Dan Wootton Outspoken - UK-BORN FORMER ISLAMIST TERRORIST REVEALS HOW YOUNG BRITS ARE BEING RADICALISED AT HOME

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

Sohail Ahmed was born in the UK to parents who had emigrated from Kashmir. He had all of the benefits of growing up in London and attending a secular western school. On the surface, he was an example of multiculturalism succeeding. But behind-the-scenes at home and in East London mosques, Sohail was being radicalised. Despite knowing he was a gay man and being told any gay man should be thrown off the top of buildings to their death, Sohail planned a terrorist attack on Canary Wharf using an IED. He was prepared to die for an ideology that hated who he was. The story of how he deradicalised is one of the most important in the UK today. It is disturbing and eye opening, but Dan says we MUST listen to him. And we must throw money at his ideas. Because otherwise, young British-born Muslim men WILL commit more of these terrorist atrocities. Due to this special edition of Outspoken, there is no Uncancelled Aftershow today, but that will return tomorrow. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The form of Islam known as Salafism or Wahhabism. I was taught Britain is the enemy of Muslims. One day we are all going to rise up and fight jihad against the non-Muslims. When the 9-11 attacks took place, that was celebrated. I remember my mother saying, the non-Muslims have been killing us, now they're killing them. I was an extremist as a child, but at the same time I was gay. What were you told?

You throw them off the roof and then stone them to death. I was looking for solutions. You wanted to potentially be part of a terror attack in London. The plan was to build an IED and remotely detonate it. They believe that if you die committing an act of terror, you go straight to heaven. And this is still going on within mosques in the UK. If anyone criticised Islam, Islamophobic or racist,

then they would shut it down. No spin, no bias, no censorship. I'm Dan Wooten. This is Outspoken Live, episode number 82. And please click to subscribe to this brand new independent news source and turn on the notification bell so you'll be alerted to our brand new live shows, uncancelled interviews, and special royal episodes. Today, one of the most important interviews I've ever conducted. Zahail Ahmed was born in the UK to parents who had emigrated from Kashmir. He had all of the benefits of growing up in London and attending a secular Western school. In fact, on the surface, he was the perfect example of multiculturalism. But behind the scenes, at home and in East London mosques,

Sahail was being radicalised. Despite knowing he was a gay man, and being told that any gay man should be thrown off the top of buildings to their death, Sahail planned a terrorist attack on Canary Wharf in London using an IED. He was prepared to die for an ideology that hated who he was. Now the story of how he de-radicalised, I believe, is one of the most important in the UK today. It is disturbing and eye-opening, but I think we must listen to him. And the government must throw money at his ideas because otherwise young, British-born, radicalised Muslim men will commit more terrorist atrocities.

Now, because of the special edition of Outspoken today, there is no uncancelled after show. Don't worry, it will return tomorrow. So you can register to watch from tomorrow on our own website www.outspoken.life but now let's go Sahail Ahmed it is such a pleasure to have you on Outspoken as you know I have been trying to interview you for years now and it just never worked out, did it, with timing. But I think your story is so critical when we look at what the UK is currently facing in terms of Islamic extremism. So I want people to hear your story.

And I really want to be able to discuss it in depth before we look at the wider context of what's going on in the UK. So I think what people will be fascinated to know, Sahil, because I certainly was, is that you were born in the UK, British born. You have Pakistani and Kashmiri heritage. But from the age of six, you were radicalized to believe, despite being British born, that the UK is the enemy. That violent jihad is an obligation on every Muslim. And this was something that was pushed by your immediate family, by your educators, by your friends. And it got to a point where you were very close to undertaking a lone wolf attack, an Islamic terrorist attack on London. And you had even got down to working out that

you wanted to target Canary Wharf, which was the business district. Now, why I think your story is so important is you turned all of that around. So let's go back right to the beginning because you were British born. And actually, what was interesting to me is that your parents initially were not Islamic extremists. They were actually radicalized in the UK as well. Absolutely, Dan. Thank you so much for having me on. Yes, it's been a long time since we've been trying to sort this out. And I'm very glad that we've got the opportunity now as for my story yes you're absolutely correct um my parents

so i'll kind of start from the beginning my dad came here when he was three years old uh so essentially he was pretty much born and raised here. In effect, my mother came here when she was 18 in order to get married to my dad. And in the first few years of my life, the first six or seven years of my life, I had a pretty normal life. My parents taught me that to be a good Muslim means to be a good person, that you pray to God and you treat people well. But then things quite rapidly took a turn for the worse and that was when the way in which it occurred was that there was a fellow resident family in the same tower block that we lived in, and they introduced them to a form of Islam known as Salafism or Wahhabism. For context, that's the form of Islam that was traditionally practiced in the Saudi Arabia region. And it's very literalist and very extreme.

