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.

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