Annual Interfaith & Intrafaith Conference: Unity as Resistance
Muslims for Peace cordially invites community members, faith leaders, and neighbors to our 20th Annual Interfaith & Intrafaith Conference on Sunday, September 27, 2026, at the Monroe Township Senior Center.
Timed in honor of the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), this year’s theme—”Unity as Resistance: Prophetic Principles in the Face of Modern Oppression”—examines how universal prophetic teachings serve as a blueprint for global solidarity, justice, and human rights.
The conference will explore the shared moral principles across Abrahamic traditions, highlighting how the core message of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) aligns with the teachings of Prophets Jesus and Moses (peace be upon them). Attendees will engage in discussions on translating these spiritual values into collective, practical action to confront modern injustices—with a dedicated focus on standing in solidarity with the marginalized and addressing the urgent humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Event Program & Details:
Date: Sunday, September 27, 2026
Appetizers & Registration: 1:00 PM
Program Time: 1:30 PM – 4:30 PM (Complimentary Dinner to follow)
Location: Monroe Township Senior Center, 12 Halsey Reed Road, Monroe Township, NJ 08831
Admission: FREE (RSVP required; complimentary dinner included. Voluntary donations to support Muslims for Peace non-profit initiatives are warmly appreciated.)
Join us as we bridge religious boundaries, foster intrafaith understanding, and build a unified coalition committed to peace and justice.
Syed Rizwan A. Rizvi was born in a family of ʿulamā in Hyderabad, Pakistan. His father, Syed Tilmiz H. Rizvi, migrated from India with his grandfather, Hujjatul Islam Syed Izhar ul Hasnain Rizvi.
In the early 1990s his family migrated to United States. His basic schooling was done in New Jersey, and he graduated from high school in 1998. Since early childhood he had the inclination and desire to attend Ḥawzah Ilmiyah for extensive Islamic education. He started his religious studies in Chicago, Illinois under the tutelage of H.I. Amir Mukhtar Faezi at Imam Ali Seminary where he studied for one year.
Thereafter he attended the Islamic Seminary of Qum in 2000 and studied under some of the best and renowned theologians of the Hawzah. After completing general coursework in Arabic literature, Jurisprudence, Qurʾānic Exegesis, Principles of Uṣūl, Kalām and Manṭiq, Syed Rizvi focused his attention towards Islamic philosophy and during the latter part of his studies on Irfān-e-Islāmī.
Throughout his six years of studies at the Ḥawzah, Syed Rizwan obtained 204 credits and received Bachelor’s in Theology and Philosophy.
Following his studies in Qum he felt the need to improve his fluency in Arabic. In pursuit of this goal, he travelled to Damascus and enrolled in advanced Arabic courses at Damascus University’s Arabic Language Institute and completely immersed himself in an Arabic speaking environment. During his stay in Syria, he also periodically travelled to United States and lectured at various Islamic Centers.
Raja Abdulhaq is a Palestinian political analyst and community organizer. Raja is the president of Tamkeen Movement, co-founder of Quds News Network, and former Executive Director of Islamic Leadership Council of New York. Raja has a masters degree in Political Science from Brooklyn College.
Adéyínká “Muhammad” Mendes (Adé) is an Imam, scholar, institution builder, and translator whose life’s work is the formation of spiritually grounded people, flourishing families, and enduring communities. For more than two decades, he has developed practical models of leadership, rites of passage, ecological stewardship, and community renewal by integrating the Qur’an, the Prophetic tradition, the Muslim scholarly tradition, Black Muslim intellectual heritage, and Indigenous American and West African wisdom traditions.
Born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1975 to an African American mother and a Nigerian father, Adé was raised in a home where intellectual curiosity, public service, and respect for diverse cultures and faiths were woven into everyday life. His mother, a retired attorney, dedicated her career to combating workplace discrimination, while his late father, a physician, modeled a life of compassion through the care of the sick.
