ISLAM AND THE WEST - 1

A few months after the Christchurch mosque attacks, the Aotearoa NZ Association of Social Workers (ANZASW) arranged a whole-day workshop on “Working with Muslim Communities”. I was also asked to make a presentation on “Muslim Beliefs and Practices” in this workshop. As the first workshop was so heavily subscribed we were asked to do a second workshop which was conducted last month. Another government department has now asked us to conduct a similar workshop for its officers. Considering the benefits participants reported on attending these workshops, I thought it may be useful to share one slide of the presentation at a time and write a narrative about it developing it into an essay.  

These workshops are primarily aimed at a non-Muslim audience to make them more aware of core principles and practices of Islam and Muslims (which unfortunately are not always the same). However, I do hope they will also be useful to our younger generation, particularly the one growing up in Western countries. The narrative may make a difficult reading for some of our Muslim brothers as they are quite self-critical at times.