The world can be a cruel place. None of us in our sane mind want our kids to grow up in this world full of hate. I want to make a difference but I’m only one person. BUT, we need to take the first step ourselves, instead of waiting for others. We need to work hard to build bridges between communities and strong ties with people of all faiths and no faith. We NEED more humanity from each other. We need to DO something, anything, to return the humanity that seems to be slipping away from us all. We need to breed love so our kids don’t learn to breed hate. As a parent, I want to teach my kid about how similar we all are even though we may practice different religion or cultural norms. I know the teaching needs to start at home. I grew up with friends of different religious background and participating in each others holidays. We respected each others traditions and were happy for each other. We were thankful to have friends.
Islam not only teaches us to thank God(Allah swt), but we are also told to thank our parents, our spouses, our friends, our neighbors and all those who surround us. Other religions have the same core beliefs.
Islam: No one of you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for yourself. (Prophet Mohammed, Hadith)
Christianity: In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you; for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. (Mathew 7:12)
Judaism: What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary. (Hillel, Talmud, Shabbat 31a)
Hinduism: This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you (Mahabharate 5:1517)
We live in a beautiful, diverse world. Only with genuine efforts to respect and honor the diverse religious values and traditions of other, we can attempt to attain world peace.
As a Muslim, I believe in living harmoniously across racial, ethnic, religious, cultural and national boundaries. We live at a time when people of interfaith backgrounds are interacting with greater frequency than ever before. We also live in a world where people find themselves targets of religious discrimination, hatred and violence.
One of my goal, as a Muslim with “With A Spin” is to spread love and be a force for kindness. The products I launch are much more than another item for sale. I give them a sincere thought and each of them carries a message. The message of my next product is “Harmony”.
Before we can move mountains, we need to move the pebbles. This Harmony cookie cutter set is my small attempt to start the conversation at home to overcome separation and difference by seeking what is common among different faiths. I hope someday soon we can bring people together across divides of religion, culture and nationality with Love, Unity and Respect.
My heart is with the humanity, the world, no borders, no hierarchy. I hold every human’s life with value. If we truly want to play a significant part of the solution, we need to start strengthening what connects us to those around us. Let’s restore our own humanity
Are you going to join me in spreading love and be a force for kindness? Let’s start at home by teaching our kids about how similar we all are even though we practice different religion.
Let’s take this opportunity to be part of the change we wish to see for our generations to come by taking a baby step of learning about the various interfaith holidays celebrated around the world. Hate breeds hate, Love breeds love. Let’s breed love not hate.
P.S. This Interfaith Harmony cookie cutter set makes a great teacher gift, co-worker gift, gift perfect for religiously blended families, families that want to include multicultural experiences in their lives and the lives of their children. The set is now available to purchase at our shop.
If you want to learn more about the holidays please follow the links below –
Beautiful post.
Thank you for this post. We all can get so caught up in our own worlds, we forget how much we share. I am about to start my annual Christmas cookie bake-a-thon, which I hand out to the people in my husband’s office: two Jewish men, a Muslim woman, a Greek Orthodox woman and a Catholic man. The Muslim woman and I always have a chuckle at the thought of a Jewish mama giving Christmas cookies to a Pakistani family, but we both completely appreciate the thought behind it – that of sharing something nice, even if it’s not our own tradition. And, after all, COOKIES! (And yes, I use vanilla paste instead of vanilla essence.)
Happy everything!
Well said.