A Christian at Islamic College: What I Saw Beneath the Surface

I never set out to become a witness to the West’s unraveling. I was just a minister seeking to show God’s love to people. In short, I simply loved Muslims—deeply and sincerely—and believed that the surest way to honor that calling was to study Islam from within its own intellectual world. That conviction led me to Islamic College in London. I was excited that I was going to learn under Muslim scholars. So, I wasn’t seeking conflict or controversy. Far from it. Instead, I was pursuing what I saw as a ministry of respect and understanding.

Shifting Cultural Currents

For several years, the professors supported my work. Classmates welcomed my questions, and I completed an M.A. in Islamic Studies believing I had formed genuine friendships. Yet even then, during my repeated visits to London, something unsettling tugged at me. I sensed cultural currents shifting beneath the surface of the city I had come to love, though I lacked words to describe it.

During those visits, especially when staying in neighborhoods with dense Muslim populations, I often felt as if I was walking through two London’s at once. It would become abundantly clear, as I interacted with countless people, that British culture was not very evident. There was not much assimilation. Another culture has overtaken it, and many British elites were on board.

When I landed in London on October 7, 2023, I expected nothing more than a week full of scholarly conversations with Shia leaders.[1] Instead, I stepped directly into the aftermath of Hamas’s massacre of Israeli civilians. Suddenly I noticed that, almost below the level of conscious awareness, the city’s emotional atmosphere shifted with a speed that left me disoriented. Suddenly, it wasn’t the same London I thought I knew. Within minutes, I was added to a group text coordinating rallies, and the words “genocide,” “apartheid,” and “resistance” appeared in messages. I was stunned.

Organized Jew-Hatred

Later, a Muslim friend urged me to meet protest organizers, and was glad to introduce me to them. He insisted I had a role to play, but the invitation scared me to death. What have I got myself into? By the next morning, October 8, I saw with my own eyes, as I was headed to church in an Uber, coordinated demonstrations filled the streets. It felt less like a reaction and more like a mobilization. I realized that there was an organized network of Jew hatred that I didn’t know existed, at least in that magnitude.

“There was an organized network of Jew hatred that I didn’t know existed, at least in that magnitude”

Throughout that week, I took twenty-two Uber rides across the city, and eighteen drivers delivered unsolicited monologues about Israel with nearly identical certainty. I was stunned by the vitriol. What I noticed was a narrative template toward the Jews that I later discovered was in the Quran. I found myself listening quietly, wondering how these views had become so widespread, so quickly, and so synchronized. With each ride, the sense of ideological cohesion grew more visible, and I felt like a visitor in a city I once understood. The London I loved for its diversity now felt dominated by a single, unchallenged narrative.

What I felt most was that the Church there was very weak. And that weakness carried a cost. That disorientation deepened when I watched American and European universities erupt days later with the same slogans and emotional choreography. It was then I realized I was witnessing the expression of a coherent transnational worldview, not a series of isolated events.

“the Church there [in London] was very weak. And that weakness carried a cost.”

Inside Islamic college, the rupture was equally swift and painful. When I publicly defended Israel’s right to exist, relationships that once felt steady collapsed almost instantly. I found this reaction to be profoundly shocking. What I didn’t know was that I was getting an education that I would have never received in a classroom. A professor who had championed my academic work sent a short message cutting all contact. Others followed. There was only one person maintaining communication, who I would still call a friend, who offered a quiet kindness when the others withdrew.

Mainstream Jew-Hate

More jarring still, I later learned that certain Shia leaders in the broader network wondered aloud if I might be a spy for Israel. I thought me, a spy? You have to be kidding. That suspicion didn’t anger me; it showed how deep the polarization ran. In that moment, I finally saw that anti-Israel sentiment wasn’t fringe. Instead, it was central in ways I’d sensed but never admitted.

After the initial shock, I turned to research in search of clarity, and what I found reframed my entire experience. I discovered through my Media investigations, that there were concerns raised about possible connections between the Islamic College and Al-Mustafa International University, an institution controlled by Iran’s Supreme Leader and described by some analysts as a “foothold” for exporting revolutionary ideology.[2] Some pro-regime Iranian outlets even called the College Al-Mustafa’s UK “branch,” though the College strongly denies any link.[3]

Reports also documented troubling public statements by staff. For example, one lecturer compared Israel to Nazi Germany, while another described Anders Breivik as an “ultra-Zionist.” A former principal appeared in footage encouraging chants for Hezbollah, a group now banned in the UK. Can you imagine Hezbollah? As I read, a cold clarity settled over me—these were not scattered controversies but pieces of a coherent pattern.

