Dr Sharif Rasel, Secretary Tabligh Jamaat Adelaide West, Australia
Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya South Australia made a trip to the Yorke Peninsula on 10 December 2022 to spread the peaceful teachings of Islam. The Jamaat extended friendship to the local community at a Christmas market in the historic town of Moonta.
The Moonta and District Progress Association, the organiser of the Christmas market, invited the Jamaat to participate in the market. The Jamaat accepted the invitation to continue reaching out to different remote communities in South Australia.
Due to its copper mines, Moonta was once the second-largest town in South Australia. It is famous for its beautiful iconic buildings, churches and old mining sites, which made it the top tourist destination of the state in 2021. The town is a two-hour drive from the Mahmood Mosque, and the Jamaat members began the trip after a silent prayer at 12:30pm to participate in the Christmas Market at Moonta for the first time.
This was an annual event which ran between 3 to 8pm. Thousands of local community members and tourists visited the market for its wide variety of stalls and other fun activities.
Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya was given a central location in the market, and thus, the peaceful message on its marquee was visible even from a distance. Besides spreading the peaceful teachings of Islam from the stall, Jamaat members also went out and distributed hundreds of pamphlets on different streets of the town.