Hello and assalam alaikum to my fellow Muslim friends here.
My name is Asif Khan. I'm the national public relations director of Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at Canada. We are a revivalist movement within Islam. We are also a persecuted community in many Muslim countries.
I'd like to thank the panel for inviting me to speak today; however, I will be brief and I'll extend some of my time to Saadia. I hope that will be okay. My colleague, Safwan, will also be brief as well. I'm sure Saadia's perspective will be much more valuable to the panel than hearing from us.
Before I do pass it off to Safwan, I would like to say that Islam's core objectives are twofold. The first is that everyone should attain to have a relationship with God and they should do so in their own way. The second objective is that everyone should serve humanity; that is, be kind to your neighbours, be kind to your countrymen and look after one another. The government is not in a place to promote the first objective, but the government can promote humanity as being core to the fabric of being Canadian.
Our community's motto is “Love for all and hatred for none”. If each person took this to heart and strived to be of service to others, there could be no hate: no hate towards people of different religions, ethnicities, race and especially gender.
I thank you for your time. Godspeed.
Safwan.