Torching of cultural central shocks Muslim community in London

The Muslim community in London is in a state of shock and disbelief after an Islamic cultural center frequented mainly by women was set on fire in an apparent Islamophobic attack.

The center named Al-Falah institute in Hayes, west London was torched after perpetrators initially broke into the institute and ransacked the center in the early hours of September 26.

Upon inspection, it was found that donation boxes had been forced open and the center had also sustained some interior damage.  

The institute said police were contacted about the break-in but were told that officers were too busy to respond.

Later that night, the center’s security company notified the local fire services that a fire had been set off, after the CCTV cameras had stopped working.

Staff and community members told that the blaze was started when copies of the Qur’an were brought together in a room and set alight.

“Our scriptures, handled with the utmost reverence, now lie as burnt remnants,” Mariam Tariq, a trustee and chairperson of the center, told London-based Middle East Eye news website. 

“The visual is more than just heart-wrenching; it’s an assault on our spiritual and communal essence.”

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said the fire was being treated as arson.

The GoFundMe page has been set up to help rebuild the center which is estimated to cost at least $60,000.

“At this time, we cannot rule out that this was not an Islamophobic or a hate crime. Worse still, there has been no mention of what happened in the local or national news or press. That is why we are appealing directly to our community and want this campaign to go viral,” a spokesman for the institute wrote on the page. 

Zulikha Raja, a trustee at the institute, said that the local community was in a state of mourning following the attack. “Al-Falah wasn’t just a structure, it represented our aspirations and dreams,” she said.

According to UK’s Home Office data, anti-Muslim attacks accounted for more than one-third of all religiously motivated hate crimes between 2022 and 2023.

As per a UK report released in 2022, 42 percent of mosques or Islamic institutions have experienced religiously motivated attacks in the year 2022, 2021 and 2020.

The most common form of attack experienced by mosques and other Islamic institutions was vandalism, followed by burglary or theft, with 83 percent being attacked at least once a year.