Doncaster mosque told to pay former imam £20,000 over religious harassment

Mohammed Khan took Doncaster Mosque Trust to an employment tribunal, claiming he was unfairly dismissed because he raised concerns about financial mismanagement.

The hearing also ruled that members of the place of worship in Hyde Park accused him of following the beliefs of a rival branch of Islam.

Employment Judge Kirsty Ayre said the Trust must compensate Mr Khan, a former Sunni imam at Doncaster Jamia Mosque, after the ruling said several senior members of the mosque made several comments insinuating that he practiced the rival Shia ideology.

The tribunal found that the organisation left Khan with no option but to leave his position at the mosque when it "side-lined" him by steadily handing his responsibilities as imam over to other members."The claimant was offended, as a Sunni imam, at being associated with the Shia religious ideology," the tribunal ruled. "He felt angry and frustrated at colleagues, who are from the same Sunni ideology as the claimant, associating him with a different ideology."

The tribunal panel concluded that Khan was left feeling "denigrated" by his colleagues' comments, which included one volunteer at the mosque saying the imam was "not one of us."

Another volunteer said the imam should be banned from the mosque for his Shiite beliefs, the decision said.

The dispute between Sunnis and Shiites — the two biggest branches in Islam — dates back to the beginning of the religion in the seventh century. Sunni Islam is the predominant branch in the Arab world, while the Shiites constitute the majority of the population in Iran, Iraq and Azerbaijan.

Mr Khan took on the role as an imam at Doncaster Jamia Mosque in December 2020. His role involved leading prayers, collecting donations and teaching children in the mosque's school, until he quit at the end of 2022, according to the ruling.

"To be accused of having Shia sympathies is a serious matter, particularly when the accusations are made by other Sunni Muslims involved in the running of a Sunni mosque," the judge wrote.

The breakdown in Mr Khan's relationship with the mosque came to a head in August 2022 when another newly-appointed imam gave him a choice between a pay decrease to around a third of his previous salary or the option to resign, the ruling said.

The tribunal said that the ultimatum was "one of, if not the most, clear and blatant breaches of the implied term of trust and confidence" the panel had ever seen.

"This was a very stark ultimatum, which put the claimant in an impossible position," the tribunal reported. "He was effectively being pushed out of his imamate duties and forced into a more junior and substantially less well paid role."

At earlier hearings, Mr Khan had accused mosque leaders of financial mismanagement.

Mr Khan said worshippers would donate up to £1,300 to the mosque every Friday and he would hand that money over to the mosque’s cashier and ask him to sign a receipt book.

According to Mr Khan, the cashier said “we don’t really need to do all this” during a meeting in October 2021, but he insisted that charity trustees had a duty to keep proper financial records and they were failing to do this.

A new imam was appointed in February 2022 and began collecting donations for a new community centre.

Mr Khan said that the new imam, who had not been keeping accurate records of the donations, announced in March that £35,000 had been raised but another £80,000 was needed.

According to Mr Khan, members of the congregation approached him and said they were concerned their donations were not being spent on a new community centre.

He then confronted trustees at a meeting in April, claiming they were misusing the donations in breach of obligations set out in the Charities Act 1993.

Mr Khan said he had another dispute with the trustees in July 2022, when they announced they were planning to use £6,000 of the money to pay off utility bills.

In her ruling, Judge Ayre said: “I take account of the fact that the nature of the wrongdoing the claimant (Mr Khan) was concerned about was that thousands of pounds of donations was unaccounted for, and that people were asking the claimant about it.

"I also take account of the fact that the (trust) is a place of worship and a charity, which the public would expect to demonstrate high levels of honesty and integrity.”