Hassan Butt
Encyclopedia
Hassan Butt (born 1980, Luton
) is the British Pakistani former spokesman of the radical Islamic
group al-Muhajiroun
who now calls on Muslim
s to "renounce terror".
Butt has claimed that before renouncing terror he sent arms to the Taliban, organised training for 200 British Muslims
to fight in Jihad, collected monies for terrorism, incited others to terrorism
, encouraged attacks on political and military targets in the UK and associated with the 7/7 bombers.
On May 9, 2008, British
anti-terror police arrested Butt for questioning just as he was about to board a flight to Lahore
, Pakistan
. He was released after twelve days while the police investigation continues.
Manchester Police subsequently released extracts from their interviews with Butt in which he stated that "I've never met Osama bin Laden. I've never met anyone from Al-Qaeda, or anyone who claimed to be from Al-Qaeda at all in my entire life", and that he had stabbed himself "as part of the whole scam."
to Kashmiri parents, who later moved to Manchester
. There Butt attended Prestwich High School, where he claims to have been forced out for his 'Islamic activities’. He finished at Abraham Moss High School, then attended Bury College
and the University of Wolverhampton
, which also expelled him.
At the age of 20 he moved to Pakistan and gained notoriety in 2002 when he claimed that he had recruited 200 British volunteers to fight for the Taliban who would return to the UK and launch terror attacks.
On his return from Pakistan he resurfaced in London and approached the Mirror newspaper with an offer to sell his story for £100,000. Following the attempt to sell his story, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Great Britain said: "The very wild claims that Butt has made from Lahore show him for what he is: a clown and someone who wants to make himself important"
magazine Butt said that he would be honoured to be called a terrorist, "I would agree to being called a radical and one day I may even be called a terrorist, if Allah permits me. That is something it would be an honour to be called."
Advocating the superiority of Islam
, Butt has said that "Islam is a way of life, a way of life superior to communism and capitalism. Christianity is a mere religion and can’t cater for people’s way of life, but Islam can. With the fall of the Soviet Union, people started turning to Islam as a way of life, whereas America wanted to spread capitalism across the world. That's why Islam became the enemy."
Arguing for the necessity for Muslims to live under Sharia
law, Butt said that, "Every Muslim must work for the Shari’a to be implemented as a political way of life. They can do that physically, by involving themselves in revolutionary coups, or through political means. As long as they don't attack or compromise other Muslims who are doing something different from them, I have no problem with any of these ways of establishing the Shari’a."
Butt has argued that Muslims in Britain should have no allegiance to Britain, saying, "I feel absolutely nothing for this country. I have no problem with the British people...but if someone attacks them, I have no problem with that either."
Butt now warns that thousands of young Muslims are preparing to unleash fresh "terror atrocities" on Britain's streets. In May 2007, Butt told the News of the World
that, "It's sad but we WILL have more atrocities like 7/7 because there are tens of thousands of Muslims who still support violence." Following the 2007 Glasgow International Airport attack
, Butt appeared on Newsnight
where he alleged that "most Muslims" believed that terrorist activity attracts divine pleasure and admission to paradise and that "anything that is not an Islamic way of life" is a legitimate target for attack.
Butt now calls on the West to take on radicals and violent extremists, arguing that, "Muslim scholars must go back to the books and come forward with a refashioned set of rules and a revised understanding of the rights and responsibilities of Muslims whose homes and souls are firmly planted in what I'd like to term the Land of Co-existence."
One of the leading figures in the anti-war movement, the British Muslim activist Anas Altikriti
, has strongly criticized Butt, arguing that, "Now that he has changed sides, rather than see the error in the methodology and ideology to which he once subscribed and which he peddled for years, he has adopted the posture of extremist once again - and is hurling abuse once more, albeit from the opposite side." Altikriti concludes that "The call to change the face of Islam, attacking Islamic doctrine through the copy-and-paste methodology that falsely makes the Qur'an seem like a book of evil, is unjust and disingenuous."
There has also been criticism from the Assistant Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain
, Inayat Bunglawala
, who has argued that Butt is wrong to argue that "we do not need to revisit some of our own murderous actions overseas and examine whether they have contributed to the spread of violent extremism."
The Muslim activist Faisal Haque has asked why Butt has not been arrested and suggested that Butt "may have been working for the security service". Butt has denied these charges saying he would inform the police if he would be aware of an impending terror attack, but that he was not an informer.
In May 2008, Channel 4 News in the UK reported that Greater Manchester Police
had released transcripts from their interviews with Hassan Butt. In the extracts he said he had fabricated many of his previous claims, that he had never met Osama bin Laden
and that he had stabbed himself in the arm rather than being attacked by extremists as he had previously claimed.
