On Friday 12th November about 100 people gathered at Aspley Uniting Church, Brisbane for an evening focused on Interfaith Understanding and Harmony – at Home and Abroad. The evening was jointly sponsored by The North Brisbane Interfaith Group, Roman Catholic Commission for Ecumenism and Inter-religious Relations and the Uniting Church (Qld) Synod Interfaith Committee. The honoured guest and speaker at the event was Imam Syed Muhammad Zakaria, President of the Ulama Council for Interfaith Dialogue, Faisalabad, Pakistan.
The evening began in the Church with opening prayers given by Gurjeet Bain (Sikh): Rev Manopavan {Mano} (Christian) and Surendra Prasad (Hindu). Garth Read introduced the guest speaker, Imam Zakaria. The Imam outlined some of the major activities of the Ulama Council for Interfaith Dialogue and then shared some of his ideas about interfaith dialogue and other activities designed to promote harmony between the different religious communities living in Pakistan. Rev Bruce Johnson, Moderator of the Uniting Church in Queensland and Prof Gerard Hall of the Australian Catholic University responded to Imam Zakaria’s address. After a brief session of questions from the audience, Margaret Naylon from the Roman Catholic Commission for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations moved a vote of thanks to our guest speaker and presented him with a boomerang and certificate of appreciation. In turn, Imam Zakaria presented gifts to Garth Read. Everybody moved across to the hall for the Interfaith Café.
During the café a group of young women from Catholic Youth Groups in Brisbane presented Indian dancing to contemporary Christian music. Rev Mano closed the evening with a traditional Christian blessing and benediction.
(Pictured L-R: Gurjeet, Tariq, Mano, Zakaria, Garth, Gerard, Bruce.)