Our second workshop; Being British Muslims: The Theological Narrative of Belonging and Caring was given by Dr Rizwan Syed, which allowed the group to discuss our personal thoughts and feelings on various topics. For me it was fascinating to learn the different perspectives, especially to reevaluate what we view as ‘Islamic’ when talking about different countries in comparison to the UK.

Although all of our workshops were brilliant, my personal favourite was the last one; Muslims and Civil Society: Building a Better Future Together by Sarah Joseph. This talk was incredibly thoughtprovoking. It reminded all of us that no matter how we are struggling with our identity and sense of belonging all of us belong with Allah Subhana’Watala! Despite how hard it is to find our purpose and place in this world, all we can do is try our hardest, “do good works”, go forward with the best of intentions and in that way, we can all achieve greatness. This was a perfect way to end an incredible day and I know many of us got very emotional as the topic was delivered in a truly heartfelt manner. It was beautiful to see the amount of support and empathy in the room. True evidence that when we trust in each other and our faith, we are all stronger. In summary this was a truly wonderful day, I would like to thank the speakers and everyone who organised this event in coming together to make this possible, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

I think my biggest takeaways from the day were that Islam is not just for the Muslims but for everyone and we can all

 achieve brilliance if we let our light shine and go forward with the right intentions, oh and that not everyone can draw!