New Book: Christians, Muslims and Jesus (a review)

Given that in some parts of the world you find violent conflict between Christians and Muslims, you might think that skirting around religious difference would be all to the good. The Muslim theologian Mona Siddiqui would disagree. Only by properly engaging with other traditions, she argues, can we avoid a mere “dialogue on the surface”. In this fascinating book she touches on a central doctrinal difference between the two largest monotheisms: the true nature of Jesus of Nazareth.

When Mohammed announced his new religion in the early seventh century, he claimed to be walking the same path as Old Testament prophets such as Abraham, Moses – and Jesus. The Koran relates that Jesus was born to a virgin called Mary, preached God’s word, gathered disciples and performed miracles. He was condemned to death by crucifixion, the Koran says, but was saved through divine intervention and ascended to heaven without dying. Jesus will return to Earth, according to Islamic tradition, as al-Masih – the Messiah.

The crucial difference from the Christian narrative is that for Muslims, Jesus is emphatically not the Son of God.

Christians were initially confused by Mohammed’s new faith. Were the Muslims a pagan Arab cult or a Christian heresy? Though some converted, large pockets retained their faith and there were civilised inter-religious debates. In 780, the Caliph al-Mahdi called the Nestorian Patriarch Timothy I to his court in Baghdad. If Jesus was really God, the caliph asked, why do the Gospels show him praying? Timothy replied that when conjoined with the Father and Spirit, Jesus was indeed God; but away from them on Earth, he “prayed as a man”. The debates clarified what is a mysterious issue even for Christians.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH

Muslim, Christian, Jewish Chefs Cook for Peace in Jerusalem

A group of Muslim, Jewish and Christian chefs from Chefs for Peace, along with American celebrity chef Art Smith, gathered on April 28 in Jerusalem to cook vegetarian dishes for a group of 60 guests, including US diplomats and alumni and students from various universities in the United States.

The ceremony took place in one of the best-known restaurants in Jerusalem, Eucalyptus, owned by award-winning chef Moshe Bassam, who is known for including ingredients mentioned in the Bible in his dishes and for his love of the history behind foods. “Moshe is a living treasure of Israel,” said Smith. “We went to the countryside to pick up wild thyme, asparagus and wild mushrooms [before the event].”

Bassam is not the only person who takes pride in using homegrown herbs and vegetables. “I brought grapes from the [US] South to use in my dish during the weekend,” said Smith.

Each of the five chefs — four from Chefs for Peace plus Smith — prepared their dishes in front their guests. Smith’s dish, not surprisingly, was made of wild mushrooms, grapes and local herbs. Johnny Goric, another chef and the organizer of the event, made a Mediterranean lentil salad.

FULL ARTICLE FROM AL MONITOR

Questioning God from a Christian and Muslim perspective

Not long ago Jesse Watters, a correspondent for the Fox News show The O’Reilly Factor, interviewed Spring breakers to expose the “left wing professors and dopey kids spouting left-wing slogans” that infest college campuses. Getting special attention was The University of Akron senior lecturer Christine Wainwright.

Wainwright teaches a class about the major religions in India. A Spring breaker accused her of trying to “convert the entire class to the Muslim religion” and of claiming that Muslims and Christians worship the same God.

Even O’Reilly seemed not to give much credence to the mass conversion claim, but he and Watters agreed they needed to dig into this to determine whether a college professor is really claiming that the Christian God and the Muslim God are the same God. O’Reilly quipped that if the claim is true “Allah is going to be offended.”

If they actually do the follow-up they will find out that Wainwright teaches that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. That’s because Muslims and Christians worship the same God.

That is to say both worship the God that (depending on your perspective) was recognized by or revealed to the Israelites as recounted in the Hebrew Bible (which Christians call the Old Testament – ecumenism requires lots of parentheticals.)

Judaism, and its two offspring Christianity and Islam, all embraced firm monotheism at a time when most nations and tribes were polytheistic. Mohammed lived on the Arabian Peninsula among polytheistic tribes and believed his revelation, which became the Qur’an, came from the God of Jews and Christians.

Islam stands in a similar relation to Judaism as Christianity does – a belief in a particular, identified God, coupled with a belief in a new revelation that the parent faith does not necessarily accept as authentic. Muslims and Christians differ, but they differ in their beliefs regarding the nature of the God they each believe in.

Allah is simply the Arabic word for “God,” not a new name for God or a designation of a new God. Muslims don’t really say “there is no God but Allah, they say there is no God but God or no Allah but Allah.

So before we get too kumbaya, let us acknowledge that there are real problems with how Islam is practiced today. We in the West broadly describe that problem as the relationship between the faith and people flying airplanes into buildings.

