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Michaelmas 2019
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The Headmaster’s Address Speech delivered to the School on 9th September 2019 few days ago – on the 30th August to be precise – the Muslim members of our community marked the Islamic New Year. It is now the year 1441.
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Although Islam as a faith traces its roots to the patriarch Abraham, the Islamic calendar started in 622 AD with a significant event in Muslim history called the Hijrah, meaning Migration. It was the year the prophet and his small band of followers, having endured a decade of oppression in Mecca, decided to migrate, individually and in small groups, to the oasis of Yathrib, 320km north, where they had been pledged sanctuary. The decision to leave their homes and possessions, and risk their lives to cross the desert, taking very little with them, has marked the start of the calendar for Muslims, and has also been an inspiration to successive generations. Migration, which was necessary to save the nascent faith, became an act of faith. In a world where borders define and constrain us, Islam was protected and flourished on the premise of movement beyond those borders.
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These days we’re more aware than ever of the way borders divide us, allowing some in and keeping many out. We could learn much from our forebears who welcomed strangers as brothers, and together created a community of faith, marking the beginning of a new era and a new calendar It seems to me that the constant discussion about migration and migrants has more to do with preserving something within a country’s borders and keeping that something to one self. Both the United States and Europe’s politics seems to be dominated by migration discussion – with little if any discussion about the reasons why migrants might be moving. In the aftermath of the nightmare in the Bahamas, the tragic war in Syria, or the poverty suffered in central American states – it is clearly obvious – that like Muhammad – migration was essential – the difference now is that those suffering are met with much less understanding and compassion.
When the early Muslims sought sanctuary with strangers, they were welcomed with open arms. It was said that the residents of Yathrib shared their belongings equally with the asylum seekers, each resident choosing a ‘brother’ from amongst the migrants. And when the prophet finally arrived in Yathrib, the residents welcomed him with poetry and song and renamed their oasis Medina, the city of the prophet.
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