John Mohammed Butt

John Mohammed Butt is an Islamic scholar and broadcaster, known as the first Westerner to graduate from Darul Uloom Deoband.

Early life Born in Trinidad in 1950, Butt spent his early life in Walton-on-Thames, England, and attended boarding school at Stonyhurst College before becoming a hippie and traveling to Pakistan. Although he continued to live mainly in Swat, he began spending part of each year as the Muslim chaplain at Cambridge University.

When the Taliban began to gain influence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, he saw their radical interpretation of Islam to be in conflict with the traditional Islamic tolerance of tribal culture. In response, he established the Pak/Afghan Cross-border Radio Training and Production (Pact) project in 2004, producing the Da Pulay Poray (Across the Border) programme to confront what he saw as Islamic extremism.

He has continued to promote what he sees as 'mainstream' Islam, and has been among those pressing ahead with plans for a new Islamic university in Jalalabad, offering a moderate alternative to radical clerics:It makes perfect sense. There is currently nowhere in Afghanistan where a young man can do higher Islamic studies. They go to Pakistan, where as we know some of them have become radicalised.