Our Story

Tewkesbury Islamic Society started after a sudden closure of Nirala restaurant that ran Friday Prayers for nearly 20 years. As Friday prayer is compulsory for Muslims to attend in congregation (Quran 62:9-10), we had to look for a place. Fortunately, we found Tewkesbury CofE Primary School Community Centre. The school headteacher and the governing body fully supported and accepted our request to book the community centre room every Friday between 13:00-14:00. Although we started booking the place, we soon realised that being a school it is not open all year round, what will happen during school holidays? So we approached and requested the school caretaker if we could have the room to be available during the school holidays. The caretaker mutually agreed on the basis that we inform him in advance our booking dates and he will inform us in advance which days/weeks he is unable to open the centre due to his holiday booking. Once this was agreed, we started collecting voluntary donations to support the expenses.

At first, we didn't have prayer mats to put on the floor, instead we used double bedsheets kindly given by the trustee of Gloucestershire Islamic Trust, one of the bedsheet was folded to make a prayer mat for the Imam. As time progressed, we bought three carpet pieces from Weavers carpet shop in Gloucester and replaced the bedsheets. Later we bought a separate (dedicated) prayer mat for the Imam. We also setup our Twitter and Facebook Page. We now have our own dedicated Tewkesbury Islamic Society Bank account so we can pay the rent, caretaker fee and Imam's expense directly from our account.

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Our aim is to arrange Friday (Jumma) prayers for Muslim community of Tewkesbury and surrounding areas where there is no mosque.