Contemporary Muslim–Christian Encounters: Developments, Diversity, and Dialogues 9781472588531, 9781474220293, 9781472588548

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
List of Contributors
Preface
Foreword
Note on Transliteration
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Editor’s Introduction
1. Dialogue before Dialogue
2. The Contemporary Context of Muslim–Christian Dialogue
3. Can Those Chosen by God Dialogue with Others?
4. Interreligious Dialogue as Lay, Institutional, and Academic: Muslim Perspectives
5. Gender and Christian–Muslim Dialogue
6. Applying Sharia Principles of Religious Tolerance for the Protection of Children: Nigerian Religious Conflicts and Reconciliation among Muslims and Christians
7. Peace-building through Interreligious Dialogue: The DRC Model
8. Initiative and Response: The Future of Muslim–Christian Dialogue
9. Christian Responses to Islamophobia: A Practical Theological Reflection
10. Christian–Muslim Relations in the USA: A Postmodern Analysis after 9/11
11. “Bringing Faith Back In”: Muslim and Christian Approaches to Nuclear (Non)-Proliferation and Disarmament
12. Vatican and World Council of Church Initiatives: Weaving Interreligious Threads on Ecumenical Looms
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Contemporary Muslim–Christian Encounters

Also Available From Bloomsbury Interreligious Studies, Oddbjørn Leirvik Images of Jesus Christ in Islam, Oddbjørn Leirvik Loss and Hope, edited by Peter Admirand

Contemporary Muslim–Christian Encounters: Developments, Diversity, and Dialogues Paul Hedges

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2015 Paperback edition first published 2017 © Paul Hedges and Contributors, 2015 Paul Hedges has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editor of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-1-4725-8853-1 PB: 978-1-3500-2253-9 ePDF: 978-1-4725-8854-8 ePub: 978-1-4725-8855-5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Contemporary Muslim-Christian encounters : developments, diversity, and dialogues / edited by Paul Hedges. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4725-8853-1 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-4725-8854-8 (ePDF) – ISBN 978-1-4725-8855-5 (ePub) 1. Islam–Relations–Christianity. 2. Christianity and other religions–Islam. I. Hedges, Paul (Paul Michael), 1970BP172.C578 2015 297.2'83 – dc23 2015007530 Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd.

To Michael Hedges

Contents List of Contributors Preface, Leonard Swidler Foreword, Alan Race Note on Transliteration Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Editor’s Introduction, Paul Hedges 1 2

Dialogue before Dialogue, David Thomas The Contemporary Context of Muslim–Christian Dialogue, Paul Hedges 3 Can Those Chosen by God Dialogue with Others?, Reuven Firestone 4 Interreligious Dialogue as Lay, Institutional, and Academic: Muslim Perspectives, Khaleel Mohammed 5 Gender and Christian–Muslim Dialogue, Anne Hege Grung 6 Applying Sharia Principles of Religious Tolerance for the Protection of Children: Nigerian Religious Conflicts and Reconciliation among Muslims and Christians, Yusuff Jelili Amuda 7 Peace-building through Interreligious Dialogue: The DRC Model, Jean-Daniel Kabati 8 Initiative and Response: The Future of Muslim–Christian Dialogue, Douglas Pratt 9 Christian Responses to Islamophobia: A Practical Theological Reflection, Ray Gaston 10 Christian–Muslim Relations in the USA: A Postmodern Analysis after 9/11, Clinton Bennett 11 “Bringing Faith Back In”: Muslim and Christian Approaches to Nuclear (Non)-Proliferation and Disarmament, Shirin Shafaie 12 Vatican and World Council of Church Initiatives: Weaving Interreligious Threads on Ecumenical Looms, Clare Amos Notes Bibliography Index

viii xiii xv xvii xviii xix xx 1 17 33 51 67

83 99 117 135 151 167 185 201 213 238

List of Contributors Clare Amos serves as program executive and coordinator for the WCC’s interreligious dialogue and cooperation program and was previously director for Theological Studies in the Anglican Communion Office in the United Kingdom. She is the recipient of a Lambeth Doctorate in Divinity, awarded by the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams in recognition of Amos’ longterm contributions to ecumenical engagement, interreligious relations, and theological education. Yusuff Jelili Amuda studied and obtained his BA in Shariah from Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt, and completed his Master and doctoral in comparative Laws at the Ahmad Ibrahim Kulliyyah of Laws, Malaysia. He was later employed as Senior Lecturer at Sultan Idris Education University, Malaysia, from 2010 to 2012. He lectured at the Kulliyyah of Economics and Management Sciences, Malaysia, as Senior Lecturer from 2012 to 2014. He is currently lecturing at the Faculty of Law and International Relations, Sultan Zainal Abidin University, Gong Badak Campus, Terengganu, Malaysia. Clinton Bennett received his PhD in Islamic Studies from Birmingham University in 1990. An ordained Baptist minister, he has worked as a missionary in Bangladesh, co-pastor of a multi-racial inner city congregation in Birmingham, on the staff of the British Council of Churches, and as a College and University chaplain and teacher. Author of twelve books, he combines academic study of Islam with participation in interfaith dialogue, having served on World Council of Churches committees. Believing in practical bridge-building, he has advised local mosques, chaired a school governing body, and represented an NGO at the United Nations. He currently teaches at the State University of New York, New Paltz, USA. Reuven Firestone is one of the world’s leading authorities in Jewish-Muslim dialogue. He teaches in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California and Hebrew Union College and is the author of such texts as: An Introduction to Islam for Jews (JPS); Jihad (Oxford University Press); Holy War in Judaism (Oxford University Press); An Introduction to Judaism for Muslims (Ktav),

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translated into Arabic and Turkish; and, Who are the Real Chosen People? The Meaning of Chosenness in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Skylight Paths). Ray Gaston is an Anglican Priest, and an Authorized Minister in the Methodist Church, and a tutor at Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education in Birmingham, UK. He has vast experience of inner city parish ministry in multifaith contexts involving grassroots engagement with Islam. He has undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Theology and has also studied at the former Centre for Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at the University of Birmingham, at the Bat Kol Institute for Jewish Studies, and at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Centre, both in Jerusalem. He is author of A Heart Broken Open - Radical Faith in an Age of Fear (Iona Books, 2009) and has published articles and reviews in various publications. Ray is a member of the Inter Faith Theological Advisory Group of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland. He is Associate Priest in the Benefice of Edgbaston and Balsall Heath and lives in inner city Birmingham, UK. Anne Hege Grung attained the degree cand.theol from the University of Oslo in 1991 and became an ordained minister in the Church of Norway in 1992. She published Dialog med og uten slør (Dialogue with and without veil, Pax 2000) with Lena Larsen, then leader of the Norweigian Muslim Council. She has worked as a student chaplain, engaged in full time in interfaith dialogue work at the Emmaus center, Oslo, and was a PhD research fellow in the crossdisciplinary strategic university program CULCOM (“Cultural complexity in the new Norway”) from 2005 to 2011. In 2011, Grung defended her PhD thesis “Gender Justice in Muslim–Christian Readings: Christian and Muslim women in Norway making meaning of texts from the Bible, the Koran and the Hadith” at the University of Oslo. She is Associate Professor in Practical Theology at the Practical Theological Seminary, affiliated with the University of Oslo, and continues to be engaged in practical Muslim–Christian dialogue at national and local levels. Her present research explores how Muslim and Christian leaders relate to violence against women in Lebanon and Norway. She is a board member of the European Society for Intercultural Theology and Interreligious Studies (ESITIS). Paul Hedges is Associate Professor in Interreligious Studies at the Studies in Inter-Religious Relations in Plural Societies program, RSIS, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and has previously taught for British, Canadian, and Chinese universities. He has published widely in interfaith

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areas, including Preparation and Fulfilment (Peter Lang, 2001), Christian Approaches to Other Faiths, Core Text and Reader (both co-edited with Alan Race, SCM, 2008 and 2009), Controversies in Interreligious Dialogue and the Theology of Religions (SCM, 2010), Twenty-First Century Theologies of Religions (co-edited with Shanthi Hettiarachchi and Elizabeth Harris, Brill, due 2015). He is General Editor of the multivolume series Controversies in Contemporary Religion (Praeger, 2014), former co-editor of the Australian Religion Studies Review, and on the editorial board of the Journal of Religious History, and Studies in Interreligious Dialogue. Jean Daniel Kabati is currently the Program Director of Star for Life, an NGO focusing broadly on empowering young people to reach for their dreams as responsible and caring members of their communities. He is also the founder of African Peace Initiatives for Social Affirmation (APISA), promoting conflict resolution, peace building, and human rights awareness. His passion for African political, social, cultural, and economic challenges and utilizing interfaith dialogue as a tool in resolving these challenges culminated in the attainment of a Master of Arts in Religion and Social Transformation (“Role of Churches in Rebuilding Community Relations in South Kivu between 1996 and 2006”) and Master of Commerce in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution (“Tackling School Violence through Peace Education”). He has also presented papers on the role of religious groups in resolving conflicts in the African Great Lake region, including “Living in a Genocidal Society: The role of Churches in South Kivu between 1996 and 2008,” international seminar “Deliver Us from Evil: Genocide and the Christian World,” Grand Rapids, USA, and “Preventing genocide: the African Great Lake region” UN International Conference “The Holaucaust,” Yad Vashem, Israel, Jerusalem. Khaleel Mohammed is Professor of Religious Studies at San Diego State University. He is also a core faculty member of that university’s Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies. He obtained his doctorate in Islamic law from McGill University, Montreal, Canada, and read law at Muhammad bin Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Among his several publications are Coming to Terms with the Qur’an (2008), co-edited with Professor Andrew Rippin, and David in the Muslim Tradition (2014). Douglas Pratt is Professor of Religious Studies in the School of Social Sciences, University of Waikato, New Zealand, Adjunct Professor for Theology and Interreligious Studies in the Department of Old Catholic (Christkatholisch)

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Theology at the University of Bern, Switzerland, and an Adjunct Associate Professor (Research) of the School of Social and Political Inquiry at Monash University, Australia. He is the New Zealand Associate of the UNESCO Chair in Intercultural and Interreligious Relations—Asia Pacific, and an Associate of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Politics (CSRP) at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Recent book publications include Being Open, Being Faithful: The Journey of Interreligious Dialogue (Geneva: WCC Publications, 2014); The Church and Other Faiths: The World Council of Churches, the Vatican, and Interreligious Dialogue (Bern: Peter Lang, 2010); The Challenge of Islam: Encounters in Interfaith Dialogue (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005) and, with Gary Bouma (Uni. of Monash) and Rod Ling (Uni. of Manchester), Religious Diversity in Southeast Asia and the Pacific: National Case Studies (Dordrecht: Springer 2010). Together with David Cheetham and David Thomas, he co-edited and contributed to Understanding Interreligious Relations (Oxford: OUP, 2013). Alan Race is Rector of St Margaret’s Church, Lee, in south London. He has worked as a University Chaplain, an educator in theological education especially at St Philip’s Centre in Leicester where he was Dean of Postgraduate Studies and as a priest in multicultural parishes with responsibility for education in interfaith theology and practice. He has published in the Christian theology of religions and interfaith dialogue and is a member of various organizations which promote interfaith understanding. He is a member of Modern Church and the World Congress of Faiths and is sought after as a conference speaker on theological subjects. Books include the classic Christians and Religious Pluralism (SCM, 1983), Interfaith Encounter (SCM, 2001), Christian Approaches to Other Faiths (co-edited with Paul Hedges, textbook: 2008, reader: 2009), and Making Sense of Religious Pluralism (SPCK, 2013). Shirin Shafaie is a research scholar at the Centre for Muslim–Christian Studies (CMCS) in Oxford and a teaching fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS, University of London, where she completed her doctoral research on “Contemporary Iranian War Narratives.” Shafaie’s research interests are narrative theory, critical war studies and faith-based diplomacy. She has worked extensively with victims of chemical weapons and war-related mental illness and has been involved in a number of initiatives at the Tehran Peace Museum, and other civil-society movements, for interreligious peace and dialogue.

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Leonard Swidler is Founder and President of the Dialogue Institute, and Founding Editor of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies. He is Professor of Catholic Thought and Interreligious Dialogue in the Religion Department of Temple University, where he has taught since 1966. At Temple, and as a visiting professor at universities around the world – including Graz, Austria; Tübingen, Germany; Fudan University, Shanghai; and the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur – he has mentored a generation of US and international scholars in interreligious dialogue. He has a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the University of Tübingen and received his PhD in History from the University of Wisconsin; he also holds honorary doctorates from St Norbert’s College and LaSalle University. He has published more than 180 articles and 70 books, including: Jewish-Christian-Muslim Dialogue (1978); Religious Liberty and Human Rights (1986); After the Absolute: The Dialogical Future of Religious Reflection (1990); A Bridge to Buddhist-Christian Dialogue (1990); Muslims in Dialogue: The Evolution of a Dialogue over a Generation (1992); Jesus Was a Feminist (2007). The recipient of numerous international awards, he was most recently honored with the establishment of the endowed Leonard and Arlene Swidler Chair in Interreligious Dialogue at Temple University. David Thomas has been a specialist in Islam and Christian-Muslim relations for many years. After undergraduate work at Oxford, he worked in the northern Sudan, where his interest in Islam was kindled. He took this further in theological studies at Cambridge and in PhD research at Lancaster. He worked in parts of the UK for some years on relations between the churches and Muslim communities, and in 1993 he was appointed Lecturer at the Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Selly Oak. In 2004, he was promoted to Reader in the Department of Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham, and in 2007, was appointed Professor of Christianity and Islam. In 2011, he was made Nadir Dinshaw Professor of Interreligious Relations.

Preface Leonard Swidler

In 1978, Prof. Eugene Fisher (then in charge of Jewish-Catholic Relations for the US Catholic Bishops) and I were asked by Sargent Shriver, the founder of the American Peace Corps, to bring together twice a year ten Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scholars each to start down a new path, dialogue, creating thereby a neologism: Trialogue (Swidler 2011). There had, of course, been encounters starting already in seventh century Medina among Jews, Christians, and Muslims as recorded in the Qur’an. They started out well but did not remain so. These interreligious encounters were even less happy in the next decades with Muslim conquering armies racing across all, then mainly Christian, North Africa into Spain and central France (Battle of Tours, 732), the Middle East as far as India, and further in subsequent centuries, besieging Vienna as late as 1683. A Christian counter-attack occurred in the form of the Crusades starting in 1099. Dialogue, meaning, “I want to learn from you” in the area of religion (“the explanation of the ultimate meaning of life, and how to live accordingly”), “rarely if ever took place,” as David Thomas notes in this volume. The ten Muslim scholars we gathered worldwide soon decided to search for other dialogue-open Muslim scholars. Sadly, however, for twenty years they could not find any others in the whole world! If there were others, they apparently did not feel free to express their views. Then came the 9/11 attacks, which so shook the Muslim world that, after the initial shock wore off, Muslim leadership began to join the dialogue. The first dramatic move came from 138 Muslim scholars and religious leaders from around the world on 13 October 2007, when they issued the amazing public letter A Common Word Between Us and You, inviting Christians leaders and scholars to join with them in Dialogue (ACW 2007). Then, onto the stage of world interreligious dialogue strode King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the heartland of Islam. Having met Pope Benedict XVI in 2007, King Abdullah launched a “World Conference on Dialogue” with all the religions of the world in Spain, the land of the medieval “Golden Age” of

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interreligious dialogue—Convivencia—from 16 to 18 July 2008.1 The following year fourteen professors from Imam University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia came to the Dialogue Institute,2 Temple University, USA, for a week’s training in interreligious dialogue—and Muslim professors from there and elsewhere have continued to come every year. Clearly, there is a long way to go to transform the religious/cultural world into a globe of dialogue, but the move toward dialogue is no longer creeping along with infinitesimal steps. The move to Jewish-Christian-Muslim Trialogue is now beginning to accelerate at a noticeably, not arithmetically but exponentially, increasing speed. We are now reaching the “Tipping Point,” and this volume is precisely there!

Foreword Alan Race

The essayists in this collection are keen to emphasize that Christian-Muslim relations have always been shaped by a context, and that is a proper reminder. Whether we are discussing the seventh or the twenty-first century and the time-span between, whether we are in Baghdad, Jakarta, or Georgetown, if context is not acknowledged, then our understanding will not be advanced. If for no other reason than this insistence on context, this book is to be commended. Yet it has not always been so. Theologians and philosophers have assumed timeless truths and often inevitably in collision. Islamic Unitarianism versus Christian Trinitarianism, Islamic Prophethood versus Christian Incarnation, Islamic Mercy versus Christian Grace, and so on (all major themes in the history of Christian-Muslim encounter), they all actually have an historical context. Knowing this alone should make us pause before absorbing any unthinking “clash of religions” rhetoric (to adapt, though only slightly, a well-known phrase from a thesis which was also of its time and place). How to think about religious understanding and identity nowadays has become varied and contested. These essays offer their own contributions on to this fast-moving screen. Whether historically orientated or taking up themes within the mushrooming contemporary global interfaith dialogue, they seek to be truthful to what has been in order to assist a more positive future for what will be. Not all of the past is negative between Christians and Muslims, by any means, but the future nevertheless will need more robust theological and dialogical approaches by way of creating positive relations if it is to serve the world’s peace, which Christians and Muslims should have no trouble in imagining as also God’s peace. The time has long gone when we can write our histories and theologies in isolation from others. One meaning of globalization is that we have become interlinked as never before and in so many ways. But we have been linked too in previous eras and it is important to retrieve this knowledge. One role of scholarship is to help us unravel our histories in order that we see how we have been part and parcel of one another through time. Of course, we should

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not exaggerate this, but neither should it be thought insignificant as we seek a self-conscious Christian-Muslim relationship which will be both healing of past resentments and energizing for future rapprochement. There are many initiatives now around the world which seek to build bridges between Christians and Muslims. This is a sign of hope for the future, both religiously and politically. These initiatives are being explored in many settings, ranging from local neighborhoods to the United Nations. The future of religion is set to be shaped as much from the ground-up in a movement of citizens as from religious leadership top-down. Still, such welcome stirrings will require a diligent intellectual accompaniment if its impact is to bear fruit. It is hoped that these essays will add depth to a vibrant and emergent phenomenon around the world.

Note on Transliteration As this book is not aimed at linguistic specialists, simplified forms of Arabic have been employed avoiding diacritics, but where it is common we have some minimal usage, such as Qur’an, ‘Umar, etc. It may be suggested that specialists do not need the diacritics as they will recognize the relevant terms anyway, while non-specialists may find their inclusion confusing and off putting. We have also avoided italics for Arabic terms which are widely known in English, such as Hadith, Sharia, dhimmi, and fatwa, partly to avoid an “othering” of Islamic terminology. Italics and variant spellings are retained in quotations to preserve the original.

Acknowledgments Parts of chapter 6 previously appeared, co-authored with Dr Ahmad Sohaimi Lazim, as “Application of the Hudaybiyah Treaty in the Contemporary Issues: Case Study of Multiracial Society in Malaysia,” International Journal of Sustainable Development (2012, 3:3, 51-66). An earlier version of chapter 8 previously appeared as “An Uncommon Call: Prospect for a New Dialogue with Muslims?,” Asian Christian Review (2008, 2:2&3, 36-53). The editor, publisher, and respective authors are thankful for permissions.

List of Abbreviations AB

Alliance of Baptists

ACW

A Common Word

AMC

American Muslim Council

ATR

African Traditional Religions

BWA

Baptist World Alliance

CAIR

Council on Islamic American Relations

CDF

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

CoE

Church of England

EDL

English Defence League

FBI

Federal Bureau of Investigation (USA)

IAEA

International Atomic Energy Agency

ISNA

Islamic Society of North America

MSA

Muslim Students’ Association

NAE

National Association of Evangelicals

NCC

The National Council of the Churches of Christ (USA)

NOI

Nation of Islam

PBS

Public Broadcasting Service

PCID

Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue

PCPCU

Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity

USCCB

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

WCC

World Council of Churches

WICS

World Islamic Call Society

WMD

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Editor’s Introduction Paul Hedges

The question of Muslim–Christian dialogue is a key issue in the contemporary global context as Alan Race notes in his Foreword and as becomes clear from a number of the contributions herein. It is hoped that the essays in this volume will help provide resources for students, scholars, and practitioners concerned with this issue, covering theoretical concerns as well as practical examples and suggestions. The debate is complicated by its entanglement with various geopolitical contexts, as well as being entwined with other debates and dialogues, notably with Judaism, as Leonard Swidler discusses in his Preface, as well as secularism—which may be said to act as what I term a “Shifting Third,” a concept introduced and discussed in this book. It should be mentioned that this text sits within a variety of disciples, such as Theology, Religious Studies, Dialogue Studies, Islamic Studies, History of Religions, Sociology of Religion, and Peace Building, but, importantly, I would also locate it within Interreligious Studies (see Leirvik 2014). As such, while an academic text it recognizes that academics are also actors within the broader world and does not accept a clear division between “Insider” (or practitioner, subjective) positions and “Outsider” (or scholarly, objective) positions. Indeed, many of the writers combine roles as academics and practitioners in dialogue and activism. Therefore, this text has a place both within scholarly debate and as a contribution to the ongoing process of Muslim–Christian dialogue. The text originates in a conference held in 2008 at the University of Winchester, UK, entitled “Interfaith Dialogue in Modernity and PostModernity” and co-organized by Leonard Swidler, Alan Race, and the editor. However, it is far from being a book of the conference; many papers were published elsewhere, further chapters were subsequently commissioned for the present project, and all the original papers have been updated and amended. The papers which originate with that original conference are those of: Reuven Firestone, Khaleel Mohammad, Yusuff Jelili Amuda, Jean-Daniel Kabati, and Ray Gaston. Given the plethora of texts emerging addressing the issue of dialogue, it is worthwhile mentioning what this text adds to the

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conversation. First, it adds an up-to-date discussion on many issues, seeking to show where the early twenty-first century debate is moving, and assessing the current state of play, as such while some essays take a historical glance they do so with an eye to the present and future. Second, it takes seriously the entanglement of Trialogue (Muslim–Jewish–Christian dialogue) as an aspect of Muslim–Christian dialogue and encounter, a question addressed by a number of the authors within their chapters. Third, it seeks to show something of the complexity and diversity of contemporary dialogues, indeed, the arenas of encounter are so diverse, there is no attempt to be comprehensive which would be impossible and superficial; nevertheless, we hope to have covered a significant range of contemporary issues. Fourth, the essays do not shy away from the tensions and conflicts within dialogue, acknowledging that Muslim–Christian violence and conflict is real and considers the problems of understanding. However, the essays also address potential ways to resolve and avoid conflicts and make positive suggestions for interaction. Fifth, the essays are global in their approach and so bring together voices and contexts not often discussed within the standard literature and include both Muslim and Christian voices in this discussion. They also often highlight grassroots practitioner approaches, work at regional and national level, as well as discussion of major international initiatives. Sixth, by including a range of both issues and case studies, there is both theoretical and theological as well as empirical and phenomenological perspectives, giving a wide ranging discussion—indeed, the chapters are not neatly divided between the two. As such, the text will be of interest to seasoned scholars and professionals, as well as students and practitioners, all of whom will find new perspectives and discussion. It is hoped that the text will be of use as a textbook for upper level and postgraduate courses in the area, as a resource for scholars, and as a source of information for practitioners in the field. Introducing the chapters, we begin with David Thomas’ contribution which does not address contemporary Muslim–Christian encounters but considering “Dialogue before Dialogue,” lays out some of the history of the fourteen hundred or so years that have seen the two traditions interacting and which affects present-day relations between them. This chapter reflects a truism that the present can only be understood in relation to the past, and so this groundwork provides an important introduction to the whole text. The historical theme, to some degree, is continued with Paul Hedges’ chapter which sets out “The Contemporary Context of Muslim–Christian Dialogue” which in charting the geopolitical factors involved necessarily does so in terms of the historical

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engagement and, charting some aspects of events of the last couple of hundred years, compliments Thomas’ chapter. This chapter also looks at questions of the diversity of encounters, the theological trouble spots, and introduces the concept of the “Shifting Third”: the way that Muslim–Christian encounter never occurs in a vacuum but always in relation to some other factor. Reuven Firestone also takes us into some medieval history as he explores an important question: “Can Those Chosen by God Dialogue with Others?” That is to say, he explores the notion of election as it is worked out through ideas originating in Jewish terms, as the fountain source of both Islam and Christianity. Exploring Menachem Hame’iri and Nicholas of Cusa, he suggests these two figures found a way to balance the exclusive demands of their traditions with an openness to learn from and appreciate the religious Other, which can hold lessons for contemporary conceptualizations. Khaleel Mohammad looks at the question of “Interreligious Dialogue as Lay, Institutional, and Academic” by asking who, and how, dialogue can be engaged in from a Muslim perspective. As a Muslim he is critical of some ways other Muslims engage in dialogue, or fail, as he sees it, to have a truly dialogic approach. He also addresses the issue of representation and the challenges facing Muslims in the US and elsewhere as representatives of their tradition. Also addressing issues of representation, Anne Hege Grung tackles the ever present subject of “Gender and Muslim–Christian Dialogue.” She looks at issues involved, such as the lack of institutional female representation in many traditions, and the worries that male dialoguers sometimes have with their own female co-religionists, as well as the practice of women’s dialogue. Taking a case study from her own research, she looks at the way that Christian and Muslim feminist approaches on the scriptural resources of each tradition can bring about meaningful exchange. Yusuff Jelili Amuda engages the ethno-religious conflicts in Nigeria, facing up to the fact that they contain a religious element. Looking to the resources of Qur’an and Sharia, he argues that traditional Islamic law and approaches provide a framework for peaceful co-existence in Nigeria between Muslims and Christians placing particular emphasis upon children by “Applying Sharia Principles of Religious Tolerance for the Protection of Children.” Staying in Africa, Jean-Daniel Kabati’s focus is the Democratic Republic of Congo where he argues for “Peace-building through Interreligious Dialogues.” Kabati builds a particularly Christian model, but one which he argues looks to pan-African initiatives and may hold principles applicable beyond the Christian tradition and outside the DRC. Douglas Pratt looks at both Muslim

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and Christian traditions in his chapter entitled “Initiative and Response” which looks at two Christian-led dialogue initiatives, but in more detail at one Muslim one: A Common Word (2007). He suggests that the meaningful theological exchanges and debates opened up by these initiatives hold much promise for the future. Ray Gaston focuses upon a specific UK context, looking at “Christian Responses to Islamophobia,” in what he terms “A Practical Theological Reflection.” Based upon two field studies with local activists he looks at ways that Christians and Muslims on the ground in the London suburb of Tower Hamlets and the Northern English city of Bradford have responded to the English Defence League, a right-wing, anti-Islamic movement. Clinton Bennett, in turn, focuses on the USA, examining “Christian-Muslim relations in the USA” in the period after 9/11. He looks at the way that Islam has been portrayed, represented, and responded to in both positive and negative ways by a variety of Christian groups. Looking at Iran, but also other Islamic and Western nations, Shirin Shafaie discusses “ ‘Bringing Faith Back In’: Muslim and Christian Approaches to Nuclear (Non)-Proliferation and Disarmament.” Exploring movements for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, she shows that rather different discourses have developed depending upon the context of Muslim or Christian thinkers in their respective countries. She argues that although often undervalued in wider discussions, religious narratives could and should have a key role in these discussions. In the final chapter, Clare Amos looks at “Recent World Council of Churches and Vatican Initiatives” in Muslim–Christian dialogue. As leading Christian voices in the global debate, the work of both plays a key role in the kind of responses and events taking place and in mediating relations between the two traditions in international and local contexts. The author uses her insider knowledge of the WCC to explore trends and recent developments.

1

Dialogue before Dialogue David Thomas

Introduction During the last years of the Prophet Muhammad’s life, and particularly following his death in 632, Islamic rule extended over a vast area that included much of the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires. The populations of Egypt, the Fertile Crescent and Mesopotamia were at this time predominantly Christian, which meant that by about 650 there were vastly more Christians than Muslims within what was rapidly developing into the Islamic Empire. This situation continued for some centuries. As the new structures of the Islamic state developed, Christians were frequently given roles in which they could exert influence and attract respect, particularly as medical doctors, secretaries to high officials, and translators from Greek and Syriac of texts into Arabic that monolingual Muslim intellectuals eagerly welcomed. The knowledge and expertise that many possessed brought them into regular and often intimate contact with Muslims and, at least in the early centuries of Islam, there are few indications that they regarded themselves as at all inferior—spiritually, intellectually, or culturally. Like other dhimmis (communities of non-Muslims who were accorded recognized status by virtue of possessing a revealed scripture), their lives were regulated in theory by the “Pact of ‘Umar,” which supposedly went back to the second caliph. This imposed a range of restrictions on non-Muslim participation in Islamic society, among them the requirement to distinguish themselves in public by their dress and the prohibition against occupying a position superior to any Muslim. But this Pact does not appear to have been implemented systematically, and certainly not with sufficient regularity for any Christian to feel unduly burdened by it. The knowledge that it existed may well have produced a consciousness that

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Christians and Muslims were not entirely on the same footing, but Christians do not appear to have felt greatly hampered in going about their business.

Early meetings and questions In circumstances of considerable Christian populations in Muslim society and of Christians possessing knowledge and expertise that Muslims sought, it was inevitable that followers of the two faiths mingled together on a daily basis and that meetings between them led to both formal and informal exchanges about matters of religion. Over the course of the early centuries, a considerable body of literature grew up on the basis of these exchanges, some of it demonstrating a remarkable amount of knowledge and understanding of the other’s religion. But whether any of this can be called dialogue is debatable. If dialogue in this context is understood as the agreement of the followers of two or more religious traditions to explore together their beliefs with respect and the openness to be persuaded and potentially changed, then in early Islamic society, and in numerous situations in later times where Muslims and Christians gave thought to the beliefs and way of life of the other, dialogue rarely if ever took place. The main reason is that on both sides were beliefs that imposed insurmountable barriers against respecting the other as equal in faith. On the Christian side was the belief that, in the person of Jesus Christ, God had spoken finally and acted decisively, so there was no need for further revelations after him. The consequence was that as Christians learnt about Muhammad and Islam, at best they could see this faith as doing no more than following the tradition of Abraham and thus preparing for the Gospel (it is strongly implied in a number of Christian works that Muhammad was sent by God specifically to bring the pagan Arabs and no others to an elementary form of monotheism) and at worst a travesty of Christian truth that had been patched together on the basis of the Bible and borrowings from heretical Christian sources (the shadowy figure of the Christian monk Bahira, who in Muslim biographies meets Muhammad as a young man, is routinely invoked here, and he is often identified as an Arian heretic). Muhammad was typically exposed as a fraud, and in medieval European imaginations as demonically inspired, often motivated by ambition for power, greed for wealth, and lust for women, while the Qur’an was dismissed as a ridiculous mishmash of misunderstood biblical teachings. There are traces of such attitudes on

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the part of Christians from very early in the history of encounters, and their effects on understandings of Muslims and respect for their beliefs is predictable. Muslims in their presupposed attitudes toward Christians were taught by the Qur’an that Islam was the culmination of God’s dealings with the world. He had sent a succession of prophetic messengers to the various communities, each given a revealed message that would enable his community to comply with God’s will for it. The last message was the Qur’an, and the final messenger, the “seal of the prophets” (Q. 33:40), was not the local preacher sent to the Arabs alone that some Christians said, but a messenger with a universal appeal. In addition, the Qur’an taught explicitly that Jesus, as one of the messengers before Muhammad, was no more than a human being who denied being divine or Son of God (Q. 5:116–17) and did not die on the cross (Q. 4:157), and it contained hints that Jewish, and by extension Christian, scripture had been tampered with and thus not only included teachings that corrupted the original emphasis on the pure oneness of God but also excluded the predictions of the coming of Muhammad (though Jesus’ promise of the Paraclete in his final discourse in the Gospel of John was identified as a remnant of these). The consequence was that when Muslims met Christians, they did so with a pre-formed understanding of who these people were and what they believed, and they tended to regard them as deficient in faith because the errors they had allowed to creep into their Gospel had led them to construct seriously erroneous doctrines such as the Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement. While Muslims did not level insults at Jesus, in the way Christians did at Muhammad, they saw Christians as in need of proper teachings that would bring them out of their confusion and error into the truth of true monotheistic purity. Both Christians and Muslims tended to look on the other as deviant or decayed versions of themselves: Christians seeing Muslims as deviant because they claimed to add to the truth that had been revealed in supreme form in the person of Christ and Muslims seeing Christians as decayed because they had allowed their scripture to become distorted and had used it to produce teachings that were degenerate. Both sides looked down on the other, and either ridiculed the errors they identified or constructed arguments they were confident would prove the mistakenness of the other and the truth of their own position. Meeting as spiritual equals was more or less out of the question. The Qur’an itself makes clear that it originated in an environment that was heavily influenced by biblical teachings and the presence of Jewish and Christian teachings. Its versions of prophetic stories from the Bible and of

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deuterocanonical developments of these as well as explicit statements about and references to Jews and Christians make this amply clear. What is strikingly significant is that in every instance of a story that has a reference in earlier scripture, the account is shaped so as to make God the central character and often the main actor. Thus, to take one small example, in the two references to Jesus making clay shapes of birds and then breathing into them so that they take wing and fly, he does so not from himself but bi-idhn Allah, “by God’s leave,” suggesting that the power for the miracle comes from God (Q. 3:49, 5:110). This compares starkly with the account in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, where it is the boy Jesus himself who performs the miracle without reference to any power outside him. This constant recasting of stories suggests a process of encounter with the earlier biblical versions and, it might be surmised, debate and discussion over their true meaning and significance. What may have been involved in this can no longer be known for sure, although the Qur’an does contain a reference to Muhammad’s detractors arguing that he has picked up his teachings from people he has spoken with (Q. 16:103). If there is any substance in this, it suggests something approaching a dialogue in which Muhammad (assuming he was responsible for the Qur’an in its present form) learnt it from others and then in turn offered his own version of what he had heard, revising this and replacing emphases he thought had been lost. Another verse offers a different view and is the closest the Qur’an comes to speaking about dialogue: Say! O people of the scripture come to a common word between us and you: that we shall worship none but God, and that we shall ascribe no partner to him, and that none of us shall take others for lords beside God (Q. 3:64).

The historical context of this verse cannot be known, though its contents suggest a situation in which an attempt was made to explain and persuade people of the truth of the monotheistic vision enunciated in the Qur’an, rather than simply declaring it and leave the matter at that. (It was for this reason that the irenic letter sent in 2007 by 138 Muslim scholars to Christian leaders, to demonstrate how Muslims and Christians share love for God and for neighbor, was entitled A Common Word 2007). However, while this verse may provide a warrant for dialogue, it has hardly ever been followed. The Sirat Rasul Allah (Biography of the Messenger of God) by Muhammad ibn Ishaq (d. 767), the earliest extant biographical account of Muhammad, contains the story of a deputation of Christians from the town of Najran in

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Yemen coming to Muhammad soon after 622 when he arrived in Medina and conversing with him about matters of faith, and particularly the nature of Jesus, in which Muhammad recites to them a long passage that was supposedly revealed to him and now makes up the beginning of Sura 3 of the Qur’an. Again, this may reflect an instance of dialogue, although it is not difficult to see in Ibn Ishaq’s narrative a dramatized framing of the context in which the extended passage about Jesus was revealed. If there ever was a historical meeting between a Christian group and Muhammad in which a discussion was held about the different perceptions of Jesus in the Qur’an and Christian tradition (and it is unlikely that at the beginning of the period of his life in Medina, when he was hardly known to the outside world and had made little impact, deputations would come to seek him out), it may have been less onesided than it is portrayed here. As it has come down, the debate is one in which the Christians have good arguments, but they are silenced by the revelation to Muhammad of who Jesus was and are asked to undergo an ordeal together with Muhammad to see who is lying (Guillaume 1955: 270–7). This sets the tenor for debates for centuries afterwards, with one side or the other often referring to higher authority, in the form of superior reason, revelation, or armed force, to support their position.

Caliphs and patriarchs Owing to their vastly greater numbers in the population within the early Islamic Empire, Christians could not be ignored by their Muslim rulers, and the leaders of the churches often enjoyed considerable esteem and respect from the caliph and his advisers. For even though the Pact of ‘Umar prohibited Christians and other dhimmis from carrying weapons, common sense required the Muslim ruler to treat them with care. This was certainly the case with the Nestorian Patriarch Timothy I (d. 823), one of the most energetic leaders in the history of the church, who appears to have been free to enter the palace and the caliph’s presence at will. He was impressively learned, and enviably diplomatic in his dealings with the Muslim authorities, though he could still not imagine that as leader of the Christians in the empire, which is how the Nestorian patriarch was regarded by the ‘Abbasids, he would be treated as anything like an equal by the leader of the Muslims. One of the best-known encounters between a Christian and a Muslim is the encounter (sometimes loosely called a dialogue, though more appropriately an

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apology) between Timothy and the ‘Abbasid Caliph al-Mahdi in the year 782. This has come down in the form of a letter written by Timothy himself to a Christian friend, in which he describes at length the debate that took place between the caliph and himself over the course of two days. Their discussions ranged over most of the major differences between the two faiths, with Timothy repeatedly demonstrating his diplomatic skills in the face of intense pressure in order to avoid either insulting the caliph with answers that would offend a Muslim or losing the argument by conceding the deficiency of a Christian teaching. This is supremely exemplified in his reply to al-Mahdi’s question about who Muhammad was, with the risk of incurring punishment if he denounced Muhammad as a fraud or incurring ridicule from Muslims and anger from Christians if he acknowledged him as a prophet. Timothy’s answer is a marvel of diplomatic ambiguity: “[Muhammad] walked in the path of the prophets, and trod in the tracks of the lovers of God” (Mingana 1928: 197), satisfying Muslims with the hint that Muhammad was the equal of the prophets of old and suggesting to Christians that he was inferior to the prophets because he came after them and no more than a borrower of their ideas with no originality of his own. Even though Timothy himself recounts all that happened in this formal meeting, and might therefore be expected to exaggerate details such as his own prowess and the completeness of his answers, unless he heavily rewrote what actually took place, it is evident that the caliph found this debate with him engaging. Indeed, al-Mahdi’s contributions show that he had made careful preparations by finding out what was thought among Muslim scholars about Christian teachings on God, Jesus, and the Bible. But while Timothy shines out by the deftness and completeness of his statements, it is clear that in this encounter he feels under pressure to answer questions put by the caliph; the reverse hardly ever happens. By no stretch of the imagination can this be regarded as a dialogue in which minds that were receptive to new ideas met and explored possibilities together. Rather, it was a meeting between a ruler who was confident in the power he had at his command and the analysis of Christianity his advisers had given him, and a religious leader who possessed long experience in using words to resolve awkward situations and was in turn confident in the truth of his faith. While the meeting is engaging to read about, with arguments impressive to ponder, it was a formal encounter (possibly even rehearsed by both sides) in which there could be no possibility of the interlocutors influencing one another and no possibility

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of them revising their respective views. There was too much at stake for this to happen, because to abandon a belief implied the weakness of the faith of which it was a constituent part. This encounter between the caliph and the Nestorian patriarch is one of the earliest examples of a kind of formal meeting that was regularly held in ‘Abbasid times. Known as majalis (sing. majlis), from the verbal root jalasa, “to be seated,” they were rarely the sedate occasions for considered deliberation that this derivation suggests. A series of representative scholars would be assembled, often leaders of Muslim, Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian, and other traditions, and they would debate an issue together, the aim of each participant being to come up with arguments that his competitors could not better or to silence his opponents by asking questions that could not be answered or by giving answers that could not be challenged. In the frequently heated confrontations that took place, reputations might be destroyed or certainties shaken to the point of collapse, and notions of open exchange of ideas between unbiased minds perish before they were properly formed (Stroumsa 1999). In the presence of the caliph or senior members of the court, who often sat in the audience, it is likely that each participant would take elaborate precautions against making a mistake and would wish to seize any opportunity to wrong-foot his opponent. In the atmosphere this generated, careful and collaborative exploration of differing ideas toward a consensus would simply not happen. Some, like Timothy, might consider themselves fortunate to emerge relatively unscathed—“I left [the caliph] and returned in peace to my patriarchal residence” (Mingana 1928: 226)—others fled in ignominy and some even withdrew from public life. The one possible exception to the strained atmosphere of these debates was the series of seven sessions that took place in about 1026 between the Nestorian Patriarch Elias of Nisibis and Abu l-Qasim al-Husayn ibn ‘Ali l-Maghribi, vizier of the Muslim ruler of Mayyafariqin. According to Elias’s account of their debates, the two exchanged detailed views about the main elements of their two faiths in a cordial atmosphere, and the Muslim seems not only to have allowed the Christian to explain his faith and accepted his arguments but asked theologically intelligent questions (Monferrer Sala 2010). If the accounts of these sessions, which it is worth remembering were all written down by Elias, do not exaggerate the forbearance of the vizier and flatter his theological abilities, the meetings must have led to unusually fruitful understanding.

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Textual representations of the Other A European convention that roughly corresponds to the Arab majlis was first alluded to in the mid-twelfth century by Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny (d. 1156). In response to the number of Muslims he witnessed living under Christian rule in northern Spain, he conceived the idea of having translations made of key works from Arabic into Latin. This armarium would equip Christian theologians to show Muslims their errors in a peaceful alternative to the armed confrontations that had by this time been waged by crusading armies in Syria and Palestine for half a century, and was intended to settle differences of faith between Christians and Muslims once and for all. Of course, his assumption was that the proofs for Christianity would prevail. As he explains in the essay accompanying the translations of Arabic texts, his intention in making them was “to follow that custom of the Fathers by which they never silently passed by any heresy of their times, not even the slightest … without resisting it with all the strength of faith and demonstrating, both through writings and discussions, that it is detestable” (Kritzeck 1964: 37). This idea of producing considered arguments on the basis of sound knowledge about the other faith continued to prove attractive to Christian scholars in Europe for some centuries. It was later advocated by the Catalan Franciscan Ramon Lull (d. 1315–16), who passionately lobbied for teaching positions in Arabic to be established in European universities, so that Christians could learn about Muslim beliefs in order to overturn them, and who invented what he regarded as an infallible method for proving the truth of Christianity. His Libre del gentil i dels tres savis (Book of the Gentile and Three Wise Men), which consists of arguments put forward by a Jew, Muslim, and Christian before an impartial seeker after truth, comes close to the modern idea of a dialogue, with the debate between them well-mannered and calm, and there is no obvious triumph at the end for any one faith because the gentile does not divulge who has convinced him most. However, close reading shows that the gentile identifies fatal flaws in the arguments presented by the Jew and the Muslim, and the latter’s faith is shown to be simply irrational. A later and even more impressive example of this genre was Nicholas of Cusa’s De pace fidei (The Peace of Faith), which embodies the form of the contraferentia, an actual meeting that was advocated by his contemporary Juan de Segovia (d. 1458), in truly heavenly—if unrealistically idealized—form. This fifteenth-century masterpiece in many ways sums up the pre-modern notion

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of a meeting between Christians, Muslims, and others in order to explore differences and commonalities (see below), though the sentiments expressed within it can also be discerned in less complete form in other earlier writings as well. One of these is the apparently unpromising Radd ‘ala l-thalath firaq min al-Nas. ara (Refutation of the Three Christian Sects) by the mid-ninth-century Baghdad Muslim Abu ‘Isa Muhammad ibn Harun al-Warraq, a shadowy figure who was routinely vilified by later Muslims for his uncomfortable challenges to received Muslim beliefs but whose lost Kitab maqalat al-nas wa-ikhtilafihim (The Book of the Teachings of People and the Differences Between Them) was an acknowledged authority on the variety of religions of the day, especially the dualist religions of Persia. The Radd ‘ala l-Nas. ara is a comprehensive exploration and logical demolition of the two Christian doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation, presenting sophisticated proofs of how they do not conform to logic, are inherently inconsistent, and degenerate unavoidably into positions which their own advocates deny (Thomas 1992, 2002). In this respect, the work does not differ noticeably from a host of others that were written by Muslim theologians in the period when speculative theology in Islam was in the ascendant, between about 800 and 1000, except possibly in its length and the incredible intricacy of its arguments. But it stands out from nearly every other work that is known from this period for the extraordinarily detailed knowledge of Christianity exhibited within it. This feature of the work is evident most conspicuously in the introduction, a relatively short section in which Abu ‘Isa gives a summary of Christian beliefs (Thomas 1992: 66–77). Here he presents a detailed description of the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation, and a brief account of the origins of the Nicene Creed. What he says about the latter illustrates the extent of his knowledge of Christianity: The community of Christians already possessed a view about the Trinity and the act of Uniting [between the divine and human natures in Christ] before the split into Jacobites, Melkites and Nestorians. They agreed on it when Arius initiated a controversy about the Trinity and summoned to his belief. Their bishops and leaders met together and published a repudiation of this man, setting down the views they had agreed upon that day (Thomas 1992: 72–3).

He goes on to give a summary of the Creed itself. The important point to notice with respect to this short account is that Abu ‘Isa does not allude to it again. It

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is no more than background detail that helps to explain why Christians hold onto two doctrines that, as he shows at great length, subvert the logical belief in strict monotheism. But they are not necessary to his refutation, because this proceeds in the manner of many later Muslim polemical works (many of which draw arguments from it) by analyzing the Christian doctrines as rational statements separated from any context or any system of beliefs that might help to give them meaning. This brief historical passage appears to hint at fuller knowledge about the Council of Nicea and raises the possibility that the lost Kitab maqalat al-nas, which Abu ‘Isa says is the source of the information he gives about Christian doctrines here (Thomas 1992: 70–71), may have contained much fuller accounts of the development of Christian doctrines. It reveals what seems to be a sense of curiosity about Christianity and an interest that goes beyond the immediate needs of refutation. This may have been some sort of purely antiquarian interest, though the Radd ‘ala l-Nas. ara, Abu ‘Isa’s only work that survives in any form approaching its original length, gives few hints about anything besides the immediate intellectual onslaught against the Trinity and Incarnation. However this apparent interest is to be described, it reveals a desire to make sense of the other and to understand the reasons why they hold the beliefs they do. These are sentiments that at least form the preconditions for dialogue. While in all likelihood it will never be possible to say what motivated Abu ‘Isa, it is not irrelevant that in the Islamic tradition he was known for his very objective descriptions of dualism (again in the Kitab maqalat al-nas). It cannot be a coincidence that he was accused of being a dualist himself, suggesting that his interest in this faith, like his interest in Christianity, was much wider than the immediate requirements of polemic, revealing a desire to find out about the religious position of the other and understand it rather than rushing to judge them on the basis of preset criteria. The attitude detectable in this ninth century work is mirrored in Latin works by European Christians from a few centuries later. The twelfth-century Itinerarium, a record of the diplomatic journey made by a certain Burchard on behalf of the Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa in 1175, contains detailed accounts of the devotions conducted by Muslims as well as Christians in the churches dedicated to Mary at Matariyya near Cairo and Saydnaya near Damascus. What is striking about these accounts is that their vivid descriptions of Muslim beliefs and customs, including an accurate summary of the Christology of the Qur’an, are virtually free of polemic and reveal a keen interest in this other faith and its followers (Tolan 2008: 101–12). Again, in Liber Peregrinationis, about a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and journey on to Baghdad made in

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the late thirteenth century, the Dominican Riccoldo da Monte di Croce (d. 1320) expresses perplexity at witnessing the followers of a religion that is wholly perfidious in itself performing acts of deep prayerful devotion and commendable deeds of charity that compel him to admire, almost against his will (George-Tvrtković 2012: 43–72 and passim). Like Abu ‘Isa, both Burchard and Riccoldo have no doubt that this other faith is wrong, even diabolical, but they are evidently intrigued by it and have taken steps to discover something about its teachings and the spiritual expressions of its adherents. Another work from the Arab world, dating from over 400 years after Abu ‘Isa’s refutation, and just a decade after Riccoldo’s pilgrimage book, contains enough evidence about its origins and intentions to allow somewhat less tentative judgments and to identify it as maybe one of the first gestures of dialogue between Christians and Muslims. This was the letter that was sent by Christians on Cyprus to two leading Muslim scholars in Damascus in the early fourteenth century. It appears to have been a sincere attempt at increasing Muslim understanding of Christianity and in securing agreement that it is condoned by the Qur’an and its doctrines upheld. It is possible to say something about the purpose and intentions of this letter owing to the fact that it is a revised version of an earlier letter and can be compared with it. This letter was written by a Christian named Paul of Antioch, who was Bishop of Sidon. Almost nothing is known about him, although it seems safe to date him to the years around 1200. He wrote a letter, purportedly to a Muslim friend, in which he explained why Christians did not convert to Islam and did not need to. The main reasons he gives is that the Qur’an explicitly states that it is an Arabic scripture intended solely for Arabs and that there are confirmations in the Qur’an of the integrity of Christianity and its doctrines. In a way that corresponds to some Muslims interpreting verses in the Bible as predictions of Muhammad and Islam, Paul seeks to demonstrate that the Qur’an, when it is read properly, upholds Christianity. Of course, in order to sustain this argument he has to be selective in the verses he quotes, and he is also forced in places to give them a strained interpretation or even in some places to change their wording (Thomas 2001: 208–13). It is difficult to see how a Muslim who had a firm grasp on his faith and knew his scripture could be convinced by what Paul makes of it. This letter became sufficiently well-known in the thirteenth century to attract a fierce rebuttal from at least one Muslim. Then, just about a century after it was written, an unknown Christian on Cyprus, probably a Nestorian (Treiger 2013), revised it. The result was a rather different work, much less

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polemical in tone and more respectful toward Islam and the Qur’an. The author is more careful to translate verses in full and to give less contorted interpretations of their meaning, and he frequently replaces Paul’s contentious arguments with much less acerbic points of his own. The result is a cumulative presentation of Christianity as the climax of God’s engagement with the world, superseding Judaism and confirmed by Islam. Both the Bible, which he argues is authentic, and the Qur’an attest to this. The awkward implication of what this anonymous reviser contends is, of course, that there is no need for Islam. He is forced to acknowledge this toward the conclusion of his arguments when he explains that the law of grace replaces the law of justice. The law of grace could only be revealed by God taking on a human essence, which both the Bible and Qur’an declare as perfection, and: after such perfection there is nothing left to institute, because everything that preceded it necessitated it, and there is no need for what came after it. For nothing can come after perfection and be superior, but it will be inferior or derivative from it, and there is no need for what is derivative (Ebied and Thomas 2005: 144–5).

This was embarrassing for such an irenic work, and it proved explosive because it provoked the Muslim recipients of the letter to write two of the longest rejoinders that are known in the history of relations between the faiths. But it was inevitable. The author was attempting to prove that Muslims should not and could not discount Christianity because it was supported by reason, the Bible (which could be shown to be authentic), and the Qur’an itself. He was thus inviting Muslims to reconsider and to entertain the possibility that Christianity might be allowed a place alongside Islam. As he rather naïvely says in his concluding words: “Praise and blessing be to God, for he has brought unanimity of view and put an end to suspicion between his servants, the Christians and Muslims, may God protect them all!” (Ebied and Thomas 2005: 146–7). His letter is a carefully constructed attempt to get Muslims to join in a dialogue in which former attitudes are relinquished and the foundations re-examined. But on the basis of the understanding that the different claims are of a single and entire perception of truth rather than varied and partial visions that might accommodate and even complement one another, he must inevitably promote his own faith as the finality of truth and therefore all-sufficient. This is the predictable outcome of the medieval religious outlook.

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Despite its rather disappointing conclusion, this anonymous letter contains hints, albeit never realized, that Islam and Christianity might reach some form of reconciliation as long as each side was prepared to see in the other elements of truth and integrity that had not been recognized before. This aspiration is taken further in the very unusual fifteenth-century work, De pace fidei, written in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Constantinople in 1453 by the German cardinal and leading intellect of his day, Nicholas of Cusa. Like Peter the Venerable he favored intellectual confrontation between the religions instead of armed combat, and like Ramon Lull he believed that resolution of the differences between them was possible through rational argument. But he developed ideas from his predecessors in a manner that none of them had earlier conceived. De pace fidei is conceived in the form of a heavenly debate between representatives of the major faiths, in the presence of God himself. Led by the Apostles Peter and Paul, together with the Word of God, they speak about their mutual differences, and through their debates it is gradually demonstrated that beneath these differences lies a single set of abiding beliefs. As the angel who opens the proceedings states in his address to God: O Lord, be merciful and show your face, and all the peoples will be saved … . If thus you would deign to do this, the sword and the bilious spite of hatred and all evil suffering will cease; and all will know that there is only one religion in the variety of rites [non est nisi religio una in rituum varietate] (Biechler and Bond 1990: 7).

Here, Nicholas appears to allow that behind all the different forms of belief and worship (ritus) there is one and the same relationship with God (religio) (see Biechler and Bond 1990: 222 n. 12, for Nicholas finding this in the collection of translations made for Peter the Venerable)—seemingly a hint of what these days would be called pluralism. The meeting progresses in stages of discussion about the main points of disagreement and in each the Christian protagonists demonstrate to their counterparts that the differences can be settled by penetrating beneath the verbal formulations to the essence of what is meant, and when this is uncovered it shows that the main outlines actually agree with Christianity. This resolving of the variety of beliefs down to the one core would seem to contradict the angel’s opening words, and coming from an upholder of traditional Christian orthodoxy in a period when defense of the faith was allimportant, it would be understandable. But it does not quite stand up to close

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scrutiny. For Nicholas also reformulates Christian doctrine in order to show how it agrees with beliefs in other traditions. An example of how he does this can be seen in Peter’s explanation to a Turk of the crucifixion of Christ. The Apostle begins by explaining the seemingly insuperable denial of the crucifixion in the Qur’an (Q. 4:157) as “out of reverence for Christ, as if such men [the Jews] would have had no power over Christ” (Biechler and Bond 1990: 46), and then goes on to show that in fact the crucifixion was necessary because it was the only way that Christ could open up the Kingdom of Heaven: No one can enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless he lay aside the kingdom of this world through death … . Now if Christ as mortal man had not died, he would not yet have laid aside mortality; this would mean that he did not enter the Kingdom of Heaven in which no mortal can be. Therefore, if he who is the firstfruits and firstborn of all men did not open the heavenly realms, our nature united with God has not yet been introduced into the Kingdom. Thus no man could have been in the Kingdom (Biechler and Bond 1990: 46).

