Leaving Isis: Is redemption possible?

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1:07The bombs were starting to become more frequent. They never missed the target. I prayed, oh, Allah, please give me a second chance of life. I remember thinking to myself one day in Syria, I should have had this thought beforehand, really. Children look to their parents to protect them, don't they? And to keep them out of harm's way. And I remember thinking, you are responsible for the safety of this child, but you've brought him here. I'm living in the middle of ISIS, I'm scared right now. Heaven forbid he dies or you both die. Any time now, if I stay, that will happen. Tarina Shaquille took her baby son and travelled to Syria, convinced she was answering a call of faith.

1:50She left her life in the English Midlands in search of what she thought would be a new beginning in the Islamic State. I think more in terms of the ISIS thing, it was a sense of belonging, you have to be here, not only to save yourself from hell, because in the Hadith they speak about only the best of Muslims will go and be there. I'm just not talking about ISIS in the Hadith, but that's obviously not told to you.

2:15Tareena Shakil:A 26-year-old British mother who took her toddler son to Syria has been convicted of supporting the Islamic State. She was found guilty in Britain of joining the Islamic group and encouraging terrorism on social media. But the reality of living life under Sharia law was not what she dreamt of. She returned home and became the first British woman to be convicted of joining IS. Today, she has had a decade to reflect on the consequences of that decision. I'm Rajiv Gupta and this is the documentary on the BBC World Service. For heart and soul, I've come to Birmingham, where her journey to Raqqa began.

2:54Shall we get going? OK, cool. We are currently in the Jewelry Quarter and we're going to head towards Central Mosque, which is in the Highgate area of Birmingham, which is not too far from here. The life that I wanted to escape from was in Birmingham. If I could go back, I would go back in a heartbeat. I would never have ran away to Syria. In life, I try not to have regrets, right? Because I don't want to live my life like that. And I always feel like it's a lesson learned. But I can say I do regret Syria. Definitely, 100%. Today, Tarina says Islam is central to her life. But what part did her faith play in the decision to leave Britain?

3:40For you at that point, would you say Islam was more of a, say, a movement or a thing to belong to rather than a faith? I think I found the faith as a source of hope and as a source of comfort. I found a lot of comfort through Islam. I think the two for me were very separate. You've got ISIS and then it's my faith is my faith with Allah. But if you are a Muslim, you have to go and live here. They're two very separate things and there are a lot of grey areas. But her journey to Syria didn't begin with ideology. It started with a turbulent relationship and a young woman who felt her life was going in the wrong direction.

4:18Just before I had travelled to Syria, I was married, kind of like a new mum as well. So my life at that time was very turbulent, very unsettled, very, very sad. Life probably hadn't turned out the way that I had planned for it. When I first started at university for like the first year, brilliant time of my life, loved it. Then I met through friends at university, the man that I got married to. And that was like the second year, start of the second year. It kind of went downhill from there, really. And I had just lived this like isolated, sad life for many years. And it was just a very lonely time in life as well.

4:59How would you describe your connection, say, with God during that time? Definitely was not nowhere near as practising as I am now. I started to cover up when I got married, but I wasn't necessarily practicing. I started to take the religion a lot more seriously when I was pregnant. I prayed in them times. I had, you know, a great faith in God. I didn't think about an Islamic state. I didn't even probably know what an Islamic state was. I didn't think about the rules of living under Sharia law. I knew what Sharia law was, but I had never had the burning desire to go and live under that. But my faith was, you know, it was, I found a lot of solace in my faith as well because I had a terrible pregnancy.

5:39I was living in a homeless hostel. I was going to be a new mom. My hormones were everywhere. I found a lot of solace in my religion, a lot of hope. Tarina describes a woman in crisis, unhappy and searching for meaning. But others experience such difficulties. They do not then travel to join an extremist group. At her trial, the court heard evidence that she had expressed explicit support for Islamic State. Something she now says she didn't fully understand. So the question is, just how did she come to believe in what she eventually did? We were coming to the end of our relationship anyway. It was just getting really, really bad and I had this new child that I needed to think of.

