South African Ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool has helped to plan a service in which for the first time in American history, Muslims will offer prayers at the historic National Cathedral in the heart of Washington DC.
According to reports, the idea for the invitation originated during the planning stage for the memorial service for Nelson Mandela as talks between the cathedral’s liturgical director, Gina Campbell, and Rasool, who is a Muslim took place, reports Christian News Network.
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“This is a dramatic moment in the world and in Muslim-Christian relations,” Rasool says in a press release issued by the Cathedral. “This needs to be a world in which all are free to believe and practice and in which we avoid bigotry, Islamaphobia, racism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Christianity and to embrace our humanity and to embrace faith.”
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The cathedral states that the goal of the event is to facilitate greater acceptance between Christians and Muslims, calling the Islamic Jumaa prayers at the house of worship a “powerful symbolic gesture.”
“Leaders believe offering Muslim prayers at the Christian cathedral shows more than hospitality. It demonstrates an appreciation of one another’s prayer traditions and is a powerful symbolic gesture toward a deeper relationship between the two Abrahamic traditions,” says the National Cathedral press release.
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While the national cathedral has hosted interfaith gatherings in the past, the Islamic Jumaa prayers to be presented this Friday at the historic Episcopalian site will be the first time the cathedral has invited Muslims to lead their own prayer service there.
In addition to Campbell and Rasool, Masjid Muhammad of The Nation’s Mosque, representatives from the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Islamic Society of North America and Muslim Public Affairs Council are all expected to be in attendance. The event is also facilitated so that Muslims will face Mecca during the Jumaa prayers.
The prayers will also be webcast live from the Cathedral’s website, reports Liveleak.com.
Washington’s National Cathedral has traditionally been recognised as the cathedral of the presidents, being used for inaugural-based prayer services for the past 106 years. It has also hosted the funeral services for Presidents Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and Dwight Eisenhower, and was dubbed the “National House of Prayer” by the US Congress.
Christian News Network says more than two thousand people joined President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden for an interfaith service surrounding the president’s re-inauguration on January 22, 2013.
Anti-Christ syncretism.
hmmmm, I’m not sure that this praying together with muslims, or any other non-Christian believers should be acceptable. We should reach out to them in love with the truth of the work of Jesus Christ, the Son of God on the cross, but we should never give them the idea that our faith can be mingled with their faith. There can only be one truth and one truth only and Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Jesus Christ only!
Absolutely, Sonia; every line, every word in your comment hits the nail squarely on the head. It actually mirrors the prayer I was offering to God while reading the article,before I came tot he Comments section.
I agree with Sonia. I also empathise with Jews who are forbidden to pray on the Temple Mount and the violence that they are confronted with when attempting to visit the Temple Mount. I therefore would like Mr Rasool to publicly support Jews on this matter. Note…praying on the mount….not in the Mosque…Sonia..you are absolutely spot on though. We can reach out with love and the truth of Jesus but we can never compromise the gospel in order to please man. Blessings;
Try this stunt with Christians offering prayers in a mosque, and you’ll find the whole ummah going on a rampage all over the world! Besides, it’s an episcopalian cathedral – it’s a libera denomination where anything and everything is OK by their standards.
Errata: liberal not libera
This is an abomination!!!!! I totally agree with Sonia Odendaal and Stuart Wragg…well said!!!
when the muslims pray and esp over those loadspeakers they are effecting the atmosphere with their prayers and supplications to a demon god they serve. when i hear them I turn up my worship musicc! how can Christians compromise it has nothing to do with tolerance or world peace.
Low Christology, homosexual Female Bishops, Muslims being invited to pray in the Cathedral. The episcopalian “church” in the USA is just a religious frock for a political agenda which requires the silencing of the true church. It’s been going on since the Roman emperors first lusted after the weight of the church.
Another example of the massive Islamic deception that the world is falling for. One cannot and indeed should not worship together with adherents to a religion which advocates the killing of the infidel……jews, Christians and anyone else who does not embrace Islam. The Muslims cry out Allah Akba….God is great but our God is greater and is in fact the greatest and only God. Wake up people and reject multi faith worship!