Alluding to beliefs in Islam and other faiths that the righteous will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, Nicholas shows in this concise argument that such beliefs presuppose Christ’s entering the Kingdom and thus his death. He can then conclude: “The faith of all who confess that their holy ones are in glory presupposes that Christ died and ascended into heaven” (Biechler and Bond 1990: 47). It follows that any belief about heaven and any hope in the afterlife are dependent on the death of Christ, and they tacitly acknowledge it. Here Nicholas turns Muslims and others into Christians unaware, though importantly he also accentuates the significance of the cross as the gateway for Christ’s triumphal entry into heaven rather than the instrument of his atoning sacrifice. Nicholas recasts both the beliefs of non-Christians and of Christians. If this dialogue can be called inclusivist in its intentions, and even hinting at pluralism in parts, this shows how it exhibits features that seem unmistakably modern, and how it anticipates developments from centuries after it was written. It would be wrong to make excessive claims for it, or to force it into a context where it did not fit, but it nevertheless does contain indications that in the pre-modern period there were minds that transcended the stubborn intolerance of one faith toward the other and, whether they consciously recognized it or not, reached out toward a wider grasp of the possibilities

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between the faiths. Even though their endeavors cannot perhaps be called dialogue in a modern sense, in essence they were engaged in the same activity of exploring possible ways in which the followers of the different faiths could find common ground through sensitive and open exploration of other’s beliefs and at the same time of their own.

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The Contemporary Context of Muslim–Christian Dialogue Paul Hedges

Introduction We will explore two broad areas: the geopolitical landscape of Muslim–Christian dialogue; and philosophical or theological aspects of encounter. However, they cannot be entirely divorced for the way Muslims and Christians understand each other has been, from the earliest days, wrapped within a complex web of political, cultural, ideological, and social factors. Moreover, the encounter is diverse and fragmented, indeed, there is no contemporary context, rather we see contemporary contexts: the relationship between Christians and Muslims in rural Pakistan or urban Singapore are quite distinct. Yet the experience is not simply diverse between countries but also within them, so the experience of an affluent female British Muslim doctor of Malaysian origin living in London will be different from that of a poor unemployed British Muslim youth of Sudanese origin living in a northern post-industrial British city like Bradford, especially as they relate to the surrounding culture which may be more or less Christian. It is simply impossible to attend or speak to all of these contexts, and it is almost the very diversity of encounters which gives us the contemporary context. While this chapter will look at international events and diverse experiences, its focus will be from a Western perspective.

How the contemporary context arose It is impossible to understand the contemporary context without some understanding of recent events, by which I mean the last few hundred years, for this shapes geopolitical contours today and remains part of the historical

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memory. While, in the West, events like 9/11 may seem definitive, the collapse of the Ottoman Sultanate in 1922 is still remembered especially in the Turkish part of the Islamic world. This event has wider resonances for it marked the end of the Caliphate, the rule of the successor of the Prophet Mohammed as head of the umma, the universal Islamic society (Cragg 2007: 164). We need, therefore, to understand a number of key events and developments that have shaped perceptions. Firstly, the encounters and borders between Christianity and Islam are quite diverse, and while the Ottoman Empire marked a symbolic border between what are often termed the Western Christian and Islamic worlds for centuries it was not the only border, although for several centuries the terms “Turk” and “Muslim” were more or less interchangeable in European usage. The southern steppes of Russia stretching out to what is now Xinjiang Province in China also marked another border territory between the Orthodox Church and Islam (Waardenburg 1998: 7), while European colonialism opened up encounters in places like Africa, the Middle East, and India. Moreover, Christians have lived in areas of Muslim majority rule for centuries representing arenas of encounter not marked by these borders (Griffith 2008) and vice-versa. The diversity that characterizes the contemporary context is far from new. We will focus on the perceived borders between the “West” and what this sees, in a monolithic way, as the “Muslim world,” often unaware of the latter’s diversity. These perceptions are important in understanding the way each reacts to and understands the other. We return therefore to the Ottoman Empire, which first threatened then conquered the Byzantine Empire, taking Byzantium (now Istanbul) in 1453. The symbolic power of this still resonates, and continues to be something of a source of tension in Muslim–Christian relations, certainly for Greek Orthodox Christians (whose patriarchate is based there); the emergence of Greece as an independent nation in the nineteenth century was also a blow against Ottoman power. Indeed, Ottoman expansion once threatened all Europe, and images of Islam as a threat stay in Eastern European memories especially. However, the contemporary context really begins with that empire in decline: first symbolized by Napoleon’s victories in Egypt, followed by European colonial expansion into its former territories in the nineteenth century, and its collapse following World War I. Images of this period still haunt us for the Ottoman Empire was hailed as the “sick man of Europe,” and it, along with Islam, were seen as stuck in a medieval and primitive past. Indeed, the modern Turkish state, which replaced the Ottomans in 1922, brought in by Kemal Attaturk was

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an explicit rejection of a religious and Islamic heritage aiming to make Turkey a modern, democratic, and secular nation along Western lines. Fault lines from this are apparent in the twenty-first-century landscape with the resurgence of religion as a political force. Elsewhere, European missionaries were encountering Islam in other contexts, one of which was Africa, where Christian missionary intelligence revived the motif of Islam as a threat, not militarily but spiritually, with some asserting it was the only power that could compete with Christianity (Owzar 2013: 134). Despite the rise of the dialogue movement within the twentieth century, in parts of Africa particularly the sense of a battle for souls still marks out the Muslim–Christian encounter (Chesworth 2011). Indeed, while Muslim and Christian leaders come together in various formal official gatherings and events, there is still frequent antagonistic missionary encounter in many places, although there are also common grassroots efforts for understanding and dialogue. There are many more historical factors we could mention, but perhaps the most globally significant today is the Israel–Palestine complex. The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 is well known as are the subsequent wars and tensions between it and its primarily Muslim neighbors (see Cohn-Sherbok and El-Alami 2008). Whether these wars and tensions are primarily to do with land, resources, religion, or identity is debatable, but what concerns us here is the way that perceptions of events have shaped Muslim–Christian relations. One view is that an ethnic, primarily Muslim, population was evicted to make way for Jewish settlers aided and abetted by the Western world, seen primarily as Christian. For many Westerners (Christian and non-Christian), the creation of the state of Israel was seen as a response to the Holocaust, which coupled with a shared Judeo–Christian interpretative narrative that meant the Jewish people had a (God-given) “right” to the “Holy Land” made it seem entirely justified. American backing for Israel has been almost consistently strong which has fed into the sense of injustice felt by many Palestinians, and other Muslims, that unjust oppression was occurring from hegemonic powers. Indeed, for most Westerners until relatively recently an awareness of the suffering and oppression of many Palestinians and their quite justified sense of outrage at being separated from their ancestral lands has not really been recognized. Certainly, coupled with more recent Western military incursions into what are seen as Muslim countries, the shock felt by Americans in the wake of 9/11 (“why do they hate us?”) should not seem inexplicable. Even if we cannot condone the acts of terrorists in attacking unarmed citizens and

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innocent bystanders, the kind of outrage and hatred generated by Western foreign policy should be understandable. Contemporary Muslim–Christian relations stand amid a very complex and heated geopolitical nexus of events, interpretations, and perceptions. We should note that a significant part of this dynamic is Jewish-Muslim dialogue (we address Muslim–Jewish–Christian dialogue below), although historically this often showed signs of harmony rather than discord (Randall 2014).

Politics, imperialism, nation states, and crusaders The historical context can never be divorced from its interpretation, so we need to consider perceptions of history, and here Edward Said’s Orientalist thesis is well established (Said 1978). While not concerned with interreligious encounters as such, Said saw a history of Western misinterpretation and control over the Orient, or more specifically Islam, although subsequent writers have extended his theory to other areas and religions. Said’s thesis, following Michel Foucault, asserts that attempts at knowledge are simultaneously political—they exert power over the Other—therefore Western study and classification of Islam has been an attempt to control it. Moreover, he argues, the West has distorted Islam by making it the mirror image of its own dark side, so he suggested mutual poles were used in descriptions: the West was seen as scientific, progressive, moral, and hardworking; the Orient/Islam were superstitious, backward, immoral, and indolent. Furthermore, the West was presented as the norm and measure by which the Other could be judged, and condemned. One important result of Said’s work was to make the term Orientalism turn from a positive description of the study of the Orient into a negative condemnation of the distortion and exertion of control over the Other. Western perceptions of the Ottoman Empire, seen as run by autocratic despots as opposed to enlightened Western democracies, give credence to Said’s thesis. Nevertheless, critics have argued, quite cogently, that while parts of his thesis bear some weight—importantly his foundational study on media representations of Islam (see Said 1997; Ruthven 2002)—he tends to overstate his case. For instance, he is selective of his sources using those who denigrate Islam rather than those who take a positive attitude. Moreover, he makes the Orient and Islam into passive recipients of Western projections and ignores

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the far more dynamic encounters, including of course periods of Islamic power when the West learnt from Muslims (Clarke 1997). Moreover, it is not just the West which paints images of Islam, for both equally represent the Other. Indeed, the history of often violent confrontation, perceived at Martin Luther’s time as Turks invading Europe (Siddiqui 2013: 7–9), has other angles, whether this be from the medieval crusades, later European colonialism, or American neo-colonialism. This history gives substance to a famous motif of many Middle Eastern Muslims of the Westerner/Christian as someone possessed by the “crusader” spirit, a phrase made famous by Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966) one of the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood who was responding to what he perceived as centuries of violent Western incursions into Muslim lands (Clarke 2006: 174ff). Memories and perceptions of warfare, and ongoing violent conflicts (Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel–Palestine, etc.) are a strong aspect of the current situation. Especially on the Western Christian side, it has to be appreciated that many Muslims come from countries where the memory and after effects of often violent colonial domination shape perceptions; this is not to deny that Christian minorities in places like Pakistan also face violence from Muslim majorities and powers, but centuries of European and American colonialism, militarism, and foreign policy are predominantly what shape the current global landscape. (For a useful discussion around these issues and the wider sense of Muslim identity, see Pratt 2005: 137–68). The sense of disjunction between an Islamic world and the Western world is quite clear in many portrayals (Marranci 2006), but two further points are worth making. First, representations of the Islamic and Christian worlds have often played on images of Europe (and America or other Western nations) and Asia (and to some degree Africa). Recent comments by European politicians have painted a picture of European values which contrast with those of Islam, with it being suggested that Muslims do not belong here: Germany’s Chancellor Merkel declared that, “those who don’t accept [Christian values] don’t have a place here,” while former President of France Giscard d’Estaing said, “I never go to Church, but Europe is a Christian continent” (both cited in Triandafyllidou et al. 2012: 9, see also Marranci 2006: 107–8). The borders of religions do not, however, fit our neat geographic markers, and significant Muslim populations have existed in the Balkans for centuries, while Spain was for several centuries part of the Muslim world. Indeed, the Ottoman Empire straddled both continents, with Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and the Sultan’s palace sitting firmly on the European side of Istanbul. Meanwhile,

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Christians have lived in Asia for centuries, and for several centuries Asia and not Europe was where most Christians were found (we return to demographics later). Simplistic paradigms like a Christian West/Europe and the Orient/Islam do not work. Second, a powerful influence of recent times has been Samuel Huntingdon’s Clash of Civilizations thesis (see Marranci 2006; Ahmed 2010), which posits that with the fall of the Communist powers, the new fault lines will lie between the great civilizations of the (Christian) West, the Islamic world, and the Confucian/Chinese world. There are certainly some who would wish to emphasize these fault lines both on Muslim and Christian sides. However, strong religious counter narratives exist. From the Islamic side, the “A Common Word” (n.d.) initiative has stressed the common fellowship between the two traditions (see Pratt’s chapter herein), while the Hizmet movement, inspired by the Sufi teacher Fethullah Gülen, is among groups in the Turkish world who look back to the Ottoman Empire as something of a tolerant Golden Age when Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived alongside each other in a cosmopolitan empire and which sees Islam as a religion of tolerance and mercy (Gülen 2006: 58–68). Christians likewise possess resources for engagement and harmony (Bennett 2008: 188–212).

New neighbors An important part of the contemporary context is the increasingly multifaith and multicultural nature of Western societies. No longer is Western/Christian discourse about an Other far distanced from ourselves or at best known through the narratives of missionaries sent to far off lands. Instead, Christians have to grapple with the reality of Muslim neighbors (and those of many other faiths). From Melbourne to Manchester, Frankfurt to San Francisco, meeting a Muslim in dialogue can be an everyday occurrence for a Christian, whether it is in the office, coffee shop, or picking up the kids from school: Muslims and Christians are neighbors. The apparent shock of this, perceived as a new phenomenon by many Western Christians, is not as new or unique as many believe, for Muslims and Christians have been neighbors for centuries and there is much to be learnt from their experiences (Griffiths 2008), while there have also been Muslims in Europe since the Middle Ages and settled communities for some considerable time; the UK’s first mosque was opened in 1887, with the first purpose built one following just two years later (Gilliat-Ray

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2012: 111). Nevertheless, in the West, much of the expertise in late twentieth century Muslim–Christian dialogues and encounters came from former missionaries, and the interpretation of Islam for both churches and academia drew on the experience of such figures. Immigration also has a role in helping to realize that the Muslim– Christian encounter is far from monolithic. The differences of culture and Islamic style between Pakistani, Indonesian, Saudi Arabian, Turkish, or other ethnic groups have become factors in the dialogue themselves, and certainly some groups have been keener to enter the interfaith arena than others. It has also raised issues about gender and who may represent or speak for a community (see, respectively, Grung’s and Mohammed’s chapters herein). It also, of course, raises the tensions which exist not just interreligiously but also intra-religiously as sometimes specific groups from either community may be unwilling to speak to those they see as “heretical” or “unorthodox” within their own tradition while entering into dialogue with those from another religious community altogether: for instance, most Christian groups sideline Mormons and most Muslim groups sideline Ahmadiyya Muslims. We therefore see that it is not simply the geopolitical dynamics of global politics but also the small scale tradition, location, and gender politics (or sometimes simply the interaction of two individuals qua people) that contribute to the diversity of Muslim–Christian dialogue. Despite their potential for enhancing understanding, multifaith societies can also raise issues,1 where Westerners can see Muslims as what Marranci calls “transruptive” forces which threatens the “Christian” (or Judeo–Christian) nature of Europe/the West (2006: 115)—recalling our quoted politicians. This may play into the kind of negative experiences of Western Muslims, who in relation to geopolitical events may see the umma “as global victims” (Modood 2005: 160) and can lead to the kind of home grown terrorism seen in the 7 July bombings in London. Such violence is related to wider issues but plays into what we may see as Orientalist representations of Islam as threat and Islamophobia (Marranci 2006). However, it needs to be remembered that each religion contains texts which have calls to violence (Heck 2009: 113), and that the potential exists to use each religion as a legitimization for such acts, notwithstanding those who see each religion as traditions of peace, tolerance and love (Schmidt-Leukel 2014: 42). Therefore, it is not enough simply to understand the social and political context of Muslim–Christian encounters but also theological or ideological issues must be explored.

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Theological and doctrinal tensions We turn to more philosophical and theological concerns and how these affect dialogue. We begin, with history that affects dialogue today, for ever since its inception, Islam has been debating its relationship to its older cousin Christianity (Siddiqui 2013: 1; see also Thomas’ chapter herein). The early Muslims had to place themselves in relation to Christianity which meant responding to certain key issues among which we address six here: the God of Abraham; the Trinity; Jesus as Son of God; Jesus as Messiah and prophet; Jesus’ crucifixion; texts and revelation. Notably, from what many Western Christians would perceive to be an orthodox position these six points may not seem to make sense: how can you approach the Trinity, the God of Abraham, and Jesus as Son of God as separate items? However, we take these from Muslim issues and so in the dialogue, just as Muslims will need to understand Christian perspectives, Christians need to understand Muslim perspectives. Indeed, an impediment to dialogue is an assumption that a certain commonality of terms and heritage means the same thing is being talked about, when in fact a different understanding of the common heritage means each simply talks past the other (Zebiri 1997: 230). First, importantly for Muslims, they identify their God as the God of Abraham which puts them directly in the lineage of the Hebrew Prophets and the Jewish and Christian traditions. It is the same God that was worshiped by Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus, which, for Muslims, is associated with their emphasis on monotheism. Christians, however, have had more difficulty recognizing the similarity of deity, although in Lumen Gentium 16 the Roman Catholic Church very clearly stated that the same God was worshiped which is a very significant step. Many Christian polemicists reject this (Bennett 2008: 175), so debate exists; but that both traditions see themselves worshiping the God of Abraham should not be ignored. Second, many Muslims believe Christians commit shirk (“associationism” or “idolatry”), arguably the worst heresy in Islam, which means to render worship due to God to another, with traditional Islamic polemic characterizing the Trinity as polytheism. From a Christian perspective, Muslims have failed to understand the Trinity which they say does not represent three Gods but in classical language three hypostases, which Christians may argue has analogies with the Muslim tradition of God’s Ninety-Nine Names which represent different modes or aspects of God’s power or encounter with humanity and

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creation. We cannot enter the complexities of the debate here, but it is a perennial source of disagreement (Heck 2009: 29–30). Third, related to this is the accusation that by seeing Jesus as God’s son in a literal way, Christians have misunderstood both Jesus’ message and the divine. While much early Islamic criticism failed to understand the Christian concept of Jesus’ Sonship, seeming to suppose that some form of procreation of a physical kind was involved (Bennett 2008: 128), even orthodox Christian formulations are problematic for Muslims. However, those Christians who are Unitarians or Quakers or otherwise reject Trinitarianism or Jesus’ divinity may find themselves less subject to such criticisms and closer in some ways to Muslim theological positions; inasmuch as they do not accept Muhammad as the final prophet, however, they still remain very much removed from Islamic orthodoxy. The fourth point on Jesus’ role as Messiah sees more commonality but also diverse interpretations. Whereas what became orthodox Christianity saw Messiahship as involving Jesus’ divinity (although such a belief was far from uniform in the early Jesus Movement and affects some Christian views on interfaith relations, see Hedges 2010: 133–7), for Muslims it simply means that Jesus will return in the Last Days to defeat the forces of Satan and bring peace (Leirvik 2010: 39ff). Nevertheless, despite his very exalted role, Jesus still ranks below Muhammad who as the Seal of the Prophet is seen to bring the final and uncorrupted revelation; although both Jesus and Mary feature prominently in the Qur’an (Leirvik 2010: 19–36). As such, despite shared reverence for Jesus and acceptance of his Messiahship, it means different things to each community. We may note here that Muslims often feel that while they respect Jesus, similar respect is not given by Christians to Muhammad, an issue addressed below. Fifth, is Jesus’ crucifixion and for Muslims accepting Jesus as a prophet makes it impossible that God would have let him die in such a terrible way. Therefore, Muslim tradition avers that someone else, often Judas, was made to appear as if they were Jesus and crucified in his place, while Jesus himself lived on and in some traditions even journeyed to India (Cragg 2000: 265ff). Historically, it must be said that the very late appearance of such narratives makes them doubtful to the scholar, but this does not erase the fact that nearly all Muslims deny what many Christians see as the core of their faith: Jesus’ atoning death on the cross. To some extent, therefore, the fact that Islam has grown up in such close proximity to Christianity while providing connections (such as a shared heritage, deity, and reverence for

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many prophets and Jesus), it also provides the grounds for deep divisions, which has been likened to a family feud which exacerbates the bitterness (Bauschke 2008: 191). Our final point relates to texts and revelation. Here, from a traditional Christian standpoint revelation, God’s unveiling of God’s self, refers to Jesus as God’s Son understood as second person of the Trinity, for Muslims, however, revelation happens in the Qur’an which later Muslim tradition comes to understand as God’s very word and as co-eternal with God himself. While Muslims recognize a line of books coming from previous prophets, notably the Torah (Tawrat) from Moses, the Psalms (Zabur) from David, and the Gospel (Injil) from Jesus, Islamic tradition sees each of these as corrupted. In particular, polemics against Christians suggest that his disciples distorted and changed Jesus’ words so the book we have is not that Jesus left for us, again a distinct difference as Christians do not see Jesus as leaving any text himself. Indeed, even the common heritage of speaking of revelation may lead to confusion. While both traditions are sometimes spoken of as traditions of the book, the Qur’an and the Bible actually play different roles: it is better to compare the Qur’an to Jesus, than to the Bible, as each is seen as the co-eternal word of God (Bauschke 2008: 200). We see a less clear distinction with Protestantism because of its focus on sola scriptura (scripture alone) and an often higher sense of biblical revelation, especially in many modern Evangelical traditions where what may be spoken of as biblicalism takes place, that is, the Bible is treated as an inerrant revelation and as being God’s word in a way that makes it effectively co-equal with Jesus as revelation (a Christian form of shirk? See Hedges 2010: 103 n. 109). It is notable that these six issues are ones which developed in the earliest encounters between Muslims and Christians and are still live issues today, which raises the question of whether such theological, or ideological, issues are simply intractable? While often aggressive polemics continue on each side, the websites www.answering-islam.com and www.answering-christianity.com are examples of this (see Bennett 2008: 163), in other areas dialogue has evolved. For instance, especially since Vatican II most mainstream churches and theologians accept that the same God is worshiped in each tradition while increasingly arguments have been made by Christian theologians for why Muhammad can be seen and respected as a prophet (see Bennett 2008: 91–4; Hedges 2014). It is also argued that common ethical demands and even interreligious prayer can bring the traditions together (Bauschke 2008: 202–4).

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The Shifting Third in Muslim–Christian dialogue: Judaism and/or secularism Dialogue never takes place in a vacuum, and we can say that there is always a “third,” and both Judaism, and in today’s context secularism, may be seen as integral. Before addressing the significance of Judaism and secularism, I will address what I term the Shifting Third. Identity theory suggests that identity is constructed in relation to the Other (Coco and Hedges 2014), as Said’s Orientalism avers. However, there are not normally ever just two binary opposites, so identity is not just constructed in relation to the Other but an Other in relation to other Others. Moreover, these Others are never simply stable or possessing given meaning; as such the signification of each one is shifting. I will give an example concerning Roman Catholic–Protestant relations in German missionary constructions of Islam. Armin Owzar has argued that while for much of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century the two denominations were bitter rivals, the Catholics even being accused of waging a “holy war” against Protestant missions (Owzar 2013: 138), a growing understanding of Islam as a common threat brought them together in “interdenominational cooperation” (Owzar 2013: 146ff). In the period after the First World War, however, when Islam seemed less prominent, he reports: “and this may not come as a surprise—interdenominational rivalry was revitalised” (Owzar 2013: 150). In this context, missionary work was not just seen as a Muslim–Christian issue but in a triad of relations where the enemy or friend shifted. Indeed, the Shifting Third is not just a numerical signifier but a conceptual marker, for the other Other may be singular or multiple; for instance, in our example above another factor was the colonial government which was seen to be favoring Muslims as loyal citizens and so brought the rival denominations together (Owzar 2013). It was therefore not simply a triad, while the understanding of “Islam” shifted between social and spiritual threat and also whether it was the sole threat or part of a threat that included other Christian denominations; the notion of the Shifting Third is multivalent. This concept can be seen to relate to Homi Bhabha’s Third Space as it refers to a space in between (see Leirvik 2014: 21–2); however, it is also different as it is not just a space of creative tension but potentially an oppositional drawing of boundaries. However, the Shifting Third is potentially like Bhabha’s Third Space because the Other is not always simply Other as opposition but exists in the fluctuating matrix that is created because the Other is always Other only

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in relation to other Others, and so the binary “us-them” is capable of being “us-us-them,” “us-them-us,” or further permutations as a multitude of Shifting Thirds are considered. It has been suggested that Muslim–Christian dialogue always implies Muslim–Jewish–Christian dialogue—with Judaism properly in the central place. From a historian’s viewpoint, both religions emerged from Judaism: Christianity as a sect focused upon a crucified Galilean rabbi that sees its mission beyond Judaism into the Gentile world; Islam through Muhammad’s adaptation of Jewish monotheism to his Arabic context. Notably, both traditions would traditionally reject such a picture: Christians seeing themselves as the fulfillment of Judaism; and Muslims claiming the final revelation in a lineage that includes but exceeds earlier Hebrew prophets. Both significantly take a clear supercessionist line to Judaism (i.e. they supersede the previous revelations), with Islam including Christianity within its supercessionist narrative; as the historically later tradition, Islam fitted Christianity into its narrative while Christianity has struggled to interpret, in any positive sense, the subsequent tradition (Hedges 2001: 251–60; see also Thomas’ chapter herein). Both traditions see themselves as the heir to the tradition of Abraham: Islam through providing the definitive monotheistic revelation; Christianity through a divine fulfillment of Jewish law and tradition. Each religion is related not directly but through Judaism—notwithstanding cross-fertilization of ideas between the two—therefore, dialogue today means understanding this. Muslim–Christian dialogue without a Jewish voice, or a recognition of the Jewish voice, can be seen as a problematic venture; although in today’s geopolitical climate there are places where the two traditions meet far divorced from any Jewish presence and as traditions which have each grown into their own maturity. However, in as far as the Israel–Palestine dispute is part of the equation it must also be considered, and certainly some Muslims will see Judaism and Christianity united against it (as I have noted, the reality behind such a perception is not necessarily significant—although showing this may help dispel the perception as we need to recognize and deal with the fact that the perception exists, see also Pratt 2005: 119). As a Shifting Third, Judaism has sometimes been seen as an ally of each side against the Other and as more closely related to one than the other (Kessler 2013: 213–4). Another Shifting Third in the equation today is secularism. While open to many different interpretations, we can describe secularism as referring to ideologies and political systems which foreground a (supposedly) neutral and

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non-religious space as the public sphere and wherein religion is primarily a private matter which should not be forced on others (and so may be limited in education, medical provision, etc.). Moreover, the secular is seen as the arena which provides the rules and framework for the meeting of traditions. Most Western countries would tend to see themselves as secular, such that religions meet in a context where no one voice is privileged over any other (at least in theory—circumstance and custom often dictate otherwise). In this context, secularism may be seen as a hospitable seedbed for dialogue where religions may meet without fear of persecution from the other, nor with any sense that one has innate superiority (Leirvik 2014: 33ff). However, as a Shifting Third, secularism plays out in various ways, so many Muslims and Christians experience secularism, especially in its more militant forms like virulent atheism, as a threat. As such both may see themselves united against it; at other times, however, it may be enlisted on either side as a critique against the Other (see Pratt 2005: 205–9). This often relates back to imaginary of the modern world: Christianity/the West is democratic, scientific, and progressive; Islam/the Orient is autocratic, superstitious, and backward. Indeed, given that much of Western Christianity has developed over the last 200 or so years alongside what we call secularism, it has had longer to adapt. Indeed, arguably at least, secularism is more compatible with the type of Protestantism found in Northern Europe and North America, focused on a religion of the inner personal life than traditional Islamic culture. (Modern Protestantism, we should note, developed as secularism pushed religion out of the public sphere and so is not a “natural” counterpart of Christianity.) Islamic law, Sharia, has traditionally run almost every sphere of life, while the Islamic community, or state, has administered punishment, seen to social security for the needy, and provided the rationale and underpinning of everything from medical care to the armed forces, although Turkey is a traditionally Muslim country which has lived with secularism for almost a 100 years but is no less Islamic. That disputes arise there as to how religion and the state relate is not dissimilar to debates occurring in the United States, France, or elsewhere. We may also note that many Muslims will suggest that Islam provides better resources than Western liberalism for protecting human and social wellbeing (Heck 2009: 92). Whatever stance we take, across much of the globe the dynamic and encounter of Muslim–Christian dialogue takes place today in ways bounded and shaped by encounter with a dominant secular ideology which operates as a Shifting Third in the dialogue.

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Conceptualizing the encounter today Diversity is the context of contemporary Muslim–Christian dialogue. This comes both from historical narratives which have shaped our understanding as well as from changing contemporary situations at international, national, regional, and even individual levels. Nevertheless, we can determine some significant, if shifting, patterns which are often contradictory and may shape misunderstanding on each side. Let us therefore start with two significant tropes: first the Other as threat. Most in the West are aware of this primarily from the Christian side, where a narrative of the aggressive Muslim was shaped through historical encounter and has resurfaced in media representations since 9/11 (Marranci 2006). However, on the Muslim side, the aggressive or crusading Christian is a common image; from the medieval crusades through to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and contemporary events in the Middle East and beyond, many Muslims see themselves as subject to almost constant Western/Christian hostility. For a Muslim who understands, following established tradition, that Islam is the religion of peace, there may seem no better way to make sense of the history and encounters. A second trope is: the Other as decadent/corrupt. We spoke earlier about images in the modern period of Islam as in decline and backward, fueled by traveler narratives (pace Said) about the exotic East, while the West/Christians have often portrayed Islam as part of a primitive tradition. Contrarily, Muslims apologists suggested that in the Middle Ages, when Europe was most Christian and the Muslim world must true to Islam, we saw a clearer picture—a magnificent and flourishing Muslim Empire against a benighted Europe in the Dark Ages—a view first expounded by Jamal al-din al-Afghani (1838–1897). Today, many Muslims portray the strict morality they enjoin against what is seen as the immorality of a decadent secular West where women are paraded in scanty clothing as sexual objects, and perceived vices such as homosexuality and sex outside of marriage are not just tolerated but condoned (Clarke 2006: 174– 5). Both Christianity and Islam possess narratives of terror and negativity to portray the Other. However, each also possesses narratives which enjoin dialogue and mutual respect. It is worth briefly mentioning demographics, for while we have spoken very much from a Western perspective of Middle Eastern (including North African) Muslims, it is far from representative. In a world where Muslims and Christians make up around 55 percent of the global population, the encounters are of

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extreme significance. However, according to a recent (2012) Pew Forum survey, over 60 percent of the world’s Muslims live in the Asia-Pacific region, as opposed to just under 20 percent in the Middle East and North Africa, and around 15 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa. Indeed, the largest single Muslim country is Indonesia, while almost 30 percent of all Muslims live in the India sub-continent (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh). As such, given that most Christians are in South America (although the Pew Forum survey by including Russia in Europe placed that continent first), the “typical” Muslim–Christian encounter might be said to be an Indonesian Sunni meeting a Brazilian Roman Catholic. Such an encounter is hardly typical, and it is Africa where the two religions, perhaps, meet most clearly with sizeable populations living alongside the other; although almost any sizeable metropolis in many areas of the globe will today contain sizeable populations of both traditions. Increasing Muslim–Christian encounters occur in a globalized world where perceptions of geopolitical events and global movements shape interactions. The meeting of Muslims and Christians is often in multifaith societies (either through new immigrations, missions, or in historical context) which can be sources of growing understanding and respect; notwithstanding tensions associated with social cohesion or violent conflict/oppression. Potential for both understanding and violence exists in almost every encounter, and, theologically, each tradition has resources for disagreement and cooperation. Indeed various movements from local dialogue societies, to academic meetings, to institutional dialogues and initiatives, are undertaking work to build bridges of understanding, co-operation, and hospitality between the traditions. Indeed, as well as the tensions between religions from hard line members of other traditions, we must also remember that internal fault lines exist between more “fundamentalist interpretations” of each tradition and more “moderate interpretations” which affect dialogue and relations in various ways (Kessler 2013: 214–5).3 It may well be that increased multi-religious education will help, especially if it is realized that the Islamic heritage is part of the Western/ Christian heritage, with Islamic advances in science and technology underlying the Renaissance and the subsequent scientific revolution in Europe (Al-Khalili 2009). As such, while it may not be possible to be simply optimistic about the future of Muslim–Christian encounters, there is certainly reason for hope (for an argument on this in historical perspective, see Nielson 2003).

3

Can Those Chosen by God Dialogue with Others? Reuven Firestone

Introduction In a well-known typology of encounter between religions, now a standard among dialogicians, Alan Race mentions the approach he calls “exclusivism” (Race 1993, 2001). Exclusivism characterizes the view that only through one’s own particular faith tradition can God’s authentic truth be found. Exclusivism epitomizes a kind of declaration or theological verdict that is inimical to a deep and empathic understanding of the religious Other through dialogue. I will argue in the following that the exclusivist perspective is instinctive to monotheists and is profoundly influenced by the birth and development of monotheism itself. In fact, exclusivism lies at the very core of monotheism, at least in its Abrahamic forms as discussed here. Monotheist exclusivism is a conventional position preserving a sense of commitment to a particularist truth that is then projected as a universal truth. I argue that this exclusivist move is a natural response to the way monotheism has come to be associated over the ages with divine election. I argue further that exclusivism can be transcended without relinquishing full and deep commitment to a particularist notion of religion and religious truth. To my mind, at least two medieval religious thinkers, one Jewish and one Christian, managed through quite different methodologies to remain firmly committed to both the correctness and superiority of their religions while fully valuing the religious Other and to engage in this dialogue without patronizing.1 Here, I examine the notion of divine election across all three Abrahamic traditions, alongside its exclusivist trend, exploring these two thinkers as representative examples of the possibility of dialogue while still remaining firmly committed

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to the truth and superiority of one’s own religion. Given that both Islam and Christianity draw their monotheism and, arguably, sense of election from Jewish motifs, this area can be studied within this framework.

From universalism to particularism According to the Bible and the Qur’an, God created all humanity through the first man and woman (Gen. 1–2; Q. 7:189; 49:13). Because all humans derive from the same original couple, no one can claim that s/he has a loftier pedigree or is an inherently superior creature. Hundreds if not thousands of exegeses in all religions that valorize the Bible and Qur’an agree about this principle of equality. But the sense of equivalence derived from this story can easily be reduced to physicality or a genealogical relatedness that is unconnected to any intrinsic value or quality as a human being. All may be created equal, but not all are equally blessed by God. We know from our own social experience that in the real world all humans are not valued equally. Whether the experience of human inequality is the result of certain social processes or a fundamental aspect of human nature to regard and assess individuals and communities on a value continuum, I suspect that we can all affirm from personal experience that, no matter what criteria are used to make the determination, people are valued differently. It is normal to love some people more than others. We have close friends and distant friends. And we have acquaintances to whom we do not feel friendly at all. We may even have enemies. According to the Bible and Qur’an, so does God (Num. 10:35; Ps. 68:1, 22; James 4:4-5; Luke 19:26-27; Q. 2:98; 41:19, 28). According to the narrative thrust of the Hebrew Bible, God appears to appreciate some people more than others: “The Lord paid heed to Abel and his offering, but to Cain and his offering He paid no heed” (Gen. 4:4-5). The text does not give an explicit reason why God favored Abel and his offering over Cain and his, but the result was that one was selected over the other.2 This is the first scriptural case of divine preference for one human creation and the product of its labors over another, a kind of incipient divine chosenness. In the following biblical narrative of the Flood, God is cited as having regretted creating humanity altogether and deciding to destroy everyone (Gen. 6:5-7): “But Noah found favor with the Lord” (Gen. 6:8). As a result, God destroyed all life in the world with the exception of Noah, his family, and the accompanying animals that were brought onto the ark.3 In the very next biblical narrative, God

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confounded the common speech of a unified humanity and scattered them over the face of the earth because of divine dissatisfaction with their behavior and desires (Gen. 11:1-9).4 The children of the primordial couple may have been created equal, but they were not loved equally by God. Not so the children of Abraham, or at least some of them.5 God appears to change the divine modus operandi with the story of Abraham in the Book of Genesis, with a prologue in 11:26 and starting in earnest in 12:1. Before the appearance of the Abraham sequence, God treated humans similarly to the way in which God treated all other creatures. After creation, God let them manage as best they could. But humans repeatedly disappointed God, both individually and collectively. Only a few persons managed to retain divine approval, and the thrust of the pre-Abrahamic narratives suggests that even those exceptional cases were situational and did not necessarily reflect a nature that was divinely favored. With Abraham, however, God changes his modus operandi. It seems as if God comes to terms with the inherently flawed nature of human creation and responds by focusing on regular intervention to keep people on the straight path. In order to do that, however, the field of humankind under divine supervision shrinks drastically. No longer concerned with humanity as a whole, God begins to concentrate all efforts on Abraham and his family. God appears to Abraham and instructs him, telling him where to go and what to do, and even occasionally explains to Abraham his plan and perspective (Gen. 18:17-21). This was not the case prior to Abraham’s arrival.6 But Abraham is in God’s nearly constant presence, and he always obeys his Lord. He goes along with God even when he does not have complete faith in his deity’s words (Gen. 15:2-3; 17:15-18; 18:23-32). God and Abraham become associates in a special relationship, and that relationship is defined biblically through the notion of covenant. That covenant includes not only Abraham but also his progeny through his second-born son, Isaac. It is a perpetual covenant that endures forever (Gen. 15:18; 17:1-8, 13; Ex. 31:13; Deut. 4:31; Isa. 41:8-9, etc.). God’s relationship with humanity before the appearance of Abraham was not personal but universal, and God was generally displeased. With Abraham and thereafter throughout the Hebrew Bible, God takes personal and particular interest in a small sector of humanity. God chastises and punishes that community when it behaves in ways that are unpleasing, but the relationship remains highly personal and often individual. To articulate the change somewhat differently, the Hebrew Bible opens as a universal history of

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humanity but then narrows the focus to one small family, which expands into an extended family and then clans, tribes, and eventually a tribal nation that counts itself to be under the tutelage of the One Great God of the universe. The remainder of God’s creation appears in the Hebrew Bible only in as much as it interacts with this one human sector. That is all that is truly important.

Divine election as a core tenet of monotheism As just noted, God is not always pleased with this community in special relationship. God punishes Israel7 severely for its many sins, but God’s ongoing presence with Israel is a sign of God’s love (Deut. 4:35-38; 7:6-8; 10:15; Hosea 11:1-11; Isa. 44:1, etc.). God is present to correct their repeated failings so that a core of righteous people continues to define that special, chosen population. This is the nature of divine election in the Hebrew Bible. A man and his family are chosen virtually randomly8 and loved (Lev. 20:26; Deut. 7:6-8; 14:2; Isa. 41:8-12; 44:1-3; Ps. 33:12; 105:42-3, etc.), despite the fact that they repeatedly err and sin.9 The notion of divine election is sometimes couched in conditional terms: “Now then, if you will obey Me conscientiously and keep My covenant, you shall be My treasured possession among all the peoples for all the earth is Mine, and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:5-6; see also Deut. 7:6-11; 10:12-22; 14:1-2, etc.). The chosen people are punished severely and repeatedly for sin and disobedience (Lev. 26:343; Deut. 11:26-18; 28:1-68), but despite the conditional locutions of some verses, the special relationship is forever (Gen. 13:16; 17:7-8, 13, 19; 48:4; Ps. 105:8-10, etc.). Repeatedly, a consolation is appended to threats of punishment and curses for sinful behavior: “Yet, even then, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or spurn them so as to destroy them, annulling My covenant with them: for I the Lord am their God” (Lev. 26:44). God comforts Israel even in chastisement (Isa. 40:1-26; 49:14-51:3, etc.). In the Hebrew Bible, therefore, God privileges one community over others despite having created all humanity as “equal” through a single genealogical line originating in Adam and Eve and despite the fact that the privileged community seems not to be intrinsically or innately better than any other. The Hebrew Bible occasionally expresses uneasiness with this situation. The prophet Amos, for example, expresses discomfort with the notion that God loves Israel above all other peoples: “To Me, O Israelites, you are just like the Ethiopians. True, I brought Israel up from the land of Egypt, but also the

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Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir. Behold, the Lord has His eye upon the sinful kingdom: I will wipe it off the face of the earth! But, I will not wholly wipe out the House of Jacob…” (Amos 9:7-8).10 Nevertheless, divine election is firmly established as a paradigm of relationship in the Hebrew Bible and has remained a notion of primary importance in monotheistic traditions to this day. The early Hebrew Bible notion of divine election has variously evolved in post-Hebrew Bible monotheisms, but it remains central (Firestone 2008, 2011a, 2011b). The New Testament argues against the immutability of the Israelite covenant and claims that it has been replaced by a new covenanted people—those who have accepted Christ (Mark 13:5-33; John 10:6-15; 15:1-5; Gal. 4:21-31; Heb. 8:6-13; 1 Pet. 2:7-10). It is that people which will henceforth be the recipients of God’s love: “[N]either death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38-39; see also John 3:16; 15:9-10; 17:26; Rom. 5:8, etc.). The notion of love in the New Testament is complex, but I would argue that God’s love for humanity expressed here is narrowed to love of those in Christ; while the rhetorical thrust seems to be love for all creation, those who receive the benefit of God’s love in salvation are limited to an elite community, those who accept Christ. Jews, pagans, and eventually even Christians with the wrong theology are not included. The Qur’an appears to take a different approach by attacking the immutability of covenanted chosenness altogether. It condemns the notion that mere belonging to a covenanted community provides merit or salvation, whether the community is defined by kinship as in the Hebrew Bible or faith as in the New Testament. Only those individuals who merit God’s love through their personal faith and behavior will receive it: “God loves those who do good” (Q. 2:195; 3:134, 148; 5:13, 93).11 Elsewhere, however, the Qur’an argues that those with the best religion and who are truly closest to God belong to the community of Muslims (Q. 3:110-114; 5:3b; Firestone 2008, 2011b).12 Jews were not to be outdone by monotheist communities claiming to have appropriated the chosen status of biblical Israel through scriptural proofs in post-Hebrew Bible revelation.13 The sages of Rabbinic Judaism claimed an “Oral Torah” received simultaneously with the “Written Torah” at Sinai, which is both revelation in its own right and also an essential means of making sense of the true meaning of the Written Torah of the Hebrew Bible. The Oral Torah

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argues against the counter-claims of other monotheists (or anybody else) to reassert the unique Jewish relationship with God through a variety of exegeses that affirm God’s eternal and exclusive love for Israel: “The Holy One said to Israel, ‘You have made Me the sole object of your love and I have made you the sole object of My love’ ” (Hagigah 3a-b).14 Israel remains God’s chosen people despite the claims of Christians, Muslims, and others. If one examines the argument over divine election at the scriptural level, one cannot help but note how the Jewish and Christian claims have an exclusivist ring, while the Muslim position at the scriptural level reflects something closer to a notion of shared chosenness.15 This difference reflects the historical contexts of the scriptures’ emergence. As I have detailed elsewhere (Firestone 2008, 2011a), the Hebrew Bible emerged as the first surviving expression of true monotheism and thus represented an extraordinary phenomenon. No competing monotheisms existed, so Israel was the only community that recognized God’s absolute unity. Israel began as a tribal community, an ethnos with its own tribal “God of Israel” that existed in relation to other ethne with their own tribal gods.16 It would seem natural for the community living through an intimate relation with its god to consider itself divinely “chosen,” just as the people of the gods Kemosh or Milkom probably saw themselves chosen through covenant with their own, particular, and unique tribal god. But what began as an Israelite tribal god eventually came to be known by its covenanted community as a universal and unified singular God of All (Fox 2006: 341–3). This transition from tribal to universal God-concept provides some explanation for the tension in both biblical Judaism and Rabbinic Judaism between the unique relationship understood to have adhered between Israel and the God of Israel on the one hand and the universal role of the God of All on the other. Even before the emergence of Christianity, the old tribal religious concept had severely weakened; afterwards two forms of monotheism expanded and found themselves in contention. The historical context reflects intense competition over which of these two competing expressions of monotheism (Jewish or Christian) expressed God’s true will. The competition was considered in terms of a zero-sum relationship by both sides. God would have chosen only those living out the right and true expression of monotheism. With the emergence of the Qur’an, however, the two major expressions of monotheism had already existed for centuries along with a number of contesting monotheist communities within and without those two expressions. The historical context seemed to have allowed for (or perhaps even required) an

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accommodation of previous expressions but with the caveat that the previous expressions were flawed and thus left an opening for a perfect expression of monotheism that was better than the previous but not the only true expression. The religious community represented by the Qur’an was therefore the “best” but not the “only” valid response to God’s unity (Q. 3:110-114; 2:63; 5:72).

Rivalry in revelation and redemption In the preceding section, I have tried to show how the notion of divine election originated, how it became organically associated with monotheism as a sine qua non, and how monotheism innocently became thoroughly infused with a sense of exclusivity and privilege which encourages feelings of elitism and superiority that inhibit openness to the kind of true dialogue we seek today. In an article published in 2001, Martin Jaffee arrives at a similar conclusion through a different analysis. He differentiates between the aspect of monotheism that consists of philosophical speculation about first principles and the aspect of monotheism that is social and historical. The latter is the organized monotheism that we encounter in the institutionalization of lived religion. He calls this “elective monotheism,” which includes the cultivation of community memory as an identity-defining mythos: The essential marker of elective monotheism is not the uniqueness of God alone. Rather, it lies in the desire of the unique God to summon from out of the human mass a unique community established in his name and the desire of that community to serve God in love and obedience by responding to his call (Jaffee 2001: 759–60, italics original).

Jaffee observes a common pattern inherent to the monotheistic scriptural religions: each of a number of different communities understands the same creator God as providing it with a unique revelation. While each community claims the same universal divinity as its source, both the nature and the details of each revelation differ, as obviously do the selected recipient communities. Jaffee continues: The reception of the Creator’s self-disclosure galvanizes the recipient community, transforming it from a collection of fragmented, powerless individuals into a focused center of unified action. Within the created order of nature it now pursues a redemptive historical career, a struggle to make manifest throughout the human world the reality of the Creator’s self-disclosure and to transform the human order in correspondence to the Creator’s love and will (2001: 762).

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God’s self-disclosure (revelation) provides purpose and unity to the community in its journey to bring all of humanity into proper relation with God. The journey takes place on the stage of history and it involves struggle with the community’s own internal resistance to the call, “seeking to purge itself of flaws that it shares with humanity as a whole.” Just as important is the struggle against humanity outside the community that resists the call. The goal is an ultimate reconciliation between God and the world through the message brought by the chosen community. That message and the reconciliation it brings requires personal and community transformation. While various expressions of monotheism differ over many characteristics and details of the nature and process of revelation, the content of self-disclosure and the program for bringing redemptive reconciliation, they all share the basic pattern: God provides revelation to a selected recipient community in a world of stress and tension. That community responds by acting in history to bring about resolution of those tensions through a specific program defined by the revelation. Each community struggles with the tension between the particularity of its unique position in relation to God, God’s revelation and purpose, and the universal nature of its responsibility to convey God’s message to humanity as a whole—including communities that see themselves in virtually the identical position. Tension arises as a result of the inevitable clash between chosen communities on their separate, though perhaps parallel but competing, paths toward transforming the human order according to their distinct and separate perceptions of the Creator’s loving will. Jaffee and I agree that a major difficulty lying at the heart of conflict between monotheist religious communities is structural.

Two medieval responses Given the natural tension between competing expressions of monotheism, it should not surprise that most religious thinkers did their best to prove that their particular understanding of God is the only true or accurate reflection of the divine will. Few expended energy in contemplating the possibility of rapprochement between religions and religious communities. While the exceptions are few, two medieval thinkers representing two different religions and two very different methodologies have transcended the exclusivist response to the notion of divine election through their writings on the value of religious traditions not their own. The earliest of these is the Talmudic scholar

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Menachem Hame’iri (d.1316), who belonged to the period of the Rishonim in Provence.17 The second, and the one with whom I shall begin, is the German Catholic theologian and cardinal, Nicholas of Cusa (d. 1464). Modern dialogicians from the Christian tradition have been struck by a surprisingly open perspective toward other religions espoused by Nicholas of Cusa, also known as Nicholas of Kues or Nicolaus Cusanus (henceforth, Cusanus). A fair amount of scholarship has been devoted to his writings, particularly his De pace fidei (The Peace of Faith) written very shortly after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. Despite the fact that the Ottoman conquest inspired that particular work, it was not the end of the Byzantine Empire that aroused his thinking, since he had written earlier works that treated similar themes (Bocken 2005: 165–7). The following can only summarize and treat a portion of Cusanus’ writings, which have been treated far more comprehensively by others.18 Cusanus begins by acknowledging the limits of human reason. All understanding takes place in relation to the limits of human perception. The limitedness of human thinking, perspective, and cognition prevents one from truly knowing the un-limitedness of the divine. We can name God through divine attributes we apply to God according to our limited range of perception, but whatever name we apply cannot be God’s true name. While we can never truly articulate the ultimate name of God, we nevertheless continue to try, for articulating the divine names is for Cusanus a metaphor for religion itself (Bocken 2005: 176). To Cusanus, it is the process of naming that provides greater and greater understanding, so we gain in our understanding of God by engaging in the process of seeking God’s truth through divine names. Although attempts to name God cannot produce the truth, they may approximate the truth. We can therefore learn something also from others who are engaged in a similar naming process. According to Cusanus, Christians can thus learn from Muslims or even pagans who attempt to know God (Bocken 2005: 171). Cusanus writes in his De pace fidei: Oh Lord, You know … that there cannot be a great multitude without much diversity … . You set over Your people different kings and different seers, called prophets, very many of whom, in their role as Your legates, instituted in Your name worship and laws and instructed an uneducated people. Men accepted these laws as if You Yourself, the King of Kings, had spoken to them face to face … . [T]he earthly human condition is characterized by the fact that longstanding custom, which is regarded as having passed over into nature, is defended as the truth. In this way there arise great quarrels when

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Contemporary Muslim–Christian Encounters each community prefers its own faith to another. Aid us, since You alone are able to. For this strife occurs for the sake of You, whom alone all men worship in everything they adore. For no one, in whatever he desires, desires anything except the good, which You are. And in all intellectual inference no one seeks anything other than the truth, which You are … . If you will deign to do the foregoing [that is, appear and save the world], the sword will cease, as will also the malice of hatred and all evils; and all men will know that there is only one religion in a variety of rites (una religio in rituum varietate). But this difference of rites cannot be eliminated; and perhaps it is not expedient that it be eliminated for the diversity may make for an increase of devotion, since each region will devote more careful attention to making its ceremonies more favourable, as it were, to You, the King (cited in Bocken 2005: 174–5).

A great variety of religions is to be expected because they reflect the particularity of individuals’ and communities’ quests to find God. God cannot ultimately be reached because of the limitations of human knowledge, but the process of attempting to reach God is what religion is about. We cannot truly know God, but we can know something of the process of knowing, which is religion. Only one religion therefore exists, for religion is that process of naming God through which we each engage in our limited way with the unlimitedness of the divinity. What we today would call separate religions is to Cusanus nothing more than various naming-paths that have evolved to come to better know God. Each embodies a different process or rite in a common quest and process that represents a single, common religion. Lest we unfairly accuse Cusanus of being simplistic and reductive, he notes that “ ‘to strive for uniformity endangers peace more’ than to understand the plurality of forms as an ‘augmentation of piety and devotion’ ” (De pace fidei XIX, cited by Bocken 2005: 172). One can understand one’s own quest-process (what we would today call a religion) better by learning from the quest-process (religion) of the other. Learning from Islam, for example, can lead to deeper and more fundamental understanding of the mystery of the Trinity even though Islam absolutely denies the theory of Trinity (Valkenberg 2011: 44). The error of Islamic denial of the Trinity does not reduce the positive impact of struggling to make sense of the Trinity in relation to the Islamic argument against it. In fact, Cusanus provides an argument in the voice of a Muslim which, while it might appear to be a critique of the Trinity, demonstrates how the Gospel affirms the impossibility of a plurality of Gods (Valkenberg 2011: 46). As Bocken puts it, Cusanus found that the challenge to the Christian believer to understand the Trinity under Islamic critique brings the Christian closer to God by understanding the concept more fully:

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And this real meaning can only be found in dialogue with this Islamic denial … . In the confrontation between different religious traditions, each of them finds the opportunity to learn its own truth on a better and more fundamental level. At the same time this is only possible to the extent that we attempt to understand the other tradition within our perspective … . In the way we learn to know the other, we know ourselves better, and to the extent that we know ourselves, we are able to understand what the other thinks and believes (2005: 179, 180).

Cusanus finds value rather than menace in the existence of other religions. Even under the pressure of the Ottoman conquest of the second Rome and what was undoubtedly a tremendous shock to the Christian sense of self, Cusanus is able to see Islam per se not as a threat but a positive tool in the cache of instruments available to deepen one’s understanding of the divine. He not only valorizes the existence of other religions, he notes how dialogue with them will deepen our own understanding of God. Unlike Cusanus, Menachem Hame’iri did not advocate theological dialogue with believers in other faiths, yet his openness to the value and merit of believers in other faith traditions is remarkable for a pre-modern Jewish thinker. The Jewish disinclination to engage in religious dialogue is based on two factors.19 One is the generally precarious nature of Jewish life in a world dominated by other communities. Until the second half of the twentieth century, Jews were spread thinly throughout much of the world as small and virtually powerless minorities, and religious “dialogue” until only the recent past tended to mean polemic, apologetic, and disputation. In the Christian world, Jews were occasionally forced to engage in disputations with Christians, sometimes but infrequently under the protection of the crown, and more often in environments that were prepared in order to defeat and humiliate Jews in order to justify conversion, including forced conversion, to Christianity (Maccoby 1982; Chazan 1992). The Rabbinic literatures that emerged during the beginning of this diaspora period in Late Antiquity purposefully restricted interaction with non-Jews, and Jewish reluctance to engage in interreligious dialogue has continued to the present, particularly among the Orthodox branch of Judaism (Soloveitchik 1964; Kimelman 2004). The second reason for Jewish avoidance of dialogue with believers of other religions derives from a perspective articulated in some detail in the Talmudic tractate, Avodah Zarah, which forbids trading with “idol-worshipers”20 on the three days preceding and following their festivals (Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 2a). At the time that the prohibition was first canonized in the Mishnah sometime toward the end of the second century (Mishnah, Avodah

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Zarah 1:1),21 Christianity was a minority religion in the Land of Israel and most non-Jews were pagans. The purpose of the prohibition was said to ensure that Jews not indirectly support the worship of idols, for the non-Jewish trading partner may proceed as a result of the transaction to thank his gods for the profit he gained. The ban was subsequently reduced in a variety of ways: the three days after the festival were not required by the sages as necessary, and a dictum followed that outside of the Land of Israel the prohibition applied only to the festival day itself. At the same time, Christianity grew and soon overwhelmed polytheistic practices to become the majority religion. As a result, the identity of the idolworshiping non-Jewish Other became associated with Christians, so economic and then social interaction with Christians came to be associated with supporting idolatry. Legal and juridical barriers established to separate between Jew and non-Jew in Rabbinic literature make social interaction with non-Jews difficult. Legal restrictions constrained Jews in such activities as returning lost property to non-Jews, preparing food for non-Jews and inviting them to communal meals, even rescuing non-Jews from harm. The literature governed even the ways in which non-Jews may be greeted in social contacts.22 The restrictions established by the Talmud to reduce interaction with nonJews originated in the Land of Israel in Late Antiquity, a land in which Jews represented a significant minority if not majority of the population. The Jewish community at that time and place was large enough to satisfy most of its own economic needs, but it soon declined when the Roman Empire Christianized in the fourth century. Pressures and restrictions imposed by the Byzantine Empire drove Jews out of the Land of Israel and increased emigration into the diaspora where Jews represented a much smaller percentage of the population and subsequently needed to integrate more fully into the larger economies. The Jewish communities that settled in Europe were therefore required to engage more fully with their Christian neighbors and quite rapidly to a level that appeared to contravene the restrictions imposed by the Talmud. European Jewish religious authorities responded by adopting a variety of strategies for bridging the gap between actual practice and the halakhah of Talmudic law in order to rationalize established behavior, but they refrained from drawing a distinction in principle between Christianity and the idolatrous religions toward which the halakhic restrictions had originally been formed (Halbertal 2005: 1–2). The goal was to relieve the economic burden but to preserve what they considered to be the great disparity between monotheistic Judaism and idolatrous Christianity.

