Passion of Jesus; sculpture of Crucifixion of Jesus observing Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus (known as Pieta). Photo: National Gallery of Slovenia via Petar Milošević/Wikimedia Commons

British Council staff were told during an Islamophobia training session that the Virgin Mary wore a hijab, sparking controversy over course materials accused of rewriting religious history to draw a modern parallel between Islamic and Christian traditions.

As part of a taxpayer-funded Project Unity training program, North Yorkshire Council staff involved in counter-terrorism efforts attended a seminar in northern England focused on combating “myths and misinformation about Muslims,” British media reported.

Abbas Najib, a former police officer and CEO of Better Communities Bradford — a charity that delivers community and counter-extremism training — led the session, telling council workers that “Mother Mary wore a hijab” as he explained that head coverings were a tradition shared across different faiths and cultures.

According to local media reports, the training materials also claimed that “Jesus grew a beard,” drawing a striking and historically misleading parallel between Christian and Islamic religious traditions. 

The seminar further asserted that “the hijab was prevalent in the UK only 100 years ago,” using images of shawls worn in early 20th-century Britain to illustrate the point, even though the garments depicted were unrelated to Islamic practice.

After the remarks drew widespread criticism, Najib defended his reference to the Virgin Mary in an interview with the Daily Mail, arguing that he had cited her example to illustrate the longstanding tradition of women covering their heads across different faiths.

“Hijab is an Arabic word that simply means ‘covering,’ and in everyday usage, it refers to a woman’s head covering,” he said, adding that his lecture was meant to show that covering the head is a tradition shared by many faiths and cultures, not something unique to Islam.

As a Jewish woman living in first-century Judea, Mary is believed to have covered her head as part of the modest dress customs of her time. Christian artwork has long depicted her wearing a veil. 

However, Mary lived about 600 years before the emergence of Islam, so her practice of covering her head came from the Jewish traditions and customs of her time, rather than from the later Islamic teachings surrounding the hijab.

Since Project Unity was launched last year, it has reached more than 2,500 people across West and North Yorkshire in northern England, purportedly helping participants better understand the diverse communities they serve and find areas of common ground.

As part of its wider community work, Better Communities Bradford has received about $660,000 from the National Lottery Communities Fund, which supports projects that strengthen communities and improve people’s lives.

Of that funding, about $47,000 was awarded to launch Project Unity, which provides training on “media and political narratives” as well as “myths and misconceptions about Islam.”

According to Better Communities Bradford, these training programs are intended to demonstrate how Islamic values can align with those of British society, including respect for democracy, the rule of law, tolerance, and individual liberty.

“Project Unity exists to reduce anti-Muslim hostility and strengthen trust between communities,” Najib said in a statement. “Participants consider how the same words would be heard if they were said about Jewish people, black people or any other minority community, so that one standard is applied to everyone, whoever is speaking and whatever their politics.”

“The law gives stronger protection against the stirring up of racial hatred than religious hatred, and Jewish people are protected as a racial group while Muslims are not,” he continued. “Asking delegates to reflect on that inconsistency is exactly what hate-crime training should do, and I stand by it. Every community in Britain deserves the same protection from hatred.”