6:19And he decided that he was going to go to his own country of Yemen. So at that time in 2014, there were things happening in the Middle East, very similar to what's going on now, not Syria related. I started to come across all of these accounts of like guys wearing black some of them were holding guns and I initially thought that they were in Palestine so I probably sent like a few messages like oh my god I hope you're okay you know and one of them messaged back and he was like oh no I'm not in Palestine I don't fight in Palestine so I was like well where do you fight and he was like in Syria so I was like what's going on in Syria and he was like what you don't no.

6:55I said, no. He goes, well, basically we are, we're fighting to liberate the Syrian people from Bashar al-Assad, but we have also established the Islamic State. Just started from there. Would you say that was a period of then radicalization? Definitely groomed. He would speak about how it was Haram to live in England. You have to come and live over here or you'll go to hell because you live in a country that's not ruled by Sharia. basically you have to come and live here you don't have a choice but at the same time I'm looking for a way out as well and I was very very vulnerable at the time I was very lost at the time and I just started speaking to these people online who were kind of like we come here were you infatuated with this guy that you're speaking to what was your feeling towards him I was in awe of his love for Islam he was like I'll marry you when you come here I blocked him before I even traveled to be honest with you because I wasn't going for marriage I'm running from marriage so it's not that I wanted to pursue anything romantic with him I was in awe of his dedication to Islam like he had left everything behind his Catholic family he loved Islam and I had only hoped that I could be the level of Muslim that he was in terms of not in terms of being an ISIS fighter in terms of his love for Islam that you would sacrifice everything just for the religion there particular hadith or passages in the Quran that you used to turn to during those times?

8:17Not that I would turn to but there were definitely passages from the Quran and hadith that were told to me so when I'm speaking to these people online I would always question everything you know I'm a born Muslim yeah I probably haven't been so strong practicing but you're telling me new things so for example when they would say like you have to come and live here you don't have a choice otherwise you'll go to hell my question then would be well surely every Muslim in the world that doesn't live there is not going to hell that can't be the case like that doesn't make sense to me I've not heard this before, then they would relay a verse from the Quran.

8:47And then there would be hadiths about when you see the group that rises under the black flag, you must go and join them, even if you have to crawl to join them. That made you think, oh my God, I have to be there. They're upon truce. Everyone is against them because it's the right thing that they're doing. You know, and then you later come on to find out that that is a very weak hadith. And at the time, I wasn't researching. I was just taking what they told me and like, well, it actually does say that in the Quran but I wasn't going into it in that depth it wasn't being explained to me like that it was like well no verse number of chapter of surah whatever says this and yes it does say that but hold on why does it say that but I wasn't taking it further then the guy who I would speak to on the internet he was a revert and he would often say things like oh my god sister how do you not know these things and you're you're a born Muslim and I would often at times feel very stupid like he's right how does he know all of these verses from the quran and i don't hearing tarina now reflective confident intelligent it's hard to reconcile that with the person she says she was then a young mother prepared to take her baby into a war zone she says the decision made sense to her at the time rooted in the religious idea of hijra migration for the sake of faith.

10:08So you have jihad, which is to go and fight and wage war. And then you would have hijra, which is to go and just migrate for the sake of Islam. It has nothing to do with jihad, it has nothing to do with killing. And some people, yes, they did go because they wanted to fight. And they're violent people and they wanted to inflict pain on the world, unfortunately. Some people did go because of that. My journey was never one of jihad. It was one of, I'll migrate for the sake of Islam, I'll save myself from the fire of hell, I'll give myself a second chance of life, and I'll be away from the misery that I'm living in England.

10:46Not because I hate England, just because of my life here. Nothing to do with the country, more to do with my personal life here. Trina says she spoke to women online who appeared to have found clarity and purpose as part of IS and she began to imagine herself amongst them. I was at times in awe of these women who have made this decision and essentially got their happy ever after. No one is telling you when you're speaking to them, well, hold on, it's very intense, there's a war zone, you can't go home. I didn't even think of them things. I went there to live there because of making hijrah to an Islamic place.

