A group of young women organised a unique exhibition in a bid to foster better community relations.

The quartet from Nelson and Brierfield joined forces to create a new organisation called Iqra, meaning read in Arabic and held an exhibition named Discover Islam.

The event introduced people to Islamic contributions in the fields of surgery, medicine, geography, optics and mathematics as part of Islam Awareness Week.

Halima Bibi, 24, said: We are all practising Muslim women and we all work in community organisations.

We go to mosque and with the current

climate we thought we needed to actively engage and educate people about Islam.

When I was at university, we had quite a lot of things going on for Islam Awareness Week but weve found locally theres nothing going on and we felt we should do something for that week.

Its amazing the response we got. The more people we told about it, the more local businesses and young people said they wanted to get involved.

Halima said: Islam places a great emphasis on education, learning and application of knowledge. It is considered a duty of every Muslim. Unfortunately this message is not given any prominence by the media.

This event was open both to non-Muslims who would like to garner an understanding of the true practical contributions of Islam, as well as Muslims.