Islam for today and tomorrow…

People often think: ‘Islam cannot help me in a worldly or materialistic way.’ But to be honest, it does. Having a faith like Islam can give you the support of a community and the structure and the discipline to move forward towards your goals in life.

And it’s important for Imam’s to keep the teachings of Islam up-to-date to show you how relevant they are to you lives.

As an Imam I try give advice – to Muslims and Non-Muslims – but not just from an Islamic point of view but also from a logical point of view.

I also do drug education and youth work about substance abuse within my community and I council people from different ethnicities, backgrounds, social groups and faiths. At first, you can see them all thinking;

‘Whoooah who is this guy with a beard who is going to be talking to me?’

But after I have broken the ice and build up some common ground with them, their preconceptions begin to melt. They forget I am an Imam; I’m just a person who is offering my advice and knowledge to help them.

Just after I graduated as an Imam for the Islamic institute I bumped into some old friends that used to be in my class; some of them were doing the wrong things or had been in prison and they said to me: ‘If we had the chance to do what you did we would do the same now.’

If I had not studied Islam then I think I might have fallen into the same kind of holes that my friends have with done with relationships or even crime – the same ones that many young people do today.

A positive environment is really important for all of us. If you walk through a perfume shop – even if you don’t touch anything – you come out smelling of roses; if you walk through a garbage dump with bad smell that effect will come on you too.

It’s good to spend time with educated and good mannered people – it will rub off on you too! And it will help you achieve your goals in life and make a better person of yourself!