Thursday, November 23, 2006
Imam speaks at Brotherhood
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Imam Izak-El M. Pasha is the resident Imam of the Malcolm Shabazz Mosque (Masjid) at 102 West 116th St, near Malcolm X Blvd. Nine years ago, after the Abner Louima police brutality and the Amadou Diallo shooting cases, Mayor Giuliani formed a community group, to resolve and cure the brewing discontent. There Imam Pasha met Richard Davis, a former prosecutor now in private practice, also a member of Brotherhood Synagogue’s interfaith relations committee.
The committee invited the Imam to bring some 20 members of his Mosque for a dinner and meeting between the congregations, on Friday October 27, 2006, to discuss common problems, worldwide and local. It was a most satisfactory get-together and exchange of ideas for working towards salvaging peace in the world.
This event was a continuation of the part of Brotherhood Synagogue’s mission dealing with peace and harmony, originally formulated by its founder, the late Rabbi Irving J. Block, that offered the establishing of relations and working towards resolving strife between religious groups. The Synagogue has been a member of the local Midtown New York interfaith organization of faith leaders that promulgated exchanges at Thanksgiving and Passover celebrations over the years, and has held in the past had many joint events and welcomed speakers, such as Dr. Thomas Pike from Calvary/St. George’s Paris hand the now retired Msgr. Harry Byrne from Epiphany Church, as well as exchange of services with a Baptist Church.
Most notable were the 1994/5 visits by Serif Ashmawy, a Muslim newspaper publisher and member of the Religion On The Line radio program panel, who preached peace and warned of radicals of all stripes attempting to take over religions and causing strife (see Looking Ahead, 5/5/1994). He died in an automobile accident in 1997. The literature shows that Imam Pasha comes from a Mosque that is not unfamiliar with strife. Named for El Hajj Malik Shabazz, or Malcolm X, who organized it as part of the Nation of Islam, and advocated black pride, economic self-reliance, equality and racial identity, eventually clashing with the leader of NOI, Imam Elijah Muhammad, with the well-known results.
After Malcolm X, the Mosque was led by Louis Farrakhan, starting in 1965. When Elijah Muhammad died in 1975, his son Imam Walid (Wallace) D. Mohammad took NOI into a peaceful traditional Muslim mainstream direction, as the Muslim American Society, while Farrakhan continued on his path, retaining the Nation of Islam name. The Malcolm Shabazz Mosque was led Imam Rashid Mohammad, who in 1992 acquired a young assistant , Imam Pasha, who had the religious calling while working as a plumber. After the elder leader’s death Imam Pasha took over the direction of the Mosque.
At the dinner Imam Pasha, also a former Chaplain of the NYPD, offered his prayers for peace and his perspectives of living in a multi-cultural society. Mayor Giuliani has attended services in his Mosque, whose congregation just a week ago was addressed by a Rabbi; he described his faith as peace-loving and offered the proper definition of Jihad as strife, not between people but as that of managing daily life (“we were not put here to have fun”), although it does also include defense of one’s religion and one’s life. Elbert Hamshid-Doon, an insurance broker and member of the Mosque congregation since 1969, the Farrakhan years, supplied some private insights during our communal dinner. He grew up as a Baptist in the American South, and joined in the Mosque during Farrakhan years, because of the appeals of the philosophy of self-reliance, self-discipline and Black Nationalism. Now a firm believer in maintaining harmony in our multi-cultural society, he tells the story of owing his early business successes (moving from street-corner retail ventures to wholesale distribution) to two Jewish businessmen, and has not forgotten it. His Mosque has the same multi-nationality makeup, and a prevalence of members who actively strive for peaceful solutions in a troubled world. He offers an important methodology to dealing with the troubled Middle East - have members of the African-American Muslim community negotiate with the leaders of the Muslim countries.
They can offer philosophical positions from the peace-oriented mainstream Muslim faith, using an insiders’ status, knowledge and past history of strife to counter-balance the warlike aberrations that are seizing control over that part of the world. The Condoleezza Rice solutions, although well meaning, do not have the presence and weight that insiders can offer. If good will were the means of bringing peace to the world, we would all be winners. The simple, straightforward view of the world and the faith-based solutions of its problems of Imam Pasha is endearing and touching, in its offer of relief to the desperate situations that seem to defy solutions.
His message to both congregants and visitors was clear, as walked out with uplifted spirits, somewhat more ready to face tomorrow’s news of fresh calamities.
