A New Dialogue between Islam & Christianity by Rashid Shaz

Calling for a New Dialogue between Islam and Christianity (transcript of the speech delivered at Crans Montana Forum, Monaco, 2008)

By H.E. Dr Rashid Shaz, ISESCO Ambassador & Editor, futureislam.com Email: futureislam@gmail.com                                And argue not with the people of the Book, unless it be in a polite way, except with those who do wrong; and say (to them): We believe in what has been sent down to us as also what has been sent down to you; for our God and your God is One, and to Him we submit.(29: 46)

His Royal Highness, Excellencies and Holinesses, Ladies and Gentlemen!

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Not doubt God honored each of them in a specific manner; tilk arrusl fazzalna .. wa rafa badhahum darajat. To some God chose to speak, some was called as the word of God and yet another was honored to be the seal of the prophet. However, we Muslims who consider ourselves as Ummah Muslimah or nation of submitters, our religious identity stems from the collective identity of all the prophets of God. In fact the prophet Mohammed came to establish no new Ummah but to revive the religion of Abraham – millate abikum ibraheem huwa sammakum ul muslemeen – who was a great submitter, a Muslim per se. In the Quran we come across a beautiful Abrahamic prayer wherein he prays: ‘O Lord make me a submitter, a Muslim and raise from among our children a nation of submitters unto you – ummatam muslimatal lak. And when Jacob was on his deathbed he asked his sons whom would they worship after him. They affirmed: we will worship thy God and the God of your fathers – of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac – the only

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As a Muslim I am rather perplexed to enter into any formal dialogue with Christians. For a Muslim-Christian dialogue entails that the representatives of Muhammad and of Jesus find themselves on the opposing sides of the table, each party pleading the case of his spiritual mentor. Put simply, we begin with the assumption that Muhammad and Jesus belong to two different and opposing camps. As a Muslim who believes both in Jesus and Muhammad, one and at the same time, and who belongs to both the camps, it is not possible for me to speak for Muhammad alone and yet remain a Muslim. Today, when I stand here presumably to represent the Muslim side, I want to make it clear that representing the Muslim side does not mean that I have forsaken Jesus or withdrawn my claim on him who is integral to my faith. The Quran enjoins upon us not to differentiate or give preference to one prophet over the other – la nufarrequ bain ahdimminhum.

one God whom we have submitted ourselves to (2: 133). In the Quranic worldview, the term Ummah Muslima or the Muslim nation encompasses all the prophets and their rightly guided followers, the nations of Abraham, of Jacob and Moses and of Jesus and Muhammad. It is altogether a different story that today we Muslims appear to have patented the word Muslim which simply means submission per se. Having been placed in the same camp and given a common national identity to all those who follow Abraham and his rightly guided progeny, isn’t it a misnomer to call a Christian-Muslim encounter a dialogue?

In the hey day of Islam when prophet Mohammed lived amongst us, we never considered the Jews and the Christians as the religious other. Instead, they were taken as our natural allies, as people of the book while the non-believing Meccans despite their kinship to the Prophet and his followers were dubbed as kuffar, the religious other. In Surah Haj verse 40 one is astonished to find that monasteries, churches and synagogues, are placed at par with the mosques, and are mentioned in the same breath, wherein together, we are told ‘God’s name is commemorated in abundance:                

This sense of religious pluralism that pervaded early Islam helped flourish a full-fledged religious life of other believing nations under Islam. History records the prophet’s treaty with the Christians of Najran which guaranteed the protection of their religious life and preservation of religious institutions. And when Muaz was sent to Yemen prophet instructed him not to disrupt the religious life of the Jews. In early Islam, socializing with the people of the book was encouraged as the Quran openly declared their food lawful for Muslims and Muslim food lawful for them. Muslims were even allowed to enter into marital relations with the Jewish and Christian girls. The Christians under early Islam were, so to speak, a loving and affectionate nation

enjoying a general goodwill of the Muslim people, as endorsed by the Quran:

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        

and you will find the nearest in love to the believers (Muslims) those who say: "We are Christians."

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In 1965 when Vatican II declared that salvation outside the Church was possible and the pontifical council was entrusted to engage other believing nations in a dialogue, Muslims

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This then is the ideological stance and historical background of any future ChristianMuslim dialogue. Had there been no crusades, no colonialism and no war on terror which many Muslims view as a modern-day crusade, I’m sure, the world would have been much a better place today and the two ideologically allied nations would not have needed any dialogue to mend their strained relations. But the unfortunate incidents have cast their legacy, firstly, impacting historiography on both sides, secondly, severely damaging the psychological self, and finally giving birth to new terminologies like Islamophobia and Islamic terrorism. We therefore are left with no option but to call for a new and an effective dialogue that may hold promise of delivering our troubled world from the present impasse.

did little realize then the importance of this revolutionary step. The reason may be, for many centuries Muslims too had virtually closed the door of salvation on other believing nations. Their ulema had told them that all such verses that called for forging alliance with the people of the book or give glad tidings to the God-fearing submitters among the majians, the Jews and the Christians lakhaufun alahim wa lahum yahzanoon were abrogated and hence not applicable to them anymore. Instead of behaving as leader of the believing nations they mistakenly cast themselves as Ummah Muhammadiya. Until very recently they lived confined to the darul-Islam, a psychological boundary and a political paradigm that they fashioned in the days of military conflict and which has no basis whatsoever in the Quran. Today when owing to the communication revolution boundaries of all sorts are constantly being trampled, when incidents in one country affects other nations far beyond its borders, when the yoke of corporate capitalism has left almost no space for a free and alternative living and when it has become clear, more than ever before, that large-scale deforesting in third world countries amount to depriving us of the ‘lungs of the world’, concerned individuals in all civilizations are realizing that without taking everybody on board the Noha’s Arc probably could not set on sailing.

