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Islamic Center of
Long Island presents TIA-LI with
Interfaith Service Award
The Islamic Center of Long Island (ICLI)
held its annual fundraiser on Sunday evening, November 30th,
2008
The Center invited several officers of The Interfaith Alliance,
and Mark Lukens and Rich Tibbets were most grateful to represent
TIA at this function. Following dinner, awards were
presented to various individuals and organizations. Our own
Chairman, Rev. Mark Lukens, gave a moving speech after
accepting the Interfaith Service Award on behalf of TIA-L.I.
Mark reminded those present that TIA works to protect freedom of
religion and asserted that ICLI is a brave partner in this
effort.
While there is much misunderstanding of
Islam in this post-9/11 world, the Muslim community is reaching
out to other faith communities and civic groups to counter the
negative image of their religion. One fine example of this
outreach is the recent “Weekend of Twinning of Synagogues and
Mosques across North America” on November 21-23. ICLI joined
with Temple Beth El of Great Neck on this occasion. For details
of this event, go to the website www.icliny.org/download_files/pr.pdf
Following remarks by ICLI Chairman Dr.
Faroque Khan and President Habeeb Ahmed, the program continued
with a keynote address by Bishop William Murphy of the Roman
Catholic Diocese of Rockville Center. Both Bishop Murphy and
Hamza Byas, who introduced him, spoke of the ICLI inviting
Bishop Murphy to their mosque shortly after the 9/11 attacks, as
well as their work together on the Muslim-Christian forum. In
addition, the Islamic Center was pleased to have New York State
Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli as guest speaker, who also offered
support and encouraging words.
Several speakers referred to the recent
national elections and expressed the hope that the new Obama
administration will work in a more collaborative manner with
other nations. Speakers also noted the high turnout of Muslim
voters and the success of several Muslim candidates nation-wide.
They expressed concern that some partisans attempted to portray
Muslims as evil-doers and attempted to smear Obama by repeatedly
referring to him as “Barack Hussein Obama.” They were glad that
these attempts were not successful and may even have resulted in
a backlash against such negative tactics.
The final speaker of the evening was Imam
Shamsi Ali, who is Imam of both the Islamic Cultural Center of
New York in Manhattan as well as the Jamaica Muslim Center in
Queens. The Jewish Weekly reported that: "Key Muslim
leaders in New York praise the Indonesian-born Ali as a
charismatic and compassionate leader whose embrace of interfaith
dialogue represents 'mainstream' opinion within the Muslim
community."
Click here to read the entire article. Ali stated that Islam values religious
freedom. Muslims believe that God could have created mankind
with only one religion, but he created many religions so that we
could know, support and embrace one another. In addition, the
various religions could compete in goodness and learn from each
other. For instance, Islam can learn from Jews how to survive
under conditions of severe hardship.
We wish the ICLI, Imam Ali, and all the
other speakers at Sunday night’s event much success in their
continuing efforts to bring about greater interfaith dialogue
and understanding. |
