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مشاهدة النسخة كاملة : Canada Muslims Face Threats With Education


aammar
14-10-2012, 02:44 AM
Cutting through misconceptions about their faith, Canada Muslims in the eastern Canadian city of Charlottetown have reached out to their society, educating them about what they really believe.
"We hope this to be part of a process of dialogue and outreach to people from different faiths and cultures, so that we can share with them our beliefs," Zain Esseghaier, a spokesperson for the Muslim Society of Prince Edward Island (PEI), told CBC News on Friday, October 12.
Launching their new education program, the Muslim community invited Jamal Badawi, professor emeritus at Halifax's St. Mary's University, to give a lecture at UPEI introducing Islamic faith.
The lecture, the first in their program, was attended by about 100 people.
The initiative was suggested after mosques in Charlottetown faced numerous threats of attacks in recent weeks.
Two weeks ago, a bottle of gasoline with a note reading “Defeat Jihad” was found on the front steps of the Masjid Dar As-Salam mosque.
The attack came two months after a truck of a contractor working on the building was set ablaze in August.
A pig’s head was also left nailed to a post at the scene of a new mosque in the city last year.
This is not the first time mosques in Canada face threats.
In August, A commissionaire for the Victoria Coast Guard has threatened to blow up a new mosque in the southern city of Victoria.
Muslims make around 2.8 percent of Canada's 32.8 million population, and Islam is the number one non-Christian faith in the country.
A recent survey showed that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are proud to be Canadian, and that they are more educated than the general population.
Fear of Unknown
Members of the Muslim Society praised the event as offering an opportunity to share their beliefs to combat misconceptions about Islam.
"People are afraid of what they don't know," said Esseghaier, the spokesperson for the Muslim Society.
"The more people know about certain things, the more they get to know real Muslims, instead of what they might see in certain media, or what they might hear about, the better we'll all be."
Badawi agreed that the talk was about cutting through misconceptions about their faith, and telling Islanders what they really believe.
"Let's try to reach out to one another," he said.
“Let's try to understand each other with respect and with openness and objectivity.”
Describing the event as successful, members of the Muslim Society said they hope to hold another presentation.
Charlottetown is the provincial capital of Prince Edward Island, which is home to roughly 500 Muslim residents.
Muslims make around 2.8 percent of Canada's 32.8 million population, and Islam is the number one non-Christian faith in the country.
A recent survey showed that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are proud to be Canadian, and that they are more educated than the general population.