Welcome to the website for Britain’s celebration of Muslim cultures 2006

The Festival of Muslim Cultures took place across Britain from January 2006 to January 2007. Based on cultural traditions and the changing face of contemporary British communities, the Festival of Muslim Cultures joined young people from Muslim and non-Muslim backgrounds together through the creation of innovative, high quality cultural activities.

We had a very successful programme with over 120 events and we can now see emerging arts activity in many venues that are taking up the challenge where we left off. The Festival is now at an end. The entire programme can be found on this website. For a full report and evaluation please email:

History

The Festival was created out of the need to encourage a better understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims (as a two-way process), to promote respect for Muslim cultures and to demonstrate how culture creates the pathways that connect us all together.

The programme launched with a visit by the Festival’s Patron, the Prince of Wales, to the exhibition “Palace and Mosque” in Sheffield. Events then ranged from a Somali community day in Cardiff at the National Museum of Wales to a late-night Prom with Radio Tarifa (from Spain) and Dimi Mint Abba (from Mauritania) in the Royal Albert Hall. From a home-grown play in Nottingham about the Kashmir earthquake to the exhibition “Beyond the Palace Walls” of Islamic art from the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, at the Royal Museum Edinburgh.

The Festival’s organisation

The organisation that ran the Festival was a charity and was resolutely non-political, non-sectarian and non-ideological. Its aims were to create spaces for creativity, build cultural bridges and promote expression through the arts by Muslims from all over the world for people all over Britain.

The Chair of the Trustees was Raficq Abdulla MBE (lawyer, interpreter of Rumi and Attar, broadcaster and writer)

The Festival Director was Isabel Carlisle (a social entrepreneur who was a former Deputy Head of Exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Arts in London and a former art critic for The Times).