In 1982, his family relocated to Lagos, Nigeria, where seven formative years immersed him in Yoruba culture, traditional African lifeways, and the rhythms of a vibrant multireligious society. Those years instilled a lasting appreciation for hospitality, reverence for elders, communal responsibility, and the inseparability of spiritual life, family, work, and the natural world.
After returning to Houston in 1989, a life-changing journey to Jerusalem in 1993 awakened in him a lifelong pursuit of Islam, the Way of Love and the path of the Prophets. He later studied Arabic at The Ohio State University before pursuing more than three decades of study with scholars across the United States, England, Syria, Sudan, Morocco, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, The Gambia, Egypt, Yemen, and Haiti. His scholarship spans Qur’anic studies, Hadith, Arabic, Maliki jurisprudence, theology, spirituality, contemplative practice, and the rich intellectual traditions of West Africa. Since 2001, he has devoted himself to teaching, translating, mentoring, and community leadership.
Adé is the founder of Marhama Village International, the Hero’s Journey Umrah & Rites of Passage Leadership Program, and a co-founder of the African-American Healing, Ancestry, and Development (AHAD) Collective and the Muslim-Indigenous Circle. Through these initiatives, he is creating innovative pathways for spiritual formation, family renewal, youth leadership, ecological stewardship, economic resilience, and community flourishing.
Central to this vision is Marhama Village—a land-based educational and leadership campus envisioned as a living model of faith-centered community. Imagined as a multi-generational institution, Marhama Village will integrate spiritual formation, ecological restoration, vocational training, scholarship, entrepreneurship, retreat, and the arts to cultivate resilient individuals, flourishing families, and enduring institutions for generations to come.
An accomplished translator of Arabic Islamic scholarship, Adé is the English co-translator of Imam Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti’s Rafʿ Sha’n al-Ḥubshān, published by CelebrateMercy as The Spirits of Black Folk (2021), and continues translating important works by West African Muslim scholars for contemporary audiences.
His scholarship examines Qur’anic spirituality, contemplative practice (tafakkur and muraqabah), leadership formation, rites of passage, sacred ecology, and the intellectual traditions of Africa and its diasporas. He has a particular interest in the theological, philosophical, and institutional contributions of Black American Muslims, exploring how their models of scholarship, community development, economic cooperation, and moral leadership can inform the renewal of Muslim communities and the common good. His work seeks not only to recover neglected traditions but also to translate them into practical frameworks for contemporary life.
Throughout his career, Adé has served as Imam and resident scholar in Georgia, New Jersey, and Texas, and has taught at mosques, universities, retreats, and conferences throughout the United States and around the world. He currently serves as Resident Imam of the River Oaks Islamic Center in Houston while continuing to teach internationally through organizations including CelebrateMercy, Wasat, Good Tree Institute, and other educational institutions.
Adé is currently pursuing the Doctor of Ministry in Islamic Leadership through Bayan Islamic Graduate School and Claremont School of Theology. He and his wife, Ustadha Rukayat Yakub—a Montessori educator, award-winning children’s author, and educational leader—are raising seven children. Together, they are committed to cultivating spiritually grounded leaders, flourishing families, and enduring institutions rooted in faith, beauty, service, and human flourishing for generations to come.
Sarah is a Lebanese-American writer, academic, and filmmaker interested in how people make sense of the world and all its absurdities.
She is a 2022 Film Independent Episodic Lab fellow and a 2024 Sundance Feature Film fellow. Her short film, Cigarettes, premiered at the 2025 SXSW Film and TV Festival. She just wrapped principal photography on her first feature film, supported by the Sundance Feature Film program and the Hamptons Screenwriters Lab.
A graduate of Harvard College and current PhD student at NYU, her academic writing has been presented or featured in or at the Columbia Journal for International Affairs, the American Oriental Society, Princeton Islamic Studies Colloquium, Harvard Divinity School, and others.
The first thing she’s asking for in heaven is the sequel to Brothers Karamazov.