Luton
Luton is a large town and unitary authority of Bedfordshire, England, 30 miles north of London. Luton and its near neighbours, Dunstable and Houghton Regis, form the Luton/Dunstable Urban Area with a population of about 250,000....
) is the British Pakistani former spokesman of the radical Islamic
Islamism
Islamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...
group al-Muhajiroun
Al-Muhajiroun
Al-Muhajiroun is a banned Islamist organisation that was based in Britain and which has been linked to international terrorism, homophobia and anti-semitism...
who now calls on Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s to "renounce terror".
Butt has claimed that before renouncing terror he sent arms to the Taliban, organised training for 200 British Muslims
Islam in the United Kingdom
Islam has been present in the United Kingdom since its formation in 1707, though it was not legally recognised until the Trinitarian Act in 1812. Today it is the second largest religion in the country with estimates suggesting that by 2010 the total Muslim population had reached 2.869 million.The...
to fight in Jihad, collected monies for terrorism, incited others to terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
, encouraged attacks on political and military targets in the UK and associated with the 7/7 bombers.
On May 9, 2008, British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
anti-terror police arrested Butt for questioning just as he was about to board a flight to Lahore
Lahore
Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. He was released after twelve days while the police investigation continues.
Manchester Police subsequently released extracts from their interviews with Butt in which he stated that "I've never met Osama bin Laden. I've never met anyone from Al-Qaeda, or anyone who claimed to be from Al-Qaeda at all in my entire life", and that he had stabbed himself "as part of the whole scam."
Personal life, education, and career
Hassan Butt was born in LutonLuton
Luton is a large town and unitary authority of Bedfordshire, England, 30 miles north of London. Luton and its near neighbours, Dunstable and Houghton Regis, form the Luton/Dunstable Urban Area with a population of about 250,000....
to Kashmiri parents, who later moved to Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
. There Butt attended Prestwich High School, where he claims to have been forced out for his 'Islamic activities’. He finished at Abraham Moss High School, then attended Bury College
Bury College
Bury College is an institute of higher learning for the borough of Bury, England.-Age range:Bury College is a sixth form college catering for school leavers pursuing A Levels, vocational qualifications or apprenticeships. The college has approximately 8,000 adult learners and focuses on...
and the University of Wolverhampton
University of Wolverhampton
The University of Wolverhampton is a British university located on four campuses across the West Midlands and Shropshire. The city campus is located in Wolverhampton city centre with a second campus at Compton Park, Wolverhampton; a third in Walsall and a fourth in Telford...
, which also expelled him.
At the age of 20 he moved to Pakistan and gained notoriety in 2002 when he claimed that he had recruited 200 British volunteers to fight for the Taliban who would return to the UK and launch terror attacks.
On his return from Pakistan he resurfaced in London and approached the Mirror newspaper with an offer to sell his story for £100,000. Following the attempt to sell his story, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Great Britain said: "The very wild claims that Butt has made from Lahore show him for what he is: a clown and someone who wants to make himself important"
Previous views
In an interview with ProspectProspect (magazine)
Prospect is a monthly British general interest magazine, specialising in politics and current affairs. Frequent topics include British, European, and US politics, social issues, art, literature, cinema, science, the media, history, philosophy, and psychology...
magazine Butt said that he would be honoured to be called a terrorist, "I would agree to being called a radical and one day I may even be called a terrorist, if Allah permits me. That is something it would be an honour to be called."
Advocating the superiority of Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, Butt has said that "Islam is a way of life, a way of life superior to communism and capitalism. Christianity is a mere religion and can’t cater for people’s way of life, but Islam can. With the fall of the Soviet Union, people started turning to Islam as a way of life, whereas America wanted to spread capitalism across the world. That's why Islam became the enemy."
Arguing for the necessity for Muslims to live under Sharia
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
law, Butt said that, "Every Muslim must work for the Shari’a to be implemented as a political way of life. They can do that physically, by involving themselves in revolutionary coups, or through political means. As long as they don't attack or compromise other Muslims who are doing something different from them, I have no problem with any of these ways of establishing the Shari’a."
Butt has argued that Muslims in Britain should have no allegiance to Britain, saying, "I feel absolutely nothing for this country. I have no problem with the British people...but if someone attacks them, I have no problem with that either."
Current views
In a 180 degree about turn, Butt now argues that, "The fact is that Muslims in Britain are citizens of this country. We are no longer migrants in a Land of Unbelief. For my generation, we were born here, raised here, schooled here, we work here and we'll stay here. But more than that, on a historically unprecedented scale, Muslims in Britain have been allowed to assert their religious identity through clothing, the construction of mosques, the building of cemeteries and equal rights in law."Butt now warns that thousands of young Muslims are preparing to unleash fresh "terror atrocities" on Britain's streets. In May 2007, Butt told the News of the World
News of the World
The News of the World was a national red top newspaper published in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world, and at closure still had one of the highest English language circulations...
that, "It's sad but we WILL have more atrocities like 7/7 because there are tens of thousands of Muslims who still support violence." Following the 2007 Glasgow International Airport attack
2007 Glasgow International Airport attack
The 2007 Glasgow International Airport attack was a terrorist attack which occurred on Saturday 30 June 2007, at 15:11 BST, when a dark green Jeep Cherokee loaded with propane canisters was driven into the glass doors of the Glasgow International Airport terminal and set ablaze...
