should we should celebrate as we celebrate the opening of our fast i want to laugh i have to say this that i have definitely witnessed many many more men and women are asking about ramadan and what it's like and as a result it makes the twelve i was fifteen i was eighteen i was much more you much more bearable you know magnitude and you know fantastic yes it's been lovely to have you know when it comes to your family your loved ones are very happy eva barak you and all your viewers thank you so much coming up after the break alec speaks to largeness here on that on his thoughts and reflections on the holy month of ramadan .

no not. at all see you. see this is kentucky.

places you could have been street fanny's. a comin he said let us know coal mines left. the jobs are gone all the pay rises that's. life to see these people the survivors of disappearing before their eyes. i remember thinking when i was younger that if anything ever happened to the coal mines here that it would become a ghost town but i never thought in a million years i would see that and it's how it's happened. when you also see that action the u.s. agree some paris the us weekly's on the iran and pulls all those. little from north korea i will think five times before i sign up something with trump because i don't know if the guy's going to keep this ball is a in the first place. ah

. ah ah. ah. ah. ah. now i'm delighted to be joined by law the longest serving muslim of the house the law. twenty you appointed as a fossil. but at my house of commons where i was for a few years you have to attend two of us now for your seat which also struck me as bad. occulus you don't have anything like that and i so love but you know alex what

we did on the first day that i entered the house of lords i asked for a prayer room so we have a prayer room with a balloon and facilities as well as having my own little prayer room in my office there's a prayer room in the house of lords with some of our staff actually the house of lords staff can go and pray as well and you know that only came about because the. authorities at the time when i entered said we don't have a spare room this is an old building we can create a prayer room and so i said well if i'm an equal member of the house of lords then when their lordships and the bishops are praying every day can i stand in the corner and do by muslim prayer and said no no we'll get we'll get you a little ruler and substantial progress was made the concept of of giving is central to the holy month your international aid was well known ramadan is

a huge boost for the the funds of the various charities working and international it actually muslims are the biggest donors for charity and if you look at this month there is anything like hundred million pounds for various causes from africa to palestine to rohingya communities to kashmir to syria and iraq and all those people in yemen and those who are suffering a lot of our behavior a message for the muslim communities worldwide. it's been a beautiful month where we had unity for the first time saudi arabia britain pakistan and many other countries started their ramadan on same day i hope that we can keep this unity when it comes to our political issues whether it is palestine kashmir whether it is. a syria or yemen we need to have that unity to resign. some of our difficult problems of armored frank are so much over to the

person. i'm joined by steve you know huck head a program of islamic relief and fabulous faggot challenges and events coordinator welcome to the alexander and sure enough now we are hopefully perhaps the last day of ramadan biffen expectations are not necessarily the case the eve might be to morrow inshallah i will take you five years to understand father if i may come to you for us a bit about what ramadan is all about right and why we do what we do taking the twenty one percent of those all of the whole this month for muslims around the world and actually the literal meaning of ramadan is to the burning which means that the it's a symbol of the purification that we're going through saw the purification of ourselves so similarly that where you have gold it's purified through the process of burning and refining and purifying similarly we as a similar process where your refining ourselves and you purifying ourselves and you have to strip in about all of all worlds and desires to do the best that we can and

in the ways that god has asked us to do so observing from first that we can appreciate better solely for mortars that we can appreciate the value of water better before being even cruel to anyone or saying the wrong word to someone or rising to or if someone's upsetting us all of those things that the things that we have to try and control during the month of ramadan and we also tend to take that month as a month of really exceeding in good deeds because we believe that the rewards are money fold. to fight in them and ramadan so everything that we do we feel that there was so much more greater in this month so we kind of excel in trying to do good deeds throughout this month and i probably fair to see that everybody probably knows somebody who is fasting during this month and the question there was too often asked is but what no water no proof of the teeth are how do you respond to that i think it's one of those things where we you know there are people who are able bodied who often able can and we have it proven that because actually do this fast. so there is a purification is among the purification and it's

a spiritual prevention but it's also a physical purification to me if i can talk about some of the national programs that islamic relief undertakes there are many and varied not just in muslim countries but nothing beyond you did a lot in grain for for instance can you tell me a bit about what you have ongoing moment so obviously through ramadan our biggest program in this particular period will be feeding the poor and impoverished families all across the world so we do food pack distributions and what we will ensure is that those food packs that we distribute they will have a particular color effect values to make sure that they've got protein they've got sugar they've got fat they've got carbohydrates that people around the world to you know some of the poorest people that we're working with and we can empathize with them because they actually where we don't have access to food and water during ramadan these people actually don't have access to food and water most of the time i mean we've had out someone who had to endure seattle and you know the seas and charities working across lots of different a.d.'s and where you can work together

