04/26/2008
IWDM Study Library
Interfaith Banquet

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Speaker 1:
Bismillah Ar Rahma Nir Raheem. In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.
Shakir Fardan:
My name is Shakir Fardan and I'm very honored to be here as your Master of Ceremony this evening for this our Inaugural Interfaith Human Excellence Award. All of those names, all of those words have significant meaning to all of your presence here this evening. I'd also like to thank you all for your patience. I was reminded as I was rushing myself of a lyric that I heard. Some of us rush against time, but we always lose the race. So it is very much my privilege on behalf of Masjid Dur Taqwa and the Interfaith Special Events Committee to extend a very warm welcome to our very humble and esteemed leader and his guest, the Honorable Imam Warith Deen Mohammed. We are very pleased that he's here joining us this evening.

We'd also like to extend a very warm welcome to all of our Interfaith Human Excellence awardees, our special guest speakers and our noted Keynote speaker for tonight, the Reverend Dr. Tony Wolf. Welcome to you all. We extend a very gracious welcome to all of our religious leaders and community directors who invited and encouraged their members to attend this evening's Interfaith Human Excellence award. And not our planning, you had a little bit of trouble finding your seating, but I see that you are very comfortable now. I hope you are and we thank you very much. Those from the Bilal Islamic Center of Los Angeles, the Family Church, Masjid Al Sharif in Long Beach, the Islamic Development Center in Moreno Valley, the Nation of Islam I know from Pasadena, as well as from the areas of Bakersfield, all throughout California. We are very pleased and welcome you here to this Human Excellence Award.

We'd also like to extend a welcome to all of those who were our sponsors. We had silver sponsors from the Black Contractors Association, a bronze sponsor from the Maxim Enterprises. And we also want to extend the welcome to some of our community churches, the Church of Scientology, the Westminster Presbyterian Church. We want to welcome all of you all here. And last but not least, I'd like to extend a very warm, gracious welcome to all of our family, to all of our friends, our neighbors and coworkers, all of you who answered our call to join us in this evening's celebration of the human excellence for those who have been outstanding in their efforts to foster interfaith for the common good of us all. That is why we are here and we are asking G-d willing, that we all have an enjoyable evening with this. As a very special opening prayer, and as I can see, some have already began their meals. I want to speed things up a little bit. With the Name of G-d, the Merciful Benefactor, the Merciful Redeemer. All praise and glory belong to You, who hear the thoughts that makes no sound and who knows what deep secrets that lie in our hearts. We pray that You bring stillness to our hearts and quiet to our minds that we may dwell in Your tranquility as true brothers and sisters of interfaith. Oh our Sustainer, Creator of all that is above and all that is below and all that is in between, we are grateful for the provisions that You have created for our sustenance and we are grateful too for the many sacrifices offered to make this meal complete. We thank You for joining us with family and friends, brothers and sisters of different faith, but who all have the same spirit to serve You and obey Your will and we partake of these provisions that we may be strengthening mind, body, spirit and soul. Amen. So, enjoy your meals. Enjoy your meals and enjoy each other's company and we will have some entertainment with our very dear beloved brother Stephen Cross, a spiritual saxophonist. So please enjoy your meals

Introduced by friends of theirs that are very familiar with them and I'll begin to call on our very first Introduce who is Pastor Frank. I've worked with Pastor Frank in our committee and it's been very enjoyable having an Interfaith Committee group working together to facilitate bringing us all together like this. It's very difficult to be in a very diverse world and not have that same diversity among our religious family members and community. So, this was a very outstanding opportunity for me to work with pastors, ministers and others of the faith community to bring us all together. So, if Pastor Frank would come and then introduce to us our very first guest speaker.
Pastor Frank:
Thank you very much. Good evening, everybody. Thank you, sir. Clap for everybody. I came because I really feel strongly that the 21st century has to be different than the 20th century and that if as interfaith people we don't learn to recognize the value and authentic spiritual and human qualities of everybody on the planet, then we'll have another miserable century like the 20th century and we should all work to forestall that. I truly believe in one creed and that is one family under G-d. One family under G-d of all the people on this planet. And if you want to have a family, you can't just have men can you? It would end really quickly. So, I wanted to introduce Dr. Aurora Kudal, who has served not only here in the United States but in fact around the world. She has served on UNESCO as a fellow on drug education as a member of the United Nations Fund on Drug Abuse Control Advisory Committee. Also, Dr. Kudal served in the Philippines as Chairperson Board of Christian Education and Communications. She also served as President of the Board of Women's Work of the United Methodist Church Philippines Central Conference. She also served the world as World Secretary for the World Federation of Methodist Women from 1991 to 96. And presently Dr. Aurora Kudal is a current Chairperson of Church and Society Committee at the first United Methodist Church of National City. May we have a wonderful and warm round of applause.
Dr. Aurora Kudal:
Good evening brothers and sisters. At the outset I would like to thank two people who are responsible for my participation in this evening's event. Dave Mayer for inviting me to speak before you this evening, and Patty Wilkins for introducing me to the Church of Scientology. At this moment, I vividly recall my childhood and the environment which nurtured my growth as a human being. I value and appreciate my faith and religious upbringing as a Christian within the mold of the Western tradition, which was inculcated in words and in deeds by my parents. I also remember being reared by a devout Roman Catholic maternal grandmother whose only son converted to Islam as one of the first teachers in a Muslim area in the Philippines. All my cousins in my mother's side are Muslims. Hence, I grew up in a social milieu where ecumenism is respected and interfaith dialogue is a way of life.

I still recall a significant lesson I learned from my father during my kindergarten days. One day I stood before him to show off. I recited the golden rule and I said, do not do unto others what you would not like others do to you, attributing this statement to the Chinese philosopher Confucius. My father corrected me. He said, do unto others what you would like others do to you. My father patiently explained to me the difference between the Confucius golden rule and the Christian Golden rule. He said, do not do unto others what you would not like others do to you is easy. Just fold your hands, just fold your arms and do not do anything. Nothing will happen. But Jesus said, do unto others what you would like others do to you. That is difficult. You have to take positive action and make the first move. Respect others so they will respect you. Be kind to others so that they will be kind to you, love others so that they will love you.

It was this one experience in my childhood that greatly shaped my attitude and values as a wife, as a mother, and as a career woman. After my graduation from the University of the Philippines at the age of 18, I began a challenging and fulfilling career in the field of education and public health. But one of the most challenging is in the field of drug abuse prevention. You see, when there was an epidemic of drug use in the Philippines, a law was passed creating the Dangerous Drugs Board. Because of my experience in public health, I thought I'll apply for a nonexistent job based on the law and I told the Secretary of Health I would like to organize the education component of the drug abuse control program. I think I was very successful. I believed then, and I still believe now that drug abuse is a problem of people. It is not a problem of drugs. I developed a program by interviewing young people who have gone into drugs and they found out that the underlying causes of the problem is dysfunctional family relationship, lack of communication in the home, negative peer pressure, lack of self-esteem and other factors. And I built on these factors to develop a program.

I organized a national seminar on drug abuse prevention education, the goal of which is to develop an integrated program. That program catapulted me in the international scene. I found out and I realized later that the dialogue I conducted among many professionals in the field of drug abuse, prevention and control was the first one ever held in the world. And so, I was invited by UNESCO to be a fellow on drug education by offering me a travel grant to Switzerland, France, Netherlands, and Denmark to study the problem of drug use. And in those travels, I believe I confirmed that drug abuse cannot be controlled by controlling drugs. It can only be controlled and prevented if you deal with human problems.