More investigation yielded that processes had been triggered by UK regulatory bodies far before my own personal breaking point. Middlesex University, the higher education body that validated the College’s degrees, withdrew its partnership with the organization after damning accusations were leveled on national news channels.[4] The Office for Students stated that it was reviewing the situation.

Reports also detailed how the Islamic Centre of England, which was described as having close connections to individuals at the College, held a vigil where IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani was praised, resulting in a Charity Commission warning.[5] The group of students from the college was reported to have visited the home of Ayatollah Khomeini on their trip to Iran in 2016.[6] It became clearer that the philosophy I was being confronted with was institutional.

Input from external perspectives contextualized the anecdotal evidence I was presented with about Al-Mustafa. Analysts such as Kasra Aarabi describe Al-Mustafa University as the “heart of Iran’s international ideological messaging,” from where the regime seeks to grow its reach abroad through highly-supervised networks of scholars.[7] This is an idea that many progressives turn their heads in denial. These studies say the university claims affiliated centers in dozens of countries, including some reported to be operating in the UK.

Pro-regime Farsi outlets have also suggested that certain leaders at the London college were connected to Al-Mustafa, though the College denies any formal ties. These were not antagonistic voices. They were pro-Iranian regime. Still, the mix of rhetoric, leadership backgrounds, and institutional relationships suggested a shared ideological direction rather than coincidence. Only then did I understand that the reflexes I saw in London after October 7 were not improvised. They were cultivated over time.

Asymmetric Integration

All this led me to start seeing things through a particular framework that made sense of both my experience and the wider crisis in the West: Asymmetric Integration. The West assumes that integration is symmetrical – that newcomers to the open society will enter with a mindset of adopting civic norms and contributing in a pluralistic, multi-valued context. But that assumption breaks down when a new mindset sees openness not as a value to be mutually held, but a thing to be used.

Asymmetric Integration happens when a liberal society welcomes newcomers, which is great. But when it allows certain ideological networks to quietly pull that society into their own worldview, this is problematic. That’s what I saw, writ large. The result isn’t multiculturalism but one-way permeability. The West values rights and freedoms; the ideological ecosystem values faith and internal cohesion. One system is permeable; the other is rigid. That asymmetry constitutes a vulnerability the West doesn’t yet comprehend.

“[With] asymmetric Integration . . . the result isn’t multiculturalism but one-way permeability.”

Beyond culture, the asymmetry is civilizational: Liberal societies assume identities can coexist without hierarchy; many ideological systems born abroad assume truth rests on hierarchy and authority. It’s a deep conflict. Take the interview Der Spiegel conducted with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week. Putin asked, “Can you imagine the Russian Federation negotiating with some party inside the European Union?” And yet that’s conventional practice in Europe, which doesn’t pretend all its constituent powers have identical identities and interests.

Liberalism presumes debate and dissent; these networks presume cohesion and loyalty. Liberalism believes diversity dilutes the strength of beliefs; these networks believe beliefs should remain pure. And because liberal democracies assume good faith, they have difficulty recognizing when a different worldview does not. Thus, the West is not just failing to integrate certain communities, it is being integrated into ideological architectures it did not choose, and doesn’t understand. Suddenly the transformations I felt in London, the rapid mobilization of protests, and the rupture in my academic community all made painful sense.

“Because liberal democracies assume good faith [and mutual respect], they have difficulty recognizing when a different worldview does not.”

Another element of this asymmetry is how crises function within each worldview. In liberal societies, a crisis provokes questions, such as “What happened?”, “Why?”, and “What can we learn from this?” In ideological ones, whose foundation is different, crises are opportunities for rollout, not inquiry. The narrative is set, the action plans are in place, the orchestra of emotions is expertly rehearsed. A crisis doesn’t inspire their reaction; it triggers it.

That is why protestors appeared on the streets in London within hours, why college campuses in the United States exploded days later with matching slogans, and why the attitudinal response seemed harmonized across the world. It was only those on the inside, who recognized that this was not a task for improv theater, for whom this was a reflex, rather than an act of hesitation

The Biggest Weakness in the West

I think the biggest weakness in the West is that they have lost confidence in their core values and everything that Western philosophy stands for. These days, with the rise of multiculturalism, it feels like a lot of institutions are scared to stand up for the things they believe in because they do not want to get labeled as intolerant or bigoted. In that kind of environment, “being open” is not always positive. Instead of being a virtue, it becomes a vulnerability.

