October 29, 2018

Dear Friends,

The members and friends of Cordoba House join the worldwide Jewish community in sorrow over the horrific and senseless murders on Saturday at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We pray most especially for the survivors of the trauma and the families of the deceased, and for the slain themselves, who left this world on the holiest day of the Jewish week, the Sabbath, in the midst of their prayers to God.

The Quran commands that we restrain each other to protect "monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques in which God's Name is oft-remembered" (Quran 22:40). American law mandates the same care for the free expression of religious conviction. America was founded by people who left their homeland seeking religious freedom. Ignorance and hatred motivating acts of violence against any house of worship where people gather to praise the Creator run deeply counter to the American spirit.

How ironic that the Pittsburgh murderer gave as one of the motives for his hateful speech and acts his resentment over the mission of HIAS, a Jewish agency that works for the safety and rights of refugees, including those from Muslim-majority countries. He inadvertently witnessed the concern Muslims and Jews share for the stranger, the displaced, the homeless. Senseless violence calls out all the more for a return to what our Jewish friends call tikkun olam - repair of the world. May our words and deeds work towards a time when, as Isaia prophesied, our "swords turn to plowshares and our spears to pruning-hooks" (Isaiah 2:4).

Warmly,
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf