INTERFAITH ISSUES

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kmaherali
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Judaism, Christianity & Islam: Forgotten Shared Beliefs of the Abrahamic Faiths

http://ismailignosis.com/2015/12/09/jud ... ic-faiths/
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The Great Christmas Strike of 1906

WHEN schools in Augusta County, Va., closed earlier this month after parents objected to an Arabic calligraphy lesson, it was tempting to see it as only the latest example of the rampant anti-Muslim sentiment that has taken hold in much of the country.

Yet it was also part of a much older conflict in American education: the inevitable tension between exposure to the cultural expression of various religious traditions and fears that art and music may be tools of evangelization in disguise. During a season that includes Christmas, Hanukkah and some years, including this one, the celebration of Muhammad’s birth, skirmishes like this unfold with the predictability of a holiday pageant.

At Riverheads High School in Staunton, Va., students were introduced to the elaborate calligraphy often used in Arabic religious texts with the Shahada, the basic statement of Islamic faith. Asked to copy the lines and curves of the “testimony,” students would attempt to write “There is no God but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God,” albeit in an alphabet they could not understand.

Kimberly Herndon, the parent who first took to social media to voice her consternation over this assignment (given by a teacher named Cheryl LaPorte), explained her objections to the lesson this way: “Children were deceived when they were told it was calligraphy. This is not calligraphy. This is a language.”

“When I saw the language, the Arabic language, immediately I had a bad feeling come over me,” she said. “I will not have my children sit under a woman who indoctrinates them with the Islam religion when I am a Christian.”

There is perhaps no greater indication of the potency of religious language than the fear it sometimes inspires. Both those who believe the Shahada and those who don’t appear to agree that some words have spiritual consequences.

Concerned that their faith is being challenged in the classroom, Christians like Ms. Herndon have lately led the charge against supposed religious indoctrination in Virginia, Georgia and Tennessee. They have not had a monopoly on such fears in American history, however.

In fact, what may well be the single largest action taken by parents worried about religious indoctrination in American schools was made not in defense of Christianity, but against it.

In December 1906, a protest movement began within the New York Jewish community objecting to religious activities in elementary schools. With compulsory Christian-themed holiday programs planned during the school day on Christmas Eve, a call went out for a “general strike” that would in some neighborhoods leave classrooms all but abandoned.

“The keeping away of every Jewish child from the public schools,” a writer for The Jewish Daily News said, “will be the most stinging rebuke.” The “Anti-Christmas Strike,” as the non-Jewish press called it, was intended, like the complaints in Augusta County, as a display of parental control over the religious ideas to which children should be exposed.

While the school closings in Virginia and the boycott in New York are not exactly alike, both were incited by cultural exercises some claimed were innocuous, but others insisted were stealth attempts at religious instruction.

In New York 109 years ago, the trouble began when Jewish children were asked to learn such songs as “Birthday of a King,” and a group of community leaders met with the city’s Elementary Schools Committee to complain.

“Objection was made by the Jews to hymns, compositions, pictures and decorations at the Christmas exercises,” The New York Times reported. They “asserted” that “sectarian hymns were sung”; that students were assigned “subjects for compositions” that “treated of the Christ”; and that “pictures of the Madonna and others of similar significance were hung on the walls of many classrooms.”

“We wonder what the Christian population would say,” The Jewish Daily News asked, “if there were introduced in the schools, even when the pupils consist almost entirely of Jewish children, Chanuca exercises in commemoration of the Maccabean victory, with the subterfuge now used by the school board that they are merely social and have nothing to do with religion.” When the school committee failed to address concerns that holiday programs would feature such songs as “Waken! Christian Children” and “Christ Is Born,” more than 20,000 Jewish students boycotted — a third of the student body in predominantly Jewish neighborhoods.

“We are more than satisfied with the splendid showing our Jewish children made in staying away from the schools yesterday,” the editor of The Jewish Morning Journal wrote. “It was not a religious controversy but a manly American stand.”

Obviously, the 1906 boycott did not achieve its goal “to stop forever the practice of holding Christmas exercises in the public schools,” but contrary to The Jewish Daily News’s prediction, today there is nothing controversial about including Hanukkah songs along with Christmas carols in school holiday concerts.

In the long run, the distressed Christian parents in Augusta County will not put an end to schools’ teaching their children about Islam, as state educational standards require. These conflicts will probably come to be remembered, like the anti-Christmas strike, as signposts marking slow progress toward a greater inclusion to come.

This year, New York became the first major American city to close its public schools in recognition of a Muslim holiday. If and when others follow suit, it will rightly be a local decision, yet the negotiation of religious differences this decision represents is part of both the nation’s past and its future.

In the wake of their unlikely calligraphy controversy, administrators at Riverheads High School announced that the Shahada would be replaced in the assignment by a nonreligious example of ornate Arabic writing.

Yet the meaning of the lesson, and the conflict that followed, will remain. Whether you are a member of the majority faith who feels threatened by the increasing visibility of other traditions, or a part of one of the many minority religious communities that have traveled a similar path toward acceptance, there is nothing to fear in learning the power of words you do not believe.

Peter Manseau is the author, most recently, of “One Nation, Under Gods: A New American History.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/29/opini ... 87722&_r=0
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Religious Literacy Project of Harvard Divinity School

The Religious Literacy Project at Harvard Divinity School is dedicated to enhancing and promoting the public understanding of religion. We provide resources and special training opportunities for educators, journalists, public health workers, foreign service officers, interfaith/multifaith groups, students, and others wishing to better understand the complex roles that religions play in contemporary global, national, and local contexts.

Explanation of Need

Religions have functioned throughout human history to inspire and justify the full range of agency from the heinous to the heroic. Their influences remain potent at the dawn of the 21st century in spite of modern predictions that religious influences would steadily decline in concert with the rise of secular democracies and advances in science. Understanding these complex religious influences is a critical dimension of understanding modern human affairs. In spite of this awareness, there remains a widespread illiteracy about religion that spans the globe. There are many consequences of this illiteracy, but the most urgent is that it fuels conflict and antagonisms and hinders cooperative endeavors in all arenas of human experience.

The RLP at HDS

We at HDS are uniquely situated to enhance the public understanding of religion given our longstanding expertise in all of the world’s religious traditions coupled with our over 40 year history focusing on education about religion through various iterations of our teacher education program. The Religious Literacy Project is a new initiative that builds upon both of these legacies and focuses on how to understand the roles that religions play in human experience across political, economic, and cultural spheres with a special focus on contemporary issues related to conflict and peace.

Arenas of Focus

The RLP has three arenas of focus: education, resources, and research.

•Education: Through workshops, webinars, executive education opportunities, courses, conferences, and the Religious Studies and Education Certificate, the Religious Literacy Project provides several venues for individuals and groups within and outside of Harvard to explore how religion functions in contemporary human affairs.

•Resources: The RLP is creating a series of open access resources to enhance the public understanding of religion. Through country profiles, religion profiles, commentaries by Harvard faculty and affiliates on contemporary issues, and resources specifically designed for K-12 educators, the Religious Literacy Project represents how religions are 1) internally diverse; 2) how they evolve and change; and 3) how religious ideologies are embedded in all aspects of human experience.

