Maldives’ jihadist currents are a bigger threat than India

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The men, journalist Michael Van Es recorded , “grew their beards and hair, took to wearing loose robes and pyjamas, and crowned their heads with Arab-style head-cloths”. “Women were wrapped up in black robes. Goats were imported, and fishermen gave up their vocation to become shepherds.” Invisible to the gaze of President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s grim autocracy in Malé, Fareed inspired the island’s residents to build a state modelled on the Prophet Muhammad’s proto-state in Medina, like the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan. From the beach the colour of molten silver, crowned by coconut palms that reached the sky, the...