I'm a Muslim. I happen to be a woman. I'm a British Sufi - from the publicly-under-represented Sufi brand of Islam which outnumbers Wahhabis, Deobandis and other Muslim sects in Britain by five to one. I see these other sects as hegemonistic and blinkered - misled Muslims who have lost their way and are letting the side down in a shockingly bad way. Sufis are taught to be altruistic, focus on spirituality and work hard - we, above all Muslims, contribute a great deal to British society and the British economy, and we're proud of it. In no way are we represented by Islamist groups like the Muslim Council of Britain, who look down on Sufis and work slyly to fulfil the goals not of the British Muslim majority but hegemonistic Islamists (in the MCB's case, Jamaat e Islaami).

For some time I've wanted to ram the words of so-called Muslim extremists back down their throats - men and women included. Their blinkered approach beggars belief. How can they accuse the West - while living off state benefits and the fat of the land - of being morally bankrupt?
The recent case of the 19 year old girl in Saudi Arabia who was gang raped fourteen times then sentenced to 90 lashes (only freed after Western pressure on the House of Saud after her sentence was increased to 200 lashes and six months in jail) is symptomatic of the moral bankruptcy of so-called Muslim lands.

Independent of Hizb ut Tahrir's activities, it is becoming clear that East London-based Bangladeshis - with extremist Islamist tendencies -  are traveling to various terror training camps established in Bangladesh. The fact is that Bangladesh relies to a great extent on funds from its Diaspora abroad and this includes Britain. Young British Bangladeshis tend to be far more religious and radical than Bangladeshis in Bangladesh - there are real Islamist terrorist problems in Bangladesh and it seems highly likely that Bangladeshis based in Britain are playing some part in funding these groups, especially now the situation in Bangladesh is so dire.

Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HuJI) was established in 1992, reportedly with assistance from Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front. On April 30, 1992, several of the HuJI leaders addressed a press conference at the Jatiya Press Club in Dhaka and demanded that Bangladesh be converted into an Islamic State. The outfit's activities, however, were noticed in June 1996 after the Awami League came to power. The HuJI was proscribed by the Government on October 17, 2005. The HuJI is led by Shawkat Osman alias Sheikh Farid. Imtiaz Quddus is the general secretary of the outfit. HuJI aims to establish Islamic Hukumat (rule) in Bangladesh by waging war and killing progressive intellectuals. It draws inspiration from bin Laden and the erstwhile Taliban regime of Afghanistan. At one point in time, the groups issued a slogan, Amra Sobai Hobo Taliban, Bangla Hobe Afghanistan (We will all become Taliban and we will turn Bangladesh into Afghanistan). HuJI recruits are indoctrinated in the mould of radical Islam.