During 1994, I had the occasion to sit in the audience at two Christian-Muslim dialogues held in Chicago. I also attended a couple of similar sessions at the "Parliamentof World Religions" held later that year. The sponsors on each occasion were different, as were the speakers; but what was said was alarmingly similar./1/

I'm not familiar with the history of interfaith dialogues, but probably till recently they had involved only Christians and Jews. Assuredly, their urgency was enhanced by the impact of the Holocaust on the Christian conscience, with the horror of the realisation that what had happened to the Jews of Europe was partially a consequence of a long-entrenched anti-Semitism among too many Christians. The subsequent dialogues, I therefore assume, were between those who viewed themselves as victims of unspeakable crimes and those who saw themselves, in some sense, as being a party to those crimes. Surprisingly, the same modes of thought seemed to govern the proceedings at the Christian-Muslim dialogues that I witnessed.

The Christians usually began by denouncing the Crusades, the eighteenth and nineteenth century colonial expansions over Islamic lands, and the more recent Cold War policies of the United States against various nationalist movements in "the Third World." They readily identified themselves with a concept -- "the West" -- and a history of it, then castigated its protagonists and proponents, past and present. Their Muslim counterparts began in the same vein. They denounced the Crusades, and convincingly argued that the same crusading spirit worked behind the later colonial expansions and the more recent, unquestioning American support of Israel against the Palestinians. These were the crucial moments, they argued, when the "West" -- identified with Christianity -- encountered the "East" -- identified with Islam -- and behaved shamefully. The listeners nodded in agreement. One Muslim speaker mentioned the expulsion of the Moors from Spain as another such moment, and all heads were further lowered in sorrow.

Amazingly, no one asked: how did the Moors arrive in Spain in the first place? Or, what had brought Muslims to the land of the Testaments? It was as if there had been no imperial expansion of Islam, no Arab conquests of Syria, North Africa and Spain. I'm not denying the horrors of the Reconquista and the Crusades, or the neo-colonial identification of the American cold war interests with the Zionist ambitions in Palestine. I merely wish to point out the absurdity of denying any agency to the Muslims themselves. It is well known that Islamic history unfolded on the map of the world in the form of a series of conquests. To say that does not imply that Islam spread only with the help of a sword. Nor does it imply that any prospective Christian-Muslim dialogue should turn into a comparison of who shed less blood. It is simply to acknowledge that a sword was very much present in the story of Islam's expansion too -- a necessary acknowledgment, I'd think, in any dialogue that begins by noting that in most Eastern lands the Church marched almost in lockstep with colonial armies.

What happened when this acknowledgment was not made? One: It allowed the Muslims to talk about an essentialised, abstract faith. The interfaith "dialogue" soon turned into an incoherent comparison of oranges and apples: Islam, the faith; Christianity, the Western people and powers. Two: The inordinate emphasis on the scriptural and the juristic and a simultaneous neglect of the experiential produced dialogues in which the salvific aspects, the mysteries of religious experience and other such matters got mostly left out. The two faiths became two ideologies, of which one seemed to control all of history while the other appeared to have no agency at all -- one stood for a body of aggressors, the other for a cohort of victims. Three: By the same token, the dialogues managed to suppress the reality of Islam's many histories -- its many regional, particular forms; the way it responded to what it found existing in a place and how it did or did not adapt itself to local conditions and traditions -- in other words, how variegated in fact the life of the spirit is in what was presented as a homogenous singularity.

The first point is too obvious to need any additional comment. In what follows I shall dwell upon the second and third.

There is one Islam and there are many Islams. There is one Islam in the fact that there is one revealed book and one Prophet to whom it was revealed. There are many Islams in the fact that there are many different traditions of interpreting God's words and relating one's life to the life of the Prophet. There are also countless diverse traditions that are viewed by related groups of people as being an essential part of their lived Islam. To make an obvious point, the lived Islam of a peasant in Bangladesh is similar to but not identical with that of his counterpart in Algeria, as is the case for a middle-class professional in Karachi and his counterpart in Indonesia. In each instance, it's not just what is similar that is greatly cherished but also what is different. These differences, however, found no mention in the dialogues. They were not present in the remarks of the Muslims, and formed no part of the understanding that the Christians sought.