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I noted above that the Talmudic term for the people with whom interaction was restricted ranges from “idol-worshipers” (‘ovdey kokhavin/gelilim) to “nations” (goyim). These are two different semantic signifiers, but they are conflated through the substitution of terms in various manuscripts of the Talmud.23 If the two terms are equal, then anybody who is not a Jew is by definition both Gentile and idolater. The required discrimination would therefore apply between Jews and all Gentiles. But the two terms may convey a significant difference in meaning. At the earliest period (the time of the Mishnah), virtually all Gentiles were pagans, but by the time of the later layers of the Talmud (sixth to seventh centuries), most Gentiles were monotheists. It is possible, therefore, that the original intent of the discrimination applied only to Gentile pagans and not Gentile monotheists. In other words, the distinction may have been established as a distinction between monotheist and polytheist rather than between Jew and Gentile. The Talmud in fact offers a category for non-idolatrous Gentiles. These are Noahides, those non-Jews who accepted the divine charge to observe seven commandments associated with the revival of life on earth after the story of the biblical Flood (cf. Gen. 9:4-6).24 According to Maimonides (d.1204), with whose works Hame’iri was familiar, those Gentiles who swear to uphold the seven commandments are assured of a place in the World to Come.25 Noahides are not Jews. They are not commanded specifically to accept the same yoke of commandments accepted by Jews, yet they may expect salvation. How do they merit such a divine reward? One may conclude from the nature of the seven commandments that the value of the community derives from its faith commitment because it must refrain from idolatry and cursing God. This is a theological conclusion. Another possible source of the community’s value is its ethical qualities and commitment to justice because it is required to establish law courts and forbid adultery, shedding blood, robbery, and cruelty to God’s creations. This would suggest a moral-ethical conclusion that ignores perhaps significant theological issues. Like other Ashkenazi scholars before him, Menachem Hame’iri moderated the halakhic prohibition against interaction with Gentiles, but he took a profoundly different approach. While the scholars that preceded Hame’iri recognized the need to reduce barriers for economic survival, Hame’iri sought to diminish the inner hostility that Jews had developed toward their Christian neighbors (Halbertal 2005: 11).26 The halakhah establishes three categories of relations with non-Jews. The first, as mentioned above, is the category that prohibits certain commerce with

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non-Jews that might promote and indirectly support idolatrous ritual or cause Jews to benefit from their facilitation of idolatry. The second establishes unequal juridical rights and obligations between Jews and non-Jews. For example, while non-Jews are required to fully compensate Jews for damage caused by an animal owned by a non-Jew to a Jew’s property, Jews do not have the corresponding liability toward non-Jews. The third governs social relations and is tied to the ban on intermarriage. For example, Jews are forbidden from drinking wine produced or owned by Gentiles. Hame’iri essentially dismantles the first category, not as a rationalization to promote engaging economically with non-Jews for survival in the diaspora but because he did not consider the non-Jews of his environment (Christians) to be in the category of idolaters. A somewhat similar legal conclusion had been made by previous European rabbinic authorities (poskim), but it was based on the premise that most Christians were not idolaters only because they were not devout in their religion. Devout Christians would be idolatrous. But Hame’iri writes, “It appears to me that these matters [of economic restrictions] all pertain only to worshippers of idols and their forms and images, but that nowadays, these [commercial] activities are wholly permitted” (Beit HaBechirah, Avodah Zarah, cited in Halbertal 2005: 5). Hame’iri treats the second category of juridical rights and responsibilities differently. One might ask what moral right would allow one community to assign for itself a privileged legal position above others. While reasoning for the distinction is not explicit in the halakhah, one might draw the conclusion that the privilege derives from the theological difference between monotheists and polytheists. Historically, religions holding political power often assigned legal rights and privileges to themselves that they forbade from religious minorities living among them. Hame’iri, however, does not consider the halakhic distinction privileging Jews with regard to juridical rights and responsibilities to reflect theological difference but rather as a distinction between nations possessed of law and those that do not respect law; the issue is not an ontological division between Jew and non-Jew but between people with respect for law. In Hame’iri’s response to the problem of juridical inequality regarding the responsibility to return the lost object of a non-Jew, he writes: Thus, all people who are of the nations that are restricted by the ways of religion27 and worship the divinity in any way, even if their faith is far from ours, are excluded from this principle [of inequality]. Rather, they are like fullfledged Jews with respect to these matters, even with respect to lost property and returning assets gained through error and all the other matters, with no distinction whatsoever (Bet HaBechirah, Baba Kama, cited in Halbertal 2005: 7).

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Regarding these first two categories, Hame’iri concludes, contrary to the thrust of Jewish thinking, that Christians do not fit the category of idolater and that Christian civilization respects law and justice. The result is a distinct condition of halakhic equity between Jew and Christian with regard to economic and juridical issues and responsibilities. As Halbertal puts it, Hame’iri: transforms the distinction between idolaters and worshippers of the Divine … . In his view, the justification for this discrimination is not rooted in some need to penalize idolaters and deny them their rights because they do not believe in a true divinity. Rather, advances the Me’iri, it is because idolatry generates a society lacking fear of God and lacking law, and such a society is not protected by law (Halbertal 2005: 8).

Hame’iri argues further that all those who possess religion do not allow themselves to be subject to the arbitrariness that he associates with astrology: [E]very person possessed of religion will remove himself from preparation for evil by restricting himself with the restrictions of his ethical qualities, and that is what the sages of blessed memory refer to when they say “Israel is not subject to the stars (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 156a),” which is to say everyone restricted by religious ways, for his restrictions will free him from what might have been decreed for him by simple causation (Hibbur HaTeshuvah, cited in Halbertal 2005: 16, italics mine).

By the term “those restricted by religious ways,” Hame’iri refers to people constrained by the legal-ethical responsibilities that come with a religious system. Hame’iri likens “everyone restricted by religious ways” with Israel, thus making a remarkable move in equating with Israel all people possessed of religion because they subject themselves to the direct providence of God rather than to the rule of astrological signs. Hame’iri establishes his position by identifying the pagan idolatry construed in Rabbinic literature with a focus on corporeality and an inability to believe in the existence of any independent, non-corporeal entity; idolatry therefore lacks a concept of God. Christians, Muslims, and Jews all recognize the existence of an independent, non-corporeal transcendent cause that exercises providence and recompense. Consequently, there is (for all intents and purposes) no more idolatry in the civilized world: Jews, Christians, and Muslims therefore have equal juridical and economic status without distinction and discrimination. Hame’iri avoids treating the details of the various religions’ theologies such as the problem (from the Jewish perspective) of the Trinity. His distinction between polytheism and monotheism rests on the distinction between ancient

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nations’ materialism, fetishism, and lack of restraint, and religions believing in the transcendental, non-corporeal nature of a moral God. Had he dealt with theological subtleties from his traditional Jewish perspective, he would most likely have arrived at a different and far less positive assessment. Halbertal uses interesting language in his evaluation of Hame’iri’s categories: “the awareness of being chosen that inheres in being liberated from the rule of astrology is expanded to encompass not only Israel but all who are restricted by religion” (Halbertal 2005: 16).

Can those chosen by God dialogue with Others? I have tried to show in the early sections of this paper how the notion of divine election has become deeply embedded within the identity of monotheist religion. The exclusivity and elitism that intuitively derive from the belief in divine election, and doggedly adhere to it, negatively affect monotheists’ views of other religions in a profound and subtle manner that may not even be recognized. Given the deep-rooted and virtually innate characteristic of chosenness embedded deeply within many expressions—and perhaps even the very notion—of monotheism, is there room for true dialogue with people of different faiths? In order to truly empathize with the Other, must one give up any of the particular self? Can one engage deeply with the faith beliefs of another if one is happy with and abundantly confident in the divinely favored quality of one’s own religious truth? To my mind, Cusanus and Hame’iri have managed to come surprisingly close, even in a much more polarized world where religious dialogue as we know and wish did not exist. Each treats the problematic of retaining faith in particular truth-claims while validating the essential quality and value of the Other. Cusanus was part of a Catholic elite for which systematic theological inquiry and speculation were the means of processing difference. To Cusanus, engagement with the religious Other is a positive means of coming closer to the ultimate truth because each religion represents a different process or rite of “naming God,” and it is the activity of naming God that defines religion. By engaging with the religious Other, one subjects one’s own theology to scrutiny and critique and thus improves discernment. While this methodology might be seen by others as a painful, vulnerable, or even self-destructive act, Cusanus is able to support this dialogue because he sees all religions as legitimate forms or

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processes that make up the religious quest. Importantly, he provides a model for Christian-Muslim relations that maintains the truth of his own tradition but with an openness to learn from the other. Hame’iri was part of a Jewish elite for which juridical rather than theological principles were the core around which intellectual thinking was organized. His goal was not to find a theological role for the religious Other but rather to find legal equity. He succeeded in doing so by understanding a commonality constrained by legal-ethical responsibilities that spurn fetishism and lack of restraint and that believe in the transcendent, non-corporeal, moral God. He avoided some core theological issues, but nevertheless he was able to cherish the religious identity of non-Jews and consider them proper equals. In the context of Muslim–Christian relations, Hame’iri is perhaps most interesting because while Cusanus offers us a theological model, he offers a legal model that has much in common with Islamic modes of thinking. As such, his example might provide an indicative role model not just for contemporary Jewish but also for Muslim thinkers. In both cases, our dialogicians privileged their own religion over the religions of the Other, but neither took a classic exclusivist approach. Moreover, neither sought an inclusivist rationale (the second approach in Race’s typology) because they did not valorize the religious Other by discovering a core part of their own religion in one form or another within the religion of the Other, a position that I personally find patronizing. They found deep and abiding worth in the religious endeavor, or in the spirituality in conjunction with moral-ethical constraints, of the Other. Both approaches acknowledged the deep and intrinsic value of another religious path in terms that resonated with the particular religion of the observer. Finally, both appear to have avoided reductivism in their separate methods, a common critique of pluralist approaches. Cusanus and Hame’iri were outliers in a world that was hardly open to the kind of dialogue we seek today. Nevertheless (or perhaps therefore), they represent productive models of religious thinking deeply confident in their religious identities and theologies who saw real value in other religions and managed to valorize without patronizing the identities and theologies of the religious Other. It seems to me that in a religious environment in which the intrinsically competitive nature of relationship between expressions of monotheism and between those who espouse them is so deeply embedded (even structurally) in our religions, the approaches engaged by Cusanus and Hame’iri offer avenues of engagement that avoid the temptation to rationalize difference. They find

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intrinsic value in the very existence of the religious Other that benefits one’s own religious community. In the context of Muslim–Christian relations, which cannot completely escape the background noise of many centuries of political as well as theological competition, contemporary dialogicians might benefit from consideration of such approaches.

4

Interreligious Dialogue as Lay, Institutional, and Academic: Muslim Perspectives Khaleel Mohammed

Introduction Not so long ago, it would have seemed that Nietzsche’s ominous foreboding about the death of God would prove to be true. The present, thus far, has proven otherwise. As Lord Jonathan Sacks has noted, religion, in the twenty-first century, has become the means of establishing identity (Sacks 2000: 10), while Professor Akbar Ahmed calls this time “the century of Islam” (Ahmed 2003: 7, 8). Far from being dead, the God idea is alive and kicking, albeit in a state of metamorphosis. The contemporary world has brought an increased, albeit unexpected, awareness and discussion of religion, reflected in the proliferation of interreligious conferences. While Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Paganism, Wicca, and several other religions are represented at such conferences, the main participants are usually delegates of the various branches of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Given that the majority of such meetings are held in the Western world, this is certainly no random occurrence. Over the last two millennia, the hostile interaction between the Abrahamic religions has resulted in some of the most sanguinary blights on the history of Western civilization. Even today, the most powerful nation in the world continues to be engaged in a de-facto war where the role of religion is the major factor. If political correctness were put aside, it is clear from some well-publicized comments that the conflict is perceived as an ongoing confrontation between a Judeo–Christian alliance and an Islamic opponent (Ahmed 2003: 36–9; Malik 2006: 168–211). The emergence of the Islamic State (al-Dawla al-Islamiyya) forces in Iraq and Syria, along with its new caliphate has made a confrontation

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between its declared religion (Islam) and all other paths the main goal, sanguinarily dispossessing and exiling all whom it deems outside the fold of Islam. Prior to 9/11, much interreligious dialogue was conducted at the institutional level, through religious and academic entities. Post 9/11 encounters have seen laypersons play a much larger role. It is not, however, as if interreligious encounter is all about promoting harmony: the internet in particular seems to be the forum for some truly acrimonious debate between religious adherents and atheists, albeit that the most hostility seems to be between Jews and Christians against Muslims. It is with this in mind that I structure this chapter into two unequal parts: (a) A brief overview of the interreligious idea from a general perspective and (b) a more detailed examination of the Muslim involvement in such dialogue.

A brief overview of the interreligious idea Laypersons, for obvious reasons, often focus less on theological or legal details and tend to be involved from the activist point of view, promoting harmonious coexistence by tackling various social issues. Unlike the academics or institutional specialists, one often finds that, among laypersons, there is often a plethora of viewpoints from members of the same religion. This of course reveals the idea of polycentrism: there is no one authoritative entity in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. Such polycentrism among the laity often comes influenced by cultural overtones: Muslims from Pakistan and Afghanistan, for example, might assume the segregation of sexes is an Islamic requirement, while their coreligionists from the Caribbean and Turkey might vehemently reject such a proposition. This behavior may be explained by coming from a background for which Marshal Hodgson coined the term “Islamicate,” defining it as something “that would refer not directly to the religion, Islam, itself, but to the social and cultural complex historically associated with Islam and the Muslims, both among Muslims themselves and even when found among non-Muslims” (1974: 59). Many Muslims, coming from the Caribbean where there is free intermingling between male and female, might view any attempt at gender segregation as a return to medievalism or chauvinism. They may view the covering of the head as something specific to worship, a practice that is shared among Christians, Muslims, and Hindus from their region.

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In many cases, it will be freely admitted that such cultural differences ought not to preclude interreligious amity and that the issues of theological and legal differences should be left to the scholars. This admission, while commendable, ignores that there are deep fissures and differences that promote hateful conceptions of the perceived religious other. Questions are often answered in a manner that would be deemed incorrect by specialists; the result is that participants often accept as authoritative what might be the personal opinion of a well-intentioned, but unqualified, person. Even on issues where there might be some sort of institutional conformity, there are still problems. For many conservative religionists, the death penalty is a scriptural edict for certain crimes, and same-sex marriages are an abomination. Does a conference organizer then invite only those who share the same views or have an open participation reflecting the diversity of opinion? As Professor Kate McCarthy observes, the recent trend has been to shift to open participation, but this comes with unpredictable consequences for the activist agenda of such gatherings (2007: 110). In the case of religious institutions, the different perspectives may negate any probability of participation. Evangelical churches, for example, with their exclusivist or particularistic view of salvation, are conspicuously absent from such gatherings. The representative of one Baptist Church was quite clear about his reason for non-participation: Quite frankly, when it comes to Evangelical Churches, one of the real core issues is salvation. You don’t sit at the table and work with people that you don’t believe are saved. On some level, there is cooperation, but to be able to sit around the same table with a group of people who you honestly believe require conversion, that’s a stretch (McCarthy 2007: 111).

It would seem that with the objectivity that academia promotes, all the shortcomings of the layperson and religious institutional encounters would be solved by academics, Yet, for all their claimed objectivity, academics often fall victim to a lifeless distancing from the religion of their study. For obvious reasons, when a researcher presents on a religious other than her own, there are questions of bias and objectivity. Even when this scenario is avoided, however, there occur, in many cases, rifts between academics and their own co-religionists based on what might be perceived as rejection of faith on the part of the former or eschewal of the phenomenological dimension of the religion. While, in addition, the institutions and laypersons often gather with an activist agenda as the shared goal, academics are more often interested in the finer points of law,

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exegeses, or historical formulations that are of little interest to those outside of the university research environment. Their contributions therefore, while being based on sound research, are often seen as meaningless for the larger society, and in actuality, for those to whom religion forms a meaningful part of their existence. Since harmonious interreligious interaction is not accepted by all, the question that raises itself then is who exactly participates in these conferences? As McCarthy found in her analysis, while most participants are those who have, what she terms, a “pluralist” perspective (meaning an openness and tolerance to the religious diversity around them) and who can be identified as liberal or progressive, conservative groups also get involved when there is a particular social aim (such as more political support for Israel) (McCarthy 2007: 199). Interestingly, in her survey of 25 randomly selected communitybased interreligious organizations from across the United States, she found that: ●

●

●

●

Eleven stated their goals in terms of social issues—alleviating poverty, housing for the homeless, community education and the like. Eight had the goal of building bridges and understanding between different religious communities. Four had an equal emphasis on social programs and dialogue. Two had distinctive aims, one for LGBT outreach and the other for clergy support (McCarthy 2007: 86).

In the United States, the government does not get officially involved in promoting interreligious dialogue, although recently it has, at various levels of state administration, allowed the prayers of non Judeo–Christian clergy. With few exceptions, this seems to be the norm in Western countries. Many Muslim majority countries, by contrast, have state-controlled bodies that can and do regulate religion, and by extension, the issue of interreligious interaction. Among such entities are Awqāf (Endowments), and Irshād and Da`wa (Guidance and Propagation).

The Muslim involvement The name Islam is specially designated in scripture; however, the term is so inclusive that, regarding Qur’an 3:19 (“Indeed the religion with God is Islam”), Professor Wilfred Cantwell Smith remarked:

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To many when it was first proclaimed and for some centuries after, this verse was saying what any man must say whose faith is vivid and whose orientation is moralist. Far from being primarily sectarian, it is, curiously, virtually identical even to the wording with the statement or definition given in the Catholic encyclopedia “Religion ... means the voluntary subjection of oneself to God” (Smith 1963: 112–13).

In a similar vein, Professor Abdul Aziz Sachedina observes: “Islamic revelation presents a theology that resonates with the modern pluralistic belief that other faiths are not merely inferior manifestations of religiosity, but variant forms of individual and communal responses to the presence of the transcendent in human life” (2001: 14). Despite these scholarly assessments on the meaning and outlook of Islam, Muslims—individuals and institutions—have, for the most part, redefined the term in the most exclusivist dimension. These interpretations do not, as I will presently show, allow involvement in interreligious dialogue as equal partners. Before embarking on any in-depth analysis of interreligious dialogue between the Abrahamic faiths, certain factors have to be taken into consideration. The first of these is that, particularly after the Holocaust, Jews and Christians have been engaging in dialogue to encourage rapprochement. On 12 March, 2000, Pope John Paul II made one of the bravest pronouncements in the history of Jewish-Christian interaction: from the altar of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, he sought forgiveness for approximately two millennia of violence committed by Christians, specifying Jews as one of the victimized groups. This statement underlined a new dimension in Jewish-Christian relations and signified not just détente but genuine amity (Carroll 2000). In Western countries, where the majority of interreligious conferences occur, Christians and Jews see themselves largely not as immigrants but as citizens with a long history of presence. Muslims, in contrast, are still largely seen as new-comers, as the bulk of them only started coming to the United States after 1966 when immigration restrictions were lifted. In Europe, even though their presence has been long established, they are still seen largely as an immigrant population whose origins and values are not exactly compatible with European norms. This is one of the reasons which was cited in the Vatican’s 2006 opposition to Turkey joining the European Union (Asbarez 2006). At interreligious conferences then, the concept of othering is not just something that may be ideological: it is very visible. The Jewish and Christian participants are often dressed alike, speaking in accents that evidence a Western upbringing. The Muslims, by contrast, are more often than not from the Middle East or Asia

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and speaking in accents that accentuate their “foreignness.” In such a situation, these obvious lines of separation only serve to underline divergence rather than confluence. Long before 9/11, the image of Islam and Muslims as perceived in most Western nations was one that was not designed to promote any sort of harmony. Edward Said wrote of an imagined geography that made Muslims part of a different, inferior, “Orient” as opposed to the Occident (2000: 171). This image existed long before the Israel–Palestinian conflict, and even before the Crusades. Muslims were the first to threaten and eventually efface Christian dominance in the Middle East and even had a dominant presence in Spain for seven centuries, until 1492. Moreover, after 9/11, the attitude toward Muslims in the United States has never wavered in its negativity. The killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011 only seemed to increase the animosity, as surveys taken immediately after his death showed that 34 percent of Americans felt that the presence of Muslims in the United States increased the chances of a terrorist attack whereas before the amount was “only” at 27 percent (Islam Today 2011). Along with facing this negativity, many Muslim participants in interreligious dialogue often demonstrate approaches to religion that further exacerbate their differences with non-Muslims. Jewish and Christian clergy, coming from mainly Western universities, are, in addition to faith approaches, generally able to accommodate a rational, historical, critical methodology in the study of their religion. As such, even the most committed clergy can usually represent themselves ably in academic settings. For most Muslims, it is not the same. Universities in many Muslim countries that teach religion or Islam do so from a confessional perspective, utilizing semblances of an academic approach only when it is felt that this will help the cause of Islam. This state of affairs may be attributed to the concept of Islamicate societies as expressed earlier: the Jewish and Christian seminaries in Western countries are very observant of the separation between the religious and the secular. The seminaries in the Muslim-majority countries do not acknowledge this separation; therefore, their graduates are trained in a traditional system that has its methodology set in a time that predates the separation between Church and State. According to Karen Armstrong our understanding of religion in a western context is rather unique; the line of demarcation that Westerners draw between religion and politics or other aspects of mundane life is so unique that “No other culture has had anything remotely like it, and before the 18th century, it would have been incomprehensible even to European Catholics” (2014). The foregoing paragraph reflects some generalization:

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some of the products of Christian seminaries in the United States are like the imams, refusing to accept any frame of reference outside of scripture as traditionally understood. Yet, in perspective, one can identify such individuals by associating them with the seminaries from which they have graduated. In the case of imams, this becomes more difficult since the institutional studies of religion in most Muslim-majority countries do not have typologies of reference that distinguish between academic and seminarian. Professor Jane McAuliffe spent a semester at the Shariah College, University of Jordan, specifically to observe the approach to the study of the Qur’an in a modern Muslim institution. She concluded: “The concept of Qur’anic Studies as a subject within the undergraduate or graduate curriculum of a European or North American University bears little resemblance to its counterpart within a modern Muslim academic institution” (McAuliffe 2003: 94–107). For obvious reasons, there were certain aspects of instruction to which North American students would not have access, and Professor McAuliffe was careful to mention this. The graduate from the Muslim institution therefore, while holding a doctorate in Islamic studies, is first a seminarian, not an academic. That this situation has not changed was proven in the summer of 2014 when delegates from Saudi Arabian universities attended a series of symposia in San Diego, arranged by the Saudi Western Studies Institute and the Department of Religious Studies at San Diego State University.1 None of the Saudi participants could understand that, in academic discourse, participants do not indulge in arguments of heresy or right belief. They came, fully convinced that they could engage in and triumph in polemic regarding the divinity of Jesus. They were largely unprepared to listen to the findings of their coreligionists who presented a Western academic perspective. Interestingly, however, while they could welcome the academic approaches to the Bible that challenged many of that document’s portrayals of the past, they seemed almost programed to reject any similar method regarding the Qur’an. This was, as far as they were concerned, because the Qur’an was God’s word, inviolate, sacred, and therefore above questions about its validity. Even the history of its compilation, although sourced in tradition rather than scripture, was deemed outside the purview of academic examination, unless, of course, such investigation yielded results that buttressed the idea of an astoundingly monolith communal memory to produce a document that has been unchanged from the time of Muhammad to the present. Yet, it must be pointed out that the goal of the symposia was to highlight the seminarian perspective of the

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Saudi scholars and to promote, by interaction with western academics, a more balanced approach. Since the project is still in progress, and has only recently started, any assessment at this stage would be premature. As noted, many Muslim majority countries have state-controlled bodies that regulate religion. One example of the result of such control is that Nasr Abu Zayd, of Egypt, had his PhD revoked because of his idea that the Qur’an should be analyzed as a text rather than as divine revelation (see Rahman 2008). In Saudi Arabia, no book can be published unless a government body avers that it does not contradict religious norms. For instance, Letter to the West: A Saudi View (discussed further below) argues that coeducational learning is a problem, although many Islamic scholars may not, stating that, “the psychological repercussions are much more serious, as mixing between the sexes is a serious crime committed against the generation of students” (al-Boulahi and al-Bishr 2004: 176). The book further states that: There is almost universal agreement among those in charge of education that education as a whole is a stage of preparation for confronting the burdens of life. Therefore, the curriculums (sic) must be drawn up in such a manner as to contribute to this preparation in a manifestly effective way. This however, cannot be properly achieved in mixed schools (al-Boulahi and al-Bishr 2004).

The perspective that males and females should be educated differently on the assumption that their genders will dictate their roles in life is one that is so retrogressive that it is difficult to see how those who support such ideas could effectively function in interreligious dialogue. The Saudi cultural imposition on interreligious dialogue is also illustrated by the interreligious conference in Madrid in 2008, sponsored by the Saudi Arabian government. Michael Lerner, a reform rabbi and publisher of Tikkun magazine, one of the invitees, noted that he discussed the subject of Israel while at the dining table with several highly ranked Saudi representatives. These representatives were outraged that Israel had not responded to the Saudisponsored initiative that peace could be discussed if Israel returned to the pre1967 borders. When Rabbi Lerner pointed out that this was highly improbable, the answer he received was that this was known; all that the Saudis were seeking was some sort of response that would lead to negotiations. They felt that their message contained something Israel had long sought: recognition by the Arab states (Lerner 2011). Regardless of what one’s opinion might be about the

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situation, it is surely an example of a cultural approach being brought to bear and leading to a failure to communicate. The question that would make sense to many Westerners would be: “Why offer something that you know will not be accepted?” In addition, the answer would be precisely what Lerner received. This of course, does not take away from the fact that for many, if not most, Jews and Muslims, interreligious dialogue meetings are just another nomenclature of diversion from the central issue: that of Israel. Another institutional production is from Kuwait, produced by the Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs. The Arabic book, Al-H. iwār ma‘al-Ākhar: al-Muntaliqāt wa’l D.awābit (Conversation with the Other: Bases and Rules), advises that beneficial discourse is that which is an invitation to the path of Islam (Al-Hamd et al. 2006: 3). With this institutional perspective, it is difficult to envisage an interreligious discussion wherein the idea of pluralism, in this context meaning the acceptance of religious diversity, is foremost. Perhaps the full lack of desire on the part of some Muslim institutions to even acknowledge the idea of pluralism is manifested in the translation of the concept into Arabic. One would expect that it would be rendered as al-ta’adudiyya, based upon a literal lexical rendition. Instead, the state controlled board of religious scholars in Saudi Arabia deemed it as wah.dat al adyān (oneness of religions) and in 1997, issued a scathing fatwa wherein it was deemed that since Islam had abrogated all other previous religions and that the scriptures of those religions had become corrupted: It is not allowable for a Muslim who believes in God as Lord, in Islam as the religion, and in Muhammad as prophet and apostle, to propagate this sinful idea, to promote it, or to aid and abet its dissemination between the Muslims, over and above accepting it. It is not allowed to participate in any conferences and seminars, and association with its promotion (The Permanent Assembly for Scientific Research and Responsa 1997: 22–3).

This gross misunderstanding of “pluralism” on the part of the board of religious scholars is in part due to their lack of study of any religion outside of the perspectives advocated in Islamic texts. This is extremely astonishing considering that one of the complaints that many Muslims have against non-Muslim interlocutors is that their understanding of Islam comes from outside of the religion and is ab initio, skewed. Since many Muslims therefore understand Christianity only through the verses of the Qur’an, they often accuse Christians of worshiping three gods, without consideration of the fact that a triune godhead is quite different to tritheism (Q. 5:73). It does not seem

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to occur to such Muslims that the qur’anic depiction of Christianity might be specific to one interpretation peculiar to the areas in which Muhammad lived and that such an interpretation is no longer normative. This is the sort of “pseudo knowledge” that Muslims bring to the interreligious dialogue table regarding Jesus.2 Along the same lines too, they are often surprised to learn that contrary to what they might have read in the Qur’an, Jews do not claim Ezra to be the son of God (Q. 9:30). While it is most likely that the Qur’an was referring to a little known position among Arabian Jews, most Muslim readers do not seem to want to contextualize the situation and to understand that the Qur’an’s reference to alleged Christian and Jewish practices can never be taken as other than being specific to the Arab peninsula. The inability to do this is almost incomprehensible since Muslim scholarship knows the discipline of asbāb al nuzūl, seeking to understand the reasons and contexts for the revelation of qur’anic verses. These types of material and discussions get published in the Muslim-majority countries because of the probable perception that the interreligious interaction is designed to belittle Islam and that as such whatever is deemed as the “Islamic” way of life has to be defended. Books that address interreligious issues then come forth as polemic challenges or accusations against non-Islamicate systems. It would seem then that the answer would lie in finding Muslim graduates from the Islamic Studies program in Western universities, so that s/he can operate out of a common academic outlook with Jewish and Christian dialogue partners. This expectation, however, falls short for the simple reason that there is a vast disconnection between Islamic and Religious Studies. Islamic Studies cover a large swath of topics, from politics, to economics, to religion, to mysticism, to biographies among other things. The end result is that many “Islamicists” who are employed in the various departments of Religious Studies, are not religion specialists, and, as such, they are not generally familiar with Religious Studies theory and terminology (see Blankenship 1993: 25–9). As a graduate of the famed Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University, I can attest that many foreign students who were admitted to McGill based on their foreign undergraduate degrees had little, if any, background in Religious Studies theory. If their dissertations were in politics or other areas, this of course, would be of no importance. However, even when it came to the issue of qur’anic or Islamic law studies, the foci of dissertations were chosen as not to require specialization in Religious Studies theory. Thus far, the focus has been on the institutional lack of ability to function in meaningful interreligious dialogue. The problems on the individual level are

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several. In the first place, it ought to be pointed out that it is a misconception to treat every imam as Islam’s counterpart of a rabbi or minister/priest. Islam has no priesthood, and as such, anyone may lead the prayer. “Imam” in and of itself simply means “one that stands at the front” and is generally used to refer to the prayer leader. In past times, the title implied scholarship, but for the most part, there are other titles used today for such recognition. As such, when an interreligious conference flyer proudly proclaims that the presenters will be by Rabbi X, Reverend Y, and Imam Z, the audience often comes expecting to find equally qualified colleagues and are often disappointed. Even in cases where the “imam” might be a brain surgeon, and many imams happily use the doctoral title, his outstanding qualifications in one field do not make him an expert in his own religion. Indeed, lacking a trained and centrally appointed priesthood or rabbinate, imams often cannot be said to represent their tradition in any official or hierarchical way; so while a Catholic priest or bishop can represent his church as an institution, an imam cannot similarly be said to represent Islam. Muslims coming from majority-Muslim countries still do not know how to interact as minorities with the members of other faiths. Yet, it is the Muslims from such countries that are often pushed to be representatives in interreligious dialogue, on the supposition that coming from a “Muslim” country makes them necessarily better-informed Muslims. When these representatives assume their roles, they often have to fulfill certain roles, either as diplomatic or cultural ambassadors. Many of them, especially when the conferences are at the international level, or held in the United States, are so eager to present themselves as “moderate” Muslims that they say whatever they think will be appreciated by their hosts, instead of honestly presenting what might be divisive elements that need to be pondered and discussed. To address this issue, Dr Taha Alalwani of the International Institute of Islamic Thought, headquartered in Virginia, has focused on what he terms “Fiqh al Aqaliyaat” (Fiqh for Minorities), wherein he points out that in Western countries, Muslims as the minority have to rethink their approaches toward law and look for some reasonable compromise since the formulations of classical Islamic law never had to deal with this situation.3 That Muslims in general, whether as individuals, academics, or institutional representatives, are way behind in interreligious dialogue is obvious. Despite the highly negative picture that has been so far presented as coming from their perspective, one must also take into account the negativity they encounter. It is almost always presumed that in order to be deemed a

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“moderate” Muslim, one has to blame the Palestinian people for choosing to reject Israeli occupation, or to acknowledge that the terrorism to which many Muslims resort is due to the lack of a reformation in Islam, and that all the troubles of the Muslim nations are due to religion. Few, if any, interlocutors are willing to examine the history of colonialism and capitalist empire building at the expense of the conservative cultures of Muslim countries. Professor Kevin Reinhardt’s assessment of the classroom situation is pervasive enough to be applied generally when he says that: “What we are confronted with instead are problems with ‘pseudo knowledge,’ ” continuing: All students who walk into an Islam class, though they profess ignorance, still “know” something about Islam—if only from the news. Every Islamicist is aware that, whether it is in the New York Daily News or on National Public Radio, it is the negative, the violent, the ignorant that characterize the images and voices presented in the media as Muslim. Garbled or dated history, plotted summaries of creeds and practices—all these are framed by distaste, dislike, or outrage. Yet, in the end, this is less a problem of fact than of affect: students arrive with a constellation of terms, mostly negative, that cluster round the notion of Islam, so that words like “terrorist” come naturally and unreflectively when they answer an exam question about, say, the Kharijis (Reinhardt 2003: 23).

If the general body of scholarly Muslims has proven largely unfit to participate in truly meaningful interreligious dialogue, there is a factor that only accentuates the problem: the subtle placing of Muslims on the defensive in many such encounters. The labels of “extremist,” “fundamentalist,” and “moderate” are selectively used to indicate acceptance or rejection of specific Muslims. There seem to be unwritten criteria for Muslims to be accepted as discussants: among these are that they have to demonstrate that they are definitely opposed to certain groups or parties or that they do not reject aspects of the American military involvement in the Muslim-majority countries. Islamophobic material, distributed by those obsessed with the rise of Muslims in the West, or the alleged incompatibility of Islam with any human values, is abundant.4 Ergun Caner, an American Christian pastor, rose to fame with his book Unveiling Islam, in which he and his brother, purporting to be ex-Muslims, wrote a scathing rejection of Islam (Caner and Caner 2002). The book became a bestseller and won the Gold Medallion Award by the Evangelical Publishers Association in 2003 (First Baptist church n.d.). Ergun Caner was later made Dean of the Theological Seminary at Liberty University and became a very public figure, until he was exposed

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as a fraud for pretending to know Arabic and for claiming to have been brought up as a Muslim. His ridiculous attempts at trying to pass off some meaningless gibberish were videotaped and posted on Youtube. Instead of being condemned however, he was made President of Brewton-Parker College in Mount Vernon, Georgia. Several other Islamophobes, despite having been debunked, have been employed by government agencies to provide training, despite the objections of Muslims. Some Muslims have responded by posting polemic on the internet, or, as in the case of the Toronto preacher, Shabir Ally, writing books, or engaging in public debates that seek to establish the Qur’an as an uncorrupted text and Islam as a religion of peace and indeed superior to all other paths (Ally n.d.). One of his booklets that alleged corruptions in the Bible is still the subject of much debate on the internet. In such an atmosphere of apologetic and polemic, and the facility with which this material can be accessed, the camps of discussion to promote pluralism or debate to promote supremacy are seemingly equally matched. Indeed, othering by both Christians and Muslims continues. Muslims themselves have aided in this, coining such phrases as “gharbzadegi” (Westoxification) and “maghrebzadehs” (Occidentophiles) to denote the infatuation with the non-Islamic “West” (Jalal 1962; see LeVine 2005: 170). Letter to The West: A Saudi View, the title of a post 9/11 book, co-authored by some prominent Islamic scholars from Saudi Arabia, also evidences this demarcation (al-Boulahi and Bishr 2004: 12).5 Interestingly, the book glosses over the issue of pluralism and seems to focus more on a critique of Israel and American foreign policy, working on the idea of a Judeo–Christian West juxtaposed against an Islamic world. It seems clear then, that even though there are large numbers of Muslims in Western countries, particularly France, Great Britain, and the United States, in terms of outlook, that imagined geography still exists. A similar snub from the Christian side, less than a year after Pope Benedict XVI had uttered statements that many Muslims deemed as denigrating toward Islam, came after 138 Muslim scholars and intellectuals, in an unprecedented move of interfaith unity, signed a proposition entitled A Common Word (2007). The letter was put together by the Aal-al-Bayt foundation in Jordan and sent to several authorities in Christianity, pointing out that Muslims and Christians make up the bulk of the world’s population and that since they share several values, they should work toward making the world a better place. While most of the responses were welcoming, the then top Vatican official for dealing with Islam suggested that while discussions were certainly welcome, any true theological dialogue was impossible at this point in time since, “Muslims do not accept that one

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can discuss the Koran in depth, because they say it was written by dictation from God. With such an absolute interpretation, it is difficult to discuss the contents of faith” (Heneghan 2007). To have so quickly made what seemed to be a condition that Muslims had to revisit their view of their scripture for dialogue to take place was seen as triumphalist since the Church has a similar view of what it deems as revealed or authoritative truth. That the Cardinal’s interview in public was seen as a rebuff is evidenced by the statements on the website of the “A Common Word” initiative (n.d.), wherein the Pope was seen as not sincere, since attention was drawn to his focus on publicly administering baptism to former Muslim, Magdi Allam, who had been noted for making statements that his erstwhile coreligionists considered hostile, mendacious, and inflammatory toward Islam.6 As we struggle to outline the conditions that must be met for meaningful, productive interreligious dialogue, perhaps we ought to assess the situation in terms of reality. The majority of Muslims who are citizens of Western countries, particularly the United States and Canada, are first generation immigrants. The number of Muslims who are graduates of Departments of Religion or who can be deemed as truly equipped to contribute to the Western notion of interreligious dialogue is still a scanty few. This is a problem that can only be healed by time, as the number of Muslim graduates from Departments of Religion is on the rise. Muslims themselves, in acknowledgment of these drawbacks, are holding conferences and workshops to provide a solution.7 Medieval interreligious encounters that were based on polemic have morphed into present-day civil discourse, and further change is still in process. Very recently, Professor Leonard Swidler became the first Catholic theologian to lecture at the Muhammad ibn Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A Western Studies Institute was established in Saudi Arabia to promote a better exchange between their local university professors and scholars from Western countries, and the symposia in the summer of 2014 have already been discussed, while in January 2015, a symposium of women scholars will be held at San Diego State University. Since these gatherings represent the initial stages of a pioneering movement, they are restricted to a few scholars only, and the goal is that the interchange will promote new understandings and methodologies in interreligious encounters. While much of the foregoing article reads as a critique of Muslim participation in interreligious dialogue, it needs to be pointed out that this article is written as a study of the present state of affairs and not as a presentation of the desired ideal. The problem is not that Islam and its tenets,

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however interpreted, are against dialogue. The idea being put forth is that, in much the same way that Jewish-Christian dialogue had a long history before any truly beneficial outcome, so too the involvement of Muslims must undergo a period of germination before any genuinely fruitful response. At this point in time, there is a failure to understand what the term “religion” may mean for Muslims. As Professor Abu-Nimer has pointed out: Religion in the Middle East (particularly in Islamic cultures has never been separated from politics; thus if one assumes that Israelis and Palestinians deal with each other (or their conflict) on a purely secular basis, such an assumption is mechanical and superficial (Abu-Nimer 2004: 492).

The reality of the situation is that Islam, when the subject of interreligious dialogue, is simply not a topic of discussion in terms of religion as a personal path that excludes what is deemed as mundane. The fact is that there has been for the last decade and more, a state of confrontation and war with many Muslim entities. In order for a serious dialogue to occur, there have to be conditions set in place, with specific goals, rather than the simple assumption that parties know what they are there to achieve. Long-time participants in Trialogue encounters have written about the conditions for such engagement. Leonard Swidler and Paul Mojzes, note that the time has come for a tremendous paradigm-shift from the traditional way in which such interactions are conducted. One has to think beyond absolutes and eschew the vocabulary that may indicate that any one side is particularizing discussion. Most certainly, there will be issues on which there is disagreement, but it has to be considered that dialogue is “conversation between two or more persons with differing views, the primary purpose of which for each participant is to learn from the other so that he or she can change and grow” (Swidler and Mojzes 2000: 147). If dialogue is entered with the idea of forcing change, it will suffer. These changes will surface as an inevitability of interaction and response, out of willingness rather than perceived coercion. As such, when Christians tell Muslims that they have to revisit the way in which they interpret the Qur’an or Muslims insist the Christians rethink the divinity of Jesus, they are constructing hurdles. The authors argue that interreligious dialogue participants not focus on particular, identifiable, ethics but rather come together to form a global ethic (Swidler and Mojzes 2000: 179). Several Muslim organizations have started adopting new approaches to interreligious dialogue. At the Institute of Scholars conference held in Rabat, Morocco, in June 2014, wherein the focus was on the Qur’an and its worldview, non-Muslim scholars from the Western world presented papers. At the 2009

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Organization of the Conference of Islamic Cooperation, organizers allowed the presentation of a paper by the author that sought to establish that the Qur’an does not necessarily doubt the Christian accounts of Jesus dying upon the cross but that it rather interprets the event in a different theological light (Mohammed et al. 2009). Given the apparent human penchant for conflict, the goal of a truly harmonious co-existence between the various faith followers is possibly one that may never be achieved. Muslims are increasingly seeing themselves and being accepted as global citizens rather than adherents of some “foreign” culture and ideology. That people are moving toward a more personal spiritual identity rather than institutional religious labels, and are embracing an open acceptance of religious diversity in larger numbers, seems to presage a time when Christians, Muslims, Jews, and all the other groups may at least agree to some genuinely tolerable modus vivendi.

5

Gender and Christian–Muslim Dialogue Anne Hege Grung

Introduction Christian–Muslim dialogue in its various forms is always embedded in particular geopolitical and social contexts. What characterizes these dialogues regarding their organization, aim, participants, and processes differs. They happen between people in diverse circumstances and contexts. Participants in one and the same dialogue may have divergent narratives and views about what the dialogue is addressing and representing. Perhaps all Christian– Muslim dialogues only have two things in common: the participants are either Muslims or Christians and both traditions are represented. This is stating the obvious. But all dialogues also share the fact that people involved are gendered, categorized by themselves and their society as either men or women—in most cases. All genders do not need to be represented in a Christian–Muslim dialogue, however, and reflection over gender is not necessarily present. The meaning of the word “dialogue” could be restricted to a description of a particular activity: it could be used in a broader perspective to describe a long-term process between groups or it could be based on naming human interaction intentionally based on specific ethical, moral, and/or religious values. Oddbjørn Leirvik distinguishes between “spiritual” and “necessary” dialogues when the term is connected to managing interreligious relations, where the two categories of dialogue have different philosophical reasoning behind them (2014: 18). Catherine Cornille describes interreligious dialogue as “any form or degree of constructive engagement between religious traditions” (2013: xii). In this chapter, I will relate to several of these meanings of dialogue when discussing Christian–Muslim dialogue in gender perspective. The concept of interreligious and thus Christian–Muslim dialogue is also contested. This is particularly the case in contexts where strong discourses

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marked by identity politics question the value and benefits of people meeting across religious boundaries. In these discourses, dialogue is often regarded as an activity where values and identities may be negotiated or traded away and thus entail weakening of religious (and cultural) identity. The complexity dialogues often experience regarding trans-1 and intra-religious stances and perceptions on human life in general do not go well together with polarized worldviews and strong identity politics. It is, however, possible to claim that interreligious and Christian–Muslim dialogue practices are in constant need of critical, constructive evaluation both by participants in the dialogues and by researchers without devaluing the importance and significance of such processes and activities. Taking a closer look at Christian–Muslim dialogue with a gender perspective could be part of this process of evaluation. Applying feminist and critical gender perspectives represents a possibility to reveal gendered power structures within and around the dialogues and can also more constructively suggest practical change and different perspectives which may enrich and “thicken” the practice of dialogue itself making it more flexible and robust. Gender, gender perspectives, and feminisms are, just as the term “dialogue,” contested concepts. What is entailed in being a man or a woman in social, cultural, political, and religious life differs a great deal between manifold social and cultural structures. The concept of gender is generally still more often connoted to women than to men, leaving “gender” to mean “women.” Others see men and women representing socially constructed binary oppositions and aim at deconstructing the categories of gender in order to establish human equality. Both positions toward gender seem inadequate when critically engaging with the practice of religious traditions from a gender perspective: gender differences are deeply inscribed in the practices of most religions, whether this is openly addressed or not. The religious traditions of Islam and Christianity both in historical perspective and as lived religions today have produced and reproduce gender models and gender roles marked by various contexts. Entangled in these models and roles are self-interpretations and interpretations of authoritative sources in the traditions (see Anderson and Young 2010). So: what is the impact of gender in Christian–Muslim dialogues? Or, to be more specific: how are Christian–Muslim dialogues relating to various questions and challenges concerning gender articulated both within the diverse traditions of Christianity and Islam and in the social, political and cultural contexts of the dialogues? Do they relate to existing gendered structures in the faith traditions and in larger society, and if they do, are these structures

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challenged or confirmed? Do the dialogues themselves and the way they are organized influence, shape and construct gendered structures? The answers to these questions may contribute to a constructive, critical evaluation of Christian–Muslim dialogues in a gender perspective.

Gender in Islamic and Christian traditions: And in the encounters between the traditions If we start reflecting over gender and the encounter and co-existence of the traditions of Islam and Christianity, contemporary reflections on the early encounters between Christianity and Islam includes suggestions that the Christian textual canon and doctrines influenced the shaping of the early Islamic interpretation of gender in a more patriarchal direction. The Muslim feminist scholar Riffat Hassan has argued that what she characterizes as a misogynist interpretation of the Biblical narrative of the fall from Genesis in early Christianity interfered with the Islamic interpretation of the Qur’anic narrative about the same event (Hassan 1987, 1991). In the Qur’an, the consequences of the fall are less dramatic and the blame is shared between the man and the woman. Hassan claims that parts of the early Christian interpretation (such as 1 Tim. 2:8-15) spilled over and shaped the interpretation of the event as narrated in the Qur’an. Hassan has recently been criticized for attempting to “purify” Islamic sources from Jewish and early Christian (patriarchal) influence in order to claim the Qur’an to be a source for Islamic feminism in its original meaning, leading both to a blurring of historical interactions between the traditions and to an essentialist and triumphalist concept of Islam (Hidayatullah 2013: 150 ff.). Her argument is, nevertheless, interesting in making an observation of potential influences of patriarchal interpretations, in this case from the Christian to the Islamic tradition. Christian denominations that in the last decades have attempted to integrate ideals of gender equality into their theological self-interpretation may feel challenged by some contemporary representations of Islamic teachings and practice with a more traditional view on gender and gender roles. Traditional gender models where men and women are seen as having complementary roles are also present in many Christian communities, but in the West this gender model is presently mostly connoted to Islamic practice, perhaps because it is most clearly articulated by some Muslim communities and leaders at the moment. Examples of the latter are the visible practicing of gender segregated spaces in

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most mosques when praying as well as a certain reproduction of traditional roles in the family preached by many Muslim leaders (Roald 2001: 145–84). Gender conscious Muslims and Christians living in contexts where gender equality or gender fairness are positive values sometimes engage with the examples of Jesus and Muhammad to highlight what they find their respective traditions’ contributed to the improvement of women’s living conditions and status. The way both Muhammad and Jesus related to women and the content of the message they conveyed is seen as a significant improvement over their contemporary contexts by many (Eriksson 1999; Wadud 1999). Their example plays an important role in both traditions when evaluating how one should relate to fellow human beings, including women, in an ethically legitimate way. To emphasize the “women-friendliness” of Jesus and Muhammad may be seen as adapting the narrative of the traditions to a time when engagement for women’s rights within religious traditions are highly esteemed in many contexts. It may also stimulate reinterpretation of the origins of the traditions’ sources from this particular angle, going back to the beginnings and interpreting them anew. In some current examples of organized dialogue, we find some Christian and Muslim organizations that hold on to traditional perceptions of gender and gender roles establishing a shared aim to protect their religious traditions from what they see to be unwanted secular or liberal influences concerning gender, creating platforms for dialogues and sometimes joint political action. Dialogues between the Vatican and traditional Islamic teaching institutions such as Al Azhar, in Egypt, may be examples of this. Protection of “family values” is perhaps not so much articulated in the dialogues themselves but are clearly articulated as the common goal when the Vatican and for example, Al Azhar act in strategic alliances at international conferences, for instance the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development in 1994 (DeJong 2000: 941–2). Their interpretation of “family values” are in these cases defined as crucial for a satisfactory continuation of the religious traditions and the community, and they share this view with other religious groups such as conservative evangelical Christians (NORAD 2013: 5–6). The background motivation may, however, be different between the Muslim and the Christian participants: the traditional Muslim view of family values may imply that women are to be caretakers of the family, the home, and the children, while men should be the providers, performing duties in the public sphere and in the religious community as well as inhabiting the role of responsible decision maker in the family. Anti-abortion views, rejection of divorce, and keeping women

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out of the clergy is on the other hand crucial for the Vatican representing the Catholic Church. Both traditions share a strong hesitance to acknowledge gay and lesbian relationships. The traditional view on gender roles and gender models in the Islamic and the Christian traditions derived from the traditions’ classical sources is discussed by Kari Børresen. She states that the Muslim gender model basically views men and women as equal before God but that they are assigned to different social roles (with different status) (2004: 7–11). The Christian gender model is, according to Børresen, stating a theologically argued hierarchy where God is on top, then comes Jesus, and then men in general. Woman are subordinated under men, and a woman is saved through her husband—who is to love his wife like Christ loves the Church. This version of the classical Christian model does thus not view men and women as equal before God. The Churches and the Christian theologies that argue (theologically) for gender equality have been reinterpreting the Biblical verses (and the classical sources) used to construct this gendered hierarchy.

