On Sunday 5th February 2017, Rev’d Mary Austin and Canon Owain Bell the Clifton Road Mosque in Birmingham.

Mary writes: Owain and I went to represent the Worcestershire Interfaith Forum at the “Visit My Mosque day” hosted at The Clifton Road Mosque in Balsall. We could not have anticipated the amazing warmth of the welcome we received as we entered. The place was packed with people from all sorts of walks of life and different faiths. During the time we were there we bumped into Margaret Jacobi from the Birmingham Progressive Synagogue, Winnie Gordon from the Unitarian church and a number of Anglican and Methodist colleagues.

Various speakers talked about the mosque and the Muslim faith and there was an interesting question and answer session chaired by one of the women where we heard from two of the scholars from the Mosque, one of whom was Shaykh Amin who came to our Faith and Criminal Justice Day last February at Holland House. In response to questions about the Islamic faith we heard of love and community work and seeking for peace. How I wished this event could have been on the news – giving a completely different image to the one normally peddled by the media!

It was a joy to meet up again with Nasrin Shah with whom I had had an interesting conversation at Holland House in November and also to meet with some amazing women. I got the impression the role of the woman at that mosque is very strong – they are involved in a number of community projects and we hope to keep in touch with some of them. Again contrary to the image we often have of Islam those women were of equal status with the men.

There was a wonderful spread of food, lots of activities for children and families. I could have been taught how to put a hijab on and we both came away with cards with our names in Arabic calligraphy on them as well as the singles roses we were given when we arrived.

It was a truly wonderful afternoon. A leaflet we were given entitled Shia Islam in a Nutshell had the heading “God’s Love – The piece of string that ties us all together”

That really says it all. That love was present and tangible in the friendship and welcome we received and in the promise of building stronger relationships.