Because of that experience, I was able to reach the top of my career. And I know that it was being the best of what I can under the most trying circumstances, doing things better than others within my capability, and making a place much better than when I found it even with limited resources, that helped me in my climb in my career. We came to San Diego in 1993 and I thought it was time for me to retire, but I found out that there are so many problems in our own Filipino community and so I got involved.

I got involved in volunteering for a Filipino help center. I would like to share with you my experience on this because you see as an immigrant in the United States, it's very difficult to really get a job. Even if you are a professor or you possess a doctorate in your country, when you are here you start zero. But when I help people, I was able to create my own experience and now I am very proud to tell you that I've helped a lot. I've been working with the Filipino community and helping my own church to be a reconciler of differences and to help others be what they can become. So, with that, I end my talk, but first I would like to acknowledge here Edgar Rapada, man that I'm very proud of. Edgar is a Filipino-American. And so with the award that he will get, I would like to congratulate him first because I was with him last Saturday and he really deserves the award. Thank you very much.
Shakir Fardan:
Let us thank Ms. Aurora again. We all should learn the lesson to do unto others as we would have them to do unto us. To make things much faster, I'd like if my next guest speaker would please come nearer to the podium. I have the pleasure of introducing our next guest speaker who is Mr. Henry Magala, who is the Executive dean of the Kuya Maka College. He developed a Teen Save program for youth in Uganda. He led a disaster response team in Sri Lanka and worked with the World Health Organization in Nepal on the global polio eradication program. He serves as subject area expert for the congressionally mandated Center of Excellence in Disaster Management and humanitarian and he's from Texas.
Mr. Henry Magala:
Thank you. Actually, I moved here from Texas, but I've been in San Diego for eight years, so kind of new and almost not. What's amazing about this event and I was telling my colleagues at the table is I lived here for eight years, you think you know a community. I come to an event like this and you realize how you don't know a community at all. Good evening and thank you for allowing me to take up a few minutes of your time this evening. When David Meyer asked me to speak at the Interfaith Alliance, I was thrilled. I was so excited for many I would like to think, self-evident reasons. I spoke with him recently on Friday to get an idea of what I should say, what the topic is, what the community is, what the audience is, and what kind of ideas, thoughts, feelings I could share.

And he was telling me about all the people that would be here from throughout the country and he was telling me about the esteemed guests would be here and Imam Mohammed is the equivalent of the Pope here, and I was no longer thrilled. I have to tell you I was absolutely panicked. I said, oh my G-d. I said, I could have done without that, Dave. I thought I was going to talk to about 20 or 30 people and now I'm talking to the Pope. So, thank you for letting me come talk.

I'm especially happy to be here because I come from a Catholic tradition and in the Catholic tradition we have the Sacrament reconciliation, Sacrament of forgiveness, and I thought, G-d, the interfaith alliance, the whole room full of religious leaders. Take advantage of this time to ask everyone for forgiveness for everything you've done in your life. Please forgive me. If there's ever a community that will forgive you for that this is it. I have so much I wanted to share with you, but I don't want to ruin your dinner and I don't want to take up to your time because I have an opportunity to speak with you tomorrow. And I'm so glad that the topic is on human development because I've spent so much of my career in international human development and social development. I've joined the college in the past two or three years. Before that I've worked in 20 countries, maybe more in social development, human development, everything from refugees to disaster victims to AIDS orphans in Africa and developing programs. And so this topic on human development is absolutely so dear to me because I spent so much time in it and that's why I should never write my speech because I'm already not following it already. But I should try to.

My background is in medical anthropology and whenever I travel I would always, I found it a great, great privilege to be able to, when I traveled in Latin America, I would go to the Pentecostal church. When I go to Nepal, I would go to the Buddhist temples. When I worked in India, I would go to the Hindu temples. And I want to share something with you. My wife, I don't think even knows I carry this. I carry something that I keep, that's my security blankets, my little pouch of very holy and religious things of things that I've experienced around the world. I have my Catholic rosary, I have my Buddha, I have my Ganesh. But what I don't have, and this is why I want to take this time, is I don't have anything holy from the Muslim faith. And Imam Mohammed, if I could be very selfish and ask you. I need something small that I can keep in here, that I could travel with that will help me bring me home to my children.

Is it okay? My heart, I have my little, there goes Ganesh. So, if I could bother you, but you're right, my heart is in here. When David challenged me, when he asked me to talk to, I'm not even going to bother with this. When David asked me to talk to here, I felt challenged to say something intellectual, something cognitive, something stimulating, something that you listened to that I could say that you would leave that's intellectual. And I had trouble with it because every time I struggled with a thought, I couldn't finish it. I didn't know where my thought was going. And maybe that's the thought I want to share with you. I really want to share something with you more intimate and more emotional than intellectual. Even though I come from an academic background and I'm grateful that this is a religious group because I think, I hope you understand that what I would like to share is more emotional and more intimate. And I am not sure if I have an answer or a statement, but more things that I struggle with when I work internationally, when I work in communities, when I work in refugee camps and the paradoxes, the crazy paradoxes of the world. In the introduction, I do a lot of training for the US military on how to work with humanitarian aid organizations in complex humanitarian emergencies.

Our Pentagon has an office of humanitarian assistance. Now isn't that, I mean is that a good thing or a bad thing? I work with soldiers who have missions, they do their duty, they have missions, but they have children also, they have families. And their missions are very difficult. Do I help them to understand how to achieve a humanitarian cause under very difficult circumstances or does that in very real terms compromise the people that I work with that have, that live in the community that may be perceived as helping the military and therefore not trustable? Does that paradox make sense? We have a military that our mercy ship just left yesterday for a two or three trip on a humanitarian mission. Is that where we need to be spending our time? Our FBI director recently made a presentation this last week that says that the United States is in a moral crisis.

I mean are any of us surprised at that? I mean I worked on a project in Uganda, you mentioned in my introduction, I worked on a project in Uganda to help with HIV AIDS orphans. I was invited to work on this project. 400 children age 10 to 15 years old, all contracted aids, HIV AIDS from their mothers when they were born, which is important in trying to raise money for AIDS because if you contracted AIDS through your own behavior, it's difficult to raise money because of the perceptions that people have on your concept. I 've got one minute. Oh, my G-d, I'll talk faster. But these are children that contracted AIDS from their mothers after they were born. 400 kids, 10 to 15 years old, nobody gave them any education, nobody gave them a work training. Everybody's just been waiting for them to die. They have HIV, they have AIDS, there's no money.

This is a country where most people make less than $2 a day and HIV AIDS medications are multiple times worth more than that. But now through the international community we have funding for antiretroviral medications and we can keep these children alive. So now my challenge is we developed a psychosocial training program to help these kids stay alive. So, I'd go to try to get funding for it and people tell me, I appreciate your time and effort, but you don't realize what you're trying to do. You're trying to keep children who are about to enter a sexually active time in their lives and they have a deadly disease. The best thing you can do is let these kids die.

I never even thought of that. How do I process through that? That's a tough one. What makes it really tough is unfortunately there's some validity to that. Because the longer somebody who has a disease that can kill their neighbors, the more of a threat they are to their community. I'm sorry. Tomorrow, I want to talk about social development and humanitarian assistance. I gave a talk at the groundbreaking of the Crock Institute Peace and Social Justice Institute and as a talk I'll give more tomorrow. I'm sorry for taking too much time. Thank you for your time and what a pleasure it is to address this. Thank you.
Shakir Fardan:
We'd like to thank Henry, and now I'm having to return some of his travel items. Thank you very much for that. As we can see and I can see that there's a lot that is to be said and even though the evening is going very rapidly, we definitely are on a time schedule that we would like to honor you with your time and not keep you any longer than we would like to. But those words that he had to offer us, to give us a sense of consciousness of the importance of how it is that we as a faith community can work together and address some of these kinds of issues that are concerns for Henry. At this time, I'd like to ask if our next presenter, who is David Meyer, who I've met with the Church of Scientology and has definitely taught me some things about learning how to maintain the right tone with myself. Thank you very much. Thank you.
David Meyer:
Hello, thank you. My name's Dave Meyer and it's my opportunity and pleasure to introduce our next guest. In doing so, the challenge is really acknowledging the differences that we all have as individuals and different faces and different colors and different backgrounds, yet really celebrating the commonalities and the similarities that we all have. And to that point, I'd like to play a very short video. It's one minute long and it's an example of what our next speaker does. So, I can have your attention to the screen and we can play the video. If you'll turn the lights down.

