Journal of Muslims in Europe 3 (2014) 117-136 brill.com/jome

Book Reviews

Robert Leiken Europe’s Angry Muslims: The Revolt of the Second Generation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. 368. ISBN 13: 9780195328974, ISBN 10: 0195328973. $27.95.

After the gruesome murder in Woolwich, UK, when two Muslim men killed and beheaded a British soldier, and the riots involving Muslim youth in Stockholm, Sweden, a question has leapt back onto the political agenda: why are some young Muslims resorting to such violent acts? This question, whilst it might be framed in a number of different ways, is essentially and most frequently: ‘why are they so angry?’ or ‘why do they hate us?’ Robert Leiken’s book is one that stands out from the current body of work which attempts to explain why some Muslims take such violent action. It is not just that his accessible and colourful style makes the book such an excel- lent read, but it is also a fine example of how huge questions can be researched through the careful use of in-depth case-studies taken from several different countries. Leiken’s book opens with an account of Khalid Kelkal who played a leading role in the 1995 attacks in France; an account that reads as a story of the failure of French assimilationist politics. This failure, according to Leiken, also had a causal role in stimulating the 2005 riots in France’s banlieues. As Leiken strives to demonstrate, these riots did not have their roots in political but in the social exclusion, neglect and lack of recognition which are integral to daily life in the banlieues, and re��ected in the policy and the social structure of the banlieues. After discussing France, he moves on to England trying to explain how was transmuted from a friendly, compassionate, open community worker into the ring leader of the 7/7 bombers. The author closes with a discussion of several German cases of . The chapters on England, in particular the chapter devoted to Khan, are the most illuminating chapters in the book. Leiken visits Beeston, , the home of the 7/7 bombers Sidique Khan and and describes the poor living conditions of the many migrants in that area. He emphasises the roles of kinship and the preference for consanguineous marriages, arguing, admit- tedly in a somewhat culturalist manner, how these marriages have shaped

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi 10.1163/22117954-12341279 118 book reviews the migration patterns of Pakistani Muslims and created close-knit, isolated communities. The author also discusses the development of ‘Londonistan’: a London which is a haven for terrorists and their ideologues and strategists, such as Abu Qatada, Abu Hamza and Abdullah Faisal, and the jihadist circles that were fre- quented by Sidique Khan and his accomplices. Focusing on the effects that particular modes of Salafism have on young people, for example by discussing the doctrine of al-wala’ wa-l-bara, Leiken examines how Salafi Islam is used to instruct Muslims to reject unbelievers and to demonstrate, in every sphere of their lives, a total and undivided loyalty to God. Admitting that we will probably never know the full account of Sidique Khan’s process of radicalisation, Leiken nevertheless convincingly illustrates how Khan slowly but surely rejected both the traditions of his Pakistani family (who wanted him to marry a cousin) and those of Western society. Instead, he married an Indian Muslim whom he had met at university, rejected his father’s Islam and opted for a radicalised version of Salafism. Men like Khaled Kelkal, Mohammad Sidique Khan and Eric Breininger (one of the people featured in the chapter on Germany) are portrayed, in Leiken’s account, as ‘marginal men’; men who are alienated from their country of resi- dence and, in Kelkal and Khan’s cases, from the country of their families too. These are men who inhabit several contradictions; like Sidique Khan, who was a teaching assistant but also the leader of the Mullah Crew (a local Beeston vig- ilante group which targeted drug users seeking to ‘revert’ them back to Islam). They are shaped by living in communities with long established value systems and traditions which they rebel against. They are upwardly mobile without fully realising it, carving out their own way but also following the teachings of several radical preachers. It appears that these ‘marginal men’ only find rec- ognition, support, and status among like-minded activists which further iso- lates them from the wider society and from their Muslim communities. This, in turn, means that their energies are invested in extending their networks among other so-called radicals which appears to be a prelude to their violent actions. Although the book is a very welcome addition to the existing literature on violent protest among Muslims, there are three shortcomings which I would like to address. First, I find Leiken’s examination of Salafism unsatisfying in that it lacks nuance and depth. The doctrine of al-wala’ wa-l-bara is described by Leiken as an important part of the teachings of Salafism and of Abu Hamza and others. Whilst this doctrine certainly does produce a strict opposition between ‘us’ and ‘them’ there are many more dimensions to it than this and it is also a highly contested topic among Salafis themselves. Furthermore, it

Journal of Muslims in Europe 3 (2014) 117-136