Whenever intra-Muslim tension flares in Pakistan-for example, with the trashing of a Sufi shrine or the takeover of a mosque-Britain’s authorities watch for tension in English cities. And the war now raging between the Pakistani government and Taliban rebels is affecting the mood among British Muslims. How exactly may depend on where they come from, geographically and theologically.

Life would be easier for students of Anglo-Asian Islam if one theological movement always produced moderates and another always led to extremism. But things are never that straightforward. As Philip Lewis, a Bradford-based writer on British Islam, puts it, “In all schools [of Islam], there are some individuals playing a constructive role.” And in virtually all schools there are some doing the opposite.

Still, in their Islamic scenes Britain and Pakistan do have one simple thing in common: religious education is dominated by purist teachers, who trace their roots to the Indian town of Deoband where an Islamic place of learning was founded in 1866. Designed to instil and spread a rigorous form of faith (robust enough to survive colonialism and the “corrupting” influences of other cultures), the Deobandi philosophy sets austere rules for personal behaviour. It sees the veneration of saints, and even excessive attention to the Prophet, as a distraction from God.

Among its offshoots are the Tablighi Jama’at, a huge, worldwide missionary movement (strong in Yorkshire and London), in which lay people help to propagate the idea of a pious life. And another offshoot of the Deobandis, as critics always note, is the Taliban, as they emerged in Afghanistan and then in Pakistan.

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