Louisa Steyl/Stuff
Sharlene Ryan (left) took the opportunity to “Meet a Muslim” and had a chat with Imams Mustenser Qamar, middle, and Sabah Al-Zafar during their visit to Invercargill on Sunday.
Imam Mustenser Qamar says studies show those who have negative perceptions of Muslims, generally have not met one. So to change the narrative, he is leading a team of young Muslims who will be visiting every city in New Zealand under the banner of True Islam NZ, to give Kiwis a chance to have informal, face-to-face yarns with fellow Kiwis who happened to be Muslim. The group from the North Island were in Invercargill on Sunday – the second stop on the tour – after only making it as far as Christchurch last year, before Covid-19 restrictions kicked in.
Kavinda Herath/Stuff
Imam Reza Abdul-Jabbar, front right, will be answering questions along with his brothers, Muhammad Essa, and back from left, Masyhur Ali, Abdulla Rezaei, Shamir Ali, Dr Saber Elsafty, and Nazvul Islam.
Repairing or building relationships is one of the fundamental principles of the Islamic faith, and what better way to do so than with another command from the Prophet: Feed the people. While the Southland community has taken giant leaps in understanding since the March 15, 2019 terrorist attacks, Invercargill Imam Reza Abdul-Jabbar
said many still had heaps of questions. Those ranged from how the Muslim community are coping in the aftermath of the attack, to what exactly Islam was, he said.