World Peace Conference in Seoul, South Korea

 
By Sh. Abdur Rahman Khan
 
Four members from ICNA were invited by The Heavenly Culture, World Peace and Restoration of Light (HWPL) to attend an international Peace conference in Seoul South Korea September 17-19th 2014. The participants were Chair of ICNA Shariah Council Shaykh Abdur Rahman Khan, Deputy Sec. General Waqas Syed and two youths from Young Muslims, the youth division of ICNA.

HWPL also teamed up with the International Peace Youth Group (IPYG) and International Women’s Peace Group (IWPG) to invite global and faith leaders to call to an end of wars around the world. All the invited leadership were greeted and welcomed by the Korean hosts at the airport.

The inauguration was on the following day at the Seoul Olympic Stadium with approximately 100,000 people both inside and outside of the stadium, including locals, volunteers, prominent religious leaders, academics, legislators, community leaders, youths, international guests, women leaders and world leaders. The speeches were all focused on highlighting the horrors of wars and the challenges we face in bringing about peace. The bottom line is that there is no quick fix for the divisions the human society is currently undergoing whether they are caused by political, social, economic, ethnic or religious motives. The resounding call was for peace and to stop war now.

After a long evening, the performances by the Korean youth were immaculate. From their changing of colors right before your eyes to the choreography and the fireworks were no less than the Olympic style. It was just awesome.

This was followed by Thursday’s events which were more in form of workshop sessions even though half of the day was spent on listening to more calls from global and faith leaders to stop war. Sh. Abdur Rahman was one of the panelists on “Resolving conflicts and Divisions”. He spoke about the need to break down the walls of prejudice from within our souls. He said: “Too often we talk about faith when in fact we know very little of our own, let alone the faith of others. This is the root of conflict!” The conference ended with a very committed effort to restore peace and end war.