In 2023, several photos surfaced of Andrew Tate holding a copy of the Quran while he was still in custody in Romania. Standing next to his brother Tristan, Tate was seen holding the religious book during court appearances, usually handcuffed or surrounded by police officers and screaming photographers or journalists.
Tate was very specific with his imagery. The Quran tells many stories of persecuted people, explains how to overcome adversity, can also indicate a change in one's point of view, and says that you are ready to start over and become a humble servant of Allah.
The photos were the first time the general public saw Tate's commitment to his faith, but a year earlier he had already declared that he had converted to Islam.
READ MORE: 'I didn't want to leave the house today' - What it's like to wear a hijab on the streets of Manchester this weekJust a few months earlier, Tate had posted on the microblogging site Gettr, saying, "This is why I am a Muslim. Every Christian who believes in good and understands the true fight against evil must convert. So be patient, the promise of Allah is TRUTH" Quran 30:60."
Reactions were mixed, with not many in the community taking him seriously, such was his reputation as a master of rampant misogyny and online trolling. Tate was also the latest speaker from the seedier corners of the internet to convert to an Abrahamic religion as a supposed antidote to 'wokeness', using religion as a cover for their views on masculinity, gender roles and the LGBTQIA+ community.
Muslim women were understandably concerned about his interest in Islam and the way he might use its teachings to influence perceptions of gender roles and views of Muslim women.
But Muslim women weren't Tate's target, it was Muslim men. He began collaborating with prominent Muslim content creators like Mohammed Hijab and videos of him praying were shared.
"We saw the first video of him praying in the mosque with a brother called Tam Khan, and that confirmed that he had indeed converted. After that video it was just pure happiness," content creator Danzy, who makes TikTok videos about Islamic news, told ITV News when asked about Tate's conversion to Islam.
Andrew Tate rose to fame as a kickboxer turned social media influencer. Over the years, he has built a following among young men with materialistic and misogynistic content.
In a video, Tate describes what he would do if a woman accused him of cheating, saying, "It's, take the machete, pop her in the face, grab her by the neck. Shut up, bitch."
In another video, he explains why he moved to Romania: "I'm not a rapist, but I just like the idea of being able to do what I want. I like being free."
His influence waned when he, his brother and two Romanian female suspects were arrested on charges of rape, human trafficking and organised crime. They all denied the charges and in March 2023 the Tate brothers were placed under house arrest pending a criminal investigation.
On April 26, the Bucharest court ruled that the prosecutors' case against Tate met the legal criteria and that a trial could begin. However, no date has yet been set for the start of the trial.
'A similar phenomenon'
Despite the warnings, Andrew Tate managed to gain a significant number of Muslim followers, began quoting scriptures from the Quran, founded a charity organization called 'Tatepledge' and began expressing support for the Palestinian people during the disturbing conflict in Gaza.
Before he could mobilize a Muslim fan base, Tate had already cultivated a following in various circles that comprise and in some ways overlap the manosphere-from martial arts fans to vaccine skeptics. And his reductive, toxic framing of masculinity also appealed to members of the far right and alt-right.
Tate has a long history of speaking from a right-wing perspective. In 2023, he announced that he would endorse Donald Trump in the 2024 election, speaking on his livestreamed podcast called Tatespeech.
During the session he said, "Yes, we all want Trump to win, that would be great for the culture.
"But then, even though the right-wing culture is hyper-competitive, it is real men who run the world."
During the general election, he and his brother organised a similar rally, at which Tristan threw his full support behind Farage and the Reform Party.
While Andrew Tate didn't go so far as to back Farage, he did detail points Farage agreed with during the stream, saying: "The second thing (Farage) said about the 50,000 boats, I totally agree with that. We need a Prime Minister who is prepared to do the right thing and actually stop these boats.
"But you cannot stop these boats with anything less than lethal force."
Meanwhile, Farage described Andrew Tate as an "important voice" for men and went on to say that he and Tate are part of a "similar phenomenon", and that both have indeed used social media to grow their audiences.
