It is a cold night before Ramadan, and a group of men are completing health and safety checks inside Cumbria’s partially completed South Lakes Islamic Centre (SLIC).

The building is a mere shell, with exposed bricks, hanging wires and no fitted lights or heaters, but a large area has been cleared of construction materials to host nightly congregational prayers.

Cumbria’s Muslim community is excited that the centre will open, albeit only outside of construction hours, but word is spreading quietly due to fears it could be targeted by far-right groups.

“In Ramadan, we don’t have any other place to go,” says Aban Hussain, 40, the mosque’s chair. “Hence, we have to open it in a manner where it’s not 100% ready, but it’s still something we can use. Ramadan only comes once a year, so this is the time, even if it’s a bit uncomfortable for us, to go for it.”

Hussain has lived in Barrow-in-Furness for 18 years, working as a senior engineer in an oil and gas company. Although he says the access to the countryside is “fabulous” for bringing up his three sons, one thing was missing: a mosque.

Barrow’s nearest mosque is more than 50 miles away, in Lancaster. With only three mosques in Cumbria, the Muslim community of mostly healthcare professionals working in Barrow had to rent out function halls for congregational prayers every Friday, working around other hall bookings and spending about £600 a month.

“A lot of doctors only stayed a year and a half, and then left, because there were no facilities for Islamic education, prayer or community here,” says Dr Ghulam Jeelani, 76, who has lived in Barrow for 40 years and worked as a GP before he retired last year. “So we started looking for land.”

In 2022, Barrow council accepted a planning application from these doctors to build a three-storey mosque and community centre in Dalton-in-Furness. The group worked with locals, convincing objectors that the mosque was necessary despite the low Muslim population in Barrow and Dalton – only 0.4%. They’ve been fundraising the £2.5m needed since.

But a couple of years into the build, the SLIC was featured on GB Newswhere it was described as a “mega mosque” in the Lake District, catapulting it into a far-right target. Activists from Ukip and Britain First regularly demonstrated outside the construction site, waving flags and hurling insults. One local person fundraised to hire a specialist barrister to fight the planning permission. “All of a sudden, this wave of protests started happening, and everything was in our face, all the hatred, all the harassment,” says Hussain. “They started harassing the local businesses who were working with us, harassing the labourers who were working with us, calling them traitors. Nick Tenconi [the Ukip leader] was on the site.”

But Hussain and Jeelani are keen to stress that most of the protesters had travelled from outside Barrow. “It took us by surprise because we’d never known the local area to be like this,” says Hussain. “I can’t believe the local people are like that.” The opposition is just “making a hoo-ha”, adds Jeelani, who hopes they will settle down when the mosque starts functioning.

Many in the community are supportive of SLIC, planning inter-faith events and school visits after its official July opening this year. One of these supporters isthe United Against Fascism and Stand Up To Racism campaigner Paul Jenkins, 58, a Barrow resident for more than 30 years. Jenkins has been involved in monthly counter-protests against the far-right at the SLIC site, so its Ramadan opening creates “a fantastic feeling for the community”, he says.

“What has been really encouraging has been the response of local people who continue to oppose the racists,” says Jenkins. “The far-right wanted to claim that they speak for all local people. Our solidarity events have completely shattered that idea. Any further protests from the far-right will continue to be opposed.”

Jeelani agrees, and looks forward to praying in the mosque despite potential protests. “This is a great achievement,” he says. “This year, we won’t hire the community centre. We will start prayers in our new mosque. I cannot express how much we feel about this.”