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In Chicago, Interfaith Delegation from Middle East Promotes "Society of Equality and Plurality"
Rev. Victoria Decker Millar, Wilmette Presbyterian Church, Wilmette, Illinois, and Riad Jarjour, Muhammad Sammak and Abbas al-Halabi, Arab Group
for Christian-Muslim Dialogue, members of the six-person Middle East Delegation.
Photo: Connie Baker
|
Chicago, Illinois, USA – Arab American Muslims are positioned to present a "good and real impression of Islam," a delegation of Middle East Christians and Muslims told Chicago's Muslim community this week. As part of a U.S.-wide tour, the delegation of Mideast academics and interfaith advocates is meeting with Arab American Muslims and Christian groups in Chicago and other major cities, intending to build bridges and clear up distorted stereotypes of Christian-Muslim relations in the Middle East.
Traveling concurrently in two teams, the six-person delegation from Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt are members of the Arab Group for Christian-Muslim Dialogue, headquartered in Beirut, Lebanon.
Hosted in the U.S. by humanitarian agency Church World Service's Middle East Forum, the delegates will visit Los Angeles, New York, Charlotte and Washington, D.C., through the end of the month, with venues including a presentation at Los Angeles' Crystal Cathedral and Georgetown University, Washington.
Delegate Muhammad Sammak is a Muslim Lebanese and former advisor to the late Prime Minister Rafic Hariri and advisor to the Grand Mufti of Lebanon. On Friday (April15) Sammak told Muslims at Chicago's Muslim Community Center that Arab American Muslims "are on the forefront to give a good and real impression of Islam.
"You have a mission to do here and in the street," Sammak said. Alluding to the events of September 11, he said "The world is so small now, any crime done by anyone affects those all over the world."
The Chicago delegation team also met on Friday with students and faculty at North Park University, a Christian college and seminary. "How do we put forward a formula that allows equality and plurality in our society?" asked delegate Riad Jarjour.
A Syrian Christian and former general secretary of the Middle East Council of Churches, Jarjour said, "Christians and Muslims must exist in harmony. Without Christians," he said, "thinking Muslims in the Middle East believe it will be impossible to develop the kind of society we want."
The delegates presented Lebanon as an example, discussing Syria's pullout after years of control following the war in Lebanon and impacts from the recent killing of Prime Minister Rafic Hariri.
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| Riad Jarjour, former secretary general of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC), Abbas al-Halabi, President of the Arab Group for Christian-Muslim Dialogue and legal advisor to the board of the Bank of Beirut, Lebanon, Muhammad Sammak, former advisor to the late Prime Minister Mr. Rafic Hariri and advisor to the Grand Mufti of Lebanon, and Rev. Christopher Pierson, Director of Outreach Ministries, Northern Illinois Conference of the United Methodist Church, during Chicago dialogues of the April 2005 Middle East Delegation to the U.S. Photo: Connie Baker |
Sammak said that a dynamic of Christians and Muslims working together was vital to Lebanon’s nationalism. "Belief in Christianity is part of the Muslim doctrine. Furthermore," he said, "Christian migration from the Middle East is one of our problems. Christians need to be part of our society for a vibrant democracy to flourish."
"Muslims are migrating, too," Sammak added, "but because Christians are such a small percentage of our population, when they leave the region, it has a negative impact."
The delegates told the North Park University group that when Christian Arabs migrate, they tend to assimilate into their new society more easily than Muslim immigrants do. Once migrated, said Sammak, "the Christians begin to pull their family members over too, one after the other," contributing to further drain on Middle Eastern communities' diversity– and to a void, the delegates said, that nurtures extremism. "Extremism and fundamentalism," he said, "have nothing to do with tolerance."
"We are not interested in the dialogue of theology but rather the dialogue of life first, then the dialogue of action, and then the dialogue of discussion," Sammak said.
"The purpose is not to unite us in one religion," he said, "but to enable each of us to live together, each with our separate religions in harmony, not to worship God like the other, but to realize that God may be worshipped differently by each other."
