Salman Abedi, observant Muslim, Manchester Arena bomber
A “radicalisation expert” reports to the Manchester Arena Inquiry
By Michael Copeland
The Manchester Arena Inquiry is examining the circumstances of the bombing there by the Libyan Muslim jihadi Salman Abedi that killed and maimed multiple victims, many of them children. The Inquiry has received reports from Dr. Matthew Wilkinson, billed as a “radicalisation expert”. Their own report states that there is no suggestion that Dr. Wilkinson’s reports are written from other than an entirely objective viewpoint. Is that the case?
“Radicalisation”
The UK Government’s definition of “radicalisation” is the “process by which a person comes to support terrorism and forms of extremism leading to terrorism”.
This term is used by politicians and media to create a category, the “radicalised” Muslim. This person, by inference, is thought of as different from an observant Muslim. He is assumed to have “misunderstood” his peaceful religion, and is therefore in need of being “de-radicalized” (whatever that may mean). This is not simply misleading: it is factually incorrect. The term is a trap. It sets up an artificial distinction which implicitly separates this category from mainstream Islam. It dangerously begets a subconscious assumption that ordinary Islam is calm and serene, when it is nothing of the sort.
A “radicalised” person, in the definition above, is one who espouses violence in his cause. Islam, it needs to be emphasised, mandates violence towards non-Muslims: “Kill them wherever you find them” (Koran 2:191, 9:5) is part of Islamic law. The distinction of “radicalised Muslim” from “Muslim” is bogus. Violence against kafirs is orthodox Islam, as taught in the mosques.
“Violence is the heart of Islam”
— Ayatollah Yazdi
“Islam was never for a day the religion of peace. Islam is the religion of war”
— Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Caliph of Islamic State, PhD in Islamic Studies
“Does Islam, or does it not, force people by the power of the sword to submit? Yes!”
— Osama bin Laden
Any observant Muslim knows that violence is commanded, and that he may be called upon to perform it. No Muslim may refute this. To do so entails denying a verse of the Koran, which immediately makes him a non-Muslim, subject to the penalty for leaving Islam — being killed vigilante-style by anyone. Such killing is free of punishment, “since it is killing someone who deserves to die” (Manual of Islamic Law, Reliance of the Traveller, o.8.4). So-called “radicalised” behaviour is, in fact, dutiful compliance with basic Islam.
“Radicalisation” is a fantasy fed to Western politicians and the Deep State. It is, however, a lucrative one, providing the subject matter for think tanks and taxpayer-funded programmes. For Muslims it usefully obscures and obfuscates what it is to be an observant member of Islam. In consequence it is difficult to dislodge.
Dr. Wilkinson has a distinction of his own. He is a convert to Islam. His reports are written from a Muslim viewpoint, which, it has to be said, is not “entirely objective”. In them he carefully steers the spotlight away from Islam. This is done by the artful use of doubt-casting, deflections, and selected vocabulary.
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