In early 2009, London's Old Bailey Central Criminal Court sentenced a 22-year-old British Islamist to 18 years in prison for activating an improvised explosive device in a restaurant in the English city of Exeter. At first glance, the case for modern Britain is unremarkable, especially since the press reported about it extremely sparingly, since only the culprit suffered as a result of the terrorist attack. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists, both committed and prevented, are not new to the United Kingdom. There is, however, one feature. Until now, such crimes have been committed exclusively by British Muslims, descendants of immigrants from Muslim countries-former colonies, such as Pakistan and Bangladesh (British India). In this case, we are talking not just about a British Islamist, but about an ethnic Briton named Nick Reilly, who converted to Islam just six months before the terrorist attack. The investigation proved that he received instructions to create an explosive device via e-mail [Fresco, 2009], so he was not a lone terrorist. Today, after the collapse of multiculturalism, the United Kingdom Government is trying to encourage the development of a so-called British identity among its citizens. The success of this strategy with regard to British ethnic Muslims has been much doubted from the very beginning. And it is already an extraordinary case when an ethnic Briton renounces the British identity in favor of Islamism. Be that as it may, the problem of choosing between religious views and national identity, between solidarity with fellow believers and loyalty to the authorities who do not share this faith, arose among the inhabitants of Great Britain more than a century ago. Ironically, Abdallah Killiam, founder of one of the first Muslim communities in the United Kingdom, was one of the first Britons to come face to face with it. His life and work can help answer questions about the difficulties associated ... Read more