FREMANTLE – A West Australian church has become the first in the continent to welcome Muslim worshippers in its community, offering the religious community an example of unity and compassion between faiths.

“I thought to myself that it would be wonderful to pray in this beautiful church,” Imam Faizel Chothia, from Western Australia’s port city of Fremantle, told SBS on Sunday, November 20.

“It certainly has the aura of the sanctity associated with prayer, it certainly is a symbol of the divine and it’s the most appropriate place.”

After a long search for a convenient place for Muslims’ weekly prayer, the imam decided to knock on the door of Reverend Peter Humphries at St Paul’s Anglican church in Beaconsfield.

“I wasn’t sure how my request would be received, but thank god for Peter,” Chothia said.

Peter Humphries said he was delighted by the request and eager to welcome another community to the church.

“My sense, and the sense of the parish here, is that we continue to seek both the fullness of humanity and the fullness that’s revealed in the divine,” he said.

“We haven’t got it, we continue to seek it and anyone, and everyone, who wants to join in that search can only help.”

Though Humphries offered the main church for prayers, Chothia said he did not want to inconvenience anyone, agreeing later on community hall.

Prayer books: The Anglican faithful have borrowed some Muslim customs for their prayers sessions using prayer mats.

On the first day of prayer, a Muslim worshipper told the reverend that he prayed for all religions to be united.

Thanking him, Humphries responded by a joke saying that was never his prayer.

“I said just in case the one ends up as ours,” he recalled with a laugh.

“My prayer is that there will always be a diversity of religions.

“The prayer is that we will honor each other and discover that it’s in that diversity that we’ve got life,” he added.

The imam stressed unity already existed in the shared values of both faiths.

“There’s a shared empathy and a common experience,” he said.

“I think this is where we have the opportunity of benefiting from the wisdom of the other.”

Chothia also saw wisdom in the religions’ diversity as well.

“The Prophet (Muhammad) interestingly says the difference of opinion is the source of the greatest blessing because your ideas and your preconceived notions or orthodoxies are challenged,” he said.

“When Peter challenges me, and he’s an accomplished thinker and can make a very strong point, it forces me to question cherished beliefs and I think that’s important.”