Community connections: Insights from a Muslim officer serving during Ramadan

By Acting Inspector Mohammed Uddin.

As a Muslim police officer, serving the Muslim community during the holy month of Ramadan holds a special significance. It’s a time of reflection, spiritual growth and community unity for Muslims around the world.? However as an officer, it also presents a unique challenge - serving the community while fasting can be challenging.

Some days are harder than others, but I’ve found it is something I have got increasingly used to with age - working in a busy borough certainly helps as I don’t have the time to think about my own physical discomfort!

As an Inspector, I find myself in a position to support younger Muslim officers and staff better through Ramadan. It can be challenging to be at the top of your game policing-wise whilst fasting from sunrise to sunset. Still, with a little bit of consideration from supervisors, any niggles can usually be ironed out.

I’m pleased to say that we have come a long way in the last few years. I previously had young Muslim officers sometimes wanting to leave the job because of the difficulties of carrying out their role during Ramadan. These days, awareness is much better, and I make myself available to everyone to answer questions anyone, including (and importantly) supervisors, may have. Simple things like ensuring Muslim officers can take their break at sunset or perhaps switching football aid for a weekend outside of Ramadan make a massive difference in both officer welfare and goodwill towards the organisation.

Along with this goes the vital work of policing during Ramadan, which is a time when Muslim communities are very visible and, therefore, more vulnerable, particularly at prayer times outside mosques. There are nine mosques in Hackney and over 100 in Tower Hamlets, so the job in our area is significant.

I am pleased to say that our relationship with the Muslim communities in east London goes from strength to strength.

A key theme of our work during Ramadan is collaboration - community safety is a job that requires input from the community themselves, the Local Authority and other partners. It’s a real joint effort - within the Met alone, we bring together officers and staff from PSO (Protective Security Operations), faith officers, AMP (Association of Muslim Police), and our IAG (Independent Advisory Group). The mosques bring their leaders and security representatives too.

Planning starts nearly two months ahead of Ramadan each year - we bring all partners and community representatives together to debrief what went well the previous year and what didn’t. For example, feedback from imams and other contacts at the mosques in the past has suggested that they like engagement with police officers after afternoon prayers. Still, during the evening, they prefer officers to remain outside, as it gets very busy inside the mosques. Officers split up in cars, rather than parked up in carriers, is preferable too.

Whenever possible, we like the officers who patrol near the mosques to be officers that the community recognises. This familiarity increases trust and makes it easier for community members to approach officers with concerns or information throughout the year. That goodwill also lets us use the mosque network to send out any safety or reassurance messaging - we are able to reach tens of thousands of people in the community this way.

As we move towards the end of Ramadan and the start of the celebration of Eid al-Fitr, I would like to wish Ramadan Mubarak to all who observe and a special thank you to all those who have supported their Muslim colleagues and community at this time. May this be a time of peace, reflection and unity for us all.