Ahead of Ramazan, UK Muslim charity seeks to portray Islam in positive light through buses

Islamic Relief hopes the campaign across five major cities in UK will help to 'change the negative climate'

Islamic Relief, Britain’s biggest Muslim charity, will be branding hundreds of buses around the country later this month with adverts praising Allah as part of a campaign to help victims of the Syrian civil war as well as show Islam and international aid in a positive light.

The posters, reading “Subhan Allah,” or “Glory be to God,” will be on buses in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leicester and Bradford, all of which have large Muslim populations.



“In a sense this could be called a climate change campaign because we want to change the negative climate around international aid and around the Muslim community in this country," said Imran Madden, the UK director of Islamic Relief.

"International aid has helped halve the number of people living in extreme poverty in the past 15 years, and British Muslims are an incredibly generous community who give over £100 million to international aid charities in Ramadan,” he added.



The new campaign will appear on buses from 23 May on 640 buses around the country. It hopes to offer support to young Muslims towards fighting discrimination and extremism by motivating them to focus their efforts into humanitarian work, thus preventing them from being involved with extremist groups.

The advertisements also aim to encourage people to make generous donations for Zakat in the Holy month of Ramadan.

An estimated 3 million Muslims are believed to live in London - around 50 per cent of British Muslim population.



Transport for London (TfL), which regulates the advertisements appearing on the city’s buses, has a clause banning campaigns linked to a “political party or campaign” but does not prevent religious advertising.

This article originally appeared on Independent.