The service, which will begin around 12:20 and is for invited guests only, developed out of a relationship between the cathedral's director of liturgy, the Rev. Gina Campbell, and the South African ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool, who is Muslim. The two worked together on a memorial service for Nelson Mandela, Jaka noted.

"This is a dramatic moment in the world and in Muslim-Christian relations," Rasool wrote in a prepared statement. "This needs to be a world in which all are free to believe and practice and in which we avoid bigotry, Islamaphobia, racism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Christianity and to embrace our humanity and to embrace faith."

Rasool settled on the jummah prayer, the midday Friday prayer, which includes a short sermon. Observant Muslims pray five times a day.

While many other non-Muslim places of worship around the country host Muslim services, Campbell said the cathedral is different. "This is the place where we bury our presidents, where we bury our national heroes," she added.

About 100 people will be at the service, which will be spoken and chanted without music, Campbell said. Muslim leaders will bring prayer carpets.

The event is being co-sponsored by the cathedral, Rasool, and several Muslim spiritual and advocacy groups: ADAMS -- whose full name is the All Dulles Area Muslim Society -- the Council on American Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, Muslim Public Affairs Council and Masjid Muhammad mosque in Northwest Washington.

Rasool will deliver the khutbah, or sermon, at the service, which will be held in a part of the massive cathedral "with arches and limited iconography, almost mosque-like," according to a statement from the cathedral.

"Deep relationships come out of prayer," Campbell said in the statement. "Different connections come out of being in prayer -- beyond the political or academic."

The service will be streamed live at the Cathedral's Web site.

SAME GOD?

Theologian Roger E. Olson writing for Patheos blog asks the question, "Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?"

"Both Christianity and Islam are diverse religions. Do all Christians worship the same God? What all is being included in 'Christ' in the question? What all is being included in 'Muslims' in the question? Which Muslims? Which Christians? I know enough about the diversity of Islam to wonder if they all worship the same God. And I seriously doubt that all who claim to be Christians worship the same God. Does a liberal Christian who denies the deity of Jesus Christ and the Trinity worship the same God as an orthodox Christian who affirms them?"

From an Episcopal perspective, the answer to that question is "No". Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori does not believe Jesus is exclusively the way to the Father and believes all religions lead to God and salvation. She has even decried personal salvation as "heresy."

Writes Professor Olson, "The question could be interpreted as asking whether Muslims and Christians are thinking of God sufficiently alike to be worshiping the same God. Then my answer would tend to be 'no'--they are not worshiping the same God. For orthodox Christianity 'God' includes Jesus which is heresy if not blasphemy to most orthodox Muslims."

THEOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES

Islam considers Jesus a prophet just like Moses, Abraham, and Noah. Mohammad and the Arabs are descendants of Ishmael, which Islam claims Jesus said by their interpretation of Matthew 21:42-44 would supersede the Israelite nation.

Islam rejects the divinity of Jesus Christ:

Christians counter this saying Jesus was more than a prophet. He is God. (Matthew 17:5; Mark 1:1; Luke 1:35; Philippians 2:6; Hebrews 1:8; 1 John 4:15)

He claimed to be God: John 4:26; 8:23; 10:30; 13:13; 14:7-10

He accepted worship: Matthew 8:2; 9:18; 14:33; 15:25; 18:26; 28:9, 17; Mark 5:6; Luke 24:52; John 5:22, 23; John 9:38
He forgave sins: Matthew 9:6 Mark 2:7

"He was God manifest in the flesh" (1 Timothy 3:16), "for in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." (Colossians 2:9) God was in Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:19), Who is "the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person..." (Hebrews 1:3)

By the names attributed to him in Scripture - "Alpha and Omega," "Immanuel" (meaning, God with Us), "My Lord and my God," "etc. - the deity of Jesus Christ is seen.

Jesus Christ possessed all the attributes of God: omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, immutability.

