have an Islamic summer

well I lost it somewhat but inshaAllah I’ll pick myself up and get myself together before Ramadan.

Last week I went for a three day Muslim Leadership course up in Liverpool. Alhamdulillah it was well fun. The three best things I gained from it was a) learning about what it means to be an Islamic leader in relation to Allah and how that feeds into the relation you have with those led by you b) practical advice on how to run an Islamic society and c) making lots of really great friends. InshaAllah they do it again next year!

I went to Islam Expo the other day, which is this big four day Islamic conference in London. Mashallah, it was really nice. Last week I beat my record of how many muslimahs i’ve ever seen in one place at the party, but it was far surpassed at this event, there were thousands of them. They were, for the most part, absolutely beautiful. I don’t know what it is- the fact that they’re all so racially diverse, the fact that they dress nicely and modestly, the fact that Allah has given them nur- I love being around them.
The highlight was seeing a play put on by an Islamic theatre company called Khayaal. I love theatre but I’ve always felt that its never really been the place to be if you’re trying to be a good Muslimah. However, this play was so lovely and free from all the scandalous rubbish that you see in the entertainment business nowadays, lovely.
One thing I regret- going alone. I didn’t want to ask any of my close friends because they’re non- Muslims/ abroad. Oh well. Next year inshaAllah I’ll have a Muslim friend/husband/practising relative to go with.

And yesterday I went to a Muslim girls’ party. I have this friend who is like the lifeline through all north London muslimahs, who organised this lovely barbecue. There were about 35 girls there altogether. She set up a marquee in her garden so that we could all take our scarves off and everything, mashallah it was so nice, I swear I’ve never been around that many muslimahs outside of a mosque! I pray alone all the time so it was so nice to pray Asr with a few other people, alhamdulillah. We also watched the England vs Portugal World Cup Quarter Final match and lost miserably, but you can’t have everything.
At the party I got in contact with a few girls who I’d lost in school and now inshaAllah I’ll cling on to them this time!

Today I went to a brilliant event hosted at a local university called ‘Anti- zionism: Jewish Perspectives’ where basically Jews from all walks of life (orthodox, liberal, non- practicing etc) made their claim for why zionism is wrong, and why anti- zionism and anti- semitism is not the same thing at all. Here are sites with more information
http://www.nkusa.org/
http://www.ihrc.org/

I went to this Sufi concert thing this evening in the Union Chapel, north London. Luckily its just a few minutes walk away from me and it was free (yay!). Brilliant groups from Sarajevo, Pakistan, Morroco, this guy from Egypt called Sheikh Yaseen el Tuhamy. I think he was a bit too extreme for those who weren’t used to that kind of thing, the whole 3 hour epic song Om Kalthoum style. Not that he sang for three hours, but still. I even spoke to a couple of fellow muslimahs, go me