We have seen in the previous two chapters how the large majority – 76 per cent – of our characteristic sample of Muslim prisoners held a Worldview of Mainstream Islam characterised by Unity-in-Diversity and an aspiration to fulfil Mainstream Islamic practices and values which often fed productively into their commitment to rehabilitation.

In this chapter, we document the experiences of the other 23 per cent of Muslim prisoners who held Islamist – 19 per cent – and Islamist Extremist – 4 per cent – Worldviews and show how these Worldviews were enacted and affected prison life.

The Islamist prisoners in our sample of Muslim prisoners

Nineteen per cent of our characteristic sample of Muslim prisoners held this exaggerated ‘Us’/ Muslim versus ‘Them’/ Infidel/ kafir Islamist Worldview and we have observed in Chapters 3 and 4 how Converts and Intensifiers were significantly prominent in holding this Worldview. In interviews and through observations Islamist Muslim prisoners accentuated various aspects of it.

‘Us’/ Muslim versus ‘Them’/ Infidel/ kafir: separation and exaggerated difference

In order to prop-up the idea of ‘Us’ versus ‘Them’, Islamists often propagate a conspiratorial Worldview that the unbelievers (kuffar) – especially ‘Infidel’ subgroups like ‘world Jewry’ – are out to trick and subjugate Muslims.

In this respect, Abbas (male, 31, British Asian Pakistani, Born-Muslim, HMP Cherwell, Category C Prison) described to us how he had been discouraged from participating in our research by an Islamist prisoner on his wing on the conspiratorial basis that we were working for a “government agency”, although we had explained on multiple occasions that we were completely independent academic researchers:

Islamist justification of crime

The exaggerated ‘Us’/ Muslims versus ‘Them’/ Infidels/ kafir Islamist Worldview also provided some prisoners with grounds for the spurious ‘religious’ justification of crimes, such as sex offences.

Bashir (male, 67, British Asian Pakistani, Born-Muslim, HMP Forth, Category A Prison) said that because “white girls” were content to “hang around with Pakistanis and Muslims” he could not have been guilty of rape because

This notion of the availability and licentiousness of white, kafir women was used by several sex offenders in our sample to justify their crimes.