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November 27, 2009

Faith of Life Vice-President Addresses Jewish “anti-hate” Event

CALGARY – In response to an upsurge in episodes of anti-Semitic vandalism, the Calgary Jewish community held a “Calgary Says NO To Hate!” event on November 26^th at the Alfred Boyce Theatre. Among invited speakers was Faith of Life Vice-President and Muslim Council of Calgary Spokesperson Dr. David Liepert. A transcript of his speech follows:

Assalamu-Alaikum, God’s Peace and greetings from the Muslim Council of Calgary, representing Calgary’s EXTREMELY diverse sixty thousand mainstream Sunni Muslims.

Eid Mubarak as well! I’m very glad to be speaking late in the program, because we are now well into Eid-ul-Adha, the Feast of Abraham the father of Israel and Ishmael (peace be upon them all), and an extremely auspicious date for such a wonderful gathering as this.

You know, we can’t pretend that our communities don’t sometimes find themselves at loggerheads, but reaching back into our shared history I find a story with a lesson to tell in the tale of Moses (peace be upon him), Israel, the Pharoah and Egypt.

The Quran has a lot to say about a different side of that story, in what it says about Moses reaching out to the people of Egypt for the sake of Israel and the God of Abraham, opening Egyptian eyes to the truth, that their Creator was One and the same.

Likewise, the Talmud tells us that when Pharoah and his army was destroyed in the Red Sea, the angels in Heaven wanted to celebrate, but God stopped them and REBUKED them saying, “Do you not know that these were My people too?”

Even in a conflict where He had to take sides, God still acknowledged all His creation, and expected his servants to do the same.

The Quran tells us that God made each of us different from each other- different genders as well as different tribes and nations- not so that we would fight, but so that we might benefit from knowing each other. The Arabic word I'm translating as "know" is the BIG one, similar to the Hebrew word for "Know" that titillates schoolboys, because it means live with, and learn from and implies intimacy as well.

By putting our tribal and national differences in the context of our gender differences, that Ayah conveys a deeper meaning and a great promise; that out of those differences will one day come something as wonderful as our children are, when they come out of us.

Hatred blinds the hater to that truth, and renders them incapable of serving God’s greater purpose.

Hatred is a crime against the humanity of the hated, the root cause of all crimes against humanity, but it is a crime the hater commits against their own humanity as well.

For ALL those reasons, the Muslim Council of Calgary on behalf of the Calgary Muslim Community, is proud to stand together today with the Calgary Jewish community in joined celebration of our shared humanity, and joined condemnation of hatred in all its forms for the love of God, and for the sake of us all. Thank-you, and Allahu Akhbar!