'We're not going anywhere' Scot who led UK's Muslims on Islamophobia

The Herald Scotland

15-06-2025

Memories of being physically confronted by a screaming racist on the London underground. Laughter.
Recalling the Tory Party's attempt to label her an extremist. Laughter.
Describing the violence her dad faced from the National Front. Laughter.
It's an understandable defence mechanism. At just 29, Mohammed scored an astonishing hat-trick, becoming the first woman, youngest person, and first Scot to lead the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). The experience, however, was deeply bruising.
She took the organisation, which represents Britain's Muslims, through its most stormy period since September 11, navigating events like Gaza and the far-right riots.
Mohammed doesn't hide the toll it took on her mental health. So using laughter as a barrier between her and the past seems psychologically sound.
She's now stepped down, and giving her first major interview since the job ended to the Herald on Sunday.
(Image: Zara Mohammed, former secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain) HOSTILE
'The first year was a baptism of fire. I was desperate to prove myself,' she says. She worked relentlessly every day from 8am to 10pm. 'I really struggled with sleeping and eating. I was stressed out. I realised I couldn't continue if I carried on like that. But lots of people were counting on me so I had to take care of myself. It was a difficult journey.'
Her election as leader caused 'hysteria', she says. It confounded stereotypes of both who spoke for Britain's Muslims, and the role of women in Islam. Shortly after she became leader, Mohammed took part in what she calls 'my famous Women's Hour interview'. Presenter Emma Barnett was accused of being 'strikingly hostile'.
Hostility, though, was to become standard. She served the maximum four years as secretary-general, and looking back, Mohammed says, 'I keep thinking, how did I survive?'. Her defensive laugh returns. 'Being Britain's most senior Muslim was a really difficult experience. I was dealing with a tidal wave of very negative, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant hysteria. The political and media narrative was so nasty and toxic. I was constantly on the back-foot.'
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Her hardest battle was with the former Conservative government. 'I was in a deeply charged Islamophobic environment,' Mohammed explains. 'The Conservatives were getting further and further to the right.'
There have been long-running claims of Islamophobia within the Conservative Party. Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman once claimed 'Islamists' ran Britain.
The biggest showdown Mohammed faced centred on Michael Gove. Last March, the Daily Mail reported that the then communities secretary was considering branding the MCB extremist. The move would have been catastrophic for the organisation and Mohammed.
The report caused outrage, however. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York attacked Gove's plans. Eventually the MCB - which threatened legal action - wasn't listed as extremist. The affair was 'sinister', Mohammed says. The MCB was never told under what 'criteria' it was judged extreme.
If the MCB had been labelled extremist, then by extension so would Britain's entire Muslim community. 'We're the majority representative body,' Mohammed said. 'Once you say we're extreme, you're saying the community is extreme.
'I went on Newsnight and said 'my background in is international human rights law, and now you're saying I head an extremist organisation'. What on Earth is happening? There was no basis for it.
'If they could have, they would have, but there was a lot of pushback. It would have been the nail in the coffin to shut us out and marginalise mainstream British Muslims from public life. It was about keeping us on the fringe. It was really quite dangerous and dark. That affected my mental health.'
She feels Gove has an 'ideological position' on Islam and amplified misinformation against British Muslims. The MCB was denied access to government throughout the period of Conservative rule. 'I don't get why we're the bogeyman. Why not just speak to us? What are they afraid of?'
(Image: The biggest showdown Mohammed faced centred on Michael Gove)
RIOTS
Indeed, Mohammed believes Conservatives 'should look in the mirror' regarding extremism. Liz Truss, she notes, met with former Donald Trump adviser, Steve Bannon, 'a convicted criminal who praised Tommy Robinson'.
Bannon was found guilty of contempt of Congress after refusing to appear before the US Capitol riots hearing. Robinson is prominent in Britain's far-right, and has multiple criminal convictions. His real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. He was accused of fomenting last summer's riots.
Mohammed says Conservative 'rhetoric was deeply charged and extremist and had a negative impact' on Muslims. 'Gove was part of a wider issue. Media narratives were stoking tensions'.
British Muslims feel 'securitised. It's grim.' She laughs defensively again. 'I was possibly going to head an organisation considered extreme. That was really serious. What did it mean for my life, my colleagues, our members? It was so damaging. Institutionalised Islamophobia definitely exists.'
