Through this complexity runs a starkly consistent takfirist ideology. While the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt formally renounced violence in return for the freedom to organise in the 1970s, its relationship with violence since has been ambiguous, with senior figures supporting and financing Hamas and justifying attacks on Western troops. Its takfirism survives through the dismissal of those who do not accept Islamism as unbelievers, and governments of Muslim countries as illegitimate. This is the intellectual justification for the murder of Arabs and Muslims alongside Jews in Israel on October 7.
The Brotherhood’s reach endures through a secretive and obfuscatory structure of individuals and organisations. According to the expert government review, the Brotherhood “shaped the Islamic Society of Britain, dominated the Muslim Association of Britain and played an important role in establishing and then running the Muslim Council of Britain”. Yet the public sector, including the NHS, police and military, partners with these organisations and others like them. The media allows news content to be policed by entities created by them. Many receive direct public funding, and the tax advantages of charitable status.
This is why it is vital that the Government defines extremism, identifies extremist organisations and shuns, punishes and proscribes them accordingly. Whatever the concerns about Gove’s definition – and complaints are mostly worries about its misuse by a civil service and public sector in dire need of reform – he is the one minister who has sought to understand the threat we face. Now, others must follow his lead.
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