The British government’s plan to promote a more tolerant version of Islam to young Muslims is not turning out very well: Fears over radical hijack of imams’ tour. (Hat tip: Van Impe.)

Plans to counter the threat of Islamic extremism by sending imams on a ‘roadshow’ tour of the UK to explain Islam to disaffected young Muslims have been dramatically revised, amid fears that they were being hijacked by radicals.

Worries that the roadshows, costing £300,000 to £400,000, will be dominated by anti-Western rhetoric have prompted a rethink in the Home Office. A source said: ‘The Home Office has recognised the need to bring in more mainstream scholars as an antidote to extremist ideology.’

One imam due to tour this month, Tariq Ramadan, has been barred from the US for allegedly using a ‘position of prominence to endorse or espouse terrorist activity’. Ramadan has called the 9/11 atrocities and the Madrid and Bali bombings ‘interventions’. Another of the appointed imams, Tariq Suweidan, has also been banned from the US. Two leading ‘mainstream’ scholars who have converted to Islam, Abdul Hakim Murad, of Cambridge University, and Hamza Yusuf, an American, are to join the roadshows with several other moderates, including Yusuf Islam, best known as the former singer Cat Stevens.

However, the move has led to a number of Muslim groups withdrawing backing for the roadshows, due to start in London, Glasgow, Sheffield and Cambridge. Privately leading Muslims say the government has scored an ‘own goal’. ‘The roadshows will just peddle a form of government-sponsored docile Islam,’ said one. ‘The government will sow mistrust and suspicion.’