Open Discussions
in association with
Gulf Cultural Club
invites you to a Discussion titled:
Religion, peace and social violence
Speakers
*Bishop Paul Hendricks (Archdiocese of Southwark.)
** Sheikh M. Saeed Bahmanpour (Islamic scholar and author)
In a world infested with violence at many levels those who have a mission of peace are duty-bound to make efforts to disseminate a culture of love, compassion and mercy. This is the mission of divine emissaries. Jesus Christ and Mohammad (and indeed all of God’s messengers and prophets) had promoted social peace as a necessary condition for proper worship. To feel the existence of God, peace of soul and mind is necessary for deep worship and contemplation. The spirit of Christmas will be void if it does not address present ills including social violence. In London this is of particular concern as youth stabbing take sharp turn to the worst.
What is the religious message to mankind?
6.30pm, Tuesday, 18th December 2018
Venue: Abrar House, 45 Crawford Place, W1H 4LP
The Right Reverend Paul Hendricks is an Auxiliary Bishop for the Archdiocese of Southwark. Born in Beckenham, Kent in March 1956, Bishop Hendricks was ordained to the priesthood in 1984. He was ordained bishop on 14 February 2006. Before that he was a Catholic priest, serving in the parish of Our Lady of Sorrow, Peckham. For the previous ten years he had been teaching philosophy at St John’s Seminary, Wonersh, near Guildford in Surrey. Bishop Hendricks has responsibility for the South West pastoral area of the diocese. He is a member of the Bishops’ Conference Department of Dialogue and Unity.
**Sheikh Mohammad Saeed Bahmanpour is a cleric and a popular speaker. Currently he is the director of interfaith relations at the Islamic Centre of England. He studied sociology at LSE and Tabatabai University of Tehran in which he has obtained a Masters degree. Then he studied religion proper in Tehran and Qum seminaries and assumed clerical duties. In 1999 he was invited to Cambridge University to teach as a visiting lecturer in the Faculty of Oriental Studies. Later, he was appointed as the principal of The Islamic College in London. His main fields of interest are theology, Islamic mysticism, and Qur’anic sciences and exegeses, including its history and compilation. He is also interested in the history of Jesus and Mary from an Islamic perspective and has written a screenplay about the life of Mary based on the Islamic sources, which was made into a successful movie. Another of his works on Christian history was the screenplay about The Seven Sleepers of the Cave (Ashab al-Kahf). Sheikh Bahmanpour has authored several books including Muslim Identity in the 21st Century, ed. (2001), The Idols Will Fall (2010), The Blessed Tree: The Life and Times of Fatima Daughter of Muhammad (2011), Towards Eternal Life (2015), and Understanding Sura Yasin (2018).
Admission is Free. Please register for catering purposes – email: d05sa@yahoo.co.uk or text 07795 660 438
