Thousands descend on Walsall for Eid in the Park event
Family, faith and community were at the forefront of a special event in Walsall celebrating an Islamic festival.
More than 4,000 people came from all across Walsall and the surround area to Broadway West Playing Fields on Saturday to attend an Eid in the Park event in celebration of Eid al-Adha.
The festival honours the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ismail as an act of obedience to Allah's command and is one of the holiest festivals of the Islamic calendar, with one million people making the pilgrimage to Mecca.
The event in Walsall was a chance for families and friends to come together in prayer and was the third time the event had been held at Broadway West Playing Fields, near Bescot Stadium, with the last event in May raising funds for people in Afghanistan.
It was organised by the Union of Muslim Organisations (UMO), with interim chair Mohammed Arif among those giving speeches at the event and worshippers basking in the warm summer sunshine.
Mr Arif said he was pleased to see families attending the event and spoke about the diversity of those attending it.
He said: "I was quite pleased to see families turning up at the event and when you're on stage, you can actually see the different costumes and different national outfits.
"There were a lot of people there from different backgrounds and it was great to see Muslims there from Ghana and also from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and some of the Muslims from emerging parts of the world.
"That is what these celebrations are about, getting everyone together to get to know each other and celebrate Eid together as a single community."
Mr Arif said the event was representative of the effort of UMO to work for the 17 mosques across Walsall and said that it was very nice to hear from different people afterwards about how much they enjoyed the event.
He said: "For us, it's hard work to put it together, but it's good when members of the community come up to us at the end to thank us for putting this on and ask us to continue to do so.
"It gives us the opportunity to carry on the tradition of running Eid in the Park events and allowing people to come out to the park to pray together.
"For us, we are saying 'forget your mosque and your own background' and come and pray with us in solidarity, and it was lovely to see people staying to enjoy a picnic afterwards."
