C-M D: G  O

ORIGINAL
Blackwell
Oxford,
The
MUWO
©
0027-4909
July
3
94Blackwell
Muslim
2004
UK ARTICLE
Publishing,
World
PublishingLtd.
2004

Christian-Muslim Dialogue:
M -M
C A D :G O

Goals and Obstacles

Mahmoud Ayoub
Temple University
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Background

C
hristianity may have come to Arabia with St. Paul when he retired to
the desert east of the Jordan River for several mysterious years. From
the Syrian Desert, Christianity was carried into South Arabia, perhaps
by wandering monks, where it played a significant role in the rise of a rich
civilization. From there, Christianity came to Northern Arabia, where it helped
prepare the moral and spiritual grounds for Islam.
From its inception, Islam grew in an environment permeated with Eastern
Christian spiritual and moral values. It is likely that it was to this spiritual
heritage of Eastern Christianity that the Prophet Muhammad referred when he
declared: “I sense the breath of the All-merciful (nafas al-rahman) from the
Yaman.” The breath of the All-merciful is the divine spirit of holiness which
Jesus manifested as the victorious savior over demonic powers. Thus, the
Christianity that the Qur’an extols is not the official Christianity of Rome
and Byzantium with its elaborate theology, but the popular piety of desert
monks who carried on the work of healing and purification that Christ began
during his earthly sojourn.
The Qur’an speaks tenderly of the spirituality of the humble monks and
learned priests of the Christians, “. . . for there are among them monks and
learned priests, and they are not proud.” (Q. 5:82). The Qur’anic passage just
cited goes on to make two significant assertions, which can still serve as a
good motivation for constructive dialogue between the two faith communities.
The first is that the Christians are the nearest people in amity to the Muslims.
The second is that Christian monks and learned priests recognize the truth
when they hear it and shed tears of humble gratitude for God’s guidance.
Furthermore, like the people of faith among the Muslims, these humble monks
and learned priests covet God’s grace and pray that they be accounted among
the witnesses to God’s oneness and guidance to the truth. Therefore, dialogue
between them ought to be a dynamic and creative engagement among friends,

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not enemies, to which the Qur’an (3:64) invites the people of the Book. Even
when the Qur’an reproaches the Christians for their deification of Jesus, it
considers this to be extremism ( ghuluww) in their religion, rather than outright
kufr, or rejection of faith. It then affirms, as the Christians do, the absolute truth
that “God is One.” (Q. 4:171).
There is, however, another side to this positive Qur’anic view of the
Christians and particularly with regard to their status in the Islamic state. The
Qur’an is not only a book of moral and pious precepts, but is also the primary
source of the sacred law (shari“ah) of God, which must guide the Muslim
ummah and regulate its relations to other faith communities. The Qur’an did
not legislate the jizyah pole tax for the people of the book in return for
protection or exemption from military service alone, nor was it simply meant
to buy Jewish and Christian subjects security and safe conduct in dar al-islam,
as many Muslims have apologetically argued. Rather it was to humble them
because of their lack of faith in God, failure to follow the true religion and
failure to consider unlawful what God and His Messenger had made unlawful.
Either the veracity of these accusations must be deemed impossible for anyone
but God alone to judge, or the verse is meant to punish the people of the Book
only because they refuse to embrace Islam.
I believe that this difficult verse of the Qur’an (9:29) presents an ideal of
faith and piety that only God can judge. But on a practical level, it seeks to
regulate the socio-political and economic relations of Jewish and Christian
subjects to the Islamic state. This is the reason why the jizyah law that this
verse legislates was for a long time legally considered and applied by Muslim
jurists and rulers alike, with little attention to its moral and theological
implications. Since, however, the verse in question cannot be implemented in
contemporary Muslim nation states, where citizenship rather than religious
affiliation is supposed to determine the equal rights and responsibilities of all
citizens, it has been employed as an effective anti-Christian polemical tool by
Islamist ideologues. Be that as it may, the language of this verse rendered the
Qur’anic attitude to the people of the Book, and particularly the Christians,
an ambivalent one, to say the least. This set the stage for an even greater
ambivalence in subsequent Muslim history, and hence to the conflicts and
hostilities that have tainted Christian-Muslim relations forever after.