with the hugely beneficial but sadly i know you're in charge of events and challenges and let me know what the challenge is part of that meeting ok the challenge is to set up where there is a child element involved so a lot of people are quite keen to exert themselves and push themselves you know their comfort zone and they want to do it for a good reason for a good cause so for me that's the most valuable part of this whole thing but for the person signs up they get to have an experience like no other cell for example i'll take them to kilimanjaro to climb mount kilimanjaro all take them to everest and will climb up to. a couple of years ago when i challenged myself as well the mountains have been my thing for a while so snowdon and but never sick said joe those are all things but i got my own ideas even though this is amazing. but i've never cycle before i spent what off to do learning how to cycle and then i did a cycle across under this era which was really exciting. they were happy hoping to

do another one in turkey some of them a cyclocross turkey if you're not a cyclist is really quite painful but the whole thing is such an experience and people will sponsor you and they'll hopefully hear about this fourth of july project where fundraising for and they go and it's a long term sustainable project and awareness we think it's worth it it's hugely important but thank you both very much and inspiring to speak to both lovely fifty women in power and taking over the board always think it through and i wish you all inshallah when it comes to very very happy with your family loved ones and i only wish we could be could spread the joy and enjoy i'm going to have a possible there are so many people who'd be stepping will be able to enjoy that david thank you very much indeed for all that you thank you and now over to alex fifth back in the studio and joined by the u.k. director of the climate relief and i'm martin thank you there's been a and ron welcome to the experiment show thank you though it must be a very big obviously of ramadan the holy month for all muslims but must be a very busy one for the u.k.'s leading muslim charity well i think most people know

that ramadan is a month of fasting so they're probably aware that during daylight hours from sunrise to sunset we don't drink we don't eat part the conditions of the fast but has the water for you yeah i didn't want to have any close to me because i was going now just in case i reach for it we can make that mistake. but what's less well known is that it's also the month of giving so one of the five pillars is the cat it's a charitable contribution from your income is two and a half percent of your expendable income. for loads of different reasons usually connected to the concept of greater reward most muslims leave contributing their charitable donations until the month of ramadan so we receive in the space of maybe five or six weeks half of our annual income so it's a very very busy period but when i was first minister on the chemical one of the project proposals that came to us were first micro-finance for women i think it was

in pakistan it was which struck me as a very interesting concept. a lot behind in terms of the power that has to change in the lation ships and communities. you know i think micro finance i mean it's well publicized i mean interventions at a community level often with very small contributions i mean it's not about providing thousands of pounds to an individual is often loans of the equivalent of say fifty pounds one hundred pounds two hundred pounds which makes an incredible difference to say a widow who's trying to feed her kids trying to develop a business but just needs that extra cash to buy a few more utensils so that she can produce a bit more food for example and you find a distinguished career other than giving a set of international support and aides say what would you say that is live at least. giving pointers a bit of what is that the thing that you think it really does perhaps best of the range of charities i would say

a reach i mean i would emphasize that we have that portfolio including development to work but i have to say at the moment given the nature of the world how many conflicts there are special place like the middle east it's our reach is our ability to underline our humanitarian credentials to prove to the communities to sometimes the armed groups sometimes the local government that we're here for the right reasons we're here to support based on need and we spend a lot of time talking to communities so what that means is even after several months we're able to get access to some of the almost beyond reach communities and they're often complex and so we have incredibly brave aid workers men and women who often volunteers who do that community negotiation and in places like yemen syria iraq were often the only aid agency in a particular area but just to clarify your reach is not restricted to mutilated not at all no i mean with faith inspired and i think with on the line for reasons

connected to you know charitable giving. that the community is very very generous in ramadan alone in the u.k. we raise over one hundred million within all the muslim charities so it's a very generous commune. some of the largest natural disasters in recent years haiti the earthquake in haiti philippines earthquake super typhoon in the philippines you probably remember is all muslim countries but we've had significant interventions they've been some of the biggest humanitarian programs of the last five years i think that goes to show that we perhaps you know now reached a stage where people are asking that question a bit less that they've seen this in different places of the planet they understand it's about our faith motivating of interventions but ultimately we're blind to issues of you know race and color and creed etc so i've said to other agencies in international development set the more per i don't have to give your fifty pence but what i can do is give you the the alex i would quit that's fantastic you know the drill in this this is a gallop for

a loving cup. and normally normally it's whiskey it goes on for the love income but but you know other drinks of the film are a father member. in partial to amber one from about was all of us i have in bloom our shelter. and remember alex thank you very much thank you for the view thank you . note that ramadan is the holiest month and they fly macallan there were muslims all around the world from sunrise to sunset and at the end of every fast we're here for the family and friends and especially the poor it's also month for giving to charity but as you think they end up with ahmed on and look forward to the celebrations it will bring we have course will always remember those who are less well off and facing many more challenges than we do here in this country and our special program on holocaust memorial day we have education was crucial to creating .