A UK newspaper, the Mirror, (actually a tabloid rag) has run a story about a London based Muslim, Sohail Ahmed, headlined,

‘I was a hate preacher who radicalised at least one Brit jihadi but I’ve changed after coming out’.

According to the Mirror Sohail was brought up in an extremist jihadi home where he realized he was gay. This caused massive upset for himself and for his family. You can read the article here.

These days Sohail believes he can be a good Muslim and be sexually active as a gay man. He seems therefore to have gone from one extreme to another. But he has found a powerful ally in The Quilliam Foundation a self styled anti-extremism think tank. It is headed by its founder Maajid Nawaz who is a Muslim.

The Quilliam Foundation have published “In and Out of Extremism” How Quilliam Helped 10 Former Far-Right and Islamists Change by Ruth Manning (Foreword by Maajid Nawaz). On page 37 of the report published this month we read the following:

What is ‘modernity’? Surely it consists of those values, attitudes and social policies promoted assiduously by the West. Some call them secular liberal values; in the UK we call them ‘British values’. Muslims are expected to make these (ever evolving) norms normative in their faith.

Here is a helpful list Quilliam might wish to adopt so we can all see at a glance how Muslims should live their lives and make decisions. I hope it captures Quilliam’s aspirations for Islam in the UK,

Firstly, Muslims must accept (or be branded as extreme),

the legitimacy of gay marriage;

the desirability of abortion on demand;

the equality and interchangeability of gender roles;

and the subordination of all religious values to secular ones.

Then, in their private lives only, having given due priority to British values, Muslims may consider other beliefs, such as

the teaching of the Quran:

and Sunnah.

This way a suitably modernised religion – I call it BritIslam – having conformed to the prevailing, though ever shifting, man-made norms of British society as shaped by pressure groups, media and government, can find a comfortable home in the West. Then Quilliam can consider its work well done.

Categories: Homosexuality, Islam, Life in the West