Goodbye Leeds

To finish off with my Leeds aventure... Here are two precious photos of the muslims in Leeds.

The first one was taken on the 23.12, at the Leeds New Muslim eid party. The people behind this organisation are doing a great job to give new muslims a social environment. Because as new muslims sometime it is a bit difficult to do a transition; especially on the social aspect, because we do not drink anymore for example, and a lot of social activities in the west is centered around a glass of beer, or wine, in a pub...

But the thing is the transition is hard because we often have no substitution to our previous social context.

In that line of thought, I heard Abdelhakim Murad saying that 50% of people who converts to Islam go back to disbelief.

This percentage is alarming, really, and if the muslims do not focus in following through new muslims in a sensible and soft manner, many people who see the truth in Islam will soon reject it.

Ok we can say mashallah, qadrullah, true; but we we have to look from inside... The muslim community is one body; and if a member is aching, then the whole body is ...aching. Imagine a body where part of it just detached themselves... Man we end up looking like a zombie from Resident Evil: a horror movie! That is exactly how lots of people see Islam and the muslims: a nightmare (O God forgive us!)!! God will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves!

I really would like to thank LNM for their support and dedication they have offered me. And how pleasing it is to come back after a year and see new faces, like brother Umar (tall brother top right in the picture) who recently converted after living in hiding for sometime under Israeli siege in Lebanon, during the last year events. Allah guides who he wants to His light. This is one of the strenghts of Islam. Everytime something bad happened (9.11, 7.7), people convert because of it!

The picture above was taken on that same day, between maghreb and isha, in Leeds Grand Mosque. Brother Asif leads 2 brothers in salah... People in real connection with their Lord, beautiful!