Muslim Live 8

"A Concert for Peace in Darfur"

The first ever Muslim charity peace concert, also dubbed "Muslim Live 8" after comparisons were made to the 2005 global antipoverty Live 8 event, drew more than 10,000 British Muslims to London's Wembley Arena on Saturday, October 20th.

The concert aimed to unite British Muslims and provide humanitarian aid to millions affected in Sudan's Darfur conflict.

Muslim Live 8 was the first of its kind and attracted performers and fans from all over the world. The Wembley Arena was well-equipped to serve this unusual event and adapted to the needs of its guests: the venue's 200-seat restaurant turned dry and halal for the night and offered access to a make-shift mosque on its premises.

The performance bill included Outlandish, a multi-award winning hip-hop group based in Denmark, Canadian band Sound of Reason, Kareem Salama, a Muslim American country singer and Hamza Robertson, a young English convert to Islam.

The star of the night was 27-year-old Sami Yusuf, a British singer-songwriter of Azerbaijani origin. Yusuf is the biggest-selling artist in the Muslim popworld and is often described as the "Islamic Bono". Yusuf has sold more than 3 million albums worldwide, but is less known outside his community. Like all the stars performing at the concert, Yusuf combines his faith with his music and considers his singing as a means of connecting with the Almighty.

Kareem Salama said of Yusuf: “When I was a kid I came to London and I asked my mother if I could go see a show at Wembley, she said ‘maybe you’ll get to play there one day’. Sami Yusuf is a real inspiration. He’s like George Clooney, saying that if the cameras are going to follow him he’s going to go somewhere it makes a difference. That’s why Sami went to Darfur, so people could know the terrible things that are happening there. It’s a great initiative.”

The concert was backed by the British government that is spearheading efforts to press the Sudanese government to stop violence in the Darfur region.

"An injustice anywhere is an attack on justice everywhere, and so we will continue working together with all of you to bring this suffering to an end," the Prime Minister Gordon Brown relayed in a video message to the concert crowd.

"... an issue between Muslims"

Earlier in the year the Foreign Office had also helped to organize a trip for Sami Yusuf and celebrities to visit refugee camps in Darfur.

Yusuf said on the eve of the concert that Darfur "is an issue between Muslims, Muslims killing Muslims; some people think it's shameful that people haven't really stood up... This is a great opportunity for British Muslims to really do something."

So far some 200 000 people have been killed and more than two million displaced as a result of the conflict in Darfur, which has been going on for over four years.

During the concert at least £40,000 were raised in five minutes, with three £10,000 donations. All profits from the event will go to the British charity Islamic Relief to help fund its work in Darfur.

Muslim Live 8 was not only organised to focus the attention of British Muslims on the bloody conflict and atrocities in Darfur, but also symbolized efforts to unite the community amid mounting suspicion of Islam in the West. According to an opinion poll in 2006, 53% of Britons believe that Islam is a threat to Western democracy.