'You can be British and a Muslim'

The East London Mosque in Whitechapel Road is full to overflowing. At Friday prayers 3,500 people, most of them Bangladeshis, squeeze into the mosque and the pressure on space is so great that signs on the stairs read: "For health and safety reasons please

The Bangladeshis (often referred to as Bengalis, though many of them are from Sylhet, in eastern Bangladesh, and speak Sylheti, a language related to Bengali) have become as dominant and visible in this part of London as the Jews once were.

According to Hassan Ahmed, 27, a member of the East London Mosque's management board, 70,000 Muslims live within walking distance of the mosque, which traces its history back to 1910. The current building, which is going to be extended, was opened in 1985, and was the first mosque in Britain to have the adhan, or call to prayer, delivered from its minaret, through loudspeakers.

Mr Ahmed, who is married with two children, lectures in business studies at Waltham Forest College. His father came to London on an employment visa in 1961 and worked in the docks. The rest of the family, which eventually extended to five sons and two daughters, followed in 1982.

According to Mr Ahmed: "The mosque has played quite a tremendous role in equipping the Bengali community with a sense of identity. You can be British and a Muslim. A large number of Bengalis do have this inferiority complex, they would find it difficult to say to people they do go to the mosque because of the huge Islamophobia that has been generated by the media. I've been to university campuses debating about these things and everybody seems to feel there's some sort of connotation of terrorism or fundamentalism attached to the word Muslim."

The leaflets that can be picked up at the East London Mosque include "warm greetings to our Hezbollah brothers in Lebanon" from the Bangladeshi Muslim Literary Circle in Great Britain, but Mr Ahmed says: "We get a variety of people in this mosque. The mosque's official views are not necessarily reflected in the leaflets distributed." He argues that "this society probably lacks certain aspects of morality and dignity which all religions could put back into it," and points to the mosque's attempts to combat drugs (a threat to teenagers that greatly worries Bengalis) and to help Bengali women "who are not being treated well at home".

Mohmed Salim manages the Sheraz Hotel and Restaurant in Brick Lane, which until 10 years ago, he says, "used to be a pub, the Frying Pan. Jack the Ripper used to sit in here".

Mr Salim came to the East End from Bangladesh aged 14 in 1967 and remembers: "When I came this area was all the Jewish community and they were doing businesses like textiles and tailoring, though there were already some Bengali grocers."

According to Mr Salim, Brick Lane is not nearly as "rough, tough" as it used to be. Many of his customers are workers from the City and it has become safer to walk home at night. "But I want to say one thing. The prostitutes in the area should be controlled. The Government should do something. Sometimes we feel very embarrassed when they're walking on the road when you're leaving your job and asking if you want to do business. It is not very nice, also for the children it is not nice at all."

Bengali shops and restaurants dominate. Here you can buy not just halal meat but "delicious halal pizza". Whole housing estates are occupied by Bengalis, traditional dress is commonplace, the signs are in English and Bengali, while books, videos and tapes come more in Bengali than in English. There is also a thriving Bengali press.

One of the many shops on Cannon Street Road selling Bengali delicacies is Bangla Sweets. A customer called Mr A Rahman (he preferred not to give his first name, but said he was "56 or 57 years old") emerged from a back room where he had been praying and gave an enthusiastic account of the brightly-coloured wares: "This is one of the very nicest possible sweetmeat shops in this area," he said, and pointed to some orange balls. "This is one of the very nicest sweets on offer. It is called Laddu. Those who have tasted it are very pleased and gratified with it. Those who have not tasted it, are very unfortunate in a way."

Mr Rahman is pleased to see Bengalis becoming more educated in English ways: "It doesn't mean you become a Christian, but you can upkeep your traditions, your society's style and culture, but you can have a nice, friendly exchange of cultural thoughts and ideas about each other, irrespective of caste and religion."