LEARNING FOR LIFE: HOW ISLAM IS TAUGHT TO CHILDREN IN A MULTI-FAITH SOCIETY

 

At Madani High School and Community Centre, Evington Valley Road, this evening, for a meeting of the Christian-Muslim Dialogue Group. The topic is "Learning for Life: How Islam is taught to children in a multi-faith society".

 

There are 11 attendees. Fliers were produced six weeks ago which said that it was intended that at this meeting, "Members of Leicester's SACRE (Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education") join us for a discussion on the theme". However, when SACRE met last week at Quaker Meeting House, it turned out that no invitation to this meeting had been received. I forwarded the flier with details of the meeting at Madani to SACRE's officers, and it was circulated to members on Friday morning.

 

Allan Hayes and I are here, both Co-opted Members of SACRE without voting rights (there's no place in the structure of SACRE for full representatives of Secular Humanism or any inter faith organisation). Later on, Stephen Thompson (Methodist representative on SACRE) joins us. We three found out about this meeting through independent channels, not at the SACRE meeting last week or through the last-minute mailing by SACRE. I'm sure that we can report to the next SACRE meeting, say what a good opportunity this evening presented for addressing such an important topic and that if the chance arises to cover this topic again, it would be hoped that SACRE members would support in numbers. I should say that the non-communication about this meeting was not the fault of anyone here this evening or any member of the Dialogue Group.

Revd Pete Hobson (Joint Co-ordinator of the Christian-Muslim Dialogue Group), Sheikh Shafi Chowdhury, Daud Sameja (Joint Co-ordinator of the Christian-Muslim Dialogue Group)

Apparently this is the first meeting of this group outside St Philip's Centre (although the April meeting, co-hosted with Leicester Council of Faiths, at which Bruce Kent spoke, took place in St Philip's Church Hall - though that would be splitting hairs). There was a short discussion about whether this evening's venue might have put off potential attendees, but I hope that's not true. This is the middle of Christian Aid Week, which might have drawn away some interested people, compounding the problems of lack of promotion.

The speaker this evening is Sheikh Shafi Chowdhury. He is an Imam, a qualified and experienced teacher, currently working in a multi-faith prison chaplaincy. He speaks for 20 minutes or so with compassion, humility, humour, knowledge and reflection. His talk is peppered with authoritative references to the Qur’án, Hadith and incidents from the life of the Prophet, his companions and early followers of Islam. He mixes personal experience with a historical overview of the meaning and role of education for the Muslim community (worldwide, in England and in Leicester), set within the broad sweep of the historical development of Islam in general.

Key to an understanding of this topic is the inescapable fact that Islam does not differentiate between the "sacred" and the "profane", nor does it categorise experience or phenomena as "spiritual" and "material" in terms of being complementary or oppositional. Such differentiation could be said to be central to the western idea of humanist, liberal, secular education. In classical terms, this meant that those figures whom we might identify as religious scholars in the Muslim world were also scholars of "natural philosophy", leading to innovation in the arts, humanities and sciences alongside insights in matters of faith, belief and religious practice. Of course there are many examples of the same thing happening within other faith communities, but it could be said that this was such a distinctive quality of Islam that when it became the exception rather than the rule, some 300 years ago, it exemplified  a radical change in the expansive and inclusive nature of Islam that had driven its success up till then.

Our speaker says many things that are worth mulling over beyond this meeting. Here are just two of them (quoted here with his permission):

"The curse of superficiality of faith is to be challenged by everything and to be frightened of everything. We cannot be fully Muslim unless we reach out and engage with our neighbours."

"Today all our communities are brought up with a heightened awareness of difference, of consciousness of the Other."

This is the first time I've attended a meeting of the Christian-Muslim Dialogue Group proper. I'm sure it won't be the last. I found it a stimulating, thought-provoking occasion in which a variety of view were welcome. With better promotion, I'm sure more people would enjoy these meetings and contribute to this important ongoing conversation.

SMALL STEPS TO PEACEFUL WORLD

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Small steps to peaceful world

A few days ago, I saw a little girl go out of her way to put her empty plastic drink bottle into a rubbish bin in Bell Street, Wigston.

Two weeks previously, I had seen a grown woman throw an empty bottle into the perimeter hedge of Aylestone leisure centre.

I was reminded of this contrast by Bruce Kent, the veteran peace campaigner, who visited the city to talk inspiringly about the lunacy of renewing Trident.

Bruce eloquently outlined the causes of war on a number of levels, including the breakdown of relationships between individuals and its mirroring at community and national levels.

He suggested there are many ways we can all contribute to the promotion of peace at home and in the wider world. It seems to me that, by showing respect for her environment and other citizens, the young girl in Wigston was doing her bit.

This is one of countless examples of how we can build up harmony between people, whether at family, local, national or international level. So let us look more creatively at what can be done. There may be other kinds of active engagement that can help to preserve the planet and use its limited resources to promote peace and harmony rather than hasten its obliteration by war.