So, the question before us is really how we apply these aspects in our life and our next speaker, Mary Shuttleworth, is an example of doing just that. Born in South Africa, she was challenged to figure out how to bring youth to understand those elements that allow us to really appreciate what is different amongst all of us and yet to really appreciate and to really foster those things that bring us all together. In that regard, she put together a program called Youth for Human Rights International, an organization now that's in more than a hundred countries and more than 20 different languages to present the United Declaration of Human Rights, which is on the back of your program. So, if you look at the back of your program, you'll see that the 30 different rights are there and how does she communicate that? So let me introduce without further ado, Mary Shuttleworth, president and founder of Youth Human Rights International. Mary.
Mary Shuttleworth:
Thank you for that kind introduction. I am truly honored to be here tonight to speak to you at a conference on human development. The word development conjures up ideas of bigger, better, more life and yet development toward what? Because if we want to develop, certainly we need to know toward what. Right? So, I propose here tonight that we are trying to develop as humans because we're talking about human development toward human rights. Do I have any disagreement in the room? Maybe I can see you outside. Thank you. In the bloody aftermath of World War II, when I think that the world was split the most it's ever been with millions of our sons and daughters killed for senseless reasons. After that the United Nations was formed by five winning countries, but that was not enough. Again, they asked if we're going to develop, if we're going to be here as United Nations, we need to be developing toward something.

What is that? And as of that date, although many people, cultures, had been exhibiting and living some of those human rights in a most magnificent way, yet it had not been written down and codified and agreed by those five countries. And so, with Eleanor Roosevelt, they came up with a document called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It's an incredible document. That's the document that tells you what your 30 human rights are. Now I want you to be extremely honest with me. Tonight, we're talking about human development. I have an amazing group of people in front of me so diverse. It is so rich, what's in this room. And who's in this room? But I want you to be completely honest with me. Do you know what your human rights are?

That's quite a question, isn't it? If we we're going to develop as humans toward human rights, certainly we need to know what they are. How can we defend something that we don't know that we have? How can we help others? How can we protect ourselves? And that's exactly what our mission is, to travel around the world and speak to the good people like yourselves and remind you that although we all know that we want human development, although incredible people are going to be awarded tonight for the excellence in doing just that, overcoming insurmountable obstacles sometimes, it is important for every single one of us to know what our human rights are. Why? Because that's the common glue.

That is what we have in common. We don't want to be discriminated against. We want our own religious freedom. We want to be able to speak, we want the right to education for all our children. We want to have the right to a nationality, correct? Well, don't you think it's time for you to know what your 30 human rights are? So, I urge you to find out. You can go on our website, you can go to the United Nations website and actually learn what your human rights are, and really realize that that is the common ground as humans. That is the ground where we all meet. As a good friend once explained to me, if you have soil and you have seeds, nothing happens. But when you take the soil, you put the seeds in the soil and you add the water, we have life, we have growth, we have development. And I propose here tonight that by knowing our human rights, by teaching our human rights, those 30 articles to everybody we can find and then enforcing on our governments to implement this document and teach all children in schools what human rights are, that we really will be able to develop ourselves as humans. Thank you.
Shakir Fardan:
We'd like to thank Ms. Mary Shuttleworth for those very kind words, inspiring us to be more helpful toward one another, remembering our rights. At this time in our program, we'd like to have Derek White to come and give us a very special commendation on behalf of the city to our beloved Imam. Thank you very dearly.
Derek White:
Alright, I just want to start off saying that I think this is a great event just because we recognize that faith is what guides us and leads us each and every day, and that's what keeps us going through the rough times and the good times. So, I'm really happy to be present at this event. Well, today I will be presenting a special commendation to Imam WD Mohammed, which says: Congratulations on this blessed and joyous occasion as you celebrate the building of bridges amongst the various religious communities throughout California. Your support and guidance have contributed to the advancement of human development, your continuing encouragement, celebration of faith, and sharing the message of Allah's love through your continued commitment and contributions towards so many lives in San Diego is highly commendable. Again, congratulations on your successful journey to inspire others through Islam. Your hard work and dedication is greatly honored and appreciated. Thank you.
Shakir Fardan:
We'd like to thank brother Derek for that wonderful commendation. At this time of our program, we are having our Keynote speaker who's probably just as much with the butterflies as all of us have been, but someone that I've had a chance to really again enjoy being inspired by the commitment, by the determination to make this a very successful event. This event is one in which it took the work of a lot of different faith communities. And when we were working to try and invite everyone and get everyone involved, I found that there were so many interfaith community activities that were going on here in San Diego and I'm very pleased to say that a lot of that interfaith that is going on is being done by the works of Dr. Tony Wolf and the Presbyterian community here in San Diego. Things change all the time and he is one who has let me know that we can deal with the changes. And so at this time, we would like to invite our keynote speaker who is Dr. Tony Wolf, to please come to the podium and present us with his Keynote speech tonight. Thank you very much.
Dr. Tony Wolf:
It is such a pleasure and privilege to be able to be with you tonight. I want to thank the members of the organizing committee and I do want to especially mention one name because if it wasn't for her efforts and her energy, none of this would've happened and that's you Amina, would you mind standing up and receiving our thanks? Somehow, she was able to control the many headed committee that we were and bring us together tonight for this celebration. I would like to thank also my wife who is sitting over here at this table. Karen, would you mind standing and saying hello to folks?

I can't not do that because if it wasn't for her energy, I don't know that I would have the energy that I have for a lot of the work that not only I do, but a lot of the work that you do. Thank you all so much for being here. Thanks for all that you do and for your faith in interfaith community work together. This is a world sorely divided and wounded, and you are the hope of this world. It's easy to read in our newspapers and in all of the media about the divisiveness, the things that separate us, the things that keep us apart, the barriers, but the human race is better than that and it's because of people like you and your commitment to being here tonight and your ongoing commitment to working in an interfaith way that we can demonstrate that this kind of thing can happen, it should happen and that it will happen. It must happen if there's to be a future. So, I want to thank you for that.

It was both interesting and a little bit sorrowing this morning to read in the paper in the religion section about the National Day of Prayer celebration that's coming up next Thursday. I learned something that I didn't know before, which is that in order to be part of a coordinating committee that brings this National Day of Prayer together, you have to fill out a certain kind of application that asks certain kinds of things. And among those is that you have to pledge that your activities will be conducted solely by Christians, while those with different beliefs are welcome to attend.

Well, you don't have to be a Christian to attend tonight, but I do want to second the sentiments that Aurora spoke about first tonight in terms of our basic understanding with one another that when we treat others as we ourselves would like to be treated, we are really onto something. And so, I want that to be the focus of the remarks that I share with you this evening. John Hutchison, a professor of World Religions once wrote that unthinking faith is a curious offering to make to the Creator of the human intellect. So much of what passes for religious faith these days seems to me to be rather unthinking.