Most Muslims even consider it to be very extreme. And that's when we started to attend a mosque that had been set up by the then Grand Mufti or the head religious figure of Saudi Arabia. And he'd funded the creation of the mosque there. And this is in East London? Yes, in East London. So I believe it was initially in Leighton, in Waltham Forest.

And that's when things began to change. First, the kind of music wasn't allowed. Secondly, all the photos that I had of my childhood were destroyed because you weren't allowed to have recreations of faces, even if there were photographs. So I don't have any childhood photos. My parents' attire started to change. So before I go into this, that I should point out that some of the things I'm going to mention are not problematic in and of themselves. But when it's taken as a whole, together, it paints a picture. So my parents attire began to change, my dad started to grow a progressively longer beard. My mother started to first wear the, she only used to wear the

headscarf quite loosely before, but then she started wearing the hijab, which covers the whole body, but the face is visible. And then she started wearing the niqab, which has the face covered, but only the eyes visible. And then she even covered her eyes. But then after that, she went back to just wearing the niqab. And along with these changes came more problematic and insidious problems. Because I started then being exposed to these very extreme ideas on the part of my parents. So I was taught that, yes, the United Kingdom, you're living in enemy territory. Britain is the enemy of Muslims. America is the enemy of Muslims. There is a never-ending war between Muslims and non-Muslims. And one day we are all going to rise

up and fight jihad, violent jihad, against the non-Muslims, the kuffar, the infidels. And there was a lot of other stuff as well, but I think you get the idea. And you were eight years old when the 9-11 attacks took place, and that was celebrated in your London community? Unfortunately, yes. And unfortunately unfortunately my family did celebrate it. That I feel deeply ashamed to even have to say that. You were right. So what do you remember from that day?

I remember my mother saying, see, the non-Muslims have been killing us, now we're killing them. And they were celebrating and I think they gave out sweets, if I remember correctly. And I remember them saying that they deserved it. And there was no kind of empathy. It was very much just dehumanization of the other it's astonishing isn't it that that was going on in london in 2001 but of course i guess you could argue that the war on terror that followed and specifically the conflict in iraq which we divided the UK, would have been a propaganda boon. And I presume your parents' extremism increased over that period? Yes, it absolutely did, as did mine. So when the Iraq and Afghanistan wars occurred, when they took place, those foreign policy decisions were made. And we actually did

go into Afghanistan and Iraq. All the mosques that I was attending, all of them being Salafist, Wahhabi mosques, all of them, the imams there and the preachers there were all saying, see, the never-ending war against Muslims and non-Muslims, it's happening now. They're only in those countries merely to kill Muslims, to destroy Islam. Now, I don't know what you think about those foreign policy decisions, but the very idea, the supposition that somehow the West went into Iraq and Afghanistan merely to destroy Islam and just for the mere pleasure of killing Muslims. That's absolutely absurd.

To me, that's absurd now. But back then, given the kind of the milieu in which I was living, all of the ideological stuff I'd been exposed to, it all kind of fit the narrative. And therefore, I believed that. And unfortunately, as a consequence, my parents became very angry, as did I. And it was in my teenage years, kind of growing up, that led me to become even more radical, which then led on to my considering engaging in violence. Now, before I get to that, I do want to go back a little.

And when I was around eight, seven, my parents told me never to have non-Muslim friends. They said that non-Muslims do not like Muslims and they really hate you, but they're just pretending to like you. Yet I had non-Muslim friends and I knew for a fact that they did like me for who I was, that they genuinely were my friends. So that created a problem for me. It led to cognitive dissonance. Because on the one hand, I believed one thing, but on the other, I acted according to another thing. There was a contradiction there. And I feel that with many extremists, especially Islamists, this cognitive dissonance, when there's a contradiction between what you've been taught

and what you believe and the actual reality. And there are a lot of contradictions because the ideology is pretty much insane. So when that contradiction occurs, it can lead to further retrenchment and further radicalization as like a defense mechanism, which is why i think that many muslims in britain um the extremist kind refuse to integrate because in fact they're kind of looking further inwards and they're further becoming entrenched in their belief system and after that around around, actually around when 9-11 happened, when I was around eight, I also figured out that I was gay. Wow, so you knew when you were eight? Yes. So I was an extremist, pretty much a jihadist by belief as a child, but also at the same time, I was gay. And I remember precisely that day when I heard in the mosque what the punishment for homosexuality was in my form of Islam. What were you told? And I was told, if anyone is gay,

you throw them off from the highest place, be it a mountain or a roof, you either stone them to death or you throw them off the roof and then stone them to death just to ensure that the job's done. And I remember- You must have been terrified and tortured at that. Utterly, utterly, absolutely terrified. I remember a chill going down my spine and thinking, oh my God, my life's in danger. I mean, my parents wouldn't kill me here, but they could take me to Pakistan and then, right? And I was, from that day forward, until I pretty much de-radicalized and accepted myself as gay, I lived my life in abject fear.

