Today, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Student Association (AMSA) will be collaborating with Hillel York and the LOGOS Christian Community on a free interfaith event called “The Pursuit of Happiness: An Interfaith Perspective”. The event will be held from 6:30 pm to 8 pm in Vari Hall B and refreshments will be provided to attendees.
Faizaan Qureshi is the president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Student Association (AMSA), says the association has been hosting events at York University centered upon “interfaith dialogue and unity” for several years in order to promote unity among various beliefs within the York community.
As university students struggle in “an increasingly competitive and highly uncertain world,” the event will look at “the role that faith and spirituality could play in helping us attain the elusive pursuit of happiness,” Qureshi states.
An imam, reverend, and rabbi will each speak for 10 minutes, highlighting their faith’s perspective on the topic, and will be followed by a Q&A session with the audience.
Ruth Chitiz, the director of Hillel York, encourages people to reach out to Hillel York for questions about Judaism and Jewish identity.
For Chitiz, interfaith unity is about “solidarity, allyship and connection” and is “an essential part of solidarity work and community building on campus and more broadly.”
Sebastian Maldonado, a campus minister and one of the team leads of the LOGOS Christian Community, states, “From our experience in the past working together with diverse faith-based communities at York U, we have seen how interfaith spaces have reduced the misconceptions and mistrust some people may feel with respect to other people’s faith practices.”
Maldonado adds that interfaith events like this help individuals gain empathy by understanding others’ worldviews, and can “make the particular identity of the participants stronger and more positive.”
Qureshi and AMSA’s “hope is that each attendee, regardless of their faith or if they ascribe to any faith at all, can be inspired by our presenters and implement some of the wisdom imparted by each speaker into their own lives.”
To register for this event, click here.
