The Stafford Muslim Community Centre is developing a new mosque for Stafford’s growing Muslim community. Throughout 2025, residents explored Islamic ceramics and Staffordshire’s pottery heritage through collaborative workshops with artist Shahed Saleem, artist and engineer Mohammed Younes, and historian Dr Richard McClary, including a visit to the V&A Wedgwood Collection and Archives. The community’s creative outputs from these workshops — drawings, patterns and motifs rooted in both Islamic and local Staffordshire heritage — formed the design library that Shahed and Mohammed translated into the final commission.

The Stafford Mihrab is a modular fabric mihrab worked in the tradition of Khayamiya, an Egyptian appliqué craft in which intricate geometric and arabesque patterns are stitched onto fabric, historically used to create ceremonial and processional tents. The modular design means the mihrab can be adapted and expanded as the mosque develops around it.

The project was conceived and produced by Nadia El-Sebai, a member of Stafford’s Muslim community and Executive Director of The Arab British Centre, and was funded by the Barakat Trust and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.