The most effective interfaith dialogue is not through lectures, debates, and official statements rather real interfaith dialogue happens when you interact on a personal level with people of differing faiths.
An example: You’re trying to sleep when your mother decides to start blasting Handel’s Messiah while she’s cleaning around the house, you can’t sleep with that much noise, so you have to get up, and ask this Christian woman that started playing Christmas music before Thanksgiving Day and put up the most tacky and gaudy Christmas display in the neighborhood to turn it down so you, a Muslim can get some sleep or just to have some peace and quiet.
Muslim Apple: Asking in the nicest way possible if she could turn it down just a bit as I was trying to sleep.
Mom: Oh, I thought you were already up a long time ago.
Muslim Apple: Yes, but sometimes we sleep after fajr.
Mom: Oh, ok. The volume of the music is noticeably reduced.
Muslim Apple: Now wide awake, so no point in trying to sleep.
In other news:
In DC, Imam Magid and some local Muslim leaders lit candles yesterday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to commemorate Jewish suffering under the Nazis, in a ceremony held just days after Iran had a conference denying the genocide. The event included three survivors of the Holocaust and one whose family fled to Albania and was given protection by the Muslim community.
I need to get on the ADAMS mailing list because I didn’t know about this event, but props to our girl Rahima for attending, she’s pictured in the photo and the video on the Post’s site. Visiting the Holocaust Museum is a really powerful experience, it’s not just about the Jewish people and their suffering in Europe because others also suffered, it’s about humanity its highs and its lows, its best and its worst.
A joint Hajj-Hanukah event brought Muslims and Jews together in Frederick, MD. Imam Yahya Hendi leads the Islamic Society of Frederick.
Seen first on An American Muslim
Ify Okoye 
Kindness to family and neighbors is without a doubt definitely the way the go. We must do more as individuals
I was the interfaith coordinator for my uni’s MSA for a year or two, and my big projects were interfaith potlucks. Different religious communities brough food, and we all sat around and just talked and got to know each other. Kindness is the way to go, and food certainly doesn’t hurt the whole process.
I think you would enjoy this lecture Apple: Lessons Learned From the Sahaba Living as a Minority in Makkah by Anwar al-Awlaki
its very good mashaAllah.
Asalamu alaykum,
There is a statement, not sure if it is a hadeeth that mixing with the people and bearing their harms patiently is better than withdrawing from them completely so I try to keep that in mind. My mother has said, that my Islam has definitely made me a better person and hopefully a better daughter as well.
Welcome to the blog, Rahma – I dropped by your blog and like it, there are some good resources there that I need to check out.
Ya Amatullah, the link didn’t work for me but alhamdulillah, that lecture was one I purchased a long time ago when Dar al-Arqam and CIIE was still open and yes it is very beneficial. Edit: I played around with it a bit and now it works. May Allah reward you.
Personally, I would have object on the grounds it was Handel and therefore musically naff. my response would have been to give the said mummy a Bach CD and told her, “Go and put some decent music on, quietly!” 🙂
Wasalaam
Salaama,
Well, it is ironic the child is telling the mother to turn down the music, I found that funny. Nevertheless, we should be always kind to our mothers.
About the U.S. holocaust museum, I used to go there when I was living in DC area, it was an experience that humans should not forget lightly. Especially at this time, where Muslims are being hunted down. I guess the Iranian President did what he did because sometimes people forget where they came from and they need a mirror to remind them of their past. I believe he was holding that mirror, after all some Jews became advocates of the extermination of the Islamic nations. what do they call them Neocons?