Quilliam (think tank)
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| Founded | 2008 |
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| Founder | Ed Husain, Maajid Nawaz, Rashad Zaman Ali |
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Key people
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Maajid Nawaz, Rashad Zaman Ali, Haras Rafiq |
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Employees
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10 |
| Slogan | Challenging Extremism, Promoting Pluralism, Inspiring Change |
| Website | quilliamfoundation.org |
Quilliam is a London-based think tank that focuses on counter-extremism, specifically against Islamism, which it argues represents a desire to impose any given interpretation of Islam on society. Founded as The Quilliam Foundation, it lobbies government and public institutions for more nuanced policies regarding Islam and on the need for greater democracy in the Muslim world whilst empowering moderate Muslim voices.
According to one of its co-founders, Maajid Nawaz, "We wish to raise awareness around Islamism"; he also said, "I want to demonstrate how the Islamist ideology is incompatible with Islam. Secondly … develop a Western Islam that is at home in Britain and in Europe … reverse radicalisation by taking on their arguments and countering them."
The organisation opposes any Islamist ideology and champions freedom of expression. The critique of Islamist ideology by its founders, Maajid Nawaz, Rashad Zaman Ali and Ed Husain, is based, in part, on their personal experiences.
Quilliam was established in 2007 by Ed Husain, Maajid Nawaz and Rashad Zaman Ali, three former members of the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Husain left in 2011 to join the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
The organisation was named after William Quilliam, a controversial 19th-century British convert to Islam who founded Britain's first mosque. He argued for a global Caliphate and swore allegiance to the Ottoman Empire. The organisation was originally called The Quilliam Foundation, but later rebranded as simply Quilliam.
Quilliam defines Islamism in the following terms:
It is the belief that Islam is a political ideology, as well as a faith. It is a modernist claim that political sovereignty belongs to God, that the Shari'ah should be used as state law, that Muslims form a political rather than a religious bloc around the world and that it is a religious duty for all Muslims to create a political entity that is governed as such. Islamism is a spectrum, with Islamists disagreeing over how they should bring their ‘Islamic’ state into existence.
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Wikipedia