Book addresses concerns of the Muslim world

Self-proclaimed former Islamist radical Ed Husain has come out with a new book in which he makes three suggestions to help heal the rancour in the Islamic world - create a Middle East union, implement a Muslim Marshall plan and expel extremists from within Islam.

"The House of Islam: A Global History" explores the intricacies of Islam and the inner psyche of the Muslim world.

Husain who previously wrote "The Islamist", a memoir of his time inside radical Islamism, has rejected extremism and now advises governments and political leaders on Islam.

He says the Arab masses cannot be bombed into submission by governments and their armies.

"Terrorist organisations will continue to be born claiming to want to restore dignity and honour to their imagined form of Islam," he says and adds a long-term, comprehensive strategy is needed to unpick the webs of warfare in the region.

"The changes that the Muslim world in general, and the Middle East in particular, will need in order to conserve what is best in those societies include religious faith, family values, a sense of the sacred in the public space, and maintaining a belief in life beyond this world," he writes in the book, published by Bloomsbury.

On his idea of a Middle East union, he says it holds the key to a common security response to the shared threat of regional jihadism and conservatism, capitalism and coexistence should be the forces behind creating this order.

According to Husain, such regional amalgamation and assimilation would have other benefits. "For example, Egypt has low-cost labour but high youth employment. Neighbouring Libya has excess capital, huge infrastructure projects and an insatiable demand for workers. Turkey has the expertise to build airports, bridges and roads. These dots need connecting," he writes.

He also says that a Marshall Plan for the Middle East is long overdue and it would help to fund and facilitate the Middle East Union.

The author also feels that as long as the house of Islam provides shelter for Salafi-jihadis, the rest of the world will attack Islam and Muslims. Salafi-jihadis claim to be the truest of true Muslims and inject total certainty into the minds of their adherents, so that they would be prepared to kill if they could.

Expelling extremists is fully within Muslim control, he says.

"There needs to be a global declaration by all 50-plus Muslim governments and their Islamic leaders, disowning these theological brigands as disbelievers," Husain suggests.