Islamism: The Talibanization of Britain

In the West, the Saudi ideology of Wahabbism is well known for its extremism and intolerance. Less well known is the ideology known as Deobandi. This ideology is equally insidious, equally extremist. For the Deobandi ideology is the ideology of the Taliban. Before taking power in Aghanistan, Mullah Omar and most of the leaders of the Afghan Taliban were educated at the Darul Uloom Haqqania madrassa in North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan. The Haqqania madrassa teaches the Deobandi form of Islam. Its head cleric, Sami ul Haq, is also a member of the MMA - the Islamist opposition in Pakistan's parliament. He has said of his former students: "I was pleased they became the rulers of Afghanistan. They restored law and order there. They respected human rights. They respected women's rights. They completely eliminated heroin and drug use."

The Taliban's assumption of power in Afghanistan was barbaric: on September 27, 1996, they dragged former president Mohammed Najibullah from his refuge at a UN compound, and then publicly castrated, shot and hanged him and his brother. Beneath the swinging bodies, the Taliban grinned and waved their weapons. The Taliban had been formed with the assistance of Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), a Pakistan government agency which has frequently been headed by radical Islamists. The ISI, which has also been involved with attempted coups in Pakistan, sponsored the Taliban up until 9/11.

The Taliban banned art, music, cinema, and prohibited children from flying kites or keeping pigeons as pets. Women were not allowed to venture outside without a male relative to chaperone them, and they had to be wrapped from head to toe in the burka, with only a woven grille to allow them to see. These austere rulings were violently enforced by thugs from the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, who beat women in the streets with sticks, wire cables and hose-pipes.

There was nothing in the brutal and violent behavior of the Taliban towards their fellow "moderate" Muslims that contradicted the teachings of Deobandi ideology. The Taliban's blowing up of the two giant Buddha statues at Bamiyan in March 2001 because they were "un-Islamic" followed their religious creed. Eight months later, they destroyed the city of Bamiyan rather than let it fall to Shia Muslims belonging to the Northern Alliance.

Though a popular inspiration for Pakistani extremists, the Deobandi ideology gains its name from a town in Uttar Pradesh state in northern India. It is here at Deoband that the second largest Sunni seminary in the world exists, called the Darul Uloom (House of Knowledge). It was officially founded on May 30, 1866, by two clerics, shortly after the British had destroyed the last vestiges of the Moghul empire in 1857. Mohammad Qasim Nanautavi was the original leader of the seminary, assisted by Rasheed Ahmed Gangohi. Children as young as five enter the Darul Uloom and other Deobandi madrassas, and usually graduate when they are 25. 65,000 students had graduated from the Deoband Darul Uloom by 2001. Deobandis disapprove of Western "science" education, and frown on people who watch TV, unless they watch news channels.

Women are regarded as intellectually in