FRANK PARMIR

PRESIDENT - MPV-COLUMBUS

Frank Parmir is a lifetime native of Columbus, Ohio. He is a retired carpenter and anti-nuclear weapons activist. Because he experienced such a common and casual tolerance for war and poverty within his society, Frank spent most of his adult life publically agitating for better ethics, but identifying himself as an atheist. After a visit to Konya on the eight hundredth anniversary of Rumi’s Union with God, Frank became deeply interested in Islamic Sufism. With subsequent readings of the Qur’an he found an ‘utterly magnificent description of the Infinite Power and Perfect Goodness of The One Reality.’ Frank and his wife took shahada at Masjid Omar in 2008. Visiting various nearby Mosques and finding none that would be welcoming of the their two lesbian daughters (should they embrace Islam) with full equality. Frank started MPV- Columbus which is the only inclusive mosque in Ohio, and perhaps the whole Midwest, with a regularly scheduled female khateeb.