•Research: The Religious Literacy Project has embarked upon a substantial research initiative to collect data, map, and analyze how religion is taught in K-12 schools in the United States. The Project collects data, maps, and analyzes how teacher education programs address content related to religion and religious diversity within schools and communities. Even though religion is embedded in K-12 humanities and social science curriculum standards as well as in the Common Core Standards, there is no comprehensive information about how religion is taught in schools. Similarly, there is no comprehensive information regarding training for pre-service teachers about the special challenges and opportunities related to teaching about religion in light of First Amendment guidelines in a multireligious society.

http://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/about
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Pope Washes Feet of Muslim Migrants at Easter Week Mass

"We have different cultures and religions, but we are brothers and we want to live in peace"

(CASTELNUOVO DI PORTO, Italy) — Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of Muslim, Christian and Hindu refugees Thursday and declared them all children of the same God, as he performed a gesture of welcome and brotherhood at a time of increased anti-Muslim sentiment following the Brussels attacks.

Francis denounced the carnage as a “gesture of war” carried out by blood-thirsty people beholden to the weapons industry during an Easter Week Mass with asylum-seekers at a shelter in Castelnuovo di Porto, outside Rome.

The Holy Thursday rite re-enacts the foot-washing ritual Jesus performed on his apostles before being crucified, and is meant as a gesture of service. Francis contrasted that gesture with the “gesture of destruction” carried out by the Brussels attackers, saying they wanted to destroy the brotherhood of humanity represented by the migrants.

http://time.com/4271679/pope-muslim-mig ... -brothers/
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Misunderstandings of religion


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U-YQXRrNo ... r_embedded

World Religions Through Their Scriptures -(Harvard)

Harvard
69 min video

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z1k3zii5syU
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Religion

Can heaven help the UN World Humanitarian Summit?


Germany's government supports the participation of religious leaders in the UN World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul. Terrorism, displacement and lack of safe access to nutrition and health care are on the agenda.

Many religions proclaim their miracles. But is faith capable of driving economic development in poor countries, helping refugees start new lives and denying terror groups a foothold?

Donors and world leaders, German Chancellor Angela Merkel among them, will be asking that question when they meet in Istanbul for the UN World Humanitarian Summit on May 23. In convening the unparalleled global gathering, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said civilization was facing the largest humanitarian catastrophe since World War II.

Religion is at the top of the agenda. At a special session on Monday, selected faith leaders will tell world leaders and NGOs just what role they can play in dealing with a number of humanitarian crises. German Economic Development and Cooperation Minister Gerd Müller will be among those participating. "Religious leaders enjoy great respect in many countries," Müller told DW. "We have to use this potential without losing sight of the fact that religion is also used to justify violence and terrorism."

In an effort to fight terror, Müller's ministry has launched the International Partnership on Religion and Sustainable Development. "Religious communities do a great deal of important work throughout the world when it comes to health services, education, nutrition and caring for refugees," Müller said. About 80 percent of the world's population professes a faith. "That is why you can only make progress with, and not opposed to, various religions on a lot of subjects," Müller said.

Islamic aid organizations in Germany have been open to the minister's initiatives. "The German government is undoubtedly happy that we exist," said Nuri Köseli, the spokesman for Islamic Relief Deutschland. "We have helped a lot in Syria."

The Development Ministry has also worked with the ecclesiastical relief organizations Bread for the World and Misereor for over 50 years and donates about 200 million euro ($227 million) annually toward their projects.

Another summit participant is the Aga Khan Development Network, which has about 80,000 employees and an annual budget of $625 million (550 million euros). It has been led by the Nizari-Ismailis Shiite cleric Aga Khan for the past 60 years.

Despite all efforts to facilitate dialogue and cooperation, a rift has emerged in the various religious camps - even at the World Humanitarian Summit. The International Islamic Relief Organization of Saudi Arabia was excluded from the conference. Founded in 1979 according to a Saudi royal decree, the organization is indeed involved in developmental aid, but it also finances the building of mosques and, according to the UN, is suspected of supporting extremists.

Fighting Ebola together

Islamic Relief Deutschland is one of the biggest donors to the international umbrella organization Islamic Relief Worldwide. Through its national associations and partner offices, IRW is active in 40 countries. In 2014, the association had some 113 million euros on hand for its projects. The British and Swedish Development ministries, UN aid organizations, the European Union, the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) are among IRW's partners.

A shared report by CAFOD and IRW describing the fight against Ebola in West Africa illustrates just how important cooperation among religious leaders can be in crisis zones. Making a religious case, Muslim and Christian clerics did something that national authorities and UN organizations had been unable to: They changed traditional burial rites, thus helping to stop the spread of the epidemic. Until that point, bodily contact with infected corpses had greatly increased the spread of Ebola.

According to the "Keeping the Faith" report by CAFOD, IRW, Christian Aid and Tearfund, a member of the Ebola Task Force said that "Sierra Leone would have saved more lives and more money had religious leaders been engaged at an earlier stage of the disease outbreak."

http://www.dw.com/en/can-heaven-help-th ... a-19264310
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Baptist church in DeKalb County rallies to help Muslim neighbor

Malik Waliyani arrived at his store last week to find the registers damaged, items stolen and an undetermined amount of cash gone.

Waliyani, who bought the gas station and convenience store three months ago, was devastated.

Insurance probably wouldn’t cover all of his losses.


Carole and Jim Still show up to help Malik Waliyani after a burglary at his store. CONTRIBUTED BY CLARK R. HILL

Then help arrived from an unexpected source.

A member of nearby Smoke Rise Baptist Church heard about the burglary on social media and rallied others in the congregation.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO


Malik Waliyani arrived at his DeKalb County store to find burglars had hit it earlier. They ransacked the business and took an undetermined amount of cash. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

So, after services on Sunday, dozens of members arrived by van, truck and car at the TruBuy BP station on Lilburn-Stone Mountain Road.

They filled up their tanks. They bought candy, soda and chips. One woman bought a candy bar then pushed her change back across the counter.

Jim and Carole Still of Stone Mountain spent $36 in gas and also bought a Diet Coke.


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CBF - Smoke Rise 1 720x1280.mov
“He’s our neighbor and we came to help,” said Carole Still. Her husband said he drove around until the gas tank was nearly empty so he could fill up at Waliyani’s store.

“Amazing,” said Waliyani, an Ismaili Muslim who was born in India but has lived in Georgia for about a dozen years. “I couldn’t believe that I would be accepted so greatly by the neighbors and the community around me. They stood by me in my difficult time, and it gives me hope to rise again.”

This is the second time Waliyani has been victimized. In 2012, he was robbed at gunpoint while helping in his uncle’s Norcross store.

The Rev. Chris George, senior pastor of Smoke Rise, which has about 1,800 active members, said the business has been a convenient stop for church members.

The congregation wanted to do something “more than send cards and offer prayers.”

What if the church also offered support in a more tangible way?

“We wanted to be a congregation that is committed to being a good neighbor,” he said.

The burglary happened in the early morning hours of July 11. Masked thieves broke in through an emergency door. When Waliyani arrived at the store later that day, the area behind the counter was a mess. They knocked down the whole counter and ripped out the electrical connections.

“It seems like they knew exactly what to do and they didn’t want to spend any extra seconds (in the store),” he said.

For the past few days, Waliyani had to dig deep into his pockets to have cash on hand for business and to restock merchandise. Video of the incident has been turned over to police.

He is just thankful that it happened when no one was in the store.

He said another church has also offered to help his business.

Some people have offered to help Waliyani, who is married with a young child, with his mortgage and other expenses.

