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Good Morning.

On this day in 1957, one thousand US Paratroopers had to escort nine black children to a school in Little Rock, Arkansas.  White segregationists wanted to maintain the status quo and had strongly resisted any attempts to mix schools.  Similar struggles for racial justice have gone on in our history, too.  I’m immensely proud to be a citizen of modern Britain: one of the world’s most tolerant cultures – but I‘m also alert to the fact that there are individuals and small groups dedicated to the spread of hatred and violence against minorities in our beautiful country. 

In 2013, an 82 year old Muslim pensioner in Birmingham was brutally murdered on his way back from the mosque.  His killer said his aim was to create racial conflict in our country.  There has also been a rise in anti-Semitism, with the Â鶹ԼÅÄ reporting that the number of incidences had more than doubled last year to just under 1200.  I have personally been a victim of racism -and so have my daughters, which was much harder for me to deal with emotionally.

In his last sermon the Prophet reminded Muslims that, ‘an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black any superiority over white -except by piety and good action.’  My teacher who comes from a Sufi tradition shared the maxim by which he lives out his life: ‘The other is my brother in humanity or in faith.’  If we are to overcome prejudices and hate, then we must instill in our young and old, the strong sense of us all belonging to the same human family.

May God bless the United Kingdom and protect her from all those who seek to harm community relations.  Ameen.