Likewise, the Christians never scrutinised a repeatedly-heard Muslim claim that what made Islam unique was that it was a totality, a complete system that covered each and every aspect of human life. That such a claim can also have a dangerous edge went unnoticed. But, both among Muslims in self-proclaimed "Islamic" countries and in Muslim communities within other nations, such as India, not only Islam is said to be a "total" religion but it is also simultaneously demanded that a Muslim must be a "total" Muslim, a "hundred percent Muslim" -- in other words, a Muslim entirely in terms of the person making that demand. Any suggestion of diversity, any opposition to that proclaimed notion of a totality then becomes ruthlessly punishable, for it takes very little to turn a total vision into a totalitarian nightmare.

These lapses, I believe, happened because the Christians neglected to remember their own struggle to create a space within which all the diverse followers of the Nazarene Master could flourish and eventually affirm each other. It didn't come about overnight; it took centuries and a lot of innocent blood. A structurally stable space of that kind has not yet come about in the world of Islam. Ecumenism is not a byword among Muslim theologians and mosque leaders. That doesn't mean that diverse, ordinary Muslims have not lived in peace with each other. They have. But it has been an uneasy peace that unscrupulous religious leaders are able to destroy only too easily, as, for example, has been happening in Pakistan.

Modern Christian denominations owe as much to the Enlightenment as to the Reformation. They have come to exist and flourish within the context of secularism, a concept that emerged, I believe, as much out of their lived religious experience as anything else. Separation between state and religion, equality before law, freedom balanced with reciprocity -- these are the ideals of modern democracies, no matter how poorly they are actually realised at any given time or place. Muslims in their history have mostly lived in polities that were practically quite secular, but not at all democratic. Sad to say, now that diverse Muslim communities are struggling to emerge as democratic nations, the secular aspects of their lives are being diminished rather than enhanced. The cases in point would be Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, and Algeria, not to mention Sudan, Iran, and Afghanistan.

The interfaith dialogues I witnessed took place here, in America, within the dynamics of a polity which is secular. And yet the protagonists in these dialogues displayed a curious and selective ambivalence toward that polity. One only heard: secularism is good for America but not good for Pakistan or Egypt. And why? Because Pakistan and Egypt are Muslim majority countries and Muslims are required by their religion to establish an Islamic state. But what of those Muslims in Pakistan, Egypt, Algeria, Sudan, Iran, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Afghanistan -- all over the world -- who would rather live within a polity that grants freedom to all religions, and to all sects within any religion, to pursue their matters of faith without hindrance -- but within a context of equality and reciprocity -- are they not good enough Muslims? Not even in the eyes of American Christians?/2/

The ultimate question, of course, is: what was the purpose of these dialogues? Since they were mostly initiated by Christians, what results did the Christians expect from these events? It may be said that they hoped to gain an understanding of Islam. In that case, I don't see what stopped them from reading a few books. But if it is claimed that their aim was to get an insight into the lived religion of the Muslims, they, to begin with, should have brought to these dialogues their own lived religion. At none of the meetings that I attended, did the Christians highlight any of the issues that are currently so problematic a part of their lives as Christians -- issues such as homosexuality; women's rights; prayer in schools; abortion. Or the three great issues of their most recent past: racism; anti-semitism; and the need for an ecumenical movement.

The Muslims didn't raise such issues either. And when rarely they did, it was only to dismiss them with some exclusively scriptural statement. For the overwhelming part, they used these occasions as opportunities to tell their story of grievances and hurts. They placed their remarks precisely and entirely in recent history, in a narrative of defeat and loss of power, of neglect and denial and victimhood.

I'm not blind to the brutality being inflicted on Bosnian Muslims, the ferocity displayed against the Iraqis, and the unremitting injustice done to the Palestinians. But is that all there is to being a Muslim at this time? And should I not shed at least one tear for those others who are in fact being victimised in the name of Islam? The Christians in Egypt and Sudan? The Ahmadis in Pakistan? The Bahais in Iran? Of course, these cases don't compare in magnitude to what has been done to Bosnian Muslims, but shouldn't I note at least the terrible impulse behind them? I denounce the abandonment of Bosnia by the United States and other Western powers. But shouldn't I also denounce the equally shameless abandonment of the Kurds, who are also Muslims and have been abandoned by the same West, but to the mercy of three so-called Muslim states -- Iraq, Turkey and Iran? Yes, there is again a difference of magnitude. But if I don't raise the issue I remain blind to the systemic question the two cases share: how do modern nation states, great and small, form and preserve themselves.