And I really do mean that, in abject fear. Fear of being found out, fear of being harmed, fear of being excluded, fear of being kind of dismissed from the community. And I began to hate myself. I thought I was morally and actually disgusting as an individual. I had a lot of self-hate. And I externalized that self-hatred outwards onto others, i.e for solutions to this affliction that I thought I had. And they all said, become more religious, become more devout. Now, given that the form of Islam that I believed in and followed was already extreme, becoming more religious and devout meant becoming more extreme. So in a bizarre twist of turn, I became further radicalized as a result, as an indirect consequence of me being gay.

I understand. So then there's another seminal moment in terms of Islamic extremism in the UK on the 7th of July, 2005. So by that point, you would have been 12 years old. Three of the suicide bombers, Zahal, were British-born, like you. Do you remember your reaction to 7-7 and how it was greeted within the extreme community? See, with 7-7, I remember it was break time in school and that when the news the breaking news came out the teacher opened the classroom door to let the students in to watch the

news and I remember standing in front of the tv kind kind of frozen, almost dumbfounded. Because on the one hand, I was taught to believe that this was right, like that terrorism, that was literally the thing you're supposed to do. Yet at the same time, this was close to home. This was in London. This was the British public. What if any of my non-Muslim friends had been caught up in that? What if any of my Muslim friends had been caught up in that? What if, you know, any member of public that I'd walked past when I was on my

way to school had been caught up in that? And I genuinely felt, oh my God, this is wrong. But at the same time, again, I pushed it back to the darkest, deepest recesses of my mind because it contradicted everything I'd been taught. That's how powerful the brainwashing was essentially. But that is interesting to me though, because I think it does show some development between eight years old and 12 years old, and you're starting to realize, actually, maybe this isn't right. Can I just ask about your school? I mean, were you in an Islamic school? Was this type of propaganda taught at school, or was it all outside school in special mosque run classes so it was pretty much outside of school so i went to a secular school um and it turned out that

actually about 80 of the school was of a muslim background whereas like 10% was of Afro-Caribbean descent and the other 10% was other. So the radicalization took place within mosques? Within mosques and at home. Okay. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. makes a lot of sense it's obviously a massive concern but it does make sense so at what age did you decideihadist you wanted to potentially kill people and be part of a terror attack in london

every time i discuss this i feel it's difficult i've mentioned this multiple times i go up and down the country talking to lots of people sharing sharing my story, doing de-radicalization work. And every single time, it just never gets easier. No, I can imagine. I began considering these thoughts when I was around 17. I was in sixth form college at that time. And interestingly, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were in their drawdown stages. Yet, I guess having the newfound freedom of going to college and remembering all the kind of anger that my parents showed and seeing my mom cry as the images were beamed in everyone's homes of the civilian casualties. And I became very angry. At the same time,

to give some context, when I was in school, secondary school, I was pretty much the only extremist there. There were maybe one or two others. But when I went to college, all my friends were extremists. So this had occurred during a wave of Salafization where Salafism grew in London and in the wider UK. And given that I was surrounded by other extremists, this kind of led me down the path of wanting to do something like that. Now, on a kind of hypothetical level, I wanted to, but on an emotional level, I absolutely did not. Because as soon as i seriously began considering it something inside me told me this is wrong and i immediately thought back to seven seven and my reaction to that so i'm so i'm incredibly grateful that this happened but my internal moral compass, thankfully, was strong enough to override all of that brainwashing,

all of that indoctrination. When you were considering doing it, were you envisaging a suicide attack, an attack where you would be killed? Unfortunately, yes. I wanted to, not in that I would be killed, but I expected myself to die anyway. And what? The plan was to... Sorry, you go.

The plan was to build an IED and remotely detonate it. But you assumed that you would be killed by the authorities? Yes. Okay. And what were you taught at the time in these extreme Islam teachings? What were you taught about what happened to the perpetrators of different types of extremists, some support terrorism, some don't. Among those that support terrorism, they believe that if you die during the act of committing an act of terror, you die a martyr. It's called Shaheed. And essentially, they believe that you go straight to heaven if you ever die as a martyr. All of your sins get wiped and it's just a one-way ticket to heaven. And some of the beliefs do include like 72 virgins and strange things like that.

