After discussions with businesses on St Marks Road and the local community the Grand Iftar organisers in Bristol have decided to make this year’s event invite-only with capacity for 150 people. They will provide food for 500 people but due to concerns over the rising number of Covid cases and potential for a dense crowd in the street, they have decided to further restrict the number of people attending the Iftar itself.
The Grand Iftar has always been an event that has brought diverse sections of Bristol together, and pre-covid in 2019 it attracted thousands of people to break fast together. In order for this year’s scaled back event to reflect that diversity, they felt it more sensible to invite people who could represent various communities across Bristol.
Organisers will be inviting a selection of people from Easton, Lawrence Weston and South Bristol as well as community leaders from across the city. The event will remain free and be completely volunteer-led and will include speeches as it has done in previous years.
READ MORE: Ramadan in Bristol: The restaurants where Muslims can enjoy Iftar
The Grand Iftar co-founder Mohammed Elsharif said: “The organising committee have decided they will have no more than 150 invited guests and there will be food distributed to 500 people at different points in the city. The invited people will be some local residents, some city wide stakeholders and key people to provide representation from South Bristol and Lawrence Weston.
“We will invite people from different neighbourhoods to ensure a good mix. It’s going to be a micro-Grand Iftar and a warm up for 2023,” added Mr Elsharif.
The organisers felt it was important to listen to concerns raised by local businesses, faith leaders and residents on St Marks Road who were concerned about the initial plans causing chaos if more than the original 500-person limit were to show up on the day. As in previous years, the Iftar will be on the last Thursday of Ramadan which began on Saturday, April 2, this year.
The smaller Iftar gathering will take place on Thursday, April 28. Afzal Shah and Mohammed Elsharif founded the Grand Iftar in 2017 as a response to the Manchester Arena bombing that year.
They wanted to bring all sections of the Muslim community together with the wider non-Muslim community as a way of promoting peace and togetherness. For the last two years the event has been celebrated online.
The last Grand Iftar that took place in 2019 and coincided with 100 years of women's suffrage was used to celebrate woman in Islam and promote women's rights. This year the Islamic community event will be an occasion to pay tribute to Hanna Ahmed, one of the key organisers of the Bristol Grand Iftar.
Hanna, who passed away in 2020, was a community volunteer, a campaigner against female genital mutilation (FGM) and a victim support worker.
