toledoblade.com --

Toledo's Muslim community was praised by a Christian minister and a rabbi last night for its role in helping authorities identify three terrorist suspects arrested Tuesday.

"The Bible tells us you do not punish the sons for the sins of the father or the father for the sins of the son," Rabbi Barry Leff of Congregation B'nai Israel said at an interfaith gathering in South Toledo. "I think it's important to remember that the people who were indicted were individuals. It was not an entire community that was indicted or that did anything wrong.

"In fact, the Muslim community here in Toledo did everything they could to assist in the apprehension of those individuals. So if anything, the Muslim community deserves our thanks and a vote of support, not any kind of prejudice or bias or problems against them in the community."

Joining the rabbi in the fifth annual MultiFaith Banquet's panel discussion, the Rev. James Robert Culp, pastor of Toledo's First Church of God, said it was a poor reflection on society that people tend to lump all Muslims in with a few radicals.

When Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, "We didn't go to all the white males and ask them, 'How do you feel about it?'●" Mr. Culp said.

John Shousher, a local Muslim leader in attendance last night, said during a question-and-answer session that Toledoans have demonstrated their support for the Muslim community during previous crises. He noted that after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a local Christian radio station assembled 1,500 people, most of them Christians, at the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo in Perrysburg Township to join hands, encircle the mosque, and pray together.

"Bin Laden does not represent Islam," Mr. Shousher said forcefully. "Those people who burned churches in Alabama do not represent Christianity. The Klan does not represent Christianity. We have a lot of lunatics in this world."

Sharada Kumar, a Hindu spiritual teacher from Ann Arbor, said the way to counter prejudice and extremism is through education. "There is a Sanskrit saying: 'Knowledge is the best of all the purifiers,'●" Ms. Kumar said.

About 240 people attended the banquet and panel discussion held in the Genesis Dreamplex and sponsored by the MultiFaith Council of Northwest Ohio. Display tables offering information on Sikhism, Sufism, Judaism, Jainism, and about 15 other faiths or social service agencies were set up in the banquet hall.

Manal El-Shiekh of Perrysburg, hosting the Muslim exhibit, said she has gotten many calls of support from friends and neighbors after the Tuesday arrests and Sunday's shutdown of the KindHearts Muslim charity over alleged ties to Hamas terrorists. Ms. El-Shiekh, who wears a hijab, or Islamic head scarf, said she had one negative incident on Wednesday when several men in a van shouted and pointed at her menacingly while she drove near the Perrysburg Township mosque.

"I just smiled and waved," Ms. El-Shiekh said. "Most people here are well-educated and good people."

Contact David Yonke at:
dyonke@theblade.com
or 419-724-6154.

Permanent Link