It is the kind of thing that again separates people rather than unites them. But all religions assert that there is a fundamental human problem which needs to be solved and our various paths of faith, our ways that we set our feet toward a specific destination, these paths that we each choose and that we each go down are clusters of life values, providing us with convincing and illuminating answers to the fundamental human questions of why we are alive. Or as Hebrew scholar James Sanders used to say, "When we read the Bible, it's fundamentally answering two questions, who am I and what must I do?" Or as the Qur'an asks insistently, where are you going with your life?

The problem is that so many people who are participants in one religious activity or another are only participating in the way that Hutchinson calls nominal adherence. They're naming themselves as followers of one type of religion or another, but they're not really practicing it at the deepest levels. It's easy for people to say words, isn't it? But it's another thing for us to treat one another as fellow human beings, as people who deserve equal respect, as people who deserve to be known, as people who deserve to be heard. I want to share with you three brief quotes by a man who is a hero of mine and who was a national religious spokesperson for so many things about human rights and human development, and his name was William Sloan Coffin, Jr.

He writes, the longest, most arduous trip in the world is often the journey from the head to the heart. Until that round trip is completed, we remain at war with ourselves. And of course those at war with themselves are apt to make casualties of others, including friends and loved ones. He also wrote, our business in life is less making something of ourselves than finding something worth doing and losing ourselves in it. And finally, I hope you'll take this one home with you, life being what it is. If we don't make a difference by trying, we'll make a difference by not trying.

I think we're here tonight because we want to try to make a difference. Another article in the paper this morning that caught my eye and that is no surprise to those of us who have been following the development of Non development in the world for the last couple of decades, was what Jorge Ann Geier calls human hunger as the head story of our time. We all know what it's like to pull up to the pump and pay nearly $4 for gasoline these days. One wonders what the oil companies and other energy companies have been doing for the past number of decades, but it certainly hasn't been trying to solve our problems with energy. When companies make billions and billions of dollars in profits and we end up paying more at the pump, something is seriously askew. And it's not just for those of us who in the first world, and for whom most of us in this room don't find it too difficult to pay $4 at the pump. But when you're making $2 a day as one of our former speakers mentioned, and you have to pay double or triple what you had been paying for fuel, or you have to pay double or triple the prices to purchase the food that is produced by the use of that fuel, things become very, very difficult.

It doesn't take a Prophet to look out ahead and see that the planet is headed toward a very dangerous precipice, and until more of us are willing to reach our hands and our arms out to one another in interfaith alliance instead of an interfaith struggle, we are going to fall over that precipice. Let me just share one more quote from Jorge Ann Geier’s article this morning. She says, any answers to these deep and probing problems are going to be difficult indeed. Just as the world needs discipline and sacrifice to face these problems, it must confront populations that in the West are ferociously individualistic and greedy, and in the underdeveloped world given to violence, chaos, and self-destruction. I think I would like to qualify some of what she says in terms of the violence, chaos, and self-destruction that occurs in the third world because it doesn't just happen by itself or sui generis.

It happens because of other pressures that mostly come from the first world and the developed countries. Let me share with you a way of looking at this issue that I hope will be helpful for us as we depart from one another tonight and as we look forward to other events where we can join hands together to work for what makes for peace and justice and compassion. Brian McLaren, who is an editor of Sojourner's magazine and a frequent contributor to it, talks about the need for framing our situations. Too often we accept the way the media or the politicians frame the issues that we have to deal with, but we come out of faith traditions that allow us to frame those issues differently. And the more in touch we are with those religious frames, the better off we're going to be. He writes, any society or civilization at any given time lives by a dominant framing story, a story that gives its common life a coherent shape and direction. That story will no doubt evolve and adapt over time, for better or for worse, borrowing from and reacting to the stories of its neighbors. To understand the society then and certainly to change it, we must make its covert framing story more overt and realize its power. Sometimes awe inspiring, sometimes awful.

Now, for example, if our framing story tells us that we human beings are G-d-like creatures with G-d-like privileges, intelligent and virtuous creatures without a limited environment of time and space, without potentially fatal flaws, we will have no reason to acknowledge or live within limits whether moral or ecological. Similarly, if our framing story tells us that the purpose of life is for individuals and nations to accumulate an abundance of possessions and to experience the maximum amount of pleasure during the minimum amount of minutes of our short lives, then we will have little reason to manage our consumption.

But if our framing story tells us that we are free and responsible creatures in a creation made by a good, wise and loving G-d, and that our Creator wants us to pursue virtue, collaboration, peace and mutual care for one another and for all living creatures. And that our lives can have profound meaning if we align ourselves with G-d's wisdom and character and dreams for us, then our society will take a radically different direction and our world will become a very different place. In this light, our growing list of global crisis together with our inability to address them effectively, gives us strong evidence that our world's dominant framing stories are failing.

We might say that they are too weak, they don't provide strong enough inspiration and motivation to transcend the greed, the class conflict, sexual irresponsibility, ethnic hatred, religious bigotry or nationalistic militarism that threatens us. We could say that our framing stories are too strong, but strong in a misguided way, in that they actually catalyze and energize those same self-destructive forces. Either way, we can safely conclude that our societal systems, driven by their framing stories, are perfectly designed to yield the results we are now getting. If we attempt to change the results without changing the system, starting with its framing story, we will fail. And that's why events like this are so important.

Karen Armstrong, in her recent biography of Muhammad, speaks frequently of the openness and the inclusiveness of Islam. She relates the story of the Night journey, the Isra, as an event that in some sense happened once, but also happens all the time. When Muhammad was carried to Jerusalem and met with Abraham and Moses and Jesus and they had a little talk up there, she's saying that that's the kind of event that really happens all the time in our lives too. She says it represented a perfect act of Islam, a self-surrender that was also a return to the source of being. The story became a paradigm of Muslim spirituality, outlining the path that all human beings must take away from their preconceptions, their prejudices, and the limitations of egotism.

For her, that was an indication of the importance of pluralism in early Islam. Wouldn't it be great if just on one day we could see as the banner headline in any newspaper in America, this kind of inclusiveness and pluralism spoken about with regard to Islam? I don't know how many of you are familiar with that wonderful novel that was published a few years back entitled The Life of Pi. Can I see the hands of those who have read it? It's all the Presbyterians over here. There's a great story in that novel that I think speaks volumes to us as encouragement about the type of interfaith work that we are doing. PI was the nickname for a little Hindu boy who lived in India, and he was fascinated with the various religions that were part of his city.

He would go to the Catholic church and he would kneel down on the back of the pews and he would pray and participate in their services. The baker who from whom his family bought their bread was a Muslim, and he would take Pi with him to the Masjid and they would pray and he would teach Pi about the tenets of Islam. His family was nominally Hindu family, but he would read more about it, he would talk with others who were deeply involved in the practices of Hinduism because he was fascinated with the results that religion can bring in one's life even as a young man. And it happened that one day as he and his family were walking along in the park, the Catholic priest and the Muslim baker and one of his Hindu teachers happened to be converging at exactly the same place. And the Roman Catholic priest walked over to Pi and he said, Oh Pi, my little Roman Catholic boy. And the Muslim went over and said, No, no, no, no, no, he's not Roman Catholic. He's our Islamic pride and joy. And the Hindu teacher said, Oh, no, no, no, no, he's not Islamic. He's not a Muslim, he's not Roman Catholic. He's a true Hindu. And so, the father stepped back and said, Well Pi, what do you think about all of this? And his answer was, I just want to love G-d.

Don't you like that? I think we're all here tonight because we just want to love G-d. I don't know what to do with all this applause because when I preach, I never get it. But thank you. I take it you appreciate those sentiments and that you agree with them. Paul Nagano, who is a director of the Council for Pacific Asian Theology wrote something that caught my eye this past week in a publication of the Pacific School of Religion, and I think we can all relate to it. He said, whether a person is a Christian or some other religion, what is ultimately important is to become a person of love. G-d's mission for our world surely is not based on belief but on life and acts, the fruits of love. Our mandate is to place universal and inclusive love above dogma, doctrine, Western Imperialism and power, and to demonstrate and witness the power of love.

