POUGHKEEPSIE – Members
of some 40 faith groups throughout Dutchess County and the region, representing
the “Big Three” monotheistic religions – Christianity,
Judaism and Islam – joined together Sunday evening with the help
of the Dutchess County interfaith community, as well as with the help
of other local religious institutions. It was a display of solidarity
to celebrate the council’s first ever interfaith Iftar Sunday night,
the first night of Ramadan.
People of different faiths were encouraged to dine together and have some fun
The Iftar gathering, honoring the traditional meal after sunset breaking the fast during Ramadan that is currently being celebrated by the Muslim community, was meant to follow a “Walk the Walk” solidarity march on the Walkway Over the Hudson, but due to heavy rains it was cancelled. However, over 250 people attended the First Evangelical Lutheran Church on Mill Street for the Iftar.
Dr. Umar Ahmad of the Mid-Hudson Islamic Association said although interfaith functions are held regularly, this one particularly was prompted as a response to recent prejudicial discourse, against Muslims specifically, coming out of the current presidential race and being focused on by main-stream media sources.
“I am a Muslim, right, and one of the politicians said that, ‘Hey, we should give them numbers if I become president’, so that is the same thing that Hitler did to Jews, and then what happened to them,” said Ahmad. “If we don’t stand together who will? If not me, who? If not you, who will come? So, we show our support and we plan to do it again.”
For an observer at Sunday’s interfaith Iftar, it would be hard to believe that these religious communities are still letting themselves be pitted against each other by way of popular dialogue, but Rabbi Daniel Victor said there is still a prevalence of fear among people of varying religions creating an obstacle.
“If only the environment that we can create here, of acceptance and understanding and love, existed everywhere, and unfortunately we know it doesn’t; but, as I said, you try to create a domino effect by teaching, by sharing stories, by embracing one another,” said Victor. “You hope that you can touch new communities and change a larger culture because, as it was said, unfortunately there’s fear.”
Reverend Gail Burger of Presbyterian Church USA, said one of the ways the Dutchess interfaith community is working to combat the issues being caused by media discourse – fear and apprehension – is by holding story telling events featuring people of differing faiths.
“Stories aren’t threatening usually and we gather a group of people, of various religions, together and on a theme they’ll tell a story that is related to their own religion and it’s not a debate, it’s not even a discussion,” said Burger. “It’s just sharing stories; so, that’s one really non-threatening way to get people together.”
Professor Mirza Iqbal Ashraf, also of the Mid-Hudson Islamic Association, said he believes, no matter what the event is, in order continue forward with successful interfaith gatherings such as Sunday’s, love is the necessary foundation.
“No religion speaks against love. Love is natural and whatever we do: hate or fight with each other; that is because of our learned behavior,” said Ashraf. “We have to unlearn it.”
The DCIC will be holding another story circle event, for people of all religions, again this month in Hyde Park at Mariopolis Luminoso. Also, because of the success of the Iftar gathering and interfaith panel, the DCIC announced that they will soon be putting on more panel-type events in an effort to forward the dialogue between locals of varying religions.