“Of course, I feel very wonderful,” he said. “This will keep me strong, God willing. My faith teaches me that we should build bridges. Even if we follow different religions, we are all human beings.”

http://www.ajc.com/news/lifestyles/bapt ... -mu/nr2HY/
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What Religion Would Jesus Belong To?

ONE puzzle of the world is that religions often don’t resemble their founders.

Jesus never mentioned gays or abortion but focused on the sick and the poor, yet some Christian leaders have prospered by demonizing gays. Muhammad raised the status of women in his time, yet today some Islamic clerics bar women from driving, or cite religion as a reason to hack off the genitals of young girls. Buddha presumably would be aghast at the apartheid imposed on the Rohingya minority by Buddhists in Myanmar.

“Our religions often stand for the very opposite of what their founders stood for,” notes Brian D. McLaren, a former pastor, in a provocative and powerful new book, “The Great Spiritual Migration.”

Founders are typically bold and charismatic visionaries who inspire with their moral imagination, while their teachings sometimes evolve into ingrown, risk-averse bureaucracies obsessed with money and power. That tension is especially pronounced with Christianity, because Jesus was a radical who challenged the establishment, while Christianity has been so successful that in much of the world it is the establishment.

“No wonder more and more of us who are Christians by birth, by choice, or both find ourselves shaking our heads and asking, ‘What happened to Christianity?’” McLaren writes. “We feel as if our founder has been kidnapped and held hostage by extremists. His captors parade him in front of cameras to say, under duress, things he obviously doesn’t believe. As their blank-faced puppet, he often comes across as anti-poor, anti-environment, anti-gay, anti-intellectual, anti-immigrant and anti-science. That’s not the Jesus we met in the Gospels!”

This argument unfolds against a backdrop of religious ferment. The West has rapidly become more secular, with the “nones” — the religiously nonaffiliated, including atheists as well as those who feel spiritual but don’t identify with a particular religion — accounting for almost one-fourth of Americans today. The share is rising quickly: Among millennials, more than one-third are nones.

The rise of the nones seems to have been accompanied by a decline in public interest in doctrine. “One of the most religious countries on earth,” Stephen Prothero says in his book “Religious Literacy,” referring to the U.S., “is also a nation of religious illiterates.”

Only half of American Christians can name the four Gospels, only 41 percent are familiar with Job, and barely half of American Catholics understand Catholic teaching about the eucharist. Yet if Americans suspect that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife, or wonder if the epistles were female apostles, then maybe the solution is to fret less about doctrines and more about actions.

“What would it mean for Christians to rediscover their faith not as a problematic system of beliefs but as a just and generous way of life, rooted in contemplation and expressed in compassion?” McLaren asks in “The Great Spiritual Migration.” “Could Christians migrate from defining their faith as a system of beliefs to expressing it as a loving way of life?”

That would be a migration away from religious bureaucracy and back to the moral vision of the founder, and it would be an enormous challenge. But religion can and does migrate.

“Because I grew up in a very conservative Christian context, we were always warned about changing the essential message,” McLaren told me. “But at the same time, we often missed how much actually had changed over time.” Christianity at times approved of burning witches and massacring heretics; thank goodness it has evolved!

As society has modernized and people have grown more skeptical of accounts of virgin birth or resurrection, one response has been to retreat from religion. Yet there’s also a deep impulse for spiritual connections.

McLaren advises worrying less about whether biblical miracles are literally true and thinking more about their meaning: If Jesus is said to have healed a leper, put aside the question of whether this actually happened and focus on his outreach to the most stigmatized of outcasts.

It is not just Christianity, of course, that is grappling with these questions. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, said that he sees a desire for a social justice mission inspired and balanced by faith traditions.

“That’s where I see our path,” Jacobs said. “People have seen ritual as an obsession for the religious community, and they haven’t seen the courage and commitment to shaping a more just and compassionate world.”

If certain religious services were less about preening about one’s own virtue or pointing fingers at somebody else’s iniquity and more about tackling human needs around us, this would be a better world — and surely Jesus would applaud as well.

This may seem an unusual column for me to write, for I’m not a particularly religious Christian. But I do see religious faith as one of the most important forces, for good and ill, and I am inspired by the efforts of the faithful who run soup kitchens and homeless shelters.

Perhaps unfairly, the pompous hypocrites get the headlines and often shape public attitudes about religion, but there’s more to the picture. Remember that on average religious Americans donate far more to charity and volunteer more than secular Americans do.

It is not the bureaucracy that inspires me, or doctrine, or ancient rituals, or even the most glorious cathedral, temple or mosque, but rather a Catholic missionary doctor in Sudan treating bomb victims, an evangelical physician achieving the impossible in rural Angola, a rabbi battling for Palestinians’ human rights — they fill me with an almost holy sense of awe. Now, that’s religion.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/opini ... ef=opinion
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Why are Kenya's churches and mosques turning yellow?


(CNN) — From the crowded streets of the Kibera slum to the steamy Mombasa coast, a peculiar trend has emerged across Kenya.

Mosques are changing their traditional green facades, churches ditching their typical modest hues and are opting instead for a loud, unmistakable -- some may say ostentatious -- yellow.

The project, called Color in Faith, is an effort to bring together Kenya's religious communities and is spearheaded by Colombian-American artist Yazmany Arboleda and his Kenyan counterpart Nabila Alibhai.

Religious leaders say the yellow makeover serves as a symbol.

"For me, yellow is the color of the sun and the sun shines above everybody," said Bishop Rose Mungafu. Her church in Mombasa recently partnered with the local Muslim community to paint the church yellow.


"We painted together to show our people that we as leaders are together and so Muslims will know Christians are brothers," Mungafu said. "Now everyone who passes by will know we are in peace."

More....
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/27/africa/ke ... index.html

******
An artist has painted mosques and churches across Kenya yellow to promote peace

http://qz.com/832714/election-2016-dona ... y-at-home/

It’s this kind of interfaith solidarity that Colombian artist Yazmany Arboleda and Nabila Alibhai, founder of a Nairobi-based civic group inCOMMONS, hope to engender in a civic art project where local communities paint mosques and churches across the country a bright yellow. The project, Colour in Faith, was completed earlier this month, with a total of five churches and four mosques or Muslim religious buildings bathed in what they call “optimistic yellow.”


“The idea is that these buildings are landmarks that celebrate pluralism and unity,” Arboleda told Quartz. Volunteers, often a mix of Christian and Muslim residents, paint the buildings with donated paint. “The idea was to explore religion and find commonalities with the hope to create a space for reflection.”
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Sacred Spaces: Must see photo essay by Canadian photographer Muslim Harji

There are beautiful photos at:

https://simergphotos.com/2016/11/18/pho ... lim-harji/

INTRODUCTION: A sacred space is any space or area that has been dedicated for a religious or sacred purpose. All world religions have places set aside that are treated as holy, and where individuals gather with utmost humility and respect to carry out prayers and rituals for spiritual development and growth. It is in these sacred spaces that individuals dedicate their time to detach themselves from the profane, and seek out special moments for peace and happiness by praying to their Creator.

The name for this sacred space differs according to faith. Christians have churches, monasteries, shrines, sanctuaries, and chapels. Muslims worship in mosques, as well as in khaneqahs and jamatkhanas, and Jews in synagogue. Buddhists and Hindus call their spaces temples. Often, mausoleums and burial sites of important saints become sacred places over a period of time, where people of different faith converge and offer their submissions to the saints for the resolution to their problems. In many instances individuals and families dedicate special rooms in their homes as sacred spaces, imitating the spaces in the same way as their prayer houses. The point remains the same: it is a place where believers can encounter God in a special way.