11:24It was always sold in a way that they hate Islam. Why are you going to take the media's word over us? This is huck, truth. You question it too much. You need to come and live here. That's up to you. And one of the messages, I'll remember it forever, was, Sister, all you need to do is realise that right now you are levitating over the fire of hell, living there. and if you die there, that's you dropping into it. It's your duty to save yourself from that. I think I found a sense of belonging there. I had just become fixated on way out, new life, gonna go. Save myself from hell. Within just five weeks of talking to IS recruits online, Tarina started planning to travel to Syria, to Raqqa.

12:12Tareena Shakil:Raqqa, the de facto capital of the so-called Islamic State, defended by its young fighters, men and women dedicated to its cause. I want to talk to you then about the journey to Syria. It wasn't that an easy thing to do per se because this was a country where the world's attention was looking at what was going on there. And you had your child, you had your baby son with you at the time. I booked a flight to Turkey because that's obviously the neighbouring country to Syria and that was the route in. So you'd get to Turkey, then you'd contact the contact that you were given and they told you fly to Istanbul.

12:52Then they would pass you on to another person. So when you get to Istanbul, you contact them, they tell you to fly to. They told me to fly to Gaziantep, which is very close to the Syrian border. On their part, very well thought out, very well planned, just basically followed step-by-step procedures until I crossed over the border in Syria. Did you not think I'm taking my one-year-old child with me to essentially what is a war zone? Unfortunately, no. I think I was very selfish in the decisions that I made, definitely. And definitely leading up to Syria, there was no real thought for what life would be like there.

13:35Definitely, obviously, I didn't prioritise the needs of my son, unfortunately. I was very selfish in their moments. But that was a big part of the reason of why I eventually decided to escape, because I realised, look, this is really real. I've made a terrible mistake. You don't bring your children here. But were you really doing this thinking this is going to be a better way for me and my child to live? I remember speaking to people online and being like, well, if I'm there, I want to go to college. They're not saying to you, you can't work. There's no college. They're not saying to you, you know, it's bomb daily.

14:07That's not sold to you because you wouldn't go. That would be a deterrent. I was going to pursue a normal life in a war-torn country. That is crazy. As well, there was a point of me that was doing it tit-for-tat with my ex-husband. Because he was like, I'm in Yemen, I'm never coming back. Because even when I had booked my tickets to Turkey, yes, I had the idea to go to Syria. It was never 100%. Hand on heart, had he have said, I'm coming back in a few days, I would never have gone to Syria. God honest truth, I would have gone to Turkey for a holiday and come back. Unfortunately, I'm not proud to say this, it was to get one over on him as well.

14:47Very childish, very pathetic. Tarina now reflects on those decisions with regret. When she returned to Britain, investigators recovered material that painted a more complicated picture. Messages, contacts and photographs from Syria, including images of her posing with an AK-47, her young child beside her. Prosecutors argued they suggested not just someone misguided, but someone who had, for at least some time, identified with the group's extremist ideology. When you're in Syria, you're in the house, there's pictures of you, your son with a balaclava on, yourself as well with a gun, nicest fight in AK-47.

15:36people question was this a girl that was depressed just looking for a way out or was she actually taken in by that violent ideology that isis held how do you justify pictures i mean your one-year-old son with a balaclava and a gun i'm already sticking out like a sore thumb i'm just here because i want to escape i've already got eyes on me i'm also being told you know threatened to some degree of listen what we tell you to say you say it so did i go along with certain conversations did i have pictures where there was a gun in the picture? Maybe so, yes. The picture of my son. So that picture was not taken by me, was not taken on my phone.

