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I opened The Independent this morning to find a photograph of someone I once knew staring back at me. An entire decade has passed since we last set eyes on one another, but this article by Johann Hari brought memories flooding back. Not because his article resonated with me, mind you, but because his narrative [...]

If all you have ever known is the flood, would you recognise when you’re drowning? This thought keeps on recurring in my mind whenever I encounter those words that speak of an age of depravity in the latter days. I used to pray that I would not live to see those days, but no more. [...]

This weekend I intended to tidy my study, which is indisputably the messiest room in our house. Unfortunately, as often happens, I soon found myself side-tracked from the task and absorbed in reading a document that had no obvious place amongst my piles of bills and letters. It turns out it may not have been the most appropriate reading material for a Sunday afternoon, because now imagined images keep flashing before my eyes, causing me to weep.

As Robert Cottage from Colne, Lancashire, finally goes on trial at Manchester Crown Court, pleading guilty to possession of explosives, Home Secretary John Reid is set to address Christian children about looking for the tell-tale signs of extremism in their parents. Leader of the Opposition, David Cameron, came under fire last night for his call [...]

When I embraced Islam in 1998, one of the first pieces of advice I received from Muslim friends was to learn the names of three people and then stay away from them. They were Abu Hamza, Omar Bakri and Abdullah Faisal. A few months later I received an angry email from my father, demanding to [...]

Eleven people have been charged in connection with an alleged plot to blow up several transatlantic airliners. If this was their plot, can we then be in any doubt about the mess we are in? If the allegations are true, there is now an even greater need to make the fatwa against the targeting of [...]

In the community in which I live I could not say that there is a problem of extremism amongst the Muslim youth. Not ‘Islamic Extremism’ in any case – jahil extremism maybe. In this community, our concerns are with drug use, alcohol consumption and anti-social behaviour. A friend tells me that some young Muslims are [...]

Defending The Transgressed By Censuring The Reckless Against The Killing Of Civilians

It isn’t actually difficult to appreciate how radicalisation occurs. Last night I had the misfortune of deciding to watch the previous evening’s edition of Newsnight on the web and was thus bombarded with the disgusting images emerging from Abu Ghraib I had so far managed to avoid. In my case I found that the sense [...]