London’s 'Young Imam' Is Changing How People See Islam — One Video at a Time

“I’d never done social media before,” Sabah Ahmedi told me as he carefully balanced his phone between a napkin dispenser and sugar shaker at a chai shop in South London’s Tooting district. “Never done TikTok, Instagram, Facebook,” he said.  

“Whatever was out there, I’d never done it.” 

These days, you would never guess it. With tens of thousands of followers and multiple viral videos to his credit, Ahmedi — known as “The Young Imam”  — is a social media sensation.  

And, perhaps more importantly, his is a voice for peacebuilding and bridging divides in a time when xenophobia, antisemitism, and anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence are gripping the United Kingdom.

His journey started in 2020 when, fresh out of the Ahmadiyya seminary in Surrey, he was assigned to the press office at Baitul Futuh in Morden, one of Europe’s largest mosques. Feeling called to be a faith leader out of a sense of justice, he said he was blessed to be in the role.   

But he wasn’t very good at it, he says. “I couldn’t write a presser [press release] to save my life,” he said. His boss told him to figure things out, or he might have to find a new position. So, sitting with a friend at the same chai shop, he decided to start a social media account. The plan was to share the daily life of a faith leader in the UK.  

“Here we are now, five years later,” he said as the camera on his phone captured us splitting a slice of banana bread and chatting about his adventures online. “The account has grown into so many things — a book deal, TV appearances, entertainment contracts.”  

More than being Instagram famous, the account has also fostered opportunities for inter-religious understanding in a time of increasing polarization in British society. With a rise in anti-religious rhetoric and hate directed at Muslims like him, Ahmedi knows it’s essential to show a different side to the Sacred — and to do it in a way that is accessible and digestible for as many people as possible. Through 15-second clips and day-in-the-life reels, Ahmedi creates a vibe that is honest and compassionate, inviting viewers in a spiritually fragmented and relationally polarized society to adopt postures of love, openness, and curiosity. 

One garden to heal the world

“You can begin by mowing a path,” said Vanessa Conant, the first female Rector of St. Mary’s and the Parish of Walthamstow, East London. 

Call it an axiom, motto or sermon illustration, but for Conant, mowing a path was the start of a journey that has transformed her parish church and her community. 

When Vanessa Conant and her husband, Cameron Conant, arrived at St. Mary’s from Edinburgh in 2015, the churchyard was neglected and heavily overgrown. Gravestones were lost in the weeds, drug deals were going down in darkened corners of the church’s uncultivated property and neighbors were upset about the eyesore at the heart of their quaint, East London village. 

“If I’m honest,” Vanessa Conant said, “I did not have an environmental ambition at first. I just didn’t want people to shout at me when I opened the front door of the parsonage.” 

But gradually, as she and the church connected with community members and called on a parish member who is a professional gardener to help, Vanessa Conant said she developed broader commitments to using church property for the sake of biodiversity, wildlife and as a safe haven in the midst of a rapidly disintegrating climate. 

“Graciously and generously, my understanding has been shaped by other people’s commitments and convictions,” she said. Adopting former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ notion of the church as a “learning community,” she said she not only came to see the garden from a new perspective, but her sense of the Sacred shifted as well. 

St. Mary’s churchyard is the largest green space in Walthamstow Village. Covering nearly three acres, it was named “Churchyard of the Year” in the 2023 London in Bloom competition. St. Mary’s has also achieved silver accreditation in A Rocha International’s eco-church scheme, with laity also leading a “Climate Sunday” service each year. 

In addition to being an actively used graveyard, the church grounds are divided into several sections, including a large woodland area along a popular walkway. They also have a range of biodiversity projects, including havens for bees, insects, birds, bats and animals. Every morning and evening, hundreds walk through the yard on their way to work or school. Some stop to rest and reflect, others buzz past like the bumblebees that flit between the blooms underneath the watchful monolith of the church tower.

Working alongside church member and head gardener Tim Hewitt, dozens of local volunteers have helped make St. Mary’s Churchyard a place where Walthamstow gathers to learn about horticulture and wildlife. They plant trees and flowers and spend time admiring and engaging with the diverse range of plants and natural features that make the churchyard a peaceful place to be. 

St. Mary’s, of course, is just one garden. But its impact is much broader than what happens within the garden walls.