The central difference

The media have missed the point of the letter from 138 Muslim leaders to the Pope on 11 October.

In welcoming the tone of the letter, the Telegraph headline typically reported: “Muslim scholars’ olive branch to Christians.” And Reuters saws it as an “Unprecedented Muslim call for peace with Christians.” But was it really?

The letter cites the Qur’an in calling Christians to ‘Come to a common word between us and you that we shall worship but one God and that we shall ascribe no partner to him.’

Dr Williams, in apparently welcoming the letter in a press release from Lambeth Palace dated 11 October, noted the need for respect and mutual goodwill where Muslims and Christians lived together and where either community was a minority.

But he also referred to the detail of the ‘common word’ saying ‘the letter’s understanding of the unicity of God provided an opportunity for Christians and Muslims to explore together their distinctive understandings and the ways in which these mould and shape our lives.’

He thus put down a careful marker: the basis of unity itself has to be a central point of dialogue as it is a central aspect of religious difference.

Dr Michael Nazir Ali in his initial response commented that the Christian view of God containing Jesus in a divine trinity was very different from that of Muslims.  ‘Dialogue should be on the basis of that difference.  They appear to be saying “This is what Muslims believe . . . if you agree, then let’s have a dialogue”.’

This overture is too important to be dismissed or ignored, but at the start of dialogue, Christianity cannot be subsumed within Islam.  As Christians must understand Muslims, so Muslims must understand Christians.  Each faith must say ‘Let me be other’. 

The letter – with the caveats already noted and perhaps also without a major omission of the Jewish inclusion - closes the door on the peddlers of hatred and opens it to hard, protracted and essential dialogue.

The ‘common word’ the letter describes is based on two foundational principles of both faiths: love of the one true God and love of the neighbour.  It calls Christians, Muslims and other faith communities to ‘vie with each other only in righteousness and good works; to respect each other, be fair, just and kind to one another and to live in sincere peace harmony, and mutual goodwill.’

Translated into all the languages of the persecuted church, this letter with these clear prescriptions sanctioned by the entire Ummah, could be the basis of serious accountability wherever believers are persecuted for their faith. 

Now we have to see the action, the cash value of the ‘common word’ at all levels and in five continents. 

But can the secular world grasp what’s really at stake?  Religious literacy will be increasingly – and unfashionably - obligatory for the future of international relations.