A decade ago at a Georgia mosque open day event, Eman Abdulla met for the first time with Debbie Krafft and a group of Christian women who came to learn about Islam and Muslims.
They talked and had fruitful discussions. Then the group decided to meet regularly to discuss their faith and how its impact on the Middle Georgia community.
The group later expanded to become known as the Women’s Interfaith Alliance of Central Georgia, growing from 1-15 women to around 500 members on a Facebook group now.
📚 Read Also: Raising My Kids to Be Unapologetic American Muslims
“We live in a global community that is increasingly becoming more connected,” said Eman Abdulla, one of the founding members of the group, US News reported.
“So, learning about each other, learning to form relationships with each other, learning to coexist in appreciative, intimate ways is very important for the peace and harmony of human societies in general, especially so here in the South.”
As the group grew, Eman and her new friends opened their doors to women of all faiths, including women from the Jewish, Hindu and the Baháʼí faith. After the coronavirus pandemic, they welcomed women from different states and even countries to join their Zoom meetings.
“It’s like modeling kind of a practice and a way of living cohesively and harmoniously that is doable. It’s transferable also to other places where diverse people come together,” Abdulla said.
New Friendships
The group has a book club and a study group and they have hosted several events, including a poetry night and a health fair.
“One of the primary, foundational things of our group is that we’re interested in acquiring an appreciative knowledge of other faith traditions, and we want to do this through friendship and education and service, ,” said Debbie Krafft, a founding member of the group.
“So all of the things that we do, whether it’s in the social context where we come together and talk about a specific topic and learn like that or whether we’re serving in the community, we try to organize all of our activities around those three things.”
Abdulla believes the group has opened up her faith making it more inclusive.
“It opens up venues and horizons for a better future for all of us. If we really intend to, if we willingly and purposefully pursue this choice of living together harmoniously, we can do it. It’s not impossible,” she said.
“The Tower of Babel is not our destiny. We can all communicate even if we have different languages. We can still communicate, we can coexist, we can cooperate, we can make the world a better place.”
There are a total of 3.45 million Muslims in the United States, according to a 2017 study, comprising about 1.1% of the total US population.
In Georgia, there are 543 Muslim per each 100K of the population estimated at 10,830,000.