Identifying and situating the challenges I have still not asked the most fundamental question: why relate Christian– Muslim dialogue to gender in the first place? I have indicated that a gender and/or a feminist perspective can be fruitful in evaluating dialogue processes and to reveal gendered power structures, but there is a need to move beyond these general observations and investigate what they consist of and what they imply in the case of Christian–Muslim dialogue. One aim is to investigate how a religiously and culturally plural environment influences the religious traditions’ views on gender in the past and in the present, another aim is to investigate the relation between gender and organized dialogue. In 1998, Ursula King claimed that feminism was the missing voice in interreligious dialogue and that both the lack of gender balances in the dialogues and little attention to women’s issues in the ongoing interreligious conversations was a problem (1998). She argued that this was not only a democratic and ethical problem but also an epistemological problem: the views, experiences, and knowledge of women were excluded from the knowledge production and the spiritual exchange taking place in the dialogues. Other scholars such as Helene Egnell and Jeannine Hill Fletcher have shown that in organized interreligious dialogues between representatives of the major traditions, women are

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often neglected or not represented at all (Egnell 2006; Fletcher 2013). An obvious reason is that if dialogue aims at gathering religious leaders of which the overwhelming majority are men, women will automatically be underrepresented. Fletcher suggests, using the World Parliament of Religions meeting in 1893 as her starting point of reflection, that the Christian male leaders at the time were not able to include two categories of “otherness,” the “other gender” and “the other religious believer,” in their male gaze: the Christian women who used to be their significant others were substituted by men from other cultural and religious traditions (Fletcher 2013: 169). A crossreligious brotherhood was established, but there were no equivalent sisterhood. Fletcher states that a parliamentary model of interreligious dialogue based on representation through leaders is dominated by men as long as religious leaders are predominantly male. The other models she describes are not based on representation but on either addressing specific themes on an open basis (the activist model) or on storytelling and sharing narratives in the form of dialogue (the storytelling model) (2013: 174–5, 177–8). Both of these other models are more open to female participation, as the participation is not based on representation. The situation on the interreligious dialogue stage at large, dominated by the model of representation, has led women to establish their own spaces of dialogue that would be categorized within Fletcher’s activist or storytelling dialogue models. These dialogues have more often than not taken place at the margins of the traditions, as shown in Egnell’s work (2006: 321). Narrowing the scope to investigate exclusively Christian–Muslim dialogues and encounters, the focus on gender and women seems to be even less represented thematically and possibly have fewer women participants. If we take a closer look at how some Christian and Muslim feminists view Christian– Muslim dialogue, there seems to be a certain reluctance among both. Egnell claims that for Christian feminists engaged in interreligious dialogue, for whom the conceptualizations of Islam as a tradition may represent institutionalizing and legitimizing gender inequality, dialogue with Muslims may be seen as a particular challenge (2006: 329). This could be grounded in the expected challenges related to a different view of gender equality by the Muslim participants in the dialogue. It may also grow out of a concern based on an experience that Christian theological reflection at the moment seems to struggle finding a coherent practice to encounter the simultaneous challenge of religious plurality and feminism (see above, and cf. Fletcher 2013). This is reflected in Christian women dialogue participants expressing to me at various occasions that the challenge for them in the dialogues is rather to be respected and given

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space by their own Christian male leaders than experiencing lack of respect from both men and women Muslim participants. I have experienced myself to be physically excluded from Christian–Muslim spaces of dialogue (where I was invited to participate) by Christian religious leaders “because the presence of women would offend the Muslims and jeopardize the dialogue.” What about Muslim feminists? Do they view Christian–Muslim dialogue as an interesting concept or a fruitful working space? Most Muslim feminists seem to concentrate on working within the broad Islamic tradition itself in order to transform it to be more gender just. Many of them focus on reinterpreting the religious practice and the religious norms for gender models and gender roles and thus challenging religiously legitimated patriarchal structures from within. One of the aspects identified as a possible gain for Muslim feminists in Christian–Muslim dialogue is to focus on gendered Islamophobia. Zayn Kassam speaking from the context of the US says that the “we” in a dialogue needs to move beyond what she finds to be a representation of Islam as misogynist in current political mainstream discourse (Kassam 2013: 149). She connects this representation to the “war on terror” discourse where the rescuing of assumed victimized Muslim women is used as a motif for political and military action by Western powers. To her, a dialogue must be a space where the issues defined as crucial to the Muslim women themselves should be discussed. She does not refer to any such dialogues but expresses a hope that dialogues of such kind will be established in the future. Behind some of the hesitancy among Christian and Muslim feminists to enter into Christian–Muslim dialogue, it seems to be a struggle of how to relate to certain representations of Islam as assumed or perceived. The Christian feminists are not sure if their gender and their feminist stances will be respected and taken seriously, and the Muslim feminists’ fear being framed as victims and meet heavy prejudice against their religious affiliation. In my own research I find that the same pattern is somewhat expressed in a number of the women’s Christian–Muslim dialogues I have studied: the Christian women feel a need to defend their religious faith as valid when biblical texts are criticized for being oppressive to women, whereas the Muslim women feel they must prove to be true feminists even if they view the Qur’an as divine revelation (Grung 2011: 188–9). A comparison between how Muslim and Christian feminists argue for their quest to transform their traditions to be more gender fair is done by Anne Sofie Roald (1998). She uses different categories to show how the traditions work differently and concludes that the most significant difference is that the

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Christian feminists in general find space and legitimization in their traditions to move beyond the Bible and dismiss parts of the biblical texts and then construct a gender fair theology on the basis of core principles in the Christian tradition, whereas the Muslim feminists staying within the framework of their faith keep a view of the Qur’an as divine revelation that cannot be dismissed but must be reinterpreted in some form (1998: 41–2). The reinterpretation of the Muslim feminists are mostly focused on the Sunna and the Hadith. These differences are reflected in Christian–Muslim feminist dialogues, and I will return to this later. The divergent strategies among Muslim and Christian feminists is a reminder that their theological challenges differ and shows that it is necessary to relate to the theological and hermeneutical differences between the two traditions also in the question of women’s rights and gender models and roles. If we compare values connected to dialogues and feminisms respectively, it seems that, theoretically at least, there is a considerable coherence: dialogue values are connected to human equality, mutual respect, inclusiveness across human differences, democracy, possibility for disagreements, and still working together toward shared aims such as human rights, justice, and peaceful coexistence. Feminisms (which needs to be referred to in the plural) have an aim to transform stratified gendered hierarchies to gender just practices. For some, this entails full gender equality. For others, it means the more flexible aim of gender justice, where the implementation of what is seen to be just can be adapted in different contexts (Grung 2006). From a postcolonial perspective this means to establish contextually sensitive feminisms, which do not necessarily have to follow the pattern of Western feminisms. Tensions and disagreements between the various ways to see dialogues and feminisms may become even more evident when the two value-loaded notions are brought together. This does not, however, blur the fact that they share a not insignificant fundament of values.

Two models of dialogue: Dialogue aiming at confirmation, dialogue aiming at challenge The models of representative/parliamentary, activist, and storytelling dialogue are useful when investigating interreligious dialogue in a gender perspective. They address the organizational, thematic, and operational sides of interreligious dialogue. If we look closer at the various articulated motivations for dialogue and the explicit aims they carry, I suggest an additional perspective that makes

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it possible to analyze dialogues to see how gender and women’s perspectives are included based on how human differences are viewed more broadly. The premise for interreligious dialogues as well as for Christian–Muslim dialogues is the acknowledgment of religious differences. Religious difference is expected, and much of the dialogue usually aims to explore these differences while attempting to identify shared aims that do not violate the religious integrity of the persons involved. How and if other human differences such as culture, class, and gender are taken into account in the dialogue process, however, vary a great deal. In Western societies, the social theory of multiculturalism is present in various forms as a theoretical tool to manage cultural differences. The core of multiculturalism is that people of different cultural groups are given groupbased rights to perform and uphold their culture. This builds on a view of culture as quite stable, as a coral reef that slowly builds up and every new layer builds on the former ones. Multiculturalism has been much debated—not least related to gender issues where it has been seen to confirm unjust gendered practices legitimized through culture and that group-based and not individual rights makes it harder to protect individuals and minorities under pressure by the same culture. Thomas Hylland Eriksen and others have suggested a different paradigm to view culture and organize culturally pluralist societies: cultural complexity (Eriksen 2009). Eriksen rather suggests culture be approached as an electric field, dynamic and shifting, where the social bonding between people is based on communication and shared values rather than background. In a culturally plural society, this view entails a possibility for people not only to stay within their own cultural group but to communicate with others from other groups, to create new groups, and to focus on individuals and cultural hybridity. It is more difficult to apply this view directly on social and political organization, but the perspective is still very useful because it not only conveys a dynamic view of culture but also on the view of human differences and how it is possible to relate to them in interreligious and Christian–Muslim dialogue (Grung 2011: 60–61). A dialogue leaning on a multicultural understanding of differences translated to religious and not cultural differences (I will not enter into the debate on how to distinguish between culture and religion here) entails that the participants in the dialogue primarily are present as representatives for a larger group (cf. Fletcher’s parliamentary model). The religious differences are seen as constitutive, and for some the aim of the dialogue is to restore the discursive and actual power of religion in general society. Secularism may be seen as a threat which can potentially undermine the influence of religion,

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and mutual confirmation of the partaking religious traditions is often seen as important. Other human differences such as culture, class, and gender are not targeted as significant. The practice of Scriptural Reasoning (SR) could be used as an example of this kind of dialogue. In SR, based on mutual reading and discussion over the scriptures of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, criticism of the other’s texts is seen as unwanted (Hardy 2006: 186). The traditions own their own texts and the privilege of interpreting it with authority. The religious boundaries should not be challenged, and the view on religion seems to be related to a multiculturalist classical view of culture. The participants are usually religious scholars and academics from the three traditions (Ford and Pecknold 2006). Other examples of dialogues where religious differences are seen as constitutive, and thus the dialogue first and foremost is seen to confirm and not challenge the traditions, are the dialogues mentioned above where Christians and Muslims come together in a shared aim to protect what they name to be family values. Feminist criticism of interpretation of canonical texts, criticism of gendered hierarchies within the traditions, and a gender perspective and/or feminist issues addressed in the dialogues are outside of these dialogues’ scope, and some of them may even explicitly warn against it. In such a perspective, Christian–Muslim dialogue may represent a confirmation of the patriarchal heritage of the tradition, with a double legitimization—from two traditions, not merely one. A different way to conceptualize dialogue is to signify other human differences than religious affiliation as important for the dialogue—such as gender. If religious differences are not to be used as the only constitutive starting point for the dialogue, one opens up for a view of religious traditions to be consisting of internal differences, with different groups and interpretations of the traditions themselves. Inspired by the traveling concept of cultural complexity, I would say this kind of dialogue has a view of religions as dynamic, with a possibility to be interpreted and reinterpreted. This challenges the concept of representation, at least with regards to the possibility of representing an entire tradition or religious group by an individual. This model may be named “trans-religious” dialogue instead of “interreligious,” because it shows that the partners are not stable entities, and the relations between them are often marked by inequality concerning numbers, social and political status, and organizational strength. In addition, it gives more space for the participants to highlight other identities than the religious, and thus to explore the intersections of gender, cultural belonging, sexual orientation, and religion in the dialogue.

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A dialogue of such kind would open up more space for identifying challenges across religious affiliations and for critique and self-criticism. The dialogue would also more easily relate to the different expressions and thoughts of the secular, not regarding it as something that should be replaced by religion. Gender perspectives and feminist thoughts do have a possibility to be included in encounters of this kind. Instead of mutual confirmation of gendered hierarchies, or avoiding gender and women’s issues, by and large not to state criticism of the other tradition, they can be used to acknowledge challenges across religious boundaries and within one’s own tradition regarding gender and women’s issues. The two models of conceptualizing dialogue I have sketched are not mutually exclusive in practice, and one and the same organized dialogue can move between the two—perhaps most likely starting in accordance with the first model and then moving to the second. The first model secures the tradition’s boundaries and does not aim at challenging the traditions but to establishing strong relations between the partners present based on representativity. The second model requires space for individual representation from the traditions, and the establishment of a safe space where there is room for mutual challenge. To place the first model close to Fletcher’s parliamentary model fits rather well, and one could place the second close to her activist model—but my own experience is that the second model may also occur in more official, institutionally based dialogues depending on the circumstances.

Challenges from the dialogues: Interreligious or trans-religious? In my study, Gender justice in Muslim–Christian readings: Christian and Muslim women in Norway making meaning of texts from the Bible, the Koran and the Hadith (Grung 2011), I investigated how Muslim and Christian women in a Norwegian context with various cultural and denominational backgrounds discussed and interpreted texts from the Bible, the Qur’an and the Hadith. Among the texts discussed were the Hagar narratives from both traditions, and Sura 4:342 from the Qur’an and 1 Timothy 2:8-15 in the New Testament.3 The participants all declared themselves to be feminists because of their religious faith, they found their own tradition to be providing them with values and arguments for gender equality. They claimed that the challenge in both traditions were that women had been excluded from the authority

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to interpret the traditions and their canonical scriptures. The women all claimed both their right and their moral duty to interpret the texts but used different strategies: the Christian women were for instance ready to abolish the text from 1 Timothy, claiming that it represented a contradiction to the teachings of Jesus.4 One of them challenged the Muslim participants to abolish Sura 4:34, but the Muslim participants instead went into exegetical work on the notion of qiwama (translated into the word “bestyrelsesautoritet”— “executive authority” in the Norwegian version of the texts the participants read), discussing the meaning of the text in a larger Qur’anic context and how others had interpreted this particular text. The Muslim participants were on their part shocked that a biblical text said that women would be saved by childbirth and that women were not allowed to teach (1 Tim. 2:8-15). Where the Christian women were impressed over the knowledge about the text of the Qur’an their Muslim partners revealed, the Muslim women were sometimes baffled over the lack of knowledge about Islam demonstrated by the Christians. The differences regarding reading strategy were more or less according to what should be expected due to the different status of the Bible and the Qur’an in the two traditions. But they had all been shaped through struggling with the same question: how to be a feminist and stay within the framework of the tradition? These women had found out how. The challenge now was to establish and convey this in the frame of the encounter. How to combine being a Christian or a Muslim feminist with particular interpreting strategies adapted to the own tradition’s framework in a Muslim–Christian dialogue? The dialogue referred to in this case was not a representative or parliamentary model of dialogue but rather moving between an activist and a storytelling model. It could be defined to be at the margins of the traditions in terms of authoritative power, but it was centered around the canonical texts and the participants placed themselves firmly within their traditions. The process was, however, clearly a dialogue of challenge rather than a dialogue of confirmation. Criticizing the texts of the other party’s tradition as well as self-criticism was part of the conversations. This possibility opened up for broader exchanges of experiences and views, and established intra-religious as well as interreligious discussions. The different cultural backgrounds among both the Christian and Muslim participants were significant in the discussions because they represented various sects of Christianity and Islam and various interpretations of gender in different cultural, social, and geopolitical contexts within the same religious tradition.

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In a conversation on 1 Timothy 2:8-15 and Sura 4:34 (both texts were read in the Norwegian version by the group), one of the participants with a NorwegianPakistani Sunni Muslim background, Aira, stated the following: I find that these texts are very much misused and misinterpreted and interpreted in many ways. There is one way to interpret … qiwama means to stand or support … many Muslims take the meaning here literally—that they should decide everything. Actually it means that men should protect women and be responsible, and then they should support them in all situations … . Generally, we say that men are responsible for the maintenance of the family. But this is not what things are like. In the whole world lots of women are earning money … and they maintain the family, but they don’t have the same rights or status. And the men who abuse power also abuse women and control them by saying they should be obedient (Grung 2011: 277).

Inger, with a Norwegian Lutheran Christian background, stated that she was grateful for all the exegetical work her Muslim partners had done on Sura 4:34. She said that their interpretation of the term qiwama had given her a totally new view of how the text could be understood. Both the Muslim and the Christian readers in the group struggled with the second part of this Sura, where the text says that a husband after having tried to warn and then to separate with her, could beat her if she was not obedient to him. The Muslim readers claimed that this permission was limited to adultery by the wife, and that it was forbidden to hurt her and stated Muhammad’s example that he was well known to treat women well and never to beat his wives. Still, with the view the Muslim participants had on the Qur’an as divine revelation, a challenge persisted as they all denounced domestic violence both of the verbal and the physical kind. One of them said she would rather recommend a divorce. Another said look, remember that this may be a way to limit domestic violence—there is no opening for hurting anyone, and it is absolutely forbidden to kill a disobedient wife (Grung 2011: 318). Aira claims that what is necessary is to educate the Muslim preachers and scholars to get knowledge about the contemporary world and its challenges, to provide space for women inhabiting interpretative authority of the tradition and the Qur’an, and to include men in the work of transforming Islam to be more gender fair in practice. She believes this is closer to the true meaning of the tradition and that men abusing the tradition to achieve power over women are misrepresenting Islam. When it came to the interpretation of 1 Timothy, Inger stated: It is Paul who says these things, not Jesus. And Paul was restricted by his time, place and history. Jesus wasn’t … . It is one thing to gab, but women as wise as

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Contemporary Muslim–Christian Encounters us, we need to be able to get something said! … And then, the man is active and aggressive, and the woman as passive, then the woman is blamed for everything, through the fall of man … . [T]here is this getting saved from childbirth … it can’t be right. Paul must have misunderstood (Grung 2011: 297).

And Maria, with a Norwegian-African background, Lutheran Christian with a Roman Catholic upbringing, said: This is the Old Testament, isn’t it? No? But I read it as … I couldn’t believe that it … I don’t think one should learn from them [the texts]. OK, we are sitting here, we can think and interpret it as we like, but what is unfortunate, perhaps for the Qur’an in particular, is that they don’t interpret, they practice it as it is … . And that makes it a bit difficult and dangerous … . [Some] sects and religious groups use exactly this Pauline texts: that women should stay in their place, they should dress in a specific way, and they should be like this and that (Grung 2011: 333–5).

Shirin, with a Norwegian-Iranian Shia Muslim background states: “I say that I am of no less worth, according to what I have understood from the Qur’an as a whole” (Grung 2011: 346).

Concluding remarks The last glimpse of an actual dialogue on canonical texts among Christian and Muslim women may tell us how complicated and fruitful such encounters can turn out to be. The different interpretative strategies did not prevent extensive discussions about the texts’ meaning and content, establishing knowledge about each other’s lives as readers and believers, becoming a challenging transreligious dialogue. For these dialogue participants, their own credibility as believers and feminists was at stake in the discussions, but their most important shared aim was to transform their traditions to be more gender fair, starting with their feeling of responsibility toward their texts and what they found to be the original gender just message of their traditions. If Muslim–Christian dialogues in all their various forms and the very different settings they are situated in could have a perspective where sisterhood is valued as much as brotherhood and where perhaps a notion of friendship between people of both genders and both traditions at the same time is cherished, this would transform our dialogues to be more gender inclusive and gender fair. If the Christian and Muslim leaders involved in dialogues take the trans-religious perspective

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into consideration and dare to combine the perspectives of intrareligious selfcriticism and interreligious cooperation, this would provide fruitful soil for a better integration between the values of dialogue and the values of gender justice in theological practice and reflection. Christian–Muslim dialogues generate new narratives and may transform fear and enemy images into knowledge and community. Without including a gender perspective, such a transformation will be evaluated by Christian, Muslim, and secular feminists to represent a “backlash,” and possibilities of making the dialogues more robust will be lost. However, a gender perspective need not entail engaging gender roles and gender models as religious identity markers in Christian– Muslim dialogues. Rather, it should take the form of a shared reflection over the intersection between power, gender, and religion in the two traditions and in the practice of dialogue itself.

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Applying Sharia Principles of Religious Tolerance for the Protection of Children: Nigerian Religious Conflicts and Reconciliation among Muslims and Christians Yusuff Jelili Amuda

Introduction This paper argues that Islamic legal frameworks as embodied in Sharia provide a workable and adequate basis for fostering religious toleration in Nigeria. The paper focuses on the need to protect children and argues that for this end Sharia provides a rationale framework that is functional within the multireligious context of Nigeria. This is important because in some cases the fear of the imposition of Sharia has been seen as a cause of increased tensions and violence between communities (Ukiwo 2003: 124–5). The focus on children arises from the fact that they are perhaps worst effected by conflicts and are essential to the future and as such they must be afforded every possible protection (Machel 2000). Moreover, as a deeply religious country with a divided religious constituency whereby Islam makes up the majority, the issue of religious tolerance must be addressed to ensure that an atmosphere exists in which children’s rights and liberties are respected. In this context, the paper argues that an understanding of religious teachings on toleration is essential for the correct implementation of Sharia and to promote an atmosphere of mutual coexistence and dialogue in which the rights of citizens, especially children, may thrive. Such an argument is important not just for Nigeria but also in a global context, as it has been argued that most Western, especially media, The author wishes to thank the editor for advice and help in reformulating the original draft for this chapter.

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representations of Sharia focus on death penalties and perceived excesses (Paden 2005: 21–2; see Poole 2002). I begin with some background on Nigeria and its recent past including religious conflicts, moving onto the question of how religious toleration can be based upon principles in the Qur’an and the Sharia, before discussing the multi-religious context. A set of principles for peace and stability in Nigeria are developed from an Islamic perspective, although the viability of its application across religious traditions is argued; indeed, Paden suggests that ethnoreligious groups in Nigeria may share more in common than they have differences (2005:2). This argument is based upon a number of key factors, including the need for education especially on religion and the requirement for government to do its role in promoting a context in which religions can work together.

Nigeria and its context The Federation of Nigeria is a multi-religious society, with the most widespread religions being Islam, Christianity, and African Traditional Religions (ATR). The Nigerian population is estimated to be 178,571,721, and the total estimate of Muslims is around 50 percent, Christians 40–48 percent, and 1.4–10 percent for ATR.1 As Paden has suggested this makes it what Samuel Huntingdon would see as a civilizational “fault line,” especially as split between a mainly Christian southern area and a mainly Muslim northern one (2005: 36). The applicable laws in Nigeria are Civil, Sharia, and Customary laws; this multi-judicial situation is partly a legacy of British colonial rule (Paden 2005). Nigeria has been riven by various conflicts in recent decades, with micro-nationalism, ethnic, religious, and communal conflicts posing a threat to peace, security, and progress in Nigeria.2 The term “conflicts” refers here to disputes, disagreements, quarrels, struggles, fights, and wars between individuals, groups, and countries, although it is recognized that there is no easy definition (Ramsbotham et al. 2011: 7–9). Dysfunctional conflicts are destructive and cause loss of life and property due to differences in human opinions and activities which exist in any free society (Angaye 2002). The most affected states in Nigeria are Kafanchan, Kano, Kaduna, Jos, and Yelwa, and according to Professor Christian Van Gorder, by 2008 more than one hundred thousand Christians and Muslims had been killed because of religious conflicts in Nigeria (Colunga 2008).

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It is not the aim of this paper to assess the causes of the conflicts and problems facing Nigeria; however, two general points on this matter can be made. First, the failure of the government to provide good governance and promote economic progress combined with the low standard of religious literacy in the nation can all be said to lead to religious conflicts. Indeed, it is important that Nigeria has been rated as the sixth most corrupt country in the world (Bennett 2008: 5). Many problems are caused, or made worse, by social issues, and the issue of poverty and depredation have left many Nigerians unemployed, indirectly paving the way for their involvement in conflict. In some areas, many people are not working, thereby making it easy for religious conflict to breed.3 Second, although Professor Ishaq Oloyede argued that religion is not the cause of Nigerian conflicts, rather religion was used by highly placed people for their personal interests (Daily Trust 2008), this paper argues that religion is at the very heart of conflicts in Nigeria (see also Paden 2005: 23), although it should be noted that clashes between Christians and Muslims were not common in colonial times and are far from natural to Nigeria and that ethnic and other factors are primarily involved in the current violence (Paden 2005: 192–6)—indeed, it has been argued that the ethno-religious markers that disrupt Nigeria’s development and stability today are a result of the colonial legacy (Agbiboa 2012). Based upon Oloyede’s own suggestion that religious studies should be re-introduced in Nigerian primary and secondary schools with the aim of teaching students tolerance and how to relate with other faiths in a peaceful manner, it may be supposed that he sees a certain version of religion as responsible (the theme of education is one I develop further below). Moreover, in recent years, violence has erupted between Muslims and Christians in an area of central Nigeria known as the Middle Belt, where the North’s majority Muslim population meets the South’s majority Christian population. In 2000, Kaduna State witnessed religious conflict between Muslims and Christians that claimed 5,000 lives and displaced many. Whether or not religious differences were the direct cause, they were certainly a contributing factor. An example of the religious aspects of the conflict includes, in 2002, when one hundred people were killed in Yelwa Town and where dozens of churches and mosques were ruined: one of the Yelwa church leaders stated: “our God is different from the Muslim God … . If he were the same God, we wouldn’t fight” (Justine 2008). In 1996, Muslims attacked Christians because they were reciting a poem that promoted their religion. Likewise, Christians attacked Muslims because they could not recite the Lord’s Prayer (Colunga 2008). The above indicates that Nigeria

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is no stranger to religious conflict. Given that both political and religious factors are involved, any solution must work on both platforms, especially as religion is politically important in Nigeria (Ostien 2009: 30–31; Kay 2009: 15). Therefore, it cannot be expected that religious groups or political changes on their own can change the state of things, although important interreligious dialogues have taken place (see Paden 2005: 19). Turning now to the effect of religious conflict on Nigerian children, we can see that in a society suffering from religious conflict, children experience a number of negative life events such as shooting, riots, killing, beating, and psychological effects due to social unrest (Muldoon 2000). Nigerian children experience displacement from their homes to temporary camps due to religious violence. Such camps are certainly not conducive to fostering a balanced and thriving future generation (Glew et al. 2003). Religious conflicts also affect children’s education because they cannot go to school due to the tension and fear of attack. In addition, when children are exposed to violence and trouble in their society, they too will learn how to shoot and kill in the future. I would argue that both Muslims and Christians believe that respect and concern for children and the family is a fundamental duty within their religions and so forms a basis upon which common action to seek tolerance can and must be found. The influence of violent conflict upon children is well documented (Michel 2000). I will return to this question below.

The concept of tolerance and its basis in the Qur’an In the Islamic context, “the word tolerance connotes the acts or practices which are permitted under the provision of Qur’an, Hadith, and the juristic interpretation” (Amuda and Lazim 2012: 52). Tolerance involves accepting beliefs, actions, and opinions that may differ from the established or prescribed religion of a country. While some may have issues with this, it can be argued that for Muslims the religious basis means it is something that cannot be ignored or overridden by personal preference or government legislation (Amuda and Lazim 2012: 52). Therefore, “if non-Muslims reside in a Muslim country and insist on following and practicing their faiths, personal statutes and their practices, they should be allowed and permitted by Islamic authority, provided that their freedom does not cause any rift and confusion in the society” (Amuda and Lazim 2012: 52). Non-Muslims should not violate the

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Islamic law and disturb the peace and harmony of the nation. In short, from an Islamic perspective, religious tolerance means that all citizens, or visitors, in any nation or region have the right to believe what they wish and should have freedom of worship and freedom of speech provided that this is done in a way that respects Islamic law and principles (Shrfuddin 1972). There are a great number of verses from the Qur’an that can be cited in support of the notion of religious tolerance, of which I will quote the following:4 And endure you patiently (O Muhammad PBUH), your patience is not but from Allah. And grieve not over them (polytheists and pagans), and be not distressed because of what they plot (Sura Al-Nahl: 127; Q. 16: 127).5 And insult not those whom they (disbelievers) worship besides Allah, lest they insult Allah wrongly without knowledge. Thus We have made fair-seeming to each people its own doings; then to their Lord is their return and He shall then inform them of all that they used to do (Sura Al-An’Am: 108; Q. 6:108). Therefore be patient (O Muhammad) as did the Messengers of strong will and be in no haste about them (disbelievers). On the Day when they will see that (torment) with which they are promised (i.e. threatened, it will be) as if they had not stayed more than an hour in a single day. (O mankind! This Qur’an is sufficient as) a clear Message (or proclamation to save yourself from destruction). But shall any be destroyed except the people who are Al-Fasiqun (the rebellious against Allah’s Command, the disobedient to Allah)? (Sura Al-Ahqaf: 35; Q. 46:35).

I would suggest that such verses indicate that Muslims should be ready to tolerate other religious beliefs, not because they necessarily accept them as adequate religiously but because in the context of Islamic belief and practice, judgment lies with Allah, while Muslims are directed to accept others with patience. Nevertheless, Muslims have their own perception of other religions such as Christianity. Traditional Islam considered Christianity to be in error for attributing divinity to Jesus or perhaps even to be blasphemous, because it violated the doctrine of the oneness of Allah and committed shirk (associating anything or anyone with God). Moreover, the Christian also does not recognize Prophet Muhammad as a true Prophet of God, which is contrary to Muslim faith. Some Muslim thinkers examine religions as variations of creatures’ responses to their God which includes Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and others. Other Muslims consider criticizing Christianity unjust and argue that entering into dialogue is better than criticizing other faiths (Armour 2002: 145–6).

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Islamic principles of tolerance6 The Islamic principle of tolerance toward non-Muslims, especially Christians, can be based on the following major principles (with evidences from the sources of Sharia): human dignity; religious difference as the will of Allah; Muslims not responsible for the disbelief of non-Muslims; avoidance of injustice; freedom of religion; and protection of women and children.

Human dignity All human beings legally and morally deserve respect regardless of their faith, race, gender, post, and color. Accordingly, individual personality, life, and property should be protected under normal circumstances based on the following verse: And indeed We have honoured the children of Adam, and We have carried them on land and sea, and have provided them with At-Tayyibat (lawful good things), and have preferred them many of those whom We have created with a marked preferment (Sura Al-Isra: 70; Q. 17:70).

Interpreting this verse, every human being deserves respect, dignity, and protection and should not be deprived of them because of faith. Such respect is expected not only during his life but also after death, based on the tradition and action of Muhammad (pbuh): when the corpse of a Jew was passing in front of him he stood up in respect to the dead (Q. 9:113, Sahih Al-Bukhar: 1250, Sahih Muslim: 961).7 Such traditions and examples indicate that actions such as killing, destroying mosques and churches, or abduction are contrary to Islamic teachings on respect for the dignity of others. This paper argues that actions like the two hundred schoolgirls abducted in July 2014 from their Nigerian boarding school by the Islamic extremist insurgents known as Boko Haram are actually criminal and contrary to Islamic principles. Indeed, the majority of the abducted girls are Muslims rather than Christians, which also questions the motives of those responsible (for coverage of this, see, for instance, Cocks 2014). While there are different Muslim groups within Nigeria, and so questions surrounding the issue of who represents a true Muslim, nevertheless I would argue that the actions of groups like Boko Haram violate any principles that could properly be seen as Islamic (see Paden 2005: 55–69, 184–5, 187–8).

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Religious difference is the will of Allah According to Islam, all the religions from the prophets Adam to Muhammad (pbuh) were revelations from Allah to guide people in the right path. All these religions worship their creator, and some of them have scriptures sent by Allah. While the purpose of Sharia is to regulate people, this may differ from time to time due to the conditions, situations, and the needs of people at the time (Awang 1994): And We have sent down to you O Muhammad (pbuh) the Book [the Qur’an] in truth, confirming the Scripture that came before it and Muhaymin [trustworthy in highness and a witness] over it [old Scriptures]. So, judge among them by what Allah has revealed, and follow not their vain desires, diverging away from the truth that has come to you. To each among you, We have prescribed a law and a clear way. If Allah had willed, He would have made you one nation, but that [He] may test you in what He has given you; so compete in good deeds. The return of you [all] is to Allah; then He will inform you about that in which you used to differ (Sura Al-Maidah: 47–8; Q. 5: 47–8).

The above verse indicates that the Qur’an is the last revelation sent to Muhammad (pbuh). Despite that, Muhammad did not implement Sharia on non-Muslims. I would note here that many Muslims also believe that Muslims are forbidden to be judged under any law except Sharia, at least in Muslim nations. In Nigeria, Muslims are judged under Civil and Common laws which is contrary to their faith and it causes much havoc and conflict because Muslims are deprived of what are perceived to be their rights. I believe, they should be given freedom to implement Sharia in its totality as it is their fundamental duty and right.

Muslims are not responsible for the disbelief of non-Muslims Islam urges all Muslims to strive for peace and harmony and that they should not cause problems in the society and nation. Accordingly, Muslims should not fight other faiths purposely to convert or embrace Islam. This is contrary to what Islam preaches. Belief is not by compulsion nor by force but by personal total submission from the heart. If Muslims are well versed in their faith, there is no point in fighting other faiths provided that they were not attacked. The following two verses pertain to this:

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Contemporary Muslim–Christian Encounters Verily you O Muhammad (pbuh) guide not whom you like, but Allah guides who He wills. And He knows best those who are the guided (Sura Al-Qasas: 56; Q. 28:56). I worship not that which you worship, Nor will you worship that which I worship, And I shall not worship that which you are worshipping, Nor will you worship that which I worship, To you be your religion, and to me my religion (Sura Al-Kafirun: 2–6; Q. 109:2–6).

Avoidance of injustice Muslims should desist from injustice against non-Muslims and any crime committed against non-Muslims should be brought to hearing and judged accordingly: O you who believe! Stand out firmly for Allah as just witnesses; and let not the enmity and hatred of others make you avoid justice. Be just: that is nearer to piety; and fear Allah. Verily, Allah is Well-Acquainted with what you do (Sura Al-Maidah: 8; Q. 5: 8).

Under Sharia, Muslims are liable for crimes they commit against non-Muslims regardless of religion, race, gender, and color. This is what Islam advocates and preaches. In Nigeria, many Muslims are liable for punishment for the aggressive attacks on Christians while many Christians are also liable for deterrent punishment for the crimes they committed against Muslims. There is no basis or fundamental evidence for Muslims to harass others because of faith or any other reason. Humans are legally and religiously allowed to protect themselves and their possessions.

Freedom of religion Freedom of religion is recognized under Islamic law such that no one should impose or force anybody into Islam. Thus all must have freedom to observe and practice their faith without intervention or coercion. According to Ibn Qudamah: It is not permissible to compel a disbeliever into professing Islam. If, for example, a dhimmi (non-Muslim citizen) or a musta’man (person of protected status) is forced to accept Islam, he is not considered a Muslim unless it is established that his confession is a result of his own choosing. If the person concerned is a disbeliever, the reason for the prohibition of duress here is the words of God Most High that there shall be no compulsion in religion (1994: 85–86).

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Conversion to Islam should be voluntary. If the conversion takes place under the specter of compulsion, it is null and void (Rida 1908).8 The philosophy behind the freedom of religion is to allow the society to live in peace and harmony, and if people are forced to embrace any religion, there is a tendency that the converted will not commit to the religion. In a religiously compulsive society, war is inevitable, and it is the children who are the primary victims. Islam therefore recognizes freedom of religion and allows other faiths to practice their beliefs without disturbance.

Protection of women and children Under Sharia, it is forbidden to kill women and children during conflicts. The exception would be if women were engaged in combat themselves and so killing would be self-defense or if it occurred as an accident (Hasan 1984). In Nigeria, many children and women have died due to conflict, while many who survived continue to suffer psychologically. Various Hadith show the respect Islam has for women and children, including those of other faiths and highlights that they should be protected during war.9 In Nigeria, these rules seem to have been overlooked. This is contrary to the Islamic rules on war and Muslims should desist from killing children and women. This can be seen in the case of many children who lost their lives in Boko Haram and Christian attacks on citizens. Similarly, on the issue of abducted schoolgirls by Boko Haram, the Nigerian government must pursue all possible means to curb terrorism and inhuman attacks by conservative so-called Muslims and Christians in Nigeria. The issue of security must not be politicized by the political parties in Nigeria but all must provide adequate provision for Nigerians regardless of their faith, tribe, gender, and status. In addition, the spate of child suicide bombings is increasing in Nigeria and there is a need for concerted efforts by all stakeholders to put an end to this deplorable murderous insurgency that manipulates children to carry out suicide bombings, (Pearson and Zenn 2014; Chothia 2014). Rather, it is the duty of the parent to educate their children mentally, physically, morally, and religiously (Amuda 2010b: 8–13).

Islamic religious tolerance in the Nigerian context Tolerance can only materialize if the above-mentioned principles are studied and practiced accordingly by both parties in Nigeria. Muslims and Christians should realize that Nigeria belongs to all Nigerians regardless of faith, color,

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tribe, language, culture, and status. No one has power over the other. They should learn how to live together in peace and harmony. Muslims must follow all the rules laid down by Sharia on harmonious relationships with nonMuslims. They should imbibe the lifestyle of the Prophet Muhammad and learn from how he treated non-Muslims. Important to note is that it has not been the implementation of Sharia which has caused problems in Nigeria, but the politicization of it, or fears about it being implemented on Christians, or similar concerns (Paden 2005: 161–3, 171–2, 191–2). Indeed, after years of martial rule, many initially welcomed Sharia as a return to the “rule of law” in both Christian and Muslim communities (Paden 2005: 182). In order to eliminate religious conflict in Nigeria, both Muslims and Christians should realize that all religions are equally valid within their own culture of origin and belief. However, it may appear different to those who profess that Islam is superior or Christianity is superior. Rather than arguing or fighting each other because of religious supremacy, tolerance should be given more space on the ground for the interest of the children. To put this into practice within Nigeria, I would suggest five factors need to be addressed. Accepting Fundamental Rights: According to the 1960 Nigerian Constitution on its section on “Fundamental Rights,” there should be no discrimination based on religion (1960 Constitution 27:1), while the 1999 Constitution sees freedom of religion as a Fundamental Right (1999 Constitution 38:1). As shown above, Islam concurs that every individual has the right to adhere to any religion without compulsion. To achieve religious tolerance in Nigeria, people should not force one another to embrace a certain faith. Notably, aggressive conversion has been seen as a potential problem for Nigeria (Kays 2009: 268 n. 48). Moreover, I would argue that Muslims should not have Common Law imposed on them, while Sharia should not be imposed on Christians or adherents of ATR. Importantly, the abuse of others is contrary to Islamic conceptions which: is based on the universal principle of unity, justice and benevolence … . It underlies the unity of all mankind, not only the oneness of Allah, so all human beings are one and the same. Religious faith is the only difference between mankind and because of that difference the principle of tolerance becomes relevant and obligatory, in order to live in peace and harmony (Amuda and Lazim 2012: 56).

I would argue that tolerance and respect are integral parts of the Muslim worldview and way of life (Alhabshi 1996). According to qur’anic and Sharia principles, anyone who does not accept and tolerate followers of other religions (unless they wage war against Muslims) is not acting within the Islamic tradition.

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In relation to Islamic principles of tolerance, it may mean accepting that both religions regard and believe that their religion is good and others are in the wrong. This should not cause any trouble in society if they are well educated religiously and following their religion’s principles and guidelines in dealing with other faiths. In Islam, it is an injustice not to award non-Muslims their rights as it is clearly stated in Sharia that justice should be available for nonMuslim. This relates to our next point on education. Religious literacy: Without a solid understanding of their own faith and its teachings, people will not be able to see what is required of them as Muslims, Christians, or followers of any other tradition. In many instances, a lack of knowledge will mean that they misunderstand particular quotations or are unaware of interpretations or their meanings, while religious leaders have a key role to play (Alhabshi 1996). Oloyede argued that compulsory religious education should be re-introduced into primary and secondary schools in Nigeria to inculcate religious, moral, ethical, social, and cultural values to Nigerian youths. I believe this will result in the rebirth and rebuilding of a better society and provide a harmonious environment to all the tribes and religions in Nigeria (Amali and Jekayinfa 2013:141–5). The Nigerian government can play a valuable and immeasurable role to educate its citizens about their faith, and that of others, through the religious studies programs in schools, higher education institutions, mosques, and churches for the best interest of children. Recently, religious problems have been caused by head teachers restricting what are seen as the religious rights of their students (Kolawole 2013; Makinde 2013; Oyeleke 2013). Some school authorities do not allow Islamic or Biblical studies to be taught in their respective schools. As I have suggested elsewhere, a key factor in harming interreligious relations is fear of the other. Religious literacy would help overcome this by providing knowledge of the different groups. Moreover, even where fear exists, if Muslims and Christians follow their traditions of hospitality toward neighbors, such fear as a factor in conflict can be overcome. As such, religious knowledge of one’s own tradition in a sense that promotes tolerance and respect can again be efficacious (Amuda and Lazim 2012: 57). I would also suggest that families have a key role to play in promoting education, with parents teaching their children about respect and aiding their children in understanding their own religion correctly if they are not able to do so sending them for suitable education (Amuda and Lazim 2012: 62). Indeed, the lack of education is a key factor in children’s poverty (Amuda 2010a: 55).

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Avoidance of Violence:10 Under Sharia, lives must be protected and should not be wasted and people are not to be killed without justification. Muslim jurists differed among themselves on the issue of a Muslim who killed a nonMuslim. Imams Malik and Shafi’i held the view that Muslims should not be killed for the killing of non-Muslims on the ground that a non-Muslim is no peer of a Muslim. Their view is based on the condition of qisas which is equality. If a Muslim killed a non-Muslim, he or she should not be slain as a result of his or her voluntary action. Contrary to that, Imam Abu Hanifa expounded that a Muslim should be killed for the killing of a non-Muslim without justification (Oudah 2000). This opinion is based on the injunction relating to the punishment of qisas such as: O you who believe! Al-Qisas (the Law of Equality in punishment) is prescribed for you in case of murder: the free for the free, the slave for the slave, and the female for the female … (Sura Al-Baqarah: 178; Q. 5:178). And We ordained therein for them: life for life, eye for eye, nose for nose, ear for ear, tooth for tooth, and wounds equal for equal … (Sura Al-Maidah: 45; Q. 5:45). And do not kill anyone whose killing Allah has forbidden, except for a just cause (Sura Al-Isra: 33; Q. 17:33).

These verses indicate that no one should be killed unjustly. As such, Nigerian Christians should not be killed without any substantive and credible evidence. They can only be killed in self-defense. However, if a non-Muslim kills a Muslim, Muslim jurists unanimously agreed that the non-Muslim should be killed in retaliation for his or her act. Imam Abu Hanifa based his view on a general injunction while the other three imams said he would be killed regardless of the difference (Oudah 2000). Killing Nigerian Christians without any legal and rational justification will definitely affect the life of the victim’s wife and children and it will cause unforeseen negative consequences in the nearest future. Both Nigerian Muslims and Christians should desist and refrain from any act that will cause a rift in the society and the others’ right should not be ignored, abused, and denied. If members of both faiths believe in their doctrine, they will not deprive other religions their rights and entitlements from the national resources. However, many of the unversed Muslims and Christian are using the opportunities of being in post and power to deny others’ rights. The Nigerian resources belong to all Nigerians regardless of their faith, religion, gender, status, and tribe. The resources should be distributed accordingly; otherwise, religious conflict will continue to plague the nation until equitable procedures are resumed.

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Religious Leaders Promoting Peace and Tolerance: It is the role of religious leaders to educate their followers on how to tolerate other faiths in order to give room for peace in the nation. Their sermons and lectures should always be in line with the concept of tolerance and peace. In order to avoid any effect on children because of religious rancor, weekly lectures should be organized in the media and in mosques and churches to educate their followers for the best interest of the children. A move from religion being used for good rather than ill would accord with a suggestion I have made in the context of interreligious relations in Malaysia concerning the theory of reciprocity (Amuda and Lazim 2012: 57). A virtue of righteousness is that it can lead to good actions and the emulation of others, eschewing and overlooking other’s wrongs and having the power to defeat wrong and injustice of others. While this might sound idealistic, “members of both religions should bear in mind that others will reciprocate and retaliate upon their action toward them. ‘You should do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ ” (Amuda and Lazim 2012: 57, citing Alhabshi 1996: 54–5). Dialogue and Reconciliation: In any loggerhead between religions in Nigeria or any part of the world, authorities should strive for reconciliation and settlements between them to allow peace in society. Islam always advocates and calls for peace and harmony in any situation. The goals and objectives in resolving such disputes through Islamic systems and methods is reconciliation “for the best interest of the society, community, and nation at large” (Amuda and Lamiz 2012: 62). In addition, this is to avoid any turbulent situation in society because if the misunderstanding is left unsettled and unmediated the situation could be escalated and cause unforeseen calamity (Amuda and Lamiz 2012: 62). There are a number of foundations in the Qur’an and the Hadith that establish the concept of dialogue in Islam. In the Qur’an, Sura Hud (Q. 11:121–2) suggests that nonMuslims and Muslims can each agree to act in their own ways. Meanwhile, examples are found in the Hadith.11 Many would argue that it is a duty of an imam, or head of government, or group leader to reconcile quarrels in the interest of the community. Traditionally, if an imam is told formally, he should act fast and call the parties for settlement so that they can correct their mistakes and weaknesses.12 Many have argued that Islam holds resources for dialogue and reconciliation (see Appleby 2000: 299–300; Ramsbotham et al. 2011: 343–5; Kurucan and Erol 2012).

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Conclusion It is suggested that religions in Nigeria should seek rational solutions to the conflicts, as emotive appeals can be destructive, while rationality allows education programs and religious studies, which will ensure that religious principles are adhered to. It is my argument here that Islam provides, for its followers, the basis for tolerance and respect for other religions if people understand the teachings that the tradition actually promotes and that only reason and education can see this implemented. The education should come both from schools and higher education institutions and other government led initiatives as well as from the religious organizations themselves. It can also be suggested that both religious practices and fellowship should be formally and legally allowed in the primary and secondary school in order to educate children and prepare them for the future. I would also suggest that religious programs should be given more space in the media. Education must begin with the children who are often the victims of traumas and who will be the new generation to rebuild the country. It should be recognized that the Nigerian government has a responsibility toward the victims of religious conflict, especially the children. Only they have the resources to ensure the large scale welfare needed and to ensure that problems that children fall into, including child labor (Amuda 2010a), are dealt with. Moreover, each state in Nigeria should have a mufti with the final say on religious affairs provided that such a person is well versed, educated, balanced, and committed. To reach a measure of justice and balance, a Sharia Court should be established in all Nigerian states. This will reduce the conflict between Muslims and Christians, and I would suggest that their cases be referred to the Sharia Court rather than Common and Civil Law. Meanwhile, factors like unemployment contribute to the rift in the nation while children are lagging behind in religious studies in their schools. All of these social problems lie very much in the hands of the government which needs to prevent injustice, respect other religions, and overcome political differences when it comes to national interests. Finally, there should be an interfaith dialogue between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria. In part, this will aim at reconciliation but also at mutual understanding and respect, and indeed, grounds exist within Islam as well as Christianity and traditional Nigerian models to promote such reconciliation (see Paden 2005: 135, 158, 176, 210–211, 213–4, 219–22). It will aid in overcoming the problems of fear between religious groups and also provide

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a vehicle for religious leaders to show that they can work together, as shown by the joint declarations in 2002 by Christiana and Muslim leaders following communal violence (Paden 2005: 173). While Nigeria continues to be involved in religious conflicts, it is my belief that religious education combined with government action and initiatives like interfaith dialogue can help bring peace to the nation and also help show, as Paden argues, that no civilizational fault line exists between the Christian and Muslim worlds (Paden 2005: 213–4).

7

Peace-building through Interreligious Dialogue: The DRC Model Jean-Daniel Kabati

Introduction This chapter investigates the South Kivu armed conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, formerly Zaire) during the period 1996–2006. The central focus of the paper is the role of religious groups from South Kivu in rebuilding peace in that province and why the various religious groups’ participation and achievement in South Kivu could be perceived as a twentyfirst-century interreligious template for conflict resolution globally—a practical theological conflict resolution strategy that is akin to what I will term the interreligious dialogue approach to resolving conflicts. Notably, the DRC process is very much a Christian led one; while the conflict itself was not directly a Muslim–Christian one, nevertheless, it holds significance for Muslim–Christian dialogue in a number of ways. Firstly, the conflicts in the DRC during the period considered were often related to, or features of, conflict in neighboring countries, where Muslim–Christian conflicts occurred and part of this was played out in the DRC (Prunier 2004: 369ff.). Secondly, the author wishes to contend that what we see here is not necessarily a Christian model but an African one, which may be applicable more widely. Thirdly, related very much to the previous point, relevant Islamic examples of conflict resolution and peace building will be referenced during the chapter to show resonances with the model explored here, pointing to the potential positive role of religious groups in conflict resolution, in relation to what Appleby has termed its ambivalent nature (2000).

The author is grateful to the editor for feedback and comments on a previous draft of this chapter.

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The South Kivu region is one of the five Eastern Congo provinces of Katanga, Maniema, North Kivu, Orientale, and South Kivu that had been predominantly controlled by various anti-government armed ethnic and militia groups since the assassination of Patrice Lumumba (the first democratically elected Prime Minister) in 1961. This study analyses data composed of records and archival documents from churches as well as primary data collected from interviews and group discussions with South Kivu inhabitants on the role of the religious groups in addressing problems created by the armed ethnic conflicts. This chapter examines the practical theology framework that employed interreligious dialogue in rebuilding intercommunity relations in South Kivu. The interreligious dialogue approach to conflict resolution originally developed by the Catholic Church of South Kivu and finally adopted by the different faith-based organizations and traditional leaders (who observed African Traditional Religions (ATR)) was significantly exploited in addressing the armed conflict situation in South Kivu. This interreligious dialogue armed conflict resolution model was used to deal with interethnic differences at the end of the 2001 Symposium “International Peace in Africa” (SIPA) held in Butembo (North Kivu), and a study of this event will form the primary basis of this chapter. To unravel the multiplicity of factors responsible for years of armed conflict in the DRC, the paper will examine how the churches and other stakeholders responded to the problems created by the repetitive armed ethnic conflicts since 1961 when the Congo achieved its independence from Belgium and chart the course of events from Mobutu’s seizure of power in 1961 till 1997. The central thematic concerns of the paper are (1) to examine the causes of the armed conflicts and (2) the collaborative practical interreligious dialogue approach adopted by the faith-based organizations and other stakeholders in resolving the conflicts in South Kivu. Initially, a brief introduction to the main ethnic groups in the DRC will be given to explain their relationship to the narrative that follows. The DRC has over 200 ethnic groups which speak different dialects and have different cultures. However, in this instance the study focuses on some ethnic groups in the eastern side that were mostly involved in the community conflicts that have affected the region. It is also essential to indicate that the conflict analyzed in this instance has been mainly between the eastern DRC “native tribes” and Banyarwanda who originated from Rwanda. Among the most prominent tribes that form the first group, one could cite Bashi, Bafuleru, Barega, Babembe, and other smaller tribes who are also seen as autochthonous

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inhabitants of the South Kivu region, while the other group is constituted by the population of Rwandan and Burundian origin (Hutu and Tutsi) who have moved to different parts of the DRC forming different communities (Rukundwa 2004). The Banyamulenge in South Kivu is an important group in the study and migrated from certain areas around the Great Lakes into South Kivu (Rukundwa 2004). In 1993, prominent members of “indigenous” ethnic groups campaigning and competing for political positions, openly in some instances, branded all Banyarwanda (Hutus and Tutsis) “foreigners.” In North Kivu, the ethnic political agenda culminated in armed clashes between Hutus and Tutsis on the one side and the members of several other ethnic groups on the other and caused at least 6,000 civilian deaths and displaced several hundred thousand (AIRR 1997).

The causes of the armed conflicts The latest information on religious groups in the DRC suggest that the Roman Catholic Church represent 50 percent of the population, Protestant 20 percent, Kimbanguist1 10 percent, Muslim 10 percent, and other (includes syncretic sects and ATR) 10 percent (CIA 2014). Although it is difficult to pinpoint directly the role of each religious group in this conflict, it is important to acknowledge that members of all the religious groups have been among victims and perpetrators of violence in the DRC. In many instances, members and leaders of different religious organizations have been hosting victims of wars and strongly criticizing the use of violence to address the regional crisis. It has also been interesting to note that the different religious organizations were able to use their theological practices to promote peace. The thrust of this study is invoked by Monsignor Mitima’s words during a 1997 church ceremony in Bukavu (the capital of South Kivu province): Monsignor Mitima welcomed Monsignor Kataliko, the Archbishop of Bukavu, with the following words of acknowledgment for his contribution to the rebuilding of broken community relations in South Kivu: The countries of the Great Lakes region live in the torments of ethnic and tribal wars. Africa is the continent with the largest number of refugees in the whole world. Your evangelization will target and touch the hearts of people in order to end tribalism, ethnocentrism, egocentrism and the discriminations and usher in the reign and the spirit of reconciliation, of mutual respect, solidarity and fraternity (Mitima, cited in Nkunzi 2005: 235).

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Nkunzi’s report of the conflict situation in the South Kivu region articulates the critical state of community relations in the Great Lake countries in 1997. The period 1996–2001 can be described as the era of ethnic anarchy, war, and serious intercommunity conflicts in South Kivu. During this period of political unrest, the majority of the inhabitants of this region cried continually for peace, transformation of community relations, and the rebuilding of destroyed structures. This study argues that the crisis in South Kivu has been the concern of everyone in the DRC. While not speaking about the DRC, Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s words nevertheless resonate: When we come face to face with ghastly atrocities we are appalled and want to ask, “but what happened to these people that they should have acted in this manner? What happened to their humanity?” (Tutu 2004, cited in Mbeki 2006)

The churches, like many other social institutions, played a role in rebuilding intercommunity relations in the province of South Kivu: for them it was part of their pastoral mission to participate in the reconstruction and reconciliation process (Bahala 2001). This study explores the activities of churches and the various perceptions of the people of South Kivu who were interviewed concerning aspects of the churches’ role in rebuilding intercommunity relations. To demystify the rather complex factors which impacted on the violent armed conflicts, this section traces the historical and political origins of the decades of political upheavals in the DRC to their colonial roots. Like the rest of the African continent, the DRC was, and still is, endlessly plundered and reduced to abject poverty by other countries’ inordinate greed for amassing wealth—selfish national interests that are always aimed at controlling the economic resources and the political power of “the dark places of sad-browed Africa” (Henry Morton Stanley, cited in Russell 2001: 451); this is exemplified by the atrocities committed by Belgium’s King Léopold II from 1884 to 1908 against the Congolese. King Léopold’s institutionalized destructive profit-driven mechanism was faithfully carried on by the Belgian colonial administrators from 1908 to 1960 and is continued by the rest of the Western world and corporations to date (Pakenham 1991). The rapacious colonial system that followed Léopold II ended in 1960 with independence under President Patrice Lumumba. However, the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in 1961 within months of independence triggered a series of civil wars creating political anarchy, instability, and sporadic armed conflicts until 2006. Colonel Joseph Mobutu (Mobutu Sese Seko) seized power through

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a coup with US backing (Legum 1961; Kanza 1972) and created a corrupt dictatorship that lasted over three decades (Meredith 2006). Since 1961, the South Kivu region has been plagued by violent ethnic and intercommunity conflicts affecting the entire Great Lakes region. South Kivu, North Kivu, and the Oriental Province were the worst ethnic conflict ravaged regions because of three major factors. Firstly, the proximity of these provinces to other Great Lakes region countries (Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Sudan, and Uganda) that have a high prevalence of armed conflicts making it the epicenter of political upheavals; notably Sudan has been described as “hopelessly split” between its “Arab [Muslim] North, a Black Christian South and an often overlooked African Muslim West” (Prunier 2004: 363). Secondly, the involvement and interference of countries outside the Great Lakes region in the civil wars of the DRC complicated the armed conflict situation (Ndaywel è Nzien 1998; Mathieu and Tshongo 1999). Thirdly, the abundance of natural resources has made South Kivu one of the important targets for wealth acquisition for many external countries (Essolomwa 2005: 132–4). The issue of refugees in the region complicates the situation tremendously. Besides refugees fleeing from other Great Lakes countries into the North and South Kivu regions, the Congo experienced successive massive movements of displaced persons set into motion by the assassination of Lumumba in 1961, notably the abortive Katanga secessionist movement led by Moise Tshombe that triggered a rebellion by one of Lumumba’s ministers, Pierre Mulele, in 1961 (Legum 1961). The Mulele rebellion matured into a political movement which forced thousands of Lubas (one of the ethnic groups) to flee their homes in the Katanga region. Attempts by the Congo to return to democracy failed and the country became divided and at some point controlled by different ethnic and military groups when the Rwandan genocide occurred in 1994 (Kabamba and Lanotte 1999). The presence of large numbers of Rwandan Tutsi and Hutu refugees in the five Eastern Congo provinces of Katanga, Maniema, North Kivu, Orientale, and South Kivu amounted to the transfer of the Rwandan Hutu-Tutsi civil wars into the Congo (Kabamba and Lanotte 1999). The regional armed conflicts cannot, therefore, be understood without an understanding of the impact of colonial history, contemporary politics (both national and geopolitical), the geographical location of South Kivu and other Central Africa African groups on the course of events, and root causes of the conflicts in the DRC and the Great Lakes region. According to the 1997 Amnesty International Rwanda Report (AIRR), the 1959 overthrow of the Tutsi monarchy by Hutu politicians culminated in massacres of tens

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of thousands of Tutsis and the flights of many thousands of Tutsis into neighboring Great Lakes countries (DRC, Burundi, Tanzania, and Uganda), where other Hutus and Tutsis who had voluntarily emigrated to the eastern part of the Congo during the previous decades were living (AIRR 1997). During the period 1961–1997, the Mobutu government failed to find a sustainable solution and take measures to prevent the conflicts of Hutus and Tutsis (commonly known as Banyarwanda) and other ethnic groups: a failure that intensified the volatile armed ethnic clashes in the Great Lakes countries. The hostility of other ethnic groups against the Hutus and Tutsis in some other instances in Zaire, which the Mobutu government entrenched in the nationalization program in the mid-1970s, was accentuated by the politics of ethnicity (on the role of identity, including ethnic, in religious situations see Coco and Hedges 2014). “It is to this volatile environment that more than one million Hutus, some of them former members of militia and government forces who participated in the genocide in Rwanda, fled when the [Hutu-dominated] Rwandese government was overthrown” by the Tutsicontrolled Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in July 1994 (AIRR 1997: 4). On their arrival in Zaire, the armed Hutus took part in attacks on Tutsis and other groups and extended this aggression beyond the Congolese borders. The fact that many Banyarwanda who were living in the DRC left after the Rwandan regime change in 1994 just after the genocide caused mistrust among the other South Kivu local populations. Rumors developed that the Tutsi Banyarwanda wanted to create a new nation by cutting South Kivu from the rest of the country causing serious community hatred toward the Tutsi ethnic group. The disagreement between Laurent Kabila (President of DRC from 1997 to 2001) and his former allies led to another war. Troops from Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe intervened to prop up Kabila’s regime. Although a ceasefire agreement was signed in July 1999 by the warring factions, intermittent fighting continued until 2006 (Meredith 2006). The struggle for democracy and peace were further constrained when Kabila was assassinated in January 2001 and his son, Joseph Kabila, became the head of state. Like his father, Joseph Kabila has very little control over the DRC. In this context, how church leaders used interreligious dialogue conflict resolution as a strategy to redress the political situation that was primarily enacted through armed-conflict in South Kivu is the thematic focus below.