When the MCB asked the Equalities and Human Rights Commission to investigate Tory Party Islamophobia, Mohammed was told 'they couldn't take the case forward. There wasn't a will to look into it further. There was a clear case, but they didn't proceed. They looked into anti-semitism in the Labour Party'.
Prominent Muslim women Conservatives have highlighted Islamophobia in the party.
The MCB was 'shut out of government since 2010 when the Conservatives took over. The non-engagement continued into this new Labour government. I did lots of relationship-building with the shadow cabinet, but when the general election happened, we still didn't get engagement, particularly during the riots - that was really disappointing. That necessitated engagement.
'How can you not talk to the biggest Muslim representative body whose communities are being attacked? I went to Belfast and sat with the Northern Ireland government. I talked to the Scottish Government. Others were onboard, but the UK government was still adhering to this non-engagement position which hasn't changed.'
Mohammed added: 'Being treated as a potential extremist organisation was deeply distressing. Our members are ordinary people - professionals, students, parents … It wasn't just a period of deep anxiety, it felt deeply personal. There was a profound sense of injustice.'
She spoke of how 'painful' it was to see the MCB's 'community-led work cast under suspicion simply because it's Muslim-led.
'It also highlighted something bigger: the systemic nature of Islamophobia, and the ease with which Muslim civil society is viewed through a lens of security rather than service. It was difficult to comprehend that this could happen, and even harder to sit with the fear of what it would mean if we were labelled extreme.'
Mohammed had to overcome prejudice about her age and sex as well as her race. 'People called me 'token',' she adds.
(Image: Mohammed doesn't hide the toll her role took on her mental health)
IMAMS
Within the Muslim community, she faced little sexism, but much ageism. 'The toughest part was my youth, not gender. Many struggle taking direction from young people.' She laughs again. Mohammed, though, won over 'male conservative' Muslims. 'They saw what I was doing in terms of representation and defending our communities. They appreciated my visibility'.
The fact that so many 'men, imams, mosques and community leaders' voted for her as MCB leader smashed stereotypes about Muslim women.
The pressures of the job meant she became obsessed with social media. 'I was literally glued to my phone, always nervous about the next breaking news story'. Threats, intimidation and online abuse 'came with the territory'.
A tweet about her from someone like Tommy Robinson unleashed 'hundreds and hundreds of nasty, vile comments'.
During the far-right riots, Mohammed had to take extra security precautions around travel and information about her location. 'As every year went on, my heightened level of security increased.'
On the London Underground, the day the general election was called, a man shouting about Muslims 'effing taking over' approached her and tried to touch her legs. He said to a colleague 'just let me touch her, and was swearing about 'England's gone to eff'. It was three in the afternoon. I think it was just my visibility as a Muslim woman'.
Claims by the MP Lee Anderson, now in Reform, that 'Islamists' had 'got control' of the London Mayor Sadiq Khan emboldened racists, Mohammed says. 'This doesn't happen in a vacuum'.
When she took over the MCB, Mohammed wanted to 'push aside the 9-11 shadow and say it's a new time for us. I wanted to shift the wider narrative about who British Muslims are, and create a new narrative about belonging'. She regrets that so much time was taken up 'firefighting'.
'The scale of Islamophobia is unprecedented right now. According to government statistics, 40% of all religiously motivated hate crime is against Muslims,' she says. 'Most people in Muslim communities don't even report hate crime, though. They think nobody will take it seriously. Often they're made to feel like the suspect rather than victim.
'Sometimes people think 'if it was verbal abuse, was that really a hate crime?' Then there's the scale of online abuse. Physical and verbal abuse has proliferated against visibly Muslim women.
'Islamophobia is systemic: the inability to get a job because you look visibly Muslim. Of all minorities, Muslim women are the most marginalised when it comes to employment. If your name is Mohammed you're more likely to pay more for your insurance premium.'
There's 44,000 Muslim NHS workers. Many were subjected to Islamophobic 'hate' while 'providing frontline services' during the riots.
(Image: Anti-immigration demonstration outside the Holiday Inn Express in Rotherham)
ATTACKS
Islamophobia is 'global', Mohammed says. 'There's the dehumanisation of Palestinians. The Uyghur genocide in China. Trump's Muslim ban. The rise of the far-right. The weaponisation of immigration.'