16:14It was taken by another woman who had later sent the picture to my phone. That's what they did. They just took pictures of them wearing this balacalava and the gun was there and all of them things. With all of the kids that were there. Yes, it's a terrible picture. It's definitely not one that I had put together. It's not a picture I I would want my son to be a part of or anything. But we were living in this lifestyle and I'm just having to go along with it. Do you feel like you were sold a lie by these fighters that were talking about Islam? So for me, it was saving myself from hell. For a lot of the fighters, it was that as well.

16:47A lot of the men that were there had lived very un-Islamic lifestyles here. People went there because, oh my God, I've sold drugs my whole life. I've been with woman after woman my whole life. I've drank my whole life. I want to go to heaven. We all want to go to heaven regardless of how we live our lives. That, for them, was their golden ticket. Did you feel more connected to your faith being there? No. Less connected to the faith. Why? The actions of people there. Islam is a very kind, loving religion. And I'm like, this is the Islamic State. Where's the love? This is not what we are as Muslims.

17:29Were you praying when you were there? Yeah. And what did you pray for? To come home. Really? It's supposed to be impossible to escape from Syria. If they catch you, they will kill you. And it's not just a bullet to the head kind of death. It's a, this is ISIS, right? I knew what I was up against when I wanted to even think about escaping. So I used to pray and I used to say,

17:52Oh Allah, forgive me for what I have done. Please forgive me. and out of your mercy, allow me to make it home. Give me a second chance. Don't let it end here. Out of your mercy, please. I know I had to escape. There's no, I don't have a choice. I'm not, I am not staying here to die. There's a chance that they catch me. There's a slim chance I'll make it back. Pray to God. God, it's up to you. Take me back safely. After just eight weeks, Tarina did manage to leave IS. She says in a dramatic escape, Child in Hand, where she was helped over the border by Turkish soldiers. She was put on a plane to the UK and arrested on arrival.

18:35I'm Steve Rosenberg, the BBC's Russia editor. In Our Man in Moscow, I'll show you what it's like being a news correspondent in Russia as the Russian authorities wage war on Ukraine and try to silence dissent.

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19:43Mike and his guests offer their perspective on how policy changes could affect what you do with your portfolio. Download the latest episode and follow at schwab.com slash Washington Wise or wherever you listen. You're listening to the documentary on the BBC World Service. I'm Rajiv Gupta and for heart and soul, I'm meeting Tarina Shaquille. She was the first British woman convicted for joining the terror group ISIS. We just left one road where the Sikh temple Gurdwara are now heading to the mosque. The house that I left behind, that I ran away from essentially, was also in Birmingham. Yeah. I sometimes go and park on the road just because it's got a massive window in the bedroom that I used to stand and just stare at of at night time praying.

20:39I think you'd want to compartmentalise it, put it away. It's more to do with the progress that I've made and, like, respecting where I've come from and that I'm not that girl anymore. When that version that lived in that house that made the decision to run away to Syria isn't the girl that's sitting here speaking to you today. A decade on from her conviction, and we're back on the road with Tarina, in the city where it all began. When you're out there... Yeah. ..and you're meeting all these women, these girls, I mean, there'd be a stereotype. Yeah. Will they meet the typical stereotype of people one might expect an ISIS bride to be?

21:16Some of them were, but not a lot of them. Most of them were just normal girls from normal backgrounds. I would say there was a handful of women that were very robotic, that were like churning out the ISIS propaganda of, you know, agreeing with the evil rhetoric and wanting to be there to fight. there was probably just a handful of them women. A lot of the girls' reasons to go and live there was because they had fallen in love with a guy online. Right. And they went there to marry him. I think that as well in itself is proof that if you marry the wrong man or choose the wrong partner, it can ruin your life.

22:01Yeah. It really, really can. I mean, now you give relationship advice. And a lot of girls message you and seek advice from you. Yeah. What kind of things are they asking for? A lot of people are starting their journey in love and unfortunately if you come across the wrong person it's a game of life and death without trying to be dramatic. A lot of people lose themselves in love. A lot of people that message me have lost themselves in love and they don't know how to get back. Can you go left here at these lights? Are you allowed to turn left here? And I get a lot of Muslim girls that message me that were with guys that they thought they were going to marry, that were promised marriage and didn't happen.

