On the evening of 23 March 2020, Boris Johnson addressed the nation and announced Britain's first national lockdown. Within hours, WhatsApp groups in Muslim communities across the country were already coordinating. Who needed food? Who was elderly and alone? Who had a car and could deliver? Who had extra supplies they could share? Long before the government's volunteer scheme had recruited its first member, British Muslim communities were already organising.
The volunteers
Across the country, Muslim community volunteers mobilised on a scale that surprised even themselves. In Bradford, the Muslim community set up a city-wide coordination network within days, matching volunteers with vulnerable residents regardless of faith or background. In east London, mosque-based food banks that had already been running were rapidly scaled up to meet the surge in need. In Leicester, Muslim pharmacists and healthcare workers created multilingual health information to reach communities that were not being served by official channels.
The Muslim Volunteers group — an informal network that grew rapidly during the pandemic — coordinated thousands of volunteers across dozens of cities, delivering groceries, medicines and hot meals to self-isolating residents. Many volunteers were themselves key workers, spending their working days on NHS wards or in care homes before returning to spend their evenings packing and delivering food parcels.
NHS: the Muslim contribution
British Muslims make up a significant portion of NHS staff across all levels and disciplines. During the pandemic, Muslim doctors, nurses, paramedics, porters, cleaners and administrators were on the frontline every single day. The loss of life among NHS staff from BAME backgrounds — disproportionately high in the early months of the pandemic — was felt acutely in Muslim communities across the country. Hundreds of NHS workers from Muslim families gave their lives in service to their patients and their country.
Their sacrifice was honoured publicly and privately, in mosque sermons and online tributes, in social media posts and community collections. The Muslim Doctors Association coordinated personal protective equipment (PPE) appeals, raising funds for additional masks, gowns and visors when official supplies ran short. Muslim sewing groups across the country — from Birmingham to Glasgow — produced thousands of washable fabric masks and scrubs for healthcare workers.
Ramadan under lockdown
For British Muslims, lockdown coincided with Ramadan 2020 — the holiest month of the Islamic year. Mosques were closed. Tarawih prayers, normally a joyful nightly gathering, could not take place in congregation. Eid, the festival marking the end of Ramadan, was celebrated in front garden and in living rooms rather than in parks and at large family gatherings. It was, for many, the strangest and most isolating Ramadan of their lives.
Yet the Muslim community responded with characteristic creativity and resilience. Online Tarawih streams attracted hundreds of thousands of viewers worldwide. Imams delivered khutbahs on YouTube. Families drove past grandparents' houses to celebrate Eid through car windows. And throughout the month, the feeding of others — the iftar parcels delivered to neighbours, the food bank collections, the charitable giving — continued and intensified. Ramadan's spirit of generosity found new channels when the old ones were closed.
After the pandemic
The networks built during the pandemic did not dissolve when lockdown ended. Food banks that were set up in a hurry became permanent fixtures. Volunteer coordination groups evolved into structured community organisations. The relationships forged between Muslim volunteers and non-Muslim neighbours — often the first sustained interaction between communities that had lived side by side for years without truly connecting — proved lasting.
The believers, in their mutual love, mercy and compassion, are like one body: when one part of it complains, the rest of the body responds to it with wakefulness and fever.
COVID-19 was a catastrophe that revealed both the fragility of society and the extraordinary strength of community. In Britain, the Muslim community's response — quiet, practical, generous, and sustained — was one of the most powerful demonstrations of civic virtue the country witnessed during those dark years. It is a story that deserves to be remembered.