She points to the lie which sparked the summer riots: that the Southport attacker was a 'Muslim asylum seeker'. During mass casualty attacks, she says, 'people are just waiting' for the assailant to be Muslim.
Grooming gangs have been used to 'other' Muslims, despite, Mohammed notes, studies showing that the majority of child sexual abuse gangs comprise white men under 30.
Nigel Farage recently called for an inquiry into grooming gangs, she adds, even though there has already been an inquiry. The Conservative Party failed to implement its recommendations.
Mohammed says she has consistently condemned 'grooming gangs. They're criminals. They don't represent a faith or an ethnicity. Criminals come from all walks of life. People in political positions and commentators used this awful topic against Muslims.
'What they're really trying to do is assert that your culture and faith make you a groomer. What about the white British people grooming? Why aren't we concerned about them? Criminals are criminals. This has been weaponised as a tool to create division and incite hatred'.
She notes that Glasgow - where she's from - was recently the site of an horrific paedophile ring involving white men and women.
Farage, Mohammed continues, claimed Muslims don't 'share British values, but millions of Muslim soldiers fought in World War One'. Farage has a 'sinister and troubling influence on politics', she said. 'Islamophobia is more embedded than ever. Reform is a big worry. We're worried about populist parties taking over and pushing very anti-immigrant rhetoric'.
When rightwing politicians attack 'Islamists, the average person doesn't differentiate. They just think 'Muslim'.'
Mohammed's family has been in Scotland since 1944, but: 'I'm still framed as an immigrant.' She laughs protectively. 'People conflate Muslim with immigrant. That's what the riots were really about - this 'enemy within' discourse. Every year I see this getting worse.'
Muslims are accused of 'not integrating' yet when they are visibly part of the wider community - even at the level of First Minister, like Humza Yousaf - they still 'face blatant Islamophobia. We're more visible, more integrated, doing the British thing, yet you still hate us. Where does this go?'
The 'securitisation of Muslims' began after 9-11. The same period saw an increase in 'physical attacks'. Mohammed adds: 'You're either a security risk or an immigration issue.' That's left a sense of 'collective trauma'. British Muslims feel 'disenfranchised'.
However, whilst earlier generations felt they should 'keep their head down, just get on with it, take the punches and play the long game, my generation is confident and proud of our faith. But we still look over our shoulder to see if someone wants to attack us'.
(Image: Mohammed says Conservative 'rhetoric was deeply charged and extremist and had a negative impact')
BRITISH
Muslims are made to feel 'we'll never be British enough'. She asks what this means for the 'relationship of the state to British Muslims. There's this dissonance where we're good if we're contributing, and assessed on our citizenship for good deeds. We're seen through a different prism.
'We're not going anywhere, this is our home. For younger generations, we're past having to prove our identity.'
She laughs that protective laugh again.
Mohammed referred to the Spectator's associate editor Douglas Murray, accused by some of being far-right. He said Humza Yousaf wasn't 'First Minister of Scotland. He's become the First Minister of Gaza'. Murray claimed 'people like Humza Yousaf … have infiltrated our system'.
Muslims in public life suffer 'awful language. It's clearly, unapologetically Islamophobic. They face anti-Muslim hatred. They're vilified as enemies despite representing their country. You're told integrate more, then the problem will be fixed. But we've got people at the highest level representing their country and they face the most abuse'.
During the riots, she said, Labour ministers were 'very hesitant to even say the word 'Islamophobia'.' In Britain, she believes, 'Islamophobia now passes the dinner table test' - meaning it's acceptable in so-called 'polite society'.
The debunked racist conspiracy known as the Great Replacement Theory - which claims governments are using immigrants to replace white people - is now widely peddled online. Elon Musk flirted with it.
'Some people subscribe to a very deep ideological position that we're enemies, that we're going to over-populate and take over. That didn't start just yesterday. It's been fuelled for decades.'
When she asks the public how many Muslims live in Britain, the number is often wildly over-estimated. There's 3.9million, but she's heard 30million. Mohammed laughs: 'People feel we're everywhere.' She sees 'similarities with the Jewish community' and how it was demonised in the past.
