My brother died for Britain and Islam says family of first soldier to be killed fighting the Taliban

A visiting imam lambasted the young serviceman, and fears that Islamist groups would disrupt funeral proceedings at the Central Jamia mosque in Birmingham prompted the West Midlands police to provide an escort for the funeral cortege.

In the event, the funeral passed without incident. Zeeshan says he is not surprised by the number of wellwishers who packed the mosque's prayer hall for Jabron's final rites: "He was my brother, but he didn't just belong to me. He was from the community and represented them."

Jabron's family live among the rows of anonymous terraced houses in Small Heath, an area of acute Muslim concentration in Birmingham. Over coffee at their house, Zeeshan and his sister Zoubia admit that they found Jabron's critics "hypocritical" and suggest that extremists are "creating greater divides in society", but they refuse to condemn those who celebrated Jabron's death.

"They have their opinions," Zeeshan says, "but they're not something I'd ever accept."

Born and raised in Pakistan's lawless North West Frontier Province, just 40 minutes from the Afghan border, Zeeshan and his brother were enrolled on a "hafiz" course in their local madrasah, a process by which students commit the Koran to memory.

The family moved to Birmingham in 1994, when Zeeshan went to college to take his GCSEs. He served as a soldier in 2000-5, completing two tours of duty in Afghanistan.

"I chose to be here," he says, "and we should be like anyone else and give back to our society in whatever way, whether it's joining the army or the civil service or being a doctor - that's up to you."

Zeeshan says that before joining the British Army he visited Pakistan and told an imam of his intentions. "He was delighted," Zeeshan says.

He understands why many young Muslims are finding it difficult to unravel what they regard as competing loyalties, but says the upbringing that he and Jabron enjoyed meant this was never a problem.

What worries him is that his brother's death may somehow have inspired the plot to kidnap and kill a Muslim British soldier. It was - literally - close to home. Khan was arrested during raids on a dozen addresses in the Hashmi family's neighbourhood, including a bookshop in an adjacent street.

Khan's plot marks a worrying shift in Al-Qaeda's strategy in the West.

Whereas previous acts of terrorism have been indiscriminate, threatening the population as a whole, this plot was more specific, targeting Muslims whom Khan regarded as traitors because they were collaborating with the security apparatus of the British state. The message he intended to send to other Muslims was clear: if you integrate, you are a target for attack.

As a former soldier himself, Zeeshan is philosophical about the dangers faced by Muslim servicemen. "Extremism has always existed.

Previously the IRA killed off-duty servicemen. As a soldier you know what you're getting into," he says. "Obviously I'm aware, but I'm not really scared."

He accepts that fears of reprisals have discouraged some Muslims from joining the army, but admits that there are other difficulties too.

"I'm glad I wasn't deployed to Iraq," he concedes. "But if I had been asked to go, I would have gone. It's a professional army and you go where the orders are given."

He tells me that most of his Muslim friends in the army have been deployed to Iraq, but fails to see how their personal reservations, either about the conflict's validity or about the shambolic and largely nonexistent reconstruction planning, are any different from the concerns of their nonMuslim counterparts. "You do your job and raise your concerns within the system, just like any ordinary citizen," he says, before pointing out the violence that Muslims have inflicted against one another, particularly in Pakistan and Iraq.

Explaining Jabron's motivation to join the army, Zeeshan quotes the prophet Muhammad saying that actions are judged by intention.

"He went to Afghanistan hoping to build bridges between the East and the West. He combined his love of Islam with the love of Britain and his main reason for joining the army was to make a difference. He certainly did that."

His commitment is something that the family is keen to honour. Two pictures of Jabron, dressed in full military regalia and beaming with a glowing smile, have pride of place in the living room, alongside copies of the Koran and rolled-up prayer mats.

His mother and three sisters were also invited to lay the foundation stone for a new war memorial unveiled by the Queen last year in Staffordshire to commemorate British soldiers killed since 1945 in conflicts, peacekeeping missions and terrorist attacks.

"Has all this been worth it?" I ask. Zeeshan points out that the timing of Jabron's death was significant. Coming just days before the first anniversary of the July 7 attacks, it contrasted the positive contribution that young Muslims can make against the horrors they have sometimes perpetrated.

Although some of the arrested men behind the latest plot were taken from within his own community, Zeeshan is sanguine but not naive about the future.

"We all have to break the barriers ourselves. Jabron's death reflects on Muslims generally, not just my family," he says. "Being Muslim does not restrict us from bring British."