The other three week mega-tour was Br Abu Hafsa: ex-pro wrestler, born blind and revert to Islam. This tour was such a great learning curve for me- out of all the speakers I spent the most time with Abu Hafsa, I accompanied him on several parts of his tour and it was the first time I ever dealt with someone who was blind. Abu Hafsa was seriously so great to be around, very chilled out and always cracking jokes. There was never a shortage of things to talk about as he had so many great stories to tell. The tour was themed "Blind Eyes Not Heart", something which eventually got turned into "The Blind Hearts Tour" by some! Anyway, we shipped Abu Hafsa off to the land of his roots, Ireland, where he spent 4 days. He absolutely loved this experience and commented on the professionalism of the FOSIS Ireland brothers and sisters. That Friday he then spent at LSE- he claims this was his best crowd. On the weekend he came to Cambridge to deliver a sister's circle, at the same time trying out the exquisite Teks' burger from the famoush Teks' burger van! The next two weeks were spent travelling the country with aid of brothers and sisters who facilitated it all- jazakAllah khair. There was a short trip to Scotland, which I accompanied him on. He spoke at Dundee and Aberdeen (arguably the toughest crowd!). I can tell you, being a speaker on tour is hard work- after just 3 days I was burnt out and got taken out for a week with the flu. We wrapped things up with a fundraiser together with IERA on the 26th of Feb where we raised a decent amount Alhamdulillah. All in all, this has to be my favourite tour of them all, and Abu Hafsa really enjoyed it too: "It's been an amazing experience"-- And that's the bottom line, cos Abu Hafsa said so...

 

We also had the inspiring Dr Jamal Badawi with us for a few days speaking on a range of different topics that ISocs requested, including An Intro to Islam (in an interview format!), Misconceptions About Islam and the Purpose of Life. I was gutted I wasn't able to meet the shaykh on his visit here, but I hear his talks went swimmingly as always.

 

Finally, other talks and tours we had included the "Purpose of Life" tour with Adam Deen where he held debates across several university campuses. Alhamudlillah we even received news of some conversions after his talks. We were also working alongside IERA during this time to bring speakers like Hamza Tzortzis to ISocs. All in all, we hit almost 100 events this Jan-Feb, by Allah's grace.

 

I would like to thank all the speakers who gave up their time for the sake of Dawah and who allowed us to benefit from their knowledge and wisdom. It was a pleasure hosting them and hopefully we can have them back again for future FOSIS events inshaAllah. Secondly, thank you to Shaaista, our services GenSec, who held all the tours together and without whom none of this would have been possible. JazakAllah khair to all the project heads: Awab, Shuaib, Mohsin and Shaaista for taking on that responsibility. A special thanks to all those regional GenSecs who were constantly harassed by Shaaista, and to Sr Fathima and Br Asim for helping out too. Jazaks to the rest of the services committee for your hard work and input during this time, all the regional committees for your support in making things go smoothly on the day, Br Muhyadin for single-handedly sorting out all London talks as well as having to make 6am trips to the airport with the speakers (much appreciated! Your hospitality didn't go un-noticed by the speakers). Also thank you Zain for being the travelling camera man and pushing those pound pledges, Obada for helping sort out funding, Brs Omar Ali and Rashid for all your help with IERA, Sr Amal for helping recruit volunteers, and last but not least the rest of NEC, Team FOSIS and all our fabulous ISocs out there for making FOSIS speakers tour 2011 what it was. It was a real team effort and it's been a great experience being a part of it. February 2011- one to remember.

 

(P.S. pictures from the events will be loaded onto the FOSIS facebook page shortly so don't forget to check them out and if you're an ISoc with some good pictures of IAW events you've hosted do send them in to head.services@fosis.org.uk. Recordings of some of these talks will also be available on DVD in the near future so keep your eyes peeled).

 

Wasalaam