Muslim Academy students learn similarities between Islam and Judaism

Students at a Muslim academy in East London learned about common themes between Islam Judaism during an interfaith project this week.

Addressing secondary school boys at London East academy, Mehri Niknam of the the Joseph Interfaith Foundation spoke topics such as the nature of God, the Ten Commandments, Shabbat, circumcision and Kashrut during an assembly.

Pupils welcomed Niknam by reciting a Qur’anic passage about God speaking to Moses, telling him to ask Pharaoh to free the Children of Israel.

Mehri, who is Jewish answered questions about the two faiths, and told Jewish News,  “The talk was particularly interesting for the students because instead of just speaking about Judaism I gave exact references to the Qur’an and Islamic tradition where the same themes are expounded”.

The form teacher Mr Badr added that he “can confidently say our boys learned a lot from your presentation.. They were intrigued by the amount of similarities you spoke about of the two great faiths. “

The interfaith event was the second at the school, following the “Confronting Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia” event a earlier in the term.