, Butt appeared on Newsnight
Newsnight
Newsnight is a BBC Television current affairs programme noted for its in-depth analysis and often robust cross-examination of senior politicians. Jeremy Paxman has been its main presenter for over two decades....
where he alleged that "most Muslims" believed that terrorist activity attracts divine pleasure and admission to paradise and that "anything that is not an Islamic way of life" is a legitimate target for attack.
Butt now calls on the West to take on radicals and violent extremists, arguing that, "Muslim scholars must go back to the books and come forward with a refashioned set of rules and a revised understanding of the rights and responsibilities of Muslims whose homes and souls are firmly planted in what I'd like to term the Land of Co-existence."
Criticisms
The writer Adrian Morgan has argued that "Hassan Butt is a fantasist, it seems. He certainly has had links with radical Islamists, but his desire to gain attention, to bask in limelight, is not the behavior of someone who is as involved in terror networks as he has previously boasted."One of the leading figures in the anti-war movement, the British Muslim activist Anas Altikriti
Anas Altikriti
Anas Altikriti is President and founder of the Cordoba Foundation. A leading figure in the British Anti-War movement , Altikriti also served as president of the Muslim Association of Britain between 2004 and 2005.Altikriti holds an MSc in Translation and Interpreting...
, has strongly criticized Butt, arguing that, "Now that he has changed sides, rather than see the error in the methodology and ideology to which he once subscribed and which he peddled for years, he has adopted the posture of extremist once again - and is hurling abuse once more, albeit from the opposite side." Altikriti concludes that "The call to change the face of Islam, attacking Islamic doctrine through the copy-and-paste methodology that falsely makes the Qur'an seem like a book of evil, is unjust and disingenuous."
There has also been criticism from the Assistant Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain
Muslim Council of Britain
The Muslim Council of Britain is a self-appointed umbrella body for national, regional, local and specialist organisations and institutions from different ethnic and sectarian backgrounds within British Islamic society. It was established in 1997 to help Muslims, to increase education about the...
, Inayat Bunglawala
Inayat Bunglawala
Inayat Bunglawala is media secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain.He has written articles for The Times, Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Daily Express, The Observer and The Sun focusing on Islam and current affairs. He is an activist for Islamist concerns and joined The Young Muslims UK in 1987...
, who has argued that Butt is wrong to argue that "we do not need to revisit some of our own murderous actions overseas and examine whether they have contributed to the spread of violent extremism."
The Muslim activist Faisal Haque has asked why Butt has not been arrested and suggested that Butt "may have been working for the security service". Butt has denied these charges saying he would inform the police if he would be aware of an impending terror attack, but that he was not an informer.
In May 2008, Channel 4 News in the UK reported that Greater Manchester Police
Greater Manchester Police
Greater Manchester Police is the police force responsible for law enforcement within the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester in North West England...
had released transcripts from their interviews with Hassan Butt. In the extracts he said he had fabricated many of his previous claims, that he had never met Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
and that he had stabbed himself in the arm rather than being attacked by extremists as he had previously claimed.
See also
- Ed HusainEd HusainMohammed Mahbub Husain is the author of The Islamist, a book about Islamic fundamentalism, and an account of his five years as an Islamist activist. Husain also helped to create, with Maajid Nawaz, the counter-extremism organisation the Quilliam Foundation. He is currently at senior fellow at the...
- Daveed Gartenstein-RossDaveed Gartenstein-RossDaveed Gartenstein-Ross is an American counter-terrorism expert and attorney living in Washington D.C. He is the Director of the Center for the Study of Terrorist Radicalization at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank. He frequently consults on counter-terrorism...
- IslamismIslamismIslamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...
- ExtremismExtremismExtremism is any ideology or political act far outside the perceived political center of a society; or otherwise claimed to violate common moral standards...
- Al-MuhajirounAl-MuhajirounAl-Muhajiroun is a banned Islamist organisation that was based in Britain and which has been linked to international terrorism, homophobia and anti-semitism...
- Omar Bakri MuhammadOmar Bakri MuhammadOmar Bakri Muhammad is an Islamist militant leader who was instrumental in developing Hizb ut-Tahrir into a major organization in the United Kingdom before leaving the group and heading another Islamist organisation, Al-Muhajiroun, until its disbandment in 2004.For several years Bakri was one of...