Sir – Many congratulations to Dr Taj Hargey for his unequivocal call for “wholesale root and branch reform of the (Islamic) faith” (First Person, May 30). Good luck with that.
However, although he may be technically correct in correlating Muslim violent extremism in the UK with Blair’s foreign policy it is a red herring. The implication is that were it not for the Iraq war, relations between the indigenous British and Islam would be fine.
We don’t have to see literal blood in the streets to know they are not. Since the Arab-Byzantine Wars there has never really been a golden age of diplomatic relations between the Islamic east and the Christian west and that includes the UK.
It is an entire way of life that fundamentalist and many relatively moderate Muslims oppose; and this is why the Muslim leaders must take every opportunity to articulate a ‘counter-balancing narrative’ in opposition to the ideological propaganda to promote true integration within British society.
Emma Berrecloth-Bale, Kirtlington
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