Raza Jafri, she said, was targeted by terrorists because he was a prominent surgeon who also was a Shia Muslim. He left behind a wife and three young sons.

"He was someone that everyone looked up to. He was very loving, very nurturing. He would guide me," said his sister, a pediatrician who lives in Galena, Delaware County, in the US. "He was an icon in a lot of ways for the family and for the community."

As a Shia, Jafri doesn't blame Sunni Muslims. She blames extremists.

Jafri said the minor differences between the Shia and Sunni Muslims has never been an issue for her or the Muslim women — both Shia and Sunni — she calls friends.

"The divide is not there in our hearts," she said.

Jafri, 47, is one of a handful of Shia Muslim women who recently began fostering friendships with Sunni Muslim women from the Columbus branch of the Turkish American Society of Ohio.

The Shias worship at the Ahlul-Bayt Society of Columbus, about a half-mile from the TASO office on Dublin-Granville Road west of Worthington, but they only recently met, linking up through Worthington Interfaith Neighbors. They gathered on Monday at the home of the group's co-founder Barbara McVicker, a member of St. John's Episcopal Church in Worthington.

"We don't want to live in a polarized world," Jafri said. "And we don't want to live in isolation. We want to know each other."

Extreme voices are often heard in the media, but these women live lives of moderation, said TASO member Gulcin Ozer, 40, of Worthington.

"As moderate people, we want to get together, and as we get together we see our commonalities are much more than our differences. So those are the things we want to highlight in this kind of gathering," said Ozer, a biomedical informatics researcher at Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center.

A hope is that the women's friendships can encourage similar bonds in their communities, said Nimet Alpay of TASO.

"Women are the true community builders, and they are family builders, they are relationship builders," said Alpay, 42, of Worthington. "I really value the togetherness of this group, women coming together, trying to reach out to each other and trying to learn from each other, and just being together and setting an example to others."

But, the women say, there are hurdles in the effort to encourage other Muslims to mingle with groups that are different from themselves. Many speak English as a second language, lack the confidence or knowledge to reach out or simply stick to the comfort zone of people who share the same cultural background.

TASO's women's group has branched out, holding conversation events and cooking classes. Recently, it hosted an interfaith gathering that allowed participants to try the art of Ebru. Alpay said such efforts take dedication to community outreach, volunteers and fundraising.

She first learned of Shia Muslims at a small Islamic center she attended as a doctoral student at Michigan State University 20 years ago.

"That was the first time I noticed the diversity in my own faith," said Alpay, a mathematics and statistics faculty member at Franklin University who is Sunni. "It was so beautiful. People came from different countries, from different backgrounds. ... They worshipped in the same way, in front of the same God, Allah. That was so empowering for me."

Saba Hashim, 38, of Powell, is an Iraqi-born Shia who grew up in Britain and has spent about 16 years in the United States, where she is studying to become a certified public accountant. She wasn't aware of the Sunni-Shia split until the Iraq War.

"It didn't even occur to me that a Sunni brother or sister would be different," she said.

Regardless of denomination, these Muslim women also find commonality in their disgust of Islamophobic rhetoric in the media and their loathing of extremists.

Ayser Hamoudi of Dublin, a Shia and retired physician, noted that many Muslims are among the victims of the brutal Daesh (ISIL or ISIS) militant group.

"These people know no religion. There's no way you can believe in a creator and do what they do," Hashim added. "No religion teaches hatred toward any of your brothers or countrymen or humans, and Islam is very much about brotherhood of humanity."

She said several members of her extended family have been killed in Iraq by suicide bombers.

"So we hate them just as much as the next person."

Source: Columbus Dispatch