Islam in London

In the 2021 census Office for National Statistics, the proportion of Muslims in London had risen to 15% of the population, making Islam the second largest religion in the city after Christianity.

In the wave of immigration that followed the Second World War, many Muslims emigrated to the UK from these Commonwealth countries and former colonies to satisfy labour shortages and seek new opportunities for themselves.

Amongst those from other countries, Muslims from Yemen, Somalia and Turkey have significant numbers, whereas those from Malaysia Iraq, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya represent smaller fractions.

The greatest concentration can be found in the east London boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Newham and Redbridge, where Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, and Indians tend to predominate.

North London's Muslims are concentrated in the boroughs of Haringey, Barnet, and Enfield, with older communities of Turkish Cypriots more recently being joined by Algerians, Somalis, and Persians.

[2] These six boroughs contain the highest proportion of Arabs in the UK, the majority of whom are Muslim - the recent 2021 census put the figure between 3 and 8%.

In recent years, refugees and migrants from countries such as Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Algeria, Morocco, and Yemen have joined these various communities, in many cases setting up their own mosques, such as the Iqraa Foundation in Harlesden.

[3] Indian and Pakistani Muslims have settled in significant numbers further west in Hounslow and Southall, but in a much smaller proportion to their Hindu and Sikh neighbours.

One of the city's first large mosques opened in 1976 on Brick Lane, in a listed building which started life as a Huguenot church in the 18th century and was converted into a synagogue serving Ashkenazi Jews in the 19th.

[14] In 2019, a jury convicted a man of murder after he drove a van into Muslim worshipers outside a London mosque, killing one person and injuring nine others.