Zia and Mohammad Afsar grew up around Islam. They carried out their prayers, read from the Qu'ran and visited mosques. The religion was a part of their daily activities.
But it wasn't until they flew thousands of kilometres away from Pakistan, and the calls to prayer that would echo through the streets at dawn were silenced, that Zia and Mohammad said they truly discovered the faith.
"We had been going through the rituals and culture of Islam. We were doing it because everybody else was doing it," Mohammad said.
The word Islam means peace, he continued. And like many other religions, its backbone is the belief that under the Kingdom of God there is only one humanity that is created equal, Mohammad said. The more the Afsars learned about their own religion, the more they said they began to see a core thread that ties Christianity, Judaism, Shintoism and other faiths together.
"Now we think that we understand and try to follow the true spirit of Islam," Mohammad said.
Mohammad and Zia have always lived active community lives. In Pakistan, Zia was the main force behind a movement to allow females into engineering school. She won, an achievement that was later recognized by the Canadian Council of Muslim Women. Today she has three nieces who are engineers.
The couple met at McMaster University in Ontario, where Zia was studying nuclear physics and Mohammad took civil engineering. They married in Canada and together established a mosque in Hamilton.
Now in Squamish, few residents share their faith - the 2001 Canada Census reported 30 Muslims in the community - but many people share the couple's beliefs on how to live one's life and aid the community.
With this in mind, Mohammad founded the Squamish Multi-Faith Association. The society promotes interfaith and multi-faith dialogue and understanding, Mohammad said. The association encourages all people of faith to collaborate on community programs, he added.
On Saturday, Sept. 24, the organization is hosting its Multi-Faith Celebration at the St. John The Divine Anglican Church. The night will include guest speaker Robert Worcester, a member of the David Suzuki Foundation's Council of Elders and past president of the Vancouver Interfaith Society.
Worcester will give a talk dubbed Unity in Diversity. It examines the environment and caring for the planet.
The event will kick off at 6 p.m. and the church is located at 1930 Diamond Rd. in Garibaldi Estates. To RSVP call (604) 815-4344 or email [email protected].
Zia and Mohammad both believe there is a growing understanding when it comes to various religions.
"Our culture is humanity," Mohammad said. "The more people begin to understand each other, the more we find in common."
