April 2016 Philadelphia Chapter of Pax Christi U.S.A.

Reflection:

Christians and Muslims Pursuit of Peace

CPF’s retreat: February 27, 2016 – Sidney Griffith, ST, PhD

On February 27 for the annual retreat this year CPF was blessed to have Fr. Sidney Griffith, ST, emeritus professor of Catholic University. His main areas of interest are Arabic Christianity, Syriac monasticism, medieval Christian - Muslim encounters and ecumenical and interfaith dialogue. Fr. Griffith received his Ph.D. in 1977 and in 1984 became director of the Graduate Program in Early Christian Studies at Catholic University. During his career he has been visiting professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at Georgetown University.

His task was not easy: to include at least a year’s study into five hours of the annual retreat! Actually he has covered most aspects in his article, “Christianity and Islam in Historical Perspective: a Christian’s View” (available on line). This is the article which Frank McGinty outlined for the day of the lecture. The original article, like the resumé, is divided into 3 sections:

1. the Qur’an and the Christians;

2. the long era of Christian/Muslim confrontation; and

3. the now burgeoning era of proclamation and dialogue.

As noted by Fr. Griffith, reading through the Qur’an, it’s obvious that it presumes a knowledge of the Jewish Torah and the Christian Gospel. It’s also obvious that the Qur’an meant to critique even criticize Christian belief. In one of the Suras of the Qur’an there is an attack on the Trinity:

People of the Book…the Messiah Jesus, Mary’s son is only God’s messenger. … His word He imparted to Mary. Believe

in God and in His messengers, and do not say ‘Three’ … God is but a single God. Sura IV, verse 171

The Incarnation and the Trinity are wrong according to the Qur’an: “they have become infidels who say that God is one of three.” Sura V, verse 73. Also, Mary is acknowledged and venerated as the mother of Jesus but Jesus must not ever be considered as God’s son.

Unfortunately the whole Church at the time of the rise of Islam was full of controversy concerning Christ. Though Christians accepted Christ as Messiah, there were sometimes violent Christological controversies which the Qur’an denounces. Even some Christians objected to them. For example Jacob of Serug (d. 521), a father of the Syriac Church, criticized this and said instead of all the Christian dogmas and doctrines about Christ, one should only read Scripture which alone is capable of explaining the mystery of Christ. Fr. Griffith said there is a similarity between Jacob of Serug and Islamic thought, not in substance but in style.

After Muhammad’s death in 632 AD, Muslims soon occupied Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. By 732 they reached Poitiers in France! Initially Islam was the religion of the Arabs and conversion by non-Arabs seems to have been discouraged. But gradually Christians in contact with Islam were under pressure to convert. While they could never accept Muhammad as a prophet, they praised him as one who walked on the way of the prophets and brought Arabs to a knowledge of the one God.

Christians within the Islamic world from the 8th to the 10th centuries, translated Greek works of philosophy into Arabic - Aristotle, Galen and Plotinus, among others. These translations influenced Muslim philosophers whose works became available in the 11th and 12th centuries in Spain where Christians made Latin translations of them that eventually influenced

Thomas Aquinas! Important to keep these interconnections in mind, i.e. what Thomas Aquinas owes to Muslim philosophers who handed on an early Greek philosophical tradition which might otherwise have been lost.

But until modern times, in Christian dialogue with Islamic thought outside of the Islamic world, Muslims were considered as infidels. So with Vatican Council II which contained so many surprises, there is also a fundamental change concerning Islam. The “Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions” (Nostra Aetate, In Our Time, text available on the internet) is the shortest of the 16 Vatican documents but it took 5 years to write because of controversy among the Bishops concerning relations with Jews and Muslims, though the document does concern other world religions as well. (The principal author/editor of the document was Fr. Giuseppe Dossetti, secretary to Cardinal Lecaro of Bologna. Dossetti had lived in Israel for a long time and knew Judaism and Islam very well).

Nostra Aetate taught Catholics that “all men form but one community” (par.1), that “the Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in other religions” (par.2), and that “the Church, therefore, urges her sons to enter with prudence and charity into discussion and collaboration with members of other religions” (par.2). Specifically with reference to Muslims, Nostra Aetate says, “Over the centuries many quarrels and dissensions have arisen between Christians and Muslims. The sacred Council now pleads with all to forget the past, and urges that a sincere effort be made to achieve mutual understanding.” (par.3)

Fr. Griffith concludes one of his articles that after 50 years since Nostra Aetate maybe the time has come for a more grass roots dialogue between Catholics and Muslims and to recognize the “Holy” in each tradition. There are however important issues to be worked out in any true dialogue: such as Trinitarian theology (Christian) vs the absolute unity of God (Islam); incarnation vs creation or effusion (relation of God to created world is different in Islam than in Christianity); the finality of revelation or the authenticity of Islamic revelation (are Christians to consider the Qur’an as a revealed Scripture, not only for Muslims but for Christians as well?). Also Muslims maintain that Christians have brought secularism, nationalism and materialism into the world, understood negatively by Muslims. And Catholics bring the Eucharist to the discussion which in the past the Islamic tradition has interpreted in a very negative way.

To prepare for Fr. Griffith an article had been suggested, “What Does ISIS Really Want? (The Atlantic, March 2015, available online). The major contributor is Bernard Haykel, professor at Princeton University. The article has been the most read of Atlantic, ever! It is quite perceptive but also stunning how Haykel seems to equate ISIS and Islam (and not ISIS as terrorism as Obama suggests). Fr. Griffith encourages us to look online at some of the comments his students mentioned to him. In an article on line by Jack Jenkins, Haykel clarifies what he was quoted as saying in the Atlantic article: “I see ISIS as a symptom of a much deeper structural set of problems in the Sunni Arab world. It has to do with politics, with education and the lack thereof; with authoritarianism; with foreign intervention; with the curse of oil!” So what ISIS wants is more than theology: “there is nothing predetermined in Islam that would lead to ISIS,” according to Haykel in the Jenkins article. This is a more balanced approach than how Haykel is quoted in The Atlantic.

For further reading, Fr. Griffith suggests: Carla Power , If the Oceans Were Ink, An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran (Holt paperback, 2015). From the cover: “For all those who wonder what Islam says about war and peace, men and women, Jews and gentiles, this is the book to read. It is a conversation among well- meaning friends – intelligent, com-passionate and revealing – the kind that needs to be taking place around the world.”

Hassan Al-Turabi died March 5th. He was an Islamic religious and political leader in Sudan – a very complex person (born and raised Sufi), in the heart of Islamic Africa. Those who attended Fr. Griffith’s lectures might read with profit the Wikipedia article on Al Turabi.

Mary Hansbury

Mary Hansbury, PhD, a member of CPF, is a Syriac Scholar and has translated books & numerous articles.

Catholic Univ. Conference May 2015