Source/Credit: Spotlight News |
By Andrew Beam | February 4, 2011
Pushing for more understanding among religions, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Albany held an interfaith symposium on Sunday, Jan. 30, at the Hindu Community Center on Albany-Shaker Road in Colonie with several religious leaders from the region participating.
The seminar, titled “In Pursuit of Peace and Harmony,” brought together religious leaders of Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish and Sikh backgrounds with the goal of promoting social and spiritual peace, Paul Monshin, founder of the Tendai Buddhist Institute in Canaan, said he believes the country is going through a phase of Islamophobia, but, he said, at some point the focus could shift, making Buddhists or Jews into scapegoats.
“People are trying to find someone at fault,” he said. “They [Muslims] seem to be a handy target.”
Monshin acknowledged the many differences between faiths, but said that when one is attacked, then all of them are, creating a sense of unity between them all.
“We live in a Christian society, and that’s fine,” he said. “Today, it happens to be Muslims. Tomorrow it could be Greek Orthodox.”
Making a special visit to the region was Naseem Mahdi, national vice president and missionary-in-charge of the American branch of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. He believes that there is a level of distrust of Muslims in the United States and that holding such a conference is needed at this time.
“They have fear,” he said of some Americans. “When asked if they would like to have a Muslim as a neighbor, some said no. They questioned their loyalty.”
Talking on the many common misconceptions regarding his faith, Mahdi said that the Quran, the sacred text of the Islamic religion, is about peace and harmony as opposed to violence. While there are passages about bloodshed and war, Mahdi said they should be taken in the full context of which they were intended.
In the Quran, the prophet Muhammad Ibn Abdullah was brutally persecuted during the first 13 years of his ministry, and many of his followers we murdered in the streets of Mecca. After fleeing 350 miles away to Medina where he was accepted, he was still being attacked by people from Mecca, forcing him to defend himself and his people.
“So when you see some of the verses there – ‘you kill those who are killing you’ – you have to take it in that context there,” he said.
He said that with acts of terrorism such as the events of Sept. 11, 2011, and the acts of terrorism in the Middle East, many of them described as a “jihad,” the term has become skewed as an act of violence.
Mahdi said the term means “struggle” or striving for a good cause. The largest jihad, though, is against a person’s evil cravings.
“Then jihad, in the teaching of the holy Quran, says it is wrong to compel people to accept Islam, but rather promote the goodness and promote the beauty of your religion,” he said. “The third type is to defend yourself, your faith and your community.”
With these symposiums, Mahdi said he hopes there is discussion of commonalities between the religions and to develop harmony between them, such as the fact that Muslims believe in Jesus like many of the other religions.
But Monshin said he would more so like to admire the differences of the religions and look toward the common goals each faith has.
“In January, I asked my sangha [Buddhist congregation] to participate in mindfulness studies,” he said. “In being mindful, Muslims do their five prayers a day. We can learn the wisdom of doing it five times a day, but still learning mindfulness.”
Read original post here: Searching for peace and harmony
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