Supplement 18 February 2009:
Lately al-Awlaki and a few other anglophone troublemakers have been condemning Tawfique Choudury of the UK for a less-than-terrorist policy suggestion that he made in December 2008. I will copy here an excerpt from al-Awlaki's page, in which Choudury himself seems to be replying.
Tawfique's response on February 13th, 2009 at 12:49 pm #
Assalamualaikum,
InshaAllah this will be the last post on this article and we can carry on discussion at a near future when I have more time to write a detailed part 2 to clarify how our terms of engagement should be.
1. No doubt, the points that I have made are clouded by people’s interpretation of the particular words that I have used to phrase them. Based on this, people have jumped to conclusions and yet others have read through my clarifications and understood what I intended in the article - and we hope for guidance for everyone.
2. Sh Anwar’s article on my piece is largely sensationalism and picking on wordings devoid of context - except for one important point which I believe is the core argument that I will address - that of maslahah of the dawah and the maqasidus-Shariah versus core principles of our deen such as wala and bara and tawheed. This is really the main issue - because categorically in no case was I ever suggesting that we ever work for anti-terror agencies, take funding from them, take our agenda from them, let them dictate our mandate, let them tell us what deen to follow and what not to, tell us who to work with and who not to, tell us what is extremism and what is not. Never at all. If we were to do that, we would cease to be independant and would loose all credibility. And if I knew of an individual who does that, then I would distance myself from him and would never work with him much the less associate with him. It is under these and similar conditions Yusuf alaihis salam cooperated with the non-Muslim government of his time.
3. Lastly, I urge everyone including myself to be objective in their criticism and to not draw conclusions on an individual. We may disagree on the manner of engagement of the authorities but that does not mean that anyone is a sell out or anyone has left being the people we once were.
Jazakallahulkhair and I will inshaAllah ponder deeply on what everyone has written and hope to carry on discussion of these points in the future when time permits.
Tawfique
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