Meeting your neighbour

Ley Street Centre

Last night I went to Ley street centre where Imtiaz Khan from the London City Mission is working. It was a great evening. When I arrived the meal was still being eaten and so I was able to sample the delicious curry cooked by Abdul Aziz's wife - really wonderful. I sat at the table of the two guest speakers who would later talk about the perspective and instruction to family given by the Quran and the Bible. I heard that the Muslim man was a Islamic psychotherapist, and the Christian was a pastor at St Helens. There did not seem a whole lot of differences between the two faiths from the presentation, there were points when question time came, from the public, that were somewhat difficult to take and in most cases both debaters would argue to look at the context in which the text was written. One of the sticking points was the prophet Mohammed's relationship with Aisha - the fact that she was so young when he married her. The argument that was given was that in those days such a thing was not uncommon and that Mary was very young when she married Joseph. The defence was that why because society deems it sick, is it sick? I would argue that a child has no way of making an informed decision about who they want to marry, but then from the Muslim worldview, marriage is arranged. There was an earlier statement that forced marriage was not permissible within Islam - one could then argue where freedom of choice is removed in parent child relations. Later one Muslim woman suggested that some scholars say Aisha may have been between 16 and 19 years. I did not think that questioning was helpful for building relations since it is easy to bring up our differences, but we look for the things we share in common when we are trying to make friends. Imtiaz did an excellent job of hosting and chairing the event. I will certainly try to go again, it is the sort of meeting that really inspires deep thought and apologetic thinking and a great place to enter into relationship and discussion with Muslim people.