January 20, 2011

This past Saturday, Saadia Khan, MPAC's Civic Outreach Coordinator, spoke at St. Monica Catholic Community Community's annual Faith Odyssey Conference 2011. Khan gave an overview of rights and equality of women and men in Islam and demystified jihad and sharia. 

Khan also presented the steps MPAC is taking against domestic violence, both locally and internationally, by highlighting MPAC's paper "Abusing Women, Abusing Islam: Re-examining Sharia Court Rulings in Contemporary Times." She also encouraged the audience to promote the International Violence Against Women Act, which if passed would make ending violence against women a diplomatic priority.

The dialog that took place at St. Monica Catholic Community is only a starting point to the continued conversation and understanding that needs to happen between neighboring churches and mosques. Many of the congregants of the church expressed interest in meeting their Muslims neighbors and to connect youth groups to each other. 

Many of them discussed that all faith communities have the same interests and are striving to reach the same goals. In order to achieve those goals, it is important to work together by building bridges of understanding.

--
Marium F. Mohiuddin (marium@mpac.org)
Communications Coordinator