Although the position of the Home Secretary is a more prestigious and important role than the Mayor of London, the fanfare that greeted the selection of Sadiq Khan as Mayor of London in the Muslim community overwhelms the very muted and guarded response to the appointment of Sajid Javid as the UK’s latest Home Secretary.
The Muslim community’s reservation to the ascension of Sajid Javid, are well founded and not without considerable justification. Although Sajid Javid was born in to a family that has roots in the Islamic faith, his many proclamations on Islam betray a desire to distance himself from Islam and Muslims in general.
On the subject of his personal beliefs Javid has previously described his family’s “heritage” as Muslim but clarified that he himself does not practise any religion and that unlike him, his wife is a practising Christian and the only faith practised in his home is Christianity [1]. Thus, together with the many pictures of Sajid holding pints of beer the Muslim community view his association with Islam as tenuous to say the least.
His political views from the viewpoint of the Muslim community are considered even more extreme than his personal views. Javid has been described as a “treasured” and “loyal” friend to the global Jewish community by the President of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), Ronald Lauder, mainly due to the very pro-Israel positions he has taken. Speaking at the WJC, Javid stressed that Britain would never apologise for the Balfour Declaration. He further reiterated, his personal support for the Zionist State and his opposition to the BDS movement. Further to this at a Conservative Friends of Israel lunch in 2012, The Jewish Chronicle reported Javid as stating that “if he had to leave Britain to live in the Middle East, then he would choose Israel as home. Only there, he said, would his children feel the ‘warm embrace of freedom and liberty,”[2]. Hence many in the Muslim community feel that Sajid Javid has a greater affinity with the Zionist community than with Muslims or Islam.
When it comes to the Muslim community in Britain, he ignores the many reports and publications concerning the link between UK foreign policy and terrorism and castigated the Muslim community saying it is ‘lazy’ and ‘wrong’ to suggest terror has nothing to do with Islam [3]. He went further in the same article to state that: “Although all communities can do more to try and help and deal with terrorists, try and help track them down, but I think it is absolutely fair to say that there is a special burden on Muslim communities.” Hence he puts the blame for terrorism firmly on the shoulders of Muslims ignoring the nearly 200 years of massacres, and brutal colonial occupation by the government that he is very much part and parcel of.
The attitude of Sajid Javid and to a lesser extent that of his close friend Sadiq Khan highlights the predicament the Muslim community in Britain finds itself. There is no space within the rabidly secular political framework in Britain or as a matter of fact any European state for Muslims who believe in the values and laws of Islam. Rather, advancement in political circles in the West demands an explicit condemnation of Islam, its values and practices with an admission that the colonial exploitation, murder, imprisonment, and subjugation of Muslims is only right and proper for the superior Western nations in their “benevolent” quest to civilise the unruly Islamic world.
Allah (SWT) states in the Noble Quran
وَلَن تَرْضَىٰ عَنكَ الْيَهُودُ وَلَا النَّصَارَىٰ حَتَّىٰ تَتَّبِعَ مِلَّتَهُمْ ۗ قُلْ إِنَّ هُدَى اللَّهِ هُوَ الْهُدَىٰ ۗ وَلَئِنِ اتَّبَعْتَ أَهْوَاءَهُم بَعْدَ الَّذِي جَاءَكَ مِنَ الْعِلْمِ ۙ مَا لَكَ مِنَ اللَّهِ مِن وَلِيٍّ وَلَا نَصِيرٍ
And never will the Jews or the Christians approve of you until you follow their way. Say, “Indeed, the guidance of Allah is the [only] guidance.” If you were to follow their desires after what has come to you of knowledge, you would have against Allah no protector or helper. [Al-Baqarah: 120][4]
For Muslims it is time that we realised that our values, beliefs, practices and vital interests, will never be protected in secular systems of governance rather only the Khilafah, a state built upon our beliefs and values, will work to secure them.
[1] Lawson, Mark (6 June 2014). “Culture secretary Sajid Javid: ‘I didn’t grow up in the kind of family that went to the Donmar Warehouse.” The Guardian. Retrieved 2 May 2018.
[2]Bright, Martin (13 December 2012). “Muslim Tory MP: After Britain, Israel is best”. The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 10 April, 2014.
