A SENIOR health minister has spoken of the Islamophobic abuse he faces online and in public, warning that attitudes towards race and identity in Britain have shifted sharply for the worse, even as he welcomed the government's new definition of anti-Muslim hostility as a potential turning point, the Guardian reported.
Zubir Ahmed, parliamentary undersecretary of state for health innovation and safety, said he tries to avoid reading comments beneath his social media posts, but his curiosity occasionally gets the better of him.
After performing a transplant operation on Christmas Day, he looked up a post about it and was shaken by what he found. "It went viral on the internet, but I have also never seen anything like the abuse," he told the Guardian. One comment in particular stayed with him: "Thanks for the transplant, now go home."
Ahmed, a vascular surgeon and one of only two Muslims currently serving in government, said such incidents reflected a broader and worsening pattern of anti-Muslim hostility.
He warned that over the past nine months, the range of views considered acceptable in mainstream public life had shifted in troubling ways, with "extraordinary conversations" now being had openly about race and identity.
The consequences, he said, were deeply personal. "We now find ourselves in a space where, to be honest, I've got young children and I can't confidently say their lives, in terms of living in society on an equal footing, are better than what I was growing up. That's a really sad thing to see."
Growing up in the Govan area of Glasgow, Ahmed said he and his friends experienced racism based on the colour of their skin. By the 2000s, it had felt as though British society was on what he described as "an irreversible pathway to progress."
But that sense of optimism was eroded by the September 11 attacks, the war in Iraq, and subsequent terror incidents — events that he says changed the climate for British Muslims profoundly. "Vested interests were attempting to dehumanise Muslims," he said, "and then you found yourself in the midst of a storm."
Ahmed said he sometimes gauges public mood by wearing visibly Islamic clothing when out and about. "It still manages to turn heads in a way that it would not have done so ten years ago. If I'm out on the streets with relatives who wear headscarves, you can see the change from people. The looks just linger a bit longer than they used to."
He did not, however, lay blame solely on individuals. "I don't blame people, because they are being inundated and attacked every minute of the day with algorithmic content driving them towards questioning the role of Muslims in society."
Against this backdrop, Ahmed said the government's newly announced definition of anti-Muslim hostility represented a meaningful step forward. The three-paragraph definition covers criminal acts directed at Muslims because of their religion, prejudicial stereotyping, and unlawful discrimination.
It was published alongside a new action plan to strengthen social cohesion. "It's telling them that there is an issue and validating their existence in this country," Ahmed said.
The definition has faced pushback from the Conservatives, who argued it was too broad and could effectively introduce a back-door blasphemy law.
Ahmed rejected that criticism outright. "It's not about blasphemy laws or anything like that. This is about anti-Muslim hatred, which has a racial element to it. This is about appearing visibly Muslim or, if you have a Muslim-sounding name, being less likely to get picked for a job."
Official figures underline the scale of the problem. Of all religious hate crime offences recorded by police in England and Wales in the year to March 2025, as many as 4,478 (45 per cent of the total) were directed at Muslims, up from 3,866 the previous year.