People can have good faith disagreements about the exact relationship between those two things. But pretending that Islam is a religion wholly alien and different from Christianity is not a good faith disagreement. It is demonstrably wrong and carries with it the unspoken and bad faith corollary that intolerance is so deeply woven into the DNA of Islam that Muslims cannot coexist with nonbelievers.

FULL ARTICLE FROM DAILY LEGAL NEWS 

BOSTON ATTACKS: Islam condemns violence, Muslim leader reiterates

As news emerges that the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings were from the predominantly Muslim Russian republic of Chechnya, an Inland Muslim leader emphasized something he’s had to repeat every time a suspect in a terrorist attack is Muslim: Violence against innocent people is a severe violation of the teachings of Islam.

“A person who claims an Islamic basis for such a heinous crime is no more faithful to the teachings of Islam than a KKK member who claims a biblical basis in committing bigoted crimes,” said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Southern California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and a Corona resident.

“Islam’s teachings are very clear in protecting the sanctity of life,” he said. “Anyone who claims to be a Muslim cannot act in opposition to those teachings.”

One of the suspects, Dzhokhar Tsamaev, posted links to Muslim websites on a Russian-language social media site. He also posted links to websites advocating Chechen independence from Russia. Chechen rebels fought two unsuccessful wars for secession in the 1990s.

But the suspects’ uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, said he believed religionhad nothing to do with his nephews’ motivations.

“Being losers, hatred to those who were able to settle themselves, these are the only reasons I can imagine,” he said “Anything else, anything else to do with religion is a fraud. It’s a fake. We’re Muslims. We’re ethnic Chechens.”

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE PRESS ENTERPRISE

As a Bostonian and Muslim, I wept Monday – and worried

It seems that until proven otherwise, terrorists are Muslims, and for some, all Muslims are terrorists

“Shave your stubble before you come to bed, Haider,” I told my husband Monday night. He looked up at me from the computer chair without the slightest hint of protest and smiled, “of course”. A couple of hours into the night, with him sound asleep right next to me – asleep like nothing had happened – I shivered from post-traumatic stress. Cold sweat trickled down the side of my forehead meeting warm tears at the corner of my eye and disappearing into a big, wet circle on the pillow. It was my second Patriot’s Day Boston Marathon, my husband’s third. I recalled spending all evening answering calls from back home in Pakistan, saying often, “Allah nay bachaya,” (Allah saved us). But did he?

Earlier on Monday, I was sitting with Haider and three other friends around small tables at the Prudential Center food court when we heard, and felt, the loud thud. If we were around a table somewhere in Karachi, Pakistan, my hometown, we would have said a little prayer in our hearts and continued eating, hoping that by the time we were done, the roads would re-open and life would resume. Such is our threshold for bomb-like noises and actual life-consuming explosions.

But in the heart of Boston, on a day of celebration, it could only be Godzilla, or some other giant lizard, someone joked. Within 20 seconds, though, buried under a horde of people and after the ensuing stampede, we ended up on the terrace looking over Boylston Street – a stone’s throw away from where the second blast had just occurred. Soon, a distraught mob pushed us right back into the food court. Unfinished bites and sentences, deserted strollers and upturned chairs – the large mall appeared ghastly.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE LONDON GUARDIAN

 

BMW Helps Build Christian-Muslim Bridge

VIENNA—Over the years, various groups have made strides in bridging the gaps between peoples, especially between Christians and Muslims, since Spanish colonizers used religion to divide and conquer Philippine “natives” centuries ago.

Interestingly, many people from both sides tend to equate “dialogue” with “debate”—trying to bring the other party to one’s side or at least to talk them down. The result is more mistrust, profiling, and a flight or fight reaction from both sides.

Enter KI Volunteers, which gently communicates its message through action: enhancing the employability of young Muslim professionals through training and voluntary placement with Christian and Muslim organizations. KI Volunteers, which won fourth place at The Intercultural Innovation Award co-organized in Vienna this week by the BMW Group and the UN Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC).

Designed to contribute toward social stability and economic growth in multicultural societies, the award is given to innovative grassroots projects promoting intercultural dialogue and understanding. It sounds simple. Yet, the true depth and breadth of the award’s impact emerges as it encourages more action to uproot biases and allow inclusive growth to take root.

And for the BMW Group to put its money and its brand behind such an award begs the question: why?

KI Volunteers’ project called Muslim Youth Volunteering for Interfaith Dialogue and Understanding won for being recognized as the first and only systematized Muslim volunteer sending program in the Philippines.

