The mayors of London, Birmingham, Leeds, Blackburn, Sheffield, Oxford, Luton, Oldham and Rochdale are all Muslim.
Incorrect. London, Rochdale, Oldham and Luton are known to currently have Muslim mayors, but there’s no evidence that the current mayors of Birmingham, Leeds, Blackburn, Sheffield or Oxford are Muslim.
There are four million Muslims out of 66 million people in England.
There were 3.8 million people who identified as Muslim living in England on the day of the 2021 census so this part of the claim is broadly correct. However, the population of England is around 57.7 million, not 66 million.
78% of Muslim women and 63% of Muslims do not work, receive state support, and get free accommodation.
Incorrect. In 2021, 37% of Muslim adult females were in employment, as were 51.4% of all Muslims of working age. We don’t know how many benefit claimants are Muslim.
There are over 3,000 mosques in England.
The organisation Muslims in Britain says there are 1,731 established masjids (mosques) in England.
There are over 130 Sharia courts and more than 50 Sharia councils.
There’s no official count of the number of Sharia councils (it is incorrect to call them courts) in the UK, but the most recent Home Office estimates suggest there are between 30 and 85 in England and Wales.
Every school in the UK is required to teach lessons about Islam.
Not quite. While religious education (RE) is compulsory for state-funded schools, the syllabus is set locally and may not require lessons on Islam. RE is not part of the national curriculum.
UK schools now serve halal meat to children.
Individual schools can choose to provide halal meat if they wish, but there’s no obligation for all schools to do so.
In recent weeks, posts that make inaccurate and unevidenced claims regarding Muslims in the UK have again been circulating on social media.
We’ve seen versions of this post many times over the last eight years, and have debunked its claims multiple times. Almost all these claims are either unevidenced or wrong.
The posts have been shared by dozens of Facebook accounts, including by profiles and in groups that appear to be associated with the United States.
False or misleading claims about specific religious groups can be harmful. Online claims can spread fast and far and are difficult to contain and correct. Internet companies must take responsibility to ensure that they have clear and transparent policies on the treatment of misinformation on their platforms, and then apply them consistently.
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The posts claim that the mayors of London, Birmingham, Leeds, Blackburn, Sheffield, Oxford, Luton, Oldham and Rochdale are all Muslim. Some variations of the post we’ve seen this time around only include this claim.
All of these towns and cities have had Muslim mayors in the past, but this is no longer the case in most of them. The Mayor of Oldham is Muslim, as are the Mayors of Rochdale and of Luton. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is also Muslim.
While a former Mayor of Blackburn with Darwen had publicly spoken about being Muslim while in office, we couldn’t find any evidence that the current Mayor is Muslim.
Similarly, we could not find evidence that the current Mayors of Birmingham, Sheffield, or Oxford are Muslim. The Mayor of Leeds has written about being a Christian.
Some of the posts claim there are “4 million Muslims out of 66 million people in England”.
Although the figure for the number of Muslims is broadly correct, the claim uses an inaccurate figure for England’s overall population.
Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that England’s population was 57.7 million in mid-2023. (The 66 million figure in the post is closer to the population of the entire UK, which was 68.3 million in mid-2023.)
The most recent census shows there were around 3.8 million people who identified as Muslim living in England in 2021. On census day, the population of England was 56.5 million.
The question in the census that asks people about their religion is voluntary, so the figure cannot be seen as definitive. Around 94% of people in England and Wales answered the question about religion in the 2021 census, so the figure of 4 million Muslims in England seems broadly correct.
Some variations of the post claim “78 percent of Muslim women do not work, receive state support + free accommodation” and “63 percent of Muslims do not work, receive state support + free housing”.
But these figures don’t appear to be correct—the 2021 census found 37% of Muslim adult females were in employment, as were 51.4% of all Muslims aged between 16 and 64, meaning fewer than 78% and 63%, respectively, were not working.
The ONS said that those identifying as Muslim had “the lowest percentage of people aged 16 to 64 years in employment”—42% compared with 71% in the overall population.
But the ONS added that there could be cultural or demographic reasons behind this, since Muslim women were more likely to be economically inactive because they were looking after a family or home, and Muslims in general had the highest proportion aged 16-29 and were twice as likely to be students.
The government says data that breaks down Universal Credit and benefits claimants by their religion is unavailable. While questions on religion are included in an equality survey given to claimants, this survey is optional and claimants don’t have to provide information on their religion.
Of those who responded to the 2021 census and said all those in their household identified as Muslim, 27.8% in England lived in social housing, although this doesn’t mean it is free.
Some of the posts also claim: “Today there are over 3,000 mosques in England.”
The ONS does not collect data on the number of places of worship, including mosques, so there’s no official government data to support this claim. What data does exist suggests the figure of 3,000 is an overestimate in terms of actual established mosques.
The organisation Muslims in Britain maintains a database of mosques in the UK. As of 21 February 2025, it reports there are 1,731 established masjids (mosques) in England. In addition there are 146 hired halls used for Friday Prayers and around 130 other spaces, such as dedicated prayer rooms and chaplaincies, that are used for Islamic worship.
Although the organisation says the figure for hired halls is “substantially underreported” due to the local nature of such arrangements, the overall figure of 2,005 is significantly lower than the 3,000 claimed in the Facebook posts.
Some of the posts also say: “there are over 130 sharia courts. There are more than 50 Sharia councils”.
Though the posts suggest Sharia courts and Sharia councils are separate entities, all such associations are known as councils and the use of the term “court” is incorrect and gives a false impression of their function.
Sharia councils, which have existed in the UK since the 1980s, are usually a group of local religious scholars who advise on issues of marriage and divorce in accordance with the religious rules of Islam. These are not formal courts of law, and have “no legal status and no legal binding authority under civil law”, according to the Home Office.
There is no official up-to-date count of how many Sharia councils are in existence but a 2018 Home Office review found there were between 30 and 85 across England and Wales.
One issue is that there is no formal definition of a Sharia council. The website of the Islamic Sharia Council, established in 1982, warns there are “hundreds of fake Sharia councils” operating in the UK.
Some of the posts also claim: “Now every school in the UK is required to teach lessons about Islam.”
This claim is missing important context. While all state-funded schools in the UK have to teach a form of religious education (RE), which may include lessons on Islam, it’s not part of the national curriculum in England.
Government guidance states that the law doesn’t define what the principal religions of Great Britain are, so those who set the syllabus in local authority schools “can decide which are the principal religions represented in Great Britain, other than Christianity, to be included in their agreed syllabus.”
In addition, parents have the legal right to withdraw their children for all or part of any religious lessons, as they also do in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Local councils determine the RE syllabus, but schools that are academies and faith schools can set their own syllabus.
We’ve also seen claims in some of the posts that “UK schools now serve Halal meat to children”. This is not universally true. Government rules on school food don’t specify that food which meets religious dietary requirements must be served. Instead, individual schools may choose to provide halal meat if they wish. There is no obligation for all schools to do so.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as partly false because not all of the listed Mayors are Muslim, and many of the statistics used in the post don’t appear to be correct.
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