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The collaborative practical interreligious dialogue approach It has been observed that religious groups can be better placed than political leaders to reach different sectors of society (Abu-Nimer 2001: 686), and the following perhaps encapsulates what was achieved by the faith leaders in using interreligious dialogue as a means to achieve peace: Your evangelization will target and touch the hearts of people in order to end tribalism, ethnocentrism, egocentrism and the discriminations and usher in the reign and the spirit of reconciliation, of mutual respect, solidarity and fraternity (Nkunzi 2005: 235).

Monsignor Francois-Xavier Maroy, the Archbishop of Bukavu who came after Munzihirwa, Kataliko, and Charles Mbogha, focused explicitly on the mission of re-establishing peace in the Great Lakes region of Central Africa, as can be seen in a statement made by him in which he invokes the message of peace in Matthew’s Gospel: We are natural neighbors with the Rwandans, the Burundians, and the Ugandans. We are condemned to live together rather in peace and harmony in this sub-region that God generously gave us and not in perpetual wars. What will the new wars serve us which are only accentuating the poverty of our people and creating unnecessary antagonism? “Blessed are the peace makers, they will be called sons of God” (Matt 5: 9). “Never again, never the war, the world is thirsty for peace” (Maroy 2007).

The Archbishop urges the necessity for peaceful resolution of the armed conflict situation in the Great Lakes region by reiterating that the establishment of peace in the region is essential for good neighborly relations with Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda and for a harmonious development within the region. However, “the efforts” of churches to rebuild intercommunity relations among different communities in South Kivu and in the Great Lakes region of Central Africa did not insulate the churches from the effects of the crises that affected the region. Monsignor Kataliko describes the assaults endured by Catholic churches in 2000: Our institutional church herself is not safe. Parishes, presbyters, convents have been ravaged. Priests, religious brethren and sisters are affected, tortured and even killed because, by their lifestyle, they denounce flagrant injustice in which the population is plunged, condemn the war and recommend the reconciliation, pardon and non-violence (Kataliko 2000).

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According to one of the interviewees, religious organizations were the only voice that was to be heard by the population of South Kivu during the time of conflict. Kabegos states: “The churches, particularly the Catholic Church, had a huge influence on the majority of population. Most people listened to Archbishop Munzihirwa’s instructions on the radio and in the church.”2 It is apparent that this trust has developed as a result of the population’s observation of how church leaders have repeatedly demonstrated their commitment to addressing the unrest in the province. According to Amnesty International (1997), during Archbishop Munzihirwa’s leadership, at the beginning of the first war in 1996, he publicly criticized the rebels for using armed violence as a means to resolve their problems. According to Father Bahala, the church leaders faced serious setbacks because of their commitment to building peace in the region: In the last couple of years and because of our commitment to peace and human dignity, the Catholic Church of Bukavu has lost through violent or precipitated deaths, her pastors, Monsignor Munzihirwa Christophe, assassinated on October 29, 1996 and Monsignor Emmanuel Kataliko, who recently died in Rome on October 4, 2000, after seven months in exile imposed by the DRC rebels. This, because he dared to speak of peace, express outrage against attacks on a defenceless civilian population, and articulate the concerns of the population entrusted to his care (Bahala 20013).

The analysis of debates on the crisis suggests that, from the beginning of the conflicts in 1996 to the end of the period of wars, the church leaders from different communities called on the population to desist from violent conflict and resist violence through peaceful means. Archbishop Kataliko’s 2000 Christmas message illustrates this viewpoint: The gospel calls us to refuse the means of weapons and of violence to come out of conflicts. It’s at the cost of our sufferings and of our prayers that we will conduct our fight of freedom and that we will eventually lead our oppressors to the reason and to their own internal liberty (Kataliko 2000).

The focal area of concern for this study is the reconciliation process. It is instructive to note that in the search for peace, churches organized a series of meetings to facilitate the reconciliation of different communities. Despite the conflicts in their respective countries, the bishops met in assemblies in Kigali to discuss the peace process. For instance, Catholic bishops from neighboring countries often held consultations on how to resolve the crisis not just in the DRC but the whole Great Lakes region. Cyril Musila refers to one such meeting:

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United in an assembly in May 2002 in Kigali of peace and unity in a region where their countries are fighting, Catholic bishops of Burundi, of Rwanda and of the Republic Democratic of Congo brought their contribution to the peace process (Musila 2003, translation by the author).

The fact that church leaders, just as politicians and other players, held such consultations aimed at bringing about reconciliation and redressing the conflicts in the region is indicative of the intention of churches to initiate the peace process. Another case in point is SIPA, held in Butembo in March 2001. SIPA, initiated by Catholic and Protestant churches, also involved traditional leaders, politicians, and civilians from different communities as participants. This gathering was crucial because it afforded the different communities the opportunity to express their feelings in the church context. This context entailed employing the practical theological approach enshrined in Christian teaching: the use of peacemaking efforts by the church, the collaborative allinclusive or holistic approach or the practical, “doing,” theological method of resolving conflicts and creating a harmonious society for all groups. As previously mentioned, although we are looking at Christian principles here, similar ones are found in the Islamic tradition and scholars such as Mohammed Abu-Nimer (2003) and Ashgar Ali Engineer (2003: especially 114–23) have similar principles, where respect for the dignity of all human life is seen as a central religious principle, and the religion itself is seen as one that is fundamentally peaceful. We will now discuss some of the deliberations that occurred during SIPA to show how the church sought to bring understanding among the diverse religious and ethnic groups. This will involve understanding the purpose of SIPA and perceptions of the war among these various groups. According to Father Jean-Bosco Bahala, SIPA was initiated with the intention of addressing the issues of peace through non-violence or what Gandhi calls passive resistance to acts of violence: Despite the attacks, destruction of property, and assassinations of religious personalities, the Church has embarked on the path towards peace. Recently the Church organized, despite its having been banned by the DRC in Bukavu, an International Symposium on Peace in Africa, in Butembo (North-Kivu), that brought together over 500 guests from across Europe, North America, and other African countries. The symposium was a concrete manifestation of our commitment to non-violence and peaceful cohabitation (Bahala 2001).

The letters, speeches, and poems presented during the symposium reflected opinions and feelings of different communities concerning the

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intercommunity conflicts. For example Jonas Sebatunzi, speaking on behalf of the Banyamulenge community, explains how the Banyamulenge perceived the war that affected the region. In Jonas’ view, “the Rwandan soldiers did not come for the Banyamulenge, they came for their interests; the proof is that here in Bukavu we cannot walk freely even if they are here” (Sebatunzi, cited in ASIPA 2001). Other non-Banyamulenge communities had a different perception of the Banyamulenge community regarding the conflicts. Some people were of the view that the Banyamulenge community was manipulated into committing acts of violence against other Congolese communities in order exploit the natural resources. Kataliko reported that: Two years later, in 1996, a minor rebellion of the Banyamulenge, scorched the Eastern part of the Congo and expanded to the entire country. The reasons advanced for this rebellion was that they were fighting for their right to Congolese citizenship (Kataliko 19984).

Bahala’s statement indicates that the churches and other communities perceived the wars as military actions whose aims was to take over the region by means of military conquest in order to exploit the vast natural resources of the DRC. According to Bahala: The Congolese people see this war as a conquest aimed at fully controlling and managing the resources of Congo and their exploitation through Rwanda and Uganda as intermediaries. Due to this critical understanding, the people manifest a true attitude of resentment against the actual U.S. policy in Central Africa (Bahala 2001).

Deliberations during SIPA showed that there were different reasons put forward by both camps to justify their involvement in the conflicts (ASIPA 2001). In addition, different reasons were advanced regarding the wars that had exacerbated the latent conflicts that existed between the different communities. Initially, the main reason adduced for the 1996 war had to do with seeking national recognition for the Banyamulenge community (ASIPA 2001). Later on, this issue became a subject of intense debate among the different communities. Various additional reasons for the South Kivu intercommunity conflicts came to the fore during discussions at SIPA. Some participants believed that the Tutsi ethnic group wanted to create a Tutsiland where all non-Tutsi communities would be suppressed and that they wanted to annex South Kivu for this purpose. This perception was expressed in Dr Geronce Balegamire’s presentation. According to Balegamire,

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the Banyamulenge community allegedly committed what was termed a “scientific crime” by distorting the historical truth about the true origin of the Banyamulenge and removing a portion of the DRC from the country’s map (ASIPA 2001). According to one interviewee, this historical distortion severely impaired intercommunity relations between the Banyamulenge community and all the other non-Tutsi communities in South Kivu because it created mistrust between them (ASIPA 2001). During the symposium, there were a number of different communities who described how they were affected by the various conflicts. According to their testimony during the symposium, the Banyamulenge community members have been subjected to intense hatred by other communities for being members of the larger Tutsi ethnic groups. They claimed that they became the object of hatred for either looking like Tutsis or being in contact with the other Tutsis, despite the fact that they were not the cause of the war. Jonas Sebantuzi states this view as follows: Since the beginning of the second war, the one before 1998, we are the only tribe that has paid the price on the first hour, at a high cost. Some of our brothers in the army as well as civilians who were in Kinshasa, Lubumbashi … were murdered for the only reason of being Tutsi (ASIPA 2001) .

Other communities also expressed their feeling toward the number of atrocities that they had experienced because of the war. The traditional leader of the Bafulero, Mwami Ndare Simba, expressed his concerns this way: Since the beginning of hostilities in 1996, North Kivu has experienced the assassinations of four traditional leaders and South Kivu three. All this because the traditional leaders dared resist, so that a daughter is not raped in front of her father and her mother, and that the mother is not raped in front of her son … (ASIPA 2001).

We should clearly note that at the time these accusations were being made, it was the churches which provided the different communities the opportunity to express their views and to articulate their problems. The churches therefore were a key component in the process of seeking a way through what was happening, which helps exemplify the claim that: “Framing the [peacebuilding] intervention within a religious context … made it possible for interveners to gain access and increase their potential impact” (Abu-Nimer 2001: 686). Indeed, it bears repeating that in midst of all the accusations, the church leaders called the attention of the participants to the need to reconcile communal differences as a necessary step toward building peace

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and forging new community relations for a better continent. The leaders of all the churches working together as one body concluded at the end of the symposium that: “From this symposium we call all Africans: ‘Let’s no longer fight against each other but work together to build a continent where every woman, every man has the right and the joy to live’ ” (ASIPA 2001). At the close of SIPA, the churches that attended the symposium passed a number of resolutions concerning the situation in the Great Lakes region. Bahala summarized the resolutions: 

 



To disarm our minds and recognize that all Congolese and all men and women concerned about peace are our brothers and sisters. To take human rights as our starting point in building peace. To break away from apathy, the corruption of lies and the search for personal interest in political life. To refuse to resort to violence, revenge, and hatred in order to advance resolutely along the path of non-violence. Non-violence is the power of truth (Bahala 2001).

It is also apparent from Bahala’s testimony that the churches went to the extent of calling forth the international community to put pressure on the belligerents in order to stop the conflicts. In May 2001, Bahala specifically called for the intervention of the United States: We strongly believe that, as the only superpower in the world, the U.S.’s decisions have a huge influence on political actors in [the] Central Africa region. This country can play a significant role in putting an end to the carnage that is going on there if the right pressure is applied on those forces fuelling the conflict. Our aim is to seek solutions to the conflict in Congo that respect the expectations of the population and internationally recognized rights and obligations of peoples (Bahala 2001).

It can be argued that the churches were aware of the peace framework that could be effectively applied in order to resolve the problems. The resolutions and recommendations which they framed were structured around practical procedures and applications that could effectively achieve sustainable peace and promote reconciliation in the region. The peace initiative approach recommended by the SIPA seems to draw from Villa-Vicencio’s recommendation: It is equally important, however, for the church to accept that if theology is to be taken seriously within the political arena (and more especially during

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a period of political reconstruction) it has to contribute to the process of producing concrete proposals to deal with complex political and economical problems (Villa-Vicencio 1992: 38).

It is possible to infer that in consonance with Villa-Vincecio’s remark, the churches in South Kivu wanted to be taken seriously in their dealing with the South Kivu situation. This is echoed by Bahala’s address to the International Relations Committee of the US House of Representatives, in which he enumerated the church’s proposals on how to deal with the situation in the Great Lakes region. Bahala suggested seven points: first, the complexity of the conflict should be made public and efforts for peace by the UN observers applauded; second, UN troops should be on the DRCs borders not internal conflict zones as peace requires the integrity of the country; third, no solution is possible without internal peace and removal of outside troops, which requires internal dialogues within Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda; fourth, the whole Great Lakes region needs good governance; fifth, a peaceful DRC is needed to resolve the Banyamulenge issue, while the Banyamulenge are also realizing their legitimate concerns have been manipulated; sixth, war crimes trials must be used to counter a culture of impunity; and, seventh, grassroots peace movements must be supported (Bahala 2001). Apart from proposals such as these, visits and other interventions undertaken by churches leaders in the region re-affirm the role of churches in the peace-building process; churches are involved in a variety of activities to restore peace and harmony in the Great Lakes region, particularly in South Kivu. In July 2006, Archbishop Maroy of Bukavu described the effects of the church’s involvement in the peace-building process: Far from developing negative feeling in the hearts of our people, the death of … two valued pastors … I would say [has] enforced the testimony of faith, of hope, and of charity. We have opened the doors to dialogue, to workshops, to sessions, to exchanges of experiences … to the extent that practically Bukavu has become the second pole of political conscience of the country after Kinshasa the capital (Maroy 2006).

At this stage, it is important to point out that the Catholic Church designed a plan to promote harmony in South-Kivu and the Great Lakes region. It seems that the churches were a step ahead of the politicians in this regard as the churches had already initiated activities aimed at bringing the people of the region together. Maroy made this clear in a statement in 2006 while highlighting the church’s three-pronged approach to building harmonious

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community relations in the region, stating that the church would continue to play its peace-building role at the regional level. This role would also be replicated by the church at the local and national levels. In this context, the church has committed itself to implementing the following resolutions: 





To intensify the meetings of groups in our three countries with an extension on Uganda and Tanzania (also belonging to this region of Great Lakes). To open cultural activities and multidisciplinary sport competitions between our young girls and boys the future of the church and the society. To create tertiary institution of peace education preferably in Bukavu, not only because of development in that town in the tertiary sector, but for to meet the people whose patrimony has been the most destroyed on the human level (Maroy 2006).

This section has explored at different levels how the churches have been engaged in the peace process. It is crucial at this stage to crystallize the practical interreligious dialogue model that informs and shapes the conflict resolution methodology employed by religious faith-based leaders, armed group leaders, politicians, and ATR leaders in addressing the South Kivu armed inter-ethnic conflicts: an all-inclusive practical theological conflict resolution template that was responsible for the successful agreement reached by the opposing political camps at the end of the SIPA deliberations. The theological strategy involved the use of peacemaking efforts of all stakeholders and the interreligious dialogue holistic practical theological approach distilled from the South Kivu Catholic Church’s involvement in armed conflicts and politics of conflict resolution during the period 1996–2006. It involved what is often recognized as key components in such processes, such as meeting the other in an atmosphere where mutual trust can be built on the basis of some neutral space (Abu-Nimer 2001: 694–5).

Conclusion It is important to reiterate that the post-conflict community relationship rebuilding design exploited by the religious organizations in the South Kivu region is a collaborative methodology: a structural transformational strategy that entailed a partnership between religious bodies and all other stakeholders in resolving the ethnic-war-related problems that hindered peace. Notably, religious traditions are often powerful forces in many African societies and have often been important mediating actors (see e.g. Sampson 1997: 291,

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293, 294–8). One of the advocates of the all-embracing religious approach to peace and reconciliation is L. Pato (1994). The South African theologian posits that African theologians should collaborate with members of civil society in addressing problems of armed-conflicts that face the African Continent. As mentioned earlier, although this is a Christian approach, it is not out of accord with conflict resolution strategies in Islam, and Paden has suggested that Nigeria offers a model for a specifically African form of Islam which could be utilized as a model (2005: 2ff.). Indeed, we can link this to what Appleby has termed the “logic” of religious peacebuilding (2000: 211). This is important especially in relation to the Muslim conflict resolution scholar Mohammed Abu-Nimer’s suggestion that West-based models may not be most suited to other contexts, where specific regional and religious models may be better employed (Abu-Nimer 1996 2003; see also Ramsbotham et al. 2011: 343–4 which also notes the work of George Irani as well as Abu-Nimer). It could be argued that the DRC faith-based organizations were aware of the religious peace framework that could be effectively applied in resolving armed and social conflicts and accordingly customized the resolutions and recommendations structured around procedures and practical religious application methodology that could successfully achieve sustainable peace and promote reconciliation in the region. The peace initiative approach recommended by the SIPA intervention seems to draw from the practical theological conflict resolution approach formulated by Villa-Vicencio (1992). The author contends that: It is equally important, however, for the church to accept that if theology is to be taken seriously within the political arena (and more especially during a period of political reconstruction) it has to contribute to the process of producing concrete proposals to deal with complex political and economical problems (Villa-Vicencio 1992: 38).

The analysis of the secondary and primary field data has suggested that the DRC faith-based bodies’ approach to the armed conflict upheaval in the Congo during the period 1961–2006 was similar to the preferential treatment option designed for the poor, which Pieterse (2001) and Nolan (1994) have discussed in their studies. The religious faiths’ open declaration to protect the poor victims of the ethnic wars from the perpetrators of armed violence constitutes an important component of the innovative and holistic practical theological approach synthesized by the Catholic Church and adopted by all stakeholders in addressing the DRC armed conflicts.

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The findings of the wide range of studies reviewed demonstrates that the holistic and collaborative peace-building and community-relations approach which the churches have adopted for addressing the problems of armed conflict in South Kivu can be seen as an innovative theological template for conflict-resolution. Equally, the data that has emerged offers an insight into the practical and social-oriented theology that underpins the way Roman Catholic Church leaders, in their quest for peace and democratic governance, sought to transcend the political intrigues and hidden political agendas of other stakeholders in the resource-rich but strife-ravaged DRC. While the focus here has been on the role of religion in peacebuilding, we should mention that religious groups, both Christian and Muslim, have also been complicit in some of the atrocities which have occurred, and related to the DRC conflict, the Tutsi-Hutu conflict in Rwanda is a case in point where religious groups were not always peacebuilders and were sometimes even complicit in events— though here of course it was not an interreligious conflict as both were mainly Christian (see Kubai 2013). It is not therefore that this chapter is attempting to paint a one-sided picture, merely that its focus is upon what we may term the “positive” ambivalence in Appleby’s terms. Some factors in the DRC conflict, already found in existing research but worth emphasizing, are the following: a clear understanding of the origins of the conflict and the intricate relationships between perpetrators and victims is essential for defining goals and constructing an appropriate implementation design for successful resolution of problems of peace-rebuilding; the destruction caused by wars and armed conflicts tends to affect everything (human lives, the environment, social and political structures, and the very soul of the society and its members); the solution to the state of insecurity in war-ravaged societies is only achievable if members of the various groups work together; an imposed peace-agreement by military presence is not only expensive, requiring the backing of Western powers, but also difficult to sustain for a long period; the collapse of social, political, and economic structures, coupled with the serious deterioration of all health care services, led to a mass exodus by intellectuals, professionals, and specialists required for running services and developing the shattered country – a factor that compounded the problems. Some of the critical findings and implications of this research are as follows. First, the identification of the emergence of a Congolese home-grown theological model for resolving post-armed-conflict problems, as one rooted in an African context, that potentially develops Abu-Nimer’s suggestions for

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a Middle Eastern model (1996). Second, the innovativeness of the religiouscum-political practical approach that evolved during the Roman Catholic Church’s involvement with the peace-rebuilding process in South Kivu might be considered as a conflict resolution template for churches and other religious groups, especially as it has been suggested that while developed in a specifically Christian conflict it is one that resonates with Islamic principles. Third, the fact that the frequent eruptions of armed violence in South Kivu and the DRC might be linked to the following variables: the DRC’s vast natural resources, the proximity of South Kivu to strife-torn countries like Rwanda and Burundi, the interference of foreign powers with a vested interest in the rich mineral resources of the DRC, and the inordinate greed and selfishness of politicians and warlords. Besides, there are also religious factors which are in part Christian and Muslim even if these are not key factors in the conflicts per se. Fourth, one of the determinants responsible for the success achieved by the churches and other stakeholders could well be attributed to the fact that the method used incorporated many diverse factors that impinged upon the South Kivu post-armed-conflict resolution process.

8

Initiative and Response: The Future of Muslim–Christian Dialogue Douglas Pratt

Introduction Relationships between Muslims and Christians have arguably been ever marked by three fundamental dynamics: mutual antipathy, mutual affinity, and mutual inquiry. Historical epochs and communal circumstances have varyingly reflected hostility one toward the other; a sometimes muted sense, perhaps, of being co-religionists, theological cousins as it were, or co-equally peoples of the book or sons of Abraham; and at best an open inquisitiveness and quest to learn more of and about each other. In the modern era, and certainly since the mid-twentieth century, a sense of genuinely mutual inquiry, of seeking together to understand each other, learn about each other, and strive for the greater good of the common world we all indwell, has clearly emerged as an active motivator for dialogue. Such inquiry is born out of a sense of affinity and given urgent impetus by the realization of the negative consequences of allowing antipathy to gain the upper hand. Although many interesting dialogical developments emerged in the latter half of the twentieth century, two twenty-first-century initiatives undertaken by Christians reaching out to engage the Muslim world and one very significant initiative to emerge out of the Muslim world are assessed here. The “Building Bridges” seminar series begun by the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, in 2002, and the Christian-Muslim Theological Forum (Theologisches Forum Christentum-Islam) initiated by an ecumenical group of younger Christian scholars in Germany, also in 2002, are two important initiatives from out of the Christian world that have each settled into a regular, more or less annual, conference-style meeting pattern with quality

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published outcomes. Both can be said to have been born of goodwill forged by mutual affinity and are at the cutting edge of contemporary developments in mutual inquiry. In October of 2007, an “Open Letter and Call from Muslim Religious Leaders,” entitled A Common Word Between Us and You (ACW) and signed by 138 Muslim clerics and academics, was addressed to Pope Benedict XVI and a number of other named key church figures worldwide (ACW 2007). Indeed, it was addressed to “Leaders of Christian Churches, everywhere.” It was an invitation to a renewed theological dialogue between the two faith communities. These initiatives, and the manner in which they have been responded to—including the establishment of regular ongoing committed dialogical engagement at some depth—are perhaps a hopeful signal for the future of Muslim–Christian dialogue. Contemporary Muslim and Christian intention to engage in fruitful dialogue is clear. So what has been happening with respect to these three initiatives, and where is it all going? In what follows, I shall touch briefly on the two Christian dialogical initiatives and devote most of this chapter to a more detailed analysis and discussion of the Muslim epistolary initiative.

Building Bridges From the outset, the aim of the Building Bridges seminar series was to establish an environment for bridge-building in the sense of “creating new routes for information, appreciation and respect to travel freely and safely in both directions between Christians and Muslims, Muslims and Christians” (Ipgrave 2002: 1). Archbishop Carey retired in October 2002. His successor, Rowan Williams, made this series a priority of his Archbishopric. Each year since, a group of invited Muslim and Christian scholars has met for 3 days of deliberation on a theological theme by means of public lectures, closed plenaries, and small-group sessions. From this first seminar there quickly arose a sense that these conversations should be regular, extended, and searching; and that they should alternate between Christian- and Muslimmajority venues from one year to the next. Relatively early on, the emerging “methodological sophistication” of this new dialogue, namely “the practice of Christians and Muslims reading their scriptures together,” was applauded (Miroslav Volf 2005: 22).1

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Following the retirement of Dr Rowan Williams as Archbishop of Canterbury, Daniel Madigan SJ, assumed the chair of this significant Anglicaninitiated Christian-Muslim dialogue series which now has Georgetown University, Washington DC, as its institutional base (Pratt 2014). In the dozen or so years of the series, participants have not had the responsibility of being required to represent any particular constituency; rather they were charged with bringing their own specialist perspective to the discussion. The style of the seminars has been described as an exercise in “appreciative conversation” during which participants remain rooted in their own tradition “whilst at the same time reaching beyond it” engaging in an exchange in which “people listen without judgement, do not seek consensus or compromise, but share the sole purpose of continuing the conversation in order to sustain relationships of mutual respect” (Stamp 2002: 113). Rowan Williams has commented that Building Bridges: was brought into being to fill what was thought to be a gap; a gap not at the diplomatic or political level but a gap of a lack of opportunity for serious, reflective, and fairly loosely-structured encounter between Christian and Muslim scholars (Williams 2006).

He also observed that its style of “working together, studying sacred texts together, and above all learning to listen to one another speaking to God and also to watch one another speaking to God … is a style which has been patient, affirming, and celebrating” (Williams 2014). Building Bridges is a work in progress, as too is the German ChristianMuslim Theological Forum, to which I now turn.

The Christian–Muslim Theological Forum In 2002, a group of younger German theologians, interested in fostering dialogue with Muslim scholars, began a process that led to the founding of the “Theologisches Forum Christentum-Islam.” The lead motivation was to foster a dialogical engagement that was balanced and equal in terms of level of engagement and the expertise of the interlocutors. The specific goal was to facilitate an academic theological dialogue between Christians and Muslims in the German language on the supposition that such dialogue can make a significant contribution to the common life of Muslims and Christians within Germany. In

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the event, two initial conferences (in 2003 and 2004) were held with Christian participants only, who had particular interest or speciality in Christian-Muslim relations. The purpose of these was for Christian reflection and discussion about engaging in dialogue with Islam. One early ancillary aim to emerge was that the Forum should allow younger and new scholars an opportunity to share the results of their research. The Forum was indeed to prove a seed-bed for new and emerging scholarship in the area of Christian-Muslim dialogue more widely, as well as the development of Islamic theological scholarship per se within the German context. In March 2005, the first symposium of the Forum proper, involving Christians and Muslims together, was held. From the outset the Forum organizers identified, as measures of success of the enterprise, the development of inter-personal friendship between Muslim and Christian participants; the establishment of functional networks of scholars; engagement in the dialogue process as equals in the context of an intentional theological mode and level of discourse. To these were added the need for a secure location for the meetings, the consistency of core personnel, and of the structure of the gatherings, all with the aim of assured outcomes, sound public relations, and the development of appropriate ancillary activities such as the Christian-Muslim study week. On all counts these key indicators have been well met.

The “Common Word” letter This letter is a significant document. Following a flurry of initial reactions and responses, many colloquia and conferences have been held in various countries. The ACW website (ACW n.d.) provides a comprehensive record and repository of this activity, and much else besides. The reception of this epoch-making Muslim text is steadily progressing. The Muslim invitation to dialogue has been well taken up, with deep interest in the field very evident (see for example: El-Ansary and Linnan 2010; Troll et al. 2010; Volf et al. 2010). Drawing on some earlier work on this document (Pratt 2008) I shall analyze the letter in terms of structure and content, then discuss a number of select responses that have been made to it.

Analysis The full document is in two sections: a brief “Summary” followed by the substantive letter which is in three parts—(I) “Love of God,” (II) “Love of the Neighbour,” and (III) “Come to a Common Word Between Us and You”—

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followed by several pages of Notes and the list of signatories. The opening paragraph of the “Summary” gives the pressing context for the letter: the pursuit of global peace. Specifically it asserts “The future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians” (ACW 2007: 2). Comprising, together, over half of the world’s population, these two global faith communities have a moral and theological responsibility to live up to their own precepts, especially in the context of the critical need for peaceful resolution to contemporary mutually divisive and destructive situations. And the basis for such resolution is to hand in “the very foundational principles of both faiths: love of the One God, and love of the neighbour.” These principles, which thread throughout their respective scriptural texts, two examples of which are given from the Qur’an (Sura Al-Ikhlas: 1–2, Q. 112:1–2; Sura Al-Muzzammil: 8, Q. 73:8) and one from the New Testament (Mark 12:29–31), form the basis of “the common ground.” Furthermore, the Summary makes pivotal reference to the qur’anic injunction for Muslims to engage dialogically with Christians as well as Jews by virtue of all being “Peoples of Scripture,” in order to arrive at “a common word between us and you … ” in matters of fundamental theological values (Sura Aal ‘Imran: 64, Q. 3:64). This dialogical call and its justification are interlinked to the view that the two commandments of love expressed by Jesus in his citation of Torah, love of (for) God and love of (for) neighbor, are also embedded within Islamic scriptural text and theological sensibility. Hence the summary concludes: “in obedience to the Holy Qur’an, we as Muslims invite Christians to come together with us on the basis of what is common to us, which is also what is essential to our faith and practice.” Love (of God and neighbor) is the basis for dialogue and the foundation of peaceful coexistence. The substantive letter then spells this out. The title of the main corpus is preceded by the invocation of the bismillah—“In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.” This standard preface of Muslim piety is no sop to tradition: in all things the name of God is to be remembered and recalled; all endeavors are couched within the frame of acknowledging ultimate dependency upon the mercy and compassion of God. Next, the very qur’anic call for Muslims to engage in dialogue with their co-religionists, Sura Al-Nahl (16:125), is cited. The first of the three substantive sections, “Love of God,” is explored in respect to Islam and then in regard to the Christian Bible. The Muslim exposition commences with reference to the short creedal statements that comprise the sine qua non of Islam: “There is no god but God” and “Muhammad is the messenger of God.” Their affirmation establishes essential Islamic identity;

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their denial signals exclusion from Islamic identity and membership of the Muslim community. The first of these is extolled by Muhammad as “the best remembrance”; that is, it is the key to the essential message, or expression of deen (ideational essence) of theistic religion as such. To the statement “no god but God” there is added a set of theological values and perspectives, each found in various locations within the Qur’an, but brought together by Muhammad in summary fashion, as recorded in the Hadith: that God is alone, without any “associate,” to whom belongs sovereignty and praise, and who possesses “power over all things” (ACW 2007: 4). This summarizing Hadith is expounded in the letter. It is a critical point of hermeneutical reference for it occupies the single largest subsection, at once seeking to establish the basis of common ground and so the call for a “common word” of dialogical engagement; yet at the same time presenting a clear theological challenge: are these “values” equally or differently understood across the two religions? The point is to assert the totality of Muslim devotion and attachment to God, which is also given as the key example that Muhammad left for Muslims to follow whereby, in so doing, the Muslim may be assured of God’s love. Thus, for Muslims, the “call to be totally devoted and attached to God … is in fact an injunction requiring all-embracing, constant love of God” (ACW 2007: 7). The concluding sub-section asserts that this “best remembrance” is explicated in and through the Hadith that says, in full: “There is no god but God, He Alone, He hath no associate, His is the sovereignty and His the praise and He hath power over all things” and which is understood to inculcate, through its ritualized repetition and by the grace of God, the devotional response of “loving and being devoted to God with all one’s heart, all one’s soul, all one’s mind, all one’s will or strength, and all one’s sentiment” (ACW 2007: 8). The lengthy explication of Love of God (i.e. of the human for God, as opposed to God’s love of us) within the Islamic framework of theological reflection and praxis is followed by a shorter, but quite apt, presentation of this in respect to the Bible, specifically referring to the “first and greatest commandment,” namely the Shema of Deuteronomy (6:4–5). Acknowledging its source within Jewish text and liturgy, its Christian usage is validated with reference to a citation from the Gospels (Matt. 22:34–40; Mark 12:28–31) in which Jesus recites the Shema in answer to the question: “What is the greatest commandment in the law?” And to the first Jesus adds the quintessential second, also drawn from Torah: “you shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Thus Torah, endorsed by the Gospel, reinforces the love of God fully, “with all your heart, with all your soul; with all your mind; and with all

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your strength,” as the first and greatest commandment. This is a universal injunction, re-echoed within Islam; it is the bedrock of common ground and the call to a “common word” between Muslim and Christian. Further textual references from the Bible are given to reinforce the point and the conclusion drawn is that the expression of Muhammad as given in Hadith, which itself is a précis of qur’anic perspective, is that there is but one God, and the “oneness” is understood to mean that the singularity (“alone”; “no associate”), the inclusive scope (“sovereignty”), the worshipfulness (“His the praise”), and the omnipotence (“power over all”) of the divine Being is materially identical, or at least showing “effective similarity in meaning,” with the biblical first commandment. Parallelism of formulas is taken to infer equality of meaning, namely the “primacy of total love and devotion to God” (ACW 2007: 10). This is a provocative suggestion which could open up some interesting and potentially fruitful dialogical engagement. The second substantive section briefly addresses “Love of Neighbour.” Once again the first sub-section looks at this as a motif within Islam, and then within the Bible. In Islam “love” is closely associated with mercy; mercy is a quality, or expression, of love. The letter simply notes the association and asserts love of neighbor as an essential corollary to love of God: “without love of the neighbour there is no true faith in God and no righteousness” (ACW 2007: 11). Two sayings of Muhammad, together with two citations from the Qur’an (Sura Al-Baqarah: 177, Q. 2:177; Sura Aal ‘Imran: 92, Q. 3:92), underscore the point and, significantly, highlight the link of this love to righteous behaviors of “generosity and self-sacrifice.” The second great dominical commandment, as already cited from Matthew 22:38–40, is reiterated together with noting its pedigree in Torah (Lev. 19:17–18), and the assertion that the biblical injunction to love neighbor likewise demands righteous actions of generosity and self-sacrifice. The motif that the two great love commandments, love of God and love of neighbor, are pivotal to the Abrahamic religious tradition (“the Law and the Prophets”) is re-emphasized. The third and final section expounds the dialogical call: “Come to a Common Word between Us and You.” There are three sub-sections headed, respectively, “A Common Word,” “Come to a Common Word!,” and “Between Us and You.” Noting that there are real and formal differences between the religions of Islam and Christianity, the letter nonetheless asserts that the basis of dialogical engagement is the commonality of the “Two Greatest Commandments” that interlink Qur’an, Torah, and New Testament. Further, the commandments “arise out of ” the oneness or singularity (the letter says “Unity”) of God. Hence the letter boldly states: “Thus the Unity of God, love

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of Him, and love of the neighbour form a common ground upon which Islam and Christianity (and Judaism) are founded.” The message brought by the Prophet Muhammad is affirmed as adding nothing new to that which had been previously conveyed, and that observation is itself attested within the Qur’an (Sura Fussilat: 43, Q. 41:43; Sura Al-Ahqaf: 9, Q. 46:9). Hence the “common word” (namely, that which underlies true religion as such, and so is the basis for dialogue) is none other than these eternal truths or theological values: the reality of the one God; the response of love and devotion to God (love of, and fidelity to, the One God and so the spurning of “false gods”); and the necessary corollary of justice in respect to our fellow human beings (love of neighbor). Love is no mere sentiment; it is a call to right living and action. Having established the content of the “common word,” the letter goes on to expound on the motif of invitation: “Come to a Common Word.” The principle Muslim reference is to Sura Aal ‘Imran (Q. 3:64) that exhorts Muslims to invite Christians and Jews, as fellow “peoples of the Book” to the worship of the One God, the preservation of the Unity of God (“ascribe no partner unto Him”) and the maintenance of theological fidelity (“none of us shall take others for lords”). Along with the assertion of the oneness of God, this call is regarded as having embedded in it the essence of the “First and Greatest Commandment”: the total unsullied love of God. And with reference to the authoritative qur’anic commentary by Al-Tabiri (d.923) the letter affirms that “Muslims, Christians and Jews should be free to each follow what God commanded them” (ACW 2007: 14); that is to say, in matters of religious identity and practice there is to be openness and freedom. This is endorsed by citing Sura Al-Baqarah (Q. 2:256): “Let there be no compulsion in religion” together with the viewpoint that openness and freedom in matters of religion is consonant with the second dominical commandment, to love one’s neighbor. And that implies the exercise of justice and the freedom of religion. The argument is clear and compelling. In inviting Christians to be mindful of the dual dominical commandment (love God; love neighbor) the Muslim signatories to the letter proclaim their positive outreach to Christians: “we are not against them … Islam is not against them.” Difference of theological outlook and the fact of religious plurality are acknowledged in the context of asserting the value of mutual respect and forbearance. And the rhetorical question is thus posed (ACW 2007: 15): “Is Christianity necessarily against Muslims?” In the context of recognizing differences in exegetical and theological interpretation, especially in respect to understanding the person

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of Jesus Christ, Christians are nevertheless firmly invited “to consider Muslims not against and thus with them…” (ACW 2007: 15, italics in original). This sub-section ends with a further invitation to Christians to join with Muslims in dialogical engagement on the basis of “the common essentials of our two religions” as found in the Holy Qur’an (Sura Aal ‘Imran: 64, Q. 3:64), namely the worship of the One God; that God is alone God, and God alone (“ascribe no partner unto Him”); and the loyalty and fidelity to the One God (“none of us shall take others for lords beside God”) as earlier explicated. Citing in full Sura Al-Baqarah, (Q. 2:136–137) with its intimation of theological plurality between the Abrahamic faiths, and with reference to Matthew 22:40, the letter boldly states: “Let this common ground be the basis of all future interfaith dialogue between us, for our common ground is that on which hangs all the Law and the Prophets” (ACW 2007: 15, all italics in original). The third and final sub-section, “Between Us and You,” returns to the motivating theme of the epistle: dialogue is not to be limited to a polite exchange of the elite. Rather, noting that the two faiths between them comprise some 55 percent of the global population, a stark truth is enunciated: if the people of these two faiths are not at peace with each other, “the world cannot be at peace” (ACW 2007: 15). The intertwining of Christians and Muslims in terms of global social realities and international relations means the arena of Christian–Muslim dialogue is not simply a matter of interreligious nicety: “our common future is at stake” (ACW 2007: 16). The eschatological motif is indeed deepened. As well as pressing practical realities and issues of inter-communal, even global, peace; the suggestion, reinforced by qur’anic and biblical reference, is that the future and integrity of both Christians and Muslims is at stake, lest “we fail to sincerely make every effort to make peace and come together in harmony.” The letter concludes on a hortatory note—let differences not be the cause of strife; let the pursuit of “righteousness and good works” be the only just basis of rivalry and comparison; let mutual respect, fairness, justice and kindness rule in the quest for peace, harmony and reciprocal goodwill. And this is summed and capped by the quoting of Sura AlMa’idah (Q. 5:48), religious plurality is a consequence of God the Creator who could have chosen to make everyone the same, but did not; yet all difference and variety is, in the end, resolved by virtue that God is both our common beginning and our encompassing ending. The letter itself is not particularly long; it is not some massive tome. It is an invitation; a foretaste; an announcement of being open for the business

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of dialogue. As such it is an event that has occasioned much interest and reaction, the overwhelming majority of which is fully positive. And so a trajectory of the phenomenon of reception of this text is now emerging in its own right.

Some key responses The ACW website is an interactive repository of response documents and related material. Within the first year of the letter’s publication, some 60 formal Christian responses from leaders, organizations, and individuals were posted on the site together with some Jewish responses and nearly 500 recorded news items; a dozen audio-visual items and many personal comments. These are all growing and the website is updated with new items from time to time. The original list of 138 signatories to the letter has also since grown to more than 400. The letter is now well-established as a landmark event in terms of Christian–Muslim relations. There are many responses from various organizations, groups and individuals for which space does not permit inclusion, even in a summary fashion. I shall here just touch on a select few that give a sense of the range and depth of the responses made so far. Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, heads the responses of the Vatican (ACW n.d., Christian Responses #7). Comments and press releases listed under his name include his immediate reaction of welcoming the letter as a “very encouraging sign” and “an eloquent example of dialogue among spiritualities.” Yet he also portrays a cautious attitude in respect to very real hermeneutical difficulties, and the limits to dialogue. However, I suggest this is a mark of interfaith realism: dialogical engagement is a process not a panacea, and the Vatican has clearly welcomed this new Muslim initiative with respect to process. Indeed, the gratitude of Pope Benedict XVI for the letter was formally given by the Secretary of State, Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, on November 19, 2007 in which the Pope’s appreciation for the “positive spirit which inspired the text” is conveyed (ACW n.d., Christian Responses #34). Belief in the one God, though differingly understood, is at the core of the quest for the common “word” between Christians and Muslims and the principle that “without ignoring or downplaying our differences as Christians and Muslims, we can and therefore should look to what unites us” was clearly expressed. Pope Benedict’s remarks to Muslim representatives, given at Cologne on August 20, 2005, were also included:

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I am profoundly convinced that we … must affirm the values of mutual respect, solidarity and peace. The life of every human being is sacred, both for Christians and for Muslims. There is plenty of scope for us to act together in the service of fundamental moral values.

A number of other leading Roman Catholic scholars have also made individual responses, among them Professor Daniel Madigan SJ, then of the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims. Madigan sets the Muslim letter, and its Catholic response, in the context of Vatican II and its pivotal document, Nostra Aetate, which marks the commencement of the search for “a common word” (ACW n.d., Christian Responses #42). He notes the letter “forms part of a larger project, focused in Jordan, to develop an authoritative consensus on what it means to be Muslim in our time” and that the intent of the letter is to promote a peace building process. Furthermore, the Muslim letter clearly regards “the reactionary and intransigent ideologies that drive terrorism and puritanical repression are not drawing on the whole of the Islamic tradition, but rather a truncated and impoverished reading of it.” Madigan also makes the point that although a rationale for the letter and its invitation is peace, or at least the avoidance of hostility between the two great religions of Islam and Christianity, in fact each religion “has had its own internal conflicts that have claimed and continue to claim many more lives” than has occurred with respect to any hostility between them. A number of responses to the Muslim letter have been forthcoming from various senior figures within the family of Orthodox Churches. They include, for example, letters from the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia (ACW n.d., Christian Responses #55), from the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch (ACW n.d., Christian Responses #44), and a statement of endorsement supported by a number of Arab Orthodox Christian leaders—Coptic, Marionite, Melkite, Armenian, and Syriac (ACW n.d., Christian Responses  #43). There is also a rather moving acknowledgment of the very long-standing relation between Armenian, Christians and Muslims (positive with respect to Arab Muslims; negative with respect to Turkish Muslims of the Ottoman Empire) in a letter on behalf of His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians (ACW n.d., Christian Responses #52). This response also asserts: We therefore deem it imperative to begin a true dialogue among the monotheistic religions, the aim of which should be the strengthening of eternal and common human values, the reinforcement of relationships between different faiths, and the protection of all that God has created. We

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also remain hopeful that this would contribute to better understanding each other, including strengthening mutual respect for one another’s spiritual, national and cultural traditions and heritage.

There is also a raft of responses from a wide range of other Christian leaders, councils, and institutions, both denominational and ecumenical. The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA represents an ecumenical response that welcomes the intent of the Muslim letter “to engage seriously with Christians in dialogue … grounded in the authentic religious convictions of our respective communities” (ACW n.d., Christian Responses #62). This response highlights themes of hospitality and peace-making as expressions of neighborly love. The experience of Christian ecumenical dialogue opens out to interfaith dialogue and the quest for building upon common theological ground: “we can walk forward together with mutual appreciation in acceptance of the commandment to love God with our whole being, and in belief that love for God leads to and is demonstrated in love for one another.” A stress is placed upon the Christian doctrine of Trinity as expressive of both the inherent relationality of God and also the relational interaction between humanity and God; among the human family; and within the whole of creation: “Because communion with God and God’s people and God’s creation is ultimately the content of salvation, as human beings sojourn in this life we are driven by an inner impulse to reach out in community to one another.” Most significantly and challengingly is the recognition that the Muslim letter affirms that Muslims are not necessarily against Christians; indeed, Christians may consider Muslims as “with us, and that this togetherness bears upon the state of the world … we similarly affirm that Christianity is not against Islam.” Organizations such as the Danish National Council of Churches (ACW n.d., Christian Responses #53), the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) Britain Yearly Meeting (ACW n.d., Christian Responses #30), the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue organization (ACW n.d., Christian Responses #14) and the Mennonite Church, USA (ACW n.d., Christian Responses #28), are among those Christian responses which are decidedly positive about the letter. And the highly influential publication, The Christian Century, proclaimed in a lead article on November 13, 2007 (ACW n.d., Christian Responses #27): The most impressive thing about (the Muslim letter) is that it exists. The second most impressive thing is the economy of its argument. The scholars resist the innate desire to touch on everything pertinent to Christian-Muslim dialogue and instead invite Christians to remember Jesus’ words about loving God and neighbour.”

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By contrast, the World Evangelical Alliance (ACW n.d., Christian Responses #51) asserted that the deep theological divergence over God (Trinity) means “we cannot accept your invitation” but at the same time the urges Muslims “to consider joining us in … discussions” aimed at resolving “theological misunderstandings.” Among the more substantial is a carefully considered response by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. After an initial positive message of response in a Press Release (ACW n.d., Christian Responses #2) in which he “welcomed the letter as a clear reaffirmation of the potential for further development of existing dialogue and common action between Christians and Muslims and other faith communities,” Williams undertook a wide-ranging ecumenical consultation before composing his formal reply. The Archbishop’s document, “A Common Word for the Common Good,” is addressed to “the Muslim Religious Leaders and Scholars who have signed A Common Word Between Us and You and to Muslim brothers and sisters everywhere” (ACW n.d., Christian Responses #58). Interestingly, this Anglican response has since been endorsed by the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (ACW n.d., Christian Responses #60). Williams’ missive notes the Muslim letter’s spirit of “a helpful generosity of intention” (Williams 2014: 1) and interprets the Muslim invitation to Christians as not seeking a facile quick accord but the more modest quest to “find a way of recognising that on some matters we are speaking enough of a common language for us to be able to pursue both exploratory dialogue and peaceful co-operation with integrity and without compromising fundamental beliefs” (Williams 2014: 2). Indeed, the Muslim invitation is “a powerful call to dialogue and collaboration between Christians and Muslims” for which the “very wide geographical (43 countries) and theological diversity represented among the signatories … provides a unique impetus to deepen and extend the encounters” (Williams 2014: 15). The two substantive sections of Williams’ document echo the structure of the Muslim letter. The first, “The One God Who Is Love,” incorporates a Christian apologia of Trinitarian theology as being “all the more important for the sake of open and careful dialogue (in) that we try to clarify what we do and do not mean by it” (Williams 2014: 5). Here Williams asserts that for Christianity love, as demonstrated and realized through the Christ event, is the essence of the Divine reality. Thus it is of the essence of faith that there is a response to the gift of divine love which involves love of neighbor. On this latter point Williams anticipates a focal theme of further in-depth dialogical discussion: “We support the clear affirmation in your letter, through texts from

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the Qur’an and the Bible, of the importance of love for the neighbour. Indeed, your letter can be considered an encouraging example of this love” (Williams 2014: 10). Gospel examples that challenge any narrow definition of “neighbor” are touched on, giving evidence that the love of neighbor is, indeed, premised on the love of God: “Where love replaces enmity we can recognize the work and way of God” (Williams 2014: 11). This leads into the second main section in which Williams touches on aspects of “Seeking the Common Good in the Way of God.” He commences with a discussion around, and extending, the Muslim letter’s references to “peace-making, religious freedom and the avoidance of violence” (Williams 2014: 12): Religious violence suggests an underlying religious insecurity. When different communities have the same sort of conviction of the absolute truth of their perspective, there is certainly an intellectual and spiritual challenge to be met; but the logic of this belief ought to make it plain that there can be no justification for the sort of violent contest in which any means, however inhuman, can be justified by appeal to the need to “protect God’s interests.”

Williams observes that: … the more we as people of genuine faith are serious about the truth of our convictions, the more likely we will be to turn away from violence in the name of faith; to trust that God, the truly real, will remain true, divine and unchanging, whatever the failures and successes of human society and history. And we will be aware that to try and compel religious allegiance through violence is really a way of seeking to replace divine power with human; hence the Qur’anic insistence that there can be no compulsion in matters of religious faith (al-Baqarah, 2:256) … . What we need as a vision for our dialogue is to break the current cycles of violence, to show the world that faith and faith alone can truly ground a commitment to peace which definitively abandons the tempting but lethal cycle of retaliation in which we simply imitate each other’s violence (Williams 2014: 13).

Williams enunciates three imperatives for dialogical engagement between Christians and Muslims: to strengthen practical programs; intensify intellectual endeavors by way of research and colloquia; and, to foster deeper mutual appreciation to the life of faith of each other. He goes on to identify three possible outcomes: 1) maintaining and strengthening momentum for engagement; 2) the creation of safe dialogical discursive space to enable

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the problematic deep divergences to be explored; 3) that such engagements need to have a wide impact of relevance; they are not just the edification of participants. “Seeking the common good is a purpose around which Christians and Muslims can unite”; at the same time this quest is likely to lead “into all kinds of complex territory as we seek to find ways of acting effectively in the world” (Williams 2014: 17). Williams draws his paper to an end with an expression of commitment to a long-haul process that marks the essence of engagement in dialogue: thus “to your invitation to enter more deeply into dialogue and collaboration as a part of our faithful response to the revelation of God’s purposes for humankind, we say: Yes! Amen.” Many conferences and colloquia have occurred over the years in response to the issuing of the Muslim letter. Space prevents a detailed review, however, the ACW website holds a record of these. An early example was a conference held in October 2008 at Cambridge University, UK, and of which Rowan Williams was a host (see ACW n.d. “Major Events”). In effect this was a follow-through in terms of the intentions signaled by William’s own response, as discussed above. This conference attempted to engage the Muslim invitation to dialogue at depth and in humility. Across the Atlantic, at Yale University, a conference that took place in July 2008: 1. Muslims and Christians affirm the unity and absoluteness of God. We recognize that God’s merciful love is infinite, eternal and embraces all things. This love is central to both our religions and is at the heart of the Judeo–Christian–Islamic monotheistic heritage. 2. We recognize that all human beings have the right to the preservation of life, religion, property, intellect, and dignity. No Muslim or Christian should deny the other these rights, nor should they tolerate the denigration or desecration of one another’s sacred symbols, founding figures, or places of worship. 3. We are committed to these principles and to furthering them through continuous dialogue. We thank God for bringing us together in this historic endeavor and ask that He purify our intentions and grant us success through His all-encompassing Mercy and Love. 4. We Christian and Muslim participants meeting together at Yale for the historic A Common Word conference denounce and deplore threats made against those who engage in interfaith dialogue. Dialogue is not a departure from faith; it is a legitimate means of expression and an essential tool in the quest for the common good (ACW n.d., “Major Events”).

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Conclusion The principal element of the Muslim letter that signals a hopeful future of dialogue is the fact that it does not start from the premise of Abrahamic commonality but rather from indisputable theological principles and values. These form the basis of dialogical engagement. The invitational call is not to the surrender of distinctive understanding and identity, nor an invitation to reductive unanimity. It is rather a well-grounded invitation evoking careful and respectful consideration and reply, which has certainly been forthcoming. There is much in this letter in terms of both its underlying intention and substantive content which comes framed as a dialogue between textual sources. It also reflects the need for such dialogue; the call to a common word “between us” cannot be discharged by one side alone. The various ACW conferences and seminars, and also the dialogical endeavors of Building Bridges and the Theologisches Forum Christentum-Islam, testify that the events themselves, and their published outputs, are a substantial product with high-grade integrity and long-lasting value. It is also obvious, as shown especially in the example of the Building Bridges and the Theologisches Forum Christentum-Islam, that a measure of consistency of interlocutors and modus operandi is required for both the building of quality relationships, surely one of the primary fruits of any dialogical enterprise, and the capacity to incorporate new attendees and tackle the agendas or themes that each of these dialogical enterprises has chosen to pursue. Together, these initiatives and the ACW letter show that Muslim and Christian intention to engage is clear. Yet the journey of this most critical of interfaith dialogues is by no means an easy one. The task of dialogue between Christian and Muslim faith communities remains a priority; the need for sustained engagement continues. Hopefully, the pattern of deeper intentional theological and allied disciplined dialogue as evidenced by the two Christian initiated developments in response to the need to relate better with the Muslim world, together with the call of the Muslim letter for dialogical engagement that is intentionally theological, and the various dialogical events and activities that that has sparked, have set the scene for a burgeoning of like dialogical engagements in the future. If the evidence of the contemporary hardening of religio-political identities and, with that, a deepening of religious extremism and a worsening of religiously sanctioned violence is anything to go by, especially within and between certain quarters

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of the Christian and Muslim worlds, the need for sustained intentional theological dialogue sufficient to build deep relations and address, resolutely, profoundly divisive issues, has never been more urgently needed. The initiatives we have explored offer a new way for the future; the challenge is to continue and to extend such dialogical initiatives into the future.

