Why the Islamic Center of Tennessee is bringing a traveling exhibit on Jesus to Nashville – Tennessean
A house of worship is bringing a traveling exhibit on the life of Jesus to Nashville.
But the host is not a church — it’s a mosque.
The Islamic Center of Tennessee is inviting the public to view the Jesus Exhibition, which details what the Quran says about his life and his mother, Mary. The event is noon to 6 p.m. Nov. 9.
The hope is people who have questions about Islam will have a chance to go straight to the source for answers, Anwar Arafat, the center’s imam and religious director, said. And the Jesus Exhibition helps narrow down such a big topic to one that Muslims have in common with people outside their religious tradition.
“It’s something that a lot of Islamic centers around the country are trying to do, which is reach out to broader society,” Arafat said. “This is a way that we can kind of let people know what it is we as Muslims actually believe in.”
Muslims view Jesus as a prophet of God and a great person, but they do not believe Jesus is divine as Christians do, Arafat said.
“We have a lot of references to Jesus in our holy text,” Arafat said. “I believe that personally after doing some research, and a lot of different people have written about this, is that it doesn’t take away from Jesus’ stature for us to believe that he is a human being.”
‘We agree on much more than we actually differ’
The Jesus Exhibition was put together by the Islamic Education and Research Academy, an organization registered as a charity in England that says its mission is to compassionately and intelligently share Islam with the world.
This will be the first time the exhibit will be in Nashville, Arafat said, but not Tennessee.
Arafat, who joined the Islamic Center of Tennessee in May and also does work with iERA, also brought the Jesus Exhibition to Memphis, where he previously served as an imam. It was set up at the annual MusliMeMfest in March.
Arafat hopes that people of all faiths will stop by to view the exhibit.
“It is open to everybody. You don’t have to be Christian to appreciate the story of Jesus for sure, or even a Muslim for that matter,” Arafat said.
“It’s nice to see where we agree and where we differ, and I think a lot of people will be surprised that we agree on much more than we actually differ, and I think a lot of the ways that we differ are actually in semantics, not really in substance.”
Reach Holly Meyer at hmeyer@tennessean.com or 615-259-8241 and on Twitter @HollyAMeyer.
If you go
What: iERA’s Jesus Exhibition
When: 12-6 p.m. Nov. 9
Where: Islamic Center of Tennessee, 5400 Bell Forge Lane East in Nashville
Details: Free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.
Published 4:24 PM EDT Nov 1, 2019
