Leaving Isis: Is redemption possible?
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 6 March 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 2014, Tareena Shakil, then 24, made a decision that would change her life forever. She secretly left the UK, telling her family she was on holiday, and travelled with her young son to Syria to join the Islamic State group. Within months she found herself in the heart of the extremist stronghold and later fled to Turkey before returning to the UK, where she was arrested and became one of the first British women to be convicted for membership of Isis and encouraging terrorism. Shakil was sentenced to six years in prison but was released after serving half her term. In the years since, she has publicly expressed regret for her actions, accepted responsibility for lying about her journey when first questioned by police, and described her experience as a time when she “lost her way”. Rajeev Gupta meets Tareena in Birmingham as she reflects on a path that took her from belief to extremism. This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from Heart and Soul, exploring personal approaches to spirituality from around the world.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:07.6 | The bombs were starting to become more frequent. They never missed the target. I prayed. |
| 0:13.4 | Oh, Allah, please give me a second chance of life. I remember thinking to myself one day in Syria. |
| 0:18.7 | I should have had this thought beforehand, really. |
| 0:23.9 | Children look to their parents to protect them, don't they? |
| 0:27.7 | And to keep them out of harm's way. And I remember thinking, |
| 0:34.1 | you are responsible for the safety of this child, but you've brought him here. |
| 0:39.6 | I'm living in the middle of ISIS. I'm scared right now. Heaven forbid he dies or you both die. Any time now, if I say that will happen. Terina Shaquil took her baby's son and |
| 0:46.7 | travelled to Syria, convinced she was answering a call of faith. She left her life in the English |
| 0:52.5 | Midlands in search of what she thought would be a new |
| 0:55.8 | beginning in the Islamic state. I think more in terms of the ISIS thing, it was a sense of belonging |
| 1:04.1 | and you have to be here, not only to save yourself from how, because in the Hadith, they speak about |
| 1:10.2 | only the best of Muslims will go and be there. It's not talking about ISIS in the Hadith, they speak about only the best of Muslims will go and be there. |
| 1:12.6 | It's not talking about ISIS in the Hadith, but that's obviously not told to you. |
| 1:16.6 | A 26-year-old British mother who took her toddler son to Syria has been convicted of supporting the Islamic State. |
| 1:22.6 | She was found guilty in Britain of joining the Islamic group and encouraging terrorism on social media. |
| 1:28.0 | But the reality of living life under Sharia law was not what she dreamt of. |
| 1:33.8 | She returned home and became the first British woman to be convicted of joining IS. |
| 1:39.4 | Today, she has had a decade to reflect on the consequences of that decision. |
| 1:45.5 | I'm Rijeev Gupta and this is the documentary on the BBC World Service. |
| 1:50.0 | For Heart and Soul, I've come to Birmingham where her journey to Raka began. |
| 1:55.3 | Should we get going? |
... |
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