 |
|
|
|
 |
- 10/21/08: Remarks by Henrietta Fore, Administrator, USAID and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance at the White House Development Summit
- 10/08/08: Remarks by Henrietta Fore, USAID Administrator and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance at The President's Freedom Agenda
- 10/01/08: Remarks by Henrietta H. Fore, Administrator, USAID and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance, at the Ceremony Marking the Full Operational Capacity of Africa Command (AFRICOM)
- 09/25/08: Remarks by Henrietta H. Fore, Administrator, USAID and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance, at 2008 Millennium Development Goal Malaria Summit, New York - "U.S. Leadership in the Fight Against Malaria"
- 09/22/08: Remarks by Henrietta H. Fore, Administrator, USAID and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance, at the White House Symposium on Advancing Global Literacy - "U.S. Commitment to Advancing Global Literacy"
 RSS Feed for Recent USAID Speeches and Testimony
|
|
|
|
|
Remarks by Administrator Andrew S. Natsios
Ramadan Iftar at USAID Headquarters
October 25, 2004
Washington, DC
I would like to welcome members of the diplomatic corps. We have many Ambassadors here this evening, and members of the American Muslim community, also. This is the second Iftar that we've held. I have to tell you, the first one I ever participated in was in Darfur. The "Wali" in northern Darfur invited me and my delegation to break the fast, the first night of Ramadan in 2002.
This was before the war started, before the current conflict. There were rumblings but nothing had happened at that point. I had been to Darfur in 1991 during another food emergency, but it was very moving because we sat on the ground. I just want to apologize that you had to sit at a table and ruin the tradition.
But when we ate at the Iftar, we were on the floor, on the ground, and there were huge amounts of rice brought in, and we were under the stars. The evening had come and it was a very beautiful night, very beautiful. I will never forget it.
The "Wali" was replaced. I think he was too hospitable to us and so he was replaced two months after we left.
A person of faith cannot help but be moved when a people of faith reaffirms their connection to God and their commitments to their fellow human beings. This happens once every year during the month of Ramadan and the dawn-to-dusk fast that is one of the core obligations of more than one billion Muslims throughout the world.
The holiness of this time and the sublime practices of Ramadan connect, I think, to parts of the ancient Christian church. We were discussing the similarity between the Eastern Church and Islam in terms of our fasting practices. We didn't discuss our prayer practices but there are actually some similarities there as well.
In fact there's a prominent orthodox theologian, Timothy Wear, who's British and who has just written a book -- it hasn't been published yet -- about apparently extensive conversations, very early in Islam, between the Sufist saints and the Eastern church fathers, because the mystical practices of Sufism and orthodox Christianity have many things in common, much more than we realize, and apparently their roots are back more than a thousand years ago.
And so I am particularly moved by the practices of our Muslim brothers in this particular time. I am told that it's not so much that prayer at this moment becomes more meaningful and intense, as that everything at this time is more aligned with prayer. It's a little different than the way we commonly understand it in the more secular world.
The discipline of fasting during this month brings an awareness of others who suffer privation as their daily lot. And it's interesting: we're having an Iftar in AID, which of course is the agency of the United States that is most concerned -- not that everybody isn't concerned -- but what we spend all our day doing is dealing with the poor of the world and with suffering.
For the more comfortably placed, it also brings awareness of one's blessings and profound gratitude for what one has received. It is a month of "zakat," when the charity of people and hospitality of people spontaneously rises and overflows, and at the bountiful Iftar meal, love too overflows for the family, for friends and neighbors that are gathered.
When Jesus was asked what are the greatest commandments, he replied there were two: love God with your whole mind, your whole heart and with your whole strength and to love your neighbor as yourself, and I strain to think of any spiritual practice that answers more fully to the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount than the practice of our Muslim brothers at Ramadan.
Muslims around the world during this month give witness that truly God's yoke is easy and his burden is light. I think there needs to be more effort in the United States, in a country that has two oceans that separate us from the rest of the world, to understand the practices of traditions of more recent immigrants to the United States, and while there were many Muslim Americans a 100 years ago, the Muslim population certainly has grown in America in the last several decades, and so there's a much larger population now.
The more we can do of this kind, the more we will understand the traditions and respect them, which I think is most important in the American tradition of tolerance. But for me as an Eastern Orthodox Christian, it's even more important because our roots, at least geographically, are in the same region of the world, and this connection between the ancient church and the ancient Sufist tradition, in particular, has a meaning in our church.
Thank you all for coming this evening and for joining us for this Iftar meal.
Back to Top ^
|
