This week’s London Mevlit programme features a special guest appearance from Imam Muhittin Aydın.

The muezzin at Stoke Newington’s Aziziye Mosque will be reciting Koranic prayers alongside programme host Husayn Hashim El Bakayi, the UK’s most prominent Turkish Cypriot hoca (pastor) on Sunday, 17 May.

The London Mevlit programme will start straight after Kanal T’s iftar prayers: 6pm UK time (8pm Cyprus & Turkey time).

Click here to see Kanal T Live/Canlı Yayın

Launched in April 2020 on Kanal T – one of North Cyprus’s largest television channels – the London Mevlit is watched by tens of thousands of people in Britain and abroad every week.

The hour-long religious broadcast, recorded at London’s Shacklewell Lane Mosque, aims to give spiritual comfort to families who have lost loved ones during the coronavirus pandemic and who are unable to hold a Mevlit due to the lockdown restrictions.

Mevlits (prayer recitals) are an integral part of Turkish Islamic tradition after a death, where friends and family come together to pray for three consecutive days after the burial of a loved one.

Main photo, top of Imam Muhittin Aydın at Shacklewell Lane Mosque for recording of Kanal T’s London Mevlit programme, 16 May 2020. Photo © Halil Yetkinlioglu