AN expert on Islamophobia is promoting his book by sharing a platform with Asim Qureshi, a campaigner who has praised terrorists including describing British Islamic State executioner Jihadi John as a “beautiful young man”.

Middlesex University lecturer Dr Tarek Younis said Dr Qureshi, whose advocacy group, CAGE, has been condemned as an apologist for terror, “directly helped shape the book”.

Next week the pair are due to discuss the book, The Muslim, State and Mind, published last December, which questions why “CAGE in the UK are vilified and explicitly denied state support”.

In his book, Dr Younis says this is because “the way Muslims receive funding is conditional on their framing”.

“If initiatives hit certain state-approved buzzwords, like integration and extremism, this facilitates their approval,” he writes.

Asim Qureshi GettyImages-464514804

Asim Qureshi of Cage (Getty Images)

Dr Younis’s book cites Dr Qureshi’s research that claims Muslim’s are being subjected to so-called “pre-crime” tests in Britain’s prisons and mental health institutions.

His book claims Muslims, including those claiming “the state of Israel is racist”, are being wrongly targeted by the UK’s anti-extremism legislation due to the “definition of anti-semitism… [and] its slippery overlap with anti-Zionism”.

The book says the UK’s Extremism Risk Guidance — part of the government’s counter-extremism strategy — “was rolled out on the presumption that it could help identify individuals who may commit acts of violence in the future”.

Dr Younis claims it is now being widely used to “screen all their patients for extremism” and leading to Muslims being wrongly singled out.

In 2015, when Mohammed Emwazi, known as Jihadi John, appeared in videos beheading Western hostages in Iraq, Dr Qureshi said he had turned to violence because MI5 “destroying his life”.

On February 10 Dr Younis posted a criticism of William Shawcross’s damning review of the government’s Prevent programme, which claimed a song by controversial rapper Lowkey “promoted an antisemitic conspiracy theory”.

In response, Dr Younis offered “intense congrats” on Twitter to the rapper for “Best Song to be Cited in Government Report”. Dr Younis was contacted for comment.