DOZENS of residents attended an islamic centre’s open day.

Al Falah Braintree Islamic Centre held its seventh annual family fun day on Sunday, which brought lots of different members of the community together to celebrate their different cultures.

The islamic centre has hosted a range of events in recent months in an attempt to work together, and believe this was another successful event in building bridges between the centre and wider community.

Kashif Ahmad, imam at the Silks Way centre, said:”I think it was success, and we had a great turnout.

“We had a very diverse attendance, with people from a range of backgrounds and religions, as well as people from churches in the area and representatives from the council.

“The whole purpose was to get people from different communities to come together and start to develop an understanding of each other, together.

The centre recently said it feared a copycat attack after a number of Muslims were struck by a car when leaving a mosque in Finsbury Park, north London.

The centre has previously been targeted by right wing thugs and mindless vandals, once five hours after Lee Rigby was murdered in May 2013 and in January this year when two men threw burning bags of rubbish onto its roof.

Mr Ahmad added: “I think a lot of people are unaware of the Muslim community in Essex, and with events like this we can get our message out there and involve ourselves with the wider community.

“As British Muslims, it is important that we involve ourselves with the community, particularly when you hear the kinds of stories you do nationally about Muslims.

“Over the last few months we have held a few events, and it was pleasing to see so many people return for the fun day.”

James Cleverly, MP for Braintree, said the event was a wonderful way of bringing celebrating what we have in common.

He said: “The Muslim community in Braintree is not huge but I think this is a lovely idea to remind people we do have that community, but also that they are part of the community and not separate. I think something like this is a really nice way to include everyone.”