Religion for PeaceWomen for Peace

Women’s interfaith network is building bridges in Nigeria’s violence, Muslim and Christian mistrust

"We don't want to use our religion as a obstacle — instead, we want to use it as a stepping stone for the achievement of the common good." "An interfaith network's purpose is to crack boundaries, lift the walls and create bridges."

Women’s interfaith network is building bridges in Nigeria’s violence, Muslim and Christian mistrustA

BUJA, Nigeria (RNS) — When religious Muslim teacher Fatima Isiaka asked the cab driver to drop her off at St. Kizito Catholic Church in Abuja, the driver thought she’d been lost.

“The man in the cab who took me to the service, a Muslim, was shocked to see me enter a service,” said Isiaka, remembering the encounter in summer 2014. “He told me: ‘It’s a church! ‘I said,’ Yes, I know.

Isiaka was part of an ambitious attempt to put together Christian and Muslim women to promote religious equality and the interfaith network.The Women Interfaith Network was first started in 2011 by Sr. Agatha Ogochukwu Chikelue, of the Daughters of Mary Mother of Mercy congregation, and local Muslim businesswoman Maryam Dada Ibrahim.

A prominent Muslim leader in Abuja is Isiaka, an observant Muslim who wears a gray jilbab, a long head covering and robe, the typical dress of some Muslim Nigerian women. She currently serves as the deputy director in the Abuja branch of the network.

She looks back fondly on her time at the St. Kizito Catholic Church.

“It has been a wonderful experience and I enjoyed every bit of my stay there,” Isiaka said. “I personally found a spot in the church where I conducted ablution (ritual washing before the prayer of Muslims), to set up my mat and pray.”

The activities of the Women Interfaith Network have reached more than 10,000 Muslim and Christian women around the country through workshops, meditations, religious leaders’ presentations and dialogue, since the organization started.

The interfaith network also provides vocational training in cooking, bead making, fashion design and soap production to a smaller group of women involved in the 21-day annual seminar. “Empowerment (training) serves as a lure to draw more women to the network to learn peaceful coexistence, “Isiaka said. In 2014, the Swiss Embassy received seed money for beginning vocational training. Cardinal John Onaiyekan’s Foundation for Peace (COFP), an agency working for peace in Northern Nigeria, funded vocational training in subsequent years.

In 2008, as northern Nigeria disintegrated into violence, Chikelue started talking about how to build bridges between Christians and Muslims. The population of Nigeria is fairly divided — around half of the Nigerians are Muslim, and about half Christian. Northern Nigeria is a Muslim majority while Southern Nigeria is a Christian majority. A especially sensitive topic is ensuring fair political representation of Christians and Muslims at the local, state , and national levels.

Since 2009, Northeast Nigeria has been terrorized by Boko Haram, a group of radical Muslims whose name means “Western education is prohibited” The terror group killed Christians and burned churches in hopes of cleansing the region of Christian religions, and establishing an Islamic caliphate to rule under Sharia law.

In other parts of Nigeria the group carried out attacks and even attacked moderate Muslims. Boko Haram abducted 270 female students in Chibok, Nigeria, prompting the international social media campaign #BringBackOurGirls.

Chikelue knew he had to step up the religious leadership.

“We don’t want to use our religion as a obstacle — instead, we want to use it as a stepping stone for the achievement of the common good.” “An interfaith network’s purpose is to crack boundaries, lift the walls and create bridges.”

Many religious clergy in Nigeria forbid their leaders even to attend a house of worship from the other religion. Yet Chikelue rejected those ideas, using her reputation as a Catholic sister to visit mosques and set up meetings to suggest an interfaith network with more moderate Islamic clerics.

Yet Chikelue acknowledged that she had not been able to do it alone.

A parishioner has suggested contact with Chikelue Ibrahim, a respected Muslim community leader. Chikelue visited Ibrahim’s office, and the two began organizing the first meeting of Christian and Muslim women in Abuja within a few months. In Nigeria ‘s capital, Abuja, a growing city with 2.5 million inhabitants, is more diverse and industrialized than any other region of the world. The city is about 40 percent Christian and the population of Christians is fast increasing.

Chikelue and Ibrahim recruited Cardinal John Onaiyekan, Abuja’s archbishop, and Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III, Sokoto’s sultan and president-general of the National Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs of Nigeria, to serve as the organization’s patrons.

After Sunday Mass it took time, persistence and weekly meetings to convince the first group of Christian women to sit down with Muslim women.

“The first meeting in 2011 was one of the best gatherings we had,” Chikelue said. “And after just one conversation together, the Christian women changed their views about Muslims. Everyone was able to go home.

The women’s meetings involve speeches by clergy and priests, describing fundamental values of each faith, or questioning the beliefs of religious extremists who claim that Muslims and Christians do not communicate. Often they discuss different parts of their religions — for instance, when Abraham plans to sacrifice Isaac, and how both religions view the story.

Participants also go on holidays to see each other. At the Ramadan Muslim holiday in 2017, a group of Christian women served the evening meal at the mosque to break the fast. Muslim women have participated on special church projects , in particular the annual end-of-year interfaith network party that Onaiyekan organizes.

After careful deliberation on which community would be most successful in promoting peace, the decision was made to establish a women’s interfaith network. Women have a special approach to dispute resolution, Chikelue explained. “Women handle the home inside the family and are closer to their kids, making it easier for them to preach harmony,” she said. This can also inspire women, often oppressed, to suddenly take a leadership role in creating a more inclusive society. “We want women also to be aware of their position in the interfaith network,” added Chikelue.

In 2014 Chikelue began providing vocational training for women as an extra opportunity with a special grant from the Swiss embassy. Women welcome free empowerment training on sewing, soap making and catering in a area where the female adult literacy rate is 41 per cent. The free leadership program also provides basic communication skills , personal health and financial literacy instruction and how to start small businesses. The training programs also help women meet people from other faiths, get to know the “other” and fight injustice and gender abuse.

“If at home there is calm we will achieve harmony in society. This is why we are empowering women to avoid gender-based abuse between women and their husbands, “said Chikelue.

It is hoped that the women who participate in the interfaith network can pass the information on to the children in their families by making presentations about religious diversity at their elementary and secondary schools and talking about their experiences working with women from other religions.

“There’s aggression too that doesn’t hold a gun,” Chikelue explained. “There are cases in which parents do not encourage their children to associate with children of a particular faith or instigate them to wage war against another faith.”

While the community has been working hard to break down barriers and create partnerships between Christians and Muslims, Isiaka knows a lot of work remains to be done.

She is still hopeful.

“We were able to better understand each other and passed the message of religious freedom on to our children, too,” she said. While the community has been working hard to break down barriers and create bonds, she knows there is still a lot of work to be done. Nevertheless Isiaka is confident.

“When we treat our kids this way, I think we’ll have the harmony that we’re all looking for over the next few years,” she said.

[Festus Iyorah is a Nigerian freelance journalist and photographer based in Lagos.]
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