Motto: God is beautiful and He loves Beauty
Mission Statement
Whereas in the contemporary world the values of individual freedom, human rights and gender equality, science and democracy are cherished universal ideals, yet Muslims and non-Muslim minorities espousing these ideals in countries that are member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation face abuse, persecution, and violence; and
Whereas Muslims and people of all other faith traditions need to come together in opposing bigotry in the name of Islam as preached and practiced in the mainstream mosques in Canada and across the Muslim world;
Therefore,
Our mission is to reclaim Islam for, as the word itself means, securing Peace for all people, and to oppose extremism, fanaticism and violence in the name of religion; and
Our vision is to advance among Muslims the principle of individual rights and freedoms, and for Muslims to embrace the idea of openness, of relating to others as equal and deserving of equal respect, and of defending freedom of speech as the basis of all other freedoms enunciated in the constitutions of liberal democracies, such as ours in Canada; and, accordingly,
We consider our effort is consistent with the forward-looking reading of the principle enunciated in the Qur’an, “There is no compulsion in religion;” and
We believe our mission and vision are intimately bound with the struggle for Enlightenment among Muslims and Reform of Islam in the modern world; and
In order to succeed we are dedicated to nurturing harmonious coexistence among people of all faith traditions, to supporting open and free intellectual discourse about our history beset with problems that need to be publicly discussed, and to celebrating as Canadians our cultural diversity in all of its aspects.
Vision: “God is beautiful and He loves beauty.”
These words are attributed to the Prophet. But one of Allah’s ninety-nine names is
“husn” and Allah is the Creator of all that is beautiful in the universe. In Sura 67,
“Al Mulk,” we find the following opening verses (in A.J. Arberry’s translation)
“…and He is
the All-mighty, the All-forgiving —
who created seven heavens one upon another.
Thou seest not in the creation
of the All-merciful any imperfection.
Return thy gaze; seest thou any fissure?
Then return thy gaze again, and again, and thy gaze comes
back to thee dazzled, aweary.”
If we distill the meaning of all of our efforts, to which we are committed, the essence is about restoring Beauty back into living and thinking Islam that has been effectively destroyed by Islamists over the past century and ruined in our lifetime.
In other words, our struggle or jihad is against the Ugliness that has taken over Islam, the Ugliness that has made a wasteland of our history and faith-tradition. Today people around the world associate all things Muslim with Ugliness, from suicide-bombings and terrorism to the clothes worn, the features on display, the forbidding of arts and music, the denial of everything beautiful on the grounds that beauty (woman’s hair, for instance, or unveiled face) is Satan’s temptation to deceive man.
Once this sense of beauty is lost, or suppressed, or violated, or forbidden, then man inwardly turns ugly and the rest follows, which is ugliness then gone to war with beauty.
Email: info@muslimsfacingtomorrow.com
Alternate: razzaz55@gmail.com
Website: http://muslimsfacingtomorrow.com/