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Heart and Soul: Jihadi Converts: Jihadi Converts

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Jihadi Converts

02/08/2014 GMT

BBC World Service - Heart and Soul, Jihadi Converts, Jihadi Converts

Why are Muslim converts more likely to be extremist than those born into the religion?

Why are Muslim converts far more likely to be drawn to extremist ideas than those born into the religion?

Converts to Islam are far more likely to be involved in terrorist incidents than those who were born into Muslim families: converts account for around a quarter of terrorist convictions in Britain since 9/11, yet they represent only 2-3% of the UK's Muslim population.

Zubeida Malik investigates why new Muslims appear to be so vulnerable to the call of jihadi recruiters. She hears the stories of converts lured by extremists and how their conversion to, and belief in, Islam transformed them into extremists willing to fight for their faith.

She investigates how these, often vulnerable, new followers are targeted and radicalised by extremists. She meets Yacoub* who describes his life before he converted to Islam. He was, he boasts to Zubeida, one of the top drug dealers in the part of London he lived. He was regularly involved in robberies and burglaries until one of his friends talked of his conversion. Yacoub, curious about his life, read the Qu’ran and his self-taught conversion began while he was in prison for alleged kidnap.

Yacoub works with young people who he fears could take the path to radicalisation. Karim is one such person and he tells how he converted after feeling alienated and angry with his life in London. Following an encounter with a man in his mosque who told him it was ok to kill non-Muslims he stabbed a man and ended up in prison.

Heart and Soul explores how the teachings of Islam are often distorted to recruit young men like Karim and the effects that can have on their lives.

*not his real name

Heart and Soul: Jihadi Converts

BBC World Service

Zubeida Malik investigates why new converts to Islam appear to be so vulnerable to the call of jihadi recruiters.

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