Our Mission

Intercultural dialog is one of the major medicines to overcome humanity's common ills. Our world's durability depends, to a great extent, on the promotion of intercultural dialog. We also believe that establishment of dialog environments is a means to appreciate diverse opinions and eliminate the stereotypes often assigned to 'others.'

In that respect, Burç (pronounced Boorch) Intercultural Centre educates non-Muslims about Islam and Muslims about other faiths to establish mutual understanding and tolerance. To achieve this end, we invite and encourage sharing of various perspectives, partner with other religious and cultural organizations and organize educational activities such as seminars, lectures and discussion panels, all of which inspire and illuminate us as we endeavor to fulfill our mission. 
 
 Our Aims and Principles 
 
Our aims are to

• Spread intercultural and interreligious dialog at the grassroots level through meetings with diverse participants.

• Provide a medium where followers of different religions may meet each other and understand the issues by finding consensus among themselves.

• Spread common values of faiths in order to contribute to world peace.

• Cooperate with similar local and international organizations and work closely with them within the boundaries of our constitution.

We believe that

• Religions, languages and ethnicities exist so that we come together and learn from, not fight, each other.

• We share values in order to promote them; we share problems in order to solve them.

• Coexistence of civilizations is possible only through dialog in this age of globalization.

• The pillars of dialog are love, tolerance, compassion and forgiveness.

• Love is the essence of existence.

• Tolerance is our binding spirit.

• Compassion and forgiving are inclusive aspects of a harmonious society, in which individuals will flourish, community will arise.

• Diversity is our richness. Diversity without dialog causes hostility; dialog without diversity brings distortion.

"Come, come, whoever you are. 
Wanderer, idolater, worshipper of fire,  
Come even you have broken your vows a thousand times, 
Come, and come yet again. 
Ours is not a caravan of despair." 
-RUMI