a) Civic Engagement: For example, our Food Drive Campaign involves 1st Ethical partnering mosques, schools and ISocs with their local Salvation Army centres to collect food boxes/hot meals for the homeless. British Muslims should recognise their religious responsibilities of being constantly in the service of all people, and especially so those needy members of our society.

b) Financial Literacy: For example, our campaigns on “Preparing an Islamic Will” and “How to pay your Zakāh”, has seen the annual distribution of tens of thousands of our guides, sermons and training seminars to hundreds of British Mosques. These campaigns ensure a fair and just re-distribution of wealth as prescribed by core Islamic principles and thus leads to a more harmonious and stable society.

This area of providing scripturally-compliant solutions to common legal and financial challenges facing UK Muslims has also been our historical focus before we added Civic Engagement work in 2009.

Thus our key partners include:

• Britain’s Leading Charities: such as Al-Qalam, the Salvation Army, the RSPCA, Citizens Advice Bureau and more.
• Britain’s Largest Mosques: such as East London Mosque, Abu Bakr Mosque and more.
• Britain’s Top Muslim Schools such as Manchester Islamic Girls School, KD Grammar and more.
• Russell Group University Islamic Societies such as Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Imperial College, Kings and more.
• Leading Professional Bodies: such as AlMaghrib Institute, FOSIS, Deloitte Muslim Network and more.
• Leading Ethnic Media Outlets: such as The Muslim Post, The Asian Today, Crescent Radio and more.

Some of our materials can be used without prior written permission by third parties as long as appropriate source reference and acknowledgement is made. Such materials are clearly referenced. Please note our Schools Curriculum Content is not to be used by third parties without prior written consent under any circumstances. If you have any queries, please email info@1stethical.com or call us on 01204 557 918.

Yes, we work closely with Scholars and are always guided by them in ensuring all areas of our work is scripturally sound and approachable by the diversity of the UK’s Muslim community – we are non-sectarian and work across all denominations.

As part of this commitment, 1st Ethical helped establish the UK’s first home grown panel of Sharī‘ah scholars specialising in contemporary legal and financial dilemmas – Al-Qalam Sharī‘ah Scholar Panel.

The Al-Qalam Sharī‘ah Scholar Panel consists of 6 leading UK-based scholars which span various denominations and schools of thought: Mufti Zubair Butt, Mufti Yusuf Sacha, Mufti Mohammed Ibn Adam, Shaykh Haytham Tamim, Mufti Barkatullah and Imam Abu Eesa Niamatullah.

We also partner with them on various projects such as in providing research, training, resources and advice for Imams, teachers and the Muslim community in general.

Find out more about Al-Qalam on their website 

We believe these bodies are important civic institutions, doing a great deal of good in serving the whole community and best placed to reach the grassroots Muslim community. This is because schools are where a child begins to learn about the world, University Islamic Societies and Professional bodies hold the current and future leaders of society and Mosques are historically the centre of the community and thus should function as much more than just places of prayer. Mosques can, as they traditionally have, serve the entire community in being a space for citizens to meet, learn, carry our projects for the community, plan business initiatives, be a haven for the poor and needy and so much more.

We also believe all these institutions need to be strengthened if the Muslim community is to really enrich Britain and benefit society.

In addition, trying to reach the grassroots for our campaigns would not only be unwise in replicating efforts and in disregarding the expertise and experience of others, but would also be a waste of limited time, resources, time and energy. We rather want to strengthen the existing infrastructure of Muslim institutions and organisations.

This is why we empower the leaders of these institutions, and equip them to better serve their communities/memberships by various campaigns and educational and training programs.

We also recognise the power of the internet in reaching the grass-roots, which is why we focus a portion of our efforts online in our Media and Community Outreach strategy.

Lastly, we are currently focusing on the one hundred largest mosques, 75% of Muslim Schools, Russell Group University Islamic Societies and select professional bodies purely due to our capacity. We aim to always develop close and valuable working relationships with our partners. In future we plan to expand to reach out to smaller Mosques, schools, ISocs and professional bodies.

You can also find out more by visiting our audience-specific pages of the website: For Imams, For Teachers, For ISocs and For Volunteers.

