for the year 2024

17th Annual Interfaith Dinner cancelled

With The Name of Allah, The Merciful ~

O ye who believe!  Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be (against) rich or poor: for Allah can best protect both. Follow not the desires (of your hearts), lest ye swerve, and if ye distort (justice) or decline to do justice, verily Allah is well- acquainted with all that ye do.  Al-Qur’an 4:135

And there is LIFE for you in the law of limited retaliation, O ye who are endowed with insight, in order that ye may RESTRAIN YOURSELVES.  Al-Qur’an 2:179

Dear Respected Interfaith Guest –

Our theme for the Ramadan Interfaith Dinner 2024 was announced as

“UPHOLDING JUSTICE AND INSPIRING HOPE IN OUR COMMUNITIES”.

As you may not have known, the Qur’an strongly calls Believers to stand for justice and not to decline to do justice, regardless of sentimental ties that may induce turning a blind eye to injustice. As we know, in America justice is symbolized as a blindfolded person holding a set of scales that are evenly balanced.  The Qur’an further promotes  Limited Retaliation (only taking one eye for one eye) as a life-saving practice of Self-Restraint (the cultivation of Self-Restraint also being the end purpose of fasting in Ramadan according to the Qur’an).

It is painful to the Muslim community to witness the support given for the unrestrained savagery unleashed wholesale on the civilian population in Gaza as a supposed but grossly disproportionate “retaliation”.  That pain is accompanied by the pain of having many whose family members have been displaced, injured or massacred in the ongoing “retaliation”.  The killing of non-combatants is plainly a wrong and we empathize with the suffering on all sides of the current conflict, but as many of us have heard, “Two wrongs don’t make a right”.  And disproportionate retaliation is a further wrong, as we see it.

Given the above sensitivities and other strong sensitivities held by our invitees and congregations, we do not see any way to follow through with our announced Interfaith Dinner March 17.  We are canceling that particular scheduled event for this particular year only.  We look forward to our ongoing collective Memphis-area-wide interfaith cooperation and we will be sure to contact you for upcoming cooperative opportunities such as meal-packing, etc.  And we hope that, when the time is right, we can gather together and break bread in the spirit of unity and compassion.

Memphis Interfaith

Memphis Islamic Center | 10225 Humphrey Road, Cordova, TN 38018