On 12th January 2014, the MYL-Sisters in Halifax held their third seminar; which was a Mawlid Special seminar. The topic of the seminar was ‘Love’ and was held at the Minhaj Education Centre in Halifax. The seminar was hosted by Tahira Afzal, which lasted for one hour and thirty minutes. The purpose of this seminar was to reflect on the kinds of things one loves in this materialist world and what in fact should our priorities should be. The seminar was divided into four sections:

1. What is love?
2. What do we love?
3. What should we love?
4. Love of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him)

The seminar commenced with registration and a welcome of the attendees. An outline of the Seminar was distributed and stationary was provided for those who wished to take notes. Sister Tahira started by explaining the lexical meaning of the word ‘Love’. Then she highlighted different types of things people love world i.e. houses, cars, money, phones and other material possessions. She further elaborated that these things have one thing in common; that is a link to this materialist world. A brief refreshment break was provided half way through the seminar so that the participants had a chance to refresh themselves and gather their thoughts for the last part of the seminar. After the seminar a collective recitation of greetings and salutation was presented in the blessed court of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and beautiful nasheed that was recited by sisters Safoora Ali and Safyah Malik.

Finally a short clip was viewed from a speech delivered by Shayk- ul-Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir ul Qadri on Love of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) without seeing him’. As it was the blessed month of Rabbi-al-Awwal; a month in which Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) was born, sister Tahira discussed how, we as Muslims should celebrate and rejoice at this time of the year and finally highlighted the importance of having deep love for the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in relation to the following she quoted verse from Holy Quran and hadith (sayings of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him).

Indeed Allah conferred a great favour on the believers when He sent among them a Messenger (Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him)) - Quran 10:58

Holy Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “None of you will have faith till he loves me more than his father, his children and all mankind” - Bukhari #628

Feedback from Participants:

• “Alhamdulillah very informative and useful knowledge for the youth sisters. May Allah SWT reward you for your efforts! Ameen”
• “Excellent seminar”
• “Very well planned! Loved the recitation of darood shareef, it allows us to get more involved.”
• “really good and interesting”
• Alhumdulillah, the seminar was beneficial for the participants.

Reported By: Moazzam Raza