Islamicist

Brian Whitaker writes about the "Islamicist" and a new literary genre for repenting militants/extremists, it brilliant. An excerpt:

Happily, the latest newcomer to this burgeoning literary genre of political/religious recantations is posting his story, chapter by chapter, on the internet - which allows anyone to read it (or, indeed, to give up reading it after only a few pages) at no cost to themselves.

In Chapter One we learn that The Islamicist (his real name has not been disclosed) was born in London, "city of a Thousand Extremists", and that his father was a man and his mother a woman - both from Pakistan.

"Ordinarily," he writes, "a Pakistani man and a Pakistani woman having a baby is not a momentous event. Children are very common in that country. What was special about my parents [was] that they gave birth to me."

Needless to say, The Islamicist felt marked out "to be different" and had an unhappy childhood, misunderstood by his parents. This was largely a result of his faith (he liked singing Christmas carols all year round), his dress sense and his "predeliction for playing with girls".

Brilliant.