Washington's National Cathedral to host Muslim prayer service

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- For the first time in its 102-year history, the Washington National Cathedral will host a Muslim prayer service Friday.

The Episcopal cathedral has held interfaith services and events in the past, but never acted as a host for an exclusivity Muslim service.

"We want the world to see the Christian community is partnering with us and is supporting our religious freedom in the same way we are calling for religious freedom for all minorities in Muslim countries," co-organizer Rizwan Jaka of Virginia's ADAMS mosque told the Washington Post, adding, "Let this be a lesson to the world."

"This is a dramatic moment in the world and in Muslim-Christian relations," South African ambassador to the United States and practicing Muslim, Ebrahim Rasool said in a 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."

Despite humanitarian intentions, news of the service was not met with universal praise, as some conservative corners of the national security community pointed out that Friday marks 100 years since the last sitting Caliph of the Ottoman Empire publicly called for war against non-Muslims.

"November 14th, 2014, will be the 100th anniversary of the last sitting Caliph of the Ottoman Empire's call for jihad against non-believers," wrote the independent Center for Security Policy in a letter to Bishop of Washington Mariann Edgar Budde.

"While for most westerners the November 14th Jihad declaration is little more than a footnote in the annuls of World War I, for Islamic supremacists like those associated with Muslim Brotherhood, it is a date pregnant with meaning. To permit such a public display, and permit such groups to occupy the National Cathedral of the United States on this date represents an affront to the memories of those who were killed as a result of this genocide, and an affront to those Christians across the Middle East who are currently under threat by those who seek to emulate it."