Islam claims God has no sons:

"...Allah forbid that He should have a son." (Koran 4:171)
"It is not meet for God to have children." (Koran 19.92)
"He begets not, nor he is begotten, and there is none like unto him." (Koran 112:3)
"No son did Allah beget, nor is there any god along with him. [if so] then behold, each god would have taken away what he had created, and some would have lorded it over others! Glory to Allah! from things they attribute to Him." (Koran 23:91)

"And they say, 'The Most Gracious Has betaken a son!' Indeed you have put forth a thing most monstrous! At it the skies are about to burst, the earth to split asunder, and the mountains to fall down in utter ruin: That they attributed a son to the Most Gracious. For it is not consonant with the majesty of the Most Gracious that He should beget a son. And (they) impute falsely, without knowledge, sons and daughters unto Him...How can He have a child when there is no consort for him...?" (Koran 6:101-103)

Christians say the Father declared Jesus to be His Son.

POLITICS

Legend has it that when the Muslims conquered Jerusalem in the year 637. Sophronius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, invited the caliph Umar to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Umar declined, explaining that if he did, the Muslims would convert the church into a mosque, as Muslim prayers had been uttered there.

In the U.S., the Obama presidency has shown a distinct favoritism towards Islam and its adherents. He has invited them into the inner workings of the White House. Documents from WikiLeaks surfaced that indicated Obama and key individuals in the government had close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that they backed during the Arab Spring, which is considered a terrorist organization by most of the world.

Over the last several years, the presence of Muslim Brotherhood (MB) operatives working inside the federal government advising our senior leaders has been definitively documented. This penetration of our system is shocking and constitutes an immediate danger for American citizens. The success of the MB's influence operation from within our government is now manifesting itself with national and global implications for the security of America and its citizens, former FBI agent John Guandolo reports.

In July of this year, the CIA hosted a 2-day training program at its headquarters in Langley, Virginia entitled, "Countering Violent Extremism Workshop for the National Capitol Region."

Present at this conference were local, state, and federal officials from nearly every law enforcement, military, and intelligence organization around the Washington Metropolitan area. In addition to the senior CIA, FBI, and DHS officials conducting the training, members of the Muslim community moderated and led the training throughout the 2-day program. Notable among these was Imam Mohammed Magid who participated in speaking about "Building Communities of Trust: A Local Example of a Partnership between the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) and Law Enforcement," noted Guandolo who created and implemented the FBI's first Counterterrorism Training/Education Program.

How was Imam Magid vetted to speak at CIA Headquarters? And who vetted him?

The ADAMS Center is a Muslim Brotherhood front organization. It was founded by some of the most senior Muslim Brothers in the United States, to include Ahmed Totanji, who still resides in Herndon, Virginia. Its website proclaims "[ADAMS] is a membership organization registered in the State of Virginia as a non-profit, tax exempt corporation and is affiliated with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)."

Imam Magid is the Executive Director of the ADAMS Center. He is also the President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the largest Muslim Brotherhood organization in the U.S. which was found to be a financial support entity for Hamas in the largest terrorism financing and Hamas trial in U.S. history (US v Holy Land Foundation, Dallas, 2008).

Having Magid advise and teach U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials can only be aptly described as insane. According to officials at Langley who were willing to speak on the condition of anonymity, this is an outrage - but none of the leaders on the inside seem to understand the gravity of this threat. To say the fox is in the hen house would be an understatement, says Guandolo.

But the insanity does not end there. Imam Mohammed Magid continues to be a guest in the White House, works with the National Security Council, advises the Secretary of State, is on the DHS Homeland Security Advisory Working Group, and has received an award from the FBI. Magid continues to be treated by American leaders as if he is a friend, yet he is the leader of the largest MB front in the U.S. which financially supports the terrorist organization Hamas, he said.

The question must also be asked -- who vetted the other "leaders" from the Muslim community who moderated panels and led the training at CIA Headquarters? Are any of them Muslim Brothers or sympathetic to the MB cause?

When, over a long period of time, American leadership works side by side with and are advised by individuals and organizations who are proven to be hostile to the United States, it is no wonder the shooting at Ft Hood was called a "crime" by the FBI not an "act of terrorism" and why it was called "workplace violence" by Pentagon officials writing the after action reports.

And while CAIR is quite mainstream these days, this self-styled "civil rights group" was actually named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case by the Justice Department. CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR's cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements. Its California chapter distributed a poster telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI. CAIR has opposed every anti-terror measure that has ever been proposed or implemented.

Counter Terrorism Czar John Brennan scoffs at the idea the Muslim Brotherhood has penetrated the U.S. government.

Meanwhile, when are the Christian prayer services scheduled at the ADAMS Center mosque?

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