During my teenage years as an Islamist recruiter, I moved to live in self-contained communities in the London boroughs of Newham and Tower Hamlets. During those years, I met Muslims who were born and raised in this country but for whom English was their second, and barely literate, language.
Street signs were in Bangladeshi and employment opportunities were limited to Indian restaurants, community centres and grocery stores. As I went between the Islamic Society in my college and university, the mosque, the halal takeaway and visited the homes of my male Muslim friends, it was entirely possible for me to get through my day without interacting in any meaningful way with a single non-Muslim.
Why should this matter? For many reasons, but an important one is this: because isolated communities just like this, whether in deprived Dewsbury in West Yorkshire or more affluent Buckinghamshire, are sending British citizens to join Islamic State, the most terrifying terrorist group of modern times. [Daily Mail] Read more