With that, I want to conclude with a story that again comes from the writings of William Sloan Coffin. He told the story of an old man who was sitting by a river in the shade of an ancient banyan tree. And he happened to notice that every now and then the roots of the tree where the water, the roots went into the water would be disturbed. There was a commotion there. And so, he concentrated his attention and what he saw was that a scorpion had become helplessly entangled in the roots. So, he pulled himself up to his feet and he made his way carefully along the tops of the roots to the place where the scorpion was trapped. And he reached down to try to free the scorpion. And every time he did that, of course the scorpion would sting him on the back of the hand. And he kept doing that.

And finally, his hand was so swollen that he had to step back and wait for the swelling to go down. And as he got back to the base of the banyan tree to sit back down in the shade, he saw a young man who had been watching this entire encounter. And the young man was standing up on the road above him and he said, he hollered down, You're a fool, wasting your time trying to help a scorpion that can only do you harm. And the old man replied, Simply, because it is in the nature of a scorpion to sting, should I change my nature, which is to save?

The Dalai Lama once wrote, My religion is simple, my religion is kindness. In the Talmud it says, Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers grow, grow. That would be my hope for us tonight and my hope for us in the future as we continue to work together as people of different faiths, but who are motivated by the same love and who are drawn into the crisis of our time by the one G-d who teaches us to love others as we love ourselves. Will you join with me in prayer? Oh G-d, who has created the world a beautiful place beyond any singing of it.

Gratefully, we acknowledge that of Your fullness, we have received grace upon grace. Grant now that we may be responsible in the measure that we have received, keep us eager to pursue truth beyond the outermost limits of human thought, scornful of the cowardice that dares not face new truth. The laziness content with half truth, and the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth. Strengthen our resolve to see fulfilled the world around and in our time all hopes for justice so long deferred. And keep us on the stony long and lonely road that leads to peace. May we think for peace, struggle for peace, suffer for peace. Fill our hearts with courage that we not give in to bitterness and self pity, but learn rather to count pain and disappointment, humiliation and setback as but straws on the tide of life. So may we run and not grow weary, walk and not faint until that day when by thy grace, faith and hope will be out distanced by sight and possession, and love will be all in all in this wonderful, terrible, beautiful world. Amen. Thank you.
Shakir Fardan:
I am very inspired by Dr. Tony Wolfe's remarks and I hope we all are touched in our hearts. When we were deciding or wanting to decide a Keynote speaker not realizing that in our very midst as a committee, as a group, was someone like Dr. Wolf, whose journey, as it says in his bio, traveling to the very different parts of the world, where the believers of all faith to try to find what was the common ground. And his inspiring words that I hope we all would take with us, to not let this be the last event or an occasion of our interfaith, but it is the springboard for us to go forward and to really do something with our faith other than just talk about it in our own circles. He reminded us that the very longest journey for any of us, is a journey that is from the head to the heart. That if we do not reach out in interfaith alliance, that we'll be continually caught up in interfaith struggle. That we really need to get in touch with each other's framing stories. And I would like to say that he framed a story for us this evening. That should put the picture of the kind of world that we want to have for our children, for our families, for all of America and the world where we can frame it. If we adhere to the very wise and inspiring words that he shared with us to show us that Islam is inclusive, a picture of our Prophet Peace be upon him, speaking to all of the other different Prophets and Messengers of other faith communities. And if he can talk to them and we can't talk to each other, then we got a problem. And that's what he was reminding us. So, we thank him for those words.

This leads us to now the portion of our program that is to not be left out and that is to honor those who are our awardees, those that we sought after in the community of different faith communities who were doing some very outstanding things with regards to bridging the gap, to bring some unity, to overcome barriers that divide. And those individuals that were nominated as our awardees, we want to give them an appreciation of that this evening. And we very much thank all of you for coming and bringing yourselves here through some very hard times, but you did it. So, with that, we're going to have our sister Amina to give the awards to the first portion of our awardees.
Sister Amina:
Bismillah Ar Rahma Nir Raheem. In the Name of G-d, Most Gracious, Most Merciful, I want to greet you all with the greeting words of peace As Salaam Alaikum.

I think we've had an extraordinary evening. And I really want to thank you all for coming out and embracing what we have to offer in terms of diversity, in terms of interfaith. When we came together, it was because of our leader, Imam Mohammed. He, through his words and his deeds, has driven us in a direction of inclusion and interfaith alliances bringing into focus as that's the only way that society can grow. And it's the way of our Prophet. And he leads us very gently and very powerfully in Sunnah. And so, our Imam, Wali Fardan, whose our resident Imam, guides us in that same model to make sure that we are adhering to that plan. Islam is a way of life. And so, with that in our minds, we said he challenged us for this event. And then when he asked me to come on as the event planner, he brought into focus all the things that we wanted to do with this event. So, we sent out a call for papers all over. We sent over 400 calls for awardees throughout California, requesting that they send us their best. And we thought that we might get some pearls. We had no idea how many. It was truly a blessing.

We thought we would only select about three, but we had such a wonderful response. And as we read the bios and found out more about them, we decided that wouldn't do. You guys deserved more than that. You guys deserve to know all of the wonderful people that's out there making things happen, not just locally, but internationally, right in our midst. So the committee as a whole became inspired and driven and humbled by these people. And it is really my pleasure and my honor to present these awardees at this time. Please give a round of applause to all of our awardees.

