03 June 2016

Islam course for inmates teaches jihad, cleric warns

A training manual used in English and Welsh jails to teach prisoners about Islam should be withdrawn because it encourages them to become jihadists, a cleric has warned.

Sheikh Musa Admani said that the Tarbiyah (Islamic study) programme, which has been used since 2011, had a section on jihad, or holy war.

The programme was co-written by several imams and Ahtsham Ali, a prisons adviser to the Ministry of Justice. At the start of the year there were 12,328 Muslim inmates held in prisons in England and Wales. Of these, 131 were convicted of terrorist offences and 1,000 more were thought to be vulnerable to radicalisation. Muslims make up 4.5 per cent of the UK population but nearly 15 per cent of prisoners. [The Times (£)] Read more