Could Glasgow’s Zara Mohammed become the UK’s first-ever Muslim prime minister?
Zara Mohammed has just been elected head of the Muslim Council of Britain – one of the most sensitive jobs in the UK. Here, she talks about racism, terrorism ... and whether she might one day be Britain’s first Muslim prime minister
HERALD VOICES
IF a novelist wanted to create a character who confounded every lazy stereotype about Islam in Britain, they would probably invent Zara Mohammed.
This witty, whip-smart 29-year-old from the southside of Glasgow is now the spokesperson for the UK’s 3.5 million Muslims. She has just been elected leader of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) – the first woman to hold the position, the youngest person to hold the position, and the first Scot to hold the position. When it comes to her triple crown, it is the first for Scotland which makes Mohammed most proud, she says.
The simple act of a woman being elected to lead Britain’s Muslims immediately clashes up against one of the most abiding criticisms of modern Islam: that women are subservient to men.
The irony for Mohammed is that within the MCB, if anything has held her back, it wasn’t her sex – it was her age. She faced hardly any sexism when running for secretary general, but constant questioning over whether she was old enough to take on one of the most sensitive jobs in British society. Mohammed is an agent of change. She is a woman ready to recalibrate not only Muslim society in Britain, but the relationship between white Britain and Islam. Prepare to hear a lot more from her in the coming years. After a few hours in her company, it is hard not to imagine that you might just be chatting to Britain’s first future Muslim woman prime minister. She does have that habit of collecting firsts, after all.
The Islamic student
HOW does a young woman become the leader of Britain’s Muslims? She found her feet as an activist at Strathclyde University studying law. In 2016, she became the first woman to lead the Federation of Student Islamic Societies – yet another first. Mohammed was soon travelling the country as a student leader and was quickly talent-spotted by the MCB.
Initially, she was unsure about getting involved – the MCB seemed too old, not something for a young woman like her. But the leaders persisted and she signed up. Soon she was elected assistant general secretary.
Those who know her say she has “unstoppable energy”. When there’s an MCB meeting in London, she’s up at 4am and on the train from Glasgow to Euston station. She would always be first at the office, arriving before the shutters went up. Prior to her election as leader, she helped direct the MCB’s response to Covid, dealing with foodbanks, vaccinations, the pain of bereavement and grief, restrictions on funerals and religious festivals like Ramadan, mosque closures, rising unemployment, education worries, travel disruption to the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, the impact of the virus on poor communities and frontline NHS staff.
With her leadership skills forged in the fires of the pandemic, MCB members began telling her to run for general secretary. “You’re exactly what we need right now,” she kept being told. Realising the power such a post held, and the change she could wield, Mohammed went for it.
Sexism and racism
SHE faced little sexism but there was a lot about her age, “a lot of questions about whether I was experienced enough – could I