Imam Izak-El M. Pasha is the resident Imam of the Malcolm Shabazz Mosque (Masjid) at 102 West 116th St, near Malcolm X Blvd. Nine years ago, after the Abner Louima police brutality and the Amadou Diallo shooting cases, Mayor Giuliani formed a community group, to resolve and cure the brewing discontent. There Imam Pasha met Richard Davis, a former prosecutor now in private practice, also a member of Brotherhood Synagogue’s interfaith relations committee.
The committee invited the Imam to bring some 20 members of his Mosque for a dinner and meeting between the congregations, on Friday October 27, 2006, to discuss common problems, worldwide and local. It was a most satisfactory get-together and exchange of ideas for working towards salvaging peace in the world.
This event was a continuation of the part of Brotherhood Synagogue’s mission dealing with peace and harmony, originally formulated by its founder, the late Rabbi Irving J. Block, that offered the establishing of relations and working towards resolving strife between religious groups. The Synagogue has been a member of the local Midtown New York interfaith organization of faith leaders that promulgated exchanges at Thanksgiving and Passover celebrations over the years, and has held in the past had many joint events and welcomed speakers, such as Dr. Thomas Pike from Calvary/St. George’s Paris hand the now retired Msgr. Harry Byrne from Epiphany Church, as well as exchange of services with a Baptist Church.
Most notable were the 1994/5 visits by Serif Ashmawy, a Muslim newspaper publisher and member of the Religion On The Line radio program panel, who preached peace and warned of radicals of all stripes attempting to take over religions and causing strife (see Looking Ahead, 5/5/1994). He died in an automobile accident in 1997. The literature shows that Imam Pasha comes from a Mosque that is not unfamiliar with strife. Named for El Hajj Malik Shabazz, or Malcolm X, who organized it as part of the Nation of Islam, and advocated black pride, economic self-reliance, equality and racial identity, eventually clashing with the leader of NOI, Imam Elijah Muhammad, with the well-known results.
After Malcolm X, the Mosque was led by Louis Farrakhan, starting in 1965. When Elijah Muhammad died in 1975, his son Imam Walid (Wallace) D. Mohammad took NOI into a peaceful traditional Muslim mainstream direction, as the Muslim American Society, while Farrakhan continued on his path, retaining the Nation of Islam name. The Malcolm Shabazz Mosque was led Imam Rashid Mohammad, who in 1992 acquired a young assistant , Imam Pasha, who had the religious calling while working as a plumber. After the elder leader’s death Imam Pasha took over the direction of the Mosque.
At the dinner Imam Pasha, also a former Chaplain of the NYPD, offered his prayers for peace and his perspectives of living in a multi-cultural society. Mayor Giuliani has attended services in his Mosque, whose congregation just a week ago was addressed by a Rabbi; he described his faith as peace-loving and offered the proper definition of Jihad as strife, not between people but as that of managing daily life (“we were not put here to have fun”), although it does also include defense of one’s religion and one’s life. Elbert Hamshid-Doon, an insurance broker and member of the Mosque congregation since 1969, the Farrakhan years, supplied some private insights during our communal dinner. He grew up as a Baptist in the American South, and joined in the Mosque during Farrakhan years, because of the appeals of the philosophy of self-reliance, self-discipline and Black Nationalism. Now a firm believer in maintaining harmony in our multi-cultural society, he tells the story of owing his early business successes (moving from street-corner retail ventures to wholesale distribution) to two Jewish businessmen, and has not forgotten it. His Mosque has the same multi-nationality makeup, and a prevalence of members who actively strive for peaceful solutions in a troubled world. He offers an important methodology to dealing with the troubled Middle East - have members of the African-American Muslim community negotiate with the leaders of the Muslim countries.
They can offer philosophical positions from the peace-oriented mainstream Muslim faith, using an insiders’ status, knowledge and past history of strife to counter-balance the warlike aberrations that are seizing control over that part of the world. The Condoleezza Rice solutions, although well meaning, do not have the presence and weight that insiders can offer. If good will were the means of bringing peace to the world, we would all be winners. The simple, straightforward view of the world and the faith-based solutions of its problems of Imam Pasha is endearing and touching, in its offer of relief to the desperate situations that seem to defy solutions.
His message to both congregants and visitors was clear, as walked out with uplifted spirits, somewhat more ready to face tomorrow’s news of fresh calamities.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 9:43 PM 
