I am a practising, long-bearded Muslim, a Pakistani who served in my country’s intelligence service and air force and, long ago, a close companion of Osama bin Laden when we fought together to expel the Soviets from Afghanistan. I am what you in the west would stereotype as a terrorist, an extremist or an Islamist radical.

But I wear none of these labels. I am a bridge – a voice of Muslim reason in a growing cacophony of disaffected voices, some of whom are irreparably damaging the message of a great religion and who must now be contained by people like me to insure we all survive the scourge of radicalism.