Source: philly.com
Hamayun Mirza, of Virginia, takes dead aim at the cricket ball during an a Saturday afternoon game held at Saginaw Camp during the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association’s annual retreat. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association’s annual retreat, expected to draw more than 1,200 young Muslim men from around the country, in the name of peace and brotherhood during an annual, weekend-long retreat. The organizing group, the oldest of its kind in the country, notes: “Muslim youth may be among the most misunderstood and feared group in the U.S.” Saturday events will include dialogue, prayer, and games.
09/06/2014 ( MICHAEL BRYANT / Staff Photographer )
They arrived at Camp Saginaw carrying sleeping bags and blankets, hustled about a soccer field, mounted go-karts – even made s’mores. And just after 1 p.m. Saturday, the scores of boys and men turned east, toward Mecca.
“There’s a time for prayer, and there’s a time for play,” said Ahmad Chaudhry, 39, as the Muslim attendees prepared to perform two of five daily prayers beneath a canopy in Oxford, in southwest Chester County.
So went the gathering of more than 1,000 attendees in the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association, a branch of the national Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. The faction of Muslims, which trumpets a message of peace, believes the Messiah arrived in the 1800s – a splitting point with others in the Muslim world.
The retreat marked the 45th for the youth organization, founded in 1939. Organizers say the event, which began Friday and ends Sunday night, renews brotherhood and spirituality among the attendees, ages 7 through 40. The association has 71 local chapters and more than 3,000 members.
“They’ve traveled thousands of miles,” said Chaudhry, the association’s assistant president and an oral surgeon from Bethlehem. Last year’s event was held in Edison, N.J.
While the weekend retreat was meant to instill a positive identity in members of the community, it was also intended to demonstrate an affable image of Islam.
That’s important, group leaders said, especially when extremists – including the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) – have presented a heinous, often masked, face of the religion. Extremists with the terrorist group have beheaded two American journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff. Other hostages are still being held.
“There’s lots going on in the world where the image of Islam is very tarnished by violence and cruelty,” Chaudhry said. “We want to try to set the record straight.”
The Ahmadiyya community is marginalized, even persecuted, in other countries, because of… read the rest @ philly.com
Categories: Ahmadiyyat: True Islam, Americas, Islam, United States