The first is right here in San Diego, Imam Sharif Pataki. He is a San Diego Muslim leader with various accomplishments. He is the founding member of the Islamic Center for San Diego, which hosts various community events including Know your Muslim neighbor. He is co-founder of the Interreligious Council of San Diego, and co-authored the book Bridging Our Faith. Imam Pataki has worked to spread awareness and understanding of Islam through the American Islamic Services Foundation in various venues. He has worked with jails, the navy hospitals, schools, libraries, and multiple outreach organizations. His strong faith is we must live in peace together. Please help me welcome Imam Pataki.
Imam Pataki:
In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Beneficent. Allah's Peace and Mercy upon all of you. Allah created the love as He created us and Allah put the love in our hearts. But when we deny this love from our hearts, we lost it in our life. So, what we need, we need to return back to this love in our hearts to love one another and the unique things Islam has taught us. First, we want to thank Allah G-d who created us, but we are not thanking G-d if I'm not thanking my brothers and sisters. So, I thank all of you because by the Mercy of G-d we can make a bridge between each other. G-d created us from different nations, different tribes, made us male and female for one thing, and that is to know one another, to understand one another and to love one another. I love you for the sake of Allah. Thank you, As Salaam Alaikum.
Sister Amina:
Our next awardee is Pastor Frank. He has been actively involved in interfaith reconciliation for over 25 years. He has traveled the Middle East, including the West Bank, as well as Israel visiting religious people of all persuasions, Muslims, Christians, and Jews to dialogue concerning interfaith unity and reconciliation. He is currently the Pastor of Family Church in La Mesa. He is co-chairman for the American Clergy Leadership Council and has recently been appointed an Ambassador for Peace, which is a worldwide program fostering interfaith and international cooperation. He is a current secretary for the San Diego Interdenominational Ministry Alliance. He has been married for 25 years and has four children and has led many seminars on family values for adults and teens throughout San Diego. Without further ado, Pastor Frank.
Pastor Frank:
They said 30 seconds. Of course. Praise G-d, for those of you who are believers, I had a vision of this about 30 years ago actually, and I always knew somehow that vision would be fulfilled to be in an interfaith community, not just a Christian community. I'm Christian saved by Jesus Christ, by the spirit of Jesus Christ. And I also believe that we really need to sincerely authenticate the true spiritual experiences of everyone. Everyone who G-d speaks through in His way. We need to honor G-d by letting Him speak to that person in His fashion, in G-d's fashion. So, thank you very much. I truly hope we should do these things much more often and we should have an opportunity to talk to each other very sincerely all the time. Thank you very much.
Sister Amina:
Our next awardee is, it's really my pleasure to give this award out because so often we don't get a chance to recognize those people who do things in the community, who are grounded and haven't had a chance because of their commitment and their drive towards excellence. And so, this one is very, very special to me. And that would be Abdur Rahim Hamid. Brother Hamid is a community activist and a business owner. His commitment to build and improve his community has made him a trailblazer here in San Diego. Brother Hamid's love for his fellow man led him to start the Black Contractors Association of San Diego and to establish the first African-American State Certified Apprenticeship program in the United States. This program is known as Intercity Community Unilateral Apprenticeship Committee. This program is designed to train inner city youth. Under his leadership, these organizations have soared, providing valuable resources to thousands of inner-city youths resulting in a more prosperous community and a brighter future. He reaches out to not just African American youth, to any youth in trouble who needs job training, who needs something in order to get them out of the circumstances he's in. And his faith has deeply led him to pursue this with all excellence. Brother Hamid.
Brother Hamid:
Bismillah Ar Rahma Nir Raheem. In the Name of G-d, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Brothers and sisters, this is a very humble award and an honor. I am inspired by the journey of the Black Contractors Association by the words of Imam WarithuDeen Mohammed who came into leadership and said that we must go from dust to industry. And he talked about the life's lessons of grass that springs up the earth and it gives back seeds to perpetuate itself. Which is what human beings are all about. So, the dialogue has been had. The challenge is that our historic and ancient greatness as a people and as humanity, we are trying to lift our people up. And I'm honored by this award coming from my own community, moved by this and thank you. G-d bless you.
Sister Amina:
Next is another wonderful example of human excellence and human development and a trailblazer. That is Edgar D Hopida. Edgar is the current Director of Public Relations at the San Diego chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, otherwise known as CAIR. He is an American born Filipino who converted to Islam in 1998. He has appeared on local and national media such as KFMB, CBS, KGTV, ABC, CNN, and many, many others. Edgar maintains close contact with public officials, law enforcement agencies and faith organizations to ensure a better understanding and treatment of Muslims. He has lectured and participated in many forums and aided to bringing about a better understanding between families. Edgar.
Edgar D Hopida:
First, I would like to thank Masjid Al Taqwa and the Interfaith Alliance for this very gracious award that I feel I do not deserve because that all of us here that are receiving awards are doing it for the sake of G-d alone, and I hope to receive that reward with Allah alone. I would like to also thank the gracious comments earlier from Dr. Hudal and the rest of the community. Thank you very much.
Shakir Fardan:
It is now my honor on behalf of the committee and the community, there's a very special award at this time that we would like to ask our resident Imam to come and give this award on behalf of all of us. Thank you very much for being patient with us. The very next awardee that we would have to come and be presented an award for human excellence is the Right Reverend Samir Kathadi. The Right Reverend Samir Kathadi is currently serving as a Bishop in Residence at the St. Bartholomew Episcopal Church in Poway. He is a Christian of Palestinian lineage who has dedicated his life to the cause of promoting peace and bridging the divide in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He celebrates 50 years in service to this cause and his accomplishments are not limited to resolving conflicts only in the Middle East.

He has traveled the globe in the pursuit of fostering activities, bringing together a wide range of faith groups. He was recognized by the Crown Prince of Jordan, Prince Hassan in regards to Christian Muslim dialogue in 1988, and was also made a consultant by Chairman Arafat in August of the same year. He's a very warm, loving man of G-d at heart, and I met him at the time of the 2001 event where he very graciously reached out toward the Muslim community when at that time it was thought that for whatever reasons that we were a bad people. But he let us know in the world know that we were good people and we would like to welcome him.
Right Reverend Samir Kathadi:
Mother Teresa said, I feel I am a pencil in the hand of G-d who is writing a love letter to His creation, not excluding anyone in His creation. No matter what history did to religions or religions did to history, we are one people in the creation under one G-d, on one earth and one world. I come from Jerusalem. Jerusalem where my Lord and Savior raised from the dead. Jerusalem, which was the home for a number of years to the Jewish people. This is the capital of interfaith. I don't know what is in my blood, but I'm sure that I have Jewish and Arab blood in my system. No one can isolate, only one blood. For G-d has made of one blood all peoples to dwell on the face of the earth. All of you have the blood of G-d.

And let us remember those of us who lived in the Middle East. This was the region that produced Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Christianity was not born in Washington nor in London. Christianity was born in Jerusalem. That city which welcomed the fourth Caliph of the Muslim Caliphs, the successors of the great Prophet Muhammad, who visited Jerusalem and wrote a pastoral letter to gather with the Bishop of Jerusalem. There were no Hyatts or Marriotts or Hiltons. The Caliph stayed as a guest with the Bishop and this is how Islam and Middle Eastern Christianity met in the persons of great leaders.

I greet you in the name of Palestine. I greet you in the name of my Muslim population and my Christian population and my Jewish population. It's high time after 60 years of privation and all kinds of wars. It's high time that we all like St. Francis of Asisi said, become instruments of peace. Thank you very much for this award. I'm humbled to receive it at retirement when I'm 75 years of age, retiring with my family in Poway because of good weather and because I want to be with my family at the end of my life. And so, my family has become American. They were refugees several times from their own home and now they found this country to live in. This is a great country. It starts with the Constitution. We the people, are one nation under G-d, whether Latino, Black Irish, Anglo-Saxon, Arab, Jewish. This is one people and we have to try to maintain the beauty of the oneness of the people of the United States of America, thus giving us the chance to be, I'm sorry, am I taking my time? Okay. I'll tell you a story then and finish. The story is that two people were to be awarded at the banquet like this and to speak. The first speaker took the microphone and looked at his text, the paper script, and he went on and on and on for over an hour. The people started leaving the room one by one, one by one until there remained only one person. Everybody left. And he lifted up his head from his text and he said, why didn't you go? He said, I'm the second speaker. Thank you very much.
Shakir Fardan:
We thank the Reverend Kathadi for those inspiring words. And we also recognize that we do condescend to our elders. At this time, we'd like to congratulate for our interfaith Human Excellence Award. Mrs. Tashiko Mondaset. Ms. Mondaset has been actively involved in interfaith reconciliation for over 20 years. As a Japanese born naturalized citizen of the United States, she spends her time working on interracial interreligious dialogue between conflicting groups. Her recent trip found her in the Communist North Korea, where her work with Women's Federation for World Peace brought great results to help foster a brighter future for the Koreans. And the hope came in the form of cultural exchanges and dialogue between women of the free world and North Korean women. Mrs. Tashiko Mondaset has been recently appointed as an Ambassador of Peace, a worldwide program fostering interfaith and international cooperation. And she continues her service here in San Diego working with Native American leaders. Let us welcome Ms. Mondaset.

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Tashiko Mondaset:
Thank you for letting me be here. How honored to be here. My favorite word is family. I grew up with my grandfather, grandmother, my uncle and aunt, huge family in Japan. One thing I learn being family, how wonderful. I'm bad or good, it doesn't matter. They love me. My grandparents love me. And when I came to America I saw different faces, different colors, different culture. I love it because my family, they taught me. He is my grandfather, mother. He is my brother and sister. How wonderful. So, to me, being Christian, being Muslim, their is truth in all different religions. We are all family, I asked myself one big family, brother and sister fighting and always beating each other up, talking, hurting each other. Who get hurt most? Parents. I always believe my father G-d wants me to be free and happy. How can I do that? Just one thing.