Immediate and Long-Term Goals

Christianity and Islam are both universal faiths meant not for any
particular race or ethnicity, but for all of humanity. This important principle
encapsulates the goals and opportunities for constructive dialogue as well
as the obstacles that make it difficult, if not virtually impossible to achieve.
Both traditions recognize God’s love for all of humankind and His providential

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acts in human history, but both claim to be God’s final message of salvation
and eternal bliss for the world. Thus, in spite of the call for tolerance and
respect towards the people of the Book, which the Qur’an frequently
makes, Muslims have generally condemned Christians as polytheists.
Since Islam came after Christianity and challenged some of its fundamental
doctrines, Christians have likewise often condemned Islam as a religion
inspired by the devil and Muslims as barbaric people without any moral or
spiritual values.
The most urgent goal toward which both communities ought to strive is
therefore the mutual acceptance of the legitimacy and authenticity of the
religious tradition of the other as a divinely inspired faith. This fundamental
requirement for honest and constructive dialogue remains an ideal hope, not
a reality. This is because the most that Muslim-Christian dialogue has so far
been able to achieve is the formal recognition of the common Abrahamic
ancestry of the two faiths, and hence their historical and theological kinship.
This is not to deny the immense significance of this recognition as a positive
step towards a true existential acceptance of the faith of the other, but more is
needed if dialogue is to progress beyond mere formal courtesy or polite
indifference.
Despite its urgency, the need for mutual recognition and acceptance is a
long-term goal which should always guide our efforts towards fruitful spiritual,
moral, theological and social dialogue. Mutual acceptance must not stop at
recognizing, and even accepting, the existence of the other as a fellow human
being and a good neighbor. Rather, Muslims and Christians must accept each
other as friends and partners in the quest for social and political justice,
theological harmony and spiritual progress on the way to God, who is their
ultimate goal.
This noble effort demands the genuine and sincere respect of the faith of
the other, including their beliefs, ethical principles, social values and political
aspirations. This ought to be the second goal of Christian-Muslim dialogue.
Within this framework of mutual respect and acceptance, interreligious
dialogue can develop into a genuine and creative intercultural dialogue. In
fact, without meaningful intercultural dialogue, mutual understanding and
respect are not possible.
A third goal is the acceptance by both Christians and Muslims of the other
as an equal partner — and not an opponent — in dialogue. This equality
should be equality in humanity and dignity, and equality in the claim for
religious authenticity. In all its aspects, this implies the admission by the
faithful of both communities that both Christianity and Islam have in
themselves the moral and spiritual resources to guide their followers to the
way of salvation.

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Christ taught us all to seek the truth, and that the truth shall set us free.
The Qur’an teaches that the truth is God. Therefore, freedom in the truth is
freedom in God, which is the freedom of faith. Within this freedom in God,
Muslims and Christians can and should freely share their faith experiences with
one another, but without making this an occasion for da“wah or mission.
Another important goal is to let the two traditions speak for themselves,
that is to represent themselves in dialogue. This means for Christians and
Muslims not to engage in dialogical activities on the basis of what they think
they know or understand of what the religion of the other is all about. In other
words, they should not remake the other in their own image, as a pre-
condition for acceptance. Rather, they should listen and learn before they
venture into the sacred precincts of each other’s faith.
More practically speaking, Muslims must not seek to explain Christianity
solely on the basis of what the Qur’an and subsequent Islamic tradition have
said about it, but should seek to understand Christianity from its own sources
and on its own terms. Similarly, Christians must not interpret Islam, especially
its sacred scripture, in accordance with their own understanding of the divine
economy of salvation, however enlightened and universally attractive such a
divine schema may be, but should take seriously the Islamic worldview and its
divine plan for the attainment of forgiveness, salvation and bliss in the
hereafter.
A final goal is to strive for absolute fairness and objectivity in drawing any
comparisons between the two traditions. Several guidelines must be strictly
observed in this regard. The first is that the ideals of the two traditions should
be compared with ideals and the realities with realities. Secondly, all attempts
at scoring points for one tradition over the other by contrasting the good things
in it with the bad things in the other must be strictly avoided. Rather, the good
should be compared with the good and the bad with the bad. Conversely, the
misbehavior of the followers of one tradition at any given point of its history
must not be covered up or excused by wrongly imputing similar behavior to
the followers of the other. Nor should such misbehavior be dismissed or
excused on the grounds of human sinfulness or frailty.
Thirdly, the scriptures or traditions of one religion should not be used as
criteria to judge the truth or errors of the other. Islam and Christianity have
their distinct worldviews which must guide and inform Muslim-Christian
dialogue on all levels.

