Islam Samoa - CathNews New Zealand https://cathnews.co.nz Catholic News New Zealand Thu, 02 Jun 2016 04:43:43 +0000 en-NZ hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://cathnews.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/cropped-cathnewsfavicon-32x32.jpg Islam Samoa - CathNews New Zealand https://cathnews.co.nz 32 32 70145804 A clear separation of church and state says Samoa's Archbishop https://cathnews.co.nz/2016/06/03/clear-separation-church-state/ Thu, 02 Jun 2016 17:04:43 +0000 http://cathnews.co.nz/?p=83351

The archbishop of Apia, Alapati Lui Mataeliga, says the constitution already recognises Samoa as a Christian country and there should be a clear separation of church and state. The National Council of Churches has called for Christianity to be further entrenched in the constitution. The Archbishop said his representative on the National Council of Churches Read more

A clear separation of church and state says Samoa's Archbishop... Read more]]> The archbishop of Apia, Alapati Lui Mataeliga, says the constitution already recognises Samoa as a Christian country and there should be a clear separation of church and state.

The National Council of Churches has called for Christianity to be further entrenched in the constitution.

The Archbishop said his representative on the National Council of Churches did not ask him for his opinion on the question of constitutional change.

He says it's wrong to identify Islam and terrorism, and the best way forward for all religions is peaceful dialogue.

"The Catholic Church is at the forefront of dialogue especially with non-Christian religions and I take that view too."

"I think we should open our hearts and our minds to Islam and not really rush into condemning Islam just because of terrorists."

Source

radionz.co.nz

Image: d2m2lkhawsaq1u.cloudfront.net

A clear separation of church and state says Samoa's Archbishop]]> 83351 Samoa too open-minded to ban Islam https://cathnews.co.nz/2016/06/03/samoa-too-open-minded-to-ban-islam/ Thu, 02 Jun 2016 17:03:46 +0000 http://cathnews.co.nz/?p=83337

Aarif Rasheed, a Muslim New Zealander of Indo-Fijian ethnicity, says the Samoan government is too open-minded to ban Islam. He says the Samoan government was represented at the recent G20 interfaith summit in Fiji. Rasheed said he was going to help organise a dialogue with churches in Samoa and hoped to bring them together to Read more

Samoa too open-minded to ban Islam... Read more]]> Aarif Rasheed, a Muslim New Zealander of Indo-Fijian ethnicity, says the Samoan government is too open-minded to ban Islam.

He says the Samoan government was represented at the recent G20 interfaith summit in Fiji.

Rasheed said he was going to help organise a dialogue with churches in Samoa and hoped to bring them together to educate them about his faith.

"People want to see real people coming together at the community level."

"Religion as a whole is facing a lot of criticism for being too controlling," Rasheed said.

"And we need to respond by actually bringing real people together on real projects at a very very localised level where everyone can be involved."

Rasheed said the activity may include similar work he has done in the past such as ecological projects, or helping with nursing.

He worked with both Muslims and Christians in Samoa in the aftermath of the 2009 tsunami.

Muslims and Christians can live together peacefully

Rasheed says that there are many examples where Muslims and Christians have peacefully co-existed, and Samoa should be no exception.

"It's more about making sure that church leaders who have an enormous amount of control and who have a huge burden of trust upon them ensure that they don't get caught up in some of the more conservative and bordering on the irresponsible side of religious ignorance and bigotry."

Who is Aarif Rasheed?

Aaarif Rasheed is a lawyer and mediator and lives in Auckland

In March his Diversity Centre was opened in the Grand Hall of the New Zealand Parliament by former Prime Minister Helen Clark.

Aarif Rasheed's father was the the interfaith pioneer Abdul Rasheed who migrated to New Zealand from Fiji in 1967.

Abdul Rasheed had a degree in Christian theology.

He told the Herald in 1996 that he wanted to study Christianity so he could explain the similarities between the two religions.

He helped to found New Zealand's first mosque in Ponsonby in 1979 and spent years travelling around the Pacific Islands promoting understanding between Islam and Christianity.

He died in 2006.

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Samoa too open-minded to ban Islam]]> 83337 Imam says proposed constitutional change may affect aid https://cathnews.co.nz/2016/05/24/constitutional-change-affect-aid/ Mon, 23 May 2016 17:04:56 +0000 http://cathnews.co.nz/?p=83035

An imam in Samoa has questioned whether the proposed constitutional change to reinforce Samoa as a Christian country would mean it would no longer do business with non-Christian countries. Imam Mohammed Bin Yahya said there are a lot of non-Christian countries that give aid to Samoa. "Will they say no aid because you are not Christians, keep Read more

Imam says proposed constitutional change may affect aid... Read more]]> An imam in Samoa has questioned whether the proposed constitutional change to reinforce Samoa as a Christian country would mean it would no longer do business with non-Christian countries.

Imam Mohammed Bin Yahya said there are a lot of non-Christian countries that give aid to Samoa.

"Will they say no aid because you are not Christians, keep your money to yourself?"

"No more money from China, no more aid from Japan because we are Christians and you are Shintos or you are this religion?"

Bin Yahya said people should not discriminate against his faith without knowledge of its teachings.

He said the only Christian church to invite him to talk about Islam was the Methodist Theological College.

What are the Christian principles?

The Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sa'ilele Malielegaoi, has said freedom of religion will remain untouched, and any constitutional change would only make it clearer that Samoa is a Christian country.

Bin Yahya, said he does not have a problem with that because the constitution would say that the government should be run to Christian principles.

But Dr Yahya, who was raise as a Catholic, said those Christian principles be defined.

"We have all kinds of Christianity in Samoa, let us not play with it, the truth is Catholics are different, Methodists are different, Congregational churches are different, they are all different, so we need to define what principles they are talking about."

"Just like Islam, there are some other sects in Islam, when you talk about Sunni or Shiite, we need to define, are we talking about this Islam or that Islam," he said.

What is an Imam?

An imam is an Islamic leadership position.

It is most commonly in the context of a worship leader of a mosque and Muslim community by Sunni Muslims.

An Imam may also take on a larger role in providing community support and spiritual advice.

The imam is a respected member of the community.

In some communities, an imam may be specifically recruited and hired, and may have undergone some special training.

In smaller places, imams are often chosen from among the existing members of the Muslim community.

There is no universal governing body to supervise imams; this is done at the community level.

Mohammed Bin Yahya is also know as Mohammed Daniel Stanley and Laulu Dan Stanley.

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