A Preston councillor was assaulted as he tried to prevent youths from vandalising a shop in his local area.

The incident happened around 5.30pm, when Cllr Taalib Shamsuddin, on his way home, spotted a group of vandals daubing graffiti on a shop wall. As the Councillor intervened to stop the gang, he was punched and spat at. The gang, a group of four Asian teenagers, were scrawling abusive language on the shop wall, with disparaging remarks about the shop owner, yet the shop owner was too afraid to contact the police.

No doubt this would be a daunting situation for any of us, but unfortunately it is not an isolated or uncommon incident, indeed only the latest in a series of similar incidents. Cllr Shamsuddin, understandably concerned for his community, went so far as to say, "I think we are verging on the breakdown of law and order in parts of the town. I think a lot of people have given up. The only way forward that I can see is for everybody to pull together and try to stamp this out."

Local residents horrified at the incident, helped police search the area to find the offenders; one 18-year-old was found hiding in a nearby garden and arrested, but was subsequently bailed.

Chief Supt Mike Barton, of Preston Police, praised Councillor Shamsuddin for standing up as a good citizen saying, "I'm very proud of Cllr Shamsuddin for performing his civic duty and I'm upset that he has some injury as a result of doing the right thing.”

While we may all praise the Cllr’s good intentions and feel sympathy for his injuries, we need to address the issue more pressingly. Of course the government must take some degree of responsibility for ensuring its citizens safety. But in addition to government, don’t we all, as individuals of a community have a responsibility to improve and protect the neighbourhoods and communities we live in?

It may be easy to berate the reckless youths who carried out this vile attack and others like them who are terrorising local communities across the country, but beyond pointing the finger, we need urgent solutions to protect our communities.

There are a plethora of community groups and institutions that could play a more active role in tackling this problem. There are a number of youth groups and voluntary organisations that are indeed working tirelessly to support young people and families to bring about positive change, but sadly there are countless more that are doing nothing.

Now let’s not forget that these young people, who are involved in acts of civil disobedience (to put it mildly and formally) also have families who are significantly affected by their actions. Behind the images of the menacing youths are countless, nameless parents who are agonising over what to do to help their children. Fact of the matter is, there is very little support out there to assist these distressed families. The situation is worse still for members of the BME (black and minority ethnic) community, where social services have failed abysmally to provide appropriate support. That is not to say that the problem lies only within the BME community, youth crime and civil disobedience is pervasive across all cultures in Britain today. But the government, local authorities and services have failed to devise appropriate response and intervention strategies that are suitable to the different groups they are supposed to be addressing.

Here arises the need to enlist the support of voluntary and community sector organisations, localised institutions that can support families and young people within their own communities.

Let's take a closer look at this particular incident where the young people involved were apparently Muslim. What institutions does the Muslim community have that could potentially offer help? As a Muslim, the first institution that would come to my mind is a mosque.

The hub and the focal point of the Muslim community! The shining beacon of support…the one dependable institution that will offer an appropriate and sensitive response…the one place that will help us re-install Islamic values into our hearts and communities…REFORM is on its way people!

Well, we would like to think it is and I am the eternal optimist! Insha'Allah there will come a day when all of the above statements ring true…but until then the MPACUK message will continue to blare unforgivably for every mosque that shirks its responsibility to its community, for every mosque that buries its head in the sand while the ummah suffers, for every mosque that has failed to engage and educate its young people to deal with the challenges they face and for every mosque that has ignored the cries of help from mothers who have nowhere to turn.

I’ll end with just one example of a woman I met not so long ago. Early forties, four children, two of them disabled and the eldest a drug addict. At 16, the son got involved in the wrong crowd, expelled from a number of schools, developed a drug habit and began stealing from home, eventually turning violent towards his mother when she tried to stop him. After 2-3 years of trying to contain the problem, the lady contacted local services for help, but language and cultural barriers prevented any credible solution. Local youth groups, always stretched with limited resources and volunteers, were unable to help. In despair she contacted a couple of local mosques only to be told the one radial solution that had eluded all and sundry to this glorious moment of revelation: ‘make dua sister and have sabr’. As a Muslim, of course turning to Allah and seeking His mercy and guidance should always come first, but Allah also places some responsibility on His agents on Earth.

It's funny how these callous, heartless men who claim to be representatives of our faith conveniently overlook the vast number of verses within the Quran that makes it obligatory upon us as Muslims to help those who are weak and vulnerable:

“And what is wrong with you that you fight not in the cause of Allah and for those weak, ill-treated and oppressed among men, women and children?" (An-Nisa 4:75).

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