Welcome to Whitechapel. I exit the Tube and the words hit me in both English and Bengali.
I walk on to the street – and into the subcontinent. Headscarves, chadors and niqabs throng the pavement.
Whitechapel Market is a line of stalls by the kerb: traders and customers haggle and chat, selling everything from clothes to household items and curries.
As I pass, I hear bursts of Bengali, Turkish, Urdu and Arabic but little English: an enclave of Babel in central London. Most of the shops have Bengali signage. Hung on lampposts are blue posters wishing people Ramadan Kareem (Blessed Ramadan) to mark the month in which Muslims believe the Koran was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad. It draws to a close tonight. I’ve come here because Whitechapel hit the news when footage emerged of a police officer attempting to reason with a group of Asian men enraged by a Christian man preaching the gospel just yards from East London Mosque.
The video shows a tense scene. Some shout at the preacher. One bearded man roars at him: ‘Your God is a Jew!’
One of them shoves him in the back, causing him to stumble. Addressing the group, the officer tells them firmly: ‘In this country we have freedom of speech.’ She continues: ‘I understand that you guys don’t want to hear it, so I would just recommend that you walk away and don’t listen to him.’
A man wearing a facemask interjects. ‘This is Whitechapel – this is a Muslim area.’
Days later, a teenage Christian and Right-wing social media influencer who goes by the name of Young Bob – and who calls for the ‘remigration’ (that is, the mass deportation) of ethnic minorities –claims he was attacked outside East London Mosque when he tried to conduct ‘some interviews and debate’. All things considered, his presence was unlikely to be welcomed by the local faithful – which may have been the point.
Whitechapel hit the news when footage emerged of a young police officer defending a Christian preacher being told: ‘This is Whitechapel – this is a Muslim area’
I’m a foreign correspondent, used to reporting from faraway places. Yet as I walk down Whitechapel Road, I feel as if I’m thousands of miles from home, says David Patrikarakos
I want to ask some of the people here about integration, Islam and Britishness. I want to understand what they think and what they make of charges that Muslim communities in areas such as Whitechapel have failed to properly assimilate into the country that’s opened its doors to them.
Opinions here are often conservative. By one of the market stalls I meet local businessman Prith and ask him about the Christian preacher. ‘I believe in freedom of speech and respect all religions,’ he tells me. ‘But people must understand there is a large Muslim community in Whitechapel and no one’s religion should be disrespected.’
I point out that no one was ‘disrespecting’ Islam; the preacher was simply spreading the gospel. ‘Well, that’s OK then,’ he replies, but he doesn’t sound convinced.
Several other people on the street don’t want to talk. One lady in Islamic dress smiles sheepishly and mimes that she doesn’t understand what I’m saying.
In the borough of Tower Hamlets, which includes Whitechapel, 40 per cent of residents are Muslim – the highest proportion in England and Wales.
Muslims form an outright majority in some parts of Whitechapel, while the East London Mosque, with capacity for up to 7,000 worshippers, is one of Europe’s largest. According to the 2021 Census, fully 56 per cent of Whitechapel residents are Asian, with 40 per cent being Bangladeshi. Fewer than 30 per cent are white.
Billionaire tycoon Sir Jim Ratcliffe attracted controversy recently when he claimed that parts of Britain had been ‘colonised’.
He later apologised. But it is places like Whitechapel that are causing more and more people to draw similar conclusions.
This is an area with a long history of cultural diversity, with successive waves of migrants drawn by the docks and proximity to the City of London. The 19th century saw a large influx of Irish following the Great Famine.
Around the turn of the next century, 120,000 Jewish refugees arrived. Then, from the 1950s onwards, migrants from Bangladesh – especially the highly conservative region of Sylhet – became the dominant group. By the late 20th century, Whitechapel had become one of the largest Bangladeshi communities in the world.
In the local Subway, a lady in a black chador – a full covering with only the face exposed – is serving. The menu is halal, like those of more than 200 Subway branches in the UK. There is no ham on the menu, only turkey ham.
Outside, 22-year-old Riya is scrolling on her phone. She’s heavily made up under a headscarf.
In the borough of Tower Hamlets, which includes Whitechapel, 40 per cent are Muslim – the highest proportion in England and Wales
In a bookshop owned by Islamic Relief, David buys a copy of From Monogamy To Polygyny: A Way Through. But the practice is supposed to be illegal in Britain
I ask her about the lack of English speakers in the area. ‘I’m basically a translator for my grandparents when they need to do official stuff,’ she tells me, proudly, ‘which is weird because they’ve been here longer than I’ve been alive.’
I walk on. A lady in a niqab – a long garment leaving only the eyes showing – shuffles past a Paddy Power: gambling is, of course, forbidden in Islam, but not every Muslim is equally devout.
J ust down the road, the minarets of the East London Mosque loom skywards. The institution has courted much controversy over the years. It has opened its doors to speakers who have called for the death penalty for gay people and apostates; to speakers who have expressed support for Hamas; and to men linked to Jamaat-e-Islami, the Islamist movement that has left a trail of violence and repression across Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Last autumn the mosque organised a fundraising run in nearby Victoria Park which caused outrage because women were banned from taking part – something the Government’s Communities Secretary Steve Reed declared was ‘absolutely unacceptable’.
Nearby, two bearded youths wearing white skullcaps are handing out flyers. They are raising money for the British Islamic charity, Ashaadibi, to convert the historic East London Central Synagogue on nearby Nelson Street into a mosque, education and community centre. (Jews have lived in the area for centuries, although their numbers are dwindling.) ‘We’ve paid the deposit,’ says one, ‘but we need to raise the rest.’ The flyer tells me there is £3.5million outstanding.
