The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Connecticut, patriotic Muslims who believe in the Messiah, would like to wholeheartedly thank our neighbors as well as the authorities and dignitaries for uniting with us last weekend in our mosque in South Meriden.
By God’s grace, we experienced an unprecedented display of support and solidarity against hate and terrorism immediately after shots were fired at our mosque, Baitul Aman, whose name literally means “House of Peace.”
We are immensely grateful that no one was hurt and that local police and the FBI were continually on-scene and multitudes of other goodhearted neighbors like you wrote and visited our mosque with fond sentiments, and continue to do so on a daily basis.
We are touched and humbled to have built bridges with hundreds of genuinely concerned compatriots of various backgrounds, state and federal officials, and representatives from many organizations during our open houses last Friday and Saturday.
From the authorities to regular people like you and me, everyone came together to strengthen values shared by our beloved country and faiths; indivisibility, liberty and justice for all.
By coming together we illustrated real strength, and we simply could not have done that without you.
The Holy Quran reads “And remember the time when you were few and deemed weak in the land … but He sheltered you and strengthened you with His help, and provided you with good things that you might be thankful” (8:27). Truly our neighbors are among the “help and good things provided by God.”
The Holy Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, taught that gratitude must be given to God, but that true thankfulness cannot be expressed to the Divine until one exercises gratitude towards ones fellow being. Similarly, our worldwide head of the Ahamdiyya Muslim Community, the true Khalifa of Islam his holiness Mirza Masroor Ahmad, may God strengthen him, has been modeling Islam’s unifying teaching of peace, tolerance, love and gratefulness.
He is constructively engaging leaders of countries around the globe in stark contrast to the terrorists who have hijacked our beautiful religion of Islam.
We continue to profess and practice our motto “Love for all Hatred for None.”
So, it is the light of our unwavering connections through dialogue, standing united in peace, prayer and understanding that will stem the tide of ignorance and intolerance and will also help stop the nemesis of ISIS, Al Qaeda and Taliban and dispel the rising darkness of radicalization and extremism plaguing our planet.
We hope you enjoyed visiting our Abode of Peace Mosque and invite you to come back again soon; our doors are always open to the public. We regularly host interfaith dialogues, stimulating conferences, collaborative blood drives, exhibitions, open houses, study groups and would love your continued participation.
You will also find us working, writing, engaging, speaking out, living, and serving peacefully in our communities side by side with you as we have been for over a hundred years.
Lets promise to keep evergreen the relationships we forge through the good times and bad, as it is this love that transforms misfortune and ignorance into peace and harmonious coexistence.
Thank you again!
With humble regards of peace and blessings,
Zahir M. Mannan is former youth president and faith outreach director, and Mohammed Qureshi, M.D., president, of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, Connecticut chapter.
