Canada: Ahmadi Muslim group reaching out to community with presentation

The group of youth volunteers have visited towns nationwide to make presentations and canvas neighbourhoods, reaching out to over 1.2 million people.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: Standard Freeholder
By Kathryn Burnham | January 14, 2011

CORNWALL – Rizwan Rabbani has seen his religion painted in a negative light through the actions of extremists, and is hoping the series of information events he organizes as the national executive director of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association of Canada will present a more positive view.

The group will be at the Cornwall Public Library Jan. 15 with an exhibition entitled "Tribute to Mother Mary (an Islamic Perspective)."

Islam has taken a beating to its reputation on a more local level with the trial of the Shafia family, which is being accused of killing their daughters as part of a honour killing.

The Qur'an also does not mention honour killings, Rabbani emphasized, but rather gives many liberties and freedoms to women.


People wanted to know more about women in Islam, Rabbani said, so they are using the "most chaste, pious woman (in the Qur'an) as the focus of the exhibit.

"There's a lot of issue in the press . . . about the status of women in Islam, so we thought why not, if we want to talk about women, she is the woman. The mother of all mothers."

She is the only woman mentioned by name in the Holy Qur'an Rabbani said, and mentions her more in the Qur'an than in the new Testament. "Islam does give a high status in fact to Mother Mary," he said.

Many Muslim communities have also been criticized for the restrictive treatment of women, who are forced to wear burkas or hijabs. But in fact, "every time a Muslim woman puts a hijab on, she is paying tribute to Mother Mary," Rabbani said. Mary is often portrayed as wearing modest clothes herself with her hair covered, Rabbani explained.

It is a "beautiful and flexible religion," Rabbani said, which is what he hopes visitors to the exhibition will learn.

"We are not there to covert people," Rabbani said. "But we are there to promote awareness that Islam does protect rights."

"I cannot force my ideology on someone," Rabbani said, but he hopes that with more knowledge, people will be less discriminatory.

The group of youth volunteers have visited towns nationwide to make presentations and canvas neighbourhoods, reaching out to over 1.2 million people.

And Rabbani says he expects to continue organizing presentations where Canadians can ask questions of their Muslim compatriots so long as extremists continue to present a negative image of his religion.

"What you see on TV is the sole cause of people not reading their own book," Rabbani said.

The exhibit will include displays, books, and presenters able to answer questions of visitors.


  --  KATHRYN BURNHAM kburnham@standard-freeholder.com


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