We love each other. He is my brother and sister truly, and he's my grandfather and grandmother, my father, mother. That's so simple. Why we can't do that? But I believe if we have a heart on love and we know G-d our father, we cannot hurt any brother and sister. Instead, we want to give more. We want to comfort. I want to forget myself. If somebody hurting, I want to do something right? So, this is the family. When I was in North Korea, I was stuck in elevator after we crossed the 38th parallel. I was in the hotel and all the electricity is completely gone in the daytime, I didn't know. I was in the elevator and electricity is gone. In the darkness for I don't know how long. No one knew I was in there. And I pray the Christian way. Yes, I ask Jesus. Same time I ask Muhammed, I ask all the religious leaders because I pray for them all the time. Thank you.
Shakir Fardan:
Our next human excellence awardee is a young man that I've had an opportunity to be inspired by his motivation, his determination for working hard at moving forward the life of humanity. And that person is Naim Shaw Jr. Naim Shaw is the co-founder of ILM, Intellect Love and Mercy Foundation. It's a faith-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to teach life skills to replace social ills. And this dynamic organization provides such vital programs as Eat Right to Think Right Free Food Program, Partnerships for Humanities Interfaith Program, and Go Beyond The Game Youth Academic Incentive Program. Naim Shaw Jr's commitment never ends. He also serves as the Operations Director of the Coalition to Preserve Human Dignity, which hosts the largest annual Muslim humanitarian day for the homeless. He continues his commitment to fortify his faith by serving as chairman of the board of directors and the assistant Imam for the past 10 years under the resident Imam Sadiq Safir of Masjid Ibadallah. We thank Brother Naim.
Naim Shaw:
Bismillah Ar Rahma Nir Raheem. With the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. I witness that there is no G-d, but Allah. And I bear witness that Prophet Muhammad is His Messenger. May G-d's Peace and Blessings be upon him as His last Messenger and slave servant. I would like to greet you all in As Salaam Alaikum. And I want to start off by first of all just thanking G-d all Praises due to Him. We have no power to do good or to refrain from evil except by His power. So, I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for the Masjid, the Imam Fardan and his wife, the team he has here, all the awardees. I'm honored to be among that list. I thank Allah for my father, my mother. Naim Shaw Sr, he told me when I was born, it's easy to take a hill son, but you got to do it till you die.

I said, man pop. I was only five years old then, okay? And then I also thank Imam Sadiq, who's the founder who I've been under his training. I got my PhD. I'm not a PhD, but I got it from Masjid Ibadalah. And also, I'd like to thank WD Mohammed, Imam WD Mohammed because my name, actually he named my father. And so, in 1975, when I think about Naim, I got to think about my Imam. So, I really thank you and honored to be in your presence. In my short little talk, I just want to say this We have an event called Humanitarian Day. It started eight years ago in Los Angeles and now has spread out all across America. But I went to Ghana last year and was able to do this event in Ghana, Africa. And on my trip, I stopped at the Slave Castle. And when I stopped at that slave castle, I hit a door called The Door of No Return.

And when I sat in front of that door, I said "From Allah we come and to Allah we return." And I was proud because was shot through my veins was the pain that my people had suffered. But at the same time, another shot came through that said that you have to work for the rest of your life with this freedom that you have for this not to ever happen again. So, I'm very grateful for that opportunity. And our Prophet said this, "What's better than prayer? What's better than charity? What's better than going to Hajj? And what's better than fasting?" It's putting things right between people. So, I'm very proud to be on this stage. May Allah bless all of us, but let's get some work done. As Salaam Alaikum.
Sister Amina:
Okay, how we doing out there? Is everybody okay? I know it's a long evening, I know that, but I asked that you hang in there a little bit longer. Give us your attention, and give us your energy, and give us your love, and give us your support so that we can leave this evening on a high InshaAllah. Our last awardee is no stranger to awards for probably forever. Since he was born, he was always being given different accolades and different reminders of his call in life. And that would be no other than of course our Imam WD Mohammed.

I think his life comes as no surprise to anyone. Everyone probably knows of him to some degree or another. So, I will just briefly recap it. If you want to know some of the fine details, you can look into our program or simply Google him in the 21st century and you'll come up with even more than you or he probably even knows of himself. WD Mohammed was elected as the leader of the community after the passing of his father in 1975, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Imam Muhammed's astute leadership, profound social commentary on major issues, piercing spiritual insight into the Bible, the Torah, the Qur'an, and several other spiritual books has led him to bring these things into his life and share 'em with us as Muslims. He has evolved us from the Nation of Islam into mainstream Al Islam and we continue to grow because of him.

And with that, I would like to congratulate him on all his humanitarian efforts. He has traveled the world, spreading Al Islam, spreading the love, spreading the greatness that Allah requires of us all. He has been a shining example to us here in America, showing us how to really bring words into action. He's a very quiet spiritual leader who doesn't have to have all the accolades that we see going on and with a lot of our leaders because he leads by example. And that I think is the most profound thing about him, our leader and teacher, Imam Warith Deen Mohammed. I'm going to allow our leader Imam Wali T Fardan to say a few words. He asked me to come up here and introduce him and he's the one who really put together this whole event.
Imam Wali T Fardan:
Thank you, thank you, thank you. First, I'd like to greet you with the Name of G-d. In the name of G-d, the Most Gracious and the Most Merciful. And I greet you with peace. We say As Salaam Alaikum. But the purpose for this evening really is the man that's standing on the stage. Imam WD Mohammed. We are always looking for a way and it has been a desire in my heart as well as many of the people in the community to showcase Imam WD Mohammed. We think he's a person that decent people can appreciate and I think that he's a person that the common man as well as the man on high can appreciate. We certainly appreciate him ourselves for the good work, for helping us to make the kinds of transitions that we've had to make in order to live in a world, a multicultural world, a multiethnic world, a world of diversity.

And we couldn't have done it without his help. Special help. He's a special individual and he represents to us special help from G-d, not just run of the mill, but special help. And I think we want to recognize that we don't want to see him as anything other than special help from G-d. And if we reject him and don't showcase him, then we are rejecting the help of G-d. And I think that should bear a consequence. So, without making a speech, I'm hoping that I can, once he gets this award, I want to showcase him. I want him to make a speech if he would. But if he doesn't, I'll understand that too. So, with no further ado though, we'd like to present...Somebody has to read it because I don't have my glasses, this humanitarian award to our leader. And I'm hoping that after you see the kind of person he is that all of us can say that in this room for our leader Imam WD Mohammed
Imam WD Mohammed:
Peace unto you all As Salaam Alaikum. I like to cook, it's my favorite hobby. And I like to eat just as much as I like to cook. And I like practically of all the foods that the earth produces. And I have not eaten pork because my religion says don't eat it. It's not because that I think I wouldn't enjoy pork chop. I ate at a friend of mine's house and the meal was prepared and all the food was on the table, and they had my favorite steak sauce and everything, all of these sauces. And I ate. And every time I would taste something, I have a habit of grabbing the sauce. I said, no, I better not put any sauce on this. I ate the meal, didn't use any of the sauces, and that's what I'm going to do tonight because I have dined sufficiently, and I've sat with some very important people and got acquainted with them and then heard from so many of you wonderful persons that are truly developed as human beings in the way G-d wants us to be developed. And I heard a speech that I have to have a copy of because I want to share it with some of my coworkers. And really, if it's not too much Brother Imam Wali, transcribe all of them and send them to me. This is the most excellent program that I have attended. Thank you very much.
Sister Amina:
Thank you once again Imam. Now we have reached the end of our program for today. Please be sure to join us tomorrow for the public address. The doors open at noon. It's right here in the same building. I would love to share with you guys some words from our Holy Qur'an. And it really speaks to why we are here this evening. Imam Paiki touched upon it and I just want to repeat it again, because I think it's worth mentioning. It comes from the Holy Qur'an Sura 49, Ayat 13, and it reads- "Oh mankind, We have created you from a single pair of male and female and have made you into nations and tribes that you may know each other. Not that you may despise each other. Verily the most honored of you in the sight of G-d is he who is the most righteous of you. And G-d has full knowledge and is well acquainted with all that you do."

