The Future of Islam in Leeds

by Yusuf Rowland

In the name of Allah, All-Merciful, Most Merciful

When the Great Event occurs, none will deny its occurrence; bringing low, raising high. When the earth is convulsed and the mountains are crushed and become scattered dust in the air.

And you will be classed into three:

the Companions of the Right: what of the Companions of the Right?

The Companions of the Left: what of the Companions of the Left?

And the Forerunners, the Forerunners. Those are the Ones Brought Near in Gardens of Delight.

A large group of the earlier people but few of the later ones.

Surat al-Waqia 1-14

For years, like many others who have become Muslim, I have been struggling to understand the Deen of Islam properly. I was confronted with numerous groups and understandings of the Deen. The initial problem was an immediate and fundamental concern; the very basics – how to pray. I was given a book or two on the subject and after reading them and seeing that there were differences between them, I chose what seemed what was most ‘logical’. I have since realised that my criterion was simply what appealed to me the most. Furthermore, I hadn’t actually understood what the books were telling me and in the early stages, I was not doing wudu properly and my salat was not correct according to any madhhab. It has taken a long time and a lot of un-learning and re-learning to correct this. The next concern for me was what mosque to go to, because the mosque you attend is the mosque you invest your trust in and the people who surround you are the people who will most profoundly affect your world view. The most ‘logical’ choice was to go to the only mosque where I felt that I was not an outsider. That mosque was a place which, despite the sincerity of the imam and teachers, has been a source of much confusion for me. I have seen this confusion in almost all my fellow converts, and I have begun to perceive it in Muslims from all backgrounds and in all of the local mosques. Why are we confused? It is my belief that although there are many specific answers, the root cause of it is that we do not have a ‘community’ in the real sense. A functioning community brings about stability and certainty - the opposite of confusion. We, in Leeds, do have a community in the sense that we are people whose lives are interlinked and this revolves around us being Muslim, but this is not what I mean. In this article, I wish to briefly outline what I believe community means and what we must do to build it here in Leeds. [Continue Reading in Dropbox Here] [Read in Google Documents Here]