About the Guild

The UK Imams Guild is the professional association for imams and Islamic religious professionals serving in mosques, chaplaincy, education and community organisations across the United Kingdom.

What is a guild?

A guild is an association of people who practise the same craft or profession. They come together to uphold its standards, pass on its skills, look after one another and speak with one voice.

Guilds have a long history. In medieval Britain, guilds of craftspeople and merchants set standards of good work, trained apprentices and supported members who fell on hard times. Muslim societies had their own craft and trade guilds, often called asnāf. Many of them carried a strong ethical and spiritual ethos alongside their practical role.

A modern professional guild keeps that spirit. It is:

• run by and for its members, the practitioners themselves;
• a guardian of standards: a shared code of conduct and a clear picture of what good practice looks like;
• a place of learning: training, mentoring and continuing professional development;
• a source of mutual support, in good times and difficult ones;
• a collective voice, speaking up for the profession with evidence.

What the Guild is not

• Not a regulator. It does not license imams or decide who may serve as one.
• Not a trade union. It is not a registered trade union and does not hold statutory recognition or bargain collectively with employers. It does give members information and support about their employment.
• Not a religious authority. It does not issue religious rulings or take sides between schools of thought. Imams from across the UK's Muslim traditions are welcome.
• Not an accrediting body. Its competency framework is for self-reflection and development, not accreditation.

We will update this page if the Guild's legal structure changes.

Our vision

A UK in which imams are recognised, supported and respected as skilled professionals, and in which mosques and the communities they serve benefit from that professionalism.

Our aims

1. Recognition: establish the role of the imam as a recognised profession, with a clear professional identity.
2. Standards: develop and uphold, with imams themselves, a shared code of conduct and competency framework.
3. Development: support lifelong learning through training, mentoring, CPD and self-assessment.
4. Fair employment: promote written contracts, fair pay, reasonable hours and fair procedures, and support members facing problems at work.
5. Wellbeing: look after the people who look after others, through peer support and signposting.
6. Good mosque–imam relations: equip imams and mosque committees with model contracts, good practice and routes to resolve disagreements constructively.
7. A collective voice: gather evidence, including through the annual UK Imams Pulse survey, and represent imams' interests to institutions and policymakers.
8. Good governance: run the Guild transparently, accountably and independently, answerable to its members.

Our values

• Amanah (trust): we handle members' information and concerns with care and discretion.
• Ihsan (excellence): we champion high standards of service and conduct.
• Adl (fairness): we stand for the fair treatment of imams and of the communities they serve.
• Independence: we are not affiliated with any single mosque network, school of thought or funder.