Charities regulator: Mosque failing in its legal duties
SCOTLAND’s biggest mosque has been criticised by charity watchdogs in a damning report over the way the centre has been run by its previous orthodox leaders.
Trustees who wielded power at Glasgow Central Mosque – the country’s largest place of worship – breached their legal duties over many years, according to the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR).
The watchdog says trustees were making decisions about the running of the charity where they had no power to do so. The probe follows concerns from Scottish-born reformers that money from the mosque was going to a group that has been accused of promoting Islamic extremism.
The loan of £50,000 to the European headquarters of the conservative group Tablighi Jamaat in Dewsbury in 2011 only came to light after the younger generation of liberal mosque members, who are co-operating with OSCR, effectively took control of the mosque last year.
In its report, investigators at the OSCR, warned of “illegal acts” by the orthodox one-time leaders in Glasgow.
The watchdog investigation focuses on the unusual governance arrangements at the mosque, which has two sets of trustees, one for the religious institution itself, a charity, and another for the multimillion-pound riverside complex opened 30 years ago as a non-charitable trust.
For years the so-called “property trustees” ruled, appointing “charity trustees” as committees to run the mosque but effectively continuing to wield control over the institution and its income themselves.
The OSCR, in its preliminary findings, found against this practice.
The watchdog, in formal correspondence of May 2015 with the mosque and seen by The Herald, said: “The property trustees have previously been involved in making decisions about the running of the charity where they have no power to do so.
“This has been allowed to happen by previous committees and is in breach of the legal duties of the charity trustees.
“The behaviours and conduct of
charity trustees past and present were not of the standard we would expect of charity trustees in fulfilling their legal duty to act in the interests of the charity.”
Glasgow Central Mosque – or Jamait Ittihad Ul Muslimin to give it its formal name – has been managed by Nabeel Shaikh, 39, since 2014, despite an attempt by the property trustees to oust him. The general secretary is eager to see reforms – including making the mosque more open to women and non-Pakistanis.
Mr Shaikh said: “The management of the mosque has never reflected the culturally diverse and changing congregation. A number of property trustees effectively took control of the mosque and they stopped events and activities that would have represented the Scottish Muslim community.”
Core to the investigation is the way that until recently the property trustees controlled much of the roughly £500,000 a year in donations raised by the mosque.
Solicitors for the new charity trustees, led by Mr Shaikh, in October 2015 wrote to OSCR outlining what they regard as “inappropriate behaviour”.
This included an allegation that the property trustees had extended a loan of £50,000 “to an external organisation without appropriate authority to do so”.
Accounts seen by The Herald show that this loan was made to the Dewsbury Mosque in Yorkshire, European headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat, a group promoting a conservative vision of Islam. It has been accused by US Homeland Security of being a recruiting ground for extremists.
Its leaders have always stressed that they reject violence.
Tablighi Jamaat’s Scottish leader is respected paediatrician Hafiz Sadiq, also a spokesman for the property trustees of Glasgow Central Mosque. He did not respond to requests for comment.