Distinguished friends
Sukhpal Singh Ahluwalia
Riz Ahmed
Sughra Ahmed
Keith Ajegbo
George Alagiah
Claire Alexander
Peter Atkins
Julian Baggini
Richard Beswick
Dinesh Bhugra
Karan Bilimoria
Geoffrey Bindman
Karen Blackett
Nicholas Blake
Ian Blatchford
David Blunkett
Achim Borchardt-Hume
Mihir Bose
Alain de Botton
John Bowers
Des Browne
Rickie Burman
Paul Canoville
Saimo Chahal
Reeta Chakrabarti
Shami Chakrabarti
Stephen Claypole
Robin Cohen
Linda Colley
David Crystal
Angélica Dass
Prakash Daswani
Navnit Dholakia
Ibrahim Dogus
Lloyd Dorfman
Alf Dubs
John Dyson
Damien Egan
Shreela Flather
Daniel Franklin
Edie Friedman
Manjit Singh Gill
Teresa Graham
Susie Harries
Naomie Harris
James Hathaway
David Hencke
Sophie Herxheimer
Afua Hirsch
Michael Howard
Clive Jacobs
Kevin Jennings
Adrian Johns
Shobu Kapoor
Jackie Kay
Ayub Khan-Din
Francesca Klug
Tony Kushner
Kwasi Kwarteng
Kwame Kwei-Armah
David Kynaston
Brian Lambkin
Mark Lewisohn
Joanna Lumley
Michael Mansfield
Sue McAlpine
Neil Mendoza
David Miles
Abigail Morris
Hugh Muir
Tessa Murdoch
Sandy Nairne
Bushra Nasir
Susheila Nasta
Eithne Nightingale
John O’Farrell
Kenneth Olisa
Kunle Olulode
David Olusoga
Julia Onslow-Cole
John Orna-Ornstein
Herman Ouseley
Ruth Padel
Panikos Panayi
Bhikhu Parekh
Nikesh Patel
David Pearl
Caryl Phillips
Mike Phillips
Trevor Phillips
Sunand Prasad
Aubrey Rose
Michael Rosen
Cathy Ross
Salman Rushdie
Jill Rutter
Philippe Sands
Konrad Schiemann
Richard Scott
Stephen Sedley
Maggie Semple
Saira Shah
Babita Sharma
Nikesh Shukla
Jon Snow
Robert Soning
David Spence
Danny Sriskandarajah
Stelio Stefanou
Dick Taverne
Robert Tombs
Rumi Verjee
Patrick Vernon
Edmund de Waal
Iqbal Wahhab
Yasmin Waljee
Jake Wallis Simons
David Warren
Iain Watson
Henning Wehn
Janet Whitaker
Gary Younge
Benjamin Zephaniah
Our nation's history in the movement of people is directly connected with who we are and how we've come to be in Britain.
Today this work is critical in enabling generations to feel a sense of rootedness in who they are, especially young people.
Sughra Ahmed
Sughra Ahmed is Programmes Manager at the Woolf Institute in the Centre for Policy and Public Education, where she has responsibility for the design and delivery of research and training on issues such as faith, belief, communities and integration. She is also a Yale World Fellow.
Previously, she worked as Research Fellow in the Policy Research Centre where she explored the migratory and settlement experiences of first generation Muslim women and men in the UK (www.generation1.org.uk), and worked with a number of organisations to consider the issues young people face whilst growing up in the UK and the impact of this on wider British communities.
She has published a number of papers and key reports: Seen and Not Heard: Voices of Young British Muslims (2009) and British by Dissent (2014). She is active in interfaith and intercultural work to help build stronger and more effective relationships across communities of faith and belief.
Sughra is a Trustee of the Inter Faith Network UK, Chair of the Islamic Society of Britain, a Specialist for the Christian Muslim Forum, and a research associate with St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge. Sughra has a BA (Hons) English Language and Literature and an MA Islamic Studies; she is a qualified Chaplain and holds a Diploma in Islamic Jurisprudence. She regularly contributes to debates in the media and is a contributor to Radio 4’s Thought for the Day. In 2014 she was awarded the Noor Inayat Khan Memorial Award for Muslim Woman of the Year at the British Muslim Awards.