Arriving in Swat in 1969, he was impressed by the tribal way of life and (unlike most of his fellow hippies) settled in the area, learning Pashto and Dari (he speaks a total of seven languages).[2]
He converted to Islam in 1970. He studied for eight years at Darul Uloom Deoband in India, graduating in 1984, the only Westerner to do so since its foundation in 1866. In Deoband, he studied under the scholars like Saeed Ahmad Palanpuri.[3] Although he continued to live mainly in Swat, he began spending part of each year as the Muslim chaplain at Cambridge University.[2] He left Swat in 2010 when his house was washed away by floods.[1]
When the Taliban began to gain influence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, he saw their radical interpretation of Islam to be in conflict with the traditional Islamic tolerance of tribal culture. In response, he established the Pak/Afghan Cross-border Radio Training and Production (Pact) project in 2004, producing the Da Pulay Poray (Across the Border) programme to confront what he saw as Islamic extremism.[2]
He has continued to promote what he sees as 'mainstream' Islam, and has been among those pressing ahead with plans for a new Islamic university in Jalalabad, offering a moderate alternative to radical clerics:
It makes perfect sense. There is currently nowhere in Afghanistan where a young man can do higher Islamic studies. They go to Pakistan, where as we know some of them have become radicalised.[1]
