UK Muslim group visits Israel for 1st time

Members of East London Three Faiths Forum participate in week’s pilgrimage to great religious sites of Holy Land. Visitors say trip meant much more to them because they were accompanied by believing adherents of other two faiths

Ynetnews|Published: 12.10.08 , 10:26

Twenty-six people from the London Borough of Redbridge returned last month from a week’s pilgrimage to the great religious sites of the Holy Land. What’s so unusual about that? Just that 23 members of the group were Muslim, and this was the first ever visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority by a predominantly Muslim group from Britain.

The pilgrims were all from the East London Three Faiths Forum, and the trip was organized and led by Imam Dr. Mohammed Fahim of the South Woodford Mosque, Rabbi David Hulbert of Bet Tikvah Synagogue and Father Francis Coveney of St. Anne Line (RC) Church, South Woodford.

During the hectic six-day tour, organized by the IGT incoming tour operator, the group visited sites important to the three great Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The tour started in Jerusalem, where the group visited and prayed at the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, the third most holy site to Islam, no fewer than four times.

Sixteen of the group even got up extra early to take part in the dawn prayer, walking through the silent streets of the Old City of Jerusalem to arrive at al-Aqsa at 4:45 am.

'When can we go again?' (Photo courtesy of Three Faiths Forum)

Other places visited in Jerusalem included the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (the tomb of Jesus), the Western Wall, the most holy place in the world for Jews, the L A Mayer Museum of Islamic Art and Yad Vashem, the national memorial museum to those who died in the Holocaust.

The group visited Bethlehem, to see the Church of the Nativity, and spent a day in the Judaean desert, visiting Masada (King Herod’s desert stronghold) and enjoyed the unique experience of swimming in the Dead Sea.

High level of tolerance and trust

The last part of the week was spent in the north of the country, the region of the Galilee.

Highlights included the beautiful 18th-century Jazzar Pasha Mosque and the Crusader fortress of Akko (St. Jean d’Acre), Nazareth, where Jesus grew up and where his birth was announced to his mother Mary, a local hospital in Tiberias, that serves a mixed population of Arabs and Jews (amongst the group were doctors, nurses and midwives working in the NHS), a boat trip across the Sea of Galilee, mentioned frequently in the Christian Gospels, and a visit to the ancient synagogue of Capernaum (Kfar Nachum), the site where Jesus began his ministry.

For all except Rabbi Hulbert, this was their first visit to the Holy Land, an intense and unforgettable experience intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. People commented that the trip meant much more to them because they were accompanied by believing adherents of the other two faiths.

Everybody returned uplifted, keen to share their experiences with friends and family, and asking "when can we go again?"

A pilgrimage to the Holy Land by a predominantly Muslim group is truly a ground-breaking event and the East London Three Faiths Forum felt truly proud to come from Redbridge, reflecting the high level of tolerance and trust between all faiths represented in the Borough.