9

Christian Responses to Islamophobia: A Practical Theological Reflection Ray Gaston

Introduction In 2011, a survey into anti-Muslim hate crime made disturbing reading. In their introduction, the authors affirmed my own experience on the ground as a Parish Priest in North West Leeds (Gaston 2010: 16–22) that incidents of such crimes rose following the United States and the United Kingdom response to the atrocity of 9/11. They highlighted an example from their survey of one incident from a catalog of such everyday abuses experienced by some Muslims. Recounting the story of a young girl who witnessed her mother being punched because she was wearing a Niqab, the writers reflected on the effect upon the girl and her mother: This particular incident is … illustrative of a widespread hidden experience for three reasons: firstly, the victim did not report the assault to police and did not discuss it outside of a close circle of family and friends; secondly, after the assault the victim reduced her travel by foot and by public transport to a minimum; thirdly, neither victim, nor her family or friends had any inclination to address the causes of the attack but chose instead to retreat into the safety of a small network of trusted Muslim friends (Lambert and GithensMather 2011: 20–21).

However, incidents like the attack mentioned above, showing Muslims as victims of violence and prejudice, feature less in public discourse than opinions that generate and emphasize Islam as a “dangerous other.” Writing in 2008 in the Daily Telegraph, the then Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir Ali, claimed that

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parts of Britain’s inner cities were “no go” areas where “Islamic extremism” was “a mark of acceptability”: (T)here has been a worldwide resurgence of the ideology of Islamic extremism. One of the results of this has been to further alienate the young from the nation in which they were growing up and also to turn already separate communities into “no-go” areas where adherence to this ideology has become a mark of acceptability. Those of a different faith or race may find it difficult to live or work there because of hostility to them and even the risk of violence (Nazir Ali 2008).

However, the threat of violence is more a reality for Muslims as a minority within wider society than to non-Muslims living in “Muslim areas.” It might be argued that the Bishop’s comments and other similar sentiments place Muslim communities in a “double bind.” Prejudice encourages isolation and then Muslims are blamed for creating areas of safety and identity in a hostile society. In fact, there is evidence to suggest a contrary movement with remarkable levels of positive identification and integration among Muslim communities with British society (Bleich and Maxwell 2012: 53) despite evidence of growing Islamophobia (Field 2012: 158–9).

Islamophobia Islamophobia, a contemporary term that first entered public discourse through the Runnymede Trust’s report in 1997, is a phenomenon that has recently come under close academic scrutiny. The report described it as “an unfounded hostility” toward Islam and Muslims (The Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia 1997: 4). A plethora of recent publications have explored its nature and whether it is a new phenomenon or simply the reemergence of anti-Muslim prejudice that dates back to the medieval period and the Crusades. While the Runnymede Trust’s original definition has been critiqued (Halliday 1999), the usefulness of the concept in exploring a real social phenomenon continues to be advanced. According to one academic review of recent material, the concept of Islamophobia has “come of age” (Klug 2012). Sociologist Tahir Abbas says: Islamophobia is a complex, multifaceted, economic, political, and cultural phenomenon, and its impact on Muslim/non-Muslim relations will remain an important feature of social life in Britain for some time (Abbas 2011: 74).

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On the ground in communities, the necessity to respond to a sense of increasing anti-Muslim hate crime has given rise to the “Tell MAMA” initiative that seeks to report cases of abuse and has produced, in cooperation with academics, a number of reports exploring the problem (Allen et al. 2013; Copsey et al. 2013). Associated with this rise in hate crime toward Muslims was the increased profile, from 2009 onwards, of a populist right wing movement called the English Defence League (EDL). The EDL has been seen by some as an example of “Cumulative Extremism” (Copsey 2010: 8–11), given the movement’s beginnings in response to demonstrations by the now proscribed “Islam4UK” group. “Cumulative Extremism” (Eatwell 2006), the idea that opposing “extremist” groups feed off each other is an interesting one; however, it is also important to link the EDL’s rise to a heightened propagation of a “Clash of Civilizations” thesis (Lewis 1990; Huntington 1993) that lay behind much of the rhetoric of the “war on terror” after 2001. This claims there is a growing conflict and incompatibility between “Islam” and “the West” and could be argued to be at the core of Islamophobic discourse. It has been shown by Richardson (2009) in his comparative analysis of Muslims in media election coverage of the elections of 1997, 2001, and 2005 that the examples of rising hostility to Muslims and Islam in the press served: … the very practical function of removing British Muslims from empowered positions in and affecting the public sphere by demanding either their cultural and political assimilation or expulsion. It should be viewed as an example of a “discourse of spatial management,” founded on the “white fantasy” of the journalists and readers, according to which they have the right and ability to regulate the ethnic and religious parameters of British society (Richardson 2009: 336–7).

The English Defence League as an Islamophobic Movement Despite proven links to the far right, the EDL’s support was developed not by traditional far right politics but by a deeply Islamophobic agenda fueled by the continual vilification and marginalization of Islam in the media highlighted by Richardson (2009). The EDL has been categorized as a UK phenomenon of a wider international anti-Islamic movement that arises out of the “Clash of Civilizations” thesis. Alan Lake, one of the principal funders of the EDL, was concerned to steer the organization in this direction away from more traditional forms of far right politics. The central understanding of what has become known

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as the “Counter Jihad” movement is that Islam is a threat to the West and needs to be countered. Copsey has outlined Lake’s agenda: For Lake there are four fundamental freedoms that western civilisation must defend: free speech, democracy, equality in law and cultural tolerance. For Lake Islam is antithetical to all four freedoms because in his view it rejects free speech; favours theocracy over democracy; does not recognise equality in the law but Sharia law; and finally, is intolerant of other non-Islamic cultures (Copsey 2010: 16).

Chris Allen has argued that this represents an Islamophobic response to the real presence of Islam in the United Kingdom, an attempt to construct an ideology of who is included in the understanding of “us” that excludes Muslims and Islamic identity by the misrepresentation and exaggeration of difference. This he argues correlates with Barkers analysis of “new racism” in the 1980s (Allen 2011: 291). Lake’s presentation disturbingly correlates with characterizations of Muslims presented in some evangelical material on Islam (Sookhdeo 2011) and with Nazir Ali’s comments above. It is for this reason that perhaps other Christians need to take even more seriously the criticism implicit in the report issued by the Muslim interfaith1 group Faith Matters in 2012 on faith responses to the EDL, particularly in relation to EDL appropriation of faith traditions for its cause: It is interesting to note the relatively minor response from Christian communities in relation to the EDL’s appropriation of their faith. The main Sikh, Jewish and Hindu organisations in the UK have released official representative statements condemning the EDL, but their Christian counterparts have remained quiet (Lane 2012: 16).

This paper takes this critique seriously and would want to add the importance of addressing Christian contributions to discourse on Islam such as Nazir Ali’s above, that could be seen as part of a continuum of Islamophobic discourse that links such supposedly “respectable” utterances with the more lurid presentations of the tabloid press and the violently Islamophobic chants of the EDL demonstration. While I share Faith Matters concern about the lack of outspoken national leadership on this, I aim in this paper to highlight grassroots activity by Christians in response to the EDL in cooperation with their Muslim neighbors. The EDL has largely organized itself by way of street protests in areas with significant Muslim populations. They have often been concerned to articulate

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themselves in ways that are perceived differently from other traditional far right movements. Chris Allen has explored their attempt to present themselves as a “multicultural” movement by claiming support from the Sikh, Jewish, and LGBT communities although any involvement from such communities has been miniscule (Allen 2011). The EDL would perhaps be more correctly categorized as an Islamophobic response to the realities of multiculturalism (Marranci 2006). Their base has largely been built among the networks of football hooligan groups like Casuals United (Copsey 2010). The street protests target areas with significant Muslim populations and would be easily described by many of the different analyses of the concept as virulently Islamophobic. It is these street protests that have provided the concern within localities that are targeted. It is often felt that the EDL’s aim is to incite a response from local Muslim youth, in particular on the lines of the 2001 Bradford riots; that will then incite further violence and division. It is this agenda of inciting a tide of “Cumulative Extremism” correlated with a “Clash of Civilizations” thesis that lies at the heart of the EDL’s agenda (Feldman 2012). For local Muslim communities, it is the fear of the criminalization of Muslim youth provoked by the EDL street protests that is often of the greatest concern.

Christians responding to the EDL and research methodology The next section of this chapter will explore two grassroots Christian responses to EDL activity. This is based on qualitative semi-standardized interviews with individuals who played a key role in the responses in their area. I read these engagements through an interpretative lens which I term “A Practical Theology of Interfaith Engagement” (Gaston 2015). In this approach, theologizing about Christian interfaith engagement is firmly located in the experiences of Christian practitioners themselves. This hermeneutical model of practical theology gives primacy to the experiences of Christians engaged at a grassroots level in interfaith engagement over more systematic or fundamental approaches that privilege the application of more abstract theological and philosophical constructions. The principal questions for this methodology are, how do Christian interfaith practitioners live out their discipleship in a multifaith world and what, theologically, is being expressed in their activity? The participants in this exploration represent active agents in Christian engagement with responses to the EDL in two English cities, Bradford and Tower Hamlets in London. As well as

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seeking to prioritize the experience of the practitioners as the foundation for theological reflection over and above the more abstract theological methodologies, the narrative approach adopted seeks to highlight the practitioners stories and their activity as a “public speaking” equally relevant and perhaps more so than interviews in The Daily Telegraph by bishops or statements from the Church hierarchies understandably sought by Faith Matters. Therefore, the need to name the participants is an important part of the research, bringing into the wider debate on Christian-Muslim relations the voice of local activists on the ground. As part of this process of bringing local voices to bear on a national debate, the participants engaged agreed to their naming before interview and had the power to edit what was reported to have been said by them, in the event no such editing was required. As part of this research, interviews were also undertaken with activists in Luton and Leicester, but space did not permit using this material. In the event, the choice of Tower Hamlets and Bradford2 was to present significantly different contexts with different protagonists, a radically engaged local Anglican leadership alongside a grassroots women’s initiative, in two areas that have come under significant media scrutiny and featured prominently in Islamophobic discourse.3 It is also important to reflect upon my own standpoint in this research. I myself have been involved in activism in Birmingham alongside dialogue partners in the Muslim community in response to EDL incursions into the city. I come as a long-term interfaith activist who has participated in joint actions with Muslims not just in relation to the EDL but also in relation to international affairs and community resistance to institutionalized Islamophobia in both Leeds and Birmingham. These experiences form part of what I bring to the analysis of the stories of the participants and will inevitably influence my concluding reflections. Drawing upon and adapting feminist standpoint theory (Harding 2004), this research is aimed at being a contribution to the construction of a narrative that gives voice both to the particularities of the contexts studied but also to the wider movement of Christians engaged in similar responses that often go unreported or are marginalized in the church’s understanding of itself in relation to its Muslim neighbors. This is particularly important given the weight of a dominant Islamophobic discourse that is often given a Christian justification or tacit support, as in the case of the former Bishop of Rochester above and the silence of Church hierarchies highlighted by Faith Matters.

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“Whose Mosques? Our Mosques!”: Tower Hamlets Interfaith Forum The starting point for Fr Alan Green was the importance of understanding the long term nature of the relationship between Christians and Muslims in Tower Hamlets and particularly his relationship, as a leading local Anglican clergy person, with Dilwar Khan, a leading figure in the East London Mosque, through the Interfaith Forum. Alan has spent 16 years ministering in the locality, with a number of years as the Area Dean of the Tower Hamlets deanery of the Church of England. He is keen to locate the whole exploration of the EDL and the local response to the targeting of Tower Hamlets, within an understanding of the impact in London of the Stephen Lawrence enquiry and the subsequent exploration by police and local authorities of race hate and then the increasing engagement with the need to recognize the reality of faith hate crime, particularly Islamophobia. This shifting agenda was a challenge for local authority and police alike. The concentration on Islamophobia was a challenge to the traditional understandings of local politics that were dominated by the white left and a form of Bangladeshi communalism. The establishment of the Interfaith Forum in 2003 began the development of relations between the East London Mosque and other faith communities in the borough, particularly the local leadership of the Church of England. The arrival of Islamophobia onto the local council’s agenda began to create a space for an increased recognition of the role of faith generally within the public square. For Alan, the importance of this cannot be underestimated and the dialogue that followed was instrumental in establishing strong relationships which would be drawn upon both at the time of the 7/7 bombings and the invasions of the EDL. Although some Christians in the borough felt the emphasis on privileging Islam through the faith hate agenda was problematic, for Alan and others it was an opportunity to raise the profile of faith generally and to ensure that the Church was at the table of discussion on issues of the “common good” and build significant relationships. Alan explained that the interest of the EDL in Tower Hamlets was directly related to the Islamophobic discourse about the borough in the national press as “Britain’s first Islamic Republic” (Gilligan 2010) because of the Muslim majority in the population. This was accompanied by a narrative that claimed that Christians were unwelcome in Tower Hamlets. Alan says:

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These presentations were not representative of the experience of people living on the ground in the area but combined with the writings of Andrew Gilligan4 who has a real axe to grind about here and web sites where people just write what they want. The material for the EDL narrative was easily found. It is therefore important to realise that although there is a strong historical narrative in this area of solidarity and diversity, that story can be easily undermined and therefore it is important not to be complacent and to keep working at opposing myths that have built up in national press and elsewhere.

This was true with the first announcement of the EDL coming to Tower Hamlets in 2010. Alan states that there was a real fear in the Muslim community that “the Christians are coming to get us.” Although at that time the EDL did not come as planned, the newly formed United East End5 still held a rally and the importance of a visible presence of Christians through clergy on the platform helped dispel the sense that was growing, particularly among some Muslim youth, that this was a Christian-Muslim conflict playing into the EDL’s “Cumulative Extremism” and “Clash of Civilizations” agenda. Alan and others’ involvement helped to challenge that notion forcefully. Over the 3 years of engagement with EDL attacks on the area, increasingly the United East End interpretation and Alan’s own perception was to talk about this being an attack on Tower Hamlets. He says: This was not just about Muslims and seeing that was really important … in the 2011 mobilisation against the EDL the chant was “whose streets our streets.” By 2013 the chant had become “whose streets our streets, whose mosques our mosques” from everybody—it is about all of us you attack the mosque you attack my mosque.

This counters the ideological Islamophobia identified by Allen above with a clear recognition of Islam as part of the fabric of Tower Hamlets society. In a similar vein, I am struck, when listening to Alan, how the agenda of the possibility of “cumulative extremism” is articulated. He reflects upon the tactic of the EDL of occasionally turning up in small numbers and doing something provocative in an attempt to garner a response from local youth: This is an attempt to criminalise our young people. This is a key strategy to the whole thing for us: how do we stop our young people, first, being taken in by the extremist descriptions of what is going on and secondly, how we stop them being criminalised?

Alan’s inclusive impulse of talking of local Muslim youth as “our young people” again counters the “otherness” of Islam presented by Lake and other more “respectable” Islamophobic narratives.

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Alan also points out that a number of other Christians were involved, some through London Citizens (a popular community organizing network in East London) particularly Roman Catholic and more open evangelical churches, however, he identifies a difference of ecclesiology between his own and those he drew into the struggle from the Church of England and the community organizing mobilization of some church communities. In Alan’s view, for Roman Catholic churches and for evangelical churches it is about signing up to something that fits clearly with the social justice agenda that is a part of Roman Catholic social teaching and increasingly core to an open evangelical church’s missional theology. However, for Alan, no such consensus is possible within his own ecclesial community and neither is it about taking an agreed missional agenda into the activity in solidarity with others. Central to his own self-understanding of his activity is an Anglican incarnational theology. He says: The church needs to be there … it needs to be there not just leading as Christians but supporting, being neighbourly most importantly, being a part of other people’s agendas as well as our own. But also … the church, more importantly the Church of England, needs to regain credibility nationally and locally as a local presence, positive and open to engagement with others in solidarity and creativity. We are too taken by a nineteenth century rhetoric about our place in the world … we can be too easily dismissed by secular bodies and groups who assume we always have a “Christian” agenda.

By being willing to enter the mess and confusion of community relationships and not to be concerned with being seen to be engaged with the “wrong people,” the church mirrors the relationships it seeks to encourage within itself as a broad church engaging with difference between those who participate within it. Alan argues that the church should have an agenda that seeks, in the activity of solidarity with Muslims as part of a wider community response, to discover God in our neighbors. In the openness and willingness to support, encourage, and join in wider agendas (such as resisting Islamophobia), the church can rediscover itself and be discovered by others as partners for the common good. Alan recounts the story of speaking with Dilwar, at a large Muslim event on interfaith and community working. A question was posed from someone who was from a different part of London, concerned that she could get no one in her moribund interfaith forum really interested in engaging in more practical activity. Dilwar responded to this by saying “Go and find out who your local Church of England clergy are and go and talk to them because they will understand, talk through the issues and they will engage with you.”

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Alan talks of a conscious strategy of bringing the church into discussions in the borough through joining the important agenda of addressing Islamophobia and other needs perceived to be issues facing the Muslim community. In his view, the church must actively seek a place at the table and prove itself worthy of being there rather than getting resentful when it is not invited or overly concerned about being associated with groups that do not share a similar ethos. This was particularly true for Alan in the relationship that he and Dilwar Khan built up with Unite Against Fascism (UAF). Other church responses have sought to distance themselves from the UAF but the strength of the relationship between Mosque and Church in Tower Hamlets and the central role of the Interfaith Forum meant that the UAF worked with the faith communities’ agenda. Alan was also conscious of needing to affirm a plurality of responses to the EDL from prayers and vigils in churches to joining in demonstrations. There were many ways one could respond, but the church had to respond; it could not avoid expressing solidarity with Muslim neighbors and resistance to the EDL’s agenda of “saving” Christians in Tower Hamlets. This was the focus of the EDL’s 2013 mobilization, fueled by scurrilous material in some national newspapers. The church was being presented as dead or dying and as an elderly unwanted presence in the East End that was being “taken over” by Muslims. Alan says: Our response was to say “no you are not saving the church or rescuing us, the church is a part of this community and we are alive and present in this area.” One paper showed false pictures of small congregations alongside packed mosques which were fabricated pictures. But the point was that this is not how we live and this is not how we decide if the church is successful or not … our ministry is to be at the heart of the community continuing to worship within this place and continuing to support and be engaged with everyone who lives around you because we are part of it and the church only understands itself in relation to the wider community and the church only knows God by worshipping God in church and meeting God in our neighbour.

“The Ribbons were a Sacrament”: Bradford Women for Peace Liz Firth and Clare MacLaren were involved in a women’s response to the EDL invasion of Bradford in 2010, while Liz also reflected upon a later visit in 2013. Clare was new to the area in 2010, as a recently appointed Anglican Vicar, while Liz, a Roman Catholic, was “Bradford born and bred,” had been involved in community work in the city for a number of years and at the time was a local

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Church Action on Poverty community worker. She now works for Bradford’s Anglican Cathedral as their interfaith worker. Liz locates the women’s response to the EDL firmly within the story of the 2001 riots provoked by the far right groups the British National Party and National Front demonstrating in the city (Bagguley and Hussain 2003). For her, and other Christian women who worked closely with Muslim women in community work, they were concerned to address women’s concerns that the same thing should not happen as in 2001 where young men from Bradford’s Asian community ended up receiving hefty prison sentences following the riots. The women felt that they were “hoodwinked” in 2001, unaware that there was the possibility of trouble and wanted to ensure this did not happen again. Initially the aim was to ensure that women were involved and informed during the process of preparation for the EDL demonstration and Liz and others sought to ensure good channels of communication existed between the authorities and Muslim women, particularly on the ground. But things developed and the women’s meetings began to explore the need to respond differently to the EDL compared to other initiatives that were developing. Unlike Tower Hamlets, the structures and depth of relationship between faith leaders did not exist in Bradford and the organizing networks of the faith communities were relatively weak. This allowed the UAF to impose its own template upon attempts to organize a response that emphasized a strongly confrontational approach to the EDL. Meanwhile the national network, Hope Not Hate, began working with the local media to call on the Home Secretary to ban the EDL march. While this heightened the awareness of the issue, it was not going to stop a static protest and an EDL presence in the city on the day. The women’s response, which became “Bradford Women for Peace,” took a different approach; they sought to prevent the EDL from setting the agenda. The group included Christians, Muslims, and women from other faiths, and no faith. Liz reflects on how easy it was to get Christian women involved: “They absolutely didn’t need persuading. Clare as a vicar, Methodist ministers, Catholic lay activists and women religious all got involved, more so than the church leadership.” For Clare the motivation was obvious: “as Christians we needed to stand in solidarity with our Muslim brothers and sisters in this city and to say that those in the EDL who would claim to be flying the banner of Christianity do not do so in our name or in the name of any legitimate understanding of our faith.” Clare remembers the idea that became the response, being part of a “coalescence of creative thinking”: after much debate it was decided that they were not going to be present during the day, in order

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to avoid a confrontational approach. The discussion moved in the direction of asking, “If we can’t be there what can we leave as a footprint to show that we have been there?” From this question the idea emerged, of going into the city center the day before, and covering it with green ribbons. Liz remembers that the green was both a “nod to Islam” but also wrapped up in a symbolism of growth and creativity. Clare thinks the day-glow nature of the green was to ensure it wasn’t seen too much as a “Muslim thing.” The women went into the city center on the Friday afternoon for 2–3 hours giving out ribbons to wear and covering major city center sites with green fabric. Although Liz and local Muslim activist Wahida Shaffi were the spokeswomen for the group, the group was immensely diverse and had drawn in women from refugee communities, Muslim, and Christian who saw the EDL as representing something they had fled; Christian and Muslim women raised or long term residents in Bradford; old style peace campaigners, and young women new to any kind of activism. But there were significant gaps in the representation of women in the city, something that Liz was particularly aware of in her reflections, although in some ways the absence—for instance of white working class women from estates in the city—was addressed on the day when the diverse group that made up BWFP entered the city, gave out ribbons and listened to people’s stories, often from those women who were missing from the group. This whole experience spoke to Liz of the lack of women’s voice across the board in all communities and it was from this observation that an initiative arose: “Giving Women Voice in Bradford.” This initiative, while being successful in raising up women’s voices from the Pakistani heritage Muslim community, has not been able to make inroads into engaging and empowering women from the white working class, despite attempts. Clare reflected upon the theological implications of the ribbons as a “real absence,” a statement that women were not present because of men’s violence. She says: [T]he ribbons were our resistance, they were a real absence in a theological sense, a form of sacrament, an outward and visible sign of an inward reality, that reality was the possibility of peace and hope for Bradford despite the negative presence of the EDL and the importance of women’s involvement in public life. We are here, our footprint is all over the city centre. This is a spiritual energy and vibrancy that will not be overcome, an act of resistance that will catch your eye whether you like it or not—a challenge and a comfort.

The centrality of gender in the whole issue was starkly present in the gathering on Friday evening, organized through Hope not Hate and billed as an interfaith

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event. Not one woman was on the platform. Both Clare and Liz expressed their anger at this: “they gave us a clap,” says Liz sarcastically. The significance of the lack of involvement of women was unappreciated by the organizers, who saw that they had persuaded all the “right people” to be there: civic and religious leaders. For Clare: This represented something that is wrong about our religious institutions, both Muslim and Christian, in a sense that women don’t have a voice on the public stage … this symbolised for me two contrasting ways of interfaith working in the city—the hierarchical representative model where a man from the church meets a man from the mosque or the diocese and the council of mosques and a representative meeting is said to have taken place—in what way it has filtered down in to the communities they are supposed to be representing is questionable. And then secondly there is the on the ground stuff with women and men working together getting on with the day to day stuff in their communities.

Clare cites the interfaith nature of the governing body of the local primary school of which she is Chair, as an example of the grassroots work, which is also about consciously listening to each other and constructing visions for what they want for their children: a bigger vision than faith meeting faiths, instead, people of faith, working together with others, for a greater whole. She describes the relationship with her Muslim woman Vice-chair and how, when they engaged in conversation on a difficult issue in the school, they shared insights from their traditions and engaged in a dialogue that includes their mutual exploration of God. For Clare, so much of official interfaith working in Bradford maintains a stance of wanting to assert the superiority of one’s own tradition however consciously or unconsciously this is done. Alternatively, her experience of generating within herself and seeing in her partners an “appreciative inquiry” into the other; is something that she feels needs to be explored more widely. She distinguishes the “devout and affiliated” from the “devout and unaffiliated,” as a difference between those who identify strongly with the institutional forms of their tradition and those who still practice and have a deep relationship with the tradition but sit more lightly to the institutions. She finds this latter mode the most creative and the one she engages in most fully with Muslim women in her community, often leading to an openness that she describes as a “universal embrace.” The contrasting image of women’s interfaith leadership in Clare’s local primary school and the patriarchal model presented at the 2010 vigil represents for her the two modes of interfaith engagement.

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Alternatively Liz reflects upon the impact of the women’s action in 2010 on that first “official” hierarchical interfaith model which she sees as having improved, although not in terms of gender representation. When the EDL came again in 2013 it was easy to get faith leaders involved; when the bombing of churches took place in Pakistan it was the Council of Mosques who issued a statement condemning the attacks and inviting representatives of the churches to a meeting to express their solidarity and concern; a significant development but again not involving women. She, as a lay community worker, was the only woman invited. Recently, the visit of Britain First6 to the city and its mosques led to strongly worded condemnations from Christian ecumenical bodies and the Anglican Church. For Liz this improved interfaith communication is to be applauded and is a direct result of the 2010 response in the city to the EDL and Christian involvement in that. But it also raises other questions that take her back to her concern for the involvement of white working class women. She reflects on how, for Christians, it is increasingly notable that faith is a permissible agenda and like in Tower Hamlets, Islam has created a space for faith in public life. However, she wonders if there is a need to recognize that a significant part of the community do not and will not identify with faith and that the role of the church in this case, rather than seeing them as the “unchurched” needing conversion, is to create space for a consciously secular agenda as a valid contribution to dialogue concerning civic life. Liz asks, is there a need for the church to reflect upon how it can broker what is perhaps more of an intercultural rather than interfaith process in the city? How can it express a genuine interest in these communities’ concerns and enable their voice to be heard and for them to hear others as Bradford moves forward?

Conclusion: Toward a public theology of multiculturalism It is clear from the two case studies above that grassroots Christian responses to the EDL have been significant despite Faith Matters correct identification of a silence on the part of national church leadership. Christians in these areas have played important and significant roles in blunting the discourse of Islamophobia fueled by the press and taken to the streets by the EDL. However, what in many ways is equally important in our case studies are the deeper issues for Christian-Muslim encounter and interfaith engagement that arise out of the stories.

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Firstly, a “Shifting Third” in Christian-Muslim encounter, secularism, is present. In Tower Hamlets, the negotiation between secular authorities, an increased profile and concern with Islam in civic life, and the need for the church to find its place was at the root of the local Church of England’s engagement with the Interfaith Forum. In Bradford, Christians involved in a broad alliance of women, led by Christians and Muslims but involving those of no faith, articulate an awareness of the need for greater inclusiveness and a concern to avoid, through improved Christian-Muslim relations, a faith huddle. In both contexts a public theological approach is being adopted that: is not primarily and directly evangelical theology which addresses the gospel to the world in hope of repentance and conversion. Rather, it is theology which seeks the welfare of the city before protecting the interests of the church (Forrester 2004:6).

Certainly our activists display in their public theological sensitivities a very different agenda to that displayed by Nazir Ali (2012) in his recent book that sets secularism, Islam, and multiculturalism as a “triple jeopardy” for contemporary society. Secondly, the story of Bradford points to the importance of feminist and practical theological critique of interfaith encounter and theology of religions. Clare McLaren’s analysis, both of gender dynamics and of the two types of interfaith engagement, bring feminist and practical theological insights into the field, which is refreshing in its critique of both Christian and Islamic patriarchal practices and the overcoming of these hierarchies in grassroots work that prioritizes a mutually enriching sharing of spirituality in action over the debating of difference. Equally, the abiding impact of the women’s initiative on interfaith relations in the city cannot go unnoticed and the continued activity of this movement in Bradford as it gathers a cosmopolitan mix of women to take the lead on global issues that have a local impact that brings together concern for women-only led activity from Islamic and feminist perspectives into conversation. The practical theological hermeneutic applied to Christian-Muslim encounter draws us into a different exploration to the more dominant systematic engagements that may concentrate upon the status of the Qur’an, the Prophethood of Muhammad, or questions of Christology. With a practical theological emphasis and an examination of Christian praxis in response to a significant manifestation of Islamophobia, we have found ourselves exploring

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areas of public theology that place the Church’s concern for wider society at the center alongside the development of a non-defensive “appreciative inquiry” into each other’s spiritual resources as a strategy for building confidence to act courageously together. These intimations of hopeful cooperation perhaps call us to step up to the task of developing a public theological discourse that challenges the narratives of fear and exclusion by embracing multiculturalism in all its complexity and problems as a potentially positive reality for human flourishing.

10

Christian–Muslim Relations in the USA: A Postmodern Analysis after 9/11 Clinton Bennett

Introduction: 9/11’s significance vis-à-vis Christian–Muslim relations in the USA In the United States and globally, 9/11 and the subsequent war on terror impacts Christian-Muslim relations. 9/11 refers to the destruction, by two hijacked planes, of New York’s twin towers perpetrated by 19 young Muslim men affiliated with Al-Qaeda, and to other events on the same day resulting in about 3,000 deaths. Negative views about Islam as inherently violent and hostile to American values existed pre-9/11. However, anti-Muslim sentiment, the suspicion that Muslims cannot be trusted, increased significantly after that event. For many, “Muslim” became a synonym for “terrorist.” On the one hand, mainstream churches and the National Council of the Churches of Christ (NCC) have committed themselves to dialogue and cooperation with Muslims and members of other faith communities. Post 9/11, several denominations have made new moves toward dialogue and friendship with Muslims in the United States, including a number of Baptist conventions. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has continued annual regional gatherings of Christians and Muslims, established from before 9/11. Since 2007, A Common Word (2007), an initiative from Jordan, has filtered down to thousands of congregations in the United States. On the other hand, many evangelical Christians, with some exceptions as identified below, perpetuate negative views of Islam that foment confrontation through such acts as the burning of a Qur’an in May 2011. Opposition to the so-called Ground Zero Mosque project in New York represents this approach, where Ground Zero is seen as sacred space for everybody except Muslims, whose proximity or presence would contaminate this space (for a detailed discussion of the “ground zero mosque” controversy, see

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Mohammed 2014). This chapter begins with pre-9/11 attitudes toward Islam in the United States, discusses some ethical and political consequences of 9/11, then describes post-9/11 developments in Christian-Muslim relations. 9/11 raises profound questions about the meaning of religious freedom, how to live with religious and cultural diversity, and how to respect and honor difference.

American Islam: Pre-9/11 attitudes In many respects, Muslims were invisible pre-9/11. About 10 percent of African slaves brought to North America were Muslim. However, the fact that they were Muslims went largely unnoticed. In the late nineteenth century, migration from parts of the Ottoman Empire followed. There were also a number of initiatives to evangelize African Americans, regarded as receptive to Islam as an alternative to Christianity, a religion that in the United States had justified their slavery. While the majority Christian population had inherited negative ideas about Islam from Europe, it cannot be said that hostility toward Islam featured prominently in commentary, literature, or popular ideas. The vast majority of Muslims assimilated into American society, sharing the American dream of preserving “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” In fact, from his conversion in 1888 to his death in 1916, the most eminent American Muslim was white, Alexander Russell Webb, a former ambassador to the Philippines. The earliest known mosque was in Ross, North Dakota (1929). The earliest purpose-built mosque was opened in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (1935). The first national Muslim association, the Federation of Islamic Organizations, began in 1951. Over time, American Muslims, who today number approximately 7 million, became one of “the most educated and highest-income-earning groups in the country,” participating “at every level of society—from teachers, doctors, lawyers and engineers, to elected officials at the highest levels of government” (United States Department of State 2014: 12). When the first Muslim congressman was sworn into office (2007), he used a translation of the Qur’an owned by Thomas Jefferson. American Muslims too are “the most ethnically diverse faith community in America” (United States Department of State 2014: 26). Muslims serve in the military, fighting in almost every war waged by the United States (see Bennett 2010a). Muslims were not especially singled out, Othered, or demonized, presumably because they kept a low public profile; Jews and Catholics were more commonly targeted. The Nation of Islam (NOI), founded by the somewhat mysterious Wallace Fard

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Muhammad (born 1893, disappeared 1934) in Detroit in 1930, did attract considerable negative media attention under W. F. Muhammad’s successor, Elijah Muhammad (1897–1975). NOI (originally the Lost-Found Nation of Islam in the Wilderness of America) demanded a separate state for Black Americans. It also denounced the white race as evil. Although they disliked it, non-Muslims, who may or may not have seen NOI as having much to do with Islam as a global religion did not generally see it as a serious threat to the future, stability, and security of US society. After 1975, the movement that emerged from NOI under W. D. Muhammad (1933–2003) abandoned separatist, racist language, identifying as mainstream Sunni. Originally known as the World Community of Al-Islam in the West, W. D. Muhammad’s movement has changed its name several times (see Bennett 2010b). These Muslims retain some Nation of Islam ideals, including self-sufficiency and parental responsibility, to which they added patriotism and a commitment to the wider community, reaching out to improve relationships with other faiths. Unlike Nation of Islam members, who asserted a conscientious objection to military service, W. D. Muhammad’s movement approves of this. At least a million American Muslims today began their spiritual journey into Islam within the former NOI. It would be difficult to document the number of initiatives involving imams, rabbis, and Christian clergy attending each other’s functions or supporting local social welfare, humanitarian projects across the United States resulting from W. D. Muhammad’s policy of engagement and openness. The NOI, revived under Louis Farrakhan, who left the reformed movement in 1977 and resurrected the earlier racist rhetoric, is much smaller. Pre-9/11, reference to Islam apart from the NOI was relatively rare in the US media, and Muslims were not routinely depicted as disloyal or as potential state enemies. This had started to change after the failed attack on the World Trade Center of 1993, so that when the Oklahoma bombing occurred in 1995, Muslims were immediately blamed. The perpetrator was, in fact, a white, anti-government, pro-militia movement, native-born American who saw his act as retribution for the FBI raid on the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, Texas (1993).

The beginning of Christian–Muslim dialogue Dialogue initiatives in the United States, as elsewhere, were stimulated by developments at the international level, the Vatican for Roman Catholics, and the World Council of Churches (WCC) for Protestants. The Vatican II

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declaration Nostra Aetate (1965) encouraged Catholic rethinking of attitudes toward Muslims and followers of other religions. Developments locally mirrored those at the higher level; thus, when the Vatican and the World Council of Churches set up commissions or agencies for dialogue respectively in 1964 and 1971, this was reflected later by developments in the United States. Both bodies have had name changes; for convenience they are referred to here as the Vatican and World Council of Churches’ agencies. These agencies partnered with their counterparts in the United States to sponsor various colloquia, seminars, and conferences. From the beginning, the Vatican and the WCC cooperated with each other. (For Vatican and WCC initiatives, see Amos’ chapter herein). While the Catholic Church is not formally in membership with the WCC, at the committee and program levels, Catholics are fully involved as equal participants. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs has sponsored and participated in Christian-Muslim exchange, beginning in the late 1980s. Its work has been informed by the Vatican’s Guidelines for Dialogue between Christians and Muslims, edited by Maurice Bormans, originally published in 1970, revised in 1981. Interreligious Affairs was added to the Secretariat’s remit in 1987; it was founded in 1964. What follows does not list every initiative before 9/11 but illustrates that formalized Catholic-Muslim relations were well established, and healthy. For example, the Secretariat convened or co-convened a series of consultations on Christian-Muslim relations (1989, 1990, and 1993) and a number of national Catholic-Muslim dialogues (two in 1991, one in 1992), of which the last two were co-planned with the American Muslim Council (AMC). The Catholic Bishops Conference and AMC released joint statements in 1993 after the World Trade Center bombing and in 1995 before the United Nations Conference on population and development. At the Conference itself, which met in Cairo, Catholics and Muslims cooperated on a number of issues. The Catholic Bishops Conference has also held various consultations with Muslim experts on public policy (1995, 1996). In 1996, Cardinal Keeler of Baltimore and Imam W. D. Muhammad jointly led a visit to Rome. Also in 1996, a series of regional dialogues was launched co-sponsored by Muslim organizations. The regions are the Mid-Atlantic, the Mid-West and the West Coast. Each is co-chaired by a bishop and an official from the co-sponsoring Muslim organization. They meet annually. Topics discussed range from marriage and family life, revelation and prayer, to peace and justice; a number of statements have been published. Especially involved from the Muslim community are the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA, founded 1981) and American

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Muslim Council (founded 1990). ISNA aims to build bridges between diverse elements within Islam, and with other religions outside Islam. The American Muslim Council’s aims include fostering the common welfare of all people in the United States. The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States (founded 1950, hereafter NCC) established a task force (later Office) on Christian-Muslim relations in 1977, appointing Byron Haines (1928–1990), formerly a Presbyterian missionary in Pakistan, as director. Both Baines and his successor (from 1988) R. Marston Speight (1924–2011), formerly a United Methodist missionary in Algeria and Tunisia, operated from the Duncan Black Macdonald Center for Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary, CT (founded 1971). Speight translated the Catholic Guidelines into English (from the original French). The Seminary, regarded as an extension of the NCC’s program, has attracted Muslim students to its courses, pioneering the training of Muslims for state-funded chaplaincy (in prisons, hospitals, and the armed services for which certified training is required). Since 1991, it has employed Muslim as well as Christian faculty. A similar list of initiatives to those involving Catholics described above by the NCC and by several of its 37 member churches or communions would show that a formal mechanism for dialogue also existed. This writer attended one meeting, part of a regional series, in April 1989, at which topics such as prayer and fasting were discussed but also what Muhammad might mean for Christians, and what Jesus means for Muslims. The colloquium took place in Toronto, courtesy of the Canadian Council of Churches’ interreligious desk, with Christian and Muslim participants from north and south of the border. Among Protestant denominations, the United Church of Christ’s General Synod issued a brief statement on Christian-Muslim Relations in 1989, calling on members to break down walls of racial, cultural and religious division. Christians should “broaden their experience, revise attitudes and enrich theological perspectives of their faith in the context of Islam and the witness of Muslims” (UCC 1989). With other such statements, this one describes Islam as enjoying a special relationship with Judaism and Christianity as one of three Abrahamic faiths. In 1991, when the National Council of Churches’ Interreligious Relations Commission was formed, Christian-Muslim relations (and also ChristianJewish relations, which began in 1973 as an office) was transferred to its remit. In 2014, the Council underwent a restructuring that replaced commissions with new Convening Tables. In addition to forming the Convening Table on Interreligious Relations and Collaboration on Topics of Mutual Concern, to

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which this writer has been named, the Council declared interreligious relations with a focus on peace as a priority in all its work. The other priority is to address the issue of mass incarceration. The above makes no effort to describe countless local examples of interreligious encounter. In many locations, Christian clergy regularly gather with leaders of other religions. There are formalized initiatives, such as interreligious forums and three faiths forums, some with national affiliations. Many are networked, either regionally or across the United States. Thus, both Catholics and Protestants had a wide range of mechanisms and networks in place partnering with Muslim organizations and individuals before 9/11 shook the foundations of interreligious relations across the globe. Most participants at national or regional level where dialogue is inevitably more on the level of theological exchange are active in local contexts, whether on a university campus or as congregational based pastors, priests, ministers, and imams. At local level, dialogue is often more practical.

9/11’s ethical consequence For some of us involved in Christian-Muslim relations, acts of relatively small numbers of self-defined Muslims have seen us feeling the need to apologize for or to defend other Muslims. After 9/11, it has seemed to this writer that the task of saying anything positive about Islam became hugely more challenging, in the face of incredulity, disbelief, sometimes outright hostility. It has been implied that I am paid to say what I say (presumably by wealthy Muslims). The problem from a postmodern perspective is that while we may claim to be speaking for truth against untruths and distortion, we may actually be presenting one interpretation or view against others, all of which have equal validity. Vested interests, too, lay behind many views. This writer suggests, however, that there may be a criterion to judge between different interpretations, asking which prioritize peace, justice, human equality, care for the environment, and promote the common good? Which result in conflict, oppression of women, dissenters, and minorities, and the denial of human rights? Problematic here is the claim that human rights discourse is merely another tool for some to impose self-interested ideals on others, that no universal code of rights exists. Rather, it is yet another product of neo-imperial hegemony, invented by the West, to dominate and exploit the rest of the world. As a Christian, my response is to say that the long process by which the

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international community reached a consensus on rights may be providential. Postmodernism may be open to challenge on whether universal standards really exist, that everything is provisional or local, never fixed and global; however, I take seriously the claim that much of what passes as universal may represent narrow interests, which need to be exposed. Questioning whether my politics or religion is perfect and suitable for every other human individual does not mean that either is less meaningful for me, in my own context. It might mean that I recognize that I could possibly change, revise, or even abandon these, and that other possibilities are worth considering, that finding ways to co-exist with alternatives is better than endless conflict. We may continue attempting to persuade others to agree with us, but we will do this within a climate of respect. This climate cannot flourish when we operate with absolute confidence in the truth of every idea or ideal we possess, dismissing all others as false. After 9/11, already developing since 1993, Islamophobia in the United States grew dramatically, with such associations as “Muslim” and “disloyal,” or “Muslim” and “violence” dominating, and informing the view that Islam and American values are incompatible. For some, Muslims are fifth columnists who aim to turn the US into an Islamic state by any means (see Pipes 2003). Violence in the Middle East also negatively impacts non-Muslim attitudes toward Muslims, especially against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and the recent execution of several Americans by the self-declared Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). A high percentage of Americans uncritically support any action taken by Israel, regarding a potential Palestinian state as deeply problematic. Poll after poll in the aftermath of 9/11 shows distrust and suspicion of Muslims in the United States. Post 9/11, almost anyone attempting to enter the United States from a Muslim state or who looks as if they might be a Muslim by name or appearance finds themselves either turned away or subject to extended questioning. Muslim charities have had assets frozen, accused of supporting terrorism. Organizations whose assets were frozen include the Benevolence International Foundation, Global Relief Foundation, The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, the Islamic American Relief Agency, Kindhearts for Charitable Humanitarian Development, and the Rabita Trust. FBI agents began infiltrating mosques, attempting to identify potential terrorists. The Council on American Muslim Relations (CAIR) (founded 1994) in Washington, DC, a Muslim civil advocacy body, was dropped as a consultant to the FBI (in 2008). CAIR had condemned 9/11 within hours of the initial attack. Some organizations were investigated and cleared of any wrongdoing.

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Among those raided and investigated was the International Institute of Islamic Thought (founded 1981 by eminent Muslim scholars working in the United States, including several active in interreligious dialogue), which has subsequently endowed University Chairs in the United States and Canada. Internationally, other Muslim organizations are proscribed as sponsors of terror, and at least up until the Arab Spring, three Muslim states were labeled as sponsors of terror (Libya, Iran, Syria—the latter two are still listed). Various internet sites, such as Jihad Watch, allege that other Muslim organizations including ISNA and the Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) encourage and have links with radical Islam. MSA on campus at SUNY New Paltz, which regularly invites this writer to speak, is a mainly female-led student group of assimilated, moderate, young Muslims most of whom were either born or brought up in the United States. The Roman Catholic Church and conciliar Protestants (those involved in major national and international ecumenical bodies) may be out of step with majority public sentiment by opposing Islamophobia, attempting to represent Islam as variegated and by challenging the idea that all or a majority of Muslims support terrorism. 9/11 was a paradigmatic, epoch changing event which has had profound psychological consequences for US citizens. The first direct attack on US sovereign territory since Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941), it changed how the United States views issues of security and defense. This has led to procedural changes in security and intelligence gathering, and to questions about how to defend against and respond to this type of attack. The 2001 invasion of Afghanistan raised issues about the appropriateness of this action as retaliation for the actions of a small number of people. There are moral issues about violent responses to violence that lead to more and more violence rather than to justice or to addressing underlying issues. 9/11 has impacted immigration and citizenship, too, which is now handled within the Department of Homeland Security (previously, it was under the Justice Department). Arguably, 9/11 has changed how the world is perceived; some now realize that states are not the only realities that shape people’s ideas and lives. Religion, culture, other sets of loyalties and identities do so too, and these, for good or ill, cross national boundaries. They may not always threaten national security but they can result in genuine dilemmas for individuals and for communities, who wish their neighbors no harm but who cannot in good conscience agree with some of their social, moral, environmental, or political ideas. After the collapse of communism and up until 9/11, it was more possible to believe in a world that would conform to a single template, modeled on that of the only remaining

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super-power. Since 9/11, that worldview is less tenable. Esposito (1994) argued that after Communism’s collapse, some began to transform the “Green Menace” of Islam into the enemy they thought they needed. Postmodernism posits that all ideas are provisional, that many are the product of elites that oppress others. It argues that “truth” is less singular than modernity thought it was, and that diversity and pluralism are here to stay. No meta-narrative explains everything. Humanity may need to accept that different people will choose different paths, and that these are at least provisionally valid for those who choose them. We may need to accept that our own way is not perfect, that it can be improved. The challenge is to find ways of affirming and respecting diversity and difference without conflict, ways that go beyond merely allowing coexistence, but that facilitate cooperation and exchange. At the same time, fundamental rights need to be protected, raising questions about how to properly and fairly police a world order that truly honors difference. The 9/11 memorial is surrounded by security, through which visitors pass, as are some other sites considered likely targets, such as the Statue of Liberty. Many visitors will automatically single out Muslims as those most likely to perpetrate attacks on these iconic sites, adding to a cycle of suspicion and alienation. They may look around for possible suspects, even during their visit as they do while passing through heightened airport security when they travel. A video prepared for the opening of the 9/11 Museum during 2014 attracted criticism from the Committee on American Islamic Relations and others for an allegedly anti-Muslim slant. As cherished a value as religious liberty is in the United States, some now seem to extend this to all except Muslims.

Post 9/11 initiatives While immediate responses to 9/11 by Christian and Muslim individuals and organizations would be interesting to document and analyze, this segment focuses on how existing mechanisms for formalized Christian-Muslim relations were strengthened post 9/11, and on new initiatives. Statements condemning 9/11 invariably distinguish between the majority of Muslims who renounce terrorism, and regard suicide as a sin, and those who perpetuated 9/11, who identified themselves as Muslim. Muslim responses especially reject the claim that Islam or the Qur’an justify killing civilians or that such actions qualify as a legitimate jihad. Qur’an 6:151 is often cited. They point out that classical

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rules of engagement in Islam regulate state actors, not private individuals and preclude unprovoked aggression. Of course, Al-Qaeda regards the West as engaged in a crusade against the Muslim world in which civilian-combatant distinctions no longer apply. This does not represent a majority Muslim view. It should, though, also be said that many Muslims around the world do not accept that Muslims carried out the 9/11 attacks, alleging either that Jews did or that the Bush administration did as an excuse for its foreign policy agenda. As bizarre as this allegation is, this writer was told by Muslim children within days of the attack not only that Jews perpetrated it but that no Jews died in the attack. Post 9/11, a similar concern to distinguish between majority Muslim opinion and that of extremists is reflected in the agenda of Christian-Muslim dialogues. This discussion of post 9/11 developments does not aim to present a complete account but to illustrate that relations have consolidated and blossomed. In what follows, the significance of the Muslim initiated A Common Word project is highlighted (see Pratt’s chapter herein for more details on ACW). One aspect of post 9/11 developments is that while pre-9/11, Christians tended to take the lead while soliciting Muslim partners, both sides are now more or less equally involved in initiating dialogue. The Catholic Bishops Conference’s regional dialogues continued after 9/11. An important exchange took place in February 2003, when the West Coast Dialogue discussed the themes of peace, justice and forgiveness and reached a consensus on five points. These were: for Christians and Muslims, God is the source of justice and peace; there is a pressing need for us to cooperate; we are called by God to forgive each other for past wrongs; we may gently and respectfully criticize others but must not misrepresent or demonize them; when we discuss matters of peace and justice, we are both moved at the deepest level of inner faith. April 2003 saw the Alliance of Baptists ratify and publish A Statement on Muslim–Christian Relations, which almost certainly represents the first Baptist initiative. The Alliance, a member of the NCC, is a small, theologically and socially progressive Baptist convention of which this writer is currently a recognized minister. The Statement refers to Baptists as having “largely ignored fifteen centuries of Muslim development by viewing contemporary Muslims from a monolithic perspective.” Baptists have done little to adjust a theology that “nurtures an attitude of cultural supremacy ... over” Muslims or to “counter the prejudice of centuries.” The Alliance committed itself to work for reconciliation with Muslims. Further, recognizing Jews, Christians, and Muslims as spiritual heirs of Abraham, the Statement called for shared action on such issues as racial and social justice, ending oppression, defending

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human rights, and safeguarding religious freedom, caring for the homeless, for the planet, ending national and international conflict. During 2005, in response to the Danish cartoons ridiculing Muhammad, CAIR launched a campaign called “Explore the Life of Muhammad.” As part of this campaign, it recommends a PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) film, Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet (2002) co-created and produced by a Muslim, Michael Wolf, and a book, Muhammad, by Yahiya Emerick (2002) in Penguin’s Critical Lives series. The NCC has also endorsed the PBS film. In the United States and globally, the release on October 13, 2007 of ACW from Jordan, signed by 138 Muslim scholars and intellectuals, an open letter addressed to 27 named Christian leaders, and to “leaders of Christian churches everywhere,” generated responses from individuals, churches and also from specially convened conferences. ACW (the title is derived from Q. 3:64) seeks to promote dialogue around love of God and love of neighbor, obligatory for all three Abrahamic faiths. It posits that without peace between Christians and Muslims, world peace is beyond reach. Citing Qur’an 5:34, it suggests that competition in peace-making, “righteousness and good works” should replace conflict between the two religions. Sponsored by the King of Jordan, a postmodernist analysis of this initiative would identify various geo-political issues and bids to take the lead in defining Islam and its role in the world, involving competition between various regional actors. Leaving such issues aside, ACW had, in the words of the then Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, a “unique role in stimulating discussion at the deepest level across the world” (ACW 2012: 7). ACW builds on an earlier open letter to Pope Benedict XVI (October 13, 2006) following his University of Regensburg address of September 12, 2007 (which mentioned allegations about Islam as violent and irrational) and on the Amman Interreligious Message (July 2005), itself related to the Amman Message (2004) calling for intra-Muslim harmony. Many responses, including some relevant to this analysis, are published in the fifth anniversary edition. These include those from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ACW 2012: 137–8), from 300 Christian scholars and leaders organized by Yale University in October 2007, “the first broad-based Christian response” (ACW 2012: 24), and an account of the subsequent Yale sponsored conference in July 2008 attended by 70 Muslim, 70 Christian, and 7 Jewish guests (ACW 2012: 25–7). At the 2008 Yale conference, addressed by then Senator John Kerry (later Secretary of State), Christian participants crossed denominational boundaries. The 5th Anniversary edition also commented on the involvement of evangelicals, including Robert

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Schuller of the Crystal Cathedral and Leith Anderson, then president of the National Association of Evangelicals as a break-through in Christian-Muslim relations (ACW 2012: 26). Evangelicals do not usually take part in interreligious dialogue, and some who attended the Yale conference have had to respond to criticism. Anderson had to clarify that he had signed the statement in his private capacity, although he was listed as NAE president (ACW 2012: 28). Critics reject the idea that Christians and Muslims worship the same God (see ACW 2012: 27). The Catholic Bishops Conference responded to ACW on October 13, 2007, and NCC on October 8, 2008. Internationally, ACW led to the formation of the Catholic-Muslim Forum; it first met in Rome, addressed by Pope Benedict (this address is reproduced in ACW 2012: 237–40) on November 4–6, 2008, then in Jordan, November 21–24, 2011, at the place held to have been Jesus’ Baptismal site (it will meet tri-annually), producing two declarations by the time of writing (see ACW 2012: 245–9). Both declarations make various theological statements about divine love; they also call for action to advance humanity’s common good through ending oppression, terrorism, and violent aggression. In the United States, ACW prompted two new initiatives, one ecumenical and another by a coalition of Baptists. The Muslim Christian National Initiative (MCMI) began in March 2008, co-sponsored by NCC and ISNA, to “enhance mutual understanding, respect, appreciation and support of what is sacred for each other through dialogue education sustained visible encounters that foster and nurture relationships” (Cole 2008). The Initiative, which meets twice yearly, has established several task forces. The mature relationship between the NCC and the ISNA saw the latter’s national interreligious director, Sayyid M. Syeed, bringing greetings to the NCC’s first Christian Unity Gathering in May 2014, when he stated that he believed in “the Trinity,” that is, in friendship and cooperation between NCC, ISNA, and the Union for Reform Judaism, which also presented greetings. The Baptist initiative has attracted media attention, since some Baptists, such as Jeremy Vines and Ergun and Emir Caner, both alleged former Muslims, have made offensive allegations about Islam and Muhammad (see Mohammad’s chapter herein). During 2007, Roy Medley, General Secretary of American Baptist Churches-USA, who is also currently Chair of NCC’s Board, commented that, in the context of promoting intra-Baptist unity, perhaps dialogue with Islam might follow. He acknowledged the damage caused by hurtful statements by Baptists and that, given their historic commitment to religious freedom, Baptists should “respect other religions” (Kaylor 2009). In fact, the first ever plea for complete religious liberty in English, by Baptist Thomas Helwys

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(1550–1616), included “Turks” (then synonymous with Muslim). Visiting Baptists in Lebanon and Georgia in 2006 and 2007, Medley had been encouraged to help improve Baptist-Muslims relations. Following Medley’s remarks, Sayyid M. Syeed, wrote suggesting a conference. Subsequently, Syeed spoke at the American Baptist Churches’ biennial gathering, the first Muslim to do so and Medley spoke at ISNA’s annual meeting. In January 2008, representatives of several Baptist conventions met in Hartford, where they launched the national Baptist-Muslim dialogue, which first met at Andover Newton Theological School in Boston in January 2009. The School’s President, Nick Carter, was involved in planning the summit. The second Baptist-Muslim summit took place in November 2012, the third in April 2013, shortly after the Boston Bombing, when better understanding and greater respect was emphasized as even more urgent. Three regional conferences also took place, each at a Baptist seminary. One of these, the American Baptist Seminary of the West had recently welcomed Zaytuna College to its campus, an Islamic institute, announcing that this fell within its own “educational vision.” Meanwhile, controversy swirls around Southwestern Baptist Seminary, Texas, for admitting a Muslim student into its theological program (Slater 2014). The AB, American Baptists, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF), the black majority Progressive National Baptist Convention, and the North American Fellowship of the BWA were co-sponsors. Responding to ACW was a main aim. The first summit agreed a “Statement of Our Common Will,” repudiating stereotypes and prejudice, encouraging cooperation, and launched a film project, Different Books, Common Word: Baptists and Muslims released in 2010. A study guide accompanies the film. Featuring ISNA-Baptist friendship, the film also focuses on examples of grass roots encounter or the dialogue of life. For example, in Oklahoma City, Baptists and Muslims have established a humanitarian partnership in response to the 1995 bombing; along the Texas-Louisiana border, they are cooperating in hurricane relief work. Such encounter moves beyond theological exchange toward shared praxis. Parallel to this development, BWA, whose former President, David Coffey, was a named addressee of ACW, followed Coffey’s initial brief response (October 16, 2007) with a detailed statement (December 26, 2008) (reproduced in ACW 2012: 213–34). One of the main authors was Paul Fiddes, BWA’s Doctrine Commission chair, the first Baptist to hold a full professorship in Oxford’s Theology Faculty. The response, which has extensive Qur’an citations, drew on discussion at a BWA meeting in Prague (July 2008), where representatives of 66 Baptist conventions convened, including “from

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areas of the world” experiencing “distressing religious conflicts.” It also drew on written submissions from across the Baptist world. The document affirmed that the “Common Word” shared by Baptists and Muslims around love of God and of neighbor also represents “common ground,” which is not only a “strategy for dialogue, but a gift of God to us all.” Remarking on Baptists’ commitment to religious freedom, which it calls “an imperative,” the document ends with a call for grass-roots engagement, “to change attitudes and prejudices.” It also encouraged joint study of the Bible and of the Qur’an. This overlaps with an initiative known as Scriptural Reasoning, which for the past 15 years or so has seen small circles of Jews, Christians, and Muslims gather to study each other’s scriptures. ACW has also attracted some Jewish responses (see Ochs 2007). The BWA’s response was circulated among participants at the Boston meeting, informing their discussion. In 2010, BWA set up a Baptist-Muslim Relations Commission; part of the brief is to prepare for Baptist-Muslim relations as a major program component at the next Baptist World Congress (2015), developing tools and resources for peaceful coexistence. Sadly, the Southern Baptist Convention (America’s largest Protestant denomination) is organizationally absent from these initiatives. It does not belong either to the NCC or to the BWA. However, many congregations and clergy affiliated to the AB and Cooperative Baptist Fellowship are former SBC members. Some Southern Baptist individuals, though, have reached out in a spirit of cooperation to Muslims; well-known evangelist, church planter and pastor, Rick Warren, addressed ISNA’s annual meeting of 8,000 members, on July 4, 2009 in Washington, DC, speaking about peace-making and the need for respect and civility, although he could have delivered the same talk to any audience. Significantly, he said “I am not interested in interreligious dialogue. I am interested in interreligious projects. There is a big difference. Talk is very cheap ... . Love is something you do ... . Love is a verb” (cited by Parham 2009). This is indeed the direction toward which post 9/11 developments point, to replace words with action.

