BOLTON – Students from Bolton Muslim Girls’ School have made an early Christmas gift to care home, bringing season’s joy to elderly residents, Asian Image reported.

“Our residents were delighted with the gifts and the kind generosity shown by the young students,” Karen McMahon, home manager of Lever Edge Care Home, said.

“Staff, residents, and families from lever Edge care home were blown away with the thoughtful gifts and wish to say a special thank you to everyone involved in the project.”

Paying a visit to the Lever Edge Care Home, the girls delivered boxes filled with slippers, socks, blankets, scarves, and hot water bottles.

Each of the boxes was wrapped with a special hand-written message from the pupils.

“The Faith Forward project is about finding various ways to help and support the community we are living amongst,” Fatima Mohamed, a teacher at Bolton Muslim Girls’ School, said.

“Also, to show different ways of making somebody smile and feel appreciated.

“Many care home residents have done and worked in a field that helped their communities in the past, so it is our turn now to make them feel appreciated and simply a way to say ‘Thank you’.”

As one of the Five Pillars of Islam, zakat or donating and charity is a religious obligation for all Muslims who meet the necessary criteria of wealth. It’s a mandatory charitable contribution, the right of the poor to find relief from the rich, and is considered to be tax or obligatory alms.

Islamic Shari’ah also has another type of optional donation called Sadaqah. This term was used in the Holy Qur’an and Sunnah for both zakat and charity.

Islam is the second largest religion in the UK, with results from the United Kingdom 2011 Census giving the UK Muslim population in 2011 as 2,786,635, 4.4% of the total population.

Christmas is the main festival on the Christian calendar. Its celebrations reach its peak at 12:00 PM on December 24 of every year.