Cape Breton students learn about Islam

Several hundred students at Riverview Rural High School heard a presentation from a local imam Monday afternoon aimed at clearing up common misconceptions about the religion.

"This is the way we can help our youngsters understand the peaceful teaching of Islam, the correct teaching of Islam," said Imam Umram Bhatti, the imam of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community.

The imam was invited by the students in the school's Interact Club — a group that's been raising money to help Syrian refugees.

Educational opportunity

"We thought it would be a really good idea to get somebody in here to educate our student body, teachers even, just more about what's going on within our community," said Lauren Kelly, one of the students in the club.

Bhatti went through slides describing many facets of Islam — from its definition to the amount of time spent in prayer. He spoke about stereotypes and the importance of education, especially with so many Muslim refugees coming into the community and the country.

"The young people are the foundation of the society," said Bhatti.

"They can sometimes help their elders or their seniors in their homes, you know, 'no mom, no dad, this is completely wrong, what you're seeing on TV."

Crushing misconceptions

Bhatti said many of the questions he receives are about jihad but he says the term was appropriated by terrorist groups and changed the meaning, "that we want to kill innocent people, which is completely against the true teaching of Islam."

"The actual jihad is the struggle of the self to make you a better person, a better person in society, nothing to do with an AK47 or a sword."

Jennie MacPherson, another student involved in the Interact Club, says she hopes this presentation will help transform harmful assumptions about the religion.

Connecting with refugees

"I know there's a lot of people who have negative thoughts about Muslims so it's good to learn about their culture and their religion and hopefully the people that came, they'll tell their families and their friends," said MacPherson, adding she learned a lot about Islam.

"I knew it was peaceful, but I didn't know how close it was to Christianity," she said, adding that hearing Umram Bhatti gave even more meaning to the work they're doing in preparation for refugees coming to Cape Breton.

"When you hear about it in the news, you just see them as refugees, you don't really see them as people ... so knowing more about their religion and their culture kind of puts a face to them and makes them more relatable because that could have been us, we could have been in a war like that."

Ryan Magee, the student who introduced Bhatti, says he hopes the presentation made an impact.

"I just hope that people walk away with a different point of view.