Servant Of The Light.

Salaams

This is my first post on your forum. Abdun Nur, we have had some interaction on freeminds. My id there is 1CELOSTNOWFOUND.

I live in South Africa. We are currently looking at the concept of moving towards the establishment of a community living by quranic values.

We held our first conference on this issue in August 2009. The theme was "Towards a Quranic Society". I think that this is the way to start. What we did was invite like-minded people from around the country to the conference. This was primarily made up of Quran Study groups who were focused on the Quranic message (not those groups who insist that some bearded guy who has studied fairy tales must lead any Quranic discussion). Once we did this, we were pleasantly surprised to find that there were more like-minded people around than we thought.

We then asked these like-minded groups to invite some selected people that they are familiar with who are open-minded & on the fringes of having the same goals we did. The result was a national conference that took place over two days with an average participation of 75-80 delegates per day. Attendance was by invitation only in order to stay focused & not get side-tracked with issues from the public about the validity of the Quran only concept.

While the first conference was a getting together of Quran minded people with some informative presentations on a range of topics, we have managed to sustain the interest & are about to host the 2nd national conference on the weekend of March 13 & 14 2010. We are maintaining the theme of "Towards a Quranic Society" with the sub-theme or focus being on "The Practical Way Forward". For this reason, the format will vary from that of the initial conference in that much more time will be given to work-shopping practical ways to move the ideas forward through committed individuals & groups.

At the first conference, we used ustream.tv for broadcasting the conference. I'm not sure if anyone from this forum caught the broadcast, but it would be great if we could get more participation via the streaming channel this time. It would be great if there are some of you that live in close proximity to each other could get together & watch the broadcast live and when we do break up for work-shopping, such a group could do the same & send input live so that you become an integral part of the conference.

If there are any groups out there who are interested in doing this, please let me know so that we can allocate time at the conference for your groups input at each work-shopped session. This does not mean that we don't want individuals watching & providing input. We would like to have as large an audience as possible from the international Quranic community, so please log on & check it out, participate & maybe even initiate steps towards an international conference soon.

Last year we did not use the ustream recording option, but hey, we were new to all this. This year, however, we will be recording the conference so that it is available to view on ustream at your convenience. Having said this, I would like to stress once again the fact that we are hoping for large live audience so that we have as much input as possible.

Just as we did last year, we would like to extend an open invitation to everyone out there to attend the conference if you would like. Just let me know & I will ensure that you are on the guest list. I know that it is extremely unlikely that people from further away will be able to attend, but we are particularly interested in people from the neighbouring countries such as Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zambia and other parts of Africa. So, if you know anyone in these areas that would like to attend please let them know or forward their details to me so that I can get in touch with them.

We will forward further details in due course regarding streaming & how online participation will take place. I hope to hear from many of you on the weekend of the conference, & maybe a few of you before the conference to let us know that you have a group that would like to participate online.

I agree with your view of not being able to implement quranic values such as those concerning usury within the current system. It is necessary to create a vehicle through which we can live by the system set forth in the quran. The challenge is how do we move towards this from our present situation. This is what this second conference is about & your input will be appreciated & valued.

I noticed a little while ago that you were looking at a property for your cause in the UK. How has the response being? Have you made any progress?

Let's get together via email, skype, etc. & exchange some ideas on how we can succeed in this. I am of similar opinion with you regarding the development of communities that can build bridges between themselves in order to create a larger community that may not be in the same locality.

I look forward to working together to develop the necessary framework for ensuring success in this endeavour.

Imraan