Were you taught that? I was. And it turns out that as a child, and I only realized that this was bizarre when I mentioned this to a friend and he kind of reacted very negatively. As a child, I wanted to die a martyr. As a seven, eight year old, I wanted to die a martyr in war, in holy war. That's the level to which I had been indoctrinated that's what i was just thinking i mean it's extraordinary and that's why i wanted to have this conversation it's so important because here you are gay yet the power of the indoctrinations of hell is so strong that it still leads you to consider the unthinkable and this is still going on within mosques in the UK. So thank God.

Unfortunately, it is. Yeah. So thank God you made the decision, I'm not going to become a martyr. You're 17. When is the tipping point? When is the moment that you decide to break free? That's an interesting question because I began to have several doubts about what I'd been taught regarding my religious faith or my form of Islam. And I saw a number of issues. I saw

the hypocrisy amongst the other Islamists when they would say the most horrible things about Christianity or Judaism or Hinduism, yet if anyone criticized Islam and they genuinely had a genuine criticism, right, not coming from a position of bigotry but an actual kind of disagreement that made sense, we would, they would kind of scream Islamophobic or racist and they would shut it down. Yet they were doing the very same thing, but to other religions. And then I realized that, and it's bizarre that I hadn't realized this before, but I realized that the act of being against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, whilst at the same time believing in the Islamist conception of the Islamic empire,

which is then supposed to take over the world and convert everyone. Isn't that literal imperialism? That's Islamic imperialism or Islamist imperialism. Yet we were very much like, oh, it's colonialism if you invade another country for whatever reason. So I saw that contradiction too. And then there were other things about my beliefs. For instance, the stoning people to death, which is essentially torturing someone to death. The acceptance of slavery and even the concept of sexual slavery. These things really did not sit right with me. And I pushed these doubts to the back of my mind

for about four or five years. And I was in this bizarre kind of purgatory state where I wasn't sure if my beliefs were correct, but at the same time, I was pretty sure I was going to burn in hell for questioning it. And it was that fear of actually fully questioning and going ahead with these doubts and facing them head on. Well, what if I'd made the wrong decision? What if I stopped believing in my form of Islam or stopped believing in Islam altogether. And it was the wrong decision.

I'd burn in hell forever. It was that fear of hell that kept me in. But one day it just became too much for me after about five years. And I decided. So I was around 20, 21. And by this point, a grown adult, adult you know fully functioning brain precisely and i went to the only thing that i thought i could verify or kind of disregard my ideology by and that was through science it's going to sound a bit weird but it was through understanding

biological evolution and so the i was pretty much a creationist that's what i've been taught um and the salafis the wahhabis believe that if anyone believes in evolution they're not they're no longer a muslim they're literally outside the fall of islam that was the extremist position on them so i looked at that and i looked at the arguments and Islam. That was the extremist position on them. So I looked at that. And I looked at the arguments and the counter arguments and the counter counter arguments, etc. And within two days, I immediately pretty much immediately realized that evolution was true. And when I made that realization, I was faced with three choices. One, abandon my faith. Two, change the way I see my faith or change the version of Islam I'm following. Or three, continue as normal.

Just push this to the back of my mind and pretend I never learned any of it. And I chose the second option. I chose to change, to modulate my version of Islam. And I found versions that were far more progressive. And when that happened, I started then dealing with my other doubts. What about slavery? What about homosexuality? What about women's rights? What about all of this stuff? And just like dominoes one after another all my extremist beliefs fell and it happened in the in a period of like two months and it's the biggest most cataclysmic thing that's ever happened in my life because suddenly my entire world was turned upside down. Simultaneously, I was utterly terrified.

And at the same time, I was exhilarated because finally I could think. I could think for myself. And that might sound like a weird thing to say, but we weren't allowed to think. We just had to believe. And up until that point, had you told anyone that you believed you were gay or had any form of relationship or had that been something that you'd always had to hide? That was something that I always had to hide. But when I did accept myself as gay, I did tell one friend who was also a Salafi. And I gave him the argument, the progressive Islamic argument as to accepting homosexuality. And fascinatingly, he accepted it. And he said, yeah, okay, I'm all right with gay people now. And I said, oh, by the way, I'm gay. And he accepted me.

So I literally managed to change the mind of this actual literalist extremist and convinced him to accept gay rights. How was it telling your family and what happened there? Because sadly, I know that there's no contact. They didn't accept you. So about my family, and they found out. I won't go too much into how they found out. But when they did find out, they immediately said, get the F out of the house.

