Muslim Council of Britain

The Mus­lim Coun­cil of Britain (MCB), estab­lished in 1997, is an influ­en­tial U.K. umbrel­la orga­ni­za­tion that has faced scruti­ny over its ide­o­log­i­cal align­ments. The orga­ni­za­tion has his­tor­i­cal­ly had strong ties to Jamaat-e-Isla­mi, a South Asian Islamist move­ment, and has often coor­di­nat­ed its posi­tions and activ­i­ties with groups asso­ci­at­ed with the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB) net­work, though the MCB itself main­tains its inde­pen­dence. The MCB’s lead­er­ship has includ­ed indi­vid­u­als con­nect­ed to both Jamaat-e-Isla­mi and Mus­lim Broth­er­hood-linked orga­ni­za­tions in Europe, and the orga­ni­za­tion has reg­u­lar­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in joint ini­tia­tives with oth­er Broth­er­hood-linked groups in the UK and Europe. Despite peri­od­ic ten­sions with UK gov­ern­ment offi­cials over these rela­tion­ships, the MCB has main­tained its posi­tion as one of Britain’s most promi­nent Islam­ic orga­ni­za­tions, claim­ing to rep­re­sent over 500 affil­i­at­ed Mus­lim insti­tu­tions across the country.

In Jan­u­ary 2021, Zara Mohammed was elect­ed as the new MCB Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, the first female SG in its his­to­ry. From 2014 to 2017, Mohammed held sev­er­al lead­ing posi­tions in the Fed­er­a­tion of Stu­dent Islam­ic Soci­eties (FOSIS), a nation­al umbrel­la orga­ni­za­tion rep­re­sent­ing Islam­ic soci­eties at uni­ver­si­ties through­out the UK that has numer­ous ties to the GMB net­work in the UK.