Protests at the Al-Mahdi Islamic Centre in Govanhill divide residents of Glasgow’s Southside neighborhood

‘URGENT SUPPORT NEEDED’. A message suddenly pops up in my Govanhill group chat. Normally, it’s used for Saturday night hang-outs and finding spare tickets to gigs, but this was different. ‘Please support our mosque!’ A friend started sharing long messages that called for a counterprotest outside the Al-Mahdi Islamic Centre on Albert Road.

But to counter what? Not long after, people with flats on that street were sharing videos taken from their windows. A group of demonstrators were waving Israeli and American flags, shouting obscenities at passers-by, and someone was dangling an effigy of a Muslim person tied to a noose.

During this past month of Ramadan, international political struggles have made their home in Glasgow. The United States’ and Israel’s attack on Iran began thousands of miles away, but quickly echoed on a smaller scale in the Southside community of Govanhill.

The Al-Mahdi Islamic Centre has been targeted before, with false claims of government money laundering and ties to Iran. But in order to understand what was happening on Albert Road, one had to understand a global power struggle.

From December 2025, the Iranian people have been leading widespread protests against their government. The demonstrations started for economic reasons, but quickly grew into a call to end the state’s theocratic government. The protests were echoed by Iranian people scattered all over the world, until the Iranian government imposed an internet blackout and started slaughtering protestors by the thousands.

On the 28th of February, Israel and the United States began launching air strikes against Iran. While President Donald Trump did not articulate an explicit goal for this military campaign, most US and Israeli officials stated these attacks were ‘pre-emptive’ and the rhetoric seemed to imply that this was an extension of Israel’s war against Palestine. America’s most boasted-of military victory came when they killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, during an air strike on his compound.

If the United States seemed intent on destroying Iran’s leadership, the question of who would come next split the Muslim world in two. The Al-Mahdi Islamic Centre primarily serves Shia Muslims, many of whom still support the Ayatollah. They would like the war to end without a change in government.

Many Sunni Muslims support the restoration of Iran’s previous government, a monarchy, potentially ruled by former crown prince Reza Pahlavi. This heir has been sheltered in the United States ever since the last Shah, his father, was overthrown in the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Pahlavi has been eager to stoke the fires of the protests in Iran and around the world.

While bombs fell in Tehran, people of Muslim faith in Glasgow observed their daily fast for the holy month of Ramadan. On a Thursday evening, after the sun had set, many Shia Muslims in Govanhill walked to the Al-Mahdi Islamic Centre to break their fast together.

What they didn’t expect was to be hounded by a crowd of demonstrators. A group of people had gathered across the street, armed themselves with Israeli flags, and began shouting at the visitors as they walked by. ‘Some of them were spitting on us,’ a woman from the Islamic Centre told me. So the small religious centre called for help.

The community of Govanhill is no stranger to answering the call to action. While all this was going on, the Glasgow Film Festival had opened with Everybody To Kenmure Street (2026), a documentary about a peaceful protest that occurred just a few blocks away. In May 2021, on the morning of Eid, Home Office officials raided a Kenmure Street home and detained two long-standing members of the community for alleged immigration violations.

The neighborhood organized a peaceful sit-in on the street and the detainees were eventually released. Many of the people who went to that protest would show up to support the Islamic Centre.

The next week, there was a call for another counterprotest, and I went to see it for myself. It was a cold evening in March, and about 50 people stood outside the gates of the Islamic Centre. Many of them were holding Palestine flag-themed umbrellas to protect themselves from a light drizzle.

Despite the weather, everyone was warm and welcoming. Muslims filtered through the small crowd of mixed creeds and colours to attend their evening meeting. The Islamic Centre had prepared a table of coffee and snacks for those who were not fasting. One man even walked through the crowd with a bowl of candied dates. The opposing group of demonstrators was nowhere to be seen.

I asked some people who worked in the Islamic Centre why they needed to be protected. They told me that, in previous weeks, this group waving flags had stood across the street and harassed the people coming to break their fast. An employee at a local cafe told me they had stood opposite these demonstrators. They seemed to be a veteran activist, because they described this as different from a typical counterprotest.

Where normally two groups compete to be louder than the other, the people defending the Islamic Centre had stood silently while the demonstrators across the street yelled and chanted at them. The goal was not to win, but to de-escalate.

I asked several different people about the opposing group of demonstrators, but few seemed to have any details. One of the leaders of the Islamic Centre told me they were part of the Iranian protests. ‘They are pro-Shah. That is why they want the war in Iran. But they are like us. They are Muslim, and they are welcome here. Even if they are angry, we would still welcome them.’

Then he said to me, ‘Even you are welcome here,’ pointing out the fact that I’m not Muslim. ‘This is a community centre, not a place of worship. Everyone in the community is welcome.’ 

The Al-Mahdi Islamic Centre has been vocal about their support for the Iranian theocracy, despite its aggression against its own people. The Centre had likely been targeted because they serve Shia Muslims, and those who politically oppose the Ayatollah see them as an extension of a rival ideology. To the demonstrators, this was an enemy camp.

But something the Islamic Centre seemed to understand was that the people were not the enemy. Politicians may send soldiers to fight wars thousands of miles away, but in Govanhill, the war is at home.

The dividing line here wasn’t your nation or ideology, but whether passion for your ideals could blind you to the love for your neighbour.