In my travels around the world, I have encountered numerous places of worship and sacredness, and I am delighted to share the pictures I have taken with readers of this blog. For the benefit of the readers I have compiled a very brief summary, where possible, of each world religion or faith in order to broaden the reader’s horizon of the photos that are shown.
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Wanted: Leaders to Turn Interfaith Conflict Into Trust

This month, the F.B.I. reported that hate crimes against Muslims in 2015 reached their highest level since 2001. In New York City this year, hate crimes are tracking one-third higher than last year; against Muslims they have more than doubled.

The election of Donald J. Trump has highlighted religious tensions in America, particularly with Trump’s proposals to bar Muslims from entering the country and to create a registry of Muslims living in the United States. But these tensions did not begin with Trump. In America, virtually every form of faith or belief has at some point suffered unfavorable reception by others; the victims include Roman Catholics, Mormons, evangelical Christians, Jews and atheists, alongside Muslims.

Four years ago, I reported on the Interfaith Youth Core, which trains leaders to build relationships and respect between diverse faith communities. The work has expanded considerably. The organization now has more than 350 active campuses in its network, and more than 1,000 colleges have used its resources. This year its founder, Eboo Patel, explained in a book, Interfaith Leadership, what this type of leadership entails and why he considers it vital in today’s world. Patel, who is Muslim, recently spoke with me about democracy, the responsibilities of citizens, and his fears and hopes after this year’s election. Here are excerpts:

More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/opini ... d=71987722
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Interfaith Thanksgiving celebration underscores the diversity of Fort Bend County

Extract:

“Interfaith is the new normal. This isn’t a luxury anymore. This is the new necessity.”

Until recently, there wasn’t a formal interfaith community in Fort Bend County. That changed with Lobel. When the rabbi moved to Missouri City in 2014, he contacted local religious groups to gauge interest in interfaith events. The best way to start, he concluded, was with an interfaith Thanksgiving service.

The first service was held in 2015. This year’s follow-up was, to put it simply, bigger and better.

Participants from six faith communities — Protestants, Catholics, Sunni Muslims, Ismaili Muslims, Reformed Jews and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — spoke at the service. They gave readings in five different languages, which echoed in the high-ceilinged church that could hold nearly 1,000 people.

There was a collective murmur of awe after a four-person Ismaili choir finished singing a poem of praise in Urdu. A member of the LDS church recited the Litany of Thanksgiving in Chinese.

There were nods of agreement when every faith group spoke about their commitments to pluralism — whether during the homily or through verses from the Quran, Bible, Torah and Book of Mormon.

It was a service that resonated with different faiths without comprising their belief systems or values.

“It is the authentic faith of many, practiced in a civil way,” said Chappell Temple, lead pastor at Christ Church Sugar Land.

As for the differences between faiths? “The God I know is big enough to allow for those sorts of variations,” Temple said.

More...
http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/ ... id=Ar08100
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Why It’s Not Wrong to Wish Muslims Merry Christmas

ISTANBUL — Billions of Christians around the world are excited to celebrate Christmas this weekend. Those in the world’s second-largest religious community, Muslims, don’t share quite the same excitement. In a few Muslim-majority countries, like Saudi Arabia, Brunei and Somalia, Christmas celebrations are banned. In Turkey, my country, they are not illegal, but some Islamist groups still organize annual protests against Christmas trees and Santa Claus costumes, which they consider Western impositions.

Meanwhile, many other Muslims around the world are rightly respectful to their Christian neighbors and even share in their holy day. They include the owners of a Turkish restaurant in London that decided to offer a free Christmas meal to the homeless and the elderly, and a Muslim businessman in Baghdad who erected a Christmas tree in solidarity with Christians persecuted by the self-declared Islamic State.

These Christmas-friendly Muslims are right, but not simply because respect for other religions is a virtue. They are also right because Christmas is the celebration of the miraculous birth of Jesus, which is a powerful theme not just in the New Testament, but also in the Quran.

Two chapters of the Muslim holy book give detailed accounts of the birth of Jesus, which partly resemble the account in the Gospel of Luke.

Both chapters — one is named Maryam, or Mary — feature this admirable Jewish woman whom God has “purified” and “chosen above all other women.”

As the Quran narrates, an angel approached Mary one day and told her that God had decided to give her “a pure boy.” Mary objected: “How can I have a boy when no man has touched me?” The angel responded, “God creates whatever he wills.” Then God “breathes into Mary of our spirit,” and she conceives Isa, or Jesus.

There are, of course, ways in which the Muslim story of Jesus diverges from the Christian version that is celebrated at Christmas. The New Testament says that Jesus’ birth took place in Bethlehem, in a manger or at an inn, when Mary was with her husband, Joseph. In the Quran, Mary gave birth in “a distant place,” all alone and under a palm tree. It’s worth noting that stories appearing in the eastern apocryphal gospels, as well as recent archaeological findings, correspond to the Quran’s version of events.

Crucially, the Quran differs with the Bible on Jesus’ divinity. The Muslim holy book insists that he was a human and a prophet. It repeatedly defines Jesus as “the Messiah,” but this seems to be a notion of Messiah as described in Judaism: an extraordinary servant of God, not God incarnate. The Quran’s Jesus is also sent to the children of Israel, comes “confirming the Torah” and affirms a strictly unitarian monotheism. The Islamic Jesus, one could say, is a more Jewish Jesus.

Nonetheless, Islam and Christianity share a lot in their adoration for Isa and Maryam, Jesus and Mary. Muslims are in fact the only non-Christians on earth who believe that Jesus was born of a virgin.

For centuries, Muslims have taken this as a literal truth. Medieval exegetes of the Quran debated details like how God’s spirit was “breathed” into Mary, taking as truth that the virgin birth was an act of God. Sayyid Qutb, the 20th-century Egyptian fundamentalist, described Maryam’s pregnancy as “the strangest event that humanity throughout its history has ever witnessed.”

In a 2002 book they wrote to criticize Islam, Emir F. Caner and Ergun M. Caner, two Turkish converts to Christianity who became Southern Baptist ministers, argued that Muslims are more Christian on the issue of the virgin birth than the “liberal ‘Christians’ ” who seek metaphorical interpretations of the amazing miracle.

To add more to Jesus’ extraordinary nature, the Quran even calls him “Word of God.” Muslim scholars have been puzzled by this term, which the Quran uses for no one else. Christian theologians have been intrigued, too, for it evokes the Gospel of John, which defines Jesus as the Word of God who “became flesh and dwelt among us.”
10Comments
Interpreting these parallels between the Quran and the earlier Christian sources depends partly on one’s faith. Christians can think Islam borrowed from their religion. Muslims, on the other hand, can think that much in Christianity foretold theirs. But we can all agree that these two great Abrahamic religions, despite the sometimes bitter conflicts between them, have much in common. This year, with tensions between many Muslims and Christians in Europe, the United States and elsewhere running high, that’s worth remembering.

