Hawzah News Agency- Ahlul Bayt means “People of the house of the prophet,” said Dr. Jihad Abbas, a vascular surgeon, board member, and one of the six people who began Toledo’s latest mosque, located in the former Banner Mattress & Furniture Co. superstore at Hill Avenue and Holland-Sylvania Road. The center practices the Shia branch of Islam.
Sayed Saleh Qazwini, 28, a guest speaker at the center, is a sociology student at the University of Michigan who has also studied at the Islamic Seminary of Iran, in Qom. He said in a recent lecture on Fatimah, Mohammed’s youngest daughter and one of the Ahlul Bayt, “We have to take the Ahlul Bayt as role models because they are the ones who should be representing the religion of Islam. They are the ones who stood for justice, they are the ones who stood for equality, and they are the ones who stood for love and compassion.”
The Ahlul Bayt Center is the third Shia masjid [mosque] in the greater Toledo area. There are about eight Sunni masjids.
Differences in Shia and Sunni Islam date to the early successors of Mohammed, with the Shias claiming Muhammad had designated a family line and the Sunnis tracing elected leaders, among other reasons.
Sunni Muslims consider Imam Ali the fourth caliph, or successor to Mohammed, while Shias believe that he was the first successor designated by Muhammad, beginning a line of descent of relatives.
Many Shia scholars today demonstrate their ties to the genealogy by wearing black turbans if they can trace their ancestors to Mohammed, or white turbans if they don’t have those blood ties.
Sayed Saleh Qazwini wears a black turban. His ancestry goes to “the son of Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq,” Sayed said. Sayed is a term of honor for a descendant of Mohammed.
He also cautions that some wear black without the ancestry, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS.
The Ahlul Bayt Center has publicly condemned terrorism. After the March 22 attacks in Brussels, the center issued a statement saying it “is committed to upholding the values of a pluralist and democratic society in which many viewpoints and lifestyles can live side by side in harmony through the respect of diversity, the sharing of common principles, the compassion for all of God’s creations, and the celebration of unique differences.”
Shia Islam is one of two major branches of Islam. Though 90 percent of Muslims worldwide are Sunni, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Shias have large populations in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon.
Sayed said Sunnis and Shias have historically coexisted closely, but politics and recent wars have contributed to a more pronounced divide.
“The religion of Islam, it tells us to not only tolerate but be accepting and show love to other people,” Sayed said. “The problem is not between Sunni and Shia.
“The problem is between [fundamentalist] Wahadism, the Saudi state-sponsored sect, with all of the Muslims — Sunni, Shia, Alawi, Sufi, all of the sects.”
In the United States, there is a closer relationship between Shia and Sunni.
“Any cultural differences that exist back home in those other countries,” said Hala Alfatlawi, who is active with the Ahlul Bayt Center, is “a struggle for power. We don’t have a struggle for power here; I go to their mosque, they come to my mosque. We don’t have these agendas, so there is really no problem between us.”
“When I became Muslim,” said Clay Chiarelott, a convert, “I was exploring in general and learning about all the different types of Islam. I ended up gravitating toward the Shia belief system because when I looked at the examples of the imams, and the more I read … about people like Imam Ali and Imam Husayn and so on … what they’ve written often clarifies a lot of the Qur’an that I never got from the Sunni perspective.”
“This is why I come in every Friday,” Mrs. Alfatlawi said. “To listen to that message from the speaker, the message of humanity, of peace. Everything that the media tells us we are, that’s not what we are. It’s important for us to come and listen to what we really are so that we don’t get the wrong idea.”
The six organizers who started the mosque — all doctors, coincidentally — wanted to have an English-language oriented Islamic center that would focus on cultivating youth as American Muslims, serving Islamic Toledo and the greater city.
The Ahlul Bayt Center’s 28,000-square foot building is in use, but still being renovated for the Islamic center.
“The first thing we wanted to get was a lecture hall, prayer hall, and a bathroom” so they could have the necessities for religious practices, Dr. Abbas said, and that was accomplished. Recently, work has been dedicated to the food-serving area in preparation for a larger-community event Sunday.
From 3 to 7 p.m. Sunday the center, at 6004 Hill Ave., will welcome people of many religions when it hosts the annual banquet of the MultiFaith Council of Greater Toledo.
About that visit, Mrs. Alfatlawi quoted the Hadith, stories about Mohammed and sayings attributed to him. “‘You’re either your brother in faith or your brother in humanity.’ So opening our doors to the brothers of the community — brothers and sisters of the community — this is great. I’m very excited for it.”
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