Academic with historic links to extreme group hired in the same Cambridge faculty as 'plagiarism professor' Jason Arday

By ELEANOR HARDING, EDUCATION EDITOR Published: 22:16, 11 August 2026 | Updated: 22:16, 11 August 2026 An academic with historic links to the now banned Hizb ut-Tahrir terror group has been recruited by Cambridge University to the same faculty as ex-professor Jason Arday. Dr Farah Ahmed wrote a chapter for a pamphlet published in 2002 by the group before it was proscribed, attacking 'western education' as a 'threat' to Muslims, it is claimed. The academic is now an assistant research professor at Cambridge's Faculty of Education – the same department that recruited Mr Arday, who has stepped down following a plagiarism row. During her time at Cambridge, she has also co-authored a How Islamic Is My School toolkit, which says the Islamic concept of education is in sharp contrast to 'gaining literacy and numeracy and other disciplinary skills demonstrated through qualifications'. In 2023, she helped organise a conference on Islam, science and education to 'recognise the role of science as part of a wider modernist and colonial project', and to 'consider challenges' to the view that 'sees science as 'objective knowledge'. The university launched an investigation last week into Mr Arday after fellow academics accused him of copying others' work and inventing some of his previous academic posts. He resigned from his role at Cambridge, saying the 'personal cost' of the furore had been 'too great', and cancelled a series of events to promote his upcoming memoir, Great And Unfortunate Things. The latest revelations, in The Spectator, will raise further questions about the recruitment process for the prestigious university. An academic with historic links to the now banned Hizb ut-Tahrir terror group has been recruited by Cambridge University to the same faculty as ex-professor Jason Arday. Dr Farah Ahmed (pictured) wrote a chapter for a pamphlet published in 2002 by the group before it was proscribed, it is claimed The academic is now an assistant research professor at Cambridge's Faculty of Education – the same department that recruited Mr Arday (pictured), who has stepped down following a plagiarism row  According to the publication, Dr Ahmed's chapter for the 2002 Hizb ut-Tahrir pamphlet 'Education and Identity' was republished in 2017. Hizb ut-Tahrir was proscribed in the UK in 2024.  The Spectator reported that in the pamphlet, she wrote: 'The Muslim community as a whole in Britain needs to recognise that western education is a threat to our beliefs and values.' She attacked schools' 'attempts to integrate Muslim children' as seeking to 'produce new generations that reject Islam' and added: 'if society is built on kufr [unbelief], it is our duty to tackle this challenge as a community in order to protect our young from its corruption.' She also wrote that the national curriculum is a 'systematic indoctrination' to 'build 'model British citizens' who will seek to actively take part in the implementation of the secular capitalist system in British society.' And she added: 'Naturally, such a system will not be suitable to the needs of Muslim students as the aqeedah [belief system] of the Muslim is in complete contradiction to this.' Her pamphlet chapter also attacked British schools for teaching that 'polygamy or marriage under the age of 16' is 'archaic and discriminatory to women', and for telling children that 'democracy… is the only way that laws should be created.' Democracy, she said, is a 'corrupt tradition'. She also criticised how religious tolerance is 'primarily pushed' in religious schools, meaning that 'Islam is taught as a religion like any other'. English, she wrote, 'is one of the most damaging subjects' a school can teach. Fairy tales 'reflect secular and immoral beliefs, which contradict the viewpoint of Islam,' and Romeo and Juliet 'advocates disobeying parents and pre-marital relations,' she said. She also said science was a problem because in 'teaching of evolution, Muslim children will be exposed to ideas that contradict Islam', the Spectator reported. Dr Ahmed did not respond to a request for comment before publication but has previously distanced herself from Hizb ut-Tahrir, saying in 2010 that she was not a member and does not agree with all its views as a political organisation. A spokesman for Cambridge's Faculty of Education said: 'The Faculty is committed to academic freedom and freedom of speech within the law. All members of our community are encouraged to exercise their rights to freedom of speech, including to challenge ideas or theories they disagree with through scholarship and robust debate.'  In another development yesterday, Mr Arday's legal letter warning off a journalist at Times Higher Education magazine was leaked online. It claimed Mr Arday was supervising 15 PhD students and had examined 'over 35' as an external examiner. Professor Alice Sullivan, of UCL, said on X: 'If this is true, then there are over 35 people whose PhDs are tainted.'