By Maira Butt
Muslim groups have demanded accountability after a damning report on the Grenfell Tower fire found that the deaths of all 72 residents, including 18 children, were avoidable.
The final report, released last week after a seven-year inquiry, found a “significant degree of discrimination” was faced by those with religious, cultural and social needs.
It highlighted a pattern of “systematic dishonesty” among companies responsible for making flammable cladding and insulation, which coated the 24-storey block.
The review levelled criticism against statutory services for their response, including the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It found that voluntary and faith-based organisations provided for the basic needs of residents where “those in authority had failed”.
Among them was the National Zakat Foundation (NZF), which set up the Grenfell Muslim Response Unit project, after finding that up to 80 percent of those who died during the events identified as Muslim.
Its volunteers and staff searched for displaced residents in hotels and helped to fill forms to access support while sitting in lobbies. They provided survivors with practical help including food and cash grants.
Rizwan Yusoof, who helped coordinate NZF’s emergency response at the time, said that the conclusions made in the report were not enough. “There’s just a massive blame game here,” he told the Religion Media Centre.
“No one wants to take responsibility. We essentially see a web of lies, a web of blaming people. Not one person has said, ‘Actually, we could have done better’. They’ve just said, ‘No, it wasn’t us, it was them’. This is just a continuation of the betrayal of that community.”
Reflecting on the outcome of the report, he added, “I’m glad the report has happened. But it took too long to know what we already knew. Justice has not been served. No one has been held to account.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by bereaved families, who told a press conference the conclusions were delaying justice and called for criminal charges to be brought immediately. “The minimum we are asking for is criminal prosecution for manslaughter,” said Karim Khalloufi, who lost his sister Khadija in the incident.
Shah Aglani who lost his mother and aunt in the blaze, said: “An inquiry was announced on the day I was looking for my mum, basically going from hospital to hospital to see which one she might be in. In no way were we informed of its beginning, or consulted, or even [told] what this inquiry was. I was looking at the Tower and telling myself, ‘All the evidence is before your eyes’.”
Earlier this year, the Metropolitan police announced that criminal charges would not be brought until at least the end of 2026.
According to inquiry chair Sir Martin Moore-Bick, “a significant degree of discrimination” was suffered by many with religious, cultural and social needs. Additionally, a relationship of mutual mistrust existed between residents and the local authority.
Aspects of the response were said to demonstrate “a marked lack of respect for human decency and dignity”. The emergency response was “muddled” and the cultural and language needs of Muslim residents had not been met, according to the report.
Mr Yusoof believes that the faith of survivors affected the care they received, findings reflected in the report.
“One of the striking things about that area is the segregation within that community,” he said. “You’ve got tower blocks of hardworking, mainly migrant and working-class people, and then five minutes away you have mainly white, upper middle-class people living in mansions.
“You saw that striking distinction on the ground after Grenfell. Because of who they were, because of the colour of their skin, their names, and the fact that they were Muslim, they received a much more diminished response from the state and from the local authority. I don’t think anyone can argue against that.
“If those fires had happened in those mansion blocks, we would be having a very different discussion right now. I think people would have been held to account by now.”
Mr Yusoof, who now runs Funders In Good, an organisation set up to enable Muslim charities to be independent and sustainable, believes the issue of systemic Islamophobia is a subtle one.
“The issue here is it is not a blatant type of racism. It’s more of a systemic structural issue. It’s far more subtle,” he said. “This happened during Ramadan, it was hot. People had been fasting all day, and they were out on the street without even a drink or sip of water. The first calls to emergency services were from people who were returning from Tarawih [evening prayers made during Ramadan].”
But he added: “There’s a mixture here of Islamophobia, xenophobia, anti-migrant feelings, and classism.”
Abdurahman Syed, CEO of Al Manaar Islamic Cultural Heritage Centre, agrees the issue is more complex. Al Manaar found itself supporting survivors, the bereaved, and the wider community with psychotherapeutic support in the aftermath of the tragedy. It was where the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, chose to centre her community cookbook dedicated to those who lost their lives.
“I’m not sure if it’s only about Muslims, because it has impacted the wider community of North Kensington too,” he told the Religion Media Centre.
“It’s a diverse community, but also a very deprived community. Its diversity is in religion, income and a combination of factors. The neglect for the wider community had been there for a long period of time. Perhaps members of the community being Muslims contributed further to that negligence.”
In a statement, Councillor Elizabeth Campbell, Leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council, apologised unreservedly to the bereaved, survivors and residents of Grenfell for the council’s failure to listen and to protect them.
She accepted that the council had “failed to keep people safe before and during the refurbishment and we failed to treat people with humanity and care in the aftermath”. A full and formal response will be made this autumn.
Relations between the community and local authority do not appear to have improved in the seven years since the incident, which marked the worst residential fire in Britain since the Blitz of the Second World War. Syed said the relationship remained “cosmetic” and tense, although he commended the “strong” statements used in the report.
“It’s about walking the talk,” he said. “The local authority’s meagre support since seems to be a PR exercise, rather than a genuine concern for an identified need. What have they done in terms of the relationship between the local authority and the community? It’s still not strong, and it’s still not based on partnership. We still have a very cosmetic relationship with them.”
This, he said, could be demonstrated by funding cuts which he believes undervalue the contribution of community groups.
“Our concern is whatever has been mentioned in the report has already been known to us in the community for seven years, I’m sure it’s been known to the authorities as well. So seven years would have been enough to review and evaluate things and then address them without having to wait for the report,” he continued.
“Whether any of the recommendations will be implemented or not, whether there will be any mechanism to monitor that, remains to be seen. They have assets like the churches, mosques and synagogues, that could be utilised easily with the right partnership.”
For community groups like Al Manaar, the issue is far more personal. “We have a staff member, Hassan Hassan, who lost his wife Rania Ibrahim, and their two daughters in the fire,” said Syed, of the couple who met while volunteering together at Al Manaar.
“We can’t even speak with him at this time. This has been a very emotional period for him. He’s completely traumatised by the experience and the loss of his loved ones.”
