Less than two days after the horror of the massacre of 50 Muslims in two mosques in New Zealand, I was asked in an interview on the BBC news channel whether or not I think Muslim communities in the UK do enough to condemn Islamist extremism.
"There's a straightforward problem here, isn't there – one of the reasons that some of this language has become common is bluntly because of the Islamist violence and the Islamist extremism that has happened – one of the criticisms we hear in this country has been that there isn't enough criticism of those people by the mainstream Islamic community – what do you say to that?"
Ordinarily, I would not be surprised by this question. Muslims are well used to being held collectively responsible for the violent acts of anyone identifying as Muslim, or indeed with any semblance of Muslim heritage.
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