[mukto-mona] Interfaith dialogue - Saudi Wahabi Style

 

Between a rock and jihad place?

Riazat Butt

Monday June 9 2008

The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/09/religion.saudiarabia

 

Riazat Butt writes, interfaith dialogue, like that promoted by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, doesn't mean very much if religious differences are not embraced

 

Riazat Butt is the Guardian's religious affairs correspondent and the presenter of guardian.co.uk's Muslim podcast, Islamophonic.

 

I feel a tiny bit sorry for King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. He's trying his best to reach out to his western friends by showing that he's not against progress and reform – stay with me please – so you have to wonder why he chose to share a stage with Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former president of Iran. The inaugural day of the international Islamic conference for dialogue could have been really tedious had it not been for the speeches of the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia and the powerful Iranian cleric.

 

King Abdullah was by far the most measured of the lot and while the grand mufti has a spine-tingling clarity to his voice when reciting verses from the Qur'an, when he speaks he fits every stereotype of the angry imam.

 

In brief he said that people might have their differences, but it was still important to listen to their opinions. Talking about common ground and shared values was a way to promote a more positive image of Islam and shed its reputation as a haven for nutters. So how does he follow that one? By saying that the ultimate goal of dialogue is to bring people into the fold. It's impossible to tell if King Abdullah winced at that point but he may have felt like banging his head on the table. Religious freedom and persecution of Christian minorities in Muslim-majority countries is a major sore point at the Vatican and won't have helped persuade the Pope, who Abdullah met last November, that things are moving forwards, not backwards.

 

Christians are forever worrying that Muslims are hellbent on taking over the world and here we have the grand mufti saying pretty much that. Way to go.

 

I don't normally have much time for interfaith dialogue, two words guaranteed to send me to sleep, but at this level they can help shape policy and attitude. It's not about learning what day the Jewish sabbath is on or why Christians celebrate Easter. It has to be about how people of different religions can live together without antagonising each other, either because their government or spiritual leadership says it's ok. The grand mufti is the highest religious official in Saudi and his support of Abdullah's outreach programme is a good sign. But there are some serious obstacles in the way, namely Saudi Arabia.

 

The king hasn't publicly declared which clerics back his interfaith initiative and having Rafsanjani on the same stage won't have helped his cause either. There's a bunch of Saudi clerics that hate Shias, especially the Iranian variety, and Rafsanjani's rant made it clear that cooperation with the west, and handing over your natural resources to them, is totally untenable.

 

Who could he be referring to? The person on his right - the King. It's not just a Saudi thing either. It's a Turkish thing too. In Istanbul you have the leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians, Patriarch Bartholomew I. By law, he can't appear on the streets in his robes and his bishops have to keep renewing their tourist visas so they can stay in Turkey. They don't have work permits or residency.

 

There's not much interfaith or dialogue going on in either of these places and attitudes like these – dogmatic, intolerant and inflexible – are the very opposite of what is needed in places where Islam is the majority religion. It's all very well saying that you accept difference, but what matters is whether you embrace it instead of stifling it.

 

Leading clerics urge Muslims to learn about other faiths in drive to promote harmony

Riazat Butt in Mecca

The Guardian,

Saturday June 7 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/07/islam.religion

 

An international appeal was launched yesterday urging Muslims around the world to learn about non-Muslims and their cultures for the sake of peaceful coexistence.

 

The call was made in a communique issued at the end of the International Islamic Conference for Dialogue, a three-day event that brought together more than 600 influential scholars and academics.

 

The plea, one of many in the 18-page document, aimed to encourage Muslims to reach out to people from other monotheistic faiths in order to diffuse conflict and restore tolerance. The appeal was careful to make the distinction between integration and assimilation: "Coexistence and cooperation do not mean concessions regarding the fundamental principles nor harmonising among religions."

 

The initiative has the support of the Saudi monarch King Abdullah, who is seen as a bridge between the west and the Muslim world. An ally, Dr Ezzedin Ibrahim from the Ministry of Presidential Affairs in the United Arab Emirates, said: "Saudi Arabia is the cradle of Islam and only King Abdullah could be effective in calling Muslims from all parts of the world."

 

In addition to the emphasis on dialogue, there was renewed commitment to fight terrorism, with a pledge to study the phenomena and causes of violence and fanaticism, a tacit acknowledgment that the negative perception of Islam stems from events such as suicide bombings.

 

There were signs that dialogue with other believers, specifically Jews, would be problematic. Several clerics, including the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, said it was almost impossible to talk to them because of the situation in the occupied territories. "How can you negotiate with someone who is against you all the time? They seem to be against us in every way so I don't know how we're supposed to have dialogue."

 

Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi said he would only talk to Jews who denounced Zionism and he urged Muslims to talk to Buddhists, Hindus and atheists. His impromptu speech, lasting 15 minutes, garnered the loudest applause, proving his popularity among fellow clerics even if the west views him with suspicion.

 

Another source of tension was the refusal to consider building a Catholic church in Saudi Arabia. Currently, the open worship of other faiths is severely restricted, even though the Catholic population is rising because of migrant workers, mostly from the Philippines.

 

The March inauguration of Qatar's first Christian church - a small chapel with no bells or visible crosses - was welcomed as an improvement in relations between Catholicism and Islam. Soon after, the Vatican confirmed it was negotiating for permission to build the first church in Saudi Arabia. But there remains opposition to a formal Christian place of worship, with some fearing that one church will lead to the construction of others.

 

Responding to a question about freedom of religion and freedom to worship publicly, Dr Ibrahim replied: "The place of worship is the respectable confines of hotels and villas." Reciprocity is a key concern for the pope and his chief adviser on Islam, Cardinal Tauran. One of Europe's largest mosques is in Rome, near the Vatican, and it was built with Saudi funds.

 

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