'Do we want to make a point, or do we want to make a difference?'
The question we must ask," Sammak said, "is, do we want to make a point, or do we want to make a difference in dialogue? Then we need to be understanding and tolerant in our dialogue, to understand the other person."
Sammak recounted a recent example of the tangible impact dialogue can have on the lives of Christians and Muslims. In a visit by the Arab Group to Sudan, Sammak said he demonstrated to the Sudanese government minister in charge of implementing sharia law there "that according to Sharia law itself, it is prohibited for Sharia to be applied to non-Muslims. I told him," Sammak said, "that if you apply Sharia to non-Muslims, you are breaking sharia law itself."
Sammak said "The minister countered saying, 'If a Muslim Sudanese and a Christian Sudanese broke the same law, should the Muslim’s hand be cut off and the Christian be just imprisoned?'"
Sammak told him that under Sharia law, the government must then also guarantee a good life for the Muslim whose hand has been cut off and for his family, and asked if the government of Sudan was willing to guarantee a good life for punished, amputee Muslims. The minister conceded, said Sammak, saying, "You are right. We will have to change our policy."
Sammak said the government of Sudan has since changed its policies and does exempt Christians from Sharia punishments.
When one member of the North Park University audience asked the delegates for three practical steps that people in American communities can do to develop acceptance and dialogue, the delegation responded, "Know Muslims as we want to be known. Stop fearing one another and respect each other's differences. And address thorny issues together."
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| Muhammad Sammak, (r) a Lebanese Muslim, in dialogue with faculty and students of McCormick Seminary, Chicago Photo: Connie Baker |
"Outside Lebanon, other governments were in denial and said there was no Christian-Muslim problem." Into the process now, Sammak said, "the question those countries are now dealing with is, 'How do we have dialogue with Christians?'
"They realize now the valuable role Christian Arabs can play to bridge the gap between the Arab and western worlds, because they can relate to predominately Christian cultures better than Muslims."
Al-Halabi said the Arab Group for Christian-Muslim Dialogue chose to be a non-governmental organization, independent from the government. "We also want to be separate from the churches," he said, "from any particular Christian church, so that when our group's members go into a particular country, it doesn't matter if they are Copt or Druze, Presbyterian or another religion."
Jarjour told Arab Americans at the Chicago Muslim Community Center, "Ignorance is the problem." Jarjour said that the Arab Group for Christian-Muslim Dialogue was working with churches in the Middle East and interfaith organizations in the U.S. and Canada, such as Church World Service and the National Council of Churches USA, to "address the need for dialogue and to increase understanding of Islam among young people in the Middle East and North America."
To improve Muslim-Christian relations among Middle East youth, the delegates told the gathering at North Park University about a youth camp being led by the Arab Group for Christian-Muslim Dialogue to improve interfaith relations. The last camp the consortium held involved 15,000 students from across the Middle East.
According to David Weaver, Church World Service staff liaison to the Middle East Forum, on Wednesday (April 20) Jarjour, al-Halabi and Sammak will travel to Los Angeles, for dialogues and presentations scheduled at the Crystal Cathedral, evangelical Christian universities, and a prominent mosque in L.A.
Other members of the Middle East delegation include Dr. Nadia Mahmoud Mustafa, an Egyptian Muslim, author and professor of economics and political science at Cairo University; Dr. Antoine Messara, a Lebanese Christian, professor at Lebanese University and general director of the Foundation of the Lebanese Association for Permanent Civil Peace in Lebanon; and Samir Morcos, an Egyptian Christian and author of numerous books on development and civil society in Egypt.
CWS' Weaver said those delegates are scheduled to visit Charlotte Wednesday (April 20) and New York City this Friday (April 22) through next Wednesday (April 27). Both delegation teams will reconvene for meetings in Washington on Thursday April 28.
Media Contact:
Lesley Crosson, CWS/New York, 212-870-2676;
Jan Dragin, 781-925-1526;
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