Among the Believers

This documentary offers a candid and alarming insight into the threat posed by the notorious Red Mosque network in Pakistan. The cameras follow Isis supporter and Muslim cleric Abdul Aziz Ghazi on his continued campaign to enforce Sharia law and raise the next generation of jihadi soldiers.

As well as providing a window into the Red Mosque’s current activities, directors Hemal Trivedi and Mohammed Ali Naqvi take care to remind us of the organisation’s deep political history that includes providing frontline soldiers for the Soviet-Afghan War (their activities funded in part by the United States and Saudi Arabia) and highlights the mosque’s close ties with Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban.

The use of education as a tool to enforce an ardent religious ideology upon children is what’s most distressing here (remember Malala Yousafzai?), and the filmmakers back up their investigations with testimony from key speakers in the Pakistani academic communities and a young girl who ran away from her local madrassa training programme.