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Published in The Spectator, the student newspaper of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire;
Thursday, October 18, 2001
Uniting religions focus of panel discussion
Nationalism is root of conflict in Israel,
professor says
By Bill Olson
Danny Wheeler was serving as chaplain for
the Marines in Beirut in 1983 when a terrorist bombed the barracks,
killing more than 200 people.
Wheeler was buried beneath rubble for five hours. His faith was
important in facing the calamity, but he was left with a hatred of
Muslims, he said.
One day a U. S. Marine who was a Muslim entered his office. Wheeler said
he asked God why the young man entered his office.
He understood, he said, when he realized that meeting this
Muslim-American led him to stop hating Muslims.
Wheeler was one of the community members who attended a panel discussion
at UW-Eau Claire Wednesday night with the hope of uniting Christians,
Jews and Muslims in the Chippewa Valley.
The discussion began with a primer on Islam described by Mahmoud Ahmed,
a psychiatrist from Egypt.
Islam, which means submission of one’s soul to God, is founded upon
five pillars, he said.
The first is the belief that there is only one God and that Muhammad is
his prophet, Ahmed said.
“We also need to believe in the other prophets, like Jesus and
Moses,” he said.
The other pillars are praying five times a day, but only to God; paying
an alms tax; fasting during the holy month of Ramadan; and taking a
pilgrimage to Mecca, if one can afford to, he said.
“The name Islam is from the work salama, which means peace,” Ahmed
said, emphasizing that Islam is a religion of peace.
Osama bin Laden is
taking the Quran out of context when he claims it says Americans must be
killed, Ahmed said.
“The Quran is like any religious book – it must be taken as a
whole,” Ahmed said.
Ahmed referred to the Surah Al-Maaida chapter of the Quran, which says
“...If anyone killed a person not in retaliation for murder or to
spread mischief in the land, it would be as if he killed the whole of
mankind. And if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the
whole of mankind.”
“This is an example of how peaceful Islam is,” he said. “Violence
is not part of a religion whose name is peace.”
There is a big difference between Islam and Muslims, just as there is
between Christians and Christianity, Ahmed said.
“There is a difference between Tim McVeigh and all of us here,” he
said.
Arabs and Jews lived together in peace prior to modern times.
Nationalism, not religion, is not the root of conflict in Israel, said
Ali Abootalebi, assistant professor of political science who came to the
United States from Iran in 1977.
Likewise, culture, not religion, is the source of discrimination against
women in the Islamic world, said Naghma Husain, an Eau Claire physician
in the audience, and a Muslim. Islam teaches that women should be
respected.
Moderator Kristin Everett, a former news anchor at WQOW-TV, asked if
this is the end of the world as foretold in Revelations.
Wheeler, now a Navy Reserve chaplain, said that Revelations has been
largely misinterpreted.
It has nothing to do with the end of the world, but with the end of
victimizing a persecuted people, he said.
“I don’t take it literally,” Wheeler said.
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