Questions appreciated
The only questions Farhat Biviji doesn't like are the ones she doesn't get asked. "If you ask it, then I have an opportunity to address it," says Biviji, an observant Muslim who emigrated from India in 1970 and has lived in Cherry Hill since 1979.
/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-pmn.s3.amazonaws.com/public/KERMYY2NK5G7NFPHSODUWYGW5Q.jpg)
The only questions Farhat Biviji doesn't like are the ones she doesn't get asked.
"If you ask it, then I have an opportunity to address it," says Biviji, an observant Muslim who emigrated from India in 1970 and has lived in Cherry Hill since 1979.
"Otherwise," she adds, "I don't get my say."
A Catholic education, a Jewish godmother, and 37 years of studying the Quran have provided Biviji, 63, with a lot to say about Islam, its deep connections with Christianity and Judaism, and its place in America and the world.
She helped establish two local interfaith organizations and is part of an informal group called the "Soul Sisters": Two Catholics, two Jews, and two Muslims who break bread together regularly.
On Tuesday, Biviji will give a talk titled "Separation of Church and State: A Muslim Perspective" at the Katz Jewish Community Center in Cherry Hill.
The event is sponsored by the Delaware Valley Chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State; organizers say seats are no longer available.
"I'm fully convinced that separation of church and state is compatible with Islamic belief," says Biviji, who's as fervent about her faith as she is eager to dispel the widespread misconceptions about it.
"If I wasn't a Muslim and I heard day after day about people killing in the name of God, I would think, 'What kind of religion is this?' " she says. "How can it be called a religion of peace?"
Terrorist groups such as ISIS, she says, are "perverting Islam in the same way the Ku Klux Klan perverts Christianity."
Wearing a T-shirt on which the stylized word coexist includes Jewish, Muslim, and Christian symbols, Biviji welcomes me into the gracious home she shares with her husband, Amir, 74.
Naturalized U.S. citizens, the couple have been married for 46 years and have two sons and five grandchildren. Amir is a structural engineer; his wife ran a print shop in Westmont for a decade. Both sons are successful professionals.
"There is no country like America," Biviji says. "Donald Trump notwithstanding."
Fearmongering about Muslims, immigrants, and who-knows-who-might-be-next have made messages like hers more relevant than ever.
The current conflation of "the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world who peacefully practice their religion and an incredibly small minority who are members of radical groups like ISIS . . . [makes] it necessary to bring a speaker in to clarify the Muslim perspective," says Gloria Andersen, a Cherry Hill volunteer with Americans United.
Because Islam "is more at the forefront, more people are interested in being educated," notes Brandon Cohen, program director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Southern New Jersey.
Says Biviji: "When I see the diversity that our creator has created, it seems almost sacrilegious to narrow it down to where only one group is on the right path.
"The creator who has made the smile of a child, and so much beauty and diversity, how can I say he only exists in a mosque? Or in a church?"
The Quran "doesn't say everyone has to be Muslim, or that every country should be a religious state," adds Biviji, the co-facilitator of Jewish Catholic Muslim Dialogue of Southern New Jersey.
The group formed in Cherry Hill in 2004, after controversy erupted over a proposed mosque in neighboring Voorhees.
Biviji has long been accustomed to discussing her faith with non-Muslims; "people started asking me about Islam when I had my print shop on Haddon Avenue in Westmont" in the 1980s, she recalls.
Now she speaks several times a year to church groups and other organizations, and answers questions from the media.
And Biviji talks to people like me - people who may have never sat down and had a conversation about Islam with someone who is Muslim.
856-779-3845@inqkriordan