Conclusion: Invitation to praxis As official church and ecumenical agencies encourage local congregations to study the Qur’an, ACW, and other documents, there is at least anecdotal evidence that, where Christians and Muslims do this, negative stereotypes yield to more nuanced understandings. This is especially true when theological

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exchange results in common action, whether running a food pantry or joint humanitarian response to a natural disaster. Many Christians realize that while some self-defined Muslims do act violently and may even hate the United States, most—if not all—of their Muslim neighbors do not. These neighbors share many of their aspirations and values. Some Christians go further; while disagreeing with how a minority of Muslims (if indeed they are Muslim) act out their hostility toward the United States, they reflect self-critically on how US foreign policy, economic and political power might negatively impact others’ lives, other states and regions of the world. However, because millions of Christians still do not meet Muslims and vice versa, Christian ideas about Islam and Muslim ideas about Christianity are primarily formed by media stereotypes, caricatures, and unchallenged assumptions. Exceptions to media distortion, of course, especially by PBS in the United States, should not be overlooked. The type of study recommended by the BWA among others, and promoted by Scriptural Reasoning, should be embedded in as many programs as possible. Ideally, this will become part of how Christians and Muslims nurture their children’s faith, perhaps using the same jointly written resources. Perhaps Christian clergy, rabbis and imams might be formed for ministry in shared institutions; Hartford Seminary may represent a model here. One Baptist seminary has, as noted, given space to an Islamic College on its campus. Cooperation may follow. In some respects, 9/11 presents a challenge to those who champion interreligious harmony. On the other hand, some Christians and Muslims refuse to allow the heinous acts of a few to compromise their commitment to forge improved, better informed, more astutely constructed interreligious relations. Christians involved in the formal dialogues described in this chapter are somewhat out-of-step with the majority of Americans, for whom Islam is increasingly problematic. As America becomes more pluralist, with the current majority predicted to be a minority by 2043 (US Census Bureau 2012), challenging stereotypes, acting together on translating shared values into practice to make society safer, more equitable, and just for all, despite setbacks is a goal worth struggling to achieve.

11

“Bringing Faith Back In”: Muslim and Christian Approaches to Nuclear (Non)-Proliferation and Disarmament Shirin Shafaie

Introduction Nuclear weapons pose the gravest man-made threat to human security in our time. There are currently between 17,100 and 22,000 nuclear weapons in the world (UN Office for Disarmament Affairs 2014). More than two decades after the end of the Cold War, large sums are still spent to maintain and modernize nuclear arsenals. In 2013, the United States Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated the costs over the next 10 years for operating, maintaining, and modernizing nuclear weapons and the military systems capable of delivering them at a total of $355 billion (CBO 2013). On the global level, “each year nuclear-armed states spend about $100 billion on their nuclear forces. Current plans for weapons upgrades, renewals and extensions total $500 billion or more in the Euro-Atlantic region alone” (WCC 2014a). The current state of affairs demonstrates the inadequacy of secular international law for dealing with the contemporary nuclear danger in all its aspects. Moreover, international law and security mechanisms pertaining to nuclear force have been influential in perpetuating the great powers’ monopoly over the “legitimized” possession and use of nuclear weapons (see Gerson 2007) while marginalizing alternative approaches, including faithbased initiatives, toward nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Ensuring the survival of the State, this abstract, man-made, construct has become the single most important imperative of the secular international system. This fact is highlighted in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinion with regard to the legal status of nuclear weapons under international law. In 1995,

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the Secretary-General of the United Nations requested the ICJ to “urgently render its advisory opinion on the following question: ‘Is the threat or use of nuclear weapons in any circumstance permitted under international law?’ ” (ICJ 1996: 228) After much deliberation the Court issued the following opinion: the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law … in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law; However, in view of the current state of international law … the Court cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake (ICJ 1996: 266; emphasis added).

The advisory opinion of the ICJ is in accordance with the realist understanding of international relations, the supremacy of “national interest” (reason d’état), and the logic of power politics in an anarchical self-help environment (see Mearsheimer 1994; Krasner 1995). Accordingly, the discourse of international law on nuclear weapons is legally ambivalent and morally unsubstantiated. By contrast, faith-based responses have focused on “human security,” as opposed to State security, in accordance with religious values that uphold the sanctity of life and the environment as divine creation (Religions for Peace 2013: 8). This chapter discusses various Muslim and Christian initiatives for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. It argues that faith-based approaches can complement, enrich, and reinforce the foundations of international humanitarian law and enhance their adequacy vis-à-vis the full scale and different aspects of the contemporary nuclear danger. It will demonstrate how some faith leaders, Muslim and Christian scholars, and heads of states have attempted to shift the state-centric paradigm that currently frames and dominates the debate over the contemporary nuclear danger to a new paradigm concerned with the preeminent and inherent value of human dignity, the idea of “just peace,” and the centrality of the human person.

Muslim approaches to nuclear (non)-proliferation The overwhelming majority of Muslim leaders and scholars have denounced the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) against civilians in accordance with Islamic teachings and the rules and principles of international humanitarian law. However, with regard to the production, possession, and

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use of WMDs, including nuclear weapons, for self-defense and deterrence purposes, Muslim scholarly opinions and official rulings have been somewhat divided. A number of Muslim leaders and scholars have condemned nuclear weapons in absolute terms and issued an official and binding Islamic decree (fatwa) against their production, possession, and use.1 Yet others have stated tacit or explicit approval for these weapons for self-defense and deterrence purposes. The following survey of Muslim approaches to nuclear danger highlights different voices from each position and thus demonstrates the diverse nature of Muslim views on this issue, each reflecting the unique geopolitical setting within which they are situated and to which they respond. This diversity of opinions is in part caused by certain double standards inherent in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).2 The division of states into two official categories of nuclear-weapons states (NWS) and nonnuclear-weapon states (NNWS) or “haves and have-nots” under the NPT has been viewed as extremely unjust and highly divisive by the have-nots. Lack of any meaningful progress on nuclear disarmament has been another issue of great concern for the NNWS. Ramifications of these double standards are particularly manifest in the Middle East where there is an imbalance of power between Muslim states and Israel and a hierarchy of the legality and legitimacy of actions based on political and military alliances and at times in violation of the principles of international humanitarian law. While a number of Muslim countries, including Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Egypt benefit from nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, only one Muslim state possesses nuclear weapons, namely Pakistan. Given that Pakistan’s approach to nuclear weapons does not include any decisive faith-based (or Islamic) aspect, it falls outside the scope of analysis in this chapter. It suffices here to mention that Pakistani representatives to the UN have emphasized the significant influence of the asymmetry of military power globally but also regionally especially with regard to India, and the double standards inherent in the international law on nuclear proliferation and disarmament. Pakistan has stated that it can only commit to nuclear disarmament under just conditions and called for “equal security” for all states, universal, unconditional, and legally binding elimination of threats from nuclear-armed states and removal of discrimination in the application of international norms and laws. Pakistan has used the absence of these conditions as justification for the Muslim nation to also acquire these weapons for self-defense and deterrence purposes (see for example Khan 2013).

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Iran’s anti- nuclear weapons fatwa On the global level, only a few states possess the technology and the infrastructure to produce nuclear power. Muslim states rank particularly low on the chart of nations with an indigenous civil nuclear program (see the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] 2013). Iran is the only Muslim state that has been able to develop an indigenous nuclear energy program while also being a signatory to the NPT.3 It has been under intense scrutiny by the IAEA and subject to multiple rounds of UN and US-EU unilateral sanctions (see Fayazmanesh 2008; Mousavian 2012; Patrikarakos 2012; Porter 2014). The Iranian case provides us with an interesting example of a modern Muslim state with an independent nuclear energy program that constantly negotiates its right to nuclear energy on the international arena based on a multifaceted approach involving both Islamic values and the principles of secular international law. As the Supreme Leader of an Islamic state, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has taken the initiative to issue a fatwa against all WMDs, including nuclear weapons. Ayatollah Khamenei’s fatwa was first pronounced to the international community in an official statement to the IAEA in August 2005 declaring that “the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the Islamic Republic of Iran must never acquire these weapons” (Mehr News Agency 2005). He reiterated the principal position of Iran regarding nuclear weapons on at least seventeen occasions, including in a statement to the UN in April 2010 which declared that the Islamic Republic of Iran “consider[s] the use of such weapons as haram (religiously forbidden) and believe[s] that it is everyone’s duty to make efforts to secure humanity against this great disaster” (UN 2010, italics in original). Additional statements against the production, possession, and use of WMDs have been issued by other high-ranking Iranian religious leaders, among them Grand Ayatollahs Yusef Saanei, Abdollah Javadi Amoli, Mohammad Fazel Lankarani, and Naser Makarem Shirazi. Moreover, a number of Iranian scholars have discussed various religious opinions and rulings by Sunni and Shia authorities against nuclear weapons based on the principles of Islamic law and jurisprudence as well as qur’anic teachings, Hadith, and the tradition of Prophet Muhammad (see Rahmani n.d.).4 The intertwinement between religion and state-politics in contemporary Iran raises the significance of Ayatollah Khamenei’s fatwa both at the domestic and international levels. According to Article 57 of the Constitution of the

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Islamic Republic of Iran, the Supreme Leader has the ultimate authority over the three branches of the Iranian government, namely the legislative (Majles), the executive, and the judiciary. Therefore all legislations passed by the Majles in relation to Iran’s nuclear program must be in accordance with the Supreme Leader’s fatwa. Moreover, as well as being the religious and political leader of the Islamic Republic (vali-e faqih), the Supreme Leader is also the commander-in-chief of all armed forces; therefore his fatwa is legally binding for the Iranian military and cannot be overruled under any circumstances (Mousavian 2013: 154–5). This means that a fatwa issued by the Supreme Leader also serves as a “State decree” (hokm-e hokumati), which makes it religiously, politically, and legally binding for the Iranian government, military, and citizens. This fact has often been neglected or dismissed by skeptics who downplay the significance of the fatwa either as “part of a Shiite historical concept called taqiyya, or religious dissembling” that might be overruled in the future due to different circumstances (Eisenstadt and Khalaji 2011; Risen 2012)5 or as a decree of mere religious importance that cannot be considered legally binding on the military or the government.6 These critics consider cultural and religious norms as “simply a function of power and [material] interests [with] no independent analytical leverage” (see Tannenwald 1999: 434). They invariably ignore or dismiss the potentially constitutive power of such religious decrees. Going through a process of socialization and institutionalization reinforces the impact of such decrees not only as constraining factors in the decision-making processes of state leaders but also as constitutive elements in the shaping and reshaping of state’s ideology and national identity. A particularly pertinent example of this relates to Iran during its war with Iraq (1980–1988). Despite the continuous use of chemical weapons by the Iraqi forces under Saddam Hussein (Hiltermann 2007) and despite the absence of an international convention on prohibition of chemical weapons,7 Iranian leaders never removed their proscription on retaliation in kind. Such calculation does not fit the realist understanding of “rational” state behavior for, indeed in the absence of any legal constraint Iran could have retaliated in kind in accordance with the internationally accepted principle of self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter. The decision not to retaliate in kind was partly based on Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against the use of chemical and biological weapons (see Hiro 1991: 201–3; Zarif and Alborzi 1999) and directly influenced by the Islamic ideology of revolutionary Iran in the 1980s. This historical evidence provides a positive example of the encounter between religion and

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international humanitarian law where religion has played a significant role in restraining the state’s choices for self-defense in order to safeguard the moral values and security of humanity and the environment.8 Speaking to the challenge posed by the realists and skeptics (who argue that religious norms are irrelevant or deceiving and only a function of power and interests), Iranian leaders and policymakers have taken the initiative toward the implementation, enforcement, and institutionalization of the anti nuclear weapons fatwa on the national and international levels as a confidence-building measure. Specific policy recommendations were offered by the former Iranian diplomat Hossein Mousavian, with an emphasis on the normative nature of the Iranian/Islamic solution to the danger of nuclear proliferation. According to Mousavian, the official implementation and institutionalization of the nuclear fatwa can be done in several stages: Iran could adopt legislation or amend its constitution, either by parliament or through a referendum, to outlaw any activity leading to the development, acquisition, production, possession or use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons by Iran or its citizens. This specific “operationalisation” and secularisation of the supreme leader’s fatwa would help remove ambiguity and doubt about its legitimacy and sustainability, acting as a confidence-building measure for the international community with regard to Iran’s seriousness about non-proliferation (Mousavian 2013: 157).

Frustration with the inadequacy of secular international law for addressing the Iranian nuclear issue has led Iranian policymakers to highlight the need for “a framework that goes beyond current international arrangements … . With its roots in Islamic belief, the fatwa against nuclear, biological and chemical weapons can play a constructive role beyond resolving the immediate crisis surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme” (Mousavian 2013: 157)9 and become an integrated element of the international legal system with normative and constitutive effects on various other Muslim actors. A fatwa that has been repeatedly accused of being dishonest and insignificant can be more easily overruled or ignored than one which is acknowledged and upheld, or to use Mousavian’s term operationalized, by a major international institution such as the United Nations. By dismissing or ostracizing faith-based initiatives, the exclusively secular approach to international law sabotages new opportunities and potentials for addressing the contemporary nuclear danger. Indeed, research has shown that “while religion may not serve directly as a normative source of obligation under international law, it can nevertheless serve as a

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valid complementary means of establishing customary international law or establishing state practice in relevant cases” (Baderin 2009: 656). Certainly, where states parties to an international treaty consent to the inclusion of a religious principle or norm as a provision in a treaty this would bind the parties so long as it did not violate a peremptory norm of jus cogens under general international law (Baderin 2009: 654).

Hans Blix, the former head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (2000–2003) and Director General of the IAEA (1981–1997), has also acknowledged the need for “innovative and alternative ways of confidence building and verification arrangements … more farreaching than the eyes of satellites” (Blix 2011: 3). He mentions political détente and the removal of military threats from potential nuclear proliferators as alternative confidence-building measures; however, he does not suggest on what grounds such détente may be possible and sustainable. Political interests can change, alliances vanish, and new threats emerge: so, to use Desmond Tutu’s words, it is now time for the world to establish: new forms of cultural or public diplomacy, and a type of foreign policy that takes seriously the piety, the faith, and the truthfulness of people’s religious convictions in other countries, and how they interpret what this means for their public life – for the protection of human rights, the rule of law (quoted in Thomas 2005: x).

This would then enhance the non-proliferation norm, applicable to other actors who share the underlying ethical and moral values of the anti nuclear weapons “covenant” and consider themselves bound by it not due to political motives, the so-called national interests, fears or aspirations but due to the fundamental beliefs and values shaping their very identity. This is where norms can have not only constraining effects, by entering into and changing the cost-benefit calculations of interests, but also constitutive impacts by shaping those interests, identities, and practices in the first place (Tannenwald 1999: 463). For example, it has been argued that Ayatollah Khamenei’s “fatwa of September 2003 was instrumental in legitimizing Iran’s [voluntary and provisional] acceptance of the Additional Protocol a couple of months later” (Lodgaard 2011: 102 n.26). Moreover, it has been argued that a non-proliferation “covenant” agreed upon based on the signatories’ religious beliefs and value-system transcends contingent political situations and therefore will not contain a withdrawal clause (Mousavian 2013: 155).10

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Unfortunately, the current scholarly and political debate on the nuclear danger does not take into account the development of a normative prohibition against the use and possession of nuclear weapons among faith leaders. There is a lack of understanding in the literature of the fact that “norms do not [merely] determine outcomes, [but] they shape realms of possibility. They influence (increase or decrease) the probability of occurrence of certain courses of action” (Tannenwald 1999: 435). Nevertheless, there seems to be a growing sense of urgency and momentum among faith communities for intervening in the debate on nuclear weapons and changing the terms of the debate based on moral and ethical values such as the sanctity of life and survival of humanity and the environment upon which all life depends.

Non-state Muslim approaches to nuclear proliferation Beyond national efforts for banning the production, possession, and use of nuclear weapons, Muslims have identified the need for a concerted effort toward creating a pan-Islamic anti-nuclear weapons fatwa (Mousavian 2013: 157). Such an effort would also promote Sunni-Shia relations as well as relations between Arab and non-Arab Muslim countries. Indeed, there have been some efforts to this effect by Muslim scholars. For example Jamal Badawi and Muzammil H. Siddiqi offered several reasons for declaring the production, possession, and use of nuclear weapons as immoral, un-Islamic, and therefore haram (2007: 26–7). Firstly, nuclear weapons represent a serious threat to peace, while peace is a central theme of Islam. Secondly, these weapons are brutal and merciless and thus violate the qur’anic description of the Prophet Muhammad as “mercy to the worlds” and all creatures (Q. 21:107). Thirdly, even though “repelling aggression is permissible in Islam,” because of their indiscriminate impact and lasting destruction that they cause to the environment, nuclear weapons cannot be considered as a legitimate tool for self-defense. Fourthly, nuclear weapons’ research and production waste a huge amount of resources that could be otherwise invested in enhancing the quality of life for the poor and disadvantaged communities around the world. Finally: while the argument for nuclear deterrence is not un-Islamic in principle, [whereas the use of nuclear weapons is,] and while such deterrence apparently did work during the Cold War, there is no guarantee that it will work in the future. Nor is there any guarantee that nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of non-state actors … . [The authors] conclude that it is haram (forbidden) to deploy nuclear weapons. The shariah of Allah could never approve such

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weapons. According to the principles of Islamic law, there should instead be a universal ban on their development and possession. No criteria exist that allow some states to maintain nuclear weapons while others are denied them (Badawi and Siddiqi 2007: 26–7).

Even though Muslims have been unanimous in terms of banning the use of nuclear weapons against civilian targets and populations, they have been divided with regard to their use against enemy combatants or for self-defense and deterrence purposes when the survival and sovereignty of the Muslim State is at stake. A number of Muslim scholars and religious leaders have even advocated the production, possession, and conditional use of WMDs including nuclear weapons for Arab/Muslim states. In an in-depth survey of primary sources, Steven Ditto (2013b) has discussed works by a number of Muslim leaders and scholars in support of nuclear weapons for deterrence and self-defense purposes. For example Taqiuddin al-Nabhani’s 1953 work Al-Shakhsiyya al-Islamiyya (The Islamic Personality) advocates that nuclear weapons are not only licit but can be used as a “first strike” option in conflict (quoted in Ditto 2013b).11 The Egyptian scholar, Muhammad Abu Zahra, affirmed in his 1950 work Al-‘Alaqat al-Dawliya fi Al-Islam (International Relations in Islam) that there is “no doubt” that the use of a “nuclear bomb” is “strictly prohibited,” “Except if the enemy attacks by using these weapons, they are isolated in a limited area, and their use would prevent them from continuing their crimes” (quoted in Ditto 2013b). Ali Gomaa, the Grand Mufti of Egypt (2003–2010) and the head of the Dar alIfta al-Misriyyah (Egyptian Fatwa House), issued a fatwa in 2009 entitled “The Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction Against Non-Muslim Countries.” It states that “it is ‘religiously required’ (matlub shar’i) for Islamic countries to acquire [WMDs] for the purpose of deterring aggressors” (Ditto 2013b).12 Another study by Abd al-Majeed Mahmud Al-Salaheen entitled “Weapons of Mass Destruction and its Rulings in Islamic Jurisprudence” (2005) is indicative of the “academic” defenses of WMDs by some Sunni/Arab scholars. Intending his study to be a “guiding beacon for the Islamic state in determining the position of the production and use of weapons of mass destruction,” Salaheen argues that “the legislation of warfare in Islam forbids the targeting of non-combatants in military operations, and this legislation is (firmly) established, and has not been abrogated.” However, he concludes that: It is obligatory upon/necessary for an Islamic state to produce “strategic weapons of mass destruction,” if a hostile state produces these weapons. This is in order to deter these states from using this type of weapon, to protect the security of the Islamic state, and preserve its independence and sovereignty.

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It is obligatory upon/necessary for an Islamic state to produce “tactical weapons of mass destruction,” and it is permissible for it to use them against military bodies in hostile states … because their destructive effects can be limited to combatants alone (translated and quoted by Ditto 2013b).

Salaheen relates the rationale behind his conclusions to the contemporary state of international legal system and states that: There has been a failure of international efforts to fully destroy WMDs, and replace them with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)—which fails to prevent its members from threatening nuclear terror, whether overtly or covertly … . Political wrangling, and loss of confidence on the other hand, and the desire for hegemony and (nuclear) acquisition (on the other), are among the underlying causes of stumbling international efforts concerning the disarmament or reduction of WMDs (Al-Salaheen 2005).

The views presented here, in support of WMDs for self-defense and deterrence purposes, highlight the most crucial nexus between non-proliferation and disarmament and the failure of secular international law for upholding both sides of the nuclear “grand bargain.” Nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament are two sides of the same coin and shortcomings in one area can have very negative impacts on the other area as can be seen in the loss of confidence by many Muslims in international efforts for disarmament and therefore the emergence of opinions in support of nuclear proliferation for Muslim states. Whereas the secular and supposedly neutral international institutions have been unsuccessful in bringing about nuclear disarmament or even providing an adequate framework for discussing the full scale the contemporary nuclear danger, Christian leaders have been successful in taking the initiative and addressing the issue in its most important aspects, namely with regard to nuclear disarmament and the urgent need for divestment in nuclear military-industrial complexes. The following sections provide a survey of Christian approaches to nuclear disarmament from state to non-state perspectives representing a diverse range of denominations and coalitions of churches.

Christian calls to nuclear disarmament The geopolitical landscape in which Christian leaders have found themselves has been a different one; accordingly Christian responses to the contemporary nuclear danger have been somewhat different, even though complementary, to that of Muslims.13 The emergence of the nation-state model and the Westphalian

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doctrine of state sovereignty (Tilly 1975; Wimmer and Feinsetin 2010), coupled with industrialization, the rise of nationalism as state ideology (Gellner 1983; Anderson 1991), and political modernization in the West (Tilly 1994; Hechter 2000), led to the privatization of religion on the one hand, and secularization of the international system on the other hand (Fox and Sandler 2004; Taylor 2007).14 To use Thomas Hobbes’ (1588–1679) words, this led to the “generation of that great [meta-] LEVIATHAN [here the international system and its institutions such as the UN Security Council], or rather to speak more reverently, of that mortal god to which we owe, under the immortal God, our peace and security” (Hobbes 2011 [1651]: 161, italics in original). This paradigm shift, namely the replacement of religion and God with secularism and the State respectively, brought about many other changes in international relations. Gradually, the survival of the State (and not necessarily the human beings living within its boundaries) became the central concern of Western-devised (and supposedly neutral) international law. Ultimately, the powers of the State surpassed all powers previously conceivable by mankind through the acquisition of nuclear weapons. The history of the rise of the modern State to universal prominence armed with the ultimate force for destruction created a perverted hierarchy of power and authority in the international legal system. In other words, the power of nuclear-weapon states transcended the power of the institution that supposedly bound them to nuclear disarmament. And it is precisely in this challenging environment that most contemporary Christian leaders have found themselves: responding to the nuclear danger as citizens of nuclear-weapon States. Accordingly, Christian approaches to the contemporary nuclear danger have been more focused on disarmament.

The Vatican and the Holy See In the “Christian world,” the position of the Roman Catholic Church as represented by the Vatican and the Holy See to the United Nations merits special attention because it represents the position of not only a major religious authority but also a modern State and a proactive party to the NPT. In 1997, while addressing the United Nation’s First Committee, the Holy See delegation put forth the Church’s strong opposition to nuclear weapons in the following terms: Nuclear weapons, aptly described as the “ultimate evil,” are still possessed by the most powerful States which refuse to let them go … . No weapon so threatens

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the longed-for peace of the 21st century as the nuclear… the legal and moral arguments against nuclear weapons intertwine with the strategic: since nuclear weapons can destroy all life on the planet, they imperil all that humanity has ever stood for, and indeed humanity itself … . The work … in calling for negotiations leading to a Nuclear Weapons Convention must be increased. Those nuclearweapon States resisting such negotiations must be challenged, for, in clinging to their outmoded rationales for nuclear deterrence, they are denying the most ardent aspirations of humanity (quoted in Holy See 2011).

According to the Holy See, that more than $1 trillion has been spent on developing and maintaining, and modernizing nuclear arsenals is “nothing short of sinful,” and “the grossest misplacement of priorities” that “truly constitutes the very ‘theft from the poor’ which the Second Vatican Council condemned so long ago” (Holy See 2011) and provides “a fundamental obstacle to achieving a new age of global security” (Statement by the Holy See to the 2001 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) Conference, cited in Holy See 2011). The Church’s strongest opposition has been to the “institutionalization of deterrence” by the “nuclear-weapon states.”15 Pope Benedict XVI reinforced the Church’s concern about nuclear deterrence and the urgent need for nuclear disarmament in his address on World Peace Day, January 01, 2006, when he asked: What can be said, too, about those governments which count on nuclear arms as a means of ensuring the security of their countries? Along with countless persons of good will, one can state that this point of view is not only baneful but also completely fallacious … . The resources which would be saved could then be employed in projects of development capable of benefiting all their people, especially the poor (quoted in Holy See 2011).

The Roman Catholic Church has intervened in the international debate regarding nuclear deterrence and disarmament, in its capacity not only as a religious authority but also as a modern State. However, the Church’s concern has not been the survival of the State, but “the security and survival of humanity.” The Church has based its approach on the “principles of the preeminent and inherent value of human dignity and the centrality of the human person” and called for the reinforcement of these values as “the basis of international humanitarian law” (Holy See 2011). Thus in its response to the contemporary nuclear danger, the Church has created an opportunity for subjecting the self-centered modern State to a moral and ethical authority above itself. The position taken by the Holy See, as was presented above, has been influential

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in creating “a growing consensus that [nuclear deterrence] can no longer be tolerated … [even though] this development is scarcely acknowledged” (Hornsby-Smith 2006: 315). Moreover, the Church’s emphasis on the economic aspects of the nuclear danger (“theft from the poor”) and its courageous call for divestment in nuclear arsenals and the dismantling of the (predominantly Western) nuclear military-industrial complexes has significantly advanced the anti-nuclear weapons argument in the international arena.

Churches united “In Defense of Creation” and for “Just Peace” The United Methodist Council of Bishops (USA) issued a similar condemnation of the production, possession, and use of nuclear weapons: Nuclear weapons, whether used or threatened, are grossly evil and morally wrong. As an instrument of mass destruction, nuclear weapons slaughter the innocent and ravage the environment. When used as instruments of deterrence, nuclear weapons hold innocent people hostage for political and military purposes. Therefore, the doctrine of nuclear deterrence is morally corrupt and spiritually bankrupt (United Methodist Council of Bishops 1986; also published in Miller 1992).

The United Methodist Church aptly identified the economic costs of the socalled nuclear defenses and the arms race among nuclear-weapons states as “a social justice issue, not only a war and peace issue” and firmly “concluded that nuclear deterrence is a position that cannot receive the church’s blessing” (United Methodist Council of Bishops 1986; also published in Miller 1992). The Bishops worldview was deeply rooted in biblical faith and the idea of shalom as positive peace: At the heart of the Old Testament is the testimony of shalom, that marvelous Hebrew word that means peace. But the peace that is shalom is not negative or one dimensional … . Shalom is positive peace: harmony, wholeness, health, and well-being in all human relationships. It is the natural state of humanity as birthed by God. It is harmony between humanity and all of God’s good creation (The United Methodist Council of Bishops, quoted in Miller 1992: 417).

By introducing the idea of shalom as “just peace,” the Bishops made a unique contribution to the Christian discourse on “just war” while at the same time challenging the moral basis of the secular international law and the realist view of international relations as taking place in an environment of chaos and self-help,

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based on the idea of national interest, supremacy of the State and its survival (see Thistlethwaite 2011; Stassen 2008). Moreover they provided a strong critique of the Westphalian doctrine of State sovereignty and spoke instead of: the sovereignty of God over all nations and peoples … . The creation is not a realm of chaos or meaninglessness, however much persons or nations may cause anarchy by their own behaviour … . The Old Testament speaks of God’s sovereignty in terms of covenant, more particularly the “covenant of peace” with Israel, which binds that people to God’s shalom (Isaiah 54:10; Ezekiel 37:26). In the covenant of shalom, there is no contradiction between justice and peace or between peace and security or between love and justice (Jeremiah 29:7) (The United Methodist Council of Bishops, quoted in Miller 1992: 418).

They directly opposed the very idea of a nuclear-armed State because according to the Bishops’ biblical understanding: the sovereignty of God means that vengeance in human hands is evil. When in the Song of Moses Yahweh proclaims “vengeance is mine,” the message is not that God is violent but rather that the people of God have no right to usurp God’s powers of ultimate judgment (Deuteronomy 32:35). We believe that particular biblical truth is directly relevant to ethical attitudes toward nuclear weapons (The United Methodist Council of Bishops, quoted in Miller 1992: 419).

A very interesting aspect of the approach taken by the United Methodist Church (and as we shall see by many other Christian denominations) has been their emphasis on and suggestion of “policy alternatives that may best express … principles of [just] peacemaking” (The United Methodist Council of Bishops, quoted in Miller 1992: 433). The United Methodist Church has been outspoken and elaborate on the practical steps that need to be taken for realizing the religious decree against nuclear weapons. The Bishops’ approach showcases the Church’s awareness of policy-related issues; it adds a critical voice to the US domestic politics debate regarding the issue of nuclear deterrence with major international ramifications. Finally, the Bishops have called on “all Christians and their churches”: to join in exploring every possibility of nonviolent means to a just peace. We recall once more that pacifists and just-war theorists share a moral presumption against violence; they have every reason to collaborate in peace research and education and to join in developing a more inclusive approach to peacemaking (The United Methodist Council of Bishops, quoted in Miller 1992: 437).

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Elsewhere in the world, for example in the United Kingdom, many Christian denominations have supported nuclear disarmament. The Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Church of Scotland, the Methodist Church, and the United Reformed Church have been outspoken in their opposition to the UK government’s plans for replacement of the Trident nuclear submarines (“Better off without Trident” 2013). In addition to moral and ethical concerns, these churches have also presented serious economic arguments against renewing the UK nuclear deterrence.16 However, Christian voices have not been completely unanimous against nuclear deterrence. For example, even though the representative body of the Church of England (CoE), the general synod, has repeatedly voted against Trident replacement, the Church as an institution has been resistant to this stance. As the default setting in Britain is to keep, maintain, and renew nuclear weaponry, the lack of opposition by the CoE has been largely construed as support for maintaining nuclear weapons for deterrence purposes. The ethical and theological work by the CoE has not sought to be conclusive and none has been undertaken which seeks to produce an authoritative position for the Church. The UK Catholic Church as an institution is obliged to take the official position of the Roman Catholic Church, i.e. absolute opposition to nuclear weapons and deterrence; however, the UK Catholic Church has taken a silent position on the issue of UK nuclear deterrence which indicates their political loyalties to the United Kingdom as the independent State within which they are located. The position of the Church of Scotland merits special attention due to the debates over Scottish independence from the United Kingdom. “For 30 years the Church of Scotland has consistently condemned the existence and threat of nuclear weapons as sinful and an offence to God’s created order” (Church of Scotland 2014). The Church’s response and work on the nuclear weapons issue showcases a proactive Christian approach to public and foreign policy, peace and security; the report of the Church and Society Council on “Ethics of Defence” (2009) is representative. This report offers scriptural, theological, socio-economic, political, and legal reasoning against the possession, threat, or use of nuclear weapons. According to this report “in a world of increasing globalisation, the issue of ethical and moral leadership lies at the heart of any national defence policy” (Church of Scotland 2009: 2). After reaffirming “the historic position of the Church of Scotland of the need to remove the doctrine of nuclear deterrence from [the United Kingdom] national defence strategy,” the report calls on “HM [Her Majesty’s] Government to move in this

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direction” (Church of Scotland 2009: 13). The Church’s critical intervention in the discourse of national security, international obligations and sovereignty of the State is exemplary of how faith leaders can enter the debate on issues considered to be “secular” in the Western political circles and therefore outside the realm of religious authority. The Church of Scotland has challenged this view by offering a well-informed and highly informative contribution to an issue of highest national security importance, namely the UK’s nuclear deterrence. On the global level, the initiative taken by the World Council of Churches (WCC) against nuclear weapons has been remarkable.17 The WCC condemned nuclear weapons as early as 1948 at its First Assembly, and declared “the production and deployment of nuclear weapons, as well as their use … a crime against humanity” and “sin against God” (WCC 2014a). At its Second Assembly in 1954, the WCC called for “the prohibition of all weapons of mass destruction; including atomic and hydrogen bombs, with provision for international inspection and control, such as would safeguard the security of all nations, together with the drastic reduction of other armaments” (WCC 1954, 1955: 146). Also during its Tenth Assembly in 2013, the WCC recommended that governments: “Negotiate and establish a ban on the production, deployment, transfer and use of nuclear weapons in accordance with international humanitarian law” (WCC 2013; also see WCC 2014a). The foregoing survey of Christian approaches to the contemporary nuclear danger demonstrates that far from being irrelevant or merely idealistic, faith leaders have in fact been fully capable of providing national governments and the international community with policy-oriented, theologically grounded, and morally substantiated analysis and recommendations for nuclear disarmament. Efforts made by numerous churches in this direction have paved the way for the emergence of a growing number of interreligious initiatives to nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. For example at its December 1999 gathering in Cape Town, the Parliament of the World’s Religions adopted Jonathan Granoff ’s “A Moral Call to Eliminate the Threat of Nuclear Weapons” and declared that: The threat and use of nuclear weapons is incompatible with civilized norms, standards of morality and humanitarian law which prohibit the use of inhumane weapons and those with indiscriminate effects. We say that a peace based on terror, a peace based upon threats of inflicting annihilation and genocide upon whole populations, is a peace that is morally corrupting (Religions for Peace 2013: 33).

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This stance was reiterated in 2011 by the International Executive Committee of Religions for Peace (Hallman 2014: 20), while in September 2013, Religions for Peace (2013) issued a Resource Guide on Nuclear Disarmament for Religious Leaders and Communities including statements on nuclear weapons from the perspective of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Daoism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sufism. It is also notable that in March 2014, American Catholic bishops and Iranian ayatollahs met in Qom, Iran, to discuss the nuclear danger, bringing in a further interreligious angle to the ongoing discussions (Zapor 2014). A final point needs to be mentioned here and that is the place of “the shifting third” in any potential Muslim–Christian initiative toward nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, namely the Jewish position, especially that of the State of Israel. “It has been suggested that Muslim– Christian dialogue always implies Muslim–Jewish–Christian dialogue … Muslim–Christian dialogue without a Jewish voice, or a recognition of the Jewish voice, can be seen as a problematic venture” (see Hedges’ chapter herein). This issue gains increased significance in the context of Muslim aspirations for a Middle East Free of WMDs, and Christian calls to global abolition (of nuclear weapons). Thus any meaningful interreligious statement on the contemporary nuclear danger must also engage Jewish views.18

Concluding remarks: Bringing faith back in Muslim and Christian approaches to nuclear (non-)proliferation and disarmament reflect the vast scale of the contemporary nuclear danger. The diversity of opinions among and between Muslims and Christians is indicative of the unique geopolitical setting within which faith leaders and religious scholars find themselves. Disagreements among Muslims regarding the legitimacy of possession and conditional use of WMDs for self-defense and deterrence purposes attests to the fact that religion is neither essentially a force for peace nor a cause for war. Instead, they are human interpretations of their sacred scriptures coupled with geopolitical realities that define the nature of believers’ approach to issues of international concern. For example different qur’anic verses can be, and have been, used by different Muslims, in accordance with their idiosyncratic perceptions of the geopolitical landscape within which they find themselves, to either justify or fully oppose the production, possession, and use of nuclear weapons. It is thus the duty of the “international community,” including the self-proclaimed secular and neutral international institutions

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such as the United Nations, to promote affirmative voices for a “just peace” and integrate their recommendations into the fabric of international law. Such an endeavor would not only bring diversity to the international system, but it would also fortify (as opposed to just challenge) the moral and ethical foundations of international humanitarian law. The resistance to the nuclear taboo is likely to grow as the voices against nuclear weapons grow. Whether justifying and legitimizing the idea of nuclear deterrence based on realist cost-benefit and materialist factors or ostracizing those who speak against it from a moral perspective as irrelevant, idealist, utopian loonies, religious fundamentalists, or naïve pacifists, there will be attempts to stop faith-based actors and norms from entering the debate on nuclear weapons. The battle is thus epic in terms of its scale but also given the elusive nature of nuclear weapons and those who own them, namely modern States. However, never before has the global faith community been in a position to mobilize on an international scale and influence the decision-making processes of states and international institutions regarding the contemporary nuclear danger as it has been today. Many Muslim and Christian leaders have demonstrated that they can contribute to the improvement and reinforcement of international treaties on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. So much more can be achieved in this area if the leaders of the three Abrahamic religions consolidate their efforts and showcase their agreement on this vital issue. Such an interreligious cooperation on resolving the contemporary nuclear danger can lighten the path toward, and provide a powerful model for, the resolution of other issues of mutual concern.

12

Vatican and World Council of Church Initiatives: Weaving Interreligious Threads on Ecumenical Looms Clare Amos

Introduction On May 19 2014, I was privileged to be invited, as a representative of the interreligious staff of the World Council of Churches (henceforth WCC), to the celebration in Rome marking the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Vatican office for interreligious concerns, today known as the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID). It was a mark of the collaboration that has existed over many years between the PCID and the interreligious office of the WCC. It is notable that the official document describing the “Methodology of the Council” states as its third point of four: “The ecumenical dimension of interreligious dialogue is particularly taken into consideration. The PCID has an ongoing relationship with the World Council of Churches and it collaborates with the latter in initiatives of study and promotion of interreligious dialogue” (PCID 2013).1 In my view, it was the establishment of the Vatican office for interreligious dialogue on May 19 1964, even if at that time with the not entirely positive title of Secretariat for Non-Christians, followed shortly afterwards by the promulgation of the ground breaking Vatican II Declaration Nostra Aetate, which somehow helped give the WCC and its member churches courage eventually to establish the WCC’s own office for interreligious dialogue (for more on Vatican II, see O’Collins 2013). It is significant that at a 1966 meeting held in Broumana, Lebanon, organized by the Faith and Order Commission to explore Christian-Muslim relations and then at a landmark conference with the title “Christians in Dialogue with Men [sic]

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of Other Faiths” organized by the WCC in Kandy, Sri Lanka, in 1967 under the auspices of the WCC’s Commission on World Mission and Evangelism, Roman Catholic representatives played an important part. The WCC office for interreligious dialogue eventually came into existence in 1971 with the title Dialogue with People of Living Faiths and Ideologies,2 described in terms of WCC structures as a Sub-Unit. I have been asked to reflect on the involvement of both the WCC and the Vatican in interreligious dialogue. I could have explored the achievements and concerns of first one body and then the other. However, given my belief in the mutual influence of the two organizations as well as my view that interreligious and ecumenical dialogue potentially exist in a dynamic and creative relationship, it seems more appropriate to reflect on them in tandem. Inevitably my own perspective on each is different: as regards the WCC, I am to a considerable extent writing as an insider, whereas in the case of Roman Catholic work I am reflecting as a sympathetic and interested observer (different coverage of the issues could be found in, for example, Pratt 2010). I have also chosen to offer a partly thematic rather than solely chronological framework for this chapter, although I have also taken as a dividing point the millennium.

Two trinities A few years ago, a colleague and I commented that interreligious work seems to sit uncomfortably within formal Anglican structures.3 Sometimes it is linked to mission, sometimes it is located with ecumenism and seen as an expression of unity, and sometimes it is regarded as an aspect of the Church’s social responsibility work. It is interesting to explore the interreligious work of the WCC and the Vatican also from the perspective of this “trinity” of mission, ecumenism, and social responsibility. The respective weight given to each dimension may illustrate different concerns and emphases in the two organizations. Alongside that trinity, I would want to set a complementary “trinity,” which overlaps to some extent with the above and which is linked to the nature and goals of interreligious work in the WCC. The PCID currently has a formal statement of the “Nature and Goals of the Council.” This is as follows: The nature and goals are:

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1. To promote respect, mutual understanding and collaboration between Catholics and the followers of other religious traditions. 2. To encourage the study of religions. 3. To promote the formation of persons dedicated to dialogue (Vatican n.d.).

This statement is in essence the mandate that was given to the PCID by Articles 159 and 160 of the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus promulgated in June 1988, which also changed its original name (Secretariat for NonChristians) to its present title (Vatican 1988). As far as I am aware, the WCC office for interreligious dialogue does not have a current formal statement of its nature and goals. However, when I need to explain what we are seeking to do, either to visitors or when I am invited to lecture about my work, I normally offer a “trinity” of objectives to our work along the following lines: 1. To offer theological undergirding, exploring why interreligious engagement is important, indeed perhaps vital, for Christians in our contemporary world in which the reality of religious plurality cannot be ignored. This involves exploration of aspects of the theology of religions, requiring serious engagement with Christian theology and tradition, acknowledging that our understanding of our own faith can be challenged, perhaps also deepened, by the encounter with religious plurality. I often say that in relation to this part of my work, my primary target audience is Christian, adherents of WCC member churches, as much, if not more, than followers of other religions. 2. To build and sustain ongoing bilateral relationships with significant groups and organizations representing other religions. 3. To work collaboratively with representatives of other religions for the common human good, especially in concerns linked to peace and justice. In my view, all these objectives are important and interconnected. They build on each other. (1) makes (2) possible, and in turn (2) leads into (3). Although the linkage is not perfect, one might also suggest that there is some correlation between this “trinity” of WCC objectives and the “trinity” of mission, unity, and social responsibility referred to above: the first objective has some connection to “mission” concerns (broadly understood), the second to “unity,” and the third to “social responsibility.” In this first half of the article, which explores the situation up to the turn of the millennium, I will take these linked concepts (mission and theological

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exploration; unity and bilateral engagement; social responsibility and interreligious collaboration) to structure my reflections on the work of the WCC and the Vatican.

Mission and theological exploration In both the WCC and the Roman Catholic Church, concern for mission has acted both as a stimulus and a constraint on theological exploration relating to religious plurality. At Vatican II, the path toward the Declaration Nostra Aetate in October 1965 (Vatican 1965) was paved by the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium (Vatican 1964) which was promulgated the previous year. In Lumen Gentium, paragraphs 16 and 17, respect and concern for the religious Other and the missionary role of the Church are drawn together: L.G. 16 Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God. In the first place we must recall the people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh. On account of their fathers this people remains most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues. But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Muslims, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind . … L.G. 17. As the Son was sent by the Father, so He too sent the Apostles, saying: “Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world.” The Church has received this solemn mandate of Christ to proclaim the saving truth from the apostles and must carry it out to the very ends of the earth… (Vatican 1964).

In sum, the passages argue that while other religions can contain “good or truth” and this is a “preparation for the Gospel,” and while “All men” can “attain to salvation” even if they do not know the Gospel of Christ, nonetheless, this is imperfect and so the Church is given a “solemn mandate” to proclaim the Christian Gospel to the “ends of the earth.” Important for us here is the line relating to Islam as holding a particular place in relation to those who acknowledge “the Creator.”

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A similar tension between the desire to affirm people of other religions and the imperative of mission is found in Nostra Aetate—though perhaps in this document the emphasis falls in the other direction: N.A. 2. The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself. The Church, therefore, exhorts her sons, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found among these men (Vatican 1965).

Vatican II did not resolve the dialectic between the demands of mission and evangelization and the imperative of interreligious engagement, while two major theological documents produced by the PCID later in the twentieth century both wrestle with this relationship. The first was The Attitude of the Church Towards Followers of Other Religions, with the subtitle of Reflections and Orientations on Dialogue and Mission (it is often referred to simply as Dialogue and Mission) which appeared in 1984 (PCID 1984). The second document, published in 1991, was entitled Dialogue and Proclamation (PCID 1991). Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical Redemptoris Missio (1990), which was almost contemporary with Dialogue and Proclamation and probably influenced it, described dialogue as “a part of the evangelizing mission of the Church.” It is possible to read that comment either as an affirmation of a developing openness in understanding the nature of mission or as a limitation upon a genuine appreciation of dialogue. In the 1990s that tension was to continue as a more conservative spirit seemed to gain ascendancy within Vatican structures, culminating with the promulgation in 2000 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) of the document Dominus Iesus (CDF 2000) which challenged the relativism associated in some minds with interreligious dialogue (see further below on Dominus Iesus). Dialogue and Mission and Dialogue and Proclamation, however, both set out a four-fold understanding of the nature of interreligious dialogue which has been very influential—even, or perhaps especially, beyond the Catholic Church. In the language used in Dialogue and Proclamation this four-fold pattern is described

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as: “The dialogue of life,” “The dialogue of action,” “The dialogue of theological exchange,” and “The dialogue of religious experience” (PCID 1991: para. 42). A similar wrestling between the imperatives of mission and dialogue was experienced over the same period at the WCC. It was the issue which dominated the first decade of the WCC’s interreligious office. Dr Stanley Samartha, its first director, struggled passionately with this topic. The official WCC obituary for Samartha noted: … it is not easy to appreciate the often lonely struggle in which Stanley Samartha was engaged during those early years against strong forces of resistance, fears and suspicion. The theological concerns of his opponents clustered around the fear that engaging in dialogue with people of living faiths would lead to syncretism and undermine the Christian calling to mission and evangelism (Raiser 2002).

This tension was visibly expressed in the 1975 WCC Assembly in Nairobi (the first Assembly since the founding of the office), when the invitation to a small number of guests representing other faiths caused considerable controversy. Nonetheless, at the end of the 1970s, the publication in 1979 by the WCC of Guidelines on Dialogue with People of Living Faiths and Ideologies (WCC 1979) was highly influential and over the next 20 years, served as the basis of interreligious dialogue sponsored by the WCC and many churches around the world. In the 1980s, the changing understanding of mission in the WCC meant that there was more readiness to “think outside the box” when it came to exploring the Christian theological basis for interreligious dialogue and the perception of the “religious other.” The mission conference held in San Antonio, Texas, in 1989 expressed the dilemma in eloquent terms which are still drawn upon in key WCC documents to this day: “We cannot point to any other way of salvation than Jesus Christ; at the same time we cannot set limits to the saving power of God” (see, for example, the quotation of this statement in WCC 2005). The reflection at this mission conference also influenced the thinking at a gathering at Baar, Switzerland, in 1990 of Christian theologians and interreligious specialists. The Baar meeting was the culmination of a 4 year process entitled My Neighbour’s Faith and Mine which was led by Dr Wesley Ariarajah, then the director of the WCC dialogue sub-unit (see WCC 1986, 2014b). More clearly than ever before (or indeed since), the document developed at Baar entitled Theological Reflections on Plurality (often known as the Baar Statement) suggested the possibility of “truth and goodness” in other religions and affirmed in unequivocal terms that “God the Holy Spirit has been at work in the life and traditions of peoples of living faiths” (WCC 1990: sect. IV).

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This document at Baar in turn was intended to inform the discussion at the Seventh Assembly of the WCC which was held in Canberra in 1991. But the reaction of some member churches of the WCC to the events and discussions at that Assembly, as well as to the presence of interreligious guests, meant that ongoing theological discussion (at least of the kind that challenged the churches toward an open affirmation of religious plurality) was no longer possible through the rest of the 1990s.

Unity and bilateral engagement As institutions which between them reflect a considerable majority of world Christianity, both the Vatican and the WCC have played a “representative” role in acting as a significant Christian voice in relation to representatives of specific other faith communities. In some sense, this bilateral engagement can be seen as a natural extension of bilateral engagement between different Christian groups, such as Roman Catholics and Orthodox or Anglicans and Lutherans. It is telling that the phrase “a new ecumenism” or “a wider ecumenism” has become increasingly popular to describe interreligious relationships; perhaps particularly with regard to relationships between Christians and Jews or Muslims, for which the phrase “Abrahamic ecumene” is sometimes specifically coined. The role of the Vatican as a quasi-state facilitates and encourages such bilateral ambassadorial engagement with significant representatives of other religions. These have included Shia Muslims from the Centre for Interreligious Dialogue in Iran, with which the Roman Catholic Church has held an ongoing and regularly sustained series of meetings for more than 20 years, and more recently, since the late 1990s, the Sunni Muslim center Al Azhar in Cairo. However, the most lengthy bilateral engagement with representatives of other faiths is that with representatives of the Jewish community via the umbrella body the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC), a group that was established by the international Jewish community (largely groups who were United States based) in the early post-Vatican II days with the overt encouragement of the Catholic Church to act as a dialogue partner with Roman Catholicism. The dialogue with Judaism has a unique status within Vatican structures; unlike the dialogue with all other religions it is not the responsibility of the PCID but rather a separate Commission for Religious Relations with Jews which is loosely attached to the Pontifical Council

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for the Promotion of Christian Unity (PCPCU, the body that has responsibility within the Catholic Church for relations with other Christian churches and organizations). The unique status of the dialogue with the Jewish community is in part due to chronology (it had begun in embryo even before Vatican II and was to a considerable extent responsible for the Council’s interest in offering a statement on relations with other religions) but its ongoing attachment to the PCPCU also reflects the special theological status that is given to Judaism vis-à-vis other non-Christian religions (some aspects of the issue of Judaism in relation to Muslim Christian relations is addressed both in Hedges’ and Firestone’s chapters herein). If we take into consideration the quote from Lumen Gentium (16) above, about Muslims’ primacy among those who acknowledge “the Creator,” then we may suggest that with Judaism this Abrahamic trialogue (or specific dialogues) occupies a foremost place certainly in Vatican thinking and priorities in relation to other religions. To some extent the WCC has followed a similar pattern of bilateral engagements, but its different status (and needing to take account of the diversity of the different churches which constitute its membership) has meant that it has not always been so easy to sustain such dialogues on a long term basis. So, for example, although for a number of years in the 1970s and 1980s there was a dialogue with Judaism via IJCIC, this eventually went into abeyance, for a number of reasons, but certainly including the perceived pro-Palestinian stance of the WCC. The diversity of views held within WCC member churches about the relationship between Judaism and Christianity also made it more difficult for a theological dialogue to continue with Judaism after a sort of plateau was reached in the 1980s which saw the publication of Ecumenical Considerations on Jewish-Christian Dialogue (WCC 1982) in 1982 and a significant Consultation on the Church and the Jewish People which was held in Sigtuna, Sweden, in 1988.4 With Islam, the WCC has however maintained an ongoing bilateral dialogue with the same center in Iran (the Centre for Interreligious Dialogue) as does the Vatican. This dialogue began in 1994 and of which the latest round took place in February 2014. Of course, one of the problems for both the WCC and the Vatican in sustaining long-term high level dialogue with representatives of other faiths is that there is no real equivalent of either body in other faiths. In Sunni Islam for example, a number of different geographical and political centers such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, vie for the claim to represent the faith, but this is not necessarily conceded by the others (on some issues relating to the Islamic representation in interreligious dialogue, see Mohammed’s chapter herein).

