Shahed Saleem is reimagining the British mosque. The award-nominated architect, who has been tasked by communities with designing Muslim places of worship up and down the country, has done away with traditional minarets and domes.

“What I'm interested in is making buildings that could only happen in this place, in this time, with this culture that we have now,” Saleem tells BuzzFeed News from his base in east London.

“Also, the buildings should be reflective [of] Britishness, and with that I mean us accepting, acknowledging, and taking on the fact we are a product of this country, of this place, and we can't pretend that we're not.”

Saleem, a researcher at the Barlett UCL and who teaches architecture at the University of Westminster, is currently completing a book, an ambitious project on Muslim architecture in Britain – charting the evolution from the earliest buildings in the late 19th century to mosques being designed today.

The typology of the British mosque and what “English Islam” looks like is being discussed more and more in the wake of the Brexit vote. Baroness Warsi last month hosted a “very English” tea party in Surrey – where ideas such as Muslim hymns akin to those sung in Parish churches, and buildings that could fit in quintessentially English villages, were touted.

Mosques – which are mostly locally funded initiatives from congregations – rarely serve just as places of prayer, but also as community centres, food banks, and even gym spaces. In 1990 there were about 400 mosques in the UK. Now there are around 1,800. It’s no wonder there’s concern from communities about how mosques are serving them and what they’ll look like in the future.

In fact there are a number of projects currently underway demonstrating the lively discussions among Muslim communities about what a mosque should look like, and the facilities they should provide.



Architects of the planned new Cambridge mosque on Mill Road are gathering this weekend to discuss what is being described as "Europe's first eco-mosque". In Bradford this summer the Muslim Women’s Council launched its fundraising strategy for the UK’s first women-led mosque. Meanwhile, the Inclusive Mosque Initiative says it welcomes people from all backgrounds and is currently hosting an Islam LGBTQI tour.

For Saleem, architecture is a powerful marker of current exploration of what British Islam is: “If we can use our architecture to explore the new identity, as it was forming, in this country it can be something useful – and more accurately represent our conditions in our [current] circumstances.”