大象传媒

Baktash Noori is a 23 year-old practising Muslim Mancunian YouTube vlogger. He lives just five minutes' drive from the Manchester Arena where six months ago 22 people were killed by a suicide bomber.

In the days after the attack, Baktash's parents were warning him to stay off the streets, worried that the colour of his skin and his faith would make him a target. Instead Baktash took to Manchester's streets, blindfolded with a cardboard sign inviting people to give him a hug.

Scared of the reaction right up until the minute he covered his eyes, he says he didn't receive a single negative comment. The video he posted has been viewed nearly a million times. He received 5,000 positive emails in three days and had to switch his phone off because his social media notifications were buzzing non-stop.
Abdullah Rashid Vavdiwala was one of the many Muslim taxi drivers who also hit the headlines in the hours and days after the bombing for giving free taxi rides to anyone stranded in the wake of the bomb. Both are men of faith who personified the 'We Love Manchester' spirit.

For Asian Network Investigates, Athar Ahmad takes a trip round the city six months on from that horrific night, with Baktash behind the microphone and Abdullah at the wheel. They talk to 93 year-old Renee Black - the Jewish representative on the Blackburn Interfaith Initiative - whose tears in St Anne's Square as she stood next to her friend Sadiq Patel summed up the interfaith community's response and became one of the iconic images of the city's shared grief.

They also discuss whether faith can withstand such a terrible tragedy with Gibran Awan and his two sisters, who were at the arena for the Ariana Grande concert on the night of the attack. And they visit the Villa Road mosque in Oldham, fire-bombed in the hours after the attack, to explore whether the 'One Love' response represents the real heart and soul of Manchester - or whether it's a convenient veneer hiding a more unpalatable truth.

Producer: Lissa Cook

Photo Credit: OLI SCARFF/AFP/Getty Images.