The London Muslim Meetup

• What we'll do Salaam,Book your place today by paying a booking fee of £2.50 at https://www.meetup.com/connecting-muslims/events/jspmznyzfbbc/ Please join CONNECTING Muslims for a burger feast at Guanabana in Camden. There is a wide choice of food and on Wednesdays this venue also serves great burgers with an offer of "Buy One, Get One FREE". 👍🏾👍🏾👌🏾👌🏾!! I anticipate that the cost will be around £15-20 each. 💷 This event will be a small and intimate dinner with approximately 20 people. This is on a first come, first serve basis with less than a week to go. If you RSVP, please do commit to attend! GENERAL MENU| http://www.guanabanarestaurant.com/#menu • What to bring cash and sense of humour • Important to know

Dear all, Hope you are well This month, please join us at the Read Sea restaurant to try delicious Ethiopian food. The restaurant has been suggested by friends and I thought to give it a try this month insAllah :) Food can be ordered a la carte, and please have a look at the menu for a pre-selection at your own spare time: http://www.eetapp.com/restaurants/red-sea-restaurant-menu-london-uk-8311 I wish you all a great week ahead, and inshAllah see you all soon Your host Souhad

Salaam everyone, Hope you're all doing well. Here's the choice for the next book club and with a different host - Raza is away for a short while doing the Urdu book club. 6.45pm for a 7pm start. The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton: "We are inundated with advice on where to travel to; we hear little of why we should go and how we could be more fulfilled doing so. The Art of Travel is a philosophical look at the ubiquitous but peculiar activity of travelling ‘for pleasure’, with thoughts on airports, landscapes, museums, holiday romances, photographs, exotic carpets and the contents of hotel mini-bars. The book mixes personal thought with insights drawn from some of the great figures of the past. Unlike existing guidebooks on travel, it dares to ask what the point of travel might be – and modestly suggests how we could learn to be less silently and guiltily miserable on our journeys. Few things are as exciting as the idea of travelling somewhere else. But the reality of travel seldom matches our daydreams. The tragi-comic disappointments are well-known: the disorientation, the mid-afternoon despair, the lethargy before ancient ruins. And yet the reasons behind such disappointments are rarely explored." (-alaindebotton. com) Get the book: Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Travel-Alain-Botton/dp/0140276629/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1379508826&sr=1-1 When buying the book, consider using options like New or Used books from other marketplace sellers on Amazon as you can sometimes find books cheaper there. Another option is to explore the online catalogues of of your local library. This is a popular book and so should be available in most boroughs. Venue: Once you come out of Piccadilly Circus station, walk down Piccadilly in the direction of Green Park. It's a big Waterstones building and is unmissable. Take the lift to 5th floor and find us on the left wing of the floor, which is the coffee shop area. Book Club Rules: * Reading the book is required, even if you read a single chapter. * Discussion is centered around the book and its theme. * No shows are not appreciated. Please sign up if you are interested in reading and discussing books. In case you cannot make it anymore to the meeting, do let us know. Thanks Join our Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/LondonMuslimMeetup/

Salaam All After our first introductory meeting, we will continue our journey through the book by reading the Short Stories of Prem Chand, Ismat Chughtai, Rashid Jahan, Krishan Chander, Manto and Shaukat Thanvi. We will also read short folk stories in the book. In the meeting we will discuss the writers, their period and politics. ------------------------------------------------ The idea is to introduce people to the world of Urdu language, literature and music! You don't have to be an Indian or Pakistani to appreciate Urdu language. It is studied in universities across the world and is a unique language which grew out of the Indian soil with strong influences from Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic and Turkish. It probably is the only language, which shares lots of words from across the Muslim world. As an aid, we will use Ralph Russell's book A Thousand Yearnings: A Book of Urdu Poetry and Prose, and slowly work through it. You don't have to read the whole book to attend a meeting. But buying the book is important so that you can read the selections from poets and writers, which we will discuss along the way. Kindly buy your books from: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/9386702169/ "In this luminous collection of Urdu poetry and prose, Ralph Russell expands our world of Urdu letters to include folk and oral narratives, besides prose and poetry. By situating each form historically, he gives us a refreshing perspective on the diverse literary cultures and histories of India. Besides canonical short stories by the likes of Manto and Premchand, there is Ismat Chughtai’s a little-known autobiographical essay about her relationship with her brother, the writer Azim Beg Chughtai. There are creation tales from the Quran, popular stories of Akbar and Birbal, along with the legendary exploits of Sikandar (Alexander the Great). Selections from the sublime poetry of Mir, Ghalib and others are supplemented by astute commentary and roman transcriptions of the original Urdu. Farhatullah Beg’s brilliantly imagined account of the ‘last Delhi mushaira’ captures a moment in time never seen again, with the horrors of 1857 just around the corner. An accessible introduction for unfamiliar readers, and a pleasurable companion for those familiar with Urdu literature, this volume is a treasure trove of stories, poetry and history. Originally published as Hidden in the Lute(1995), this revised edition has been edited by Russell’s student and friend for several years, the novelist Marion Molteno." Thanks Raza