Twins of Faith

It was the biggest and the best Islamic event of the year: Saturday 19^th November marked Mercy Mission’s spectacular offering, the Twins of Faith conference at the Excel Centre in London.  With thousands in attendance, the auditorium were dazzled with heart-softening talks, nasheed performances and poetry.  Outside, the bazaar featured stalls on everything from Halal chicken sauce to Muslim Scouts, whilst a kidzone entertained with bouncy castle and face-painting.

Smiles and tears filled the room as international sheyukh took us through a journey of Love – love for the divine, love for the Prophet (pbuh) and ultimately love for the human family. 

Theming the conference around ‘Love’ was one of many intelligent decisions made by this events committee, who devised the term ‘Twins of Faith’ to denote the importance of Knowledge and Action intertwined. 

Talks were powerful and engaging by Sheyukh who knew exactly how to connect to their audience.  The transition between speeches and performances kept the space fresh and light.  Visuals and sound were appealing and smoothly executed so as to welcome speakers professionally to the podium.  What is even more remarkable is how modern and almost R n B the sound was, whilst remaining wholly within Halal boundaries by using the male voice to great effect.

Sheikh Tawfique Choudhury, founder and director inspired us with the story of the Mercy Mission vision, inviting us all to become a part of it.  Indeed Sheikh Alaa ElSayed, blew the roof off by raising £700,000 from the audience within the space of an hour towards the building of women’s hostels across the UK.   Ustadh Yahya Ibrahim exhorted us to put aside racial differences and focus on what unites us as children of Adam.  Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan gave his debut Mercy Mission performance on the theme of forgiveness, set forth by the Qur’an.

Meanwhile a host of fascinating workshops were fully booked on themes from Dawah to Halal food, Careers and Marriage.  Feedback from these was wholly positive, indeed the most frequent complaint was simply not having enough time to attend them all!

The bazaar proved a great way to shop for gifts, clothing and books.  Stands including Islamic wills and mortgages were educational as well as providing a fantastic boost to Muslim businesses.

Overall, a day of great value for money and time for all – we firmly look forwards to having it back next year!

Comedy Interlude

10 Signs you are at an Islamic talk

1. The speaker arrives even later than the audience, following this up with a lengthy monologue on the failings of British public transport.
2. The sisters are in a different room to the speaker, this can include a basement a few blocks away from the venue, just in case any ‘free-mixing’ could possibly occur.
3. There are 5 microphones and yet none of them work.  The first half an hour of the talk is spent handing the speaker various devices, each of which result in auditory explosions, microphone feedback and intermittent pulses of words.  ‘Bismil...inalh...assalam...the title...shirk....bidah’
4. The powerpoint is abandoned because the speaker has not figured out how to press F5 and the brothers in the front row are too busy sleeping to notice.
5. Because the sisters are invisible to the speaker, he insists on addressing the congregation repeatedly as ‘Brothers...’
6. Although this was an Islamic talk, about half of the air time is spent discussing middle east politics and berating the inactivity of the muslim community to do anything, ever (especially wear the hijab, or grow a beard).
7. Gags the speaker is likely to use include references to : Biryani, chapattis or people’s wives. 
8. The talk ends about an hour and half after the advertised finish time, forced to a close by the audibility of the adhan.
9. The brothers get about 10 questions into the speaker before someone finally realises that there are sisters present as well.
10. At this point a small child is dispatched from the sisters section having been stuffed full of scraps of folded up paper with a range of probing questions.  These most often include references to: Jinn, black magic and Bidah – irrespective of the title of the talk.