I enter a bookshop owned by Islamic Relief, one of the UK’s largest Muslim charities, which has faced repeated allegations of links to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood (proscribed as a terrorist group in a number of Middle Eastern countries, which it denies).
I buy a copy of From Monogamy To Polygyny: A Way Through, which promises to ‘help and advise women experiencing polygyny [a form of polygamy in which a man has multiple wives], in a loving and truthful manner’. The practice is supposed to be illegal in Britain, of course.
In nearby Brick Lane, a Welcome To Banglatown sign stretches across the street.
I pass shops advertising remittance services, a big part of life here. Britain is one of the most significant sources of remittances – money sent overseas – flowing into Bangladesh, accounting for roughly £2billion annually. It seems possible, to say the least, that British taxpayers’ money, paid in benefits to immigrant families, goes straight out of the country to fund relatives back home.
What about integration? I want to know – and soon have my answer. A barber walking out of his garishly decorated shop snaps ‘Me no English’ when I start to ask him, though I suspect he understands me fine. In a mini market, the man behind the counter says politely: ‘I don’t know about this.’ An elderly man in traditional South Asian dress walking with a cane smiles and says: ‘Speak someone else.’
Ajmal Hussain, a 74-year-old local businessman, says that within the Whitechapel Bangladeshi community ‘many cannot even read or write’
At Amar Gaon, a Bangladeshi restaurant and takeaway, Tayib Ali is serving garrulous customers and over the shiny counter we discuss Whitechapel, Britain and integration.
Tayib has been in the UK for 25 years. His English still isn’t great but he’s positive about things. ‘Yes, I feel British,’ he tells me.
He has the same complaints as most people. ‘Living costs are very high now. Crime and drugs have increased. The police need to improve locally.’ What about criticisms that the community here can be too insular? ‘Yes,’ he agrees. ‘It’s good for the community to open up more.’
I make my way to another restaurant, Preem, to meet Ajmal Hussain, a 74-year-old local businessman with much to say about the problems within Whitechapel’s Bangladeshi community.
‘Many cannot even read or write,’ he says. ‘One of my friends, when he wants to write a cheque, he comes to me to get me to do it. And then he checks it with ten people because he doesn’t trust me! He can’t even read and write Bengali, let alone English.’ Hussain has a longstanding feud with the Brick Lane Mosque, which to me encapsulates many of the problems within the community.
‘I am one of its biggest donors,’ he says. ‘I tried to get on the board, but they won’t let me because I’ll scrutinise their accounts. I am a very strict man.’
He continues. ‘One day they invited me to a public meeting and I told them that I would pay for a professional to manage the mosque properly. They said: “This is a village mosque, so it should be run in the way a village mosque in Bangladesh is run.” I knew then that it was pointless to continue.’ He’s into his stride now. ‘Most of the imams at the mosque can’t speak English. The head imam, who’s very talented in Arabic, told me he can’t speak English. I said: “You are smart: can you please try to learn to speak some English?”’
Hussain has also had longstanding issues with Lutfur Rahman, the highly controversial mayor of Tower Hamlets. Rahman was mayor from 2010 to 2015 until being found guilty of electoral fraud and disqualified from office.
The 2015 Election Court Judgment makes striking reading. Election Commissioner Richard Mawrey QC found Rahman guilty of corrupt and illegal practices in the 2014 mayoral election, removing him from office and barring him from standing for five years.
The findings included vote rigging, false statements about opponents, treating (providing food and drink to influence voters) and – most strikingly – illegal ‘undue spiritual influence’, where imams told Bengali Muslim voters it was their religious duty to vote for Rahman and a sin to do otherwise. Mawrey described Tower Hamlets under Rahman as resembling a ‘banana republic’. After his ban expired, he ran again in 2022. He’s been mayor ever since.
Hussain is characteristically direct. ‘He’s [Rahman] not a good man. He says to the community he is helping them but he’s not. Tower Hamlets council has not improved under him.’
Finally, I move on to the recent video controversy. Again, Hussain doesn’t mince his words. ‘If you don’t like something, don’t listen. This is a free-speech country. The idea that this is a Muslim place is wrong.’
H e tells me that many years ago Rahman gave permission for the Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary (now serving life imprisonment with a minimum term of 28 years for directing a terror organisation) to hold a procession through Whitechapel on the basis that it’s a Muslim area.
‘Choudary came and I told him he couldn’t go any further. I said: “I’m Muslim but my restaurant is not: we sell alcohol here. This is not a Muslim area but a business one. Go to Saudi Arabia or Iran. Don’t stay in England.’”
I tell him he’s brave. ‘A lot of Bengalis don’t like me for it,’ he says with a grin.
Lorenzo Vidino is Director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University and an expert on some of the forces operating in places like Whitechapel.
‘First, you have an insular community from a specific part of Bangladesh that has kept itself apart,’ he says. ‘Second, you have political actors, often Islamists, that exploit this to push for separation and cultural isolation.’
These ‘actors’, Vidino continues, ‘have held sway in Whitechapel since the 1970s’ and ‘created an infrastructure that has moved its influence from grassroots into politics. Mainstream politicians have done little to address the problem,’ he adds. ‘So it has metastasised dramatically.’
The sun sets. Men in Islamic dress break their fast with grilled meats and rice in small, brightly lit cafes. Veiled women beg for alms for Ramadan.
I’m a foreign correspondent, used to reporting from far- away places. Yet as I walk down Whitechapel Road to catch the Tube for the short journey to my flat in north London, I feel as if I’m thousands of miles from home.
