I met Maajid Nawaz: the radical on the path of reform

A former Islamist has started a foundation to combat extremism among Muslims - and has made a lot of enemies in the process, writes Thomas Chatterton Williams

I MET Maajid Nawaz on a drizzly afternoon in March, tucked in a corner of the restaurant at the central London members’ club he uses as a satellite office.

He was dabbing the chicken from his Caesar salad into a mound of yellow English mustard, which he stopped doing for long enough to load a video on his iPhone and slide it across the table. It showed the Southern Poverty Law Centre’s Heidi Beirich, speaking at Duke University about him.