A Common Word Between Us and You - Follow-up

Follow-up

• A workshop and conference was held at Yale University, USA between 24 and 31 July 2008. The conference was entitled, "Loving God and Neighbour in Word and Deed: Implications for Muslims and Christians." The conference was convened by the Yale Centre for Faith and Culture in collaboration with the Royal Al –Bayt Institute and held at Yale University. Over 120 leading Muslim and Christian leaders and scholars attended the event. A statement was issued at the end of the conference which included the following: "Participants of the conference agreed that: 1. Muslims and Christians affirm the unity and absoluteness of God. We recognise 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 Judeao-Christian-Islamic monotheistic heritage. 2. We recognise 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 endeavour 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.

• A conference, titled "A Common Word and Future Muslim-Christian Engagement," was hosted by the Archbishop of Canterbury in collaboration with the University of Cambridge Inter Faith programme and the Royal Aal Al-Bayt Institute and held at the University of Cambridge with a final session at Lambeth Palace between 12 and 15 October 2008. The conference brought together a small group of scholars and religious leaders from the Muslim and Christian communities for discussion and fellowship. A communiqué was issued at the end of the conference which included the following: "we are conscious that our meeting represented the most significant gathering of international Muslim leaders ever to take place in the United Kingdom, matched by a similarly wide diversity of traditions and geographical backgrounds amongst the Christian participants....We have committed ourselves to the following over the coming year:
  • To identify and promote the use of educational materials, for all age groups and in the widest possible range of languages, that we accept as providing a fair reflection of our faiths
  • To build a network of academic institutions, linking scholars, students and academic resources, with various commitments and teams which can work on shared values
  • To identify funds to facilitate exchanges between those training for roles of leadership within our religious communities
  • To translate significant texts from our two religious traditions for the use of the other
  • As we prepare to return, each to our own countries and contexts, we resolve to act on the oft repeated desire to find the means of ensuring that the two letters we have discussed and the wonderful fruits of our time together are spread amongst our co religionists, that the spirit of collaboration, mutual respect and desire for greater understanding may be the mark of our relationship for the benefit of all humankind."

• Between 4 and 6 November 2008 the first seminar of the Catholic-Muslim forum was held at in Rome, sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Inter Religious Dialogue and the Royal Al-Bayt Institute in Amman. The seminar ended with an audience with Pope Benedict XVI at which an address was made by Sheikh Mustafa Ceric and Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr.
  • Pope Benedict's address included the following: "I am well aware that Muslims and Christians have different approaches in matters regarding God. Yet we can and must be worshippers of the one God who created us and is concerned about each person in every corner of the world. Together we must show, by our mutual respect and solidarity, that we consider ourselves members of one family: the family that God has loved and gathered together from the creation of the world to the end of human history."
  • Seyyed Hossein Nasr's address included the following: "With so many profound similarities, why then have we had such a long history of confrontation and opposition? The answer is that we of course also have our differences which have providentially kept Christianity and Islam distinct and separate. Let us mention just a few of them. We emphasise Divine Unity and reject the idea of a triune God while you emphasise the Trinity while believing God to be One. We and you both revere Christ but in a different manner, and we do not accept the Christian account of the end of His earthly life. And yet, we Muslims also accept Christ as the Messiah (al Masih) and expect his Second Coming at the end of the history of present humanity. We emphasise Divine Law (al- shari'ah) as rooted in the Qu'ranic revelation, while Christ asserted his break with the Law in the name of the Spirit. Therefore, Christians do not have the same conception of Divine Law as do Jews and Muslims. Nor do Christians have a sacred language as does Islam, but have used, and some still do use, several liturgical languages. You and we, we both believe in religious freedom, but we Muslims do not allow an aggressive proselytising in our midst that destroys our faith in the name of freedom any more than Christians would if they were in our situation. The encounter of Christianity with modernism, including secular humanism and rationalism associated with the Age of Enlightenment, has also been very different from the experience of that encounter with Islam. Perhaps then we can each learn something from the other in this very significant matter. We should join together in the battle against the desacralising and anti religious forces of the modern world, and joining effort should bring us closer together. Secularism would certainly not be a source for the creation of further distance between us."

• The Final Declaration of the Catholic Muslim Forum at Rome included the following: "We profess that Catholics and Muslims are called to be instruments of love and harmony among believers, and for humanity as a whole, renouncing any oppression, aggressive violence and terrorism, especially that committed in the name of religion, and upholding the principles of justice for all."

• The Eugen Biser Award was conferred on Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal, Sheikh Al–Habib All-Jifri and Reisu–l-Ulema Mustafa Ceric on 22 November 2008. The award was received by Prince Ghazi, Sheikh Al-Habib All-Jifri and Reisu–l-Ulema Mustafa Ceric in recognition of their contribution to Muslim – Christian dialogue. In the course of his speech of acceptance, Prince Ghazi said: "We were aiming to try and spread peace and harmony between Christians and Muslims all over the world, not through governments and treaties but on the all-important popular and mass level, through the world's most influential popular leaders precisely – that is to say through the leaders of the two religions. We wanted to stop the drum beat of what we feared was a growing popular consensus (on both sides) for world wide (and thus cataclysmic and even apocalyptic) Muslim –Christian jihad/crusade. We were keenly aware, however, that peace efforts required also another element: knowledge. We thus aimed to try to spread proper basic knowledge of our religion in order to correct and abate the constant and unjust vilification of Islam, in the West especially....I would like to say that "A Common Word" does not signal that Muslims are prepared to deviate from or concede one iota of any of their convictions in reaching out to Christians – nor, I expect, the opposite. Let us be crystal clear: A Common word is about equal peace, NOT about capitulation."

• Numerous conferences, workshops, speeches and other inter faith activities inspired by or exploring "A Common Word" have appeared spontaneously, throughout the world. These have included lectures and workshops in Cambridge University in February 2009, in Oman in March and April 2009, and, also in 2009, in the USA, Egypt and Sudan. Symposiums took place at the Mediterranean Dialogue of Cultures in 2008, the Brookings Institute in Qatar in 2009, the Fuller Theological Seminary in 2009, the Islamic Society of North America Conference in 2009 and Yale University in 2009.

• A Conference, hosted by Georgetown University, the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding and the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought and entitled "A Common Word between Us and You A Global Agenda for Change" was held between 6 and 8 October 2009 at Georgetown University. The purpose of the conference was to identify suitable projects to further the aims of "A Common Word" across the world.