22:48That wasn't the guy's real intention. And now they're in a situation where they're broken. They don't know how to move forward. They don't know... They feel like their life is over. It is mainly to do with heartbreak. We've just arrived now. We're at the Birmingham Central Mosque, one of the biggest mosques in Birmingham, if not the biggest mosque, thousands of worshippers would come here, especially on a Friday during Jum 'a prayers. And we're just outside the ladies' entrance. So when I came out of prison, I couldn't just go to any mosque, right? I would have to go to only one mosque that the police had chosen for me and they would do a formal proper disclosure with the head of the mosque.

23:28This was the mosque that they chose for me. I didn't really come to the mosque a lot when I was on licence because I was just doing other things and I wanted to just practice my faith myself and I didn't want to be a part of... Like, I'll be Muslim by myself. I don't need to be a part of the mosque. I don't need to join that. I can worship Allah by myself. I'm not ready to, like, join the masses again, as it were. Do you feel nervous? Yeah, because, I mean, the last time I joined the masses, it ended terribly for me, you know, so... What were you nervous about? I had a lot of questions and a lot of, like, okay, a lot of grey areas when it came to it, So I wasn't quite ready to join or go there, really.

24:07I was on my own little journey with Islam. Now I've got a very beautiful relationship with Islam. And I do. I do come to the mosque often, actually. So if I'm out and about and I need to pray, this is the mosque that I'll come to. What changed? What made that switch for you? I think it came with time. And I think it came with when I started praying five times a day again. all the areas of my life you know were improving and I just had a bit more clarity and I just felt a bit more at ease with myself it was one of the ramadans maybe not last year or the year before I'd go for the night time prayer there and I just remember thinking oh yeah this is beautiful this is peaceful since then I've never looked back I've been praying five times a day I've never missed a single prayer and it just felt natural and I'm just at a good place with it Do you still believe in the concept of an Islamic state?

25:02You went there because you bought into the idea of this Islamic country, this kind of paradise living under Sharia. What you found, you say, was completely different, wasn't Islamic at all. Today, do you still believe in the concept of living in that way? I do have a strong pull to live in a Muslim country. Not because I hate my own country, absolutely not. this is home, England is home I love this country, I'm half English but yeah I find comfort in Islam I find I'm drawn towards that Is there anything Islamic about the Islamic State? There was a lot of things that would happen over there that are not Islamic the fighters would fight against each other and like start shooting against each other you don't do that in Islam and then they would steal like you know booty or whatever it is spoils of war they'd shoot each other over that non-Muslims are supposed to be safe from Muslims.

25:55Like if there ever was an Islamic state, non-Muslims, Christian, Jews, whatever, you live alongside them in peace. You definitely don't kill them. Aid workers that have gone to Syria to help Muslims, to kill them? Absolutely not. They've put their life on the line as it is to go and help Muslims, whether they're Muslim or not. So there were a lot of things, definitely the level of violence. Do you feel ashamed that you're now considered somehow part of that? I feel very, very bad that I have contributed to the negative perception of Islam, to some degree, definitely. Because Islam is not that.

26:38Islam is beautiful. And I feel really bad that, hold on, well, you did something that contributed really badly to Islam and that shows Islam in a very bad way. you know look I've had a lot of time to think since coming back and and I do have loads of shameful moments where I think about my god you actually did that I can't quite come to terms with it or like I couldn't even answer myself the questions that I had you know about taking your child to such a place I often over the years have literally just sat there and been like how could you do that I can't I can't answer that question to myself very embarrassed very ashamed about that and also you know but to bring it back to isis things that they did and like killing in the manner that they did and then you sit there and you think to yourself yet you still weren't there to live there like you know that you don't kill people anyway never mind in such a manner and i remember when i was found guilty i sat and i wrote a letter to myself and i basically said that how on earth a girl like me has ended up in prison is extraordinary.