Church Opens Doors to Muslim Worshippers so they can have a Place to Pray.

A Berlin church is hosting Muslims who are unable to fit into their mosque for Friday prayers because of social distancing guidelines. The Dar Assalam mosque in the Neukölln district normally welcomes hundreds of Muslims to its Friday services. But it can currently only accommodate 50 people at a time under Germany's coronavirus restrictions. 

During the holy fasting month of Ramadan, the nearby Martha Lutheran church stepped in to help, hosting Muslim prayers in Arabic and German.

"It is a great sign and it brings joy in Ramadan and joy amid this crisis," said Mohamed Taha Sabry, the mosque's imam, who led his congregation in prayer watched over by a stained-glass window depicting the Virgin Mary.

"This pandemic has made us a community. Crises bring people together."
Places of worship reopened in Germany on May 4 after being shut for weeks under a coronavirus lockdown, but worshippers must maintain a minimum distance from one another of 1.5 meters.
The church, a red-brick neo-renaissance building in Berlin's Kreuzberg district could hardly offer a sharper contrast to the cultural center in Neukoelln where the Muslim congregation is accustomed to gathering.
"It was a strange feeling because of the musical instruments, the pictures," said worshipper Samer Hamdoun. "But when you look, when you forget the small details, this is the House of God in the end..."

The Islamic Council, an umbrella group of 400 mosques, said in April that many face bankruptcy because the closures stretched into the holy fasting month of Ramadan, usually a vital period for donations.
The church's pastor, Monika Matthias, said she had felt moved by the Muslim call to prayer.
"I took part in the prayer," she said. "I gave a speech in German. And during prayer, I could only say yes, yes, yes, because we have the same concerns and we want to learn from you. And it is beautiful to feel that way about each other."
(Reporting by Reuters TV, writing by Katie Stephens and Thomas Escrit; Editing by Gareth Jones).

The Dangers in Religious Intolerance.

Of all the religions in this world, the fanatical adherents of these two are always at the roots of all the global problems because of their crazy "holier than thou" intolerance.

 

All Lives Matter in Humanity.

The Civil War in the World of Islam.

Once again, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (a.k.a. ISIS) has beheaded another fellow human being. Their latest victim was a British aid worker, Alan Henning. And the very sad irony, after the dastardly, barbaric act, must have been the guys’ usual exclamation of “Allah Akbar!” (God is great!)

However, the cold-blooded murder of Alan Henning and other foreign “unbelievers” has been just one of the two major “important projects” in the agenda of these lowest of human species. The other major objective of the ISIS (a military arm of the Shiites) is in its violent conflict against other Muslims who are called the Sunnis. Just a few months ago in Iraq, several people belonging to the Sunnis sect, were brutally shot (execution style) by these same ISIS. Unfortunately, the Sunnis are not angels either.



As an individual, I have often wondered why brothers in Islam would be at each other’s throats in such a most violent manner. The sheer mutual hatred these two Islamic sects harbor against each other is horrific. And it keeps reminding one of a similar horror that was demonstrated, in a not too distant past, by the Catholics and the Protestants in Ireland. The question therefore is why the civil war between the two Islamic sects?



In the Middle East, religion is government. Scripture is law. And the past defines the future. Islam has been divided between the Sunnis and the Shiites since the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 AD.

Upon the demise of the prophet, a bitter dispute ensued over who would be the next leader of Islam. The Sunnis called for an election by which a new leader would emerge. But the Shiites preferred to support the desire of the direct descendants of Prophet Muhammad who wanted to have one of them to succeed the prophet.

This disagreement has since led to a bitter war between these two sects. And the war has been very hateful and brutal, leading to the cold-blooded murder and destabilization of people in the Middle-east and across the world.

The two sects have two distinct geographic, political, ideological and cultural identities. But so far, the Sunnis make up the 90% of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims while the Shiites (with the most militant orientation) are in a minority with headquarters in Iran.

 

My Religion is Kindness.

The above words of Dalai Lama are in response to some readers who, at various times and from three different countries, sent me e-mails to ask what my religion was. 

Apparently, they had been trying to link me to a religion for reasons best known to them. But, admittedly, they were completely confused by the way and manner I have been criticizing certain aspects of both the Christian and the Islamic religions.

While I recognize the moral importance of religions, there is too much hypocrisy on the part of many people who parade themselves as pious adherents of the two most popular religions in the world.