Mosques should be places of prayer, reflection and community. Yet for more than a decade, mosque attacks in the UK have ranged from graffiti, smashed windows and hate mail to arson, explosives and terrorist plots intended to kill worshippers.
When a mosque is targeted, the harm reaches far beyond the building. Parents wonder whether it is safe to take their children to prayers. Elderly worshippers become anxious. Volunteers must spend time on cameras, barriers and emergency plans. The message behind attacks on mosques is designed to be collective: to make entire Muslim communities feel that they do not belong.
From Woolwich to 167 recorded mosque attacks
The murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby in Woolwich on 22 May 2013 became an early and significant trigger point. In the following three months, Tell MAMA recorded 34 anti-Muslim attacks on property, most notably mosques. These included nine cases of arson and seven break-ins or incidents involving violence against worshippers.
That period also revealed the terrorist danger behind anti-Muslim hate. Neo-Nazi Pavlo Lapshyn murdered 82-year-old Mohammed Saleem and bombed three mosques in the Midlands. Tell MAMA later mapped 167 attacks on mosques and Muslim places of worship between May 2013 and June 2017.
These figures remain a vital historical benchmark. They show the levels of anti-Muslim hate against mosques and Islamic institutions that can be reached and we also acknowledge that these events are over 5 to 10 years old, and that anti-Muslim prejudice and hatred has risen over the last 5 years. Our research reports in Tell MAMA have demonstrated this.
How national and international events trigger anti-Muslim hate
Tell MAMA’s research distinguishes between a cause and a trigger. Terrorist attacks, wars and political controversies do not create prejudice from nothing, but they can embolden people already carrying anti-Muslim hostility.
Following the 2016 EU referendum, Tell MAMA recorded a 475% increase in offline anti-Muslim incidents in one week. After the Manchester Arena bombing in May 2017, reports rose by 700%, from nine incidents in the preceding week to 72 afterwards. Following the London Bridge attack, a man left a fake bomb outside Paisley Central Mosque. Weeks later, Darren Osborne drove a van into worshippers near Finsbury Park Mosque, killing Makram Ali.
In 2018, the threatening “Punish a Muslim Day” letters spread fear among Muslim households and institutions. Then, after 51 Muslims were murdered at two mosques in Christchurch in March 2019, incidents reported to Tell MAMA rose by 692% in one week. Incidents involving mosques or Islamic institutions increased by 433%, from three in February to 16 in March. Five Birmingham mosques had windows smashed, some with a sledgehammer.
The Christchurch ideology did not disappear. In 2023, a 16-year-old was convicted of plotting attacks on two West Yorkshire mosques after taking inspiration from the Christchurch terrorist and carrying out a “dry run”.
Gaza, Southport and a new wave of mosque targeting
The Israel-Gaza conflict produced another sharp rise. In the month following 7 October 2023, Tell MAMA received 701 anti-Muslim cases—seven times the comparable period a year earlier. A Tell MAMA and ITV survey of 117 mosques that year found that almost 90% reported experiencing anti-Muslim hate crime during the previous 12 months.
After the Southport murders in July 2024, false claims about the attacker spread online and contributed to racist disorder. Tell MAMA recorded 6,313 verified anti-Muslim hate cases in 2024, its highest annual total. The danger developed further through “Direct Action UK”, a fake far-right Telegram network that offered cryptocurrency for the vandalism of mosques and circulated terrorist material.
By August 2025, Tell MAMA had received 20 reports involving mosques and Islamic centres over six months. Seventeen institutions were targeted between June and September; by 30 October, the figure for that five-month period had reached 30 reports of attacks, vandalism or threatening behaviour.
From vandalism to terrorism
The individual cases show the breadth of the threat. In March 2025, paint was thrown at Aberdeen Mosque and Islamic Centre before a rock smashed a window while worshippers prayed. In June, a man was accused of throwing a pipe bomb into Belfast Islamic Centre. A teenage neo-Nazi also admitted plotting to attack the Inverclyde Muslim Centre in Greenock after pretending to be interested in converting to Islam so that he could gain the community’s trust.
The pattern continued into 2026. Flammable objects were thrown into the grounds of an Islamic centre in Maida Vale; racist graffiti was daubed on a mosque in Exeter; bacon was placed on the door of a Bristol mosque during Ramadan; and an armed man carrying an axe, knife and hammer entered Manchester Central Mosque while around 1,500 people were praying. The police have not described every incident as terrorism, and motives must be established through evidence, but each case understandably deepens communal fear.
Reporting protects communities
Mosque attacks are not merely damage to property. They are attacks on freedom of worship, local belonging and social cohesion. Yet the responses in Aberdeen and Exeter—where neighbours, churches and volunteers helped clean and repair damaged buildings—also show that solidarity can defeat the intended message of hate.
Mosques targeted by anti-Muslim hate should preserve CCTV, photographs, correspondence and witness details, report concerns early and review their security arrangements. Tell MAMA can provide confidential support, liaise with police and help record patterns that might otherwise remain invisible.
Report anti-Muslim hate at tellmamauk.org, call 0800 456 1226, WhatsApp 07341 846086, or email info@tellmamauk.org. In an emergency, always call 999.