Now, is this finding out that you no longer viewed yourself an extreme Muslim or that they thought you were gay? That I rejected their form of Islam, that I was more progressive and that I was gay. And both of those things together were like a double whammy. And I left home. My parents called me, managed to convince me to come back. I didn't have anywhere to go. So I went back home. And my dad took me out into the garden. And he basically said, I'm taking you out here because I don't want your siblings to overhear. But you're absolutely disgusting. You're this, you're absolutely disgusting you're this you're that and just a barrage of abuse and at the end he said the only way I will agree for you to stay in this house is if you agree to be

exorcised as in get the demons exorcised out of you and unfortunately given that I had nowhere to go, I accepted. So in order to have a roof over my head, I agreed to the exorcisms. Now, the exorcisms weren't violent, although they did want to do the violence. But I put my foot down and I said, no, I'm not going to accept that. How did they exercise you then? So it was very much like making me like really bizarre things, like making me lie down, touching my forehead, reciting the Quran and reciting special incantations, and then making me bathe in holy water and making me eat holy honey and other strange things like that. And that's not directly psychologically harmful in any way, but the implication that I might be possessed.

See, at this stage, I was sure that I was not possessed. Yet, so rationally, I knew I wasn't possessed. But on an emotional level, I began thinking, what if I am possessed? And that's the only time in which my rational and emotional minds have contradicted to such a degree and unfortunately I became extremely depressed and even began considering taking my own life well that's not a surprise that is not a surprise at all because you're faced with this horrendous choice aren aren't you? Which is waving goodbye to everything you know, your entire family, and everything that you've been raised to believe in.

So when did you realize that, you know, the exorcism hadn't worked, and in fact there was going to be a life for you away from extreme Islam? The very day after I agreed to the exorcism, I went to university and I explained to them my situation and I said, I need accommodation. Unfortunately, the accommodation wasn't immediately available,

but was available in about a month's time, if I remember correctly. And so for a month, I went through the exorcisms and essentially kind of feeling suicidal and having my parents say, well, you're not going to change. I one day packed my bags without them knowing and left because I knew that they wouldn't accept me and that essentially they had pretty much kicked me out in all but name and I'd by this stage I'd lost all my friends I'd lost my family I didn't know anyone I had no friends whatsoever and I had to rebuild my life from the bottom up and thankfully i did manage to and it was extremely difficult is there support i mean because this is something i think that is really damaging and we'll come on to shortly about what i describe as the woke mind virus

but however you want to talk about it. Because when you pretend that there isn't radicalization within mosques, that there aren't people who are being taught to be extreme through their own families, I just wonder if that means that it also results in us not providing support for people who want to get out. Absolutely. You're absolutely correct about that. Because if we do not accept that there is a problem, first and foremost, we can't deal with it. Secondly, we can't even attempt to de-radicalize people or to kind of question them and make them think for themselves because we don't believe it exists. And lastly, what you said is absolutely correct. How are we supposed to help those that

have become de-radicalized or are gay and are trying to leave their extreme environment? Essentially, many people kind of remain extremists for fear of the consequences. And I've seen this a lot. It's also religious theology as well. But in terms of the additional kind of motivating factors, there's community, there's all this other stuff. And if we don't provide an alternative, then where are these people supposed to go? To give you an example, when I was Muslim, I was very strongly Muslim. I felt that that was my very identity. I didn't feel British. It was just very much just a strong Islamic identity. It was like there was a country called Islam almost. But when I de-radicalized, I slowly began to feel more and more British and I began to feel more and more patriotic

and I realized that whilst I retained at the time I retained the Islamic identity the British identity allowed me to kind of expand and move out of the extremist circle now let me ask you this if there's a second generation uh immigrant right and they don't know where they stand if they're british or if they're part of their muslim country or if they're pakistani or whatever if we don't have a strong sense of british cultural identity of course the extremists are going to win because they provide that identity and that community and that purpose and that structure. Yeah. But how did that work for you growing up though? That's what I'm interested in. How does it work that you are growing up in England, you are going to an English school. Presumably lots of big events are taking place over that time where there's loads of patriotism on display,

be it Team GB at the Olympics or a football World Cup or a major cultural event. How does someone who's radicalized avoid being caught up in all of that as a child? I didn't have access to TV, firstly. But in other senses, it was very much like reinforcement from the in-group. So from the other Islamists, very much kind of always reinforcing that the non-Muslims are not part of you, that they're the out-group, that there's to be hated. So it's continual reinforcement of this ideology. It's just brainwashing. It's just constant brainwashing.

