Explosions in London on July 7, 2005, claimed the lives of 52 people. The attacks were carried out by four Muslims: Mohammed Sidiq Khan, Haseeb Hussein, Shehzad Tanveer and Jermaine Lindsey. The suicide bombers were citizens of the United Kingdom. Moreover, all of them, except Lindsay, were born and raised here, studied in British schools. Later it was established that Sidiq Khan was under the strong influence of Islamist extremists and it was with their help that he recruited and trained other participants in the July 7 terrorist attacks. The scale of the attacks shocked the whole of the UK, but the public was even more shocked by the fact that the terrorists were homegrown. This situation has raised a lot of questions. What could have motivated young people to take such a terrible step? What are the reasons for this sudden radicalization? How were organizations representing radical Islamic movements able to gain a foothold in England and carry out active propaganda and recruitment? To answer these and other questions, it is necessary to make a short historical digression and a brief analysis of the processes of formation of Muslim communities in the country, the formation of representatives of the latest religious and political views. FORMATION OF MUSLIM COMMUNITIES Muslims began to settle in Great Britain in the mid-19th century, but their numbers began to increase significantly only in proportion to the increase in immigration flows to the country after the Second World War, which was primarily due to the beginning and actively gaining momentum of the process of disintegration of the British Colonial Empire. Immigration from the British Commonwealth (or first wave immigration) peaked in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This growth was facilitated by the fact that until 1962, when the Immigration Act was adopted, entry to the UK for citizens of former colonies and Commonwealth member states was unrestricted, and all these categories were then eligible for a Britis ... Read more