About Us

The Quilliam Foundation, under the guidance of mainstream Muslim scholars, is a specialist think tank and campaign group that believes that Western Muslims should revive Western Islam, our Andalusian heritage of pluralism and respect, and thereby find harmony in West-Islam relations.

 

Western Muslims should be free from the cultural baggage of the Indian subcontinent, or the political burdens of the Arab world. We were born and raised in a milieu that is different from the Muslim East. As such, our future and progeny belong here. Just as Muslims across the globe have adopted from and adapted to local cultures and traditions, while remaining true to the essence of their faith, Western Muslims should pioneer new thinking for our new times. Here, Muslim scholastic giants, such as the noble Abdullah bin Bayyah and Shaikh Ali Goma (Mufti of Egypt), have provided ample guidance.

 

The founders of the Quilliam Foundation have all travelled the path of extremism and, in recent years, after witnessing the logical conclusion of unfettered ideology and its impact on adherents, have resoundingly rejected Islamism while remaining committed Muslims.

 

Accordingly, the Quilliam Foundation rejects foreign ideologies of Islamism and Jihadism as aberrant readings of the Islamic tradition and are thus irrelevant and defunct. We uphold Islam as a pluralistic, diverse tradition that can heal the pathology of Islamist extremism.

 

Abdullah William Quilliam (1856-1932) was an English convert to Islam who founded Britain’s first mosque and started educational and charitable institutions.

 

The Quilliam Foundation is in his memory a think-tank and campaign group to help foster a genuine British Islam, native to these islands, free from the bitter politics of the Arab and Muslim world.

 

The Quilliam Foundation will be spearheaded by high-profile, former Islamists to:

 

  • Expose and challenge the weaknesses, inconsistencies, and failings of Islamist thought and actions;

  • Provide a scripturally rooted theological and ideological alternative to the rigidity of Islamism and extreme Wahhabism;

  • Narrate public testimonies as to why Islamists and extreme Wahhabites (of various persuasions) abandoned these movements;

  • Encourage current Islamists and extreme Wahhabites to sever ties with their movements and enter the fold of mainstream Islam;

  • Advocate full integration of Muslims into Western society as citizens, not as a faith community, and counter the separatism of Islamists.

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