The Al Hikmah Project immersed from a local group of people back in 1988 who wanted to set-up a masjid to provide a clear Islamic understanding based on the Quran and Sunnah. Many problems were evident in this area as it was deprived of any real community zone, drugs was a major concern, anti-social behaviour, poverty, low social classes and illiterate children and parents. The women in this area didn’t have any place to go to learn about Islam. The Masjid was opened in 1991 and within a few years we extended the masjid so that we could provide our Muslim sisters with a place to pray and to be educated by giving them a fully segregated area. We were amongst the first in the North of England to provide this service.
The Al Hikmah Project wanted to extend the project by starting the important role of giving Dawah outside the masjid from 1995-2008. This started on a small scale but slowly started to become more formal. This was in the form of a regular Islamic Awareness Week every year. Alongside this Awareness Week we decided to start a session with the youth where we would take the children to the park to play sports like football and Basketball. We then started a couple of sessions on the weekend at the masjid where we used to discuss various problems like drugs, street life, extreme and other issues impacting of the community. This work was limited due to no real space in the masjid to carry out our activities.
In December 2008 we were able to start a campaign to buy an old Derelict School for £306,000 which will be a basis for us to grow our activities by opening the First Islamic Nursery in Keighley and a Youth Centre. In July 2010 we were able to set up our Youth Centre with over 50 students attending every week. The Centre went through a massive refurbishment project where the main building was renovated and refurbished to a good standard. The next phase of the project was to set-up the First Islamic Nursery (2012) in Keighley and a Youth Centre (segregated) for males and females of the age of 5-18 years old.
We aim to go further with the Al Hikmah Project by developing the Nursery, extending the masjid and the services it provides by 2024 and create a community engagement centre in Keighley which will give us the opportunity to develop our sustainability income revenue based ventures at this site to ensure that the organisation is not reliant on donations, The community engagement centre will be open to all in the surrounding areas to create a bigger better facility for all to access in the North. This new centre will bring all of our projects under one roof to ensure we can be the focal point for all the needs of the community.
