Christians visit Mosque in High Wycombe

Yesterday, 17th September 2006, the Wycombe interfaith group, managed, arranged for the Christian churches in High Wycombe to go and visit a town centre Mosque. The arrests of terror suspects on the 10th August 2006 have created an atmosphere of shock, fear and misunderstanding between Muslims and their neighbours and the meeting yesterday was to provide a platform for people to start to talk to each other about what has happened.

As Christians, we were all very graciously received by the Muslim community and the numbers of people that accepted the invitation surprised everyone. There are no chairs in the worship area of the Mosque – everyone sits or kneels on the floor – but they had provided a dozen or so chairs for us. As the room began to fill with more and more people the organisers had to go and find more and more chairs from their neighbours, until the room was packed to capacity. The Imam (leader) talked of how grateful he was that we had all made the effort to be there and how his prayers to God had been answered in such an unexpected way; because he’d had no idea there’d be a need for so many chairs.

The program was very carefully arranged with a welcome and introduction, a reading form the Koran in Arabic – quite beautifully chanted – which was then translated for us into English. The verses chosen were firstly about peace and then they read the section where Mary is visited by the angel Gabriel and she is told she will bear a child, the Messiah ‘who will have influence from the cradle’ and Mary asks him how it could be possible for she ‘had never been touched by a man’. The angel replies that ‘all things are possible with Allah.’ A bit later we were given a short picture of Islam – its origins, the fundamental pillars of their faith of which there are 5. Then the speaker showed us the names of those they believe to be prophets of God – Abraham, Noah, Moses, Jacob and many more familiar names through to Jesus. He stated that Muslims believe in the virgin birth (Mary has a whole chapter named after her in the Koran) and they believe that Jesus performed many miracles and raised people from the dead. Where our religions separate from each other are in the 500 or so years after Jesus died when the prophet Mohammed became their great leader and inspirer – a prophet sent by God.

I, of course, am only trying to give you a taste of what was said yesterday and I encourage you all to read further for yourselves because it certainly helps clear up any misunderstandings about the people of Islam.

There were three things that struck me during this presentation, three rules that Muslims apply to their daily lives, which I would like to share with you and I challenge you to consider these in the light of how we as Christians practice our faith.

Firstly, all Muslim children HAVE to read and learn the Koran, there is no negotiation on this point, the Holy Book is central to family life. Secondly all Muslims (whether they attend Mosque or not) are expected to tithe 2,5% of their income to the poor. This giving, to those in need, starts with their neighbours (no neighbour, Muslim or otherwise, will go hungry or we will not be good Muslims) and when this need is met they look to their communities and then to the world. Thirdly; every Muslim is expected, without fail, to pray 5 times a day to God and if possible more often.

76% of those who completed the 2001 census in the UK said they were Christian. What percentage, do you think, of those people pray to God 5x a day, make sure their children read the Bible and even learn parts of it or tithe to the poor as a matter of course?

Muslims believe that God is merciful and that he loves them – the most beautiful words I have ever heard were spoken yesterday when a man said, and I will try to recapture his words – ‘we believe that when we take one step towards God, He walks towards us, when we walk towards God, He runs towards us, when we run towards God he comes even faster and is like a gushing wind.’

I pray that many people will be able to experience God in such a profound way, as we seek to see His face and to know His nature through the teachings of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.