places many of us have never been to. Although constrained by time and space, his reports suggest to us an important area of study and work. Thank you.

However, Sean O’Neill’s two reports, “Islamic Colleges in Britain ‘linked to terrorists’” and “Does this course exist to help train new breed of imams” (The Times, 29 July 2004), belonged to an altogether different genre. It reminded us of Michael’s Ignatieff’s famous equation enunciated during the Bosnian carnage of the early 1990s - “Muslims” equal ‘Fundamentalists” equal “Terrorists”! In old times, we used to hear, “Give the dog a bad name and shoot it.” Sadly, Sean O’Neill’s reports try to do the same.

The Islamic Foundation (founded 1973) and the Markfield Institute of Higher Education (founded 2000) are prestigious and pioneering British Muslim academic institutions. Their main objective is to promote a two-way understanding between Islam and the West and, even more importantly, help British Muslims better understand, integrate with and serve their country and their nation. Like all such institutions, we function under British laws and are monitored by the Charity Commissioners and the University of Loughborough that validates our degrees. Everything has been and remains open and above board.

The trustees of the Islamic Foundation, the governing council are public men of distinction. The teaching staff are academics par excellence. We are therefore surprised to find a towering and liberal newspaper like The Times raising question about the right of these distinguished persons to hold their own personal opinion or to associate with a political party. Your report goes even further to hype the story by linking the two institutions with ‘terrorism’.

Dr Azzam Tamimi has his views and the Chairman, Professor Kurshid Ahmad, who is also a member of the Pakistan Senate, his. We neither monitor nor censor their views and will have no problem with them as long as they are expressed within the bounds of law and decency. But claiming to ‘discover’ that Khushid Ahmad was also a leading member of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan is an open ‘secret’, known to most here or abroad. Jamaat-e-Islami is a legal and law-abiding political party in Pakistan and it constitutes the major opposition in Parliament.

The ‘politician’ Professor Khurshid Ahmad is also a reputed scholar and economist, winner of various international awards, more recently D.Litt. Honoris Causa from the University of Loughborough. He was a co-founder of the reputed Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, University of Birmingham, a leading participant in interfaith dialogue with the World Council of Churches and co-convenor of inter-religious dialogue with the World Council of Churches and the Inter-Religious Peace Colloquium (chaired by Cyrus Vance). He is a frequent invitee to leading Think Tanks in Washington and has been involved in presentations at Chatham House, surely they all knew that he was also leader of an Islamic political party.

Your report makes too much of his comments regarding his opinion that the areas controlled by ‘Taliban had become the cradle of justice and peace’, a view held by many other political analyst too, but omitting his criticism of some of their policies, especially towards women.

Let us however, be clear about the principle of not mixing the personal views or politics of individual trustees and the policies and the functioning of the institution they may be associated with. The Board of Trustees have observed the principle to its letter. That is why when the Charity Commission informed us that the names of two of our overseas trustees had been put on the US treasury department’s list of undesirable persons, we immediately received their resignation from the Board, even though we did not trust such unproven determination. The Charity Commission have no problem with us.

I am, therefore, constrained to say that Sean O’Neil’s ill-researched and ill-founded reports may have already done a great harm not only to the image of the institution but also to the sound and noble objectives that we are trying to promote. And now we have to spend a little time repairing the damage caused by an alarmist but unfounded story.