Kevin Commons, Wigston

CND'S BRUCE VISITS CITY

This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Bruce Kent, left, with supporters Rama Gupta, of Loughborough, and Liz Brandon, right

CND's Bruce visits city

Anti-nuclear weapons campaigner Bruce Kent called for Britain to ditch its submarine-based deterrent as part of a "scrap Trident missile tour".

Mr Kent said it was immoral to consider embarking on replacing the missiles when so many people across Britain were being hit by savage cuts in social welfare.

Speaking after a prayer meeting at the Bishop Street Methodist church, Mr Kent, who is vice-president of national CND, said: "It seems to me that we, as a country, are moving towards replacing, at vast expense, our Trident submarines and their murderous missiles and warheads.

"The total cost of this would be over £100 billion."

He said the crisis with North Korea demonstrated the futility of nuclear weapons.

He said: "It's hypocrisy to say we can have them but they can't."

Mr Kent is visiting 22 towns and cities in England.

He arrived in the city at the Gandhi statue, near the flyover in Belgrave Road, and was later greeted by city mayor Sir Peter Soulsby, at the Town Hall.

He also attended a lecture at De Montfort University, and a public meeting at St Phillip's church hall in Evington Road and gave a talk to students at Countesthorpe College.

OPEN MEETING: WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

This evening the Council of Faiths co-hosts an open meeting on Weapons of Mass Destruction at St Philip's Church Hall, Evington. This meeting is being held in association with St Philip's Centre for Study and Engagement in a Multi-Faith Society and the Christian-Muslim Dialogue Group.

This is the fifth in a series of such meetings, on topics of interest to people from all sorts of communities across the city. I've posted on this blog about the three earlier meetings:

• Hate Crime and the Criminal Justice System, 27 February 2013
• Faith in Family, 20 November 2012
• God in My Faith, 13 March 2012
• Open Meeting with City Mayor, 31 January 2012

The speaker this evening is Bruce Kent, who is in Leicester today on the latest leg of his Scrap Trident Tour.

There are more than 60 people in attendance, though you could count those who are members of the Council of Faiths on the fingers of one hand. Most of the people here would appear to be drawn from local CND or Leicester Secular Society.

Bruce Kent (in that jumper) with Revd Sonya Brown

We are welcomed by Revd Sonya Brown, Curate at St Philips Parish Church. This is followed by an introduction by Revd Pete Hobson, Co-Chair of the Christian-Muslim Dialogue Group.

I've not attempted to make a full record of Bruce Kent's talk. His position on this topic is well known, to put it mildly. Here are a few points, however, that stuck out for me:

• He emphasised that he is interested not so much in the elimination of nuclear weapons as in the elimination of war.
• He discussed how the idea of Weapons of Mass Destruction have a history that goes much farther back than Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• He asserted that the moral and religious arguments are barely worth discussing - self-evidently against weapons of mass destruction.
• He posited that the argument carrying most weight at the moment is the economic one - as a country, we cannot afford these weapons.

Daud Sameja, Co-Chair of the Christian-Muslim Dialogue Group, invites questions and comments from the audience. This part of the session lasts more than 45 minutes.

Suleman Nagdi makes a contribution that brings to mind a speech given by 'Abdu'l-Bahá almost exactly 100 years ago. This is entitled, "The Cruel Indifference of the People Towards the Suffering of Foreign Races", published in Paris Talks.

The question of how to reach young people with this message comes up early. Amongst a flurry of comments about how young people are apathetic and not informed or interested in big issues such as nuclear disarmament, I ask how many of us had seen Doctor Who this weekend. "Cold War" was set on board a Soviet nuclear submarine in 1983. While not especially strong on historical veracity (with a Martian Ice Warrior on board, threatening to set off the submarine's arsenal) but it certainly would have foregrounded the subject in the minds of its more than six million viewers, by far the majority of whom will have been children and young people. Only two of those present has seen it (just Pete Hobson and me); there was a kind of positive bafflement on many faces, that something unexpected has happened to increase young people's awareness - and, potentially, their interest - in this issue.

When I get to the front and take the microphone in my own right, to ask Bruce Kent what single thing has give him the greatest personal satisfaction during more than 25 years of campaigning. He has to rack his brains for an answer and when he does come up with one, it would appear to be a surprise to most of us here. He picks the honour paid to Franz Jägerstätter (who refused to serve in the army under Nazi rule) recently in Linz Cathedral, Austria.

While at the microphone, I mention that the one previous occasion I had met the speaker was in 1984, when he undertook a peace march from Faslane to Aldermaston. This started off near where I lived at the time, in Dumbarton, and I walked with Bruce Kent on the first day, from the nuclear submarine base (and peace camp) at Faslane to the town hall in Dumbarton, where there was a small civic reception. On that occasion, I presented him with a copy of The Promise of World Peace, which was only recently published and which we had a good record of distributing around the town and district.

At the end of the meeting this evening, a couple came up to me and said that they had organised that walk in 1984 and had done the whole route themselves, so we must have met on that day, 29 years before. Unfortunately for me (and for you, faithful reader), they were whisked away when my back was turned, so I managed to get neither a photograph nor their names.