ISNA GATHERS INTERFAITH & GOVERNMENT LEADERS ISNA Office for Interfaith & Community Alliances hosted the ISNA National Interfaith and Government Forum May 31 in Washington, D.C., bringing together national interfaith leaders, government representatives, and ISNA and Muslim community leaders. Speakers included ISNA President Azhar Azeez, ISNA Vice President Altaf Hussain, His Eminence Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop emeritus of Washington (Roman Catholic Church), Rizwan Jaka, ISNA board member, chairman of the Interfaith/Government Committee and board chairman of ADAMS, Osama Idlibi, ISNA East Zone representative, Bob Marro, ADAMS board member and government relations chairman.
The Interfaith Collaborative panel heard from Rabbi Gerry Serotta, executive director of the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, Nanak Lahori, secretary of the Association of United Hindu Jain Temples, Imam Mohamed Magid, ADAMS executive religious director and a former ISNA president, ISNA Secretary General Hazem Bata, Sayyid M. Syeed, national director of the ISNA Office for Interfaith & Community Alliances, Rabbi Batya Steinlauf of the Jewish Community Relations Council and chair of the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington. Bata moderated the session. The Government Initiatives, moderated by Nadia Hassan, Government and Interfaith Relations coordinator at ISNA Office for Inter-
ISNA joined faith leaders in calling upon President Barack Obama May 15 to urge a halt to lethal drone strikes, accountability for past strikes, and a negotiated agreement holding the international community to the same standards. “The U.S. practice of utilizing unmanned aircraft for targeted killings is contrary to shared values, which guide us, our faith communities, and most Americans,” per a letter signed by Sayyid M. Syeed, national director of the ISNA Office for Interfaith & Community Alliances, Christian denominations, and Jewish and Sikh faith leaders, copied to members of the House and Senate. The letter continued, “Our concerns center first on the thousands of deaths, both intended and unintended, that have resulted from lethal drones technology. Despite the prevailing notion that drones are precise, the recent tragedy involving the death of a U.S. citizen demonstrates this is not the case. Indeed, such tragedies seem to happen frequently. Because the U.S. government rarely acknowledges its drone strikes or reports the intended and unintended deaths, our best knowledge of victims come from non-governmental organizations and journalists. The estimates of widespread casualties are devastating and morally unacceptable to us. “Additionally, the deprivation of due process to citizen targets and the Administration’s unaccountable creation and control of a secret ‘kill list’ are alarming to us, and counter to our notions of human dignity, participatory processes, and rule of law,” the faith leaders wrote. Another cause of concern “is the secrecy and lack of accountability that surrounds these targeted drone strikes. The power to decide who will live and who will die has become lodged squarely in the Administration’s hands with the wide-ranging 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force. With that
unchecked power, the Administration has secretly selected targets and conducted strikes without publicly disclosing these activities, explaining their basis of legality, reporting who was killed, or if unintended victims were compensated. This unaccountability prevents the public and their elected representatives from having the ability to meaningfully oppose the policies or fully understand what is being done in our name.” Their final concern is “our firm belief that drone strikes do not make us safer, but instead lead to perpetual destructive conflict and extremism. Rather than simply taking the place of human bodies in a conflict, drones actually expand conflict by taking us into combat where we otherwise would not go. They enable reliance on warfare as the first resort. “This ever-growing warfare has increased fear in communities, aided recruitment of extremist groups and failed to eradicate terror or bring about security. Effectively combatting extremism requires nonviolent, creative strategies, including sustainable humanitarian and development assistance, and policies and programs that address the political, economic and social exclusion that fuel radicalization. Several organizations, many of them religious, are pursuing such strategies around the world. These efforts deserve more attention and support, but resources instead are consumed by the endless drones war.” Sayyid M. Syeed, national director of the ISNA Office for Interfaith & Community Alliances, addressed a media call with faithbased leaders and World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim in Washington D.C., April 9. “The Quran tells us very clearly that God invested human beings with a sensibility, and our Prophet warned and said, this dignity could be lost, human beings could lose that kind of self-respect and that kind of divine spark,
ISLAMIC HORIZONS JULY/AUGUST 2015
faith & Community Alliances, heard from Julie Belz, ISNA board member, Rabbi Jack Moline, executive director of Interfaith Alliance, the Rev. Jim Winkler, president of the National Council of Churches, Mythili Lee Bachu, chairwoman of the Council of Hindu Temples of North America, and Muhammad Abdul Rahim of Masjid Muhammad. The Government Session was addressed by Rumana Ahmed, advisor to the assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor, Jonathan Smith, senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights, Arsalan Suleman, acting U.S. envoy to OIC, Ken Bedell, senior advisor for Faith-Based & Neighborhood Partnerships Center, and Rashad Hussain, U.S. special envoy and coordinator for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications.
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if they are inflicted with poverty. That’s why poverty is an enemy of religion, spirituality and human sanity,” Syeed said. Syeed is on the executive committee of the World’s Religion for Peace. “So, we believe it is critical for us to explore all the possibilities and the potential. God has given us a potential today that we can eradicate poverty. It is possible. And when that has risen, the realm of (the) possible, then we want to mobilize people of all faith, people of all backgrounds, and help them to play a historical role in implementing this agenda that we have created, that The World Bank has created,” he said. ISNA also endorsed this statement. Nadia Hassan, government and interfaith relations coordinator at ISNA Office for Interfaith & Community Alliances, spoke on the “Preserving Religious Freedom in the U.S. and Beyond” panel April 21, sponsored by the University of Maryland Office of Multicultural Involvement & Community Advocacy, Memorial Chapel, Catholic Student Center and the Hoff Grant. Hoff Grant serves University of Maryland registered student organizations, administrative and academic departments coordinating events and programs specifically held in the Hoff Theater. “Our forefathers were able to witness and observe what didn’t work in Europe,”she said. “And they came here and were able to develop laws that worked to benefit of everyone. “I’m proud to call myself an American, to be a citizen of a country that awards all of its citizens the freedom to practice their faith and the freedom to not practice any faith. Many other people in different parts of the world don’t have those freedoms,” said Hassan, who shared the stage with Virginia Loo Faris, the foreign policy advisor for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
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