Shiraz Maher

Shiraz Maher (born 12 July 1981) is a British writer and analyst, and Director at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) at King's College London. He also teaches at Johns Hopkins University. The son of Pakistani immigrants, for several years after 9/11 Maher was a member of the Islamist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir, but left the movement after the 2005 London bombings and became an outspoken critic of radical Islam. He has written for leading newspapers in Britain and elsewhere, produced reports and studies on counterterrorism strategy, and appeared in the international news media as a commentator on jihad and radicalisation.

Maher was born in 1981 in Birmingham to British-Pakistani parents. His father was an accountant, and when Shiraz was an infant the family moved to Saudi Arabia. He stated he had never been very concerned about Saudi culture, noting he "lived in a Western compound, with everything you could want: tennis courts, swimming pools, cricket, basketball, bike races, all gender-mixed.”

One day when he was eleven, he was wearing a Daffy Duck T-shirt bearing the slogan "I Support Operation Desert Storm" and a Saudi man challenged him about the sentiment. "I said, 'Why not? Saddam's a terrible man.' The man said: 'No. This is an American conspiracy. These people use us as an excuse to establish bases on holy soil.'”

In 1995, when he was age 14, Maher moved back to Britain. He attended Solihull School from 1995 to 2000. In 2000, he enrolled at the University of Leeds.

Reacting to the attacks on 9/11, Maher thought to himself that America deserved the attacks as reciprocation for meddling with the affairs of the Arab world, and supporting Israel. "You shall reap what you sow, and this is what you've sown for a long time." He later said that 9/11 "activated" latent anti-American ideas he had picked up in Saudi Arabia. After the attacks, he gave up alcohol, ended his relationship with his girlfriend, and joined Hizb ut-Tahrir. By the time the US invaded Afghanistan, Maher had recovered his Muslim faith and moved into an apartment across the street from a local mosque.

He became a graduate student at University of Cambridge. Meanwhile, he rose in ranks at Hizb ut-Tahrir, advancing from cell leader to regional director. He was even invited to join the group's British executive committee. In 2005, however, he began to hold doubts about Hizb ut-Tahrir. At Cambridge, he encountered numerous sects of Islam and decided that Hizb ut-Tahrir's ideology was erroneous and led to terrorism. He left Hizb ut-Tahrir on 7 July 2005, the day the London Underground bombings took place, killing 52 people.

After leaving radical Islam, Maher dedicated his life to opposing jihad. For a time, he ran Standpoint magazine's "Focus on Islamism" blog with Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens. He produced a television program for BBC's Panorama entitled "How I became a Muslim extremist." He also worked for Policy Exchange, writing a series of studies on national security. His report on reforming the government's counter-terrorism strategy was praised by both Michael Gove, then Britain's Secretary of State for Education, and Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, former Chief of the Defence Staff.

Maher is today a senior fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, King's College London, where "he researches Europe's homegrown Islamist movement and profiles the droves of young Britons who are decamping for Syria and Iraq to wage jihad with ISIS, aka the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham." He also researches the development of Salafi jihadism ideology, and jihadist organisations in the broader Middle East. As a result of this research he has been invited to give evidence before three parliamentary committees. In addition, Maher works as an adjunct at Johns Hopkins University, where he co-teaches a course on radicalisation with Peter Neumann. He was a visiting lecturer at Washington College during the spring semester of 2012.