The Islamic Council of Victoria recently shared the below reflection in the aftermath of the recent tragic bomb attacks in Sri Lanka.
The ICV and the wider Muslim community are devasted by the barbaric attacks on churches and other locations in Sri Lanka. We send our deepest condolences to the Christian community in Sri Lanka, to all the people of Sri Lanka and to the entire Sri Lankan community here and around the world.
We also express our sympathies to the families of the foreign nationals that were killed and injured including the Australians amongst them.
To target innocent civilians in their places of worship when they are most vulnerable is especially heinous. The Muslim community, still recovering from the horrific massacre of Muslim worshippers in Christchurch NZ, knows well the enormous sense of loss that our brothers and sisters in humanity, the Christian Sri Lankan community, will be experiencing.
We dearly remember the amazing expressions of kindness, support, and solidarity from the broader community in the aftermath of last month’s tragedy, from people of all faiths and no faith tradition. Attacks such as these, which seek to divide communities and to pit one group against another, fail when we all come together in solidarity.
To the people of Sri Lanka, the Muslim community stands in solidarity with you.
We offer you any support and assistance that we can provide.
We mourn with you, and we join your demands for the evil perpetrators to be brought to justice.
ICV President Mohamed Mohideen, a Sri Lankan by birth, expressed the thoughts of many when he said that “Our faiths teach us to love and not hate. To all my fellow Sri Lankans, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims, let us unite to fight against hate and in support of one another.“