Scholar Precious Rasheeda Muhammad was among the keynote speakers at the MSA’s 8th annual dinner. The theme was ‘Interaith in Action.’ PHOTO: Nafeh AbuNab/American Elite Studios

DEARBORN — The University  of Michigan-Dearborn  (UM-D) Muslim Student Association (MSA)  held its 8th annual Unity in Diversity Dinner on Saturday, March 5 at 6:30 p.m. at the Dearborn Fine and Performing Arts Center.  The dinner marked eight years of celebrating the characteristics that unify people of different backgrounds.

“It has been a long tradition of the University of Michigan-Dearborn’s Muslim Student Association to celebrate the similarities we share,” said Hamzah Latif, director of advertising for MSA-Dearborn.

This year’s theme was Interfaith in Action.

The students read two verses from the Qur’an that supported interfaith action, especially among the Abrahamic faiths: Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

One verse was Al’ Imran 84, which talks about  belief in God and all that was revealed through Abraham and his sons, the tribes and through Moses, Jesus and the prophets, without distinction.

“Our goal in coming here is to find how different faith groups can work together to benefit others,” said MSA President Rami Al-Aref. “Interfaith in action is also exploring the similarities in all faiths.”

“All religions should be recognized and in Dearborn we must take the lead,” Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly said in his opening remarks. “We are one community.”

O’Reilly spoke about the incident in Dearborn during the Arab American Festival when Act 17 Apologetics, a fundamentalist Christian group, tried to paint a negative picture of Dearborn, painting the city as being under Islamic law and against Christianity.  The religious groups in Dearborn took action to fix this portrayal.

MSA President Rami Al-Aref

“We have the Dearborn Area Ministerial Alliance. There are (a total of) 67 churches and mosques in Dearborn and most are represented on this panel. We entered into a dialogue, and they took action to create a response as faith leaders in Dearborn,” O’Reilly said. “Our community was not negatively impacted by these people.”

The students showed a video featuring citizens of Dearborn from various religious and ethnic backgrounds explaining how they are all American.

The highlight of the evening were the three keynote speakers, each from a different Abrahamic faith, and each with a different story of interfaith action.

Reverend Daniel McQuown, Chaplain at Albion College, gave an address on one of the most controversial scriptures in the Christian religion, John 3:16, which states that salvation is through belief in Jesus Christ, and the statement Jesus made to Jewish religious leader Nicodemus.

“This scripture is often used as a litmus test, and a call for conversion,” said McQuown. “It is often assumed that Nicodemus converted, as he was with Jesus even on his death bed. However there is no evidence that he did.” McQuown elaborated on how Jesus’ relationship with Nicodemus was a powerful example of interfaith action, one based on the spirit of love.

McQuown spoke of the need for the youth to come together to erase stereotypes and actually learn about each other. He called on the University of Michigan-Dearborn to take the lead in establishing a statewide youth interfaith activity.

“We are very excited and intrigued about the opportunity to lead the way for interfaith activity for students here in Michigan,” said Dinner Program Director Nasir Bokhari.  “As an organization, interfaith activism has been a priority for us particularly, considering the negative connotations and stereotypes against not only Muslims, but people of all religions.”

Gail Katz, founder of WISDOM, a women’s interfaith organization, spoke of the segregation in Metro Detroit, an extremely diverse area, but with each ethnicity grouped in a different location. Her idea for WISDOM came after the war in Lebanon between Israel and Hizbullah which caused a halt in interfaith action here in Michigan.

“I remember a rabbi giving his Yom Kippur sermon on why he could no longer work with imams and I said ‘this has got to stop,'” Katz said. She came together to form an interfaith alliance with women.

“The most amazing thing was when a 70 year old Jewish woman said she has never had an opportunity to sit with a Muslim woman and ‘it was gratifying to see they are just like us.'”

Precious Muhammad was the last speaker. Muhammad is a lecturer and researcher on the international level, and was part of the team planning the World Parliament of Religions in 2000, the world’s largest interfaith gathering.

“There will be no peace in the world, unless there is peace between the religions,” Muhammad said. “So I can think of no better theme than unity and diversity.”

Muhammad made it a point to focus on the fact that people cannot segregate their moral concerns. What is a concern of one group should be the concern of another. She drew on this point, pleading to Muslims in the audience.

“Interfaith and action were at the birth of Islam. It is not new so that we have to make ourselves accept this. This is Islam.” She spoke of the Prophet Mohammad sending his daughter to get refuge under the Christian King Abyssinia, the King of Algeria in 1850 who sheltered Christians during the siege of Damascus, and the Muslim and Coptic Christians in Egypt who protected each other during Christmas and prayer in the public square.

“If the Muslim Student Association at Dearborn segregated their concerns to only Muslims, we wouldn’t be here today,” Muhammad concluded.