The time The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints donated 7,000 Qurans to Muslims

Yahoo

05-02-2025

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf grew up as a white Irish Catholic but converted to Islam, changed his name and co-founded Zaytuna College, the first accredited Muslim undergraduate college in the United States, where he serves as president.
Elder Ahmad S. Corbitt is a Black American with a Muslim first name who worked as a trial attorney and led corporate and government communications for a company on the Eastern Seaboard before he became a General Authority Seventy for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The two men found themselves on stage together Tuesday for a dialogue at IRF Summit 2025, a major international religious freedom conference.
'If we can start off with why we agreed to do this?' Elder Corbitt said with a smile, prompting laughter from Shaykh Yusuf and hundreds in the Washington Hilton ballroom near the national capital's famous Embassy Row.
The two religious leaders swiftly found common ground.
'I think getting to know one another is very important,' Shaykh Yusuf said to answer Elder Corbitt's question. 'I think America is uniquely positioned to teach a lot of places about civic society and religious freedom. We obviously have our failures, but we do have something extraordinary here.'
The hallmark of the possibility embodied by America is education, he said. 'I think the more educated people are, the easier it is to get along with people' because the more they know, the more they realize they know less.
'The Quran says, 'As of knowledge, you've been given a very small amount.' There's kind of a certitude that too many people have that creates a very ugly world,' he said.
They firmly agreed that conviction in faith in God is vital, but also offered moderating ideas.
Shaykh Yusuf suggested it is a mistake for believers to be certain about their understanding of their faiths and that it is problematic to not 'allow for the possibility that somebody else might have a more valid opinion.'
Elder Corbitt said there is something important 'about a humility in our conviction that affords someone else the same right. One of the Articles of Faith of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is that, 'We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our conscience and afford all people the same privilege, let them worship, how, where and what they may.' That's a fundamental tenet to us and to Islam.'
Shaykh Yusuf expressed concern that American education is in decline, in part because of digital devices and digital addictions.
'I think religious faith, more than anything, is going to be the most important element in being able to survive what's coming because things are getting really difficult for people out there,' he said.
Shaykh Yusuf also said it his belief that the light of God is refracted through the prism of the intellect.
'If it's not refracted through that prism, it blinds, it doesn't guide,' he said.
'That refraction,' Elder Corbitt said, 'is facilitated, in my opinion and experience, most powerfully and clearly and effectively through service, through actions.'
He said he was inspired to learn that after the 2004 tsunamis devastated South Asia before he was a church leader, the Church of Jesus Christ went into Aceh Province in Indonesia and asked what the people needed. The first, grim answer, he said, was thousands of body bags. The church also provided new fishing boats and mosques.
'But the thing that most moved me is that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints donated 7,000 copies of the holy Quran to our Muslim brothers and sisters in the Aceh Province. That had nothing to do with proselytizing,' he said. 'It had to do with ...'
'An act of good will,' Shaykh Yusuf said.