So, this evening I would love to encourage everyone to get to know each other. We have a lot of stereotypes and isms and things of that nature that comes to us just by way of being in society. I would like to challenge everyone as our Imam Wali T Fardan did to our group. To reach out and find out something about someone else. Learn something about another religion that you didn't know. Ask around, find out. I was born a Muslim and the first thing I heard was the call the Adhan in my right ear. So, I didn't know much of anything else. So, Imam Fardan, just like Imam WD Mohammed, led us by example. He brought us together, he showed us other religions in our interfaith community. And I met some wonderful people who I truly consider friends and family now. And it was so funny because when we got together, I was apprehensive. I was like, wait a minute, we can do this. We don't necessarily need a whole lot of other people. But as we went on, I learned we do. We simply do. Because we're not on this earth alone. And so, I want to thank Imam Wali T Fardan for his outstanding leadership. He truly took this as a challenge, not just to us but to himself. He sold tickets, he got things for the program. He outdid everyone, him and his wife.

It was one of those things where before you can even think of it, he was already doing it because he's a man. He doesn't have a whole lot of words, he just leads. He just does it. And if you listen for his words, you'll miss what he's doing. And that is probably the bigger crime. I met Reverend Tony Wolf, who you all had the pleasure of doing our keynote address. And when I learned of all the things he'd done, all his world travels and stuff. I was putting together the program book and I asked him, I said, send me something. And he sent me this little five lines. And I called him back and said, Hey, I need more. I need you to feed this community with what you fed me with so that they'll walk away saying, you are my Pastor Wolf too. And I hope you guys did because I absolutely adore him as well as Pastor Frank, who introduced us to Family Church and all the wonderful things they're doing. Thank you so much for all your commitment to this organization. We look forward to working with you again in the future as well as all of our committee members. Committee members from around the room, would you guys please just stand up and be recognized?

Dave, Dave with the Church of Scientology. Thank you so much. Before you can even get it done, he was doing it. The Reverend, Dr. Tony Wolf, Pastor Frank, sister Darlene Fardan, who was truly my assistant. And I really want to thank you Sister Darlene. You know I love you. Sister Salama who was our treasurer. I want to thank her. Sister Nana who helped us do our entertainment for the evening. I think everyone really enjoyed the saxophonist. You can read more about him in the program book and if you're interested in contacting him, please do so. He's a wonderful, wonderful guy. Sister Amira Abdulah Johnson. Assistant Imam Shakir Fardan, who's also our MC for the evening. Brother Yahya Shabazz, brother Hanif Salaam, sister Rashida Abdul Khaliq, brother Douglas Ahmed who's also doing our video, and sister Kalada Salaam Aliji. And anyone else who worked with us, I want to thank you very, very much. And now I'm going to bring up our Imam to properly close us out. Thank you.
Imam Wali T Fardan:
Well again, I'm back up here and I wanted to say something. I came up here for a specific reason not to really close this out, but I guess I'll have to do it since that's what they tell me. But I wanted to mention a couple of good friends. One is Reverend Art, who's been a longtime friend of our community and because we weren't able to get in touch with him until kind of late into the program, we couldn't get him as deep into the program as we would've liked. But he's a person that I want everybody else to know. So, I like to ask you Reverend Art if you would stand up and maybe come up here so at least they can see you.

And he's a good speaker also, but I don't know, he might not know how to stop. But he is a good speaker. And then one other person I want to mention is a friend of mine. I don't see him but I think he's in here. I hope he's still in here, by the name of Dez. I don't know if Dez is still in here, he may have had to leave. But if you in here Dez, can you stand up? If he's not, I think he may have left. Okay, so I don't see him. I guess he had to leave. But Dez was a good friend of mine. And the reason I want to mention him is when I first met Dez, he was a guy that knows practically everything you want to know. And he's not a bigheaded guy. I mean he actually knows.

And he used to be sitting out on the corner. And I'm in the refrigeration business by trade. That's how I make a living. I'm in the air conditioning, commercial refrigeration business. And so, when I first started out, I used to ask people questions about anything I wanted to know. It was common knowledge in the community, go see Dez. And I said, well, where's Dez. Dez would be sitting out on the corner on one of little green boxes in the evening. He'd be sitting there just in work clothes. But anyway, he had a little junk shop or something like that. And you went in there and with no exaggeration, Dez had degrees, I guess a couple rows of them this high, of stuff that he actually knew. I mean a very brilliant and smart individual. And so anyway, when I went to Dez about this event, I never knew that he was the kind of guy that was really interested in an event like this. And I used to see him with some of his friends, didn't seem to be particularly religious. They had some habits that some of the things that we might not have thought a religious person should do.

And then he had been stricken with an illness. He was sick with cancer and so forth, but he was continuously working because everybody still depended on Dez. When you want something fixed, go see Dez. So, I said, Dez, I'm trying to have this event. And he said, give me two tickets. Then he called me up and said, I done sold five tickets. Then he called me back and said, now I've sold two tickets, two more tickets. I said what, Dez? I said, Dez is out selling everybody. And I was underestimating him. I said, I never knew you were that kind of guy. And you just don't know until reach out to people and they just don't know who you got. You just don't know who a person is until you actually reach out. And when you have something good, it inspires a lot of people to do things that they probably had put down because they didn't see no hope.

So, I thought he was a good example of that. Now tomorrow, you got a treat, but I expect to get more, to get a bigger treat. And I think you're going to be cheating yourself if you don't come out tomorrow. If you, for whatever reason, the basketball game or whatever can distract us, don't let those things distract you. Be sure to be here. Tell your friends as we have been doing and come out to get this good blessing. And the reason that we want you to come here, we want you to hear what this man has to say. And that's the reason. So, we want you to come out and we have some other treats too because some of the other speakers who didn't get chance to go full blast today will have a little bit more time tomorrow. So, we want you to come out and be able to hear them. And then finally, in closing, I want to thank everybody who has supported us from all the communities.

I don't have my glasses. I can't see you as well as I would like, but I know some of you are here. I know Imam Harun, Imam Abdul Kareem Hassan who's a big help. I went to him for a whole lot of help. I asked him, I said, what to do? And so, I don't see him but Imam Ron, all of them. And then I want to thank my own community who have worked so very hard. So, with that, I don't want to take up any more time. And InshaAllah, G-d will bless us tomorrow and I pray Allah bless you all to be safe. And I think our Assistant Imam is going to close us out with the prayer. But I greet you As Salaam Alaikum.
Shakir Fardan:
Audh'u Minash Shaitan Ar Rajeem. Bismillah Ar Rahma Nir Raheem. We seek refuge in Almighty G-d against the rejected the curse enemy, Satan. Our Lord, surely, we turn ourselves to You seeking your assistance and begging for your forgiveness. And we put our trust in You. Our Lord, grant us good in this life and good in the next. And save us from the torment of the fire. Our Lord, bestow on all of our beloved guests and attendees, safe journeys to and from their destinations. And we pray that you will bring us back together again in unity of interfaith and good company, Ameen
Speaker 1:
In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. Say he is Allah the one Allah, the Eternal. He begets not nor was He begotten. And there is none comparable unto Him.



