Articles - Miscellaneous

An Iftar Buffet

During the holy month of Ramadan worshippers at the mosque break their fast with an Iftar buffet. One of the mosque's management committee, until recently our next door neighbour, invited Mandy, Rebecca and I to join them for the event.

We arrived at 5:30 pm and were greeted warmly. The fast was broken with a snack of dates and water at sunset before the haunting call to prayer summoned worshippers into the main hall. For around half the evenings during Ramadan after this prayer a communal meal is provided. This was one such evening. (It was in fact the Congregational Buffet for Community Leaders in Leeds, so there were local councillors and so on present). For the youngsters there was pizza and chips and for those of more sophisticated(?) taste rice, salad, vegetable samosas, meat and chicken dishes quite new to me - delicious it was too.

It was interesting over the meal to talk to someone who had just returned from Northern Pakistan and gave a harrowing first hand account of the conditions being faced by the survivors of the earthquake.

After the meal there was a short programme managed by a Moslem woman. First was a reading from the Koran in Arabic - with a helpful English translation for those of us whose Arabic was a little rusty! There followed a presentation by the chairman of the mosque's management committee. The activities described were wide-ranging and included:

* Work with young Moslems
* International connections with groups in Norway and Indonesia
* Links with the University and its students
* Media and PR
* The very successful 2005 Islamic Exhibition
* Activities surrounding Ramadan and Eid

(The slideshow did include a rather unflattering photograph of me in Arabic clothing accompanying a group of children from Talbot Primary School but was excellent otherwise!).

After the presentation, questions and contributions were invited from the audience. A number of interesting issues were raised including:

* Possible links between Jewish and Muslim school children in Leeds
* The possible role of sport in building bridges between different faith communities
* The attitude towards the media following the BBC Panorama programme which depicted the Leeds Grand Mosque in an extremely biased manner

It seemed to me that the Leeds Grand Mosque is a role model for the way it is making very genuine and consistent efforts to connect locally, across the city, nationally and internationally.

The Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, the Rt. Revd John Packer put it this way, "The Grand Mosque has taken an active and positive role in developing community relations in Leeds and I have welcomed the opportunity to work with them. Proper respect for one another can only strengthen exploration of the important issues we face".

Let's give our support to such inter-faith work whenever we are able.

David Everett

28 November, 2005