Muslim and Christian Understanding: Theory and Application of “A Common Word”

281 Pages·2010·1.77 MB·English

by  Waleed El-Ansary

Muslim and Christian Understanding
Theory and Application of “A Common Word”
Muslim and Christian Understanding
Theory and Application of “A Common Word”
Edited by
Waleed El-Ansary and David K. Linnan
MUSLIM AND CHRISTIAN UNDERSTANDING
Copyright © Waleed El-Ansary and David K. Linnan, 2010.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010
All rights reserved.
First published in 2010 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
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Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
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Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
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ISBN 978-0-230-10442-6 ISBN 978-0-230-11440-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-0-230-11440-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Muslim and Christian understanding : theory and application of a
common word / edited by Waleed El-Ansary and David K. Linnan.
p. cm.
1. Islam—Relations—Christianity. 2. Christianity and other religions—
Islam. 3. Dialogue—Religious aspects—Islam. 4. Dialogue—Religious
aspects—Christianity. I. El-Ansary, Waleed Adel. II. Linnan, David K., 1953–
BP172.M796 2010
297.2(cid:2)83—dc22 2010016025
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: October 2010
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Foreword ix
1 Narrative Introduction 1
Waleed El-Ansary and David K. Linnan
Religious Leaders’ Introductions
2 “A Common Word Between Us and You”: Motives and Applications 15
HE Shaykh Ali Goma‛a
3 “A Common Word” Initiative: Theoria and Praxis 21
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
4 The Power of Finding Common Ground: “A Common Word”
and the Invitation to Understanding 29
The Right Reverend William O. Gregg
Part I Theory
A. Theology
5 Islam, Christianity, the Enlightenment: “A Common Word” and
Muslim-Christian Relations 41
Ibrahim Kalin
6 Mutual Theological Hospitality: Doing Theology in the Presence
of the “Other” 57
Daniel A. Madigan
B. Mysticism
7 Spirituality and Other Religions: Meditations upon Some Deeper
Dimensions of “A Common Word Between Us and You” 69
Caner Dagli
8 Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Interfaith Dialogue:
Mystical Principles, Practical Initiatives 81
John Chryssavgis
vi Contents
C. Metaphysics
9 What of the Word Is Common? 93
Joseph Lumbard
10 Disagreeing to Agree: A Christian Response to “A Common Word” 111
James S. Cutsinger
11 T heological Parallels and Metaphysical Meeting Points: Christ and the
Word in Christianity and Islam 131
Maria M. Dakake
Part II Applications
A. Environment and Climate Change
12 I slamic Environmental Economics and the Three Dimensions
of Islam: “A Common Word” on the Environment as Neighbor 143
Waleed El-Ansary
13 Reassessing the Role of Religion in Western Climate Change
Decision-Making 159
Cinnamon P. Carlarne
B. Human Rights and Ethics
14 In Pursuit of a “New Secular”: Human Rights and
“A Common Word” 175
Nicholas Adams
15 Multiculturalism in Indonesia: Human Rights in Practice 189
Harkristuti Harkrisnowo
16 The “Common Word,” Development, and Human Rights:
African and Catholic Perspectives 201
Joseph M. Isanga
C. Development
17 An Islamic Perspective on Economic Development 221
Zamir Iqbal and Abbas Mirakhor
18 A Common View of Development: Richer Versus Better,
and Who Decides? 235
David K. Linnan
Bibliography 259
Contributors 279
Index 283
Illustrations
Map
1.1 2008 World Bank Country Income Groups and Islamic Zones Map.
Mixed cultural areas are indicated by dotted lines and are present in
Africa (Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria,
Camaroon, Central African Republic, Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania),
and in Asia (Kazakhstan, China, and India) 2
Figures
18.1 D ecrease in Infant Mortality Rate since 1960 by Country/Region.
World Bank regional indices are: Subsaharan Africa (SSA),
Middle East and North Africa (MENA), South Asia (SA), East Asia
and Pacific (EAP), Latin America and Caribbean (LAC),
and Central and Eastern Europe/CIS (CEE/CIS) 241
18.2 D ecrease in Under Five Mortality Rate since 1960 by
Country/Region. World Bank regional indices are: Subsaharan
Africa (SSA), Middle East and North Africa (MENA),
South Asia (SA), East Asia and Pacific (EAP), Latin America and
Caribbean (LAC), and Central and Eastern
Europe/CIS (CEE/CIS) 242
18.3 Decrease in Under Five Mortality, Matlab Bangladesh 1974–2000 243
18.4 D rowning Deaths in 1–4 Year Olds, Matlab Bangladesh
1983–2000 244
18.5 Leading Causes of Fatal Child Injury in Bangladesh 2003 244
18.6 I ncrease in Life Expectancy since 1960 by Country/Region.
World Bank regional indices are: Subsaharan Africa (SSA),
Middle East and North Africa (MENA), South Asia (SA),
East Asia and Pacific (EAP), Latin America and Caribbean (LAC),
and Central and Eastern Europe/CIS (CEE/CIS) 245
Table
16.1 Religions in Africa, by regions 202
Foreword
This work represents the latest fruit of A Common Word Between Us and You
(http://www. acommonword.com), a high-level Christian-Muslim dialogue that
