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For its beautiful fraternity — cosmopolitan and diverse — embracing the community around Cambridge Central Mosque has a real appeal. So too for its intellectual and spiritual tradition. The mosque feels like a real sanctuary; an oasis away from the bustle of the world.

But wander beyond its gates and garden, back out into the street and onto the busy polluted roads, and we realise that city life is no longer for us. There are, of course, satellite villages in every direction, some of them quite quaint, but we are priced out of that housing market.

So instead we return home to our countryside town, nestled in the rolling Chiltern hills, accepting of these compromises. A mosque less diverse and less engaged with the world. But on the other hand, open countryside and fresh air all around.

If from time to time we crave a more cosmopolitan community, then High Wycombe lies twenty minutes away, Ealing forty, Central London an hour away and, yes, Cambridge an hour and a half. These the choices we made for affordability, comfort and quality of life.

Honestly it is a relief to return to our humble abode on the side of our hill, in our wee working-class neighbourhood. I need to see hills, trees and green fields. As for that sense of community and belonging: I suppose we just have to build our own, in whichever way the Most Merciful wills.

It was good to journey to another community for a day and partake in their fraternity — even our children told us they loved the mosque, so praise indeed — but good to return too. Home is where the heart is, and while my heart is with that mosque, it’s not with that city, locality or landscape.

My heart is with this humble abode we made our home eighteen years ago, our own sanctuary from the world. Dar us salaam.