Day 4
THE main reason for this trip has been to get a deeper respect and understanding of each other’s faith. This is the reason Building Bridges was set up in the first place following the Burnley riots in 2001.
The group (pictured) has been going strong for some time and following a trip to Rome last year, they decided it was time for a trip to Jerusalem.
Staying in a Christian convent in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City is proof that tolerance does exist in a city that has been conquered numerous times and one that is so central to three of the world’s largest religions.
This is something that has been felt by everybody on this trip.

Religious tolerance is an important aspect in building community cohesion in the UK and already members of this group can see how they can take this experience and out it use to work in Burnley and the rest of Lancashire.
Faz Patel, a community worker in Lancashire who also work for Lancashire Fire Service took Anna Marie Coppock who works for CAFOD and is from Burnley to the Mosque of Omar. Omar was the second Caliph and a close companion of the Prophet Mohammed. He came to Jerusalem 1400 years ago when Muslims defeated the then Byzantines who were ruling the city and the Omayyads then took control.
During this rule Omar went to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Omar wanted to pray and the priest said he was welcome to pray at the church, But Omar declined. Not because he didn’t want to pray at the church but he wanted the church to remain a Christian shrine as his followers built mosques to commemorate where Omar had prayed.
Faz a Muslim was excited in his explanation of this story to Anna Marie.
He said: “This goes to show how under a Muslim rule there was still great respect for Christianity and its history.
“Under Omar’s rule the Christian community and its churches were protected. If Omar, a great leader in Islamic history could do this 1400 years ago, it could easily be achieved today.”
This reminded me of a story in Manchester only a couple of weeks ago. Coronation Street had been filming a wedding scene in a church and had removed the cross during filming so it wouldn’t ‘offend.’
I don’t know any Muslims or people of other faiths who would have been offended, and as this place goes to show Muslims certainly wouldn’t have as Omar’s story which dates 14,00 years ago goes to show how religious tolerance brought people together.
Another story which I am sure will help ‘build bridges’ was the story of the key holders to the Holy Church of Sepulchre.
The family that hold the key to the church and who open the gates every morning are Muslim. The keys were given to this family by Omar and this tradition has been passed onto the same family for all these years. Not many people know this but I find this a really positive story that a Muslim family are in possession of the key to the holiest Christian church….a sign of religious tolerance and respect and something we can all learn from.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 8th, 2009 at 9:39 am and is filed under Asian News Diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.