Introduction: Thinking about religious welfare and rethinking social policy

Summary

My visit to the East London Mosque on Whitechapel Road (Borough of Tower Hamlets, East London) began as a run-of-the-mill interview appointment at a Muslim organisation that, I had been told by a key informant in the voluntary sector, was “doing really important work”. On exiting Whitechapel underground station, I was unexpectedly greeted by the grand facade of The Royal London Hospital. A vague recollection of this name revisited me from my modest readings on Victorian philanthropy – was there not a religious connection to this place? Turning right, I walked through the street market stalls and streams of Asian people and shops. At last, I found the large mosque-cum-community centre, mundanely located in between a row of commercial businesses, as a long line of young boys in white robes and black caps were led by a male adult through a door next to the main men's entrance of the mosque – it looked like there was an Islamic school here.

During the interview, I learned that in the late 1990s, the mosque’s leaders and members were joined by the local religious and secular community organisations in a campaign against the city council to obtain permission to buy a piece of land next to the mosque, where they wanted to build the community centre. With mass community support and a large protest march, photos of which are on permanent display in the mosque's reception area, the East London Mosque gained permission to buy the land and began construction of the London Muslim Centre, now a multistorey building which houses the mosque group's projects as well as various other community organisations renting out office space to offer social services. My interviewee told me that a new building is now also under construction which will be entirely focused on services for women in the local area and will include a health and fitness club. The East London Mosque was also taking part in one of the new social finance bonds currently being promoted by the Coalition government that was specifically for religious congregations (Faiths In Social Finance Bonds). It celebrated its centenary in 2011, proudly hailing its ‘pluralist’ ideals and non-Muslim co-founders, having grown ‘from a rented hall, to a purchased house, to a purpose built mosque, to a major centre in the space of 100 years’ (www.eastlondonmosque.org.uk/news/300).