The Deobandis: Part 2
Analysis
BBC
4.6 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 14 April 2016
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In part two of The Deobandis, the BBC's former Pakistan correspondent Owen Bennett Jones reveals a secret history of Jihadist propagation in Britain.
This follows the BBC's discovery of an archive of Pakistani Jihadist publications, which report in detail the links some British Deobandi scholars have with militant organisations in Pakistan. Among the revelations are details of a lecture tour of Britain by Masood Azhar - a prominent Pakistani militant operating in Kashmir. He toured the UK in the early 1990s, spreading the word of Jihad to recruit fighters, raise funds and build links which would aid young Britons going abroad to fight Jihad decades later.
The programme also explores intra-Muslim sectarianism in Britain, and discovers how some senior Deobandi leaders have links to the proscribed organisation Sipah-e-Sahaba, a militant anti-Shia political party formed in Pakistan in the 1980s.
But how widespread and representative is this sympathy with militancy?
The programme explores the current battle for control in some British mosques, speaking to British Deobandi Muslims pushing back against the infiltration of Pakistani religious politics in British life.
As one campaigner says, this is 'the battle for the soul of Islam' and the 'silent majority' must speak out - but can moderate Muslims build the institutional power they need to really enforce change?
CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE:
Aimen Dean - former member of Al Qaeda and former MI5 operative
Rafaello Pantucci - Director in International Security Studies, RUSI
Mufti Mohammed Amin Pandor
Toaha Qureshi MBE - Trustee of Aalimi Majlise Tahaffuze Khatme Nubuwwat (Stockwell, London)
Aamer Anwar - human rights lawyer
Producers: Richard Fenton-Smith & Sajid Iqbal Researcher: Holly Topham
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, thank you for downloading the Analysis Podcast. Here's another program made by the team, which we think you will also enjoy. |
| 0:07.0 | The BBC's former Pakistan correspondent, Owen Bennett Jones, |
| 0:11.0 | continues his investigation into the most dominant force in British Islam, the |
| 0:16.0 | deabandies. |
| 0:20.0 | They would invite me to come and talk. |
| 0:23.2 | This brother of ours, this preacher, he is a jihadist. |
| 0:26.1 | He is one of the Mujahideen |
| 0:28.1 | belonged to the global jihadist movement. |
| 0:29.8 | So you have certain individuals who know me from the community so basically they |
| 0:33.8 | hired me talk in one place then they come up to you and they say by the way next |
| 0:38.4 | week we have an event in our mosque or in our Islamic society So it's one talk leads to two or three more talks. |
| 0:47.0 | Right and how many talks would you have given? How many mosques would you have visited? |
| 0:51.0 | Maybe at least 24, 25 mosques? |
| 0:55.8 | Yeah, I mean at least. |
| 0:57.0 | And don't forget there are other institutions |
| 0:59.6 | like the Islamic societies of universities, |
| 1:02.4 | in other world at least a dozen of them, and also at the same time |
| 1:05.8 | the prayer rooms in certain universities and certain workplaces, so basically talking about at least |
| 1:10.9 | 60 or 70 venues. |
| 1:12.1 | Were you giving talks in the main hall open to everyone, |
| 1:16.0 | or was it to a select audience generally, |
| 1:18.0 | would they normally pick the audience for you? |
... |
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