Why has Abdul Hakim Murad not been sacked by Cambridge University?

Abdul Hakim Murad is the Islamic name of a convert to Islam called Tim Winters.  He is a lecturer and tutor and director of studies at Wolfson College, Cambridge University.  Over recent years he was the sort of fellow who was forever being produced as a ‘moderate’, enlightened Muslim scholar. I always had doubts about this claim.

For instance, a couple of years back, on a BBC radio programme, I pressed him on the fact that all the main schools of Islamic law still mandate the death sentence as penalty for leaving Islam. Abdul tried to pick me up on this. ‘Are you sure of that’ he pressed. I said I was. At which point he revealed that he had recently been at a seminar in Jordan where a number of muftis had discussed the idea of ‘maybe a custodial sentence – certainly not the death penalty’ as punishment enough for leaving Islam. ‘Too kind’ I remember replying. [6 mins 30 here]

It seemed then – and seems to me now – unthinkable that a Christian chaplain (for instance) and pastoral tutor at a Cambridge college who thought that imprisoning students who left Christianity was a progressive step would go down all that well. One would like to think that on campus there would be a certain amount of opposition to such a figure. Certainly a pro-imprisonment of ex-Christians chaplain would be unlikely to be promoted by the British government and other authorities as a voice of progressive Christianity.

So it is not a surprise to me – at any rate – that Tim has just been rumbled in a scandal involving a pile of anti-gay stuff. On a video which appeared – and has now disappeared – from the internet Tim Winters / Abdul Hakim Murad of Cambridge University attacks homosexuality as ‘an inexplicable aberration’ and much more.