provides the focus of our exploration of commonalities, differences, and shared
interests between the Western and Islamic worlds. We would like to thank the chief
architect of the “Common Word” initiative, HRH Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad,
for his encouragement in exploring the initiative’s wide-ranging implications in an
academic setting. His leadership in promoting interfaith relations has been both
visionary and inspirational.
We are also grateful to Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates for its sup-
port in bringing together senior Muslim and Christian figures from throughout
the Middle East to discuss various themes of the book, which have enriched it
greatly. In particular, we would like to thank HE Shaykh Nahayan Mabarak
Al Nahayan, UAE Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, and
President of Zayed University, for his support. We are also grateful to HE Shaykh
Ali Goma‛a, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, who not only contributed an essay to
the volume, but was a catalyst for the book itself. Finally, we would like to
thank Dr. Sulaiman Al Jassim, Vice President of Zayed University, Dr. Nasr
Arif, Professor of Political Science of Zayed University, and Ms. Marlys Berg,
Director, Administration of Zayed University, for all their encouragement and
efforts.
On the Christian side, we are most grateful to Rudolph C. Barnes, Jr., whose
family endowed the Barnes Symposium at the University of South Carolina
that provided a forum to engage in serious academic inquiry on pressing issues
of law and morality understood in the broadest sense. His commitment to in-
terfaith dialogue between Christianity and Islam helped make this book pos-
sible. We also wish to thank the Right Reverend William O. Gregg, Episcopal
Bishop of Charlotte, for his warm engagement. Once your appetite is whetted
by this book, the reader can watch more at http://www.lfip.org/barnes/2009/
videopage.htm.
We thank, of course, our families (especially Eman) for patience during all the
late nights involved in producing scholarship, and to whom this work is dedicated.
We also acknowledge our colleagues and contributors in Indonesia and elsewhere,
who spent their own late nights on the work. We close by thanking God, for by
x Foreword
grace everything fell into place so well in our efforts that it all seemed preor-
dained, and, on a human level, thanks to the people of good will who thought it
was high time to do something. Hopefully things continue.
July, 2010 CE; Sha‘bān, 1431 AH
Waleed El-Ansary, Cairo
David K. Linnan, Columbia
1
Narrative Introduction
Waleed El-Ansary and David K. Linnan
In October 2007, 138 leading Muslim scholars and intellectuals from all
corners of the globe representing every Islamic denomination and school of
thought—including such figures as the Grand Muftis of Egypt, Syria, Jordan,
Oman, Bosnia, Russia, and Istanbul—issued an open letter to leaders of Christian
churches and denominations throughout the world entitled “A Common Word
Between Us and You.” The initiative brings to the fore, in the interest of develop-
ing a meaningful peace, how the Muslim and Christian communities representing
well over half of the world’s population might agree on love of God and love of
neighbor as common beliefs. How did this all come about?
The title of the initiative itself derives from a Qur’ānic verse that enjoins
Muslims to issue the following call to Christians (and to Jews—the “People of
Scripture,” as they are known in the Qur’ān): “Say: ‘O People of Scripture! Come
to a common word between us and you: that we shall worship none but God, and
that we shall ascribe no partner unto Him, and that none of us shall take others
for lords beside God’ ” (Q 3:64). In fact, this initiative followed another open
letter exactly one year earlier addressed to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI that
was designed to point out politely factual mistakes in the Pope’s controversial
2006 Regensburg lecture perceived from differing viewpoints as an attack on
Islam itself as a religion condoning violence, versus a call to control all religious
intolerance.1
The response to “A Common Word” has been profound, finding resonance in
the senior levels of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox branches of Christianity.2
It is now the most important theological exchange between Christianity and Islam
in the world, and provides a framework to address the most pressing issues be-
tween the two world communities. The original initiative and profound response
thus grew in part out of a sense at the highest level of religious communities that
something was wrong that had to be addressed and, ultimately, changed.
What Is the Islamic World?
As a point of departure, we need first to explain what the Islamic world is. Many
Westerners equate Islam and Islamic civilization with the Arab zone of the Islamic
world, since this was the birthplace of Islam and was for centuries the only part of
the Islamic world that the West knew. But only 20% of Muslims today are Arab,
as the accompanying map illustrates. The Arab world as the initial zone of Islamic