A former supporter of Hizb ut-Tahrir, now banned as a terror group, has been appointed assistant research professor of education at Cambridge, in the same faculty as Jason Arday.
Farah Ahmed has explicitly attacked ‘western education’ as a ‘threat’ to Muslims, condemned democracy and integration, and criticized British schools for teaching pupils that child marriage is wrong.
During her time at Cambridge, she has written that the Islamic concept of education is sharply opposed to ‘gaining literacy and numeracy and other disciplinary skills demonstrated through qualifications’.
These statements are part of her long record of bigoted, extremist and separatist views on education.
BACKGROUND:
- Critique of Western Education: In a 2002 Hizb ut-Tahrir pamphlet, Ahmed characterized Western education as a “threat” to Muslim beliefs, describing the national curriculum as “systematic indoctrination” designed to create “model British citizens” who support a “secular capitalist system.”
- Rejection of Democratic Values: She has condemned democracy as a “corrupt tradition” and criticized British schools for teaching that practices like polygamy or child marriage are discriminatory, arguing instead that such interactions with “western culture” corrupt Muslim youth.
- Promotion of Separatist Pedagogy: Ahmed co-authored a toolkit stating that Islamic education is “sharply opposed” to gaining literacy and numeracy skills, and she has promoted halaqah (Islamic study circles) as a dialogic pedagogy to develop shakhsiyah (identity), aiming to “unlearn conventional teacher education” in favor of “Islamically grounded” development.
- Institutional Links: She previously ran private primary schools where trustees included Hizb ut-Tahrir members, and her academic work continues to explore the tensions between secular-liberalism and Islamic concepts of knowledge, autonomy, and personhood.
