Our Faith and God's Messages

The Interfaith Forum held in September was a great success with those who attended developing not only a greater understanding of the Muslim faith, but also new friendships.

Hosted by the Islamic Centre in Mayfield, the forum was the third in a series of forums organised by the Diocesan Ecumenical and Interfaith Council. They are aimed at enabling forum attendees of different faiths to learn from each other.

Imam Mohamed Hamed and Forough Dorani spoke on the topic of Our Faiths and God’s Messages to 60 people from various Christian churches and other faiths.

Shaikh Mohammed shared that Islam is a monotheistic religion. The prophet Mohammed spoke only about monotheism for 10 years before introducing any other concepts to the first Muslims.

Shaikh Mohammed also spoke about the main sources of Islam’s messages these being:

  • Holy Quran (most important)
  • Prophet Muhammad's traditions and sayings
  • actions of the companions of Muhammad
  • consensus of the scholars

Forough Dorani, Secretary of the Islamic Society, then spoke about the main messages in Islam. They are:

  • submission to Allah’s will
  • being at peace with neighbour, messengers, ourselves, fellow humans, our environments
  • everything was created to worship Allah
  • all creation submits to Allah - animals, trees, sun, moon, stars, mountains – all glorify Allah in their own way

It is also important in Islam that belief is followed by doing good actions.

A question and answer time followed, with questions about different Islamic denominations, the authorship of the Quran, and gender division in prayer.

Although every action of prayer is the same in Islam for men and women - they have separate areas to pray. This is based on the Jewish tradition still practised in synagogues today. Men pray at the front and women pray at the back with a curtain or room separating them.

The final Interfaith Forum for 2018 will be held on 22 November at the Diocesan Offices, with the topic Our Faiths and the Discernment Process.

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Brooke Robinson Image
Brooke Robinson

Brooke is Content Officer for the Communications Team in the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle