British-Asian Muslim radicalization

This chapter disrupts the post-9/11 construction of the Muslim subject through focusing on the representation and articulation of British Asian Muslim radicalization in select literature. The chapter examines The Islamist through two central themes: racism and urban space and the promotion of spiritual Islam as an antidote to Islamist radicalization. Ed Husain explores his involvement in Islamist parties across London colleges and campuses and his eventual de-radicalization and redemption via British multiculturalism. Husain makes passing references to fascism and racism during the 1970s and 1980s that privilege white anti-racism, which again erases long histories of Bangladeshi mobilization against similar discriminatory practices. The distinction between spiritual and political Islam runs throughout the memoir, in which spiritual faith which Husain believes is what the majority of Muslims practice is presented as an antidote to Islamism.