The people in Saudi Arabia and Brunei who ban Christmas clearly have the wrong idea. Even if this is not a Muslim holiday, we don’t need to object to Christmas. The miraculous birth of Jesus — the prophet, the Messiah and the “Word” of God — should not offend any Muslim. Salaam alaikum, or “peace be upon you,” Muslims should be able to say to their Christian neighbors on Dec. 25, without hesitating to add, “Merry Christmas!”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/23/opini ... d=71987722
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How Christians Can Ally With Muslims In The Age Of Islamophobia

[This story was first published on Slant News in 2015. The site has since shuttered, so I am reposting here.]

https://medium.com/@islamoyankee/how-ch ... 6808f113b9

A colleague of mine asked me what advice I would give Christians who would want to show allyship with Muslims, now and during the inevitable hate-fests that will emerge due to recent events.

Here are some quick thoughts on ways Christians can build rapport with Muslims.
1.Remember: Muslims Love Jesus.

It’s not just Jesus, but Mary as well, who is the only woman named in the Qur’an, the second most mentioned person in the Qur’an after Moses. She is also the only woman to have a chapter of the Qur’an named after her.

One of the wonderful passages about Jesus in the Qur’an is from the chapter of Mary. It says:

Indeed I am a servant of Allah! He has given me the Book and made me a prophet.
He has made me blessed, wherever I may be, and He has enjoined me to prayer and to be charitable as long as I live,
and to be good to my mother, and He has not made me self-willed and wretched.
Peace is to me the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I am raised alive. (19:30–33)


From Wikipedia: By Unknown — http://staff.xu.edu/~tan/links/Islam-1.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4005509
2. Let’s Walk Together



Author photo of NYC Climate March — https://flic.kr/p/p3Teuh

This advice is meant in a literal sense. People are less likely to be harassed if they are traveling in a group. In Sydney, the #IllRideWithYou campaign recognized that Muslim women and children, in particular, were being attacked and bullied on the transit system when they were by themselves.

Make a social event out of going to the grocery store, picking kids up from school or even an actual social event, like going to the movies.

At this point, unfortunately, donning items like the hijab are not as helpful, as it feeds into the idea that everyone is becoming Muslim. It’s better to show our ideals as Americans living together.

3. Let’s Engage

The best way for us to build a community is to engage with one another. That means in social ways, but also intellectually. Find good books, talks or programs that show what it means to build a pluralistic society, where we use our differences as a strength.

As it pertains to the American-Muslim experience, G. Willow Wilson’s memoir of conversion, A Butterfly Mosque, helps explain both the tradition and the appeal of the religion to Muslims.

More academic works include Carl Ernst’s Following Muhammad and Richard Bulliet’s The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization. If videos are more your thing, check out UPF or the work of Musa Syeed. And on the music front, you’ve got Muslim Hip-hop artists like K’naan, Yasiin Bey and Lupe Fiasco.

4. Explain Yourself And Build Empathy

One of the pitfalls of interfaith work is that minority groups are expected to explain themselves, and that can make for awkward conversations.

Host an event where you explain who you are and what you believe and how you got there. When you turn the lens on yourself, you are inviting other participants to reflect back to you their own stories and questions.

Making yourself the Other increases empathy. We are all strangers to one another, sometimes even to ourselves.

5. Let’s Break bread


Public domain photo from http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/vie ... ve-bread-3
This old nugget is a good one. Use traditional American-Muslim foods, like hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza and wings.

Even hold an “Iron Chef” competition, and see what your community can produce together. If it is tied to some sort of charitable giving, it is an even better way to say “we are one.”
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Huston Smith, Author of ‘The World’s Religions,’ Dies at 97

Huston Smith, a renowned scholar of religion who pursued his own enlightenment in Methodist churches, Zen monasteries and even Timothy Leary’s living room, died on Friday at his home in Berkeley, Calif. He was 97.

His wife, Kendra, confirmed his death.

Professor Smith was best known for “The Religions of Man” (1958), which has been a standard textbook in college-level comparative religion classes for half a century. In 1991, it was abridged and given the gender-neutral title “The World’s Religions.” The two versions together have sold more than three million copies.

The book examines the world’s major faiths as well as those of indigenous peoples, observing that all express the Absolute, which is indescribable, and concluding with a kind of golden rule for mutual understanding and coexistence: “If, then, we are to be true to our own faith, we must attend to others when they speak, as deeply and as alertly as we hope they will attend to us.”

“It is the most important book in comparative religious studies ever,” Stephen Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University, said in an interview.

More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/01/us/hu ... 05309&_r=0
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Here's how Jesus Christ is depicted in Islam

VIDEO

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/video/news/her ... ailsignout[/b]
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After Texas mosque burned, Jews gave Muslims keys to synagogue

After the one mosque in the small town of Victoria, Texas mysteriously burned to the ground on Saturday, representatives of the single Jewish synagogue gave keys to the mosque founders so their community could have another place to pray.

“Jewish community members walked into my home and gave me a key to the synagogue,” mosque co-founder Shahid Hashmi told the New York Times.

More...
http://boingboing.net/2017/02/01/after- ... m=facebook

*******
Jews to form protective ‘rings of peace’ around GTA mosques

In February 2015, a group of young Muslims mobilized about 1,000 fellow residents of Oslo, Norway, to form a protective “ring of peace” around the city’s main synagogue. The show of support came soon after the HyperCacher grocery store was attacked in Paris and a Jewish security guard was killed outside a synagogue in Copenhagen.

Intended as a show of support, it also served as an inspiration to Rabbi Yael Splansky of the Holy Blossom Temple, who called on her fellow spiritual leaders to form rings of peace around mosques during Jumu’ah prayers on Friday, Feb. 3.

Hundreds of Jews, Christians and others are expected to surround seven Toronto-area mosques in a show of support in the aftermath of the Quebec City shooting that claimed six lives and wounded 19 others.

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http://www.cjnews.com/news/canada/jews- ... solidarity
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Understanding other religions is fundamental to citizenship | aeon

https://aeon.co/ideas/understanding-oth ... itizenship

Extract:

Becoming literate is a predicate of a stable and peaceful multicultural society. Countries throughout the world are seeing the emergence of a poison-breathing hydra that has never been taught to understand anything other than itself. The inevitable result of this has been the scapegoating, racism, tribalism and isolationism that have marked our recent politics. Increasing religious literacy will not necessarily lead to more agreement – indeed, it might even steel our convictions. But it will lead to being able to ‘disagree better’ (the aim of the Scriptural Reasoning movement) by tampering cheap stereotypes and petty caricatures.

In educational theory, religious literacy could be considered a ‘threshold concept’ for 21st-century citizenship.
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BOOK

Remember Who You Are


Who are you? Why are you here? What feeds you?
▶Let the wisdom of the Quran help you answer these questions
▶28 verses translated into simple, everyday English
▶Practical teachings to help you apply each verse in your daily life
▶Written from a personal, spiritual, and compassionate point of view
▶Drawn from 30 years of research into religion and spirituality
▶Invaluable to Muslims, Christians, Jews, and all who want to go deeper into their own faith
▶Release date: July 10, 2017

http://www.rahimsnow.com/book/remember-who-you-are/
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Christology Symposium features Ismaili Muslim, Sunni, Traditional Christian & Progressive Christian Perspectives on Jesus Christ – Thursday Apr 6

The Christology Symposium is an academic forum that aims to showcase the diversity of Christologies within Christianity and Islam. The goal of the event is to show that Christianity and Islam are not monolithic communities and that each faith tradition contains within it diverse intellectual traditions.