I did not really get this at first. It was only after I personally lost my place in a community that I had really been trying hard to understand. The exact moment this happened was when I acknowledged Israel’s right to exist. It was at that moment that the whole illusion of “shared values” just disappeared, and I was exposed to the underlying truth beneath the community.

Today, I can say with confidence that “tolerance” without discernment, without understanding, and without inclusion is not really a virtue or moral strength. Instead, it’s a sort of surrender to power and loss of legitimacy. This moment was the end of innocence for me, and that I now look at the institution and the civilization that embraced me in a fundamentally different way.

These insights did not come from theory alone; they emerged from years inside Islamic academic environments where I was welcomed warmly until the moment I stepped outside the boundaries of ideological conformity. My story is only one expression of a larger structural phenomenon, which is networks shaped abroad embedding themselves into Western institutions that no longer defend their philosophical foundations. Unless the West recovers the confidence to distinguish between integration and absorption, it will continue to erode silently.

Our culture is in danger, but the shift isn’t going to be obvious. It won’t be announced or declared, just slowly shoved out of place. Key institutions will be overtaken and our moral footing will slip away. So, I first fell in love with these institutions and held high hopes for them. That’s why it was so painful when I left them, having gained an understanding of something that few in the West are honest with themselves about.

I thought I could understand myself and my place in the world by studying in London. Instead, what I learned shocked me, and my world was turned upside down. In the future, Western countries will have to recognize the asymmetry in these kinds of cultural encounters, and quickly, or else it will find out that the institutions it’ll be welcoming won’t be integrating as it expects, but slowly transforming the West.

References:

[1] [Editor’s note: Islam has two main factions or denominatios – Sunni (about 85-90% majority) and Shia (the minority). Here, ‘Shia’ refers to a subset of orthodox Islam.]

[2] Turner, C. (2023, March 4). University watchdog “engaged” in talks with London college over Iran links — Discussions follow claims that the Islamic College in Willesden has ties to Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The Telegraph.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240412001735/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/04/university-watchdog-engaged-talks-london-college-links-iranian/

[3] C. Turner, “University watchdog “engaged” in talks with London college over Iran links — Discussions follow claims that the Islamic College in Willesden has ties to Iranian Revolutionary Guards,” The Telegraph, (4 March 2023)

https://web.archive.org/web/20240412001735/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/04/university-watchdog-engaged-talks-london-college-links-iranian/

[4] Campaign Against Antisemitism, “Middlesex University reportedly cutting ties with the Islamic College over links to Iran and inflammatory staff, (7 March 2023), https://antisemitism.org/middlesex-university-reportedly-to-cut-ties-with-islamic-college-over-links-to-iran-and-inflammatory-staff

[5] Aarabi 2023.

[6] Aarabi 2023.

[7] Aarabi 2023.

Recommended Resources:

Answering Islam by Dr. Frank Turek ( DVD Set , Mp4 and Mp3 )

How to Interpret Your Bible by Dr. Frank Turek DVD Complete Series , INSTRUCTOR Study Guide , and STUDENT Study Guide

Why We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth by Frank Turek (mp4 Download)

Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek ( INSTRUCTOR Study Guide ), ( STUDENT Study Guide ), and (DVD)

Tim Orr serves full-time with the Crescent Project as the Assistant Director of the Internship Program and Area Coordinator, where he is also deeply involved in outreach across the UK. A scholar of Islam, Evangelical minister, conference speaker, and interfaith consultant, Tim brings over 30 years of experience in cross-cultural ministry. He holds six academic degrees, including a Doctor of Ministry from Liberty University and a Master’s in Islamic Studies from the Islamic College in London. In September, he will begin a PhD in Religious Studies at Hartford International University.

Tim has served as a research associate with the Congregations and Polarization Project at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University Indianapolis, and for two years, he was also a research assistant on the COVID-19 study led by Hartford International University. His research interests include Islamic antisemitism, American Evangelicalism, Shia Islam, and gospel-centered ministry to Muslims.

He has spoken at leading universities and mosques throughout the UK, including Oxford University, Imperial College London, and the University of Tehran. His work has been published in peer-reviewed Islamic academic journals, and he is the author of four books. His fifth book, The Apostle Paul: A Model for Engaging Islam, is forthcoming.

Originally posted at: https://bit.ly/4apWecu