Mayor Linda Thompson and state Rep. Patty Kim, D-Harrisburg, are among local elected officials slated to attend this weekend's event, which features speeches, group prayer, readings and food.
Source/Credit: Patriot News
By Emily Previti | June 28, 2013
HARRISBURG – More than 5,000 people attended the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex Friday, the first of three days of the nation’s longest running Muslim conference.
The community’s 65th annual Jalsa Salana peace conference is free and runs 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. until noon Sunday.
It is open to the public - and organizers encourage non-Muslims to attend.
That's one of the main points of the event, said the community’s national vice-president Dr. Nasim Rehmatullahpoin and national spokesman Qasim Rashid.
Rashid said the most important activities offered during the entire three-day affair probably are the facilitated group discussions about the prophet Muhammad, the foundations of Islam and the Ahmadiyya Muslim community's prophet Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who stressed a denouncement of bloodshed in favor of patience and unity as one of the sect's defining tenets.
"The point is to have a conversation," Rashid said.
And that, Rehmatullahpoin said, is key to avoiding the confusion he says persists nationally about Islam.
Neither the national organization, nor the local chapter, however, have experienced much of that confusion in Harrisburg.
Rashid said the group picked Pennsylvania’s capital city as the event’s host for four years running not only for its central geographic location within a four-hour drive of two-thirds of the county's population, but also the welcoming attitude of residents and the local government.
Mayor Linda Thompson and state Rep. Patty Kim, D-Harrisburg, are among local elected officials slated to attend this weekend's event, which features speeches, group prayer, readings and food.
Ahmadiyya Muslim Community chapters in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are among the oldest in the United States, Rashid said.
While newer and smaller, Harrisburg's chapter has a distinctive story.
The community founded Hadee Mosque at 245 Division St., formerly Lakeside Lutheran Church. Nearly three years later, the main atrium remains unchanged, with pews preserved in rows, as a place for interfaith prayer and worship, said Dr. Mubashir Mumtaz, spokesman for the Muslim Community and chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Pinnacle Health.
On the heels of Sept. 11, and after more recent acts of terrorism in Boston, London and Paris, people in Harrisburg and the surrounding region seemed far from confused about the distinction between Islamic extremists linked to those events and the Ahmadiyya Muslims worshipping on Division Street and mosques in other nearby communities, Mumatz said.
"It's always been a house of God, we just transferred the brethren to another, and continue the the same welfare and community-building efforts," he said.
-- epreviti@pennlive.com
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