Musbau writes from Ikeja, Lagos
Behind a glass door inside Al Madina Mosque, Ashfaq Siddique stands at ramrod attention, his eyes darting. He is the mosque’s guiding spirit. He is also a former policeman with Scotland Yard. He is scanning live feeds from 36 closed-circuit cameras that monitor everything from the prayer hall to the ablutions room. He is searching for trouble.
Behind a glass door inside Al Madina Mosque, Ashfaq Siddique stands at ramrod attention, his eyes darting. He is the mosque’s guiding spirit. He is also a former policeman with Scotland Yard. He is scanning live feeds from 36 closed-circuit cameras that monitor everything from the prayer hall to the ablutions room. He is searching for trouble.
None in the parking lot, where white nativists routinely throw nails over the walls to puncture the car tires of those praying inside. Nor in the main hall, where Islamic extremists have sometimes argued against democracy with mainstream imams.
This morning, the problem is overcrowding. So many Muslims now live in working-class Barking that roughly 9,000 people attended the morning prayer sessions in early September to begin the holiday of Eid al-Adha.
“Upstairs is filling up — start moving them to the upper hall of the community centre!” Siddique, 50, shouts into a yellow walkie-talkie.
Few, if any, major Western cities have been more open to Muslims than London. More than 12 percent of Londoners are Muslim. Eighteen months ago, this became the first Western capital to elect a Muslim mayor, a milestone for residents proud of their multicultural ethos.
Now, though, religious hate crimes are up nearly 30 percent, primarily against Muslims. At his mosque, Siddique is hiring extra security guards to protect his congregates. Muslim women have complained about being spit on, or cursed.
Sixteen days after the London Bridge attack, a man driving a van ploughed over Muslims leaving a mosque in North London. One person died and nine others were injured.
“I want to kill all Muslims,” the van driver had shouted.
During the same period, half a dozen women in headscarves told Siddique they had been spit upon on the street. Vandals scrawled slurs on houses and cars, and a wave of anonymous threats arrived at the mosque.
“We had ladies who were called ‘terrorists’ or ‘Paki,’ or told to go home,” Siddique said. “It has become something that, as a Muslim, you just have to accept.”
He complained that local police waited eight days to show up. “I had to call our member of Parliament to get them here,” he said. “I had to hire a private security firm to protect the mosque at night during Ramadan.”
Today, some at Al Madina dismiss the surge in hostility as an anomaly. “People hear things about Muslims in the media and say, ‘Let’s kill Muslims,’” said Khalid Salem, 36, an Uber driver who was born in Egypt. “But London is different than any other place. We feel like our roots are here. We feel proud of London.”
Yet, after a terrorist attack in August in Barcelona, Spain, Siddique took his own precautions. He stationed nine young men in high-visibility vests in the streets at night. The mosque has started formal security training for volunteers.
Still, Siddique said, he was born in Barking, and he is not going anywhere. “Do I feel scared walking down the street?” he said. “No, London is my home.
The Independent online