• Host one of our educational programs: Whether it be a training day, training workshop or educational lecture from our Education and Training programs, we can provide a speaker to come to your event, with guides/resources provided for distribution thereafter. In some cases if you are able to personally deliver these, we can provide you with a wide array of presentations and training tools. These programs will empower your community in key issues within civic engagement or financial literacy.
• Point your community to our website – which is filled with resources such as web tutorials, easy-to-read guides and our blog. These will all help raise awareness amongst your community on a variety of important issues.
• Get involved in one of our campaigns – whether it be the Food Drive Campaign, How to Pay Zakāh or Preparing an Islamic Will, each campaign comes with an easy step-by-step toolkit of how to implement it and support is given to you by our national team at 1st Ethical. Click here for more details. These campaigns will better your community and empower Muslims to benefit wider society
• Seek our fiqh advisory support – we provide this service to Imams and the wider community in collaboration with Al-Qalam.

There are 3 main reasons why partnering with 1st Ethical is better:

• “A punch is better than a poke” Yes there are commendable initiatives across the country, especially by young people. However, often these efforts are uncoordinated, and we believe a coordinated effort via seasonal campaigns across mosques, schools, ISocs, and more nationwide, makes much more of an impact – practising Muslims know the barakah (divine blessing) in the concept of jamā‘ah (doing things together as a collective group). In addition, we help to obtain positive media coverage of each civic engagement campaign, giving more of an impact to each campaign.
• Working smart through expert partners – We tell leaders of Muslim organisations and community groups “you’re doing a great job. We can help you do it better”. For any organisation to start up initiatives from scratch and replicate the efforts of others is not only unwise, but a huge waste of limited time, resources, energy and efforts, with the result always being of a lesser quality than those with expertise. Instead, partnering with us allows us to partner you with our leading charities who are experts in their fields – making your campaign much more effective, professional and successful. E.g. the RSPCA is the top charity for animal welfare, and the Salvation Army established its idea of soup kitchens since 1865!
• One campaign but with multiple achievements – Not only is the above achieved but working together hand-in-hand with other partners also aids social and religious cohesion, a key priority for us all in the coming decades. Positive media coverage is something we can help you organise so as to help spread your campaign success to the whole community. This is far more effective da‘wah than setting up a project on your own.

Giving in sadaqah, helping others, being a good neighbour, a law-abiding citizen and generally doing our utmost best to better our local communities and our society are all fundamental teachings of our beautiful faith of Islam (you can read more about this in the following mini-guides).

However, in addition to this being important charitable work, it is also pressing and crucial work, as it helps to address the greatest and most pressing challenge faced by Muslims in this country.

One doesn’t have to look too far, indeed just across the Channel, to France and mainland Europe to see the horrible effects of scaremongering and the rise of right-wing movements which propagate the lie that “Islam is incompatible with the West” unfortunately leading to a very real curtailment on religious freedom and practice. This isn’t something that just following generations will be suffering from but is rather an existential threat where beards and headscarves have become so vilified, it truly is a huge effort to retain one’s own identity, self-respect and honour.

Our response to this cancer here in the UK is to ensure that we ourselves will not become complacent with respect to our responsibilities as citizens and guardians of our communities, attending to as much as possible of our wider society’s needs showing that those who would wish to divide us, will do nothing but make us more strong and united.

There are many ways in which individuals can support the cause of 1st Ethical:

• Pray for us – make du‘ā for the continuity and acceptance of our collective effort.
• Collaborate with us – we welcome collaborations with qualifying sincere professionals/institutions/scholars. Individuals can also get actively involved in accordance to their strengths and skill set – this may be in a speaker capacity, as a trainer, a networker, a distributor or in any other way that complements our work. If you are interested, please contact us to find out more.
• Donate to us – Please click here for more details.

You can email us at info@1stethical.com or call us at either of our offices listed below.

We endeavour to reply back to all enquiries within 72 hours but will often respond quicker.

Greater Manchester (Head Office)

1st Ethical Charitable Trust
Unit 3a
Springfield Court
Summerfield Road (off Manchester Road)
Bolton
BL3 2NT
T: 01204 557 918

London Office

1st Ethical Charitable Trust
Unit 2A
St Brides Chambers
8 Salisbury Court
London
EC4Y 8AA
T: 0203 122 1908