Types of Dialogue
Christianity and Islam are two world religions whose adherents comprise
over half of the world’s population. While the oikomene, or Christian realm,
and dar al-islam, Muslim realm, were limited historically to specific

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geographical areas of the world, both houses have geographically and

politically long since disappeared. Now the sphere or abode of Islam is the
homes and hearts of the people of the ummah. Similarly, the house of the
Christian faith is the church, the hearts and minds of its members.
Millions of Muslims are now citizens of Western Christian countries
and many Muslim countries have an equal number of Christian citizens.
In the West in particular, Islam is no longer the religion of strangers, but
the religion of next-door neighbors. Muslims share with Christians the
neighborhood, school, workplace, hospital ward and even burial ground.
They share all the moral and social problems as well as the amenities of
modern urban living. They also share the sacred space of their houses
of worship — the churches and mosques, where meaningful and sustained
dialogue is nurtured.
The most concrete, widespread and basic type of dialogue is the dialogue
of life. It is the dialogue of concerned neighbors with their adjacent churches
and mosques, who work together and live on the same street. This type of
dialogue is concerned with issues of social justice, pollution problems, teenage
children in mixed public schools with their problems of sex and drugs and a
host of other issues. Here the common Abrahamic prophetic moral and
spiritual heritage can help the children of all three families of Abraham to
come together to face the problems of the modern world. Through their
synagogues, churches and mosques they should strive together for the
common good of society.
The dialogue of life is the active concern of citizens with the problems of
life together in one free and democratic country. One of the most important
changes in the Muslim ummah is the rise of the nation-state. The modern state
has both strengthened the bond of faith and also fragmented the ummah.
Thanks to the nation-state model, the ummah can now, more than ever before,
transcend all ethnic, cultural, geographical and national boundaries. Moreover,
where Muslims live as minorities in developed Western countries, they are far
more free to experiment with new ideas and actions than their confreres in
their countries of origin. Thus, they can help the ummah find its rightful place
in the modern world.
A second type of dialogue is the dialogue of beliefs, theological doctrines
and philosophical ideas. This type tends to be restricted to the academy. It is
often technical and abstract. For these and other reasons, it is often avoided.
It is nonetheless vitally important, as it engages the minds and hearts of the
people of faith of both traditions in their common search for the truth.
Another type of dialogue may be euphemistically called the dialogue of
witnessing to one’s faith. It, however, often becomes an invitation to
conversion through methods of da“wah and mission. Here the name dialogue

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is used to cover up a non-dialogical agenda. However well-intentioned

participants in such dialogue may be, their ultimate aim is not to understand
and accept the other, but to absorb and assimilate them.
A final type is what I wish to call the dialogue of faith. It uses the ideas
and methods of the second type, but on a deeper and more personal level. Its
aim is to deepen the faith of Muslim and Christian women and men by sharing
the personal faith of the other. The ultimate purpose of this dialogue is to
create a fellowship of faith among the followers of Islam and Christianity. This
goal may be achieved by sharing one’s faith with the other through worship,
spiritual exercises and the existential struggle in God. The Qur’an promises
those who strive in God that He will guide them to His ways. His ways are the
“ways of peace.” (Q. 29:69 and Q. 5:16)

Insurmountable Obstacles?
It was observed above that all that Muslim–Christian dialogue has so far
achieved is the recognition of the Abrahamic roots of the faith of the two
communities. This recognition has, since the last quarter of the twentieth
century, led to genuine appreciation of the commitment of Muslims to their
faith by many liberal Christians and equal admiration of Christian charity and
openness by liberal Muslims. It may be thus argued that Christians have come
to accept Muslims as people of faith, but are not so far able to accept Islam as
an authentic post-Christian religious tradition. Muslims have conversely from
the beginning accepted Christianity as a revealed faith, but have been unable
to accept the Christians and their faith in the triune God, the Church as a
source of guidance and the books of the New Testament as authentic
scriptures.
Here the problem lies in our inability to accept each other’s faiths on their
own terms. Muslims have acknowledged an Islamized Christianity and
Christians have often Christianized Islam. Thus, with all good intentions, both
communities have sought to negate, or at least neutralize the individuality and
integrity of the faith of the other in order to find room for it in their own
tradition and worldview.
The main obstacle to true Christian-Muslim dialogue on both sides is, I
believe, their unwillingness to truly admit that God’s love and providence
extend equally to all human beings, regardless of religious identity. This is
tantamount to denying that God could and in fact did reveal His will in
Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, and in every sacred language of the world. Therefore,
the ultimate goal of all interfaith dialogue ought to be the ability of all women
and men of faith to listen to and obey the voice of God as it speaks to all
communities through their own faith-traditions and humbly listen to the same
voice speaking to each individual through her own faith-tradition.

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To everyone of you We have appointed a way and a course to follow,

for had God so willed, He would have made you all one single
community. Rather He would test you by means of that which He had
bestowed upon you, who of you is of better deeds. Vie therefore with
one another in works of righteousness. For, to God shall be your return
and He will inform you of all that in which you had differed. (Q. 5:48)

Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we
shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we
shall see him as he is. (1 John 3: 2)

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