The Heathrow Welcome campaign — Syed Usman Shah, The Date Sultan, Borough Market, London.

My name is Syed Usman Shah. I'm the founder of Date Sultan, a proud son of Pakistani immigrants, a husband, and a boy from Forest Gate, East London. I am British. I love this country. Britain educated me, fed me, housed me. It is the land of opportunity that allowed a kid like me to build something I'm proud of.

In 2025, Heathrow Airport asked me to be one of the faces of their Welcome campaign — a celebration of the people who make Britain what it is. They photographed me in my blue thobe, arms open, smiling. The poster went up at the busiest airport in the country, welcoming millions of people home.

For my parents, who arrived here from Pakistan in the late 1980s with very little, seeing their son's face up at Heathrow was the proudest day of their lives. I took them, along with my first ever line manager Jeremy Galpin, and Shaun Johnson, the Head of Operations at Borough Market, to see it in person. We stood underneath it and just smiled. I'll never forget that moment.

Then The Hate Came

A small sample of the thousands of abusive messages received after the poster went live.

Within days of the poster going live, screenshots of my face began circulating on Twitter. The first round of abuse came in thousands of messages. "Burn this image." "The UK is being taken over." "Go back to your country" — to me, a man born in this country.

I had never experienced racial abuse like it. The things people wrote about me, about my faith, about my family — they were the most horrific things I have ever read. And there were thousands of them.

Then, months later, a journalist called Peter Lloyd shared my Heathrow poster on social media with the caption: "No joke. This is what welcomes people at Heathrow Airport these days." The post racked up 3.6 million views in days. The abuse came back, harder than before.

I Decided to Fight Hate With Love

I sat with it. I prayed on it. And I made a decision that surprised even me: I was going to forgive every single person who had abused me. I was going to invite them — every one of them — to come and meet me, talk to me, and eat dates with me, on the house.

I publicly thanked Peter Lloyd for sharing my image — because, as I told him, five million people now knew about my business who didn't yesterday. I created a discount code in his name: anyone who used "peterlloyd" at checkout got 20% off.

I didn't do it to be clever, or for clicks. I did it because that is what my faith teaches me. It is what my parents raised me to do. It is what the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) taught us — meet ignorance with patience, meet hate with kindness. I am not a perfect man, but I tried in that moment to be the kind of Muslim, and the kind of Brit, my mum and dad would be proud of.

Front page of the Metro, March 2026 — five million readers a day. They called me "The Face of the UK."

What Happened Next Broke Me — In The Best Way

People came. They actually came.

Two ladies arrived at my Borough Market stall with flowers, just to apologise. Strangers turned up to say, "We stand with you." I received hundreds of emails. 246 of them in one stretch — and not a single one was racist. Most of them said the same thing: "We don't want the discount. We just want to support you."

Children wrote to me. Kids I had never met sent me hand-drawn cards with date palms on them, telling me I was "super amazing." I keep every single one of them. I cannot put into words what that does to a person.

Travellers from around the world stopping at Heathrow to take selfies with the poster. Strangers, becoming friends.

Then the Greater London Authority called. The Mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan, had been quietly following the whole thing — the Heathrow campaign, the LBC interview, how I had welcomed people from every walk of life into my stalls at Borough Market, Old Spitalfields and Westfield. The Mayor came down to meet me in person. So did His Royal Highness Prince William. The boy from Forest Gate, shaking hands with future kings and mayors over a bowl of Medjool dates.

The LBC Interview That Said It All

James O'Brien on LBC invited me on his show to talk about all of this. It became one of the most powerful conversations of my life. If you watch nothing else from this story, watch this:

What I Want You to Take From This

I did not do anything extraordinary. I followed my faith, I followed the values my parents gave me, and I refused to let hate change who I am. That is all.

But if my story can do one thing, I want it to be this: hate never wins. Not in the long run. Not ever. Every time someone tried to make me feel small for being British and Muslim, ten more people showed up to lift me back up. The good in this country, in this world, is louder than the bad. You just have to give it the chance to speak.

If you are someone who has been on the receiving end of hate — for your faith, your colour, your background, your accent, anything — please know this: you are not alone. There are millions of us who see you, who stand with you, and who refuse to let the loudest voices be the cruellest ones.

And if you are someone who has carried hate in your heart — for Muslims, for immigrants, for anyone different — my invitation to you is the same one I made on day one. Come and have dates with me. Sit down. Talk to me. Let's just be two human beings for ten minutes. You might find we have more in common than you think.