From Vatican II nostra proclamation to the post-9/11 anti-war demonstrations in the bastions of the Christian west, the Christian-Muslim understanding has come a long way.

The anti-war mammoth rallies in Europe and America demonstrated to Muslims, probably for the first time in history, that even among secularized Christians they can find allies against oppression and injustice. The Anti-war demonstration in western capitals especially in London wherein I personally participated and which brought the enlightened activists of the two communities together was a hope-giving phenomenon.

Without any theological hairsplitting or finding a common religious ground we achived what otherwise probably would not have been possible.

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Since Hans Kung publicized the idea from the platform of Parliament of World’s Religions that there can be no peace without peace among religions, other possible and

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This is not to downplay the importance of theological engagement but simply to assert that theological arguments should not be taken as the crux of any Christian-Muslim dialogue. It can only be one of the possible levels on which dialogues have to take place though it immediately comes to our mind. In recent years, among the many theological formulations on the horizon, probably by far the most sophisticated and consistent initiative on the Muslim side has been the common-word initiative by an Amman based Foundation. Assuming that everything in Islam and Christianity hangs around the two basic precepts; the love of God and love of neighbor, this document is a passionate search to find common religious grounds. But despite substantial endorsement by Muslim ulema and policymakers and a good press this document received in the West, so far it has been a non-starter. To me, it appears more an exercise in diplomacy than any frank dialogue. It is not only guilty of casting Islam in a Christian dye by employing Christian terminologies it also avoids difficult questions that have been bone of contention between the two communities. Should we allow the building of new Churches in Muslim lands?

What it means to have freedom to change one’s religious alliances? Such questions are natural corollary to any theological engagement.

equally important levels of dialogues have been pushed to the background. We should not lose sight of the fact that today, unlike the medieval ages, Christianity is no fixed set of dogma and no Nicene Creed bind the adherents of Christianity together. In a postChristian environment where the Church fathers command little influence, the elitist theological engagements can bear little fruit. I’m afraid theological and fiqhi hairsplitting on both sides would keep them entangled for many years to come. I therefore plead that the dialogue must move on simultaneously to the other forums. Or, alternatively, highlevel theological dialogues may incorporate public intellectuals, social scientists, natural scientists and other industry leaders on both sides. This will not only save us from unnecessary entanglement but will also increase the efficacy of any such engagements manifold.

Honesty and frankness apart, the proponents of a new Muslim-Christian dialogue must be clear about the methodological issues involved. For us, Islam as a message is not negotiable – though open to further interpretation, but Islam as a history is always open to any evaluation and criticism. I do not know if the Christian ulema would be willing to have the same attitude to Vatican councils or the councils that once canonized the Nicene Creed. To me, Jesus like Muhammad is not negotiable. But what comes after them, the human element in the making of Islam and Christianity should be open to critical evaluation.

A new dialogue will pose a major intellectual challenge to the proponents of both religions. Before finding a common word between the two they need to find a common word or a founding document on which each community broadly agrees. Probably, Quran on the one side and Jesus words as recorded in the four primary books of the Bible can serve as a possible alternative.

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Taking the dialogue to this level needs building of unshakable trust on both sides. Often seen out of context, some verses in the Quran such as Jizya verse or latattakhezul yahood wan nasara etc have appeared to some Christians as ‘troubling’. There is no need to be apologetic about them or hide them in the closet. We must accept each other as we are, with all our intellectual and religious moorings. There is nothing in the Quran that makes religious conversion punishable by death or that prohibits building of Christian churches in Muslim countries. These are basically administrative issues that have to take into account public sensitivity and security issues attached to them. The juridical rulings of the past fuqaha are always open to debate. But this kind of debate requires a general atmosphere of trust and goodwill. Today, when Christianity has yet to shed its colonial moorings, when the war on terror is perceived by many as modern-day crusades, as a war against Islam and as a Christian attempt to grab energy resources in the Muslim land, when predominantly Christian bullets are continuously taking innocent lives in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, when publishing the cartoons demonizing the prophet Muhammad has become a litmus lest to free-speech, even well-intentioned debates on such sensitive issues and by well-meaning individuals can only create further suspicion and distrust.

Let us first build trust. We must start reaping the trust and good-will now and move on to address other immediate concerns on which depends our common survival and survival of the world. Globalization’s leap in the wrong direction has resulted in the mad burning of extra-oil creating alarming energy crises, speculative prices of fossil fuels, ecological imbalance, the ever-widening divide between the poor and the rich and eventually turning our only planet into a mere theater of mega-corporations. A free space where the individual can live an alternative living beyond the tax-net and is not coerced to pay for mad defense spending and development has vanished. The capitalist control of the media and now to a great extent of the university system are indicative of the fact that things have rotten to the core. The world needs a major shake-up. The death of democracy has resulted in plutocracy and there are all indications that the capitalist system despite its worldwide popularity is crumbling. It is for the believing nations to bury their difference in the greater interest of humanity and come out with a viable alternative.

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Confronted as we are today with a gigantic crises, no single nation on her own can turn the tide. It is incumbent on all the inhabitants of the planet, no matter which religious tradition he or she comes from, to contribute his maximum share in the great rescue mission of humanity.

Ya ahlal kitab ta’alu ila kalimatun sawa’an O popple of the book come to what is common between us and you. When we Muslims say Alla nabudu allallah, that don’t obey except One God, the political implication is obvious; obey God and don’t obey Bush. I wonder, if any Christian brother or sister would like to dissent?