Date/Time: Thursday, April 6, 6:30 PM

Location: McCombs School of Business, GSB 2.124

Host: Ismaili Gnosis – Austin Chapter (IGTX)

The Christology Symposium features presentations on Jesus from multiple Christian and Muslim perspectives followed by Q&A and a panel discussion. The following Christologies (theologies of Jesus Christ) will be presented:

1. Ancient Christologies
(Adeline Harrington, PhD Candidate in Religious Studies at UT Austin)

2. Sunni Muslim Christology
(Shakyh Mufti Mohamed Umer-Esmail, Imam at Nueces Mosque)

3. Progressive Christian Christology
(Rev. Dr. John Elford, Senior Pastor at University United Methodist Church)

4. Shia Ismaili Muslim Christology
(Khalil Andani, PhD Candidate in Islamic Studies at Harvard University) [link to my bio on IM]

https://www.facebook.com/events/1752021631776876/
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Calgary Mayor Nenshi delivers sermon Easter Sunday

Sun, Apr 16: People around the world celebrated the holiest day on a Christian calendar Sunday. Churches throughout Calgary were packed with people celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But as Carolyn Kury de Castillo reports, at one local church, it was a mayor of Muslim faith who took to the pulpit to give an Easter message.

VIDEO
http://globalnews.ca/video/3382699/calg ... um=twitter
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The pope visits Egypt

A visit by Pope Francis will not solve the problems plaguing Egypt’s Christians

“SHOW me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” So said Manuel II Palaiologos, a Byzantine emperor, of Islam’s founder. Some six centuries later, in 2006, Pope Benedict XVI used the quotation in a speech about reason and religion. The Muslim world was not pleased.

Jorge Bergoglio, then a cardinal in Argentina, criticised Benedict’s comments. In 2013, when Father Bergoglio succeeded Pope Benedict, taking the name of Francis, he immediately called for more interfaith dialogue. Two weeks later, when the new pope washed the feet of prisoners in Rome, a Christian ritual, he included two Muslims. In 2014 he toured Jordan, Israel and Palestine, further mending the Vatican’s relations with Islam.

Pope Francis hopes to continue improving relations between Christians and Muslims when he visits Cairo on April 28th-29th, the first such trip since Pope John Paul II visited Egypt in 2000. He will meet Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt’s president, and Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of al-Azhar, the Muslim world’s oldest seat of learning. (Pope Francis has previously hosted both men at the Vatican.) But easing the plight of Egypt’s Christians, known as Copts, will require a much greater effort. The task of keeping them physically safe is beyond the pontiff’s powers.

More...
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-ea ... lydispatch

VIDEO
https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/mid ... d=45305309

At a conference hosted by Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of a Cairo mosque, the pope stressed the importance of unity among Christians, Muslims and all religions.

Pope Francis, in Egypt, Delivers a Blunt Message on Violence and Religion

CAIRO — Pope Francis delivered his most blunt and powerful message to the Muslim world on Friday when he began a papal mission to Egypt by warning against wrapping violence and terror in the language of religion.

“As religious leaders, we are called, therefore, to unmask the violence that masquerades as purported sanctity,” the pope said at a peace conference organized by Al Azhar mosque and university, one of the most influential centers of Sunni Islamic learning. He added: “We have an obligation to denounce violations of human dignity and human rights, to expose attempts to justify every form of hatred in the name of religion, and to condemn these attempts as idolatrous caricatures of God.”

The papal visit came at a critical time for Egypt, a country caught up in intensifying terrorist attacks, particularly against Christians, and a deepening crackdown by an authoritarian government.

On Friday, Pope Francis seemed to put on different hats during the day’s three stops, reflecting his interreligious, ecumenical and political roles.

More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/worl ... d=45305309
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Why the Middle East’s Christians Are Under Attack

ISTANBUL — When Pope Francis visited Egypt last month, he called on the leaders of the Muslim world “to unmask the violence that masquerades as purported sanctity.” This was timely: Just a few weeks before, on Palm Sunday, Egypt’s Coptic Christian community had been viciously hit by suicide bombers enlisted by the so-called Islamic State. That bloody episode was just one of many instances of violence and harassment that Middle Eastern Christians have faced recently. The latest came on Friday, when gunmen attacked a convoy of Copts in Upper Egypt, leaving at least 26 people dead.

The wave of persecution is so severe that some fear it may bring about the end of Christianity in the region where it was born two millenniums ago.

Why is this taking place? And what is to be done?

Some in the West are inclined to see the problem as “Islam’s War on Christianity.” For them, a militant faith is trying to eradicate its peaceful rival, and the best response is to fight back.

The reality is much more complex. First of all, while such atrocities come from extreme groups like the Islamic State, most other Muslims — from ordinary people to mainstream religious authorities — condemn them. Some Muslims even actively try to defend Christians, like the female police officers who lost their lives during the Palm Sunday attacks, and the men and women who rushed to mosques to donate blood for the injured. Clearly, what threatens Christians is not Islam but a strain of extremism within it.

More..
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/opin ... inion&_r=0
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Studies in contrast
Abraham's story shows the similarities and the differences between faiths

A tale of sacrifice is an awkward example of commonality between believers in one God


A WEEK ago, Theresa May issued a message to her Muslim fellow citizens, which might have come from a standard, if optimistic, primer on comparative religion. The British prime minister assured followers of Islam of her “warmest wishes” on the occasion of Eid al-Adha, a festival which commemorates the readiness of Abraham or Ibrahim to offer up his son in obedience to God.

She noted that this was a “special time” during which “British Muslims will gather together with family, friends and neighbours to pray, exchange gifts and share meals”, as well as “extending a hand of friendship and compassion to those less fortunate than themselves”.

For many adherents of Islam, the holiday involves ritually slaughtering a sheep and sharing the meat or the monetary proceeds with poorer folk.

Mrs May, a Christian cleric’s daughter, offered particular congratulations to those who had made their commemoration as part of the haj, or pilgrimage to Mecca. This involves ritually throwing pebbles at three walls, just east of the holy city, so as to recall Ibrahim being tempted by the devil (to disobey the command of God) and his subsequent victory over temptation.

Then Mrs May delivered her most soothing line. “The festival’s commemoration of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice for his faith is a reminder of the shared roots of the world’s great Abrahamic faiths.”

In some ways, that is perfectly true. The story has always loomed large in the spiritual consciousness of Christians, Muslims and Jews. It is told in the 22nd chapter of Genesis, part of the Hebrew Scriptures which are read by both Christians and Jews. But there are at least two awkward things. Significant differences exist in the way the three faiths tell and interpret the story. And whichever way you read the narrative, it can be a difficult one for the 21st-century mind. On the face of things, it describes the actions of a revered figure who on the principle of “following orders” is prepared to commit infanticide.

The story as told in Genesis is certainly a gripping one that has fired the imagination of many a religious artist. God tests Abraham by instructing him to “take your son, your only son, whom you love” to a certain mountain; there the precious Isaac must be slain and incinerated as a “burnt offering” to the Creator. On the journey, the boy wonders about the purpose of all the kindling wood. He is mysteriously told that “God will provide” a lamb to be sacrificed. Then the lad finds himself tied to the wood. His father raises his knife, and only at that moment does an angel tell the patriarch that he can slaughter a ram instead.

In the Koranic version, the near-victim is not named, but the Islamic tradition generally holds that it was not Isaac but Ismail, Ibrahim’s son by the maidservant Hagar. Muslim commentaries on the story often stress that Ismail as well as his father clearly consented to the act of sacrifice; it was not an unpleasant surprise for anybody. These interpreters also emphasise that it was never conceivable that God would want Ibrahim’s son to be killed. Indeed part of the story’s point is to denounce the whole idea of (involuntary) human sacrifice.

