A pro-Palestinian demonstration met with verbal protests from a small band of far-right extremists yesterday.
There was a heavy police presence in London amid fears anti-Islamic groups would cause trouble during the annual Al-Quds Day event.
But the march and rally passed off without violence as a gathering of counter-protesters appeared to keep their opposition vocal.
The band of people, understood to be from the English Defence League, chanted noisily and pointed fingers as the procession went past Piccadilly Circus en route from Marble Arch to Waterloo Place. The Al-Quds Day crowd responded with their own shouts during the angry stand-off as lines of police officers kept the two sides apart.
As well as a group of Iranian counter-demonstrators, a Union Flag-waving gathering confronted the procession as it passed through Piccadilly Circus.
Some covered their faces with scarves, others wore football shirts and held up a sign declaring "March for England" as they shouted "English and we're proud of it".
Exchanges of "shame on you" passed between the two sides.
But after a momentary rise in tension and noise, the situation calmed.
The protesters dispersed while police moved any potential troublemakers to a cordoned area and the march continued on to its finishing point in Waterloo Place.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said there were no arrests.
Both Muslim and non-Muslim groups took part in the Al-Quds Day rally, which has been held in London for the last 27 years.
Organiser Raza Kazim, from the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said: "It's in aid of the oppressed people of Palestine in particular but the idea of Al-Quds is more general than that. It's for people who have been oppressed.
"We look through the prism of Palestine and the kinds of things that have happened to the Palestinian people. We have come out to say that we are with them."
Of opposition to the rally, Mr Kazim said people such as supporters of Israel usually protested. But with them, he said, were "the BNP, the EDL, the racists, the extremists - all of this unholy alliance have got together" to say oppression should continue, Mr Kazim said. "We are going to say 'no that this is not going to happen'," he said.
"That is why we are here - to raise our voices against that."