[13] It has also worked with the street protest group United East End that opposes the English Defence League (EDL) and part of the Enough Coalition, an umbrella group which aims to tackle anti-Muslim hatred, and that includes organisations such as the Stop the War Coalition, British Muslim Initiative, Federation of Student Islamic Societies, Unite Against Fascism and the East London Mosque.

[25][26] IFE and the mosque have hosted many notable persons and religious leaders including Prince Charles,[27] Abdullah Ahmad Badawi,[28] Fiona MacTaggart,[29] Brendan Barber,[30] Dr Yasir Qadhi, Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais, Saud Al-Shuraim, Salah Al Budair, Bakir Izetbegović, Jamal Badawi, Allama Delwar Hossain Sayeedi and many others.

[31][32] Farming minister Jim Fitzpatrick reprimanded the organisation for sex segregation policies at the mosque after attending an Islamic wedding held at the venue which strictly seated men and women separately.

[33] A Dispatches documentary aired on 1 March 2010 suggested the IFE are an extremist organization with a hidden agenda that went against Britain's democratic values.

[34] Dispatches quoted Azad Ali, the IFE's community affairs coordinator, as saying, "Democracy, if it means at the expense of not implementing the sharia, of course no one agrees with that".

[37][38] In a comment piece in The Guardian newspaper, Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain suggested that many of the people interviewed on the programme had hidden agendas of their own and noted that Jim Fitzpatrick, who suggested the Labour Party had been infiltrated by IFE members, was to be challenged for his seat by George Galloway in the forthcoming general election who had overturned a 10,000+ majority held by Oona King at the 2005 election.

"[7] Robert Lambert, at the time co-director of the University of Exeter's European Muslim Research Centre, criticized the accusations, maintaining that youth workers from the Islamic Forum of Europe were actively working to oppose the influence of extremist groups such as Al Qaeda and Al Muhajiroun: "the brave Muslims involved have received no praise for their outstanding bravery and good citizenship, and instead faced a never ending barrage of denigration."