Early Christian commentators invariably see the story as a foreshadowing of the death and self-sacrifice of Jesus. This is seen as an act of disinterested service to humanity by both God the Father (who offered up his offspring) and God the Son (who offered his own life). Abraham’s kindling wood is seen as hinting at the wooden cross on which Jesus would die. It is an important aspect of the Christian story that Jesus could have avoided being crucified, but nonetheless freely chose to undergo death so as to break death’s power. In the Genesis narrative, Isaac does not seem to have had much say in his fate.

Many Jewish commentators, like Muslim ones, have seen the story as a tirade against human sacrifice, which had been a feature of many pre-Abrahamic religions. Some Jewish interpreters see the most important words in the story as Abraham’s response to God—“here I am” or in Hebrew “hineni”—an expression which is held up as a model of obedient and attentive listening. In the Jewish tradition the story is known as the Binding of Isaac. To the Jewish ear, Christian readings of the story sound a bit obsessed with the idea of sacrifice.
At an inter-religious gathering in the Northern Irish port of Rostrevor this week, distinguished representatives of all three faiths took turns to explain the distinctiveness of their own tradition’s understanding of the story. They were briefly non-plussed when when a learned Hindu reacted by telling his Abrahamic friends: “I find you all very similar, and equally hard to understand.”

But here is some good news for Mrs May. If she is looking for examples of Abrahamic commonality, she might care to consider this. Today is the date in the Christian calendar when many of the faithful celebrate the birth of the Virgin Mary, an event which is described as a joyful surprise to her elderly, hitherto childless parents. An early Christian text names the parents as Ioachim and Anna. The Koran has a similar account, but it names Mary’s father as Imran. A Muslim tradition adds that the virgin’s mother was called Hannah. That sounds like a much happier narrative to focus on.

https://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus ... lydispatch
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Why Jerusalem is important to three major religions, and other questions answered

Jerusalem has for decades been a flashpoint for global tensions as the nexus of three of the world's oldest religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Here are some frequently asked questions about the ancient city.

What does the Bible say about Jerusalem?

For Christians, Jesus, their messiah, died in Jerusalem and came back to life there. They trace his genealogy back to King David, who established the monarchy in Jerusalem and whose descendants, according to the Hebrew Bible, will include the messiah.

Jerusalem is one of the main pilgrimage destinations for millions of Christians who visit the empty tomb of Jesus to pray at the site.

More: Jerusalem has history of many conquests, surrenders

More: Trump recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital: ‘Old challenges require new approaches'

Why is Jerusalem important to three major religions?
Known in Hebrew as Yerushalayim and in Arabic as al-Quds, it is one of the oldest cities in the world.

The religious importance of this city dates to the days of the Old Testament and 1050 B.C. when Israel's King David conquered Jerusalem. His son, Solomon, expanded on the construction David began, raising the Temple on the Mount that would later be finished by Herod. A remnant of a massive, western retaining wall for the temple ruins is now the Wailing Wall or Western Wall of Jewish prayer and pilgrimage.


Close by is the Muslim Dome of the Rock from where Mohammed ascended, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam's holiest sites. Christians travel to Jerusalem to follow the path Jesus walked before the crucifixion and visit the Christian Church of the Holy Sepulchre built by Crusaders in the 12th century over the site of Christ's tomb.

Who owns the city?
Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its capital, while the Palestinians claim the city’s eastern sector, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as the capital of a future independent state. These rival claims lie at the heart of the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

While Israel controls the city and its government is based there, its annexation of east Jerusalem is not internationally recognized. The international community overwhelmingly says the final status of Jerusalem should be resolved through negotiations.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/wh ... ailsignout
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Islam's Jesus Paperback – April 15, 2015
by Zeki Saritoprak (Author)


“Accessible and readable. Spotlights an important theological theme in a way that both illuminates its internal development in Islamic thought and presents it as a helpful basis for interreligious discussion. The topic is very much in need of teaching and discussion and is a fine example of ‘common ground.’”—John Renard, author of Islam and Christianity

“Contains valuable and fascinating material about how classical Muslim theologians treated various aspects of Jesus and, in particular, the role of Jesus in Islamic eschatology. Saritoprak brings new insights from contemporary Turkish thinkers to bear on the issues raised by the Jesus figure in Islamic narratives about the Last Days.”—Marcia Hermansen, author of Shah Wali Allah’s Treatises on Islamic Law

“A refreshingly easy read that makes a complex world of theology and interfaith relations accessible and enjoyable for readers of all backgrounds.”—Jonathan Brown, author of Hadith: Muhammad’s Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World

Few people realize that Jesus was a prominent messenger of God in Islam and that Muslims believe in the return of Jesus. Even among Muslims, it is not well known that there are diverse interpretations of references to Jesus in the Qur’an and the Hadith. Aiming to remedy this, Islam’s Jesus takes a bold yet candid look at the highly charged topic of Jesus’s place in Islam, exploring some of the religion’s least understood aspects.

Examining multiple intellectual traditions, Zeki Saritoprak makes clear the reality of pluralism in the history of Islamic religious scholarship. Actively engaged in efforts to promote interfaith dialogue and harmony, Saritoprak thoughtfully argues that the shared belief in Jesus presents an excellent opportunity for understanding between Muslims and Christians. Together, they constitute more than half of the world’s population, and such understanding may be a foundation for peace.

https://www.amazon.com/Islams-Jesus-Zek ... 0813061784

*****
Exclusive Interview with Eboo Patel on Interfaith Leadership & Pluralism for OnFaith

Recently, Sahil Badruddin, an interview host for OnFaith, sat down with Dr. Eboo Patel –– Founder & Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) and a previous member of President Barack .

More...
https://www.onfaith.co/text/exclusive-i ... or-onfaith

*****
‘The Sultan and the Saint’ revives 800-year-old interfaith exchange

Excerpt:

Why tell this 800-year-old story now? Kronemer believes many of the circumstances that made the mass slaughter of the Crusades possible are in play again between East and West, especially the dehumanizing of one’s enemies and rhetoric that “otherizes” those who are considered different because of religion or race.

“When people begin otherizing that bleeds out into” other areas, such as politics, Kronemer said. “I think that is a period I think we are in right now. We are hoping that the film raises that and provides a model through these two individuals to how you can overcome that.”

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http://religionnews.com/2017/12/21/the- ... -exchange/
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The importance of rethinking religious education

To improve religious awareness in England, religions may have to let go of education


NOT enough people want to teach the subject, and there are plenty of pupils, tax-payers and even head teachers who are highly sceptical about its benefits. And yet there are good grounds for saying that knowledge of this sort is more vital than ever for the health and normal functioning of society. With only slight exaggeration, that odd bundle of statements describes the state of religious education in England.

In recent days, several news stories have highlighted this paradox. A professional body revealed that in the current academic year, less than two-thirds of the places (405 out of 643) in a training programme for religion teachers in England have been taken up. Weak supply is meeting weak demand, it would seem. Religion came near the bottom in a survey by YouGov, an independent pollster, that asked people which subjects deserved a big role in secondary education. More than half considered religion either “not very important” or “not at all important” as an item on the curriculum, whereas only 12% deemed it “very important”. By comparison, some 60% of respondents regarded courses in citizenship as either very or quite important, and 85% took the same view of teaching about sex and relationships.

