The City Circle

The City Circle is a network body of mainly young Muslim professionals located in England and is a registered charity (Reg. No. [http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/registeredcharities/showcharity.asp?regno=1088931&submit=Run+Search 1088931] ). On 7 November 2006, The City Circle, announced that it had appointed Yahya Birt, whose father is Sir John Birt, as its first Director with effect from December 2006. 0n 3 January 2008, it announced the appointment of Dr Usama Hasan, whose father is Shaykh Suhaib Hasan, as its new Director. [ [http://www.thecitycircle.com/blog2.php?cann_id=471 The City Circle ] ]

The City Circle hosts weekly events and seeks to promote practical and progressive solutions to community problems. It runs targeted community based projects and holds fundraising dinners to support and highlight social and welfare causes as well as servicing third party initiatives.

Projects

Current projects of the organization include a Saturday school, careers and mentoring, helping London's homeless and a children's club. [ [http://www.thecitycircle.com/projects.php The City Circle ] ] The City Circle Saturday school project model has been successfully used by other supplementary schools around London.Fact|date=October 2007

British Muslim Identity

The City Circle is significant in the development of the British Muslim Identity through its challenging weekly discussion groups. It has also attracted controversy through its stated but thus far unproven policy of not aligning itself to any particular group or ideology. The City Circle claims it has not aligned itself to either the Muslim Council of Britain or the Sufi Muslim Council, as evidenced in 2005 it organised a prominent meeting to discuss the state of Muslim leadership in the UK [ [http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1557967,00.html Let's shed more light on Islam | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited ] ] , where the MCB and its critics debated. Despite claims of being non-aligned, it does however, through family relationships of its chairman, still maintains a close relationship with a previous claimant of the British Muslim leadership, Muslim Parliament. In August 2008, with the Parliament, the City Circle [http://www.thecitycircle.com/events_full_text2.php?id=521 hosted and jointly initiated] ] the controversial Muslim Marriage Contract.

Following the veil controversy the City Circle organised a public meeting with Jack Straw, where Jack Straw defended his comments [ [http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1937879,00.html Straw defends veil comments | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited ] ] .

References

* [http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/riazat_butt/2007/09/paying_it_forward.html "Paying it forward"] , "Guardian", September 7 2007. Accessed September 26 2007.

External links

* [http://www.thecitycircle.com/ Website of The City Circle]
* [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/citycircle/ Mailing list/Press releases]
* [http://www.thecitycircle.com/projectschool.php/ City Circle Saturday School website]