Excerpt:
A new BBC program documents one man's attempt to understand his brother's conversion to radical Islam, changing from Richard to Salahuddin. "My Brother the Islamist" shows how hate breaks apart two siblings, despite filmmaker Robb Leech's effort to find common ground.
Leech discovered the conversion of his stepbrother Richard/Salahuddin through an article in a major British newspaper, finding out that his brother had also become a disciple of British extremist Anjem Choudary. His family was devastated with the suddenness of the decision and the intensity of his beliefs, including Richard/Salahuddin refusing to shake hands with his "dirty kaffir" brother, except with his left hand, which he uses to wipe himself.
"To begin with, when Rich had been a Muslim for just a few months, everything was new to him, as it was to me," Robb Leech said in an article about the documentary. "He was living in a world of perpetual fear, not fully knowing what he was permitted to do and say and what was forbidden in accordance with strict Islamist rulings."