Save a child from sleeping in the cold tonight. Take up the challenge to raise just £3.33 a day this winter to keep the hearth alight in the home of a HHUGS family.

For less than the cost of a meal deal lunch, you could be saving a life this winter. Not in a far off developing country, but right here, in a broken home, a few doors down from your own.

Fuel poverty is blighting 2.5 million households in the UK, 50% of which have primary breadwinners in work. Among them are HHUGS families: single mothers, children without fathers, and elderly parents of sons in detention. These families have been isolated from their communities when they are most vulnerable and desperate. Most have minimal income, and have likely had their assets confiscated. Burdened by debts and harassed by bailiffs, they struggle to survive on the bare minimum throughout the year. Now with the onset of winter colds, they will be fighting hypothermia, exposure and sickness, on top of everything else.

This winter, we can’t rest easy turning up our thermostats in the knowledge that a home without a father or son is stone cold. Can you?

Just £3.33 a day for 90 days amounts to £300. That’s all we need to get one HHUGS family through the winter. Please help us to give them a warmer winter.

Help us Revive the Tradition of ‘Umar ibn Al-Khattab

 Did you know that when the Levant was conquered during his Caliphate, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab (ra) worried that the Companions of the Prophet (saw) and others who’d never previously experienced such cold as the winters of that region, would be harmed by it? He sent word to its inhabitants, advising them to protect themselves:

 ‘Indeed winter has appeared, and it is an enemy, so prepare for it with wool, khuffs and socks; and take wool as your outer and inner garment, because the cold is a fast-moving enemy and slow to leave the body.’ [‘Umar ibn al-Khattab]

As the cold months approach, join us to revive the tradition of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab and other great leaders of our Islamic tradition; leaders who fretted for the wellbeing of the Ummah in the farthest reaches of Muslim lands. Leaders who removed their garments upon hearing of the plight of widows and orphans in destitution, and refused to clothe themselves until the needy had been fed and clothed first.

Safwan bin Salim went out on a cold night in Madinah near the mosque, and he saw a man with little clothing on. So, he took off his coat and covered him up with it. Someone living in the Levant saw in a dream that Safwan bin Salim had entered Paradise with a shirt he had made. So he went to Madinah and said: “Show me where Safwan is.” When he found him, he told him of the dream.  [Lataa’if al-Ma’aarif]

The spiritual opportunities of this season are manifold: Its long nights are ideal for supererogatory worship, and its short days make nafl fasts easy. With all this comes the added opportunity for charity –the chance to relieve another from the hardships of surviving the cold. Will you join us as we reap the booty of winter to the fullest?