Dr. Farah Ahmed, an academic with historical ties to the now-banned Hizb ut-Tahrir group, has been appointed to Cambridge University's Faculty of Education. This is the same department from which professor Jason Arday recently resigned amid a plagiarism controversy.
According to reports, Dr. Ahmed contributed a chapter to a Hizb ut-Tahrir pamphlet published in 2002, before the organization was proscribed in the UK in 2024. The chapter reportedly criticized Western education as a threat to Muslim beliefs and values, describing the national curriculum as a form of indoctrination aimed at creating secular citizens.
Dr. Ahmed's work has also explored Islamic educational concepts, contrasting them with the focus on literacy, numeracy, and qualifications in Western systems. In 2023, she co-organized a conference that examined the role of science within what was described as a modernist and colonial project, questioning the notion of science as purely objective knowledge.
Her writings in the 2002 pamphlet, which was republished in 2017, reportedly stated that Western education sought to integrate Muslim children in ways that could lead them to reject Islam. She also argued that a secular, capitalist society was incompatible with Islamic beliefs and criticized curricula for teaching that polygamy or marriage before age 16 are discriminatory, and for promoting democracy as the sole legitimate form of governance. Subjects like English were also critiqued, with fairy tales and literary works such as 'Romeo and Juliet' cited as potentially contradicting Islamic viewpoints. The teaching of evolution was also mentioned as a point of conflict with Islamic beliefs.
Dr. Ahmed has previously stated that she is not a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir and does not endorse all of its views. A spokesperson for Cambridge's Faculty of Education affirmed the university's commitment to academic freedom and freedom of speech within legal boundaries, encouraging scholarly debate and the challenging of ideas.
This development follows the departure of Professor Jason Arday, who resigned from Cambridge after accusations of plagiarism and misrepresentation of his academic history. The university had launched an investigation into his conduct prior to his resignation, which he stated was due to the personal toll of the public scrutiny.