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January 24, 2006

UK: "Mainstream" Muslim Leader Dies, Aged 83

Egyptian born and highly respected Muslim scholar and spiritual leader, Zaki Badawi, has died. The BBC reports his death, and presents a fair obituary.

Born in 1922, and founder of Britain's Muslim College, Zaki Badawi was an exceptional figure in the British Muslim world, as well as being an internationally-respected scholar. He made links with Christian and Jewish groups, and when Rushdie's fatwa was announced, he stated that the book should be the focus of anger, not Rushdie, saying: "Spurn the book, spare the man."

A former chief imam of the London Central Mosque in Regent's Park, London, he also established the Sharia Council, to give advice on social issues. He also campaigned against female circumcision. After 7/7, when a lot of anti-Muslim resentment abounded, and many Muslim women made almost provocative shows of wearing the hijab, Dr Badawi urged against such displays.

Unlike the attention-seeking members of the Muslim Council for Britain, who appear to have a political agenda, Badawi's balanced and common sense approach to faith and society earned the respect of political leaders, and in 2004 he was awarded an honorary knighthood.

He has been criticised by some as a hardliner, and by others as a moderate. He described himself thus, dismissing the title "moderate": "It implies I am somehow less of a Muslim. I call myself mainstream."

Tributes have been made by Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said he had "a wonderful mix of spirituality and practicality," and Prince Charles who said Dr Badawi's death was "a blow personally and for the country."

As the most senior Islamic scholar in Britain, who criticised imams who could not speak English, and made sincere efforts to promote understandings between groups and faiths, he was the best representative of Islam we had. He has been in Britain long enough to have shown his agenda was straightforward.

I personally think he was a good man, and a positive influence in both the Muslim society and the society at large. His presence will, literally, be hard to imagine being replaced. Most of our other well-known Muslim leaders are either snide and untrustworthy, like Iqbal Sacranie, or verging on the lunatic, as in the case of Abu Hamza. Dr Zaki Badawi had academic status and political nous to be head and shoulders above these more primitive advocates of Islam.

An idea of his nature can be found in a Guardian interview from January 13, 2003, and a biography can be found here.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at January 24, 2006 2:57 PM

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Posted by: JM at January 25, 2006 11:36 AM

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