Memories of the Bosnian genocide against Muslims remain fresh. 'I don't want to whip up hysteria that people are going to start killing Muslims, but the riots showed us the real danger, the lived reality. We don't want to live in fear, but the fear is there.'
She adds: 'There's always got to be a scapegoat community - the villain who's the reason why you're suffering.' She refers to attempts to burn down hotels housing asylum seekers. 'It's like 'why should they be in hotels?'. Built-up grievance and rage, which comes from poverty, is being channelled.'
Unless there's an event like the Coronation, Mohammed says, where interfaith issues are celebrated, the media portrays 'Muslims as the bad guys. Farage gets an amazing amount of time on the news'.
Poverty helps fuel polarisation and segregation, she believes, as non-white families often have less money and live in poorer areas, whilst white families who have more money tend to move. That creates a sense of 'white flight'. Some '40% of Muslims reside in the poorest socio-economic areas', Mohammed says.
In the wake of the riots, however, 'some communities have said, 'well if we're being attacked, it's better to be amongst your own', so you feel a sense of security'.
Yet, the more people mix and the more diverse an area, she believes, the less risk there is of polarisation. 'Meeting people different from you is key,' Mohammed adds.
In the era of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, 'people are worried about agents of division, voices pushing divisive rhetoric which has a certain view of society - and that view doesn't include all of us'. Once more, that defensive laughter returns.
Labour has 'doubled down on immigration. The language in this country is pretty toxic. It's on the political front that I'm most nervous'.
She fears that Britain is on a trajectory which might one day see a far-right party in power and 'citizenship revoked, and the rule of law and international human rights compromised'. To Mohammed, it feels like 'hate has been legitimised. We cannot lose the middle ground'.
That requires a 'Prime Minister who speaks for the values of our society rather than worrying if he's going to lose votes to Farage. As long as we maintain the middle ground we can push against the tidal wave of hatred'.
Diversity is Britain's strength, she believes. In countries without diversity - whether white or non-white - a homogenous society holds nations back.
GAZA
For British Muslims, Gaza was 'the single most difficult, divisive, challenging and painful issue. People have felt so disheartened by the lack of moral courage from politicians'.
Muslims came under extreme scrutiny, in the wake of the Hamas October 7 attack on Israel, Mohammed says. They felt 'targeted. Any kind of pro-Palestinian activity could lose you your job.
'British Muslims were conflated with Hamas if we'd any pro-Palestinian views or stood up for human rights and international justice. We were conflated by commentators as terrorist sympathisers.
'People lost their jobs for tweeting. People felt unable to express what they truly thought. You couldn't say the word 'genocide' otherwise that would be it. You were conflated with being anti-semitic.'
It wasn't just Muslims offering support to Palestinians, she notes. 'Whole cross-sections of the British public and global communities have rallied and protested and said this is wrong'.
Mohammed refers to Suella Braverman calling pro-Palestinian demonstrations 'hate marches', even though, she says, the vast majority were simply protesting. In any protest movement, she says, 'crazy people come and you can't stop them'. It's impossible to control everyone, Mohammed adds, when there's 'hundreds of thousands of people' on a march.
'There was complete hypocrisy the way the protests were covered. There was a fixation on a few people who weren't representative of the majority.' There were Jewish groups taking part in the rallies as well, she says.
'They were never focused on. There was a lot of picking and choosing of narratives. It felt like there was an agenda to stigmatise Muslims - that if they were portraying any kind of Palestinian advocacy they were also inciting hatred, supporting terrorism and being very un-British.'
Mohammed says there were instances 'at schools where if young people wore Palestine badges and happened to be Muslim as well, they were sent home and told you aren't allowed to wear that'.
Her sister took part in a 'bake sale for Gaza' at her university. 'A student with an Israeli flag was shouting and swearing at them. The university didn't do anything. So hate crime was rampant against the Muslim community, but it was all fed on this idea that we're un-British'.
Even though 60% of Britons want peace, 'the whole issue of Palestine was around Muslims'. She adds that Muslims were constantly asked to 'condemn' Hamas. 'There was this idea that if you were Muslim then you had some relationship with this terrorist entity or sympathies with it. It was a really sinister portrayal of Muslims.
