A young woman raised in a posh suburb of Glasgow who once liked Coldplay and Harry Potter is the new face of extremism in the Middle East.
Aqsa Mahmood has earned the nickname “The Bride of ISIS” for her online efforts to recruit women to join the cause of Islamic State extremists. The 20-year-old left a comfortable, upper-middle-class life in Scotland late last year, according to her parents, and is now living in Syria, married to a fellow radical.
Mahmood attended the private girls’ school Craigholme and liked to wear makeup, talk about boys, and listen to Western music, reports suggest. However, she appears to have turned to radical Islam as a teenager, secretly spending hours in online chat rooms.
In 2013 she started a blog on Tumblr using the moniker Umm Layth, and described herself as someone “In pursuit of Allaah’s Pleasure and Needy for His Mercy.” She asks that Allah “make this blog a means of benefit.” She also includes a quote from Islamic scholar Shaykh al-Islam ibn Taymiyaah, who died in 1328: “And whoever his sins are plenty, then his greatest remedy is Jihad.”
Mahmood also preached radicalism from a Twitter account using Umm Layth.
About a month ago, she tweeted: "@UmmLayth_ Wallahi just by carrying a gun doesn't make one a Mujahid. The Mujahid is the one who proves it through his Adab and Akhlaq.…”.
Adab and Akhlaq refer to behaviour and morals.
She also tweeted: “My most beloved sisters, may Allāh unite us in Jannatul Firdous for loving for His sake,” referring to Islamic conception of paradise.
The account has since been deleted.
Mahmood’s parents, Khalida and Muzaffar, say they had hoped their daughter would study to become a doctor, get married and have children of her own.
The young woman had become “concerned and upset” by news reports of the ongoing conflict in Syria, and told her parents that she wanted to do something to help, the Mahmoods’ lawyer Aamer Anwar told reporters on Wednesday.
The Mahmoods were in contact with their daughter after her arrival in Syria, but that communication broke off earlier this week when her name began appearing in news reports.
They still love their daughter, but say she has “betrayed” them.
"We still love you, Aqsa, but we now have to put your family, your brother and sisters first as you have betrayed us, our community and the people of Scotland when you took this step,” the parents said in a statement read by Anwar.
"You have torn the heart out of our family and changed our lives forever. Please come home."
