Pray you are all well insha’Allah.

I was wondering if you would be willing to help me with something iA. As you know, alhamdulilah I have been attending Sh Akram Nadwi’s Sunday classes this year- one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. He really is a scholar of high calibre and deep understanding, may Allah swt preserve him. What’s quite noticeable however is that there are few regular sisters attending the class. Its quite sad, especially as this is Sh Akram who is not only a scholar and specialist in hadith, but has also undertaken research on female scholars and loves to see sisters in the mosques and gaining ilm. The lack of sisters is mostly due to travel issues. Most people attending the class are from outside of Oxford, and Oxford is not a central location. It’s also a long day, which means that people have to leave home early and get back in the evening.

Some sisters come and go, but find it difficult to commit due to travel. There are many coaches from London to Oxford, but sisters either don’t want to travel alone or parents tend to get worried about them travelling alone early in the morning and later in the evening, and this becomes a barrier to them attending class.

Anyway- alhamdulilah- there is a possibility that some people are willing to donate and cover the cost of a mini coach from London for sisters to travel in starting from next term (October 2013). This would help overcome many barriers and ease the issue of travelling alone for sisters. But first they need to know if there’s interest and numbers etc.

Would any of you know of sisters that have potential and want to seek ilm? Sisters, who would be interested in attending the Sunday classes (regularly) if they could travel on a mini coach with other sisters? Or do you know of any that you would suggest these classes to, whom we could follow up on?

If there is interest, then this project could well go ahead iA and even grow to other cities, which would be a really really amazing thing.

(Btw… brothers can also travel on the coach, but the main idea/priority behind this is to help sisters that would like to seek ilm to be able to have access to the classes and travel with ease and comfort)

Let me know if you can think of anyone or ask around and get some names iA. If anyone wants more info about the classes, message below and I will post you my email address. For now, the focus is on London.

Jazakallah Khair!

Wasalaam

Amal Saffour