Under the program, KI Volunteers recruits young Muslim graduates from universities all over Mindanao and trains them over a four-week program.

FULL ARTICLE FROM BUSINESS INQUIRER 

Swedes Counter Anti Muslim Rally

CAIRO – Rejecting of their hate message against Muslims, many Swedes have showed up in the southern city of Malmo to protest against a far-right group, leading to abort the anti-Muslim rally.

“There were angry skirmishes after the anti-racists marched from Möllevångstorget square to the Stortorget square around noon, a lot of people seemed ready for a fight,” said The Local’s Patrick Reilly from the scene.

“They were pushing over barricades, setting off flares and some threw bottles, and went up against the police,” he said.

“There was also the odd snowball tossed at police.”

Clashes erupted after hundreds of Swedes gathered to counter a planned rally by the far-right Swedish Defence League (SDL).

Some demonstrators used a Eurovision awning on the square to beat out a rhythm, chanting “No racist on our streets”.

One banner hoisted above the march read “No Breivik Soldiers on our streets,” in reference to far-right Norwegian killer, who killed dozens people in twin attacks in Oslo in 2011.

The SDL rally lured only 20 members.

FULL ARTICLE FROM ONISLAM.NET

Islam: A Wider (Catholic) View

The most recent tragic events in the Muslim world invite us to reflect seriously on Islam as a resurging ‘‘major factor in shaping the 21st-century world.” The quoted phrase appears in Faith,Reason, and the War Against Jihadism (Doubleday, 2007) by one of America’s (and the American Church’s) finest scholars and thinkers, George Weigel. Invited once to address one of our country’s major corporations, Weigel argued for three key points: (1) that history cannot be read solely through the lenses of politics, economics, or technology; (2) that ideas have deep consequences for the dynamics of history; and (3) that the life and morale of one’s culture are key to the success of civilization and influence over the span of decades.

Consider Weigel’s first observation. Where can we find weakness in our view of history? Surely, the answer lies in the Western World’s reluctance (or inability) to grasp the significance of religious and/or philosophical issues. For despite the fact that Islam is monotheistic, it is not (to cite Pope John Paul II) “a religion of redemption. There is no room for the Cross and the Resurrection. Jesus is mentioned, but only as a prophet, who prepares for the last prophet Muhammad…” Hence, “the anthropology of Islam is very distant from Christianity.”

In an especially incisive look at Islam, John Paul II granted that although some of the “most beautiful names in the human language are given to the God of the Qur’an,” he is ultimately “only Majesty, never Emmanuel, God-with-us.” While the Transcendence of God is emphasized (God as the Eternal Other), his immanence (God revealing himself in Jesus) is not. Again, however, the religiosity of Islam is clearly affirmed and deserves respect.

FULL ARTICLE FROM CATHOLICTRANSCRIPT.ORG 

Egypt’s Next Coptic Pope Should Open Churches for Muslim Children: Sawiris

The next Egyptian Coptic Pope should open churches for Muslim children to promote interfaith dialogue and understanding in the predominantly Muslim country, a prominent Egyptian Christian businessman has said.

“We hope that the new pope will open the churches to Muslim children so they can play with the Christian children. While the children of the church have to get out of the church boundaries and reach to their Muslim counterparts so we can develop a unified national fabric,” said property billionaire Samih Sawiris.

His call came as Coptic Christians voted Monday to elect a new leader to succeed Pope Shenuda III, who passed away in March leaving behind a community anxious about its status under an Islamist-led government.

The death of Shenuda, who headed the church for four decades, set in motion the process to elect a new patriarch to lead the community through the post-revolution era in Egypt, which is marked by increased sectarian tension.

“The pope should seek with all the spirituality he owns to reunite Christians between themselves as well as reunite Egyptian Christians and Muslim,” Sawiris said, according to the daily newspaper al-Masr.

FULL ARTICLE FROM AL ARABIYA 

Five Reasons Not to Give Up on the Middle East

#5: The Arab Spring is real. Democracy, freedom, human rights, all take time. Look at America. The modern USA began (arguably) in 1776 with Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. Remember that it took us almost 100 years to allow black men to vote and another 50 years before women could vote. And legalized segregation was still common during my lifetime. So we need to be patient with this budding democratic movement called “the Arab spring.”

It’s one thing for a group like the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt to sit on the sidelines and critique the existing government of tyrants like (former) President Mubarak. It’s another for them to effectively run a complicated country like Egypt. Two more rounds of elections and a more real and balanced democracy is likely. Patience!

FULL ARTICLE FROM MIDDLE EAST EXPERIENCE