Fight jihadis on Facebook and Twitter, says BBC's top Muslim presenter Mishal Husain 

  • Today host praised campaign set up in London to publicise rejection of terror by British Muslims
  • Miss Husain, 41, is married with three children, drinks alcohol and does not fast during Ramadan
  • Her paternal grandfather, a devout Muslim from Punjab, married a devout South Indian Catholic
  • A number of prominent Islamic organisations has made calls for clerics to condemn Islamic State and its methods

Miss Husain said that all right-thinking people share outrage at the behaviour of extremist Muslims

Miss Husain said that all right-thinking people share outrage at the behaviour of extremist Muslims

The BBC’s most prominent Muslim presenter yesterday urged Islamic scholars to use social media to defeat terrorist propaganda.

The Today Programme’s Mishal Husain said that theological arguments could form a ‘counterpoint’ to the claims made in the Islamic State’s murder videos.

Miss Husain said that all right-thinking people share outrage at the behaviour of the extremist group and called for support for Muslim campaigns against terror.

Her intervention, in an interview with the Radio Times, came amid widespread condemnation of Islamic State hostage murders, and its attempt to use horrific videos to draw support in the West, from the leading British Islamic organisations.

Miss Husain, 41, who moved to her high-profile role at the Radio 4 news show last year, was asked if Muslims in Britain were coming under too much pressure to apologise for every grotesque act carried out by the Islamic State.

She praised a campaign set up in east London to publicise rejection of terror by British Muslims.

‘I think the Not In My Name campaign is a very positive development because outrage is shared by all right-thinking people,’ Miss Husain said. ‘I would really like to see much more of the counterpoint from a theological perspective, with scholars taking to social media to refute the awful arguments we see put forward in those videos.’

A number of prominent Islamic organisations, including the Muslim Council of Britain and the Islamic Society of Britain, together with local alliances of mosques, have made calls for clerics to condemn the Islamic State and its methods.

The Not in My Name campaign, organised by the anti-extremist Active Change Foundation, has appealed to young Muslims to use Twitter and social media to make their voices heard.

Miss Husain said she believed that most Muslims in Britain follow a tolerant strand of Islam. ‘I don’t think my way of life is under any kind of threat,’ she said. ‘I think I’m true to the way my parents brought me up and the home I came from.’

Inayat Bunglawala of Muslims4UK said that Miss Jusain's call was 'a helpful development'

Inayat Bunglawala of Muslims4UK said that Miss Jusain's call was 'a helpful development'

She added that she found the debate about Muslim identity in Britain misguided.

‘The emphasis on what you wear on your head or how many times you pray, on the outward things rather than what’s in your heart and the way you treat people, I find slightly misguided,’ she said, adding that she had not met people who called themselves British Muslims until she arrived at Cambridge University in 1992.

‘Before that people generally said British Asian or “of Pakistani heritage”,’ Miss Husain said. ‘Then I became aware that Islam was the defining bit. If you’ve never been to India or Pakistan, don’t speak the language, Islam is more accessible; it has no boundaries.’

Asked how she would described herself, she said: ‘Oh gosh! I would say simply British. I feel it’s a shame that we have started to divide people much more. Now we want to know whether people are Sunnis or Shias. All these labels within communites. I’m not sure how helpful it is.’

Mishal Husain has said that she will never wear the hijab, and also acknowledges that she drinks alcohol and does not fast at Ramadan

The rise of religious intolerance in Pakistan is recent and she had not encountered it when visiting the country as a child, she said.

Her paternal grandfather, a devout Muslim from the Punjab, married an equally devout South Indian Catholic. ‘I remember asking him, “Did you ever ask her to convert?” He just looked at me baffled, and said, “We were both people of strong faith, and we understood each other perfectly.” He used to drive her to church.’

Miss Husain, who was born in Northampton, lived in the Middle East as a child as her family moved with her doctor father’s career.

She said of her time living in Saudi Arabia, when she wore a head-to-toe black abaya cloak: ‘It was not enjoyable. Not great in the heat.’

She has said that she will never wear the hijab, and also acknowledges that she drinks alcohol and does not fast during Ramadan.

Miss Husain, who is married with three children, added that she had travelled through Syria as a child when her father drove the family from Abu Dhabi to London.

‘I remember the water wheels of Hama, the grandeur of Old Damascus, where I felt as though I was in One Thousand and One Nights,’ she said, ‘and driving through Aleppo. I have never been to Syria since, only gazed across the border from Lebanon when speaking to Syrian exiles there.’

She said the trip would be impossible today.

Muslim activists welcomed her intervention in the debate over Islamic State yesterday.

Inayat Bunglawala of Muslims4UK said: ‘This is a helpful development. There is no reason why scholars should not be arguing on social media.

‘There is a lot to be said for a prominent lady in her position making her views known. Her actions may help persuade other Muslim ladies to speak out.’

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