14 October 2025

For over a century, the East London Mosque (ELM) has proudly served the community, with a long-standing commitment to supporting women and girls. The Maryam Centre, part of the Mosque, opened over a decade ago, was one of the first purpose-built women’s facilities of its kind in the UK, offering a space for worship, education, health and fitness, counselling, and social programmes.

Building on our rich heritage and strong traditions of supporting all parts of the community, including women, the East London Mosque is due to launch a new Women’s Fitness and Wellness Hub in November, further strengthening our support for women’s health and empowerment.

Our goal remains the same: to nurture faith, wellbeing, and social good for everyone in our community.

The Muslim Charity Run is one of many initiatives that promote health, wellbeing, and charitable giving across our community.

ELM encourages women to take part in sporting activities. Many Muslim women from our community actively participate in sporting events, including boat races, cycling, hiking and marathons as well as various sporting challenges to raise funds for charity.

We remain committed to listening to the needs of our community and ensuring our programmes serve everyone.

It is regrettable that some media outlets have shown little interest in reporting the sharp rise in Islamophobic hate crimes, particularly those targeting Muslim women. This is especially concerning during National Hate Crime Awareness Week (11–18 October 2025). Official figures from the Home Office show anti-Muslim hate crimes have risen by 19% over the past year.

We remain proud to work with our local and national partners in delivering programmes that serve people of all backgrounds.

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15 October 2025

Additional comments from Junaid Ahmed, CEO, East London Mosque and Sufia Alam, Head of Programmes and the Maryam Centre, East London Mosque:

“We remain committed to making sure our programmes serve everyone, and we have helped to organise a wide range of women’s sporting activities including boat races, cycling, hiking and marathons to raise money for important charitable causes.

“Women’s races were not held at this particular event because there was low take up, and some women in our community say they prefer to have a separate event to having races at the same event. Going forward we will ensure there are women’s races as well as men’s races, and we will work to increase women’s participation.

“We have been preparing to launch a new Women’s Fitness and Wellness Hub to encourage women’s access to health and fitness in November. This is one of the many initiatives to have come from the Maryam Centre we opened over a decade ago, one of the first purpose-built women’s facilities of its kind in the UK, offering a space for worship, education, health, counselling, and social programmes.

“It is disappointing that misinformation has been spread about this event to peddle Islamophobic tropes, especially during National Hate Crime Awareness Week and at a time when anti-Muslim hate crimes have risen by 19% over the past year, with an extremely worrying arson attack on Peacehaven mosque just two weeks ago.”