East London Muslims fear backlash

"We have received three bomb threats in the last two weeks," said Diloyar Khan, director of the East London Mosque, not to mention more than 20 insulting telephone and e-mail messages.

There was another bomb scare Friday as the mosque prepared to welcome the faithful for weekly prayers, a day after four bungled bombings on the British capital's transport network.

"There is a bomb in the mosque. You have half an hour to evacuate the building," the man on the phone told the centre.

The mosque was immediately cleared, and after an hour-long police search the building was allowed to reopen.

"I rushed here because my son was attending a lesson of religious teaching," said 35-year-old Nizam Ul-Haq. The ethnic Pakistani man is a regular at Friday prayers at the mosque.

According to the Islamic Human Rights Commission, nearly 200 incidents of an "Islamaphobic" nature have taken place since the July 7 suicide bomb attacks that killed 56 people, a 20-fold increase over normal times.

The Whitechapel mosque is situated in London's East End, an area that has traditionally played host to poorer immigrants into the city and is now home to a large ethnic Bangladeshi and Pakistani population.

Among the worshippers were fathers with their children, youths, and some women, who enter via a special door and have their own prayer room.