Scores of Mus­lims flocked to the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence yes­ter­day for the Re­vival of the Ummah (ROU) con­ven­tion and Eid Bazaar 2013. It is the first of its kind to be held in T&T and more than 1,000 tick­ets were sold for the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny.Head of the ROU in T&T Za­heer Ali said the event is a cel­e­bra­tion of hav­ing five of the "most recog­nised speak­ers in this part of the world" and the con­ven­tion was not lim­it­ed to T&T, as mem­bers of the Guyana, Bar­ba­dos and Suri­name Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties were in­vit­ed.

"Con­ven­tions like this nor­mal­ly take place in North Amer­i­ca, in the UK and some­times in Aus­tralia, so this is the very first event like this in this part of the world."As much as 1,200 tick­ets were sold for the first night, to hear speak­ers such as Mufti Is­mail Menk, Sheikh Ab­dul­lah Hakim Quick, Sheikh Alaa El Sayed, Sheikh Mu­nir El-Kassem and Sheikh Omar Sul­te­man.

The ROU, ac­cord­ing to Ali, is "an or­gan­i­sa­tion of young peo­ple who came to­geth­er and de­cid­ed to do some­thing for one cause." He de­scribed the guests as in­spi­ra­tional speak­ers.Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Fazal Karim, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Rudy In­dars­ingh and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Nizam Baksh were in at­ten­dance.