Muslims have a long and distinguished record of service in the British armed forces.

But this record has been almost completely obliterated in recent years by the competing narratives of the Far Right and of hardline Islamists. Both blocs, for their own ideological reasons, seem to assert that one cannot be both a loyal Briton and a good Muslim at the same time.

In Ties that Bind former Islamist Shiraz Maher recaptures this lost history of Muslim service to the Crown. Maher shows that this collective past constitutes the basis of a new shared future – which can endure in no less testing circumstances. It also forms the basis for enhanced recruitment of Muslims to the armed forces, without political preconditions attached.