By Maira Butt
Zara Mohammed, the outgoing secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, has reflected on her tenure as its youngest and only female leader.
The beleaguered institution, which is the largest umbrella body of Muslim organisations in the country, has been beset both by challenges facing the Muslim community and frosty relationships with UK government.
As Dr Wajid Akhter was elected the MCB’s new head last month, Ms Mohammed spoke to the Religion Media Centre about the past four years, and the highs and lows of her leadership.
Elected in 2021, the Scotswoman was 29 when she became the face of one of the highest-profile institutions for one of the most heavily scrutinised demographics. “It’s been a pretty steep learning curve and certainly turbulent,” she said, citing the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Gaza, the general election and the Southport riots.
“As I come to the end of my term, we see the rise of the extreme far right as well as the rhetoric pushed by Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s presidency.”
Last time Trump was in power, he faced international backlash for enacting what was dubbed the “Muslim ban”. The executive order signed in 2017 banned people from six Muslim-majority countries from entering the US. On the back of the UK riots last summer, Ms Mohammed is concerned that the challenges facing the demographic have proliferated rather than abated.
“It feels like things are getting more challenging and more polarising. Hate is something we really need to tackle as a country,” she says, citing the increase in Islamophobic hate crimes, with the Muslim community reported as the worst victims of religious hate, accounting for 38 per cent of all reported incidents.
“I am yet to feel that there is a strong national narrative of belonging. In my four years, I’ve felt there’s a lot of us saying, ‘We’re British Muslims and this is who we are and look at what we do and look at how we contribute to be accepted.’
“But actually, as a third-generation British Muslim, the story really has moved on, and what we’re lacking is a national narrative of belonging: one that talks about the role of Muslims and Islam in Britain today.”
An example of the type of rhetoric that Muslims face is that Muslim women are largely oppressed. This was at the centre of national conversation after Ms Mohammed’s interview with Emma Barnett on the BBC Radio 4 programme Women’s Hour during her first week in office.
More than 100 politicians and writers called on the BBC to address what they called Barnett’s “strikingly hostile” manner of interviewing. They objected to Barnett’s persistent questions on how many female imams there were in Britain, despite being told that religious rules were not part of her role. They complained that Barnett asked the question four times, each time interrupting Mohammed’s answer.
“You’ll remember my very famous interview on Women’s Hour,” Ms Mohammed tells me. “That was my baptism of fire. Some parts of society weren’t as warm as I would have liked. Some people struggle with the idea of a female Muslim leader.”
Ms Mohammed says she faced suspicion and misunderstanding from all corners of society. “They’re so hooked on this conception that Muslim women can’t lead, and that they all stay at home and wear hijabs and abayas. They have such a caricaturistic, Islamophobic kind of view of Muslim women — we’re all oppressed — and the minute we don’t fit that conception, they reject that it’s possible.”
But she has a pragmatic view of the viral interview in hindsight. “I was a bit like a lamb to slaughter, it was one of those deer-in-the-headlights type moments. I didn’t appreciate the level of media scrutiny and challenge I was going to face.
“I can’t believe I managed. I can’t believe I did it. I can’t believe I actually endured it. That was really difficult. I’m proud of myself that I got through it, and I had a lot of people support me afterwards. But the interview made me famous. So I guess I’ve got to be grateful. It put me on the map.”
But it’s not all doom and gloom. Some of Ms Mohammed’s highlights include visiting more than 300 Muslim organisations across the UK, in places as far as Newport, Swansea, Blackburn, Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester and Aberdeen.
“I’ve visited Muslim communities all over the country. Wherever there were Muslims, I went to see them,” she says. Visits included schools, youth groups, mental health charities, food banks, coffee mornings, women’s groups and more. It brought home to Ms Mohammed that “British Muslims are really diverse” and that “the sense of community is really amazing.”
Another high point included a feature in Vogue. “I got to meet Vivienne Westwood. But the real highlight was Muslim mums and young girls coming up to me afterwards. One mum said, ‘You don’t know what it means for my daughters to see you in Vogue.’ A 14-year-old girl told me she’d been struggling to wear her hijab, but I had inspired her.”
She adds: “In some ways it gave young Muslim women something to feel good and confident about. And, I wasn’t being showcased for fashion, I was being showcased for purpose. It was just such a win. It’s nice to have a win, as opposed to [coverage] always being so negative.”
As the MCB spokeswoman, Ms Mohammed has been part of some heated exchanges and tough media interviews. “Whether it was Michael Gove and his extremism list, the Southport riots or the Middle East conflict or hate crimes, I hope I’ve done the community proud.”
Expanding on her vision for a “national narrative of belonging” Ms Mohammed says: “Muslims are often framed in either a security narrative or an immigration narrative. But not really in a British citizenship narrative, aside from the fact we have to prove it.”
She adds: “There’s got to be more around the story of Islam and Muslims in Britain. There’s got to be this acknowledgement now that we are a diverse society. You’ve got 44,000 Muslims in the NHS. Without all these key workers and immigrants, generations of them, you’re not going to have much of an economy.
“Muslim businesses contribute billions to the economy, yet that’s just not even part of the story. I feel like we’re absent from a positive narrative, but we’re very present, overly so, for the negative. Belonging is really about accepting all sides of society.”
One thing that didn’t change throughout Ms Mohammed’s two terms, was the MCB’s relationship with the UK government, which suspended its formal relationship with the MCB in 2009 after Daud Abdullah, then its deputy general secretary, refused to resign over signing the “Istanbul declaration”.
Although Ms Mohammed has been vocal about the impact this has had on Muslims on the ground, particularly during the Covid pandemic, she remains “optimistic and hopeful” that this will change.
“We end up failing future generations. I’m not saying that we are the solution to all these problems, but we’ve yet to really hear from any government as to why this position of non-engagement has continued and to what benefit.
“There has to be some level of dialogue and conversation. It does us all a disservice. It’s disappointing, particularly when there are instances where Muslims are being attacked with the rise of the far-right.
“The government’s really got to get a grip on this. It will continue to be a big issue for the incumbent leadership for the MCB as well.”
As the British Muslim Network announces its launch this month, it insists it is not here to rival the MCB’s presence, as it seeks to lobby the government on issues affecting Muslims. The network, co-founded by Akeela Ahmed, who previously chaired the government’s Anti-Muslim Hatred Working Group, intends to address issues as diverse as education, criminal justice and healthcare. It has received backing from the former faith minister, Baroness Warsi, as well as the BBC radio journalist Mishal Husain.
Ms Mohammed says she is not involved in the project. “I’m sure there’ll be plenty of organisations, but at this point I don’t have any intention to join anything,” she says.
Her future plans remain undetermined as she closes a year that’s not been the “quiet end” she expected, but one that’s been yet another whirlwind.
“There’s lots of things I can do, but I think I might take a little break.”
