Founding Families of VIPIS

Add your family name to the VIPIS HONOR ROLL OF FAME.

The FAMILY FOUNDERS will be Inscribed three times:

The most important part of VIPIS is the membership of founding families, people who have decided to take action, together, to change America's distorted view of islam. We know that islam is a religion of peace. Here is a letter from the president, inviting you to become a founding family.

VIRGINIA INSTITUTE FOR PEACE AND ISLAMIC STUDIES (Vipis)

Registered with the State Corporation Commission of Virginia in August 2004

ID 0622115 - 4 DCN 04 - 08 - 11 - 0037 Wachovia Bank a/c 20000 204 03960

LETTER TO FUTURE FOUNDING FAMILIES

21st June 2005


Dear Friends,

I am writing to invite you to join us in creating a new Institute that will teach Virginians about Islamic Culture and Peace Studies. With the Muslim Students' Association we are calling the Islamic Community in Virginia to respond to 9/11 by educating Americans about Peace and Islam. We are recruiting Founding Families and we want you to be one of the first.

I write to you as a father, mother, uncle, aunt, head of your family. For our children to grow strong in America, we must promote religious tolerance. To replace prejudice based on ignorance and fear, we must reach out into Virginia's schools and colleges to teach religious and racial tolerance. We need to rise up as a community and use Muslim traditions of teaching to achieve peace and spiritual awareness. We shall promote Islam as a religion of peace.

"The pen is mightier than the sword," said the Prophet Mohamed (peace be upon Him and upon all the Prophets). This is the message we need to carry into VirginiaÕs schools, so that Islam becomes synonymous with salaam and not with "terrorism." No one else will do it, so we must.

In my first speech as President of VIPIS, I told the Muslim students of VCU:

We stand TOGETHER as American Muslims: not Pakistani-Americans or Indian-Americans or Arab-Americans or Indonesian-Americans or African-Americans, but as Equal Americans supporting freedom of religion, freedom from discrimination, and a separation of church from state. We have a DREAM that one day, Americans will understand that we all worship One God, the same God - the God of Abraham single and indivisible.

That is why we are asking you to join as a Founding Family of VIPIS: tear off the bottom of this page, and commit your family to support teaching about Islam and Peace and Tolerance. A Founding Family will commit the daily price of a Starbucks coffee ($2.77) to education for five years: many cups of coffee will create tolerance in Virginia! This works out at $1,000 per year which is only a part of your annual charitable donations. Please give a part of your zakat to peace education and teaching about Islam.

We dream not of a "Christian America" but of a "God-fearing America," a place where people know that Muslims - like Jews and Christians - worship the One God of Ibrahim. This dream can be realized if we pool our resources.

If we can show that VIPIS has wide support among the Muslim and non-Muslim Community in Virginia, we will be able to obtain education grants from states and foundations. We are asking you to help us create an Institute that will teach about Islam and the Islamic world, about Islamic culture and history, politics and religion as well as Arabic language, peace studies and inter-community relations. We will do it with your help.

We believe you can have confidence in the leadership of VIPIS, for we seek neither prestige nor political power. Our mission is to teach about peace and to explain Islam as a religion of peace.

President

Dr R-E Poulton is a British national who has lived most of his life in Muslim countries in Africa and Middle East including Egypt, Nigeria and Afghanistan. Dr Poulton's PhD was written on Afghanistan in 1979 before the war began. He is a peace worker and scholar who came in 2002 as Visiting Professor of International Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Vice-President

Dr Shaheed Coovadia is Imam of RichmondÕs central mosque and Director of the Islamic Center of Virginia (ICVA). Imam Shaheed was born in South Africa and studied Arabic in Saudi Arabia. He received his first degree from University of Medina and his PhD in comparative Arabic and English literature from Manchester University, in England. Imam Shaheed is a noted preacher and Islamic scholar who teaches Arabic at every level of competence.

Honorable Treasurer

Ms Saima Khattak is a practicing attorney from Peshawar in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. She is a Member of the Bar in Virginia, in New York and in Pakistan.

Honorable Secretary

Mr Eddie O'Leary, is a 2005 graduating student in political science, who was recently elected President of the Student Government at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Please join our educational jihad and make your family a Founding Family of VIPIS (V-peace). We ask you give some of your zakat to this educational crusade for tolerance. Sign up for a five year commitment of $1,000 per year = only $2.77 per day which is the price of just one cup of coffee. We need you to help us start the Institute with the price of one cup of coffee per day. With your zakat we can create a professional program of education about Peace and Islam for VirginiaÕs schools and universities. You gift will be tax-deductible, insh'allah!

Together we can make a kinder and better America.

Put you family on the VIPIS Honor Roll of Founding Families. Without your support we cannot succeed.

Thank you, and Salaam!

Robin Edward Poulton MA (Hons), MSc, PhD, MBIM, ChONM, ChROSC
President, Virginia Institute for Peace and Islamic Studies VIPIS
Visiting Professor in International Studies 2002-2004, Virginia Commonwealth University
Senior Research Fellow, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research
Tel/fax: 1 804 355 6821 rpoulton@comcast.net www.epesmandala.com