I shared garlic naan with people who would later become major figures in Isis – this is what I learnt

It’s a peculiar feeling when you recognise someone you know on your television screen. You rifle through unimportant events archived in the back of your mind, trying to put a name to a face.

Around a year ago, I had this very experience as I watched the Isis executioner dubbed Jihadi John’s replacement unveiled as the UK national Abu Rumaysah. This man was said to appear in a gruesome video where, at the end, he addressed the camera and promised to wreak havoc on the West. It was at this point my mind clicked, and the name was connected to a face.

Said face belonged to a struggling bouncy castle salesman whom I once shared a garlic naan with in the dingy basement of a restaurant in Leyton – the same Abu Rumaysah now flexing his (frankly lacking) oratorical muscles on the six o’clock news.

What had taken me to that underground eatery was the firebrand hate preacher Anjem Choudary. Anjem now resides in Belmarsh prison after being sentenced to five and a half years for swearing allegiance to Isis. However back in late 2014, when he was a free man, I spent some time with him and his followers.

Despite having led two proscribed Islamist groups, al-Muhajiroun and Islam4UK, Anjem was using a website to spread his love of everything sharia, and hate of everything Western. Among the self-aggrandising videos of his media performances and promotion of his newest venture “The Islamic Roadshow”, there was a contact telephone number.

After a brief telephone conversation where I expressed my desire to spend some time with him and his followers, Anjem invited me to be “vetted” the very next morning. I arrived in Walthamstow at the designated café where I was led into a backroom by the man himself, for my supposed vetting to take place. Almost immediately after we sat down, a worker from the café entered the room with that symbol of American excess, an ice-cream sundae, and placed it in front of Anjem. I remember thinking, was it stranger for a self-confessed Islamist to enjoy the gluttonous embodiment of the Great Satan or the fact this was in all likelihood his breakfast?

Anjem launched into his usual diatribe, stating that liberalism, freedom, and democracy were actually forms of oppression. At the crescendo of his monologue, he took his sweetened preserved cherry by the stalk and ate it, ending both his ridiculous meal and claims.

His form of vetting me seemed to consist of sharing his shocking views and then judging my initial reaction to hearing them. This was easily combatted by asking him a question on his other favourite topic: himself.

On the subject of Lee Rigby, a talking point often associated with him due to his connection to one of the killers, Anjem reeled off his well-rehearsed bile that he didn’t think it was correct for any Muslim to feel sorry for the death of a non-Muslim, and that anyone who dies in a state of heresy is destined for hellfire. At the end of our meeting, Anjem invited me to attend his upcoming Islamic Roadshow in Finsbury Park, where I would be able to spend more time with him and followers.

I arrived on the day of the roadshow to find around 10 devotees, including failed bouncy castle salesman Abu Rumaysah. The set up was laden with amateurish sharia leaflets, balanced on a collapsible table more suited a child’s birthday party, adorned with messages asserting that supremacy is for none but Allah banners, rather than party rings and sausage rolls.

All the while, Anjem beamed at his disciples, a megaphone at his side, ready to convey his harsh messages of Islamic supremacy. Another element which certainly added to the grandiose occasion of the roadshow was its location, situated directly outside the Arsenal FC club shop.

I spent time chatting to the Anjem’s devotees, some of whom I found to be eloquent and adept at the mental gymnastics required to rationalise their frankly bizarre perceptions of the world.

However, most seemed to fit the cliqued profile of wayward and lost youths, instilled with a sense of belonging and purpose listening to Anjem work his trusty megaphone with declarations of the benefits to our impending sharia law takeover.

One follower in particular struck my attention as he unsuccessfully attempted to hand out fliers outside to bemused shoppers, surprised to be confronted by Islamic radicalism, rather than overpriced football merchandise.

Striking up a conversation, I asked him if he supported a particular football team he replied that football could not be condoned due to the un-Islamic attire, promotion of free mixing between sexes and that, ultimately, football sought to put glory on to something besides Allah. However, after a slight pause, he did sheepishly admit that if it wasn’t for his dedication to his faith, he would be an Arsenal fan.

Throughout the day, I witnessed heated arguments between members of the public, most of whom were Muslim, and Anjem’s troupe. The overriding sentiment I gauged was one of general annoyance rather than panic over the impending declaration of a caliphate here in Finsbury Park. Presumably, the idea of the Emirates being used as an open-air execution theatre was more far-fetched than frightening.

I was standing in the middle of one of the largest communities of Muslims in London, and almost all treated him and his rhetoric with the same level of ambivalence and irritation usually reserved for overenthusiastic high street charity workers.

After packing away the table, and the largely untouched leaflets, I was invited along for a self-congratulatory meal, where toasts were made to the success of the day and Britain’s inevitable destiny as a sharia state.

This is how I ended up sitting next to Abu Rumaysah.

My final question to Anjem was what does winning look like for him?

His reply was: “There are two types of victory, there is the divine victory that is the paradise we strive for and then there is the victory in this life, the victory in this life is to see Islam prevail, the domination of the world by Islam and all the rules within society being according to the sharia.”

Now I can’t speak as to the possibility of a divine victory, but as for Anjem’s victory in life, he now resides in a small, uncomfortable cell for his actions.

There is a tendency to portray him and others like him as cunning villains meticulously planning the end of Western civilization. To do this pays them credit they are far from deserving of. His views are extreme to the point of ridicule, and while his rhetoric certainly influenced the individuals like Abu Rumaysah, he has no audience beyond a sad, small group of strays and hangers on.

In truth, Anjem and his disciples were far more similar to the eponymous Four Lions of Chris Morris’s 2010 comedy than four horsemen of the apocalypse they see themselves as.