VIDEO: Why Would Young Muslim Women Join Islamic State?

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The question I ask in this feature — and the one I believe we should be asking ourselves — is what could make young teenage Muslim women, however few in number, leave their home and family and their whole established life to go in search of something new in Syria?

Travelling to a war torn country isn’t so strange, except these girls are neither aid workers nor journalists nor are they equipped to be fighters.

You hear the words cult, influence & propaganda, but everyone’s trying to influence someone from the fashion magazines on our shelves to the politicians and spokespeople on their podiums. For young women there are a whole stampede of things that will tell you exactly how you should speak, what you should say, what to wear and what role you play in society. For these young Muslim girls in Britain many other factors come into play.

In order to find the answer to my question I spoke to five teenage Muslim students to ask them what they thought and in this report it’s their voices we hear.

Performers in Paris, Upstaged by a Niqab

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Late last month reports emerged regarding a woman in Paris forced to leave a theatre after the cast refused to perform in protest against her attire. She had a veil across her face.

The incident occurred weeks ago but was reported by local press at the end of October. Now, I’m not one to impose theatre wear, but for those who are, I didn’t realise attire had the ability to halt a performance. The woman concerned was forced to leave a theatre performance because of a thin piece of fabric and the offence it caused to performers on a stage.

With the sigh of relief that I experience that this wasn’t in Britain, I feel ashamed for any Franc aware of what happened, but then I also feel ashamed for the laws that allow and encourage such gestures to take place. I mean it’s not as though it was security — that may have been doing their job in enforcing a certain aspect of dodgy law — but a group of creatives’ seemingly present to please their audience. The niqab is illegal in France, I know this. But this racist, anti-Islamic, bigoted piece of legislation is what allows such abhorrent acts of intolerance to materialise.

Fury At Prison Death Of Ghulam Azam

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Professor Ghulam Azam, founder of Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh died in a prison hospital last Thursday. His family and lawyer who had been campaigning for the unwell 91-year-old to be allowed home are outraged at the conditions in which he died.

Azam’s funeral took place on Saturday, in Dhaka, with hundreds of thousands of mourners paying their respects. Separate memorials were held in cities across the world, with prominent scholars including Yusuf al-Qaradawi leading prayers for the figurehead.

A major figure both inside and outside Bangladesh, Azam was the leader of one of the most prominent Islamic parties internationally. He began his rise to prominence at a young age as an active and inspirational figure in political and religious circles. He was at the head of Jamaat-e-Islami from 1969 to 2000, founding the Bangladeshi wing of the influential party. Born and educated in Dhaka, he read political science at university and held a prominent voice across the Muslim world as a religious thinker and author, writing over 100 works.