Christians & Muslims : Agreements & Differences
Peace and blessings of God be upon all those who seek Him,
Dear Christian Scholars/Leaders/Pastors
We are writing this letter to you in the hope that two communities, Christians and Muslims, who believe in God and give serious importance to the divine knowledge and guidance in our respective faith traditions may engage in fruitful dialogue.
We are living in perilous times but we are called upon by our creator not to loose hope and work towards peace. Jesus said “blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9) and Quran teaches “The servants of the Most Merciful are those who walk upon the earth humbly, and when the ignorant address them [harshly], they say [words of] peace” (Quran 25:63)
While we have heard lots of hateful rhetoric from political leaders in the last election cycle, that is only a symptom of a larger problem infecting our society. No politician will use a rhetoric if it doesn't translate into votes. So instead of criticising politicians or politics, we as society have to look deeper to analyze our problem. Only then we can address them.
We as Muslim acknowledge that we have extremists among our midst, such as ISIS, a very crazy group, who use the name of our religion to recruit impressionable people for their cause and then use them to perpetrate violence upon innocents. The violence perpetrated by this group has exceeded all bounds and is designed to pit people against people. But this behaviour is completely alien to our faith and history.
The causes of rise of this vicious group are myriad that is the beyond the scope of this short letter. However to those interested in this topic may want to listen to the following NPR radio debate between Graeme Wood and Yasir Qadhi that sheds some light on this problem.
However we also see extremism on rise among white majority of our country. The report about this matter can be accessed here and here . But if perpetrator are Muslims, then terror attacks receive five times more media coverage. This has caused and continues to cause the general population in our nation to have a very negative and skewed view of the problem of terrorism and consequently about Muslims and Islam in general.
The negative view of Muslims and Islam is not helped either because of the vicious campaign by extreme far right which has left no stone unturned in order to dehumanize Muslims and present Islam as a threat to Christianity and to the nation itself. Many of the individuals and organizations who perpetuate this view of Islam and Muslims get their support from well meaning Christians. And that is unfortunate. As Muslims we know that Jesus came to teach civility, kindness, truth and good neighbourliness. We find this attitude among many Christians as not representative of true teachings of Jesus.
The bigotry has become so normal among certain segment of Christian community that they are not even willing to entertain the idea of engaging with Muslims. So much so even when a well respected evangelical, conservative Christian scholar enters into dialogue with a well respected Muslim scholars, in order to break the barriers and create openness among the two faith communities, without sacrificing essentials of faith from either side, it seems to have touched a raw nerve among them.
Dr James White and Dr Yasir Qadhi had a two part respectful dialogue on similarities and differences in Christianity and Islam, one in Church and another in a Mosque. The links to the two part dialogue are provided here Part1 and PartII.
However this dehumanization of the other on the part of certain segments of each community is taking a toll. We see the manifestations of this dehumanization translate into terrorist attacks by people claiming to be Muslims in many cities of USA and Europe (San Bernardino, Orlando, Paris, Bataclan, Manchester to name few) and other places. At the same time we have also seen attacks on Muslim in London, Portland and elsewhere by people who have been influenced by the same hateful rhetoric but from the other side. There has been sharp rise in Islamophobic attacks on Muslims in both USA and Europe, the reports for these can be accessed here, here and here.
While we don't assume that anything that we do, will stop this craziness, we have to do what we can to make a dent into this craziness. We have to start with getting to know each other. On social and spiritual fronts there is so much common between Muslims and Christians, yet the one community that seems to misunderstand Muslim position in our nation are conservative Christians.
On the other hand there are also some Muslims, conservative Muslims, who don't understand Christian faith and think that conservative Christians are bunch of extremist right wing nuts.
So we think honest dialogues where Christian and Muslims can proclaim their respective truths and yet at the same time remain civil and good neighbors, is the way to move forward. What other options do we have? And what else does our respective faith teach us any way? We need to show by practical examples that we can remain faithful to our faiths without compromise and yet live in peace with each other.
So if you would be interested to engage with Muslim community kindly contact us. Please also connect us with other pastors/scholars/leadership among Christian community that you think may be open to engage with Muslim community. There are Imams and Islamic scholars and mosques in Colorado and elsewhere, who would be willing to engage with evangelical/conservative christian community.
Our goal would be to see organization of regular programs in different churches and mosques on different topics that is mutually agreed upon and is relevant where Christians and Muslims can remain faithful to their respective faith traditions yet at the same time be open to learn the faith of the other from the the people who actually practice that faith.
We believe such an endeavor is a noble thing to do. So help us God.
Ahmed Salih
Director of Outreach
ICNA Colorado
co@icna.us
(720) 739 1463