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https://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus ... lydispatch
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Interfaith Conference at the University of Pennsylvania – Co-Chaired by Aziz Nathoo, Interfaith Speaker & Peace Activist

HEALING THE SOUL OF THE NATION INTERFAITH CONFERENCE: Interfaith Conference held at the University of Pennsylvania – Co-Chaired by Aziz Nathoo, Interfaith Speaker & Peace Activist. Saturday, April 14th 2018

FEATURED GUEST SPEAKER: SAHIL BADRUDDIN ON RELIGION, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIAL MEDIA

An important Interfaith Conference was held at the University of Pennsylvania and hosted by the Chaplain of the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Charles Howard on Saturday April 14, 2018. The Conference was co-chaired by three organizations:
1.United Mercy Mobilization Alliance (UMMA) Charities, whose founder and president is Aziz Nathoo, a Philadelphia-based Ismaili Interfaith speaker and Peace activist
2.The Dialogue Institute, through the Founder, Dr. Leonard Swidler, which is based out of Temple University
3.Bringing Respect In Community (BRIC), a Philadelphia-based Interfaith organization invested in fostering respectful dialogue

These organizations, in their unique and collective capacities, seek to advance intrareligious, inter-religious and intercultural dialogue and tolerance and bridge the deep divide of misunderstanding and discord among American faith groups.

This Conference is the second in a series of national interfaith conferences to be held across the country that seeks to address a deepening of political differences among various groups in the United States which has been associated with feelings of psychological and spiritual unease, amounting to what some observers have termed a “spiritual sickness” – a crisis of the soul of the nation. As the spiritual malaise has intensified recently, religious clergy and Civil Society leaders have struggled to understand it and respond with solutions to address it. The Conference series seeks to provide a forum for religious leaders and activists to share their collective wisdom and on ways to address the debilitating effect of the national spiritual sickness.

Interfaith Conference held at the University of Pennsylvania - Co-Chaired by Aziz Nathoo, Interfaith Speaker & Peace ActivistAmong the presenters, Sahil Badruddin — Project Manager for The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding’s Research Department (Washington, D.C.) — was invited to speak on Religion, Technology, and Social Media. He has interviewed scholars, leaders, and educators for their insights on Religion, Media, Technology, Echo Chambers, Social Media and other relevant contemporary issues. Some of his recent guests include Eboo Patel, Wajahat Ali, Dalia Mogahed, and Reza Aslan.

Sahil started by explaining that humans are born with an innate and evolutionary religious impulse and for most of human history, the expression of this instinct took form largely in communities bounded by geographic borders (tribe, city, country, etc.). However, because of the rise of globalization, advancement in technology, and advent of the internet, the definition of a community has expanded. Since religion is constantly evolving, technology and social media has changed the way in which we communicate the religious impulse. While this change can be partially beneficial in helping people connect across borders, Sahil cautioned about the dangers of echo-chambers and filter bubbles while also suggesting a few solutions. The talk, followed by a Q/A, was very well received and was noted to be one of the highlights of the conference.

Aziz Nathoo, during the conference, elaborated on the under-appreciated use of humor in dialogue, especially when speaking in a hostile environment or at a place of worship where Islam is not perceived in a positive light. He shared examples of his speeches and panel speaking experience where he was able to navigate hostile and offensive charges by injecting humor in his response, thus turning an adversarial situation into one where both he and the audience were laughing at the same joke, unconsciously bridging the difference between them. Aziz shaped his narrative with the introduction of Sura al-Hujurat (49:13) where Allah says “O mankind, Indeed we have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another” which highlights the necessity of getting to know, that is to dialogue, as an integral foundational message of Islam. Indeed, Islam was a challenge to jahiliyya, the age of ignorance, with a focus on spreading knowledge. He proudly quoted Hazar Imam on his refutation of the “Clash of Civilization” by referring to it as the “Clash of Ignorance” and how it is our collective duty as individuals, members of the Ummah and global citizens to focus on reducing the chasm of ignorance by spreading knowledge. He touched upon our Imam’s guidance that Knowledge is multiplied when shared, instead of being divided.

Aziz has been conducting dialogue for about 20 years, speaking at various houses of worship, universities, civic organizations and working with the United Nations on The Culture of Peace, and the Refugee crisis. He provides shelter to refugees at his home and works on resettling them. Aziz’s non-profit UMMA Charities, is focused on fostering dialogue and helping alleviate poverty by mobilizing philanthropic instincts in members of civil society to help those who are disenfranchised. His other charitable endeavour is Peanut Against Poverty, which provides employment to immigrant women and help them gain the dignity of having their own income. He ended by imploring the participants to worship “Not the mighty but the Almighty.”

The inaugural Interfaith Conference was launched at the School of Conflict Analysis & Resolution (S_CAR) at George Mason University on December 13, 2017 and chaired by Dr. Richard Rubenstein of S-CAR, who shared with Aziz his personal friendship with Mawlana Hazar Imam while they were both attending Harvard University. Mr. Nathoo spoke about the need to respond to darkness with not more darkness, but to shine a light of love, knowledge and compassion, focusing on the mandate and contributions of the AKF & AKDN in making the world a better place, in accordance with the ethical principles of Islam.

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The next Interfaith Conference is being planned for Atlanta in the Fall and hopes to include more speakers from the Ismaili community.

https://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2018/ ... -activist/
kmaherali
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Crossing Divides: Hindus and Sikhs help build a mosque in India

India's religious groups have so often clashed, with recent years marred by violence. But a remarkable gesture has helped foster a rare harmony in one village.

As mason Nazim "Raja" Khan toiled over the construction of a Shiva temple in a Punjab village, a thought nagged at him.

There he was, a Muslim, building a Hindu temple. Yet there was no mosque nearby where he could worship.

"We had no place where we could offer namaz (prayers)," says the 40-year-old. "It wasn't nice for our relatives when they visited."

It rankled, so he raised it with the 400-strong Muslim community in his village of Moom, in rural north India. But they were too poor to afford the land.

'Would you give us some land?'

Most Muslims in the area do unskilled jobs, such as casual construction work, while the community's 400 or so Hindus and some 4,000 Sikhs are relatively well-off.

Fast forward 18 months - with the temple nearing completion - and Raja took an unprecedented step.

Earlier this year, he approached the temple administrators and told them: "You Hindus will soon have your new temple. And you already have an older one. But we Muslims have no place to worship, nor money to buy land. Would you give us a small area of your land?"

A week later, he had an answer. The temple management had decided to hand over nearly 900 sq ft (83 sq m) of vacant land next to their temple.

More...
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-43588435
kmaherali
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Zahra Jamal details Muslim ethics at intersection of food and faith

Excerpt:

Jamal, associate director at Rice University’s Boniuk Institute for Religious Tolerance, discussed “Food for the Soul: A Muslim Perspective,” Wednesday as part of Week Nine’s Interfaith Lecture Series, “Food and Faith.”

“Across multiple faiths and philosophies, you do find common ethics — gratitude for our daily bread, generosity and compassion for the weak, humility when sustenance is abundant and faith when it is not,” and the universality of laughter at her joke across different backgrounds, Jamal said.

But Islam differs from other faiths, particularly in its followers’ relationship to food, though the religion is much more than not eating pork or drinking beer, Jamal said. She pointed to the Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change, instituted by the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences in August 2015.

More...

http://chqdaily.com/2017/08/zahra-jamal ... ood-faith/
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