A rare show of religions harmony
In a show of religious harmony, a madrasa teacher and a Hindu priest of a temple exchanged the Holy Quran and the Gita at a day long interfaith festival at Nasirnagar upazila of Brahmanbaria yesterday.
The festival follows an incident on October 30 when around 200 bigots attacked at least five temples and vandalised and looted around 100 Hindu homes in several localities, including Haripur village in the upazila, over a Facebook post.
At yesterday's programme, people of both communities presented songs on the same stage.
Hundreds of men and women participated in this rare initiative at the premises of Haripur Zaminder Bari in the upazila undertaken by the Hunger Project, an NGO.
Mowlana Sohrab Hossain, a teacher of Haripur Alia Madrasa, and Sabuj Chakrabarty inaugurated the festival.
Speaking to The Daily Star, Sohrab said, “Our holy Prophet, Hazrat Mohammad (sm), said 'O people, you are barred from interfering in others' honour and dignity and their properties'. Besides, Islam never likes and never preaches excesses or cruelty against people of other religions. Those people who attack religions haven't ever read the holy Quran ever.”
Sabuj said, “In the Gita it says, 'O human being you never make difference among the people of any other religion, you become devoted in a body to the welfare of people of all religion'. As we are created by the same entity, why should we create differences among us?”
The festival was presided over by senior teacher Anukul Das and attended by chief guest Badiul Alam Majumder, country director of the Hunger Project.
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