All Praises for Allah (swt) The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful for facilitating and providing for
every part of this endeavour to ensure its success.
To everyone who gave their time and shared their experiences with us - we acknowledge
the enormous personal undertaking that came with giving us your time. Without you, Sacred
(body:mind:space) would not be able to take its first steps, and it is your courage that has allowed
us to carry out this research and everything that has and will come from it.
We would like to extend our gratitude to The Markfield Centre for the Study of Wellbeing (CSWB)
for the initial collaboration and support for this research. To The Markfield Institute of Higher
Education (MIHE) for a favourable ethical opinion to carry out this research, and to the National
Waqf Fund for providing the funding to undertake the research dissemination stage of the research.
To Professor Ingrid Mattson, Professor Lisa Oakley and Shaykh Amer Jamil for their insightful
contributions to the report and support of this work.
We are immensely grateful to all the organisations that collaborated with us and provided us with
support throughout this project - Al-Meezan, Amina - The Muslim Women’s Resource Centre,
Community Policy Forum, Dundee International Women’s Centre, Dundee University Islamic
Society, MEND, Muslim Women’s Association Edinburgh, Nottingham Trent University, Race
and Inclusivity in Global Education Network (RIGEN), Paradise Pearls, The Lantern Initiative,
The Urban Community Project and Vibrant Scottish Mosques.
To Umaimah Reza, Musab Quayum and Fardowsa Mohamed for support in transcribing.
To Sam McPherson - thank you for your uplifting support, patience, attention to detail and genuine
care for Sacred’s work which started at the formation stage of Sacred and has continued in the
delivery of a beautiful and artistic report design that has captured the essence of ‘healing’ and ‘faith’.
We cannot end without acknowledging the support, work, time, and dedication of the people who
have not only supported this research but lifted Sacred in its development. We would not be
able to do anything without the patience, support, and understanding of our families, and to all of
them there are not enough words of thanks, just our enduring gratitude and love.
Acknowledgments