“We love Australia because we are given the freedom to practise our religion, so we always give thanks to our country by engaging with our neighbours, getting involved in community programs and promoting our mosque as a place of peace.”
Source/Credit: Jimboomba Times
By Brad Cooper | October 31, 2016
TRADITIONAL prayers combined with fairy floss and a sausage sizzle at Stockleigh on Saturday for an ‘open mosque’ event with a very Australian flavour.
The Ahmadiyya Muslim community – a modern off-shoot of traditional Islam – threw open the doors of its Neville Road mosque as part of a national day of unity to celebrate diversity.
The event brought wide smiles to the faces of organisers who relished the chance to showcase their now 10-year-old mosque to locals and visiting dignitaries.
Ahsin Waris, a 20 year-old engineering student from Brisbane, said the mosque was a key centre of worship for some 300 people across south-east Queensland.
“In many countries people of the Ahmadiyya faith face persecution from mainstream Muslims,” he said.
“We love Australia because we are given the freedom to practise our religion, so we always give thanks to our country by engaging with our neighbours, getting involved in community programs and promoting our mosque as a place of peace.”
Imtiaz Ahmed, the mosque’s visiting spiritual leader, or imam, told Jimboomba Times that his community invested heavily in developing programs for their young people to foster a sense of civic pride and duty.
“Today we celebrate friends and neighbours sitting together and sharing ideas, where we realise that our differences aren’t that different and we can close the gap,” he said.
“We take a lot of comfort that we give to our youth a responsibility to enrich the country in which they reside.”
Read original post here: Wide smiles for mosque open day
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