What concerns me most is that the Muslim narrative of hurts not only posited an immediate colonial past that was a period of utter decline and passivity but also implied a precolonial period of pristine "Islamic" glory. To my mind, both totalisations are false. They are also harmful; invoking them only distorts any effort to think out mutually our shared future here. A selective memory of caliphs and kings cannot help us much in working towards a world which is not just pluralistic but also democratic.
 

To conclude: what should be the goal of an interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims? It should certainly not be the position taken in a Qur'anic verse that was invoked by one Muslim: "To you your way, to me mine." (CIX:6). In the first place, that particular verse is explicitly addressed to kafirs, "the Unbelievers." Christians are not kafirs, perhaps not even in the sight of the most absolutist Muslim. Secondly, in its full context, that was a statement of an absolute parting of ways, which, of course, cannot be the aim of any dialogue. Likewise, a dialogue shouldn't be for the sake of a "victory" for one of the participants. Nor should some compromise or syncretism be its goal. These are unworthy aims./3/ Personally, I feel only that dialogue -- whether with a person or with a book -- may be deemed fruitful that does two things: (1) clarifies something that was obscure in my own thought; and, equally importantly, (2) makes a little bit opaque what I earlier thought was patently clear.

Perhaps that is too personal a view. Let me, therefore, conclude on a more textual note. Judaism and Christianity are religions explicitly affirmed in the Qur'an, but the Qur'an, at one place, equally explicitly commands the Muslims to judge the Christians and the Jews: "Judge between them in the light of what has been revealed by God, and do not follow their whims, and beware of them lest they lead you away from the guidance sent down to you by God." (V:49). That would seem to rule out any kind of dialogue. But at another place, the Qur'an seems to invite dialogue when it enjoins the Muslims to say to the Christians and the Jews: "O people of the Book, let us come to an agreement on that which is common between us, that we worship no one but God, and make none His compeer, and that none of us take any others for lord apart from God." (III:64) Elsewhere, the Qur'an clearly places Muslims, Christians and Jews on an equal footing to the extent they are capable of performing deeds that are good in the sight of God. "To each of you We have given a law and a way and a pattern of life. If God had pleased He could surely have made you one people (professing one faith.) But He wished to try and test you by that which He gave you. So try to excel in good deeds. To Him will you all return in the end, when He will tell you of what you were at variance." (V:48)

How we can differently worship one God; what makes a given deed good or bad; how these critical issues play out in the lives of ordinary Muslims, Christians and Jews, at different times and in different places -- gaining some understanding of these matters can be the worthy goal of any interfaith dialogue. It is by no means an easy goal. But we may hope to get somewhere close to it if we -- Christians and Muslims -- pursue that goal in the spirit of some words of the eminent theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg, who found inspiration for them in the greater wisdom of the Apostle Paul (1 Corinthian 13:9-12): "While the truth of God's revelation is indeed ultimate, our understanding of that truth is always provisional and will remain so until the end of history."/4/

N O T E S

/*/ Originally published in First Things #57 (November 1995). The editors, however, excluded all references to Israel and Palestine. Revised text of a talk given on 11 December 1994 at the Sunday worship service at the Rockefeller Chapel, University of Chicago. I wish to thank Dean Bernard O. Brown for inviting me and encouraging me to express my thoughts freely. The editors of First Things accepted it for publication but deleted all references to Israel and Palestine. A Lutheran magazine that reprinted the article was gracious enough to use my full text.
/1/ The first "dialogue" was in April 1993 at the American Islamic College; the second, in May 1993, was at the Lutheran School of Theology and organised by the Committee of the Religious Dialogues (Lawrence, KS). The Parliament was in August the same year.
/2/ A related point: I wonder why the American Christians didn't invite as participants in these dialogues some Christians from the so-called Muslim countries? Was it mere parochialism or was it due to some misguided concern about the sensibilities of their Muslim guests? The seriousness of this lapse on their part became evident to me when a Muslim speaker described Sudan as "the best, the only truly Islamic country." (In a panel on "Treatment of Minorities," no less.) No one challenged him. No one asked about Sudanese Christians and what has been happening to them for at least a decade, not to mention the execution of the eminent Muslim thinker, Sheikh Mahmoud Taha, for his liberal views.
/3/ For an excellent discussion of some of these issues, see Paul Griffith, "Why We Need Interreligious Polemics," First Things, # 44 (June/July 1994), pp. 31-37.
/4/ Wolfhart Pannenberg, "The Uncertainly Christian West: Ambiguous Past, Uncertain Future," First Things, # 48 (December 1994), p. 19.