Dr. Farah Ahmed, an assistant research professor at Cambridge's Faculty of Education, is reported to have contributed a chapter to a pamphlet published in 2002 by Hizb ut-Tahrir, prior to the group's proscription in the UK in 2024. The chapter, titled "Education and Identity," allegedly criticizes Western education, stating that it poses a threat to Muslim beliefs and values. According to The Spectator, Ahmed's contribution argued that integration efforts in British schools aim to create generations that reject Islam and that the national curriculum amounts to "systematic indoctrination" designed to produce citizens who support a secular capitalist system.
The pamphlet also reportedly criticized British schools for teaching that polygamy and marriage under the age of 16 are discriminatory and for promoting democracy as the sole method of law creation. Ahmed is also cited as having written that science poses a problem by teaching evolution, which contradicts Islamic beliefs, and that English literature, such as fairy tales and "Romeo and Juliet," reflects "secular and immoral beliefs."
In 2023, Dr. Ahmed helped organize a conference on Islam, science, and education, which aimed to "recognize the role of science as part of a wider modernist and colonial project" and to "consider challenges" to the view of science as objective knowledge. She has also co-authored a toolkit on Islamic education that contrasts the Islamic concept of education with the Western focus on literacy, numeracy, and qualifications.
Dr. Ahmed has previously stated that she is not a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir and does not endorse all of its views as a political organization. She made these statements in 2010.
The Faculty of Education at Cambridge University stated that it is committed to academic freedom and freedom of speech within the law, encouraging all community members to exercise their rights through scholarship and debate. The recruitment of Dr. Ahmed comes shortly after the resignation of Professor Jason Arday from the same faculty, following accusations of plagiarism and the invention of previous academic posts. Arday stated that the "personal cost" of the controversy had become too great.
Concerns have been raised by other academics regarding the potential implications of Arday's alleged plagiarism on the work of students he supervised and externally examined. An investigation into Arday's conduct was launched by Cambridge University prior to his resignation.