Oxford University suspends jihad-supporting student for trying to recruit for an extreme Islamist group

From The Daily Mail

Third-year engineering student Danial Farooq, 21, now faces an investigation after expressing support for jihad.

He says he is a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir which seeks to establish an Islamic state under Sharia law and is banned in more than a dozen countries worldwide – though not in the UK. He claimed he is ‘close’ to gaining supporters at Britain’s oldest university and told an undercover Daily Mail reporter he supported jihad to ‘spread’ Islam.

Mr Farooq, who is from Brent in north London and studies at Wadham College, said: ‘There’s a few brothers who believe that the problem of our time is political and that the solution is for Islam and a [caliphate]. I believe if there was 50 to 100 hizbis (Hizb ut-Tahrir members) – just students – in all of the UK, if there was even five hizbis in Oxford, if you could influence two or three, that could change the whole Muslim unity. Because that’s how it all starts.’

‘There’s a few I’m trying to convince. There’s a lot of potential in Oxford in terms of the influence. A lot of people are from elite backgrounds – and even the ones who aren’t… end up in elite backgrounds.’

The Mail revealed last year how Hizb ut-Tahrir claimed it had ‘brothers’ who recruit at Oxford. Mr Farooq, who claims to be ‘rebuilding’ the organisation on campus, invited an undercover reporter to several one-to-one meetings at a student hangout near the university.

He also emailed Hizb ut-Tahrir literature which read: ‘Ever since the dawn of Islam, the struggle has been at its fiercest between Islam and kufr [a derogatory term for non-Muslims]… it is a matter for which jihad has been made one of the most important duties.’ The 137-page leaflet goes on to say it’s permissible for Muslims to kill those who leave the faith ‘even if they numbered millions’.

A prominent Hizb ut-Tahrir speaker confirmed to an undercover reporter that Mr Farooq is in the group.