After the general election, a YouGov poll found that more people aged 18 to 30 voted for the Reform Party than for the Conservatives. The YouGov poll of 35,000 people found that 12 per cent of men aged 18 to 24 supported Reform, compared with 6 per cent of women who voted. And of all voters with a GCSE or lower as their highest qualification, almost 23 per cent of voters supported Reform.
Reform's success on social media - primarily TikTok, the same space where Tate racked up more than 11 billion views before being booted from the platform for "content that attacks, threatens, incites violence against, or otherwise dehumanises an individual or group" - is seen by political commentators as a key factor in winning the youth vote. The right-wing party has the most followers on the app of any political party, with 257,000 followers.
When it comes to reform, this year's election campaign was also notable for the repeated accusations of Islamophobia leveled at people associated with the party. And Tate's outbursts would soon lead to him being accused of inciting people with his own inflammatory tropes.
Agent provocateur
When the horrific incident that killed Elsie Dot Stancombe, Alice Dasilva Aguiar and Bebe King occurred, rumors began circulating about the identity of the killer, namely a Muslim immigrant. Instead of calling for a period of mourning, peace and space to allow the authorities to do their job, Andrew Tate took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to further spread the misinformation about the suspect to his 9.8 million followers.
Tate had a decision to make. He had to join his new brothers and sisters who had welcomed him into the Islamic religion-and even protested him-or he had to sell far-right talking points.
On July 29, Tate released a video titled "ILLEGAL MIGRANTS Stab Six Little Girls. Wake Up."
In the video he says things like, "The soul of the Western man is so broken that when the invaders slaughter your daughters, you do nothing at all," and "If you never pull the trigger, you will never have a border. If you are not willing to use live ammunition, you will never have a border."
He followed the video by posting an AI image of an apparently Asian man on a rubber dinghy with wads of cash in one hand and a knife in the other. The caption read, "A typical Cardiff man," which was Tate mocking the police's attempts to suppress the rumours that were dangerously gaining traction.
Videos like Tate's only confirmed the bias of an angry mob looking for a scapegoat.
Since the days of far-right riots on our streets, ethnic minorities, particularly Muslims, have been living in fear following attacks on mosques and asylum centres. If Tate claims to be as great an intellectual as he is, he would surely have understood the actions that such divisive and violent language can do in the face of rising Islamophobia and prejudice that lumps together all those deemed 'different' - and holds them collectively responsible for individual crimes.
Andrew Tate may still be a Muslim, but his actions have done little to show that he has fully understood what it means to be a Muslim. In Islam, worshippers have a responsibility for other people and how they treat them.
The Quran dictates that man must live in harmony, must work together and that all are created equal. Life is sacred in Islam and a true Muslim is distinguished by the love for humanity for the sake of Allah and by not allowing any political agenda to stand in the way.
Tate has since denied all claims that he incited the riots, but has admitted he was wrong to call the suspect an illegal migrant, as this was factually incorrect during an interview with Piers Morgan. In the interview he said: "I have already answered that it was incorrect to say he was an illegal migrant, he was a migrant."
He then said: "However, there are huge numbers of crimes being committed by illegal migrants and I don't think the country is safe as long as they are allowed to enter the country."
During the same interview, Tate claims he never mentioned the suspect's religion. He also claims there is "no hate in his heart" and that he has seen little backlash to his actions from members of the Muslim community.
"I never said he was Muslim, I never said he was Syrian, I never said he was on the MI6 watchlist. The only thing I could have done wrong was he was an undocumented migrant," he told Morgan.
He then added: "I pray for my brothers and the comments and information I saw were not hateful from the Islamic community.
"I want to make it very clear. I lead with love in my heart. The Islam I was taught is one of peace and tolerance. There is no living person who can force me to take sides or hate anyone else."
Sadly, the damage has already been done. Security guards are being deployed at local mosques across the country due to safety concerns, and Muslim women are visibly unsure whether or not to leave their homes after recent events.
To me, Tate's actions were the sign of a man who was aware of his influence and yet chose to throw us to the wolves.