Radical: My Journey Out of Islamist Extremism

Updated with new material on the Charlie Hebdo attack, ISIS, and more, this is the memoir that made Maajid Nawaz an international talking head on Islamist extremism, one who writes regularly for the New York Times, and is a frequent guest on CNN and other news networks. At age 16, Nawaz became a ranking member in Hizb ut-Tahrir, a London-based Islamist group, and organized satellite groups in Pakistan, Denmark, and Egypt. Rounded up in the aftermath of 9/11, he was imprisoned alongside the assassins of Anwar Sadat. It was on that cell block that Nawaz felt his identity shift. Nawaz went into prison preaching the Islamist cause, and he left convinced that his entire belief system had been wrong. Nawaz left prison determined to undo all that he had once believed in. Radical is a fascinating and important autobiographical account of one man's journey out of extremism and into something else entirely.