Yeah. It's like a cult and that's what's so disturbing about it obviously because it's going on here in the uk one other aspect by the way that i think is incredibly important to mention because we haven't yet is the role of women because so often when i am having arguments with extreme islams over exactly this and i am accused of being islamophobic what i am always told to handle is that these women make a choice they want to be covered up they don't want to be part of society. Is that really true? In many, the answer to that is complicated. But in the end, I think I'm going to give two potential explanations. And in both cases, I don't think it's a choice.

Because firstly, even if the lady or the woman wants to wear the niqab or be covered up head to toe, if you believe that God is demanding that of you and that if you don't dress like that, you're going to burn in hell, how is that a choice? Secondly, as for those that don't, who kind of wear it in order to fit in, in order to kind of avoid the social ostracization. That's not really a choice either. It's very much just society, and Muslims do this a lot, they very much self-police. And a lot of non-Muslims don't realize the extent to which Muslims self-police, because they don't see it. And yeah, I think in both instances, I don't think it's very much a choice. There are very few things that you can be certain of in life,

but you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning. You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always need air to breathe and water to drink. And of course, you can rest assured that with Public Mobile's 5G subscription phone plans, you'll pay the same thing every month. With all of the mysteries that life has to offer, a few certainties can really go a long way. Subscribe today for the peace of mind you've been searching for. Public Mobile, different is calling. Interesting. Very, very interesting because when you were telling your story, Sahil, and tell me if I'm wrong, but I'm imagining this radicalization took place very much among other men and that you were quite separated from Islam women. Is that accurate? Interestingly, it was my mother who drove the radicalization process initially. She was the one who convinced my dad and kind of pushed him

and forced him to grow a longer beard, to become more religious, to pray five times a day, to believe in all this insane stuff. It was my mother who was pushing it. And at the same time, it was my mother who was the biggest victim of it at the hands of my dad, because it's very much about control of women. It's very much about not giving women their rights. It's very much about just not seeing women as human. So ironically, my mother pushed it and she was the one who suffered from it. During your entire childhood, this radicalization process that went on from, as you've outlined, when you were six years old to when you were 21 years old. Was there ever a moment, Sahar, where any aspect of the British

state, be it the prevent program, be it a teacher, be it a government official, be it a council worker, was there ever a moment when someone tried to help you, when there was any sense that people had worked out what was going on? I'm sure. I know for a fact that my teachers knew I was extreme. In fact, one of the teachers, she was a part-time magistrate, and she said to me one day, come early in school. I'd like to talk to you. So I went there half an hour early.

And we sat down. And the first question she asked was, if Britain were attacked, would you fight for your country? And I immediately realized what was happening, and I gave a very manipulative kind of snaky answer, which was, well, if I were in danger, I would protect myself and my family. In essence, what I meant was, no, I wouldn't. I would only protect myself. And I basically said, I don't want to do this again and she did try I have to give her credit

for that as for all the other teachers no one ever tried kind of criticizing or pushing back against my views but even that magistrate didn't refer you to the prevent program which for people who don't know is the official government uh means to try i mean it's a failure but to try and de-radicalize people who are in exactly the same situation as you unfortunately the prevent program hadn't been set up yet, if I'm correct on that. There was a separate program, I think, run by the council. And I was invited to go to it. And I went along to it. Who were you invited by?

I think someone in school. I think it was the deputy head teacher or something. And it was entirely optional. And I only went along in order to throw, in order to get, to throw the scent off so that I could do whatever I wanted without people realizing. Got it.

And it made no impact? No. Okay. Because that's how full on the indoctrination had been. And of course, we have seen terror attackers in the UK who have literally gone through the PREVENT program, being able to pull the wool over the eyes of officials and then have still gone on to commit terror attacks. So even prevent is certainly no ticket out of this.

So I guess you have to make the decision yourself, which you did. So how do you define yourself now, Sahel? Do you define yourself as an ex-Muslim? Because I have seen that you have written previously that you prefer the company now of ex-Muslims to Muslims. So that's a good question. Initially, I did become an ex-Muslim. So after becoming a progressive de-radicalized Muslim, I kind of slowly just went like left Islam. But then I kind of started going back. I started seeing myself not as an ex-Muslim,

but as a cultural Muslim. And I think it was actually a month or a few weeks ago that I formally converted back to Islam. Of course, a form of Islam that is very different, absolutely different from the one I was raised with. And so, but yes, I do prefer the company of ex-Muslims to Muslims, unfortunately. But you still define as Muslim today?

