Members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community collected hundreds of bags of litter in towns and cities across the UK as part of an annual New Year clean-up. More than 1,700 people took part in the event organised by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association (AMYA), in major UK cities including London, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester.
The organisation hosts several community service projects throughout the year, including tree planting, fundraising, blood donations and street cleaning. Imam Adeel Shah, who led the community litter pick in east Hampshire, said a number of non-Muslims also joined in.
“It’s not only limited to just members of the Ahmadiyya community,” Imam Shah told the PA news agency. “If the general public, if the locals, want to join as well, they’re more than welcome to.”. Imam Shah, who is involved in leading worship at the largest mosque in western Europe – Baitul Futuh mosque in Morden, south London – is one of an estimated 30,000 Ahmadiyya Muslims based in the UK.
He said despite some of the difficulties his community faced during the riots in the summer of 2024, they remain committed to unity and service. “Even after the riots earlier last year, we never lost hope, we never stopped giving back. “We’re all going to stand together always.
“That’s the kind of sentiment and community cohesion that we are trying to replicate across the UK.”. “In recent times, some voices have wrongly suggested that Islam is incompatible with British values,” said Abdul Quddus Arif, AMYA UK’s national president.
