Group for Promoting Moderate Islam

A Muslim Canadian activist has founded a new group that will promote moderate Islam, saying there are too few progressive
Muslim voices countering extremism in Canada. Raheel Raza, the Pakistan-born author of Their Jihad, Not My Jihad: A Muslim Canadian Woman Speaks Out, was once a member of the progressive Muslim Canadian Congress, but this month he has formally
launched ‘Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow’. Ms. Raza notes that, “The moderate Muslim voices are very few in number and we felt that the more organizations out there doing this kind of work, the better. We have a very similar mandate to the MCC [Muslim Canadian Congress], and our goal is the same, but we at ‘Muslims Facing Tomorrow’ plan to go about it in a different way.”
Raza added, “We want to provide an alternative for Muslim youth. It’s not just a question of slamming the extremists; it’s also about
providing a different voice. We want to hold workshops and conferences “” one thing  that’s never been done, as far as I know, is a conference ofmoderate Muslims in Canada.  The Muslim for Tomorrow website says: Whereas in the contemporary world the values of individual freedom, human rights and gender equality, science and democracy are cherished universal ideals, yet Muslims and non-Muslim minorities espousing these ideals in countries that are member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)
face abuse, persecution, and violence. It further states: Muslims and people of all other faith traditions need to come together in opposing bigotry in the name of Islam as preached and practiced in  the mainstream mosques in Canada and across the Muslim world;
Our mission is to reclaim Islam for, as the word itself means, securing Peace for all people, and to oppose extremism, fanaticism and violence in the name of religion; and Our vision is to advance among Muslims the principle of individual rights and freedoms, and for Muslims to embrace the idea of openness, of relating to others as equal and deserving of equal respect, and of defending freedom
of speech as the basis of all other freedoms enunciated in the constitutions of liberal democracies, such as ours in  Canada; and,  accordingly, We consider our effort is consistent with the forwardlooking reading of the principle enunciated in the Qur’an, “There is no compulsion in religion;” Following are on the Advisory  Board of the group: Stephen Schwartz, Executive Director of Center for Islamic Pluralism (USA), Hon’ble Reuben Bromstein, David B. Harris,  lawyer and National Security Consultant (Ottawa); Ms. Christine Williams, journalist and international awardwinning talk show Host and Producer at CTS TV in Burlington, Ontario; Shimon Fogel, CEO of The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), Ottawa; Dr. Dilkhush Panjwani, Staff Psychiatrist at Trillium Health Centre and Credit
Valley Hospital, Detective Malcolm Bow, Security Consultant; Prof. Munawar Karim, Chairman, Department of Physics, St. John Fisher College, Rochester, New York; Ms. Marina Nemat, author of Prisoner of Tehran, Activist; Ms. Mehreen Khan, Journalist; Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer, Center For The Study of Society and Secularism (India); Dr. Shiv Talwar, Founding President of Spiritual Heritage Education  Network Inc.; Afzal Subhani, Music Director;  Surinder Kambo, Entrepreneur (Canada-UK). For more info contact: Raheel Raza, P.O. Box 41, 4000 Dundas Street West, Toronto, ON M6S 2T7, Canada, Tel: 416-505-1613, Website: http:// m u s l i m s f a c i n g t o m o r r o w.com, Email: [email protected]