CPTnet
May 31, 2004

IRAQ REFLECTION: Sacred Spaces
by Sheila Provencher

The Baghdad cleric bent over his desk, writing in painstaking English
several of the 99 Names of God, the most sacred words in Islam. He looked
up, smiled, and handed Matthew Chandler two sets of prayer beads as a
good-bye gift for Matthew's journey back to the U.S.

"This is a small gift for your parents," he said. "And here," he handed
Matthew the card he had written. "These are the prayers . . . 'Thanks be to
God,' 'In the name of God most gracious and most merciful,' 'There is no God
but God,' and 'God is greater.' Tell them, if they feel worried, if there
is a hard time in their life, to turn to God, to pray the prayers, to put
everything in God' hands."

Sheikh Moayed is the spiritual leader of the Abu Hanifeh Shrine, the primary
Sunni mosque in Baghdad. He has been a good friend to CPT, and has asked
the team's assistance in publicizing the many house raids and detentions
that occur in his neighborhood and now in his own mosque.

On April 11th and again on May 15th, Sheikh Moayed told us, American armed
forces broke into the Abu Hanifeh mosque, allegedly looking for weapons
(April 11th) and for a murderer (May 15th.) According to the Sheikh, during
both incidents the American soldiers demolished the doors to the mosque.
They entered wearing muddy boots, leading dogs (an insult roughly equal to
spitting at the altar in a Christian church), and destroyed the mosque's
loudspeakers used to transmit the call to prayer. During the April 11th
raid, they allegedly destroyed much of the adjacent Theology College,
prying up floor tiles to look for an underground bunker. Women praying in
the mosque were terrified, and one Red Crescent worker suffered a heart
attack.

After telling us about the attacks, Sheikh Moayed asked CPT to share the
following with the Western nations.

"Mosques are sacred, just like churches. And it is forbidden by all the
great religions to violate the sacred places-- synagogues, churches,
mosque-- where God is watching. Here in Iraq, you can see Muslim families
living next to Christian families. We Muslims learn in our mosques many
things about our Christian brothers. We learn that God is our God and their
God as well, at the same time.

"But there are always unjust governments that try to change the
intention of the people from peace and toward hatred of the religion of
Islam, when they use the cross as a pretext to fight Islamic countries.
Jesus said that when someone hits you on one cheek, to turn the other. But
unfortunately, these governments which pretend to belong to Jesus actually
are beating the Islamic countries on both cheeks at the same time.

"So it is your duty, as Christian people looking for peace (and Peace is one
of God's names), to tell your governments not to do bad things to the peace
that is loved by the peoples."