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This is even more the case for the often termed “Eastern religions” such as Buddhism and Hinduism, although the Vatican and the WCC try and seek possible dialogue partners wherever possible on an occasional basis. Perhaps the best known, and in many ways remarkable, example of the Vatican using its political and ambassadorial clout in the area of interreligious relations occurred in the three “Assisi” events in which first Pope John Paul II and later Pope Benedict XVI, gathered representatives both of other churches and other religions in Assisi to witness together for peace. The first World Day of Prayer for Peace in 1986 was especially remarkable, gathering over 160 religious leaders, in what was widely understood as an act of common prayer for peace. Notably in the later Days of Prayer for Peace summoned by Pope John Paul II (2002) and Pope Benedict XVI (2011) it was made very clear that nothing which could be described as “interreligious prayer” would take place (Bertone 2011). Whether intentionally or not, the Assisi event, with its invitations to both Christian and non-Christian leaders (and their careful placement within the event) helped to convey the sense of interreligious dialogue as indeed being an extension of Christian ecumenism. So also does a well known picture on the walls of the office of the PCID which depicts Pope Paul VI graciously greeting both significant Christian leaders such as the then Archbishop of Canterbury and well known non-Christian figures.5 It is also worth noting that over the last 40 years, there has also been regular bilateral engagement between the Vatican’s and the WCC’s interreligious offices themselves: often, there has been a pattern of an annual joint staff meeting. There have also been specific projects worked on together by the staff of the two offices: notably common work on the subjects of interreligious prayer and interreligious marriage. Both offices also publish a regular periodical: Pro Dialogo in the case of PCID and Current Dialogue by the WCC’s interreligious office.6 Occasionally, there have been joint issues of the two journals to share the results of projects worked on in common.

Social responsibility and interreligious cooperation During the 1990s, the “plateau-ing” of theological dialogue, certainly in the WCC, meant that there was an increasing focus on interreligious cooperation on areas such as improving inter-communal relationships. A reflection by Stanley Samartha expresses this vision:

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Dialogue is not a matter of discussion but of relationships. It has more to do with people than with ideas. Dialogue is a spirit, a mood, an attitude towards neighbours of other faiths. In a multi-religious country like India where the destinies of different religious communities are interwined and where people of different religious persuasions and ideological convictions face the same human problems in the life of the nation we need to remove suspicion, and build up confidence and trust between people. Thus, in a community where people of different faiths live and work together, dialogue can become an expression of Christian neighbourliness and part of the Christian ministry in a pluralist world (cited by Ariarajah 1993: 251–2).

It is interesting to note the focus on “neighborliness,” which ties closely with the work undertaken when the WCC interreligious office was under the direction of Wesley Ariarajah, probably the most prolific, certainly the most popular, writer among the staff who have worked in this area. During the 1990s the focus on Islam also grew, as after the end of the Cold War Islam increasingly came to occupy for the Christian West the place that Communism had previously played as an antagonist. Striving Together in Dialogue: A Muslim–Christian call to Reflection and Action, though published in 2001 is the fruit of discussions which had taken place over the past 10 years. As the introduction to the document suggests those discussions had included reflection on “sometimes divisive issues of religion, law and society, human rights, religious freedom, community rights, mission and da’wa and communal tensions” (WCC 2001). Increasingly the discussion between Christians and Muslims had therefore focused on issues of practical living rather than theological differences. As mentioned above the WCC’s increasingly practical involvement with the problematic situation in Israel/Palestine, which has an interreligious aspect, although that is not the primary aspect of the conflict, also had the corollary that relations with official Jewish groups became much more distant. As regards the Vatican, although the Catholic Church is hugely interested in social concerns, these have tended to be the responsibility of Councils such as that for Justice and Peace rather than the PCID.

The twenty-first century The turn of the millennium marked a new, and perhaps more conservative, era for interreligious relations in both the Roman Catholic Church and the World

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Council of Churches. This was signaled by the publication of the previously mentioned Declaration Dominus Iesus whose full title includes “On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church” under the auspices of the Congregation of the Doctrine for the Faith. Although concerned with a wider area of interest than interreligious dialogue, with some of its most controversial statements being addressed to non-Catholic Christians, it has had a major impact on the perception of Catholic attitudes to non-Christian religions. It is widely believed to have substantially qualified the Vatican II statement that “the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator” (Vatican 1964: 16), by insisting that such salvation must be through Christ (even if unacknowledged) rather than through the religion to which a person adheres. The criticism the document received did however lead to a qualification later that year made by Pope John Paul II himself, namely: “All who seek God with a sincere heart, including those who do not know Christ and his Church, contribute under the influence of grace to the building of this kingdom.”7 None the less the climate fostered by Dominus Iesus seems to have contributed to the overt criticism made by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2001 of the Jesuit theologian Jacques Dupuis for his book Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism (1999), which was one of the more unhappy recent episodes in recent Vatican politics. Perhaps in some sense the WCC’s twenty-first century parallel to Dominus Iesus (though the document has a very different purpose and focus) was the document Ecumenical considerations for dialogue and relations with people of other religions (WCC 2003) which was published in 2003. Like Dominus Iesus these “Considerations” reflect on the question of salvation, though perhaps more agnostically than does Dominus Iesus. But the affirmation on salvation set out in Ecumenical Considerations is one of the most striking and dramatic parts of the document: Salvation belongs to God. We therefore dare not stand in judgement of others. While witnessing to our own faith, we seek to understand the ways in which God intends to bring God’s purposes to their fulfilment. Salvation belongs to God. We therefore feel able to assure our partners in dialogue that we are sincere and open in our wish to walk together towards the fullness of truth. Salvation belongs to God. We therefore claim this hope with confidence, always prepared to give reason for it, as we struggle and work together with others in a world tom apart by rivalries and wars, social disparities and economic injustices (WCC 2003: para 17).

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It is worth noticing how the theological statements here are interwoven with the classic WCC commitment to striving for peace and justice. Ecumenical Considerations refers to itself as being a successor document to the 1979 Guidelines (mentioned above). It is explicitly subtitled: “Taking stock of 30 years of dialogue and revisiting the 1979 Guidelines” (WCC 2003). However it is interesting to note the shift that Ecumenical Considerations refers to within its own text: More than ever, we sense a growing need not just for dialogue with people of other faiths but for genuine relationships with them. Increased awareness of religious plurality, the potential role of religion in conflict, and the growing place of religion in public life present urgent challenges that require greater understanding and cooperation among people of diverse faiths (WCC 2003: para. 3).

This focus on “genuine relationships” rather than simply dialogue marks out the path that the WCC has chosen to tread over the past decade. As with the Vatican, the beginning of the twenty-first century has seen a rather more conservative climate reflected in the work of interreligious dialogue at the WCC. The WCC’s major interreligious theological project of 2002– 2014 was addressed not to the adherents of other religions, but to members of the churches themselves. It was not a theology of interreligious relations but rather an exploration of how “Christian ‘self-understanding’ or Christian ‘identity’ were affected by ‘religious plurality’ or a ‘multi-religious world’ ” (again both terms were used). Initially a working group was convened which met twice (in October 2002 and October 2003). This was the current author’s first experience of engagement with the WCC. The meetings interestingly involved not only Christian interreligious specialists, but also those linked to mission and to Faith and Order concerns. Out of this working group, there came a paper entitled “Religious plurality and Christian self-understanding” (WCC 2006). The paper sought to explore how the themes of hospitality and kenosis8 in Christian theology lent themselves to interreligious engagement. Significantly the paper was not officially accepted by the Central Committee in 2005, the WCC’s key governing body. Though it was later distributed and used as a resource paper at the WCC’s ninth Assembly in Porto Alegre (hence its 2006 dating); it is notable that the introductory blurb for the website version refers at least twice to the “controversial” nature of the work. The staff of the interreligious department were requested by the WCC’s governing bodies to revisit the work and take it forward in a slightly different direction. A first step

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in this was a series of “religion specific” consultations which explored Christian self understanding in the context of Islam (2008), Buddhism (2009), Judaism (2009), Hinduism (2011), Indigenous Religions (2012). The papers from several of these meetings were published in issues of the WCC journal Current Dialogue. The reflections from these meetings then fed into a process that took place between 2012–2014 and resulted in the document Who do we say that we are? Christian identity in a multi-religious world which was submitted to, and accepted by the WCC’s Central Committee in July 2014. (At the time of writing this chapter the material is not publicly available, however, it will be published in various formats in early 2015.) This document was rather different in style and content to the earlier “Religious plurality” paper (WCC 2006). Taking the Christian doctrine of the Trinity as its starting point (the Trinity has been explored by some as a model of unity in diversity, and thus a possible paradigm for interreligious engagement, see Jukko 2007) it asked, through a number of key Christian doctrines (Creator, Christ, Spirit, Bible, Church, Eschatology), how dialogue with other religions deepened Christian self-understanding and led to new discoveries and insights. The reception process for this document will surely take most of the rest of the current decade. Of course, the first decade of the twenty-first century was marked by the experience of 11 September 2001 which undoubtedly reshaped the interreligious map and profoundly affected both the Roman Catholic Church and the WCC. Relations with Islam became a new priority for both organizations. It is sad therefore that in the early years of the decade both the PCID and the WCC’s interreligious department lost key staff members who were internationally respected scholars of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations. Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, the much loved and respected long term Secretary and then President of the PCID, also with years of experience as a White Father working in North Africa, was moved to become Papal Nuncio in Egypt. The suspicion was that he was both too liberal and too pro-Islam to be the head of the PCID in those years in which the conservative voices in the Vatican apparently became preeminent. Tariq Mitri, a Lebanese Orthodox who held the Christian-Muslim portfolio at the WCC, was suddenly appointed to the Lebanese government and resigned his WCC post to return to the political service of his country. The tensions between Catholic Christianity and the Muslim world were exacerbated by an address given by Pope Benedict XVI in Regensburg, Germany, in September 2006 which, quoting the fourteenth century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus was perceived by many Muslims to contain unwarranted criticism of Islam (Benedict 2006). Commenting on the relationship between

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religion and violence the Emperor had said, on the question about the relationship between religion and violence: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached” (Benedict 2006). There was widespread condemnation of the Pope’s remarks in many Muslim countries. Among the Muslim critiques of the Pope’s remarks was a letter written by thirty-eight Muslim scholars in October 2006. When this letter appeared to have been ignored by the Vatican it was followed a year later, in October 2007, by a much longer letter signed by 138 Muslim scholars (the numerical link between the two letters was deliberate) which has now become known as A Common Word (ACW 2007). Both the Vatican and the WCC have engaged seriously with A Common Word (see Pratt’s chapter herein for a more detailed exposition on this theme). The WCC’s reflection on the letter was initially offered through a consultation process “Learning to Explore Love Together” (WCC 2008), and then through the consultation referred to above on Islam held in 2008 which included Catholic and Orthodox as well as Protestant scholars. Indeed, one of the most detailed reflections on the Catholic response to A Common Word was offered at the WCC consultation and later appeared in the WCC journal Current Dialogue (Borrmans 2013). It is probably true that the relationship between the Vatican and the leadership of the Muslim world did not recover for the rest of the pontificate of Pope Benedict. Certainly the Vatican relationship with Al Azhar was soured leading eventually to a suspension of the bilateral dialogue, though this was also partly due to the perceived criticism of Muslim authorities the Pope issued in January 2011 after attacks on Christians in Egypt. More recently, the Vatican has become involved in a new multi-state initiative (Saudi Arabia, Austria, Spain, with The Holy See as a “Founding Observer”), largely led and funded by Saudi Arabia, known as the King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID) currently based in Vienna. A further major engagement on the part of the WCC with Islam took place in November 2010 at a consultation in Geneva jointly organized by the WCC, the Royal Jordanian Aal Al Bayt Institute and the World Islamic Call Society (WICS) under the title “Transforming Communities: Christians and Muslims Building A Common Future.”9 Its focus was on the importance of ChristianMuslim cooperation for the good of their societies. One direct result of this consultation was a visit to Nigeria in May 2012 by the WCC and Muslim leaders out of which the development of a joint center to monitor incidents of religiousbased violence is continuing.

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Quo vadis? The involvement of the Libyan-based WICS in WCC meetings is a salutary reminder that the relationship between the WCC and the Muslim world is inevitably affected by shifts and changes in that world. The “wooing” of WICS as a potential interreligious dialogue partner for the WCC came to an abrupt end in 2011 with the Arab spring and the radical changes in Libya and other parts of the Arab world. This was the case for the Vatican as well, which over the previous few years had also been seeking to build relationships with WICS. The events of the Arab spring have meant that interreligious engagement between Christians and Muslims both globally and in the Middle East can feel like an adventure whose rules are constantly being rewritten. It not only affects practical engagement between Christians and Muslims but also the theological underpinning of that engagement. A previous colleague of mine once commented that the lived negative experience of many Christian minorities is affecting our theology of interreligious engagement. This appears to be true both for the Vatican where the interventions of the current President of the PCID Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran on behalf of the Middle Eastern Christian minorities attacked by so-called “Islamic State” suggest a new direction for the work of that Council (Erasmus 2014) and for the WCC, where ChristianMuslim engagement was increasingly affected by the events in Iraq in JulyAugust 2014 as well as by the desire to express solidarity with Christians in Pakistan (regarding the employment of “blasphemy laws”), Malaysia (the “Allah controversy”10), and India (the rise of extremist Hindu ideologies). The deteriorating situation in Israel/Palestine also continues to affect the engagement of both Vatican and WCC with Jewish organizations. We wait to see what the “Francis factor” will mean for the Catholic Church in this respect. It will undoubtedly affect the WCC as well. One specific and significant example of recent collaboration between the WCC and the Vatican has been in the production of a short document (working also in collaboration with the World Evangelical Alliance) called “Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World: Recommendations for Conduct” (WCC 2011): it succinctly sets out the criteria under which “Christian witness” (the word “Evangelism” is deliberately not used) can be carried out in the contemporary world. It includes some gentle, but clear, statements about the need for full religious freedom. Launched in June 2011, its comparative popularity11 and already quite widespread use witnesses not least to the importance of working ecumenically in terms of engagement with people of other faiths.

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I began this chapter with a brief appreciative comment about my experience at a WCC staff member at the PCID’s fiftieth anniversary celebrations. That was the day that a new PCID document on interreligious engagement was launched. Called Dialogue in Truth and Charity (PCID 2014), it feels rather different in scope and focus when compared with the 1980s document Dialogue and Mission and the 1990s Dialogue and Proclamation. It is still in the early days of its process of reception. Significantly, it appears to focus first and foremost on the pastoral needs of Christian communities in multi-religious contexts. My appreciation of the links between the WCC and the Vatican in the field of our respective interreligious work has led to my desire to mark appropriately the fiftieth anniversary of Nostra Aetate in October 2015, reflecting on its influence on Christians outside the Catholic fold. It is however perhaps telling of the present climate that the likely way the WCC will mark that anniversary will be through a conference exploring “Fundamentalism” in world religions and the hope that fundamentalism can be engaged through dialogue. Such is the mark of where we are at the end of 2014.

Notes Preface 1 2

On details of the event and its declaration, see www.saudi-us-relations.org/ articles/2008/ioi/080719-madrid-declaration.html. Details of the Dialogue Institute can be found on its website: www.jesdialogue.org.

Chapter 2 1

2

3

On the issue of multifaith societies in various Western nations (the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States, New Zealand, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Germany), see the Studies in Interreligious Dialogue special edition on “Multifaith Societies” (25:1), guest edited by Halafoff and Hedges (2015). Professor Perry Schmidt-Leukel argues that someone wishing to burn down a house will use petrol not water and that, similarly, to be used to justify both nonviolence and violence that religious traditions must have both “petrol” and “water” elements. That is to say, the resources and potential for both reside within many, if not all, religious traditions. Terms such as “fundamentalist”, “radical”, “moderate”, etc. though widely used, are deeply problematic usages in terms of their implications (see Hedges 2015).

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4 5

I am not arguing through silence that Islam has not produced such a perspective. I have not yet begun to explore Muslim thinkers on this issue. A parallel telling of this story is found also in Q. 5:27-31. A parallel telling of this story is found also in Q. 7:59-64; 11:25-49; 23:23-30, etc. Of particular interest is the qur’anic notion that humanity was once one community until God sent prophets to them (Q. 2:213; 10:19). Less clear Qur’an parallels may be found in 28:38; 40:36-37. According to the Hebrew Bible (Gen. 17:18-21) and the New Testament (Gal. 4:21-31), only one of Abraham’s sons inherits the covenantal promise, though this distinction does not appear in the Qur’an. Divine inclusivity with respect to the

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Notes progeny of Abraham only adheres with the fourth generation beginning with the sons (not daughter) of Jacob. God does inform Noah that the world will be destroyed, but Noah’s appearance is quite brief relative to the ongoing biblical narrative, unlike Abraham and many subsequent characters deriving from his family. The term “Israel” is not to be confused in this writing with the modern nation state of the same name. In Jewish parlance, Israel refers to a community of people deriving from the patriarch Jacob, grandson of Abraham, whose name is changed in the Hebrew Bible to Israel (Gen. 32:239-30; 35:10). The modern nation-state called Israel is officially the “State of Israel” (medinat yisra’el) meaning the modern state for the people called Israel. So too, in Jewish parlance, is the land (not the modern state) called the Land of Israel (eretz yisra’el) and the peoplehood of Jews, the People of Israel (‘am yisra’el). No reason is provided in the Hebrew Bible for God’s having chosen Abraham except in later layers that serve as a kind of internal exegesis (cf. Gen. 26:3-5). Reasons for his extraordinary status as God’s chosen are provided, however, in post-Hebrew Bible scriptures (Rom. 4; Gal. 3; Q. 6:75-79; 37:83-99; Babylonian Talmud Yoma 28a; Avodah Zarah 14b). The sins of Israel is a common biblical motif virtually throughout, from that of the Golden Calf in Exodus 32 to the numerous sins of Israel that draw so many laments from the biblical prophets. See also Amos 3:4 and the many references in Rabbinic literature (Shabbat 88a; Avodah Zarah 2b; Mekhilta bahodesh, parsha A [on Ex. 19:2], etc.). See also Q. 2:124; 5:12-14; 13:25; 24:55. The tension between condemning covenanted chosenness on the one hand while claiming elite status on the other reflects the tension between the ideal of theology and the real of politics and social relations. The early Muslim community was beleaguered and discredited by various groups, so it would be natural to claim in response that loyalty to the new religious community brought its own divine merits (Firestone 2011b: 410). “Jews” here refers to the adherents of post-biblical Judaism. Whereas “Israel” traditionally refers to the People of Israel from the biblical period to today, “Jews” refers to the community of Israel that survived the destructions of the Jerusalem Temple and practice post-biblical forms of Jewish culture and religion. See also Avot deRabbi Nathan ch. 44; Mekhilta deRabbi Yishmael Beshalach 3; Bereshit Rabbah 1:4, etc. As mentioned above, this literature often expresses some ambivalence about the chosen nature of Israel in relation to other peoples and God’s universality. Post-scriptural exegesis changes these in response to the interaction and claims of the other traditions. Jewish interpreters may soften their exclusivist perspective, for

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example, while Muslim interpreters can express an exclusivism that is not easy to support from a reading of the basic thrust of the Qur’an as a whole. The Hebrew Bible provides the names of many tribal gods that seem to exist in exclusive relationship with their worship communities in a manner that parallels the exclusive relationship of YHWH with Israel. For a small sampling, see Num. 21:29; 1 Sam. 5:1-5; 1 Kings 11:5; 2 Kings 23:13. The god of the inhabitants of the city of Shekhem was even called “El-Brit” (or Ba’al-Brit), the “god of the covenant” (or “master of the covenant” Judg. 9:4, 46). Approximately eleventh through fifteenth centuries. Hame’iri’s writings are found in his twenty volume Talmudic commentary known as the Beit Ha-Bechirah (Hame’iri 1965), which has not been translated. For studies of his positions on other religions, see Halbertal (2002, 2005), Katz (1952–1953), Urbach (1980), Blidstein (1980–1981). A helpful survey in English of the halakhic implications of Hame’iri’s perspective toward non-Jews has been posted online by David Goldstein (2002). Nicholas of Cusa has been rediscovered fairly recently as a dialogician, though he has been the subject of inquiry for his political thought as well (Sigmund 1963). Of particular interest for this paper are the works of Inigo Bocken (1998, 2005) and Valkenberg (2011). Bellitto et al. (2004), Levy et al. (2014), and the “Cusanus Portal” (http://www.cusanus-portal.de/). Dialogue was a well-known literary form in the Middle Ages, developed by Plato and used by some Jews as well as Christians and Muslims in theological and philosophical works. In the Middle Ages, those works were usually polemical in which the dialogue form was constructed in order to put forth (or prove) a particular position. Cusanus used the form as well, though he seems to have been open to what we today would consider positive interreligious dialogue. Literally, “star-worshipers” (‘ovdey kokhavim). The term for idolater fluctuates between various manuscripts and may appear also as ‘ovdey gillulim (“stone-worshipers”) or goyim (“[non-Jewish] nations”). This restriction on greeting finds a direct parallel in Islam and Christianity. See, for example, Siddiqi (n.d.: 3:1183); 2 John 1:10, and its Christian exegeses. See note 21. “Seven commandments were decreed upon the children of Noah: [establishing courts of] law, [refraining from] cursing God, idolatry, adultery, shedding blood, robbery, and eating the flesh cut from a living animal” (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 56a, Tosefta 9:4). “All who accept and take care to carry out the seven commandments are considered righteous Gentiles and have a place in the World to Come—vayesh lahem chelek la’olam haba” (Maimonides n.d.: 378). The following analysis is based largely on the work of Halbertal. That is, self-restricting by establishing moral-ethical limits.

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There were three symposia held from 10 to 12 June, 8 to 10 August, 10 to 12 October at San Diego State University 2014. “Pseudo-Knowledge” is the term I have adopted from Kevin Reinhardt (2003). One publication dealing with the subject is available on line at: http://www. jasserauda.net/new/pdf/kamil_fiqh_alaqalliyaat.pdf. Bat Yeor (2005) and Oriana Fallaci (2002) are just two examples. The cover of the book lists the contributors as “A Group of Saudi Scholars and Intellectuals.” Allam eventually left the Church, stating that the Pope was too soft in his stance towards Islam (Speciale 2013). The Institute of Islamic and Arabic Studies in America (IIASA) held three symposia from 1993 to 1995 and published the proceedings in three volumes. (Proceedings of the First/Second/Third Symposium of the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America (Fairfax: IIASA, 1993, 1994, 1995). In like manner, the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) held a summer conference on Qur’an and Hadith, discussing, inter alia, interreligious discourse. The Institute also published Interreligious Dialogue: A Guide for Muslims, by Muhammad Shafiq and Mohammed Abu-Nimer (2007).

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Using the term “trans-religious” indicates that there is contact, communication, or co-praxis across religious boundaries but that the boundaries themselves may be fluid or flexible on the one hand and that the relation between the involved religious traditions may be unstable and asymmetric on the other hand. It may further reflect that the contact across religious boundaries is carried out by groups or individuals at the margins of the traditions and that the people involved may highlight other identities alongside religious affiliation such as gender, culture, and sexuality. Q. 4:34: “Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then, if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great” (Pickthall and Pickthall 1984). 1 Tim. 2:8-15: “8 I desire, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument; 9 also that the women should dress

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themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing, not with their hair braided, or with gold, pearls, or expensive clothes, 10 but with good works, as is proper for women who profess reverence for God. 11 Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. 12 I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve; 14 and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. 15 Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty” (New Revised Standard Version). Editor’s Note: biblical scholarship has shown that this passage, like several other parts of the Pauline corpus which seem misogynistic, are not actually part of Paul’s own writings and so could be challenged on these grounds. Of course, such biblical scholarship is not generally known to lay persons, while most church institutions accept them as part of the canon despite this problem. Readers are referred to: Hooker (2008: 27–31, 147–52) and Furnish (1979: 84–114).

Chapter 6 1

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Without reliable census data, it is difficult to give precise figures. These different figures are sourced from Colunga (2008), Lalasz (2006) and the World Population Review (2014). There is a considerable literature on this, as well as numerous media reports; for some discussion, see Angaye (2002), Ostien (2009), Salawu (2010), and Meagher (2013). Possible government initiatives to remedy this situation will be addressed later in the paper. The most significant qur’anic verses in this context are: Sura Ta’ha: 130 (Q. 20:130); Sura Ghafir: 77 (Q. 40:77); Sura Al-An’Am: 108 (Q. 6:108); Sura Ash-Shura: 43 (Q. 26: 39–43); Sura Al-Ahqaf, 35 (Q. 46:35); Sura Al-Ma’arij: 5 (Q. 19:5); Sura Al-Muzzammil, 10 (Q. 73:10); Sura Az-Zumar: 10 (Q. 39:10); Sura Al-Anfal: 46 (Q. 8:46); Sura Hud, 115 (Q. 11:115); Sura Al-Baqarah: 190–193 (Q. 2:190–3); Sura Al-Nahl: 126 (Q. 16:126); Sura Al-Mumtahanah: 8, 9 (Q. 60:8, 9); Sura Al-Baqarah: 62—according to Ibn Abbas, this verse should not be misunderstood and given a wrong interpretation because this verse has been abrogated by Sura Al-Imran 85: “And whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers” (Q. 3: 85). These are quoted in full in Amuda and Lazim (2012: 52–4). Translations from the Qur’an in this chapter follow Al-Hilali and Khan (1996/1417). This section uses material already published in Amuda and Lazim (2012: 59–60 and 58), however, it was first developed in the conference paper which this article is based upon (read in absentia at the 2008 “Interfaith Dialogue in Modernity

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and Post-Modernity” Conference at the University of Winchester). It is, though, modified both from the initial conference paper and the 2012 article. 7 Jabir Ibn ‘Abd Allah reported that Prophet Muhammad stood up when a funeral procession was passing in front of him. A man said to him: “The dead man was a Jew.” He said: “Was not he a human being?” The man said: “Yes.” Then the Prophet said: “Every human being in Islam has a place and dignity” (which should be respected). 8 The main verse cited in this regard is: Invite mankind, O Muhammad to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Revelation and the Qur’an) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided (Sura An-Nahl: 125; Q. 16: 125). 9 For example: “Rabiah b. Rabi said: When we were with the Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) [i.e. Muhammad] on an expedition, he saw some people collected together over something and sent a man and said: see, what are these people collected around? This is not one with whom fighting should have taken place. Khalid b. al-Walid was in charge of the van; so he sent a man and said: Tell Khalid not to kill a woman or a hired servant” (Sunan Abu Dawud, vol. 2: 739). Again: “The Apostle of Allah (S.A.W) as saying … . Spare their children” (Sunan Abu Dawud, vol. 2: 739). Hasan (1984) notes a Hadith in which it is mentioned that one woman is killed during a conflict, apparently she is called for as she had previously killed a Muslim: “Aishah (R.A.) said: No woman of Banu Quraizah was killed except one. She was with me, talking and laughing on her back and belly [i.e. in extreme fits of laughter], while the Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) was killing her people with the swords. Suddenly a man called her name: Where is so-and so? She said: I asked: What is the matter with you? She said: I did a new act: She said: The man took her and beheaded her. She said: I will not forget that she was laughing extremely although she knew that she would be killed” (Sunnan Abu Dawud, 14: 2665). 10 This point largely follows an argument in Amuda and Lamiz (2012: 58), but again is derived from the original paper this chapter was based on, see note 7. 11 Examples include: Narrated Ibn ‘Umar (R.A): Allah’s Apostle (S.A.W.) set out for the ‘Umrah but the pagans of Quraish prevented him from reaching the Ka’ba. So, he slaughtered his sacrifice and got his head shaved at al-Hudaibiyah, and agreed with them that he would perform ‘Umra the following year and would not carry weapons except swords and would not stay in Mecca except for the period they allowed. So, the Prophet (S.A.W.) performed the ‘Umra in the following year and entered Mecca according to the treaty, and when he had stayed for three days, the pagans ordered him to depart, and he departed (Sahih Al-Bukhar, vol. 3: 539).

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Narrated Al-Hasan (Al-Basri): By Allah, Al-Hasan bin ‘Ali led large battalions like mountains against Mu’awiya. ‘Amr bin Al-As said (to Mu’awiya), “I surely see battalions which will not turn back before killing their opponents.” Mu’awiya who was really the best of the two men said to him, “O ‘Amr! If these and those and those killed these, who would be left with me for the jobs of the public, who would be left with me for their women, who would be left with me for their children?” Then Mu’awiya sent two Quraishi men from the tribe of ‘Abd-i-Shams called ‘Abdullah bin ‘Amir bin Kuraiz to Al-Hasan saying to them, “Go to this man (i.e. Al-Hasan) and negotiate peace with him and talk and appeal to him.” So, they went to Al-Hasan and talked and appealed to him to accept peace. Al-Hasan said, “We, the offspring of ‘Abdul Muttalib, have got wealth and people have indulged in killing and corruption (and money only will appease them).” They said to AlHasan, “Mu’awiya offers you so to accept peace.” Al-Hasan said to them, “But who will be responsible for what you have said?” They said, “We will be responsible for it.” So, whatever Al-Hasan asked they said, “We will be responsible for it for you.” So, Al-Hasan concluded a peace treaty with Mu’awiya. Al-Hasan (AL-Basri) said: I heard Abu Bakr saying, “I saw Allah’s Apostle (S.A.W) on the pulpit and Al-Hasan bin ‘Ali was by his side.” The Prophet (S.A.W) was looking once at the people and once at Al-Hasan bin ‘Ali saying. “This son of mine is a Saiyid (i.e. a noble) and may Allah make peace between two big groups of Muslims through him” (Sahih Al-Bukhar, vol. 3: 541–542). Narrated ‘Aisha (R.A.): Once Allah’s Apostle (S.A.W) heard the loud voices of some opponents quarrelling at the door. Once voices of some opponents quarrelling at the door. One of them was appealing to the other to deduct his debt and asking him to be lenient but the other was saying, “By Allah I will not do so.” Allah’s Apostle (S.A.W) went out to them and said, “Who is the one who was swearing by Allah that he would not do a favour?” That man said, “I am that person, O Allah’s Apostle! I will give my opponent whatever he wishes” (Sahih Al-Bukhar, vol. 3: 542). 12 A citation text for this would be Sahih Al-Bukhar, vol. 3, 543.

Chapter 7 1 2 3 4

An African Independent Church (AIC) reputedly the largest and the first to be admitted to the WCC in 1969. Interview with Kabegos, from South Kivu, former Student at the ISDR, 15 November 2007. All quotations from this source are the author’s own translations. Translation by author.

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Editor’s note: The practice of joint scriptural readings between the Abrahamic religions is also associated with the movement/ practice known as Scriptural Reasoning.

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Editor’s Note: In this chapter the term “interfaith” and “faith,” rather than “interreligious” and “religion” is used as it reflects the context of British church and interfaith discourse from which it comes. Editorial Note: Tower Hamlets is a London borough with a particularly high proportion of ethnic minority groups, and relatively economically disadvantaged. The 2011 UK Census gives the White population as 45.2 percent, compared to an average of 59.8 percent for London and 85.4 percent nationally, it also reports Islam has the largest religious grouping at 34.5 percent with Christianity at 27.1 percent, compared to 5.0 percent and 59.4 percent nationally. Economic indicators frequently place it among the most deprived in areas like unemployment and child poverty. Bradford is a post-industrial City in the North of England, again with high populations of ethnic minority groups and areas of relative poverty, and was a site of major riots along with some other cities in the region in 2001. Demographically the white population is 67.5 percent, and Muslims represent 24.7 percent of the overall population according to the 2011 Census. With over half a million people it is a major UK conurbation with some fairly wealthy areas, but some districts among the most economically disadvantaged according to various indicators. The primary research material herein is from three recorded interviews conducted by the author with the following people: Liz Firth (May 14, 2014), Alan Green (May 9, 2014), and Clare MacLaren (May 14, 2014). I mention the names of each participant as I cite them in the following text and so are not referenced further. Andrew Gilligan is a well-known British journalist. At the time referred to by Alan Green he was writing and blogging on Tower Hamlets regularly. A coalition of community groups, activists, and trade unions. A group coming out of the EDL that began in the Spring of 2014 aggressively visiting Mosques during prayer times and handing out army issue Bibles in an attempt to provoke reaction (see Brown 2014).

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A fatwa is a religious and legal opinion, ruling, or decree based on Islamic law issued, orally or in writing, by a prominent religious leader and expert in Islamic jurisprudence, based on four sources: the Qur’an; the practice of Prophet Muhammad and his successors; the power of reason; and, consensus. In Shia Islam, once a fatwa is issued by a marja-i taqlid (source of emulation) or Grand Ayatollah, it is considered a religious obligation by his followers and disregarding it constitutes a serious religious offense (Mousavian 2013: 147–8). NPT entered into force in 1970 to inhibit the spread of nuclear weapons and soon became the most widely accepted arms control agreement in the world. NPT consists of three pillars: non-proliferation; disarmament; and, the right to peaceful use of nuclear energy. 190 states are signatories to the Treaty; only Israel, India, and Pakistan have never been signatories, while North Korea withdrew in 2003. NPT member-states are classified in two categories: nuclear-weapon states (NWS) consisting of the US, Russia, China, France, and the UK, and non-nuclearweapon states (NNWS). The Treaty obligates the five NWS, under Article VI, to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament … .” The NNWS undertake not to acquire or produce nuclear weapons. However, Article IV of the NPT provides the NNWS with an “inalienable right” to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. This right can be fully exercised in accordance with an individual safeguards agreement, concluded between each NNWS and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Pakistan also possesses an indigenous nuclear energy program but is not a signatory to the NPT. Other Muslim states such as the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Egypt also have national nuclear energy programs which are not yet fully operational or with an indigenous enrichment component (see IAEA 2013). Also see Rasa News (2012, translation by author): “Use of nuclear weapons are not in accordance with any religious principles or international laws of conflict: Our power is in asymmetric war not atomic bomb,” which is a report from the Scientific committee discussing Ayatollah Khamenei’s fatwa in Qom, 2012. For a discussion of the concept of taqiyya, or “pious dissimulation,” and its misrepresentation in the Western discourse on Iran’s nuclear issue, see Cole (2012b). Some have even denied the very existence of such a fatwa; see for example Savyon and Carmon’s MEMRI Report, 2011. For a rebuttal of the MEMRI’s claim see Cole (2012a). The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction, also known as the

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Notes Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), entered into force in 1997, almost a decade after the end of the Iran-Iraq War. For more examples of the different practical levels of interaction between religion and international law see Baderin (2009: 654–5). For example, in 2012, Ali Akbar Salehi, the Iranian Foreign Minister, declared Iran’s willingness to transform the fatwa “into a legally binding, official document in the UN,” in order “to secularize what many in the West see as a purely religious decree” (Salehi 2012; Belfast Telegraph 2013; Mousavian 2013: 147). For a discussion on the more technical legal question of precisely what mechanism could be used to translate the Supreme Leader’s edict into a legally binding international obligation on Iran, see Joyner (2013). Article X of the NPT allows any member state to withdraw from the Treaty “if it decides that extraordinary events … have jeopardized [its] supreme interests” merely by giving a notice three months in advance, which is what North Korea did in 2003. Taqiuddin al-Nabhani (1909–1977) was the founder of the pan-Islamic political organization Hizb ut-Tahrir or the Liberation Party. Although individuals from extremist groups (such as Nasr ibn Hamad al-Fahd or even Osama bin Laden) have issued defenses of WMDs, these have been rarely cited in the Muslim discourse on the topic (Ditto 2013b). Here I am referring to Muslim calls to nuclear non-proliferation. As we will see below Christian approaches have mostly been focused on nuclear disarmament. Also see Asad (1999, 2003) for an alternative view on the relation between religion, nation-state, and secularism, especially in the Middle East and the Muslim world. Catholic teaching on nuclear deterrence can be found in the documents of the Second Vatican Council and in subsequent statements by Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI (Holy See 2011). Also see a letter by the Christian leaders in the UK to The Times (September 20, 2014), titled “Future of Trident” in which they declare it “unacceptable that British citizens should be persuaded that their security depends on a credible threat to kill millions of innocent people. Our faith traditions reject the notion that reliance on the threat of mass destruction could ever be right. We believe the Government should cancel the replacement of Trident. The £100 billion saved should be diverted to combating poverty at home and overseas; in providing affordable homes; investing in education and the NHS [the UK’s National Health Service].” The letter has been signed by Stephen Cottrell, Bishop of Chelmsford, Sally Foster-Fulton Convener of the Church of Scotland’s Church and Society Council, Kenneth Howcroft, President of the Methodist Conference, Malcolm McMahon, Archbishop of Liverpool, Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales and Bishop of Llandaff, Juliet Prager, Deputy Recording Clerk, Quakers in Britain, and John Proctor, General Secretary, The United Reformed Church.

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17 The WCC brings together churches of different denominations in more than 110 countries, representing over 500 million Christians and including most of the world’s Orthodox churches, scores of Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist and Reformed churches, as well as many United and Independent churches including those in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East, and the Pacific. 18 Regrettably a discussion of the Jewish perspectives on nuclear weapons falls outside the scope of analysis in this chapter. For an example of Jewish views on nuclear weapons see Saperstein (1983); and Landes (1991). For a series of discussions on the nuclear danger in the context of Middle East politics see the special issue of the Israel–Palestine Journal, “Nuclear Free Zone in the Middle East, Realistic or Idealistic,” edited by Abu-Zayyad (2010).

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The excellent website of the PCID can be found at http://www.pcinterreligious.org. Some key documents can also be accessed via the formal Vatican website at http:// www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/interelg/index.htm. The word “ideologies” refers to the fact that when originally conceived, the WCC office was intended to engage also with Marxism, though this did not really work out in practice. In a co-written chapter on the Anglican understanding of interreligious relations, to appear in the Oxford Guide to Anglicanism edited by Mark Chapman and others, currently due to be published in 2015. The documentation from this meeting in Sigtuna has been poorly preserved, although some papers are available in the WCC archives. However, the key statement from the meeting is available online (Jewish-Christian Relations 1988, see also WCC 1988). The picture appears as the cover for the recent brochure of the PCID (n.d.). Recent issues of Current Dialogue are available free online at http://www. oikoumene.org/en/what-we-do/current-dialogue-magazine. There is also a page which links to Pro Dialogo at http://www.pcinterreligious.org/pro-dialogo-bulletinonline_123.html, though this requires a subscription to access the journal. John Paul II, General Audience 6 December 2000. Editor’s Note: A Greek term meaning “self-emptying,” used in classical Christology to denote the way that the Logos become incarnate as Jesus by voluntary “emptying” of its own divinity to assume human form. It refers also to a sense in which Christians may, in imitation of Christ, assume attitudes of humility (emptying of the ego) and is associated with spirituality.

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Details of this can be found on the following website: http://www. muslimsandchristians.net/. 10 A 2007 government decree in Malaysia initially stopped a publishing house from using “Allah” for the Christian God. This ban was overturned by the courts (2009), but was taken to the High Court which upheld the ban in 2014, and subsequently denied any appeal. This ruling bans any non-Muslims from using the term “Allah” to refer to God. It should be noted that “Allah” is simply the Arabic term for “the (God)” and has been used by Arabic speaking Jews and Christians since before the time of Islam, while it has been the standard usage in the Malay language for God by Christians for many centuries. The issue, ostensibly, seems to be that Muslims may be “tricked” or “misled” into converting to Christianity because they believe it also involves worship of “Allah”, this, however, masks a variety of largely political and ethnic tensions and disagreements. 11 The many different languages into which it has been translated witness to its considerable popularity.

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Index Abbas, Tahir 136 Abraham 2, 24, 28, 35–6, 117, 160, 188, 201, 202. See also prophet Abrahamic religions (concept) 33, 35, 51, 55, 123, 125, 132, 155, 161, 184, 191, 192, 208 Abu ‘Isa Muhammad ibn Harun al-Warraq 9 Abu-Nimer, Mohammed 65, 107, 113, 114–15 Adam/ Eve 24, 36, 88, 89, 205. See also prophet Afghanistan 21, 52, 158 African Traditional Religions 84, 92, 100, 101, 112 Al-Afghani, Jamal al-din 30 Al Azhar 70, 191, 198 Ali, Michael Nazir 135–6, 138, 140, 149 Ally, Shabir 63 American Muslim Council (AMC) 154, 155 Amnesty International 103, 106 Anglicanism (Church of England, Church of Scotland) 119, 129, 140, 141, 143, 144–5, 148, 149, 181–2, 186, 191, 211. See also specific individuals Appleby, Scott 99, 113, 114 Arab Spring 158, 199 Ariarajah, Wesley 190, 194 atheism/t 29, 52 Bahala, Jean-Bosco 106, 107, 108, 110, 111 Banyamulenge 101, 108–9, 111 Baptists 53, 151, 160–1, 162–4, 165, 181, 211. See also Protestantism; specific individuals Benedict XVI (Pope) 63, 118, 126–7, 161, 162, 178, 193, 197–8 Bhabha, Homi 27 Building Bridges (seminars) 117, 118–19, 132

Caliph(s) (Caliphate) 1, 5–7, 18. See also Ottoman Empire; Islamic State Caner, Ergun 62–3, 162 Christian-Muslim Theological Forum (Theologisches Forum ChristentumIslam) 117, 119–20, 132 clash of civilizations (thesis) (civilizational fault lines) 22, 84, 97, 137, 139, 142 A Common Word between Us and You (ACW) 4, 22, 63–4, 118, 120–33, 151, 160, 161–2, 163–4, 198 conflict/ war 18, 19, 21, 23, 27, 31, 40, 51, 55, 65, 66, 79, 83, 84–6, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101–4, 105, 106, 107–9, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114–15, 127, 130, 132–3, 135, 136, 137, 139, 142, 146, 151, 152, 156–7, 158, 161, 164, 167, 171, 174, 175, 179, 180, 183, 194, 195, 196, 198, 201, 206, 209. See also Israel–Palestine; peace; politics; terrorism chemical weapons in Iran/Iraq war 171 genocide 103, 104, 182 perception of (Judeo–)Christian confrontation with Islam 21, 51 weapons of mass destruction (WMD) 168–9, 175–6, 182 conversion 43, 53, 90–1, 92, 148, 149, 152. See also mission Cornille, Catherine 67 Council on American Muslim Relations (CAIR) 157–8, 161 covenant 35, 36, 37–8, 180, 201, 202, 203 crusades 21, 30, 56, 136, 160 crusader spirit 21 cultural complexity 75, 76 Danish cartoons controversy 161 David 24. See also prophet deen, 122 dhimmi (people of the book/ scripture) 1, 5, 117, 121

Index dialogue, interreligious (interfaith) 4, 8, 11, 12, 19, 22, 23, 31, 43, 48–9, 67, 72, 73, 74–7, 78–80, 95, 121, 124, 140, 141–8, 189–90. See also peace; specific individuals ecumenism 117, 128, 129, 148, 154, 158, 162, 199 wider, new (as bridge to interreligious relations) 128, 162, 186, 191, 193 Egnell, Helene 71–2 Egypt 18, 36, 58, 169, 175, 192, 198. See also Al Azhar Engineer, Ali Ashgar 107 English Defence League (EDL) 137–48 Esposito, John 159 evangelicals(ism) 26, 53, 62, 70, 129, 138, 143, 149, 151, 161–2, 199. See also specific individuals exclusivism/t 33, 38, 49, 53, 55, 202–3. See also inclusivism; pluralism extremism/t (fundamentalism/t, radical, used of religious beliefs) 31, 42, 43, 62, 107, 127, 129, 132, 136, 137, 139, 142, 158, 160, 184, 199, 200, 201, 210. See also terrorism Faith Matters 138, 140, 148 fatwa 59, 169, 170–4, 175, 209, 210 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI, USA) 153, 157 Fitzgerald, Michael 197 Fletcher, Jeannine Hill 71–2, 75, 77 freedom (liberty) of religion (no compulsion in religion) 88, 89, 90–1, 92, 124, 130, 162–3 gender feminism/t (including Muslim feminism/t) 68, 69, 71, 72–4, 76, 77–8, 80, 81, 140, 149 gender roles/ segregation/ power structures 23, 52, 58, 68, 69–74, 75, 76, 77, 81, 148 LGBT (sexual orientation) 30, 54, 71, 76, 139, 204 womens dialogue/ activism 67–82, 144–8 Germany 21, 117, 119, 197, 201

239

Gharbzadegi (Westoxification) 63 God/ Allah (deity) identity/difference of (Christian) God and (Islamic) Allah 24, 25, 199, 212 Ninety-Nine Names of God 24–5 Trinity 3, 9, 10, 24–5, 26, 42, 128, 129, 162, 197 Unity (oneness) 3, 38, 39, 87, 92, 123–4, 131, 197 Gomaa, Ali 175 Ground Zero Mosque 151–2 Gülen, Fettualh 22 Hadith 74, 86, 91, 95, 122, 123, 170, 204, 206–7 Hame’iri, Menachem 41, 45–8, 49, 203 Hassan, Riffat 69 Holocaust 19, 55 hospitality 31, 93, 128, 196 human rights 74, 110, 156, 161, 173, 194 Hutus 101, 103–4, 114 identity 19, 21, 27, 39, 44, 48, 49, 51, 66, 68, 81, 104, 121–2, 124, 132, 136, 138, 171, 196, 197 inclusivism/t 14, 49. See also exclusivism; pluralism International Court of Justice 167–8 Iran 21, 80, 169, 170–4, 183, 191, 192, 209, 210 islamicate 52, 56, 60 Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) 154–5, 158, 162, 163, 164 Islamic State (ISIS) 51, 157, 199. See also caliph Israel–Palestine (State of Israel) 19, 21, 28, 54, 56, 58–9, 62, 65, 157, 169, 183, 194, 199, 202, 209 Istanbul/ Constantinople/ Byzantium 13, 18, 21, 41, 43. See also Ottoman Empire; Turkey Jesus 2, 6, 24, 37, 57, 70, 71, 78, 79, 121, 122–3, 124–5, 128, 162, 190. See also prophet Christology (Son of God, Messiah, Incarnation) 3, 9, 10, 25, 26, 143, 149, 211

240

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crucifixion/ cross 3, 14, 24, 25, 28, 66 qur’anic/ Islamic teachings/ beliefs 3, 4, 5, 25, 26, 60, 66, 87 jihad 138, 159. See also conflict John Paul II (Pope) 55, 189, 193, 195, 210 Jordan 57, 63, 151, 161, 162, 198 Judaism. See also specific individuals supercessionism (fulfilment) 12, 28 trialogue (Muslim–Jewish–Christian dialogue/relations) 8, 20, 28, 47, 55–6, 66, 76, 121, 124, 160, 161, 164, 183, 191, 192 Khamenei, Ali (Ayatollah) 170 King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID) 198 King, Ursula 71 Leirvik, Oddbjørn 67 Libya 158, 199 Lumumba, Patrice 100, 102, 103 Lutheran (Martin Luther) 21, 80, 161, 191, 211 Madigan, Daniel 119, 127 Malaysia 17, 95, 199, 210 Maroy, Francois-Xavier 105, 111–12 Marranci, Gabriele 23 McAuliffe, Jane 57 McCarthy, Kate 53, 54 media 20, 30, 62, 83–4, 95, 137, 145, 153, 162, 165 Methodism/t 145, 155, 179–80, 181, 211. See also Protestantism mission/missionaries (evangelism, witness, Christian) 19, 22, 23, 27, 31, 102, 143, 155, 186, 187, 188–91, 193, 194, 199 Moses 24, 26, 180. See also prophet Mousavian, Hossein 170, 172 Muhammad 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 25, 28, 59, 70, 79, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 121–2, 123, 124, 149, 155, 161, 162, 174, 206, 209. See also prophet Christians views and attitudes 2–3, 6, 25, 26, 87, 155, 162

sunna (traditions, lifestyle, practice) 74, 92, 170, 209 multicultural/ism (multifaith societies) 22, 23, 31, 75, 139, 149, 150, 201 Muslim Brotherhood 21 Nation of Islam (NOI) 152–3 Nestorian Church 5, 7, 9, 11 Nicholas of Cusa (Cusanus) 8, 13–14, 41–3, 48–9, 203 Noah (Noahides) 24, 34, 45, 202, 203. See also prophet Oloyede, Ishaq 85, 93 orientalism/t 20, 23, 27, 29, 56 Orthodox Churches 18, 127, 191, 197, 211. See also specific individuals Ottoman Empire 18–19, 20, 21, 22, 30, 41, 43, 127, 152. See also Turkey; Istanbul Pact of ‘Umar 1, 5 Paden, John 84, 97, 113 Pakistan 17, 21, 23, 31, 52, 79, 146, 155, 169, 199, 209 Pato, L. L. 113 peace(-building/ making) (reconciliation) 8, 13, 23, 25, 58, 74, 84, 85, 87, 89, 92, 95, 96–7, 99, 101, 113, 114, 115, 121, 125, 127, 128, 129, 130, 145, 154, 156, 160, 161, 164, 168, 174, 177–8, 179, 180, 181, 182–3, 184, 193, 207, 209. See also conflict; politics interreligious dialogue’s role in peacebuilding 105–12, 113 Islam as religion of peace (mercy) 22, 30, 89, 161 pluralism 13, 14, 49, 54, 55, 59, 63, 75, 165, 194. See also exclusivism; inclusivism politics (geopolitics, government) 17–18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 27, 28–9, 31, 50, 54, 56, 58, 60, 63, 65, 67, 68, 70, 73, 76, 78, 84, 86, 91, 92, 93, 95, 96, 97, 100, 101, 102–4, 105, 107, 110–11, 112, 113, 114, 115, 132–3, 136, 137–8, 141, 152, 153, 157, 158, 161, 165, 168, 169, 170–1, 173, 176–7, 178, 179, 180, 181–2, 183, 192,

Index 193, 197, 202, 203, 205, 210, 211. See also conflict; peace; terrorism; specific countries colonial(ism)/ imperial(ism) (neo-, post-) 18, 21, 27, 74, 84, 85, 102, 103, 156 Islam replaces Communism as “enemy” 158–9, 194 poverty/ the poor 17, 54, 85, 93, 102, 105, 113, 145, 174, 178, 208, 210 prophet(s) 6, 24, 25, 26, 28, 36, 41, 87, 89, 125, 201, 202. See also specific individuals Protestantism 26, 27, 29, 101, 107, 153, 155, 158, 164. See also specific denominations Ramon Lull 8, 13 Reinhardt, Kevin 62, 204 religious literacy/ education (school, college, university, seminary) 22, 29, 31, 54, 56–8, 60, 62, 63, 64, 84, 85, 86, 88, 91, 93, 96, 97, 112, 119, 131, 147, 155, 156, 161, 162, 163, 165, 204, 206, 210 Roald, Anne Sofie 73–4 Roman Catholicism (Vatican) 24, 31, 55, 63–4, 70–1, 80, 101, 115, 126–7, 143, 144, 153–4, 158, 177–9, 181, 185, 186–90, 191–3, 194–5, 196, 197–8, 199–200, 210. See also specific individuals Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 189, 195 Francis factor (of Francis I, Pope) 199 Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID) 126, 185, 186–7, 189, 191, 193, 197, 199, 200, 211 Texts: Dialogue and Proclamation 189–90, 200; Dominus Iesus 189, 195; Lumen Gentium 24, 188, 192; Nostra Aetate 127, 154, 185, 189 Vatican II (Second Vatican Council) 26, 127, 153–4, 185, 188–9, 191, 195, 210 Sachedina, Abdul Aziz 55 Sacks, Jonathan 51 Samartha, Stanley 190, 193–4

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Saudi Arabia 23, 57–9, 63, 64, 192, 198, 204 scripture Bible (Gospel, specific texts) 2, 3–4, 6, 11, 12, 26, 34, 35–7, 38, 42, 45, 57, 74, 77–80, 105, 106, 121, 122–3, 125, 149, 179, 180, 188, 197, 201, 202, 203, 204–5, 208 comparative role of Bible and Qur’an 26 exegesis/ hermeneutics 34, 38, 54, 74, 122, 139, 149, 202, 203 Qur’an 2, 3–4, 5, 11–12, 14, 26, 34, 37, 38–9, 54–5, 57, 58, 59, 60, 65, 66, 69, 73, 74, 77–80, 84, 86, 87, 89, 92, 95, 121–2, 123–4, 125, 130, 149, 151, 152, 159, 161, 163, 164, 170, 174, 183, 201, 202, 204, 205, 206 Scriptural Reasoning (and joint reading of scriptures) 76, 77–80, 164, 165, 208 Torah 26, 37–8, 121, 122–3 secular(ism) 19, 27, 28–9, 30, 56, 70, 75–6, 77, 81, 143, 148, 149, 167, 170, 172, 176, 177, 179, 182, 183–4, 210. See also atheism Sharia (Islamic law) 29, 57, 61, 83–4, 87, 88–91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 138, 170, 174–5 Shia 80, 170–4, 191, 209. See also specific countries and individuals shifting third 27–9, 149, 183 shirk, 24, 26, 87 SIPA (Symposium for International Peace in Africa) 100, 107–10, 112, 113 Sufi 22, 183. See also Gülen Sunni 31, 79, 170, 174, 175, 191, 192. See also throughout, and specific countries and individuals Swidler, Leonard 64, 65 Tauran, Jean-Louis 126, 199 terrorism (war on terror) 19–20, 23, 56, 62, 73, 91, 127, 137, 151, 157, 158, 159, 162, 176, 182. See also conflict; Islamic State; peace; politics 7/7 bombings 23, 141 9/11 18, 19, 30, 52, 56, 63, 135, 151–2, 153, 154, 156–60, 164, 165 Boko Haram 88, 91 Timothy I (Patriarch) 5–6, 7

242

Index

tolerance 14, 22, 23, 54, 83, 85, 86–95, 96 trans-religious 76, 77–80, 204 Turkey/ Turk 14, 18–19, 21, 22, 23, 29, 52, 55, 127, 163, 169, 209. See also Ottoman Empirel Istanbul Tutsis 101, 103–4, 108–9, 114 Tutu, Desmond 102, 173 umma 18, 23 United Nations (UN) 111, 154, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 177, 184, 210 Unite Against Fascism (UAF) 144, 145

Villa-Vicencio, C. 110–11, 113 Warren, Rick 164 Webb, Alexander Russell 152 Williams, Rowan 118, 119, 129–31, 161 World Council of Churches (WCC) 153–4, 182, 185–6, 187–8, 190–1, 192–3, 193–7, 198, 199–200 Baar Statement, 190–1 World Parliament of Religions (1893) 72 Parliament of the World’s Religions (1999) 182