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Back in the early 2000’s, a group of Muslim parents led by Tahir Alam decided they were no longer going to tolerate poor outcomes for Muslim pupils in Alam Rock, Birmingham. They were going to proactively break the decades of underperformance and social depravation that came from it and challenge the prevailing narrative in the world of educationalists and local politicians that young, largely Pakistani students were destined to occupy the bottom strata of society. Aspiration was a privilege they could never have a share in. Tahir set about deconstructing these social barriers and within time he and his colleagues, who volunteered to join school governorships of Birminghams deprived schools, had miraculously turned things around. Schools that were the worst in terms of attainment were now consistently achieving enviable pass rates.

In the processes, Tahir won plaudits from school authorities, local politicians and within time earned the respect of national educational bodies and politicians. He was called upon to help other governing bodies, steer committees and advise on education policy. At the core of his success was to make disenfranchised students feel a sense of belonging, and that in part meant being aware of and open to facilitating their cultural and religious practises. Such an approach was not new, education theorists have for years suggested that students that have a stake in the system do better. However, in a post-9/11 world, Tahir’s forthright views that schools should be a place where Muslim students should be allowed to be Muslim, also raised concerns. The new conservative government had come to the view that Islam as a practised faith was an obstacle, and austere or so-called conservative interpretations of Islam were part of a broader extremist threat.

At the forefront of this divisive approach was the education secretary Michael Gove, who as a journalist had written an incoherent polemical book, Celsius 7/7– arguing that there was a Islamist plot to undermine Britain. Gove saw his chance to unravel the good work of Muslim educationalists, after a discredited letter, now known as the Trojan Horse letter, was anonymously sent to Birmingham council in 2014. Among its salacious claims, it revealed that Tahir was at the head of an ‘Islamist’ plot to take over schools and prepare them for extremist views. The rest, as they say is history. The letter, discredited on multiple occasions as a work of malicious fantasy, was embraced by Gove and the department of education and within time, Tahir and dozens of Muslim governors and teachers were barred from education.

The Trojan Horse affair upended education policy in the UK and gave rise to one of the most problematic policies, the prevent duty. If you haven’t already, The New York Times Serial podcast on the subject is worth a listen – Tahir and his colleagues were vindicated as concerned parents caught up in a systematic programme of islamophobia.

Riaz Hasan and Muhammad Jalal caught up with Tahir Alam - the man at the centre of the scandal - to try to understand the broader motivations of government and others hell bent on tuning back the tide of young Muslim achievement and in the process stoking Islamophobia.