Rizwana Ahmad, president of the a Lloydminster Ahmadiyya Muslim Women Association, feels the success in the turn out of this years symposium is exactly what her association was looking for.
Source/Credit: Meridian Booster
By Jeff Peters | February 3, 2014
The message of the Interfaith Symposium was “Love for all, hatred for none” said Rizwana Ahmad, President of the Lloydminster Ahmadiyya Muslim Women Association, which took place this past Saturday evening at Lakeland College.
The meeting of faiths brought roughly 90 attendees, nearly twice as many compared to last year’s Symposium. The event has run four years in a row at Lakeland College.
The Symposium named ‘Portrayal of my Faith in the Media... is this my Religion?’ Aimed to bring about a dialogue between followers of Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Sikhism, to highlight commonalities and share their views that, in many instances, intersect.
Erin Pollard, a self-identified United Church follower, in her fourth year of attending the Interfaith Symposium said, “I really believe that in order for you to be understanding you have to know what their faith is about. If you don’t have that you will continue to be ignorant about it and that is where discrimination comes from.”
Although not without some heated debate Pollard said. Pollard, who was particularly enthralled when the point of discussion shifted in the symposium to the media’s portrayal of women’s rights in the Muslim world.
“A lot of people really don’t understand how women, especially in the Islamic religion, live day to day and how they are treated in their marriages and because we are different we think what they do is wrong. It was really quite interesting and at one point got my attention,” said Pollard.
However Pollard contests that the symposium in her experience has always been a well-rounded event with respect and understanding felt on all sides of the debate.
This was a common sentiment shared by many in attendance as well as the speakers that represented their respective faiths. Speakers included Prakjakta Shirolkar speaking on behalf of Hindu faith, Joyce Dickson who is studying to become a Diaconal minister, Jennifer Brown who practices Judaism, Gursharan Kour Thatcher who follows the teachings of Sikhism, and Shazia Rehman representing Ahmadiyya Muslims.
Jennifer Brown a practitioner, and representative of the Jewish faith at the symposium said, “Judaism and Islam are two sides of the same coin and not in the way of being very different. We all stem from the Abrahamic faiths, for Christianity Jesus was a Jew and the god we call Allah or Adonai or the Christian god it is all the same god we are all the same people,” said Brown.
For Rizwana Ahmad, president of the a Lloydminster Ahmadiyya Muslim Women Association, she feels the success in the turn out of this years symposium is exactly what her association was looking for.
“This is just to try to communicate with different people in the community and when they start knowing us, who we are the barriers between us and them slowly they will go away and I believe in it. This is the only way,” said Ahmad.
Another Symposium will be held in the coming months with co-ed presentation taking place in April.
Read original post here: Canada: Interfaith Symposium finds common ground at Lakeland College
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