'There's disparity in treatment. You're worried that the repercussions for you will be much worse than for someone in the Jewish community for calling out Israel or Netanyahu. Whether you were mayor, councillor, MP, businessman, university rector, teacher, pupil - whatever level of power you had - people were checking and monitoring your social media account to find that one tweet and then it was your career over.
'I had so many people call me and say 'I said this and now it's being misconstrued, they're telling me to step down from my position'. Muslims in public life faced an unbelievable amount of scrutiny.'
Mohammed laughs her defensive laugh and says free speech 'is very selective'. It's rare to see those with a 'very strong pro-Israel stance silenced', she adds.
When Mohammed was asked what her position on Hamas was by journalists, she'd say: 'Well, last time I checked they were proscribed by our government so why would my position be any different? What do they think I'm going to say? Why does every Muslim need to put on the record how they feel about Hamas? It's a purity check, we're getting our citizenship check, our loyalty check'.
BURKA
The current political climate chills Mohammed. Reform MP Sarah Pochin recently called for a burka ban. 'This wasn't an isolated comment. It's part of a wider pattern of anti-Muslim sentiment flooding public discourse. There are now open calls to ban halal meat, conspiracies about Muslim 'takeovers' of the white population, and references to re-immigration as a political solution'.
Muslims are seen as a 'demographic threat. This racial framing and false hysteria about 'our roots' plays into racist narratives of which communities can and can't be truly part of Britain. These ideas are no longer whispered, they're spoken from the dispatch box'.
She was horrified by Keir Starmer using language lifted from Enoch Powell about Britain as an 'island of strangers'. 'It was awful. He absolutely knew what he was saying. He was trying to appease Reform.' Starmer's comments 'sent shockwaves' through the Muslim community.
This week in Northern Ireland 'mobs burned homes, destroyed streets and terrorised immigrant families … and still some public figures talk about how people are simply 'fed up' with immigration as through that justifies mob violence. That kind of rhetoric is reckless and dangerous and spurs on more hate'.
There's a feeling among some now that 'they need to take the law into their own hands, they need to attack communities'. Claims about two-tier justice - that ethnic minorities are treated more leniently than white criminals - are the reverse of the truth, she says.
She asks if Lucy Connolly, jailed for inciting racial hatred during rioting after calling for asylum hotels to be 'set fire', would have been treated so sympathetically if she was Muslim. Connolly, wife of a Tory councillor, was jailed for 31 months. Farage said she shouldn't have been jailed as 'millions of mothers' felt the same.
'If this was flipped around, if these riots were perpetrated by Muslims, the consequences would have been far more severe. It would've been 'lock 'em up for life'. What communities faced during those riots was absolutely terrifying. They were checking cars to see if they had Asian drivers.'
The idea that a 'nice mother' would incite people to set light to hotels is absurd, Mohammed believes. 'What about the mother with kids inside the hotel?' She takes hope, however, from 'the silent majority' in Britain who detested the rioting.
The riots were a terrible reminder of previous eras of racist violence. Mohammed's own father 'fought the National Front in the 1980s. They put needles in their boots and kicked you. My generation thought this was all gone and done, but it's just changed shape and form'.
Meanwhile, she says, the billionaire Elon Musk performs Nazi salutes and there's just 'excuses and justifications'.
Islamophobia is an 'industry', Mohammed says. 'People make money from it, get elected, sell books and podcasts, get newspaper clicks. While there's an industry, this will continue. It's down to good faith actors doing what we can to tackle it.
'My worst fear is that we continue on the trajectory of extreme far-right hate where Muslims become not just a political punchbag but literally live in fear. I'm hopeful we're not going to get there. You don't want a place where your friend and neighbour won't stand up for you or speak against hatred and evil.'
And what of her home Scotland? 'There's often an idea that Scotland is somehow different when it comes to racism, that we're more inclusive and compassionate. While there are many things to be proud of … we must be careful not to confuse that with immunity.'
The Hamilton by-election 'made that clear'. Reform's campaign featured 'a blatantly Islamophobic advert attacking Anas Sarwar, using race and religion to score political points … We continue to see hate crimes, vandalism of mosques, and rising anti-immigrant sentiment. We must resist the comfort of Scottish exceptionalism. We cannot be complacent.'
This time, there is no laughter.