Ed Husain

My job is to actually tell what I saw up there.

My publishers said, we can't put this in the book.

because it's too explosive, it's too dangerous, it'll be interpreted as racist.

So that was taken out of Among the Mosques because the publishing elite in London thought that was just too insensitive, although that's what was...

discussed by people I met in some of those towns.

The second point is, and again, I know viewers in London will have, or the UK more widely, will have a kind of instinctive bad feeling me saying this, but we have to be true to what's true.

When I raised this with imams in mosques,

There was one particular imam at a mosque in Bradford who said to me that local police officers had asked him to raise this issue in the congregation and say, if you, taxi drivers or Uber drivers, if you are giving

a lift to a young girl, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, late at night after she's drunk, don't make a move on her, don't disrespect her, take her home, treat her as a child.

And asking the imam to say all of that, the imam said,

I can't say that.

And then the police's request was, well, why not?

Because it's kind of safety and health issue and child protection issues.

He said, because, you know, most of my congregation who are drivers and security guards have repeatedly said to me that these girls are hitting on them, that these girls wear miniskirts, that these girls are drunk and these girls want the companionship of these men late at night.

And therefore, if I'm seen to be siding with the girls against my congregation, my own job is at risk.

And I just thought that was, yes, sure it's weak, sure it's flawed, sure it's irrational, sure it's illogical, but the fact that he couldn't say it, nor could the authorities protect him for saying it, and the fear that he had from his drivers, but also the justification from the drivers, oh, they're asking for it.

Those are my only two observations.

I mean, I just don't understand that culture enough to be able to say how you could, as a father of two daughters, how can you get yourself into that sick position

I have students who are now 18 to 21, 25.

You just see them as daughters and children.