Muslims in Southall celebrated the Prophets birthday - the Muslim Festival of Milad-un-Nabi - the 24th consecutive year it has been held in Southall.

The actual birthday was on Friday 26th February 2010 and this event took place on Sunday 14th March 2010. It started at the Jamia mosque in Townsend Road around 12 noon.

The procession started outside mosque at around 2 pm, after the Zohr prayers.

It proceeded along the Broadway, South Road and reached its destination the Southall Community Centre on Merrick Road (opposite SunRise Radio) around 3 pm.

After a short speech outside, a religious family programme was held inside the Southall Community Centre, which lasted nearly 4 hours.

Part of the programme included readings and recitations from the local muslims children. The main speech was delivered by Allama Mohammed Shahid Naeemi. The guest naat khwaan was Akhtar Hussain Qureshi of Lahore.

Originally only 5 Umra tickets were meant to be given out to some lucky attendees but in the end 12 were given. 4 Umra tickets were meant to be given by Sarfraz Khan and one by Iqbal jewellers. One attendees offered another Umra tickets.

Sarfraz Khan offered another four, one to Imam Qari Amin Chisti, one to long serving member of the mosque, one to Hafiz Irfan, who teaches and was taught at the mosque and another to the guest naat khawan Akhtar Hussain Qureshi.

The generosity of Sarfraz Khan was not to end there. Another ticket was given to the oldest woman able to perform Umra. One extremely old lady who took a long time to come forward was also given an Umra ticket.

One unlucky winner from last year was unable to go because her house was burgled and this created some problems. Sarfraz Khan was happy to offer her another ticket.