The MYF opened its doors to the general public for an open day on Saturday the 29th of March 2014 with the theme of “Women in Islam”.
The open day consisted of a small exhibition upstairs & a larger exhibition downstairs on the theme of “Women in Islam”. There was also a short PowerPoint presentation presented by 1 sister and a rolling 1 hour TV presentation on the same theme. There were displays of Arabic calligraphy & henna hand painting as well as face painting for the children. The costume display was also warmly welcomed back to the stalls on this open day. There was hot food as well as a rest area with tea, coffee & biscuits. Mosque tours for the visitors which included the exhibition downstairs were provided at regular intervals. Entry was free & anybody from the general public was welcome to attend.
Alhamdulillah, 1 English man accepted Islam, took his shahada & became a Muslim at the open day.
Volunteers gave out invitation leaflets to the passing general public on the streets near to the MYF & invited them to visit the open day. Many non-Muslims came to the open day, the vast majority of whom felt that their visit had been a very pleasant & educational experience, Alhamdulillah.
Open days are opportunities for the Muslims to showcase Islam to the general public & to build bridges with the local community. The open day allows for a face to face dialogue between Muslims & non-Muslims to tackle some of the many misconceptions about Islam which are prevalent today. The theme of “Women in Islam” is particularly relevant as it is a subject which is raised quite frequently in the media & the open day was an excellent opportunity to tackle the misconceptions in this area.
Jazak Allah Khair from the MYF to all the volunteers who helped set up the open day on Friday the 28th of March 2014 & to all the volunteers who helped out on the open day itself. A special thank you to all the volunteers who stayed out distributing flyers & inviting people to come to the open day. MashAllah all the volunteers worked very hard & the fine weather during most of the day was a blessing, Alhamdulillah. The open day could not have been possible without the great work of all the volunteers & I ask Allah (swt) to reward immensely in every possible way everyone who helped out, mashAllah.
Very special thank you’s to the people who helped create the exhibition displays on the theme of “Women in Islam”. MashAllah the exhibition & Power Point presentation were really great, probably the best that we have had since we started doing open days, so a big pat on the back for all who helped create the displays for the exhibition. The exhibition & Power Point presentations were so good that we will be able to use them for next year inshAllah.
Jazak Allah Khair also to the senior brother’s who helped out for the open day, Brother Imtiaz Hussain & Dr Abdul Aziz. Special thank you’s to all the MYF staff who worked tirelessly behind the scenes all day.
The photographs from the open day are presented below.
Please feel free to send in your comments about the open day to me so that we can continually keep making the MYF open day a better experience for all inshAllah.
The next open day at the MYF will be in June 2014 inshAllah with the provisional theme of, “Science in Islam”, inshAllah. Please feel free to send in your ideas regarding this.