Interfaith message of peace at ‘Love Your Neighbor’ in US

“If you want to understand peace, (prayer) is a time of peace,” president of the Islamic Society of Concord said.

Hawzah News Agency-About 50 people showed up to the Sunday night Love Your Neighbor gathering facilitated by the Greater Concord Interfaith Council, in New Hampshire, US, to show support for local Muslim families.

Interfaith Council President Kris Schultz said the event was put together about a week ago and was meant as a way for people of different faiths to come together and talk about ways to welcome local Muslims in the wake of the recent killings of Imam Alauddin Akonjee and his assistant Thara Miah, two religious leaders who were gunned down earlier this month in Queens, N.Y.

About 10 different faith leaders spoke and read prayers and poetry in the warm summer air. The event was kicked off by Hubert Mask, president of the Islamic Society of Concord.

Standing tall in a simple white caftan, Mask performed an adhan – or Muslim call to prayer – with a hint of his Arkansas accent coming through.

“If you want to understand peace, (evening prayer) is a time of peace,” Mask said.

Imam Mohamed Ibrahim of the Islamic Society of the Seacoast Area in Dover addressed the group, thanking the Interfaith Council for hosting it.

“When this event happened in Queens, N.Y., we were really brokenhearted,” Ibrahim said.

“This was a reason for us to have more dialogue with each other,” he said.

Ibrahim said his community was grieving equally for the Queens attack and a recent killing of 86-year-old Catholic priest Jacques Hamel in France by radicals. He noted Hamel’s church had extended a warm hand to a local French mosque.

“All these tragedies seem to bring sensible people together to make sense of them,” Ibrahim said, before leading the group in a prayer for peace.

“We pray and ask You to put peace in our hearts,” he said. “You have not created us to dominate and oppress one another.”

The Rev. Brother Charles Edward of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church had a similar message.

“We worship the same God,” he said. “Loving, passionate and forgiving. Unless we can look our brothers and sisters in the eye and say, ‘I pray with you,’ peace cannot be achieved.”