From the horrors of partition in India to the migration to Pakistan to a new chapter in Britain, A Very British Muslim Activist: The Life of Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, is a journey that spans geography, history and politics. How does a young boy from a small Indian village, born during the slow death of the British Empire, become a leader of British Muslims? What’s the impact of rubbing shoulders with the likes of Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Ayatollah Khomeini and Tony Blair?

From establishing early Muslim student politics in the UK, to being in the eye of the storm over The Satanic Verses, to the creation of institutions as diverse as the Muslim Institute, the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain, Stop the War Coalition and the Halal Food Authority, this is the inside story of an activist. It is also a story of British Islam itself.

He is the bearded man cheering everyone on in a room of fervent feminists. He is the quiet calm man in his office and the loudest activists out on the streets. He is the man refusing to shake the Prime Minister’s hand one day and the next demanding reform within his own community at the scent of corruption. His name is Ghayas. If you were to see him out in public today, he wouldn’t necessarily stand out from the rest. Yet if it is injustice that you stand against, he will be there as your most boisterous defender, on the condition that it is justice you truly seek!

The hope is to forge an educated community of critical thinkers just in time for another golden age of Muslim thought, yet can the lessons learned carry forward into our future? This telling of the life of Ghayasuddin Siddiqui challenges the reader to think on the issues of the past and to seek answers to the problems of tomorrow.