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Maajid Nawaz

Co-author, "Islam and the Future of Tolerance"

Maajid Usman Nawaz is a British activist, author, columnist and politician. He was the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for London's Hampstead and Kilburn constituency in the 2015 General Election. He is also the co-founder and chairman of Quilliam, a counter-extremism think tank that seeks to challenge the narratives of Islamist extremists.

Nawaz is a former member of the radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. This association led to his arrest in Egypt in December 2001, where he remained imprisoned until 2006. Reading books on human rights and interacting with Amnesty International, which adopted him as a prisoner of conscience, resulted in a change of heart. This led Nawaz to leave Hizb-ut-Tahrir in 2007, renounce his Islamist past and call for a "Secular Islam."

After his turnaround, Nawaz co-founded Quilliam with former radical Islamists, including Ed Husain. He documented his life story in his Amazon bestselling autobiography Radical (2012). Since then, he has risen to become a prominent critic of Islamism in the United Kingdom. He is a regular op-ed contributor, debater and public commenter, and has spoken from various international platforms including the TED conference. He presented his views on radicalisation in front of US Senate Committee and UK Home Affairs Committee in their respective inquiries on the roots of radical extremism.

Nawaz is proficient in three languages: English, Urdu and Arabic. He is a weekly columnist for The Daily Beast, and had his writings published in various international newspapers including New York Times, The Guardian, Financial Times, Daily Mail and Wall Street Journal. He has made appearances on programmes including, but not limited to, Larry King Live, BBC Hard Talk, Charlie Rose, 60 Minutes, Newsnight and Real Time with Bill Maher. He has delivered lectures at LSE and University of Liverpool, and has given talks at UK Defence Academy and Marshall Center for Security Studies.

In June 2014, Nawaz became an honorary associate of the National Secular Society which was founded in 1866. His second book Islam and the Future of Tolerance (2015), co-authored with American neuroscientist Sam Harris, was published in October 2015.