Ed Husain

Ed Husain is co-director of the Quilliam Foundation.

Born and raised in London, Ed has been involved in an array of Islamist groups in Britain and their front organisations, including Jamat-e-Islami, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Hizb ut-Tahrir. In the early 90's, when these groups were first emerging, Ed was a highly effective strategist and campus recruiter who laid the ideological seeds for much of contemporary Islamism's manifestations in Britain. Some of Ed's recruits remain senior activists till this day. His eventual rejection of this ideology, documented in his book 'The Islamist', led him to a path of discovering pluralistic, normative Islam.

Ed has travelled widely across the Middle East. He studied history at university and then went on to learn Arabic at the University of Damascus during 2003-2005. He relocated to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, before returning home to England in 2006. Ed holds an MA in Middle-East studies from SOAS, University of London. He is now pursuing doctoral studies in Arab experiences of post-colonial secularism.