Young, British & Muslim is a virtual 4-part series taught by Qari Asim MBE (Leeds) tackling current issues Muslims face while living in the UK. This event is organised by Minhaj Brothers UK in collaboration with MQI UK and is aimed at all English-speaking Muslims who wish to explore more ways to deal with issues they face on a regular basis.

The first session of Young, British & Muslim took place virtually on 6th March from 7 to 8 pm. More than 100 participants joined for the first session to learn about "Time Management and Priorities". The session began with a recitation of the Holy Qur’an and Qaseeda Burda Shareef, both performed by young brothers.

Host, Zain Jerry, gave a very warm welcome to the audience and a brief introduction to the teacher of this course. Brother Zain spoke about how Qari Asim is a senior Imam at Makkah Masjid Leeds and a legal director at a global law firm. Qari Asim is very active in tackling issues Muslims are facing while living in the UK, especially speaking against Islamophobia in the UK and recently appearing on platforms such as BBC and ITV to talk against the conspiracy theories behind the Covid vaccine.

Qari Asim began his talk by introducing the topic for the first session which entailed discussing the idea of time management and priorities, with the aid of a PowerPoint presentation to keep the audience engaged. His main discussion focused on the Islamic perspective of time management as he began to look at some of the common questions people have such as “Where does the time go?”, “How to make time for our religious duties?”.

Qari Asim said that Allah SWT created time for the betterment of humans, and He made the day for work and night for rest. He also explained the value of time with a saying of Imam Hasan Al-Basri which shows that time is more precious than money and we should not waste it.

Throughout the session, Qari Asim discussed the importance of time and gave great advice on how to manage it more effectively. He also mentioned the example of Shaykh-ul-Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri as someone who uses his time most productively. Shaykh-ul-Islam has authored over 1000 books so far, which shows that he utilizes every second of his time very effectively.

One of the best takeaways from this session was a quote by a great saint and Islamic Theologian, Ibn Qayyim. Speaking about time-wasting, he said, “Wasting time is worse than death because death separates you from this world whereas wasting time separates you from Allah”.

The audience was well engaged throughout the session and there were many questions which came through for Qari Asim. In the final part of the session, Qari Asim provided great answers to some of the questions from the audience. The next session of this 4-part series will take place on 13th March in which Qari Asim will discuss our next topic of Spirituality & Mental Health. This topic is very important and very highly anticipated by the audience the first session.