Andrew Cooley;
St. Mark's Episcopal Church
Shiite Imam comes to Durango and Cortez to promote religious tolerance.
The Muslim Imam M. Ibrahim Kazerooni will speak in Durango and Cortez on 28 July Saturday, giving us a very personal and hair-raising view of political and religious persecution in Iraq under the late Dictator Saddam Hussein, and of Ibrahim’s consequent passion for promoting inter-faith tolerance, in gratitude for his survival from this persecution. Not many of us have a history as intense as that of this gentle scholar from Baghdad. His persecution as a Shiite theology student taught him the beauty of religious tolerance, the hard way.
As a young student of Islamic theology in Najjaf, his studies in a Shiite school brought him to the attention of the security forces of Saddam, who imprisoned him in Najjaf and then in Baghdad between 1972 and 1974 because they considered his religious views as a threat to the Baath Party government. He was transferred between several prisons, including Abu Ghraib. In prison in the Fifth Department General Security prison in Baghdad in 1974 he was sentenced to death for being a spy - at the age of 15. The guard in charge of his execution had the pistol against Ibrahim’s temple, when he was interrupted and told to report to the Prison Director.
By some miracle he was released on a street corner in Baghdad. You can see why Ibrahim believes in a merciful God. A sympathetic truck-driver gave him a ride out of Baghdad. Eventually he was turned over to a Bedouin tribe who put him in a crate on the back of a mule and took him over the hills into Syria. Making his way to Damascus he realized that Saddam’s security forces were everywhere. He could not contact his family as it would also put them at risk. During this time they thought he was still being shuffled from prison to prison in Baghdad, or dead. He also traveled to Lebanon but was never able to completely escape the eye of the Iraqi security forces.
Friends got him a ticket to London where he arrived at the age of 18 in April 1977. Applying for scholarship aid through the Iraqi consulate, he was stripped of his Iraqi citizenship and thus became a state-less refugee.
However as a political refugee he eventually obtained a British passport because of the persecution by Saddam. After finishing his schooling in London, he came to Denver in 2000 and became the founder of the new El Mahdi Islamic Center in Denver, where he now resides with his family.
Pursuing his passion for promoting religious tolerance in a unique inter-faith program, he joined the staff of St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral in Denver in 2004, and became Director of their Abrahamic Initiative. Ibrahim says his installation by the Episcopal Dean of the Cathedral, the Rev. Peter Eaton, with a sermon given by a Rabbi, created an international stir, with expressions of amazement on all sides. However this unique cooperative arrangement has survived and is prospering.
Along with Christian and Jewish clergy, Ibrahim is now able to promote religious toleration and cooperation throughout Colorado. He also currently attends the Iliff School of Theology in Denver where he is studying Religion and International Relations.
The topic of his public presentations on Saturday will be "Common Aspects of our Faith as Spiritual Children of Abraham." a plea for cultural and religious tolerance among Muslims, Jews and Christians. He will also be happy to answer questions about his long journey from Saddam’s prison in Baghdad to the Islamic Center in Denver.
St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Cortez and their Rector, the Rev. Erika Meyer, are sponsoring Ibrahim’s visit to Cortez in the interest of promoting the true peace of God, known as Shalom in Hebrew and Salaam in Arabic. During the weekend, Ibrahim will be staying with members of her Episcopal congregation. Some people in her church believe that the fundamental conflicts in the Holy Land and in the War on Terrorism must ultimately be addressed by reconciliation among the three faiths, and thus see this weekend with Ibrahim as a small step toward peace in the Middle East.
Ibrahim’s first public appearance Saturday will be in Durango, at 10 am in the morning. The public is invited to this presentation at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Durango at 910 E. Third Ave, by invitation of the Rev. Andrew Cooley, Rector of St. Mark’s. Members of the Har Shalom Jewish Congregation in Durango and the general public are also invited to attend the meeting. Then Saturday afternoon at 2 pm Ibrahim will give a talk in Cortez for the general public at the Cultural Center at 25 N. Market St., as the guest of the Rev. Erika.
On Sunday, before returning to Denver, Ibrahim will join the congregation of St. Barnabas in Cortez during morning worship. The public is invited to worship at 9:30 am at St. Barnabas on the corner of North and Elm Streets, and for coffee and conversation with Ibrahim at 11 am in the church hall, after worship. People of all the Abrahamic faiths are especially welcome, including Bahais, Jews, Muslims and other Christians.
William R. Jobin, Sc.D.
Director
Colorado Valley Ecologists
25558 Road N.6
Cortez, Colorado 81321
Tel 1 970 565 8331