Love and Peace
It was very hard to me to hear what happened yesterday in Orlando. It makes me and all of my family very sad, we know the meaning of sadness, because we came from a land of pain and conflict, we came from the land of the prophets, which the whole world refers to as the Holy Land. We came here to change our life and to begin a new life and to create a new line of support for the Holy Land.
For the past 30 years I have worked in many dangerous situations in the Holy Land as a Peacemaker. And for the past 15 years I have acted in the Middle East as the Arab coordinator for the Abrahamic Reunion, an organization dedicated to using religion as a force for peace and understanding. Last year I, together with my colleagues, in the Abrahamic Reunion were invited to the Parliament of World’s Religions in Salt Lake City, Utah to speak about peace in the Holy Land.
Following that conference, I moved to Sarasota with my family to find a quiet life. We came to be a part of the number one country in the world.
But a few months after I moved to Sarasota, an unbalanced person killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, and I began to ask myself how could I help heal the situation and to restore peace.
I together with fellow members of Abrahamic Reunion, began to create interfaith peace projects in Sarasota and through out other areas of Florida.
After that we began to establish some interfaith projects in other areas of the world, including, 4 projects in England, Germany and Turkey and soon we will travel to establish projects in other areas of Europe and the Middle East.
But last night I was very sad and very pessimistic, because a deranged person who calls himself a Muslim, committed a senseless act of violence in the name of ISIL. I don’t think people who do these things are real Muslims, I think they are slaves to their lusts, and to their desires, they are part of a wave of darkness, and they are part of a primitive way of thinking, they belong to their own dark imaginations.
Through this wrong way of thinking, or I should say this sick way of thinking, they put all of their psychological and sociological failings, on to the other, and which other? They will put all of their blame onto our country, and this is our problem today.
From here I think that we need to work together, to create more projects, and to work in the field of the education. We need to build new educational programs, and spread them throughout the world, to the Muslim world from the Quran and the Hadith, to Christian world from the New Testament, and to the Jewish world from the Bible.
The Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him said: (Shall I guide you to something, if you’ll do it, you’ll love one another? Spread peace among you.)
Look at this Hadith look at the meaning of this Hadith, the prophet teaches us how to spread peace and how to love one another. How to create new ways of life all the time, Love and Peace, so nice to have them together, Love and Peace, because if we bring them together, and we work with them together, we will have a very great life, a very quiet life and we can create lots of understanding and connection throughout the world.
Another Hadith (Oh people spread peace, give food for the people and pray when the people are asleep, and you will enter paradise)
Look at this Hadith it is not just for Muslims, this Hadith is for all people all around the world, because The Prophet said: “Oh people”; he didn’t say: “Oh Muslims.” It is a message for all human beings, so we need to spread peace any place we can and to every person in the world.
And the last Hadith I’ll mention here is: (Give food to the people and begin with peace, to the people you know, and to the people you don’t know)
We don’t need to interpret this Hadith, it’s very clear, and very easy to understand, we just need to open our internal eyes and the internal channel of divine knowledge, then we can understand everything around us and all life, we need to be very careful and not to allow these people to speak in the name of Islam, we need to watch their deeds and their behavior, because they damage us as Muslims, and they create a strange life for us, and a strange spiritual situation for us in the world.
I would like to say to all of the Imams in the USA, Europe and through out the world: Please watch your religious discourse, your teachings, and your students, because you like your brothers and sisters from the other religions, are the guardians of humanity.
It’s not the place to write an article of analyses, I am very sad and I am full of worry, I hope we will do more and more to protect all people around the whole world.
I would like to send prayers for the souls of those who died last night in Orlando:
God, have mercy of those who died,
O Lord, send patience and solace to their families and friends,
O God, protect all people throughout the world from evil, and from extremists,
O God, protect us by your light and by your divine transfiguration.
God, we are your children, and we are your inheritors on this earth,
Give us the power and the courage to continue our peace work, in every place in the world and in every part of this life,
God, we love you, and we love all of the people on our planet,
Let us know ourselves through others, and let us to be one family from today until the end of all life.
Amen
Sheikh Ghassan Manasra
International Co-Director, Abrahamic Reunion
ghassan@abrahamicreunion.org
