Mosques & Youth Engagement Guidelines and Toolkit

The toolkit can potentially revolutionaries the relationship of young people in Mosques, creating our Mosques as community hubs for social action, safe spaces for young people in particular those disengaged & vulnernable, and as hospitals for spiritual healing. 

The purpose of the toolkit is:

• To increase the influence of young people in decision making, 

• To improve and increase programmes that caters for the needs of young people,

• To increase the leadership development of young people and opportunity to lead on projects.

The toolkit contains key findings from a number of workshops held in Mosques and Islamic centres throughout the country to ascertain reasons for lack of participation of youth in British mosques as well as share some best practice models which have been discovered.

In the toolkit, the MINAB has made practical recommendations, which if implemented, can go a long way in turning British Mosques into more vibrant and engaging institutions. The implementation of the recommendations would lead to mosques not only being used as places of worship, but also as platforms for dialogue and civic engagement.

The Chair of MINAB, Allamah Shahid Raza OBE said: “The workshops held throughout the country have highlighted a number of powerful examples of mosques being sources of community harmony, cohesion and platforms for dialogue.”

“The pastoral needs of young Muslims have considerably changed in the last 15 years and it is encouraging to see that an increasing numbers of British Mosques are providing extensive services to the Muslim community. The Muslim community must aspire to recreate the mosques as places buzzing with spiritual blessing and of care and compassion for men, women, young, old and people of other faiths.”

"A multi-functional mosque would be better placed to serve the increasingly complex needs of young Muslims and better equipped to guide the younger generations that might be wrestling with ideas and personalities;” he said.

As part of the development stage of the toolkit a a survey was undertake with over 1023* participants.

23 workshops held across the country from Bristol to Newcastle.

Overall there seemed to be 4 key themes emerging from the workshops:

• Mosques need to be more than just places of ritual worship
• Improvement in the delivery aspect of the sermons and education to make them more accessible and relevant to young British Muslims
• Greater involvement of the Muslim community
• Greater interaction with the wider community, including opening up the mosque, engaging in inter-faith dialogue and responding to the media.

To order a print copy please send a £5 cheque payable to the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board.

MINAB Members who have completed the self-certification process are eligible for a free booklet.

* Young people, Committee Members & Imams participated in the survey form diverse local Muslim community