Yes, I'm a believing Muslim, yeah. But at the same time, I do prefer the company of ex-Muslims because many Muslims hold ideas that are anathema to me. And you think it's possible to be Muslim and gay? Absolutely, yes. I think the most important thing that you do now, Sahail, and actually, while I wanted people to hear your story because they need to know the context of quite how serious your radicalization was, what the most important thing that you do today and where people need to hear you is that you believe you have a particular sixth sense in being able to spot Islamists, to be able to work out who was just like you and who are those vulnerable people who may have been radicalized and may now be planning attacks on the UK. So can you just talk through what you think people need to know, or can you just spot them because you were one?

Someone did suggest I write a guide on how to spot an extremist Muslim and Islamist. It's going to be a difficult undertaking because for me, it's almost like a sixth sense. It's because I grew up, I was surrounded by Islamists my whole life. So just like how in social groups, certain behaviours kind of spread and people copy each other, whether it be kind of phrases that they use or behaviourisms, I pick up on those. And because I understand the theology, I can kind of extrapolate from other things they say, and then say, oh, OK, he probably believes in this too. And then I can get it confirmed by asking further questions. And I've noticed that many people in the counter extremism and even counterterrorism space are not entirely aware of whom they are dealing with. And I've seen it whereby an Islamist, I've found out that

someone's an Islamist, I could just immediately tell, but they were kind of in a position of influence and everyone looked up to them. And that's utterly terrifying. And I think that there is a role for former Islamists to play in at least kind of threat detection or threat analysis, because we grew up, we were surrounded by this entire society, this social group. Therefore, we can kind of smell another Islamist a mile away. And one thing that you do advise, which was really interesting to me, is that if you think that you have a family member or a friend or someone who has been radicalized, who is going over to extreme Islam, you say, bring them closer to you. Don't walk away. Absolutely. Time and time again, from when you look at the PREVENT program and you look at all the studies, it shows that when people become radicalized, whether it be far right, whether it be far left, or if it be Islamist, people naturally and understandably kind of distance themselves from them and they become isolated from mainstream society,

they're further driven into the arms of the radicalizers, of the recruiters. And because everyone has the inherent social need to be part of something bigger than themselves, to be part of a group, to be accepted accepted they'll go for whatever group that they have access to and that will be the extremist group so this applies including to people that are kind of becoming far-right and i mean like the proper like neo-nazi type and racial purity that sort of thing and i've seen it with the far right whereby they kind of say something that is maybe politically incorrect but not problematic in and of itself

but then people abandon them and then they just kind of go into this downward spiral where they kind of become further radicalized and further radicalized when in fact that radicalization wouldn't have taken place if they hadn't been abandoned in the first place. Isn't one of the big issues, because I'm glad you've raised the far right, the concept of it, and you are very clear, I've looked into what you have to say about this, as you say, you think the

term has been overused, as do I i because you say having legitimate qualms about specific forms of islam does not make one far right or begetted if we call everyone far right we'll push them towards the actual far right and don't you think that's been happening a lot in the wake of the southport massacre where folk who simply have wanted to raise issues about extreme Islam, about mass immigration, about the invasion of our southern border, are termed far right. And as soon as you give someone a description like that, as you say, you're effectively trying to shut us out of society, aren't you? Absolutely, I agree with that. And what I would say say is this we need to just talk surely that's what's needed not just ostracizing others and not just calling them names and because that's just going

to make the problem worse it's almost as though society is set up to radicalize people. And I think that's deeply problematic and deeply unjust. And as someone who was radicalized, I can look at other people that are radicalized and kind of empathize with them, even the far right. Because I know what it takes to get into that state of mind. So I really want to help people not become radicalized, whether they be far right, Islamist or whatever else. Yeah, exactly. And the more you shut down conversations, the more you stop dialogue like this taking place,

the more chance of extremism there is. And that's why I am so concerned. I don't know if you share this concern, but I am so concerned about the Labour government's plan to make, quote unquote, Islamophobia illegal, because actually isn't quite a lot of what we've discussed today, by their definition, potentially Islamophobic. And for me, as a gay man, I believe actually it's my responsibility to speak up against extreme Islam, given you have outlined very clearly today what this type of religion wants to do to people like me and to people like you. So what's your positioning on this idea of making Islamophobia illegal? I absolutely, I've looked at the definition, the suggested evolving definition,

and there was one clause in there that said accusing someone who's Muslim of dual loyalty is Islamophobic. Now, didn't I have dual loyalty? In fact, it was worse than dual loyalty. I wasn't loyal to Britain at all. I was loyal to foreign entities. To state that, am I Islamophobic against myself? So I very much disagree with this definition. I would much prefer something like anti-Muslim bigotry that was defined in very specific terms, as in just hating a Muslim just for being a Muslim, not even to do with their views or anything. I think that it makes sense.

Now, I'm just going to be blunt with you. Traditionalist Islam is pretty much was developed in the medieval era. And unfortunately, the majority of Muslims do officially follow that version. In practice, they might differ on that, but officially they do. And I have a very big problem with this medieval traditionalist Islam. I think it's very backwards. I think it's very toxic. I think it's very exclusionary. Is that Islamophobic? To criticize a portion of Islam, a form of Islam that is traditionalism? I'm a progressive Muslim myself. It shouldn't be. Exactly. You are a Muslim. It shouldn't be. But I share the concerns that you

hold about the definition. And again, all this is going to do, I believe, is drive extremism, which is why it's so concerning. And I think the other issue that we have to discuss on that front of Hale is two-tier justice, because it's a real thing, in my view. So let me give you the example of Muhammad Hassan, who is a Muslim man who berated three women, Asian women, at a petrol station, said that they were dressed as prostitutes because they were not in traditional Asian dress and they were wearing makeup, he then punched and pushed two of them and slammed the other woman's head into a car. Now, Muhammad Hassan avoided prison. He received a £500 fine. At the same time, we see the likes of Julie Sweeney and Lucy Connolly, who made what could be described as anti-extreme Islam comments in the wake of the Southport massacre they were an artful don't get me wrong but they were quite simply posts on x and Facebook which were later deleted and regretted they are locked

up they're in prison likewise you've got Baroness Worsey of the Conservative Party believing that it's appropriate for people to use the racist term coconut to describe right-wing Asian people. So it really does feel like we're entering into an era of two-tier justice. And again, I think, won't that just add to the extremism and also add to the feeling of discontent between non-Muslim Brits? It's absolutely going to drive extremism because people, now I don't know what the statistics say on this, but at least from what it looks like, it definitely seems, it seems the perception is definitely there. It's, it looks like there's one set of rules for quote unquote brown people and who are of a Muslim persuasion, and then another against white people. And I feel like this comes from a problematic view, which is kind of like the idea

of a noble savage. It's almost like they're saying, see you brown people, you don't know any better. So you know what, we'll go easy on you. I think that's deeply racist. I don't know about you. But I think it stems from that. And personally, I think we should be race blind. I think the government, you know, I'm never one that's big on state intervention and lots of extra spending, but I just want the government to throw money at people like you. You should be leading the de-radicalization programs because as you say, you've been there, you've done it. And there are very few people like you who have the guts to de-radicalize and then talk about their experience but one thing that I think is really positive is you think that the

solution to this is actually to almost get patriotic on speed to promote the idea of Britishness amongst Muslim communities and I'm all for that I'm all for that but isn't that why it's wrong that when you go to white chapel station now uh the station isn't in english i mean to me that feels like we're doing the opposite of that but but but what do you think can be done to try and promote patriotism englishness within extreme muslim communities so first and foremost, I would kind of make it socially acceptable among the native white population

to be patriotic. I mean, currently, if you see someone flying a Union Jack or an England flag, what's people's response? Oh, that's probably a racist or that's someone probably far right. It's almost like we're ashamed of being British. And I think that's kind of like a hangover concept of, quote unquote, white guilt.

And I deeply disagree with that. Firstly, because white people alive today are not responsible for what their ancestors did. Secondly, colonialism was the norm. I mean, up until in the modern era, colonialism happened all the way going back to the agricultural era. So it's not like Europeans were the only ones to engage in colonialism. And I'm not excusing it. It was absolutely horrible. It was horrific. But we have to put everything into context and if we have the native population or the the non-muslim population as well patriotic and feeling british and okay to express their patriotism that will create an environment in which muslims can also shift towards british identity and what we need to do

is kind of have a this is view, which is that have a carrot and stick approach. Say that if you accept British values, we will accept you as one of our own. But if you do not accept British values, then we're going to have a problem. I couldn't agree more. I could not agree more. And I so respect you, Sahil, for your journey. I know that's an overused term, but my God, you have been on one for having the bravery to not just get out, but to talk about it. Because as you say, even though you are prepared to share your story, it's not easy. So I'm incredibly grateful. Please keep fighting the good fight. And we will talk very soon. But thank you for making your Outspoken debut.

Thank you so much. Because of today's special interview with Sahail Ahmed, there is no uncancelled after show today. But don't worry, it will return tomorrow. So you can register to watch www.outspoken.live. Thank you so much for your company. Wasn't it a really, really important interview? We are back live, though, with all of the news back to a normal edition of the show tomorrow at 5 p.m. UK time, midday Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific. Please hit subscribe